Signs Of Faithfulness

In the 14th year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.

And the king of Assyria sent the rab Shaka from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem with a great army.

And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the washer's field. There came out to him

Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna, the secretary, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder.

The rab Shaka said to them, say to Hezekiah, thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, on what do you rest this trust of yours?

Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? And whom do you now trust that you have rebelled against me?

Behold, you are trusting in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it, such as Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to all who trust in him.

But if you say to me, we trust in the Lord our God, is it not he whose high places and altars

Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, you shall worship before this altar?

Come now, make a wager with my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you 2 ,000 horses if you are able on your part to set riders on them.

How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master's servants, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, go up against this land and destroy it.

Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the rab Shaka, please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it.

Do not speak to us in the language of Judah, within the hearing of the people who are on the wall. But the rab

Shaka said, here has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine.

Then the rab Shaka stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah, hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria.

Thus says the king, do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you.

Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord by saying, the Lord will surely deliver us. This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

Do not listen to Hezekiah, for as thus says the king of Assyria, make your peace with me and come out to me.

Then each one of you will eat of his own vine and each one of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

Beware lest Hezekiah mislead you by saying, the Lord will deliver us. Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered

Samaria out of my hand, who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their lands out of my hand, that the

Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? Amen. These are the words of the

Lord. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this narrative that you have given us regarding Assyria and Jerusalem.

We pray that you would open our eyes to understand it more fully, in Jesus' name, amen. In the

Christian life, it is very important to trust the Lord. There are many things that would tempt us away from trusting in Him, so we look at the situation.

It may seem very bleak. However, God has given us substantial signs of His own faithfulness in order that we might be strengthened and encouraged in the task at hand.

Now, you may wonder why, if you look at the bulletin, we are only going to be looking at three verses of this narrative.

And the answer is because in the setting that Isaiah has given us, there is much context that is giving us signs of the faithfulness of God.

It is not without cause that Isaiah has placed chapter 36 here after chapter 35 and everything that came before it.

He has been building up to this moment to give us this narrative. And many things that are here just in these first three verses are not only playing off of history that his audience knows, but they are also playing off of his own words and his own prophecies in the previous chapter.

And so there is a lot of context here signaling to us as readers who have been faithfully going through Isaiah and taking note of the thing that Isaiah has said, that we should trust in the

Lord and we should not be tempted to see Assyria as a great threat. Instead, we should see

God's faithfulness even in this setting. Now, there are three aspects of any narrative like this.

There's a protagonist, there's an antagonist, and there's a setting. And each one of these can be read, can be interpreted in such a way with eyes of flesh that would discourage us, that would cause us to despair, that would tempt us away from trusting in the

Lord. Or that protagonist, antagonist, and setting can be interpreted in such a way that we recognize

God's word is providing the final interpretation in order that we might fully trust in Him.

And so, first we're going to look at some of the context of this passage, very simply put the context of this passage, and then we will look at the context in terms of the setting, the antagonist, and the protagonist and interpret those things according to the word of the

Lord so that we should see how the people should trust the Lord and us in our own situation as we interpret our own protagonist, antagonist, and setting, that we should trust in the

Lord in our situations as well. So we begin here in this with a statement about this being in the 14th year of King Hezekiah.

Now, you will notice that there is a transition here from poetry for many chapters, from prophetic poetry to narrative.

So Isaiah has been prophesying, encouraging the people to trust the Lord. You've heard me say over many weeks that the theme of the previous segment was the folly of trusting in the nations, and now all that prophecy is going to be put to the test here in this passage.

It is the case also that you find this narrative, much of it almost word for word, some of it a little different, in 2

Kings. Now, this narrative is the primary narrative, and 2

Kings is the copy. How do we know that? Well, first of all, 2 Kings includes details from 150 years after the time of Isaiah, so it is being authored much, much later.

In addition, there's something important that you should know that's going on here in this narrative. Chapters 38 and 39 about Hezekiah's sickness and his recovery, along with his boasting before Babylon and God's curse upon Hezekiah, that because of his boasting

Babylon will come, all set up us for Isaiah 40, where he says, comfort, comfort my people.

Now, the reason that Isaiah 38 and 39 go there is not because Isaiah 38 and 39 come after the narrative that we are reading here.

In fact, they come before, but they are setting us up for Isaiah chapter 40. Now, when you look to 2

Kings, that ordering is preserved even though it doesn't serve the same prophetic purpose like we have here in Isaiah.

So that's the second reason to recognize that Isaiah, this book of Isaiah, is the primary source of that narrative.

Also, as you read through this, you realize that Isaiah is the prophet at the time. He is one of the characters in this narrative, and so naturally, as a prophet, very close family ties.

He's, I forget the details, he's either a cousin or a nephew of some of the kings. He's very close family -wise to the royal family.

He is a figure who is there and present and able to record these things. So once again,

Isaiah is primary. Now, the other piece of context that I would want to point out to you and not have someone else shake your faith because of, this first statement in the 14th year of King Hezekiah is somewhat surprising.

Because we have much detail about the kings so that there is so much recorded history about the kings that we can say what year each is supposed to be in terms of BC, right?

We know this is a certain thing that is happening in 701 BC. That is when

Assyria comes against Jerusalem. You can look at that. There are plenty of records. We don't just have the

Bible on this. Sennacherib has written his own record on what happened. You know, there are different historical sources that tell us about this and everything points to this event happening in 701, but that is not the 14th year of King Hezekiah.

In fact, it's likely about 10 years after that. So why would it say in the 14th year of King Hezekiah?

Well, there are several theories as to why this is. Some of them are unfaithful that doubt the testimony of Scripture that would say, well, this is a scribal error or the narrator is not actually

Isaiah and he doesn't know when these things took place. There are more faithful interpretations that I find unlikely.

For example, we could say, well, Ahaz and Hezekiah were co -regents for some time.

They reigned together and so that accounts for the difference in 10 years. I think that that is an unlikely answer.

What I find to be likely is the fact that, as I said, this is not the earliest event in this narrative.

Chapters 38 and 39 are the earliest events in this narrative. So I believe the way that this is to be read is when it says in the 14th year of King Hezekiah, this is introducing the rest of the narrative from chapter 36 all the way to chapter 39 and that it is not talking about when

Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against the fortified cities. So, you know, the type setting that we have here is different.

Imagine that this were in big, bold letters and said in the 14th year of King Hezekiah, colon, and then under that it described one event that happened after that 14th year, the first event coming later in chapter 38.

So those are several details that I would like to make sure that you have a chance to think about if you ever come across some of these difficulties in Scripture.

Now, as far as what the context of this is in terms of this attack that is going on,

Hezekiah's father, he is the king of Judah, Hezekiah's father Ahaz had made an alliance with Assyria against the will of God.

God had told them that if this happens, Assyria would turn on the people, and indeed that is exactly what has happened.

Assyria has turned on the people. Now, Hezekiah is a good and God -fearing king, but he is very much tempted away from trusting in the

Lord. Sennacherib, being the king of Assyria, has taken over everything.

He has taken over many other nations. He has taken over the northern tribes of Israel at this point, and so that all that is left is

Judah. And then on top of that, he has taken all the other cities of Judah, and Jerusalem is the last bastion standing.

This looks like it is the very end for the people of Judah. And now he has sent these people, the

Rabshakeh and the army, to come intimidate the people before he finally engages in siege warfare, siege warfare being where they sit outside the city until the people starve.

That is why he speaks of them eating their own dung and drinking their own urine later, because they would have no other food. Now, to give you a small taste of what

Hezekiah is facing at this moment, it is worth considering what

Scripture says about Hezekiah's faithfulness. So, in 2

Chronicles, it describes some of what

Ahaz, Hezekiah's father, has done. 2 Chronicles 28 -24 says,

So, Hezekiah is coming on the heels of his father, who is an evil king, who has shut up the doors of Israel.

He violated the worship of God in other ways, to making a model of the altar in Damascus and putting it in the temple.

But Hezekiah comes in and he changes the people's hearts to honor the

Lord. That is why it speaks of him tearing down the high places later on in that narrative. But it says in 2

Chronicles 29 -3, In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the

Lord and repaired them. So, Hezekiah has turned to 180.

His father shut the doors, he opens the doors. He has made worship to the

Lord good once again. And this is a thing that is pleasing to God.

However, Hezekiah has begun shaking in his faith. This attack from Assyria has scared him.

Before, he had been giving tribute to the king of Assyria. He had stopped, he had rebelled against Assyria, which is good for him to do because God would not have him to give the money of the people of God to Assyria.

But then, as he rebels and the king of Assyria is taking each one of his cities, he is getting desperate.

And so, what does he do? Those very same doors that he opened, he ends up stripping them in order to fund the king of Assyria.

If you look at 2 Kings 18, go ahead and turn there. We're going to look at this a couple of times. 2

Kings 18. So remember, this is the primary text here is

Isaiah. 2 Kings 18 is copying that and then adding some details. In the 14th year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.

And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, I have done wrong.

Withdraw from me. Whatever you impose on me, I will bear. Okay, so here's a detail we didn't see in Isaiah.

Hezekiah, he's starting to shake. He's starting to cave. He says, okay, I give up.

I surrender here. And the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah king of Judah 300 towns of silver and 30 towns of gold.

And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king's house.

At that time, Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple. These are the very doors that he opened up of the

Lord. And from the doorpost that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria.

Okay, so you see Hezekiah is shaking in his faith. He is intimidated by the king of Assyria.

And Assyria has rebelled against the people just as Isaiah had prophesied. It said in Isaiah 8,

Therefore, behold, the Lord is bringing up against them the waters of the river.

The river being the river Euphrates. On the other side of the river Euphrates is Assyria. So they imagine the river flooding over to the people.

Mighty and many, the king of Assyria in all his glory. And it will rise over all its channels and go over all its banks.

And it will sweep on to Judah. And it will overflow and pass on, reaching even to the neck.

And its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel. So Isaiah has prophesied that this will happen.

It will reach all the way up to the neck. And here we are. The waters are all the way up to the neck. This is the last city that remains.

And Hezekiah is shaking in his boots. He does not know. He has begun to be tempted away from trusting in the

Lord. And instead, trusting in this enemy of his. But what happens when he gives the gold to the king of Assyria?

Does the king of Assyria accept it and go his own way? No. He takes it and says,

I'm still going to take over your city. And so with that, let us consider the protagonist, the antagonist, and the setting.

First, with eyes of flesh. The simple situation here. As one would see it, who would be inclined to interpret it according to their own senses.

And then afterward interpret it according to the Lord. So let's consider first the protagonist.

So the protagonist in this, we have Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah, who are there present.

And all the people who are working on the city. And they are facing the

Rabshakeh in addition to his whole army.

So this is a picture of, you've got a military officer and then you've got office clerks.

This is a picture of strength versus weakness. You have an army and you have construction workers.

Strength versus weakness. This is a picture, if anybody is looking at it, they would be intimidated.

They would be intimidated by all these troops against all these non -troops. These military officials against non -military officials.

In fact, continuing in 2 Kings 18, in some of the details it gives, verse 17 says,

And the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaurus, and the Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem.

And they went up and came to Jerusalem. Well, that's interesting. It mentions two other officials in addition to the

Rabshakeh. So you have three officials on the side of Judah, these three office clerks.

And you have these three officials, three mighty warriors, on the side of Assyria.

Now it's not clear what all these different titles mean. I don't know what a Rabsaurus is or a Rabshakeh or a

Tartan. But these are these military officials that are coming from Assyria.

And so you see three officials on each side and people on each side.

And on each count, it looks like strength versus total weakness. And then, let us consider the setting.

They come to the washer's field. By the conduit of the upper pool and the highway to the washer's field.

What is the significance of that, considering, as one might, who's evaluating this from a human perspective, strategizing as a military person would.

2 Chronicles 32 says the following about Hezekiah. After these things and these acts of faithfulness,

Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came and invaded Judah and encamped against the fortified cities, thinking to win them for himself.

And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and intended to fight against Jerusalem, he planned with his officers and his mighty men to stop the water of the springs that were outside the city.

And they helped him. A great many people were gathered. And they stopped all the springs and the brook that flowed through the land, saying,

Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water? He set to work resolutely and built up all the wall that was broken down and raised up towers.

And outside, he built another wall and strengthened up the millow and the city of David. He also made weapons and shield in abundance.

So Hezekiah, in preparing for this battle that he knows is coming, he knows that Assyria is going to come against him.

What does he do? He recognizes that waters are a weak point. If they can supply their troops with water, they could also poison the water that's coming into Jerusalem.

And so he's stopping these things up. Later on in his career, he ends up making a tunnel so that the water comes in securely into Jerusalem.

This is a well -known thing that he did. In fact, there's still a, I believe if you go to Jerusalem, there's still

Hezekiah's tunnel that you can go and visit. Because this is an important thing for securing his place.

So they meet him where? At the place of weakness. At the conduit of the washer's field.

Place of weakness once again. And consider the antagonist.

There is the Rabshakeh who has come from Lachish. Now, Lachish is not toward Assyria.

You might imagine that the Assyrians are coming from Assyria. They are not actually coming from Assyria. They are coming from the entire opposite direction.

Not from the northeast, but from the southwest. They are coming from the southwest because they have recently defeated

Egypt at Alteca. So this ally that if you remember throughout

Isaiah, we've been looking at their reliance on Egypt to fight against Assyria. Assyria has now taken out

Egypt. And Egypt has shown to be exactly what God said they would be. Unreliable. So you have in addition to the protagonist, the setting, you also have the antagonist himself.

Being one showing great strength. One who is coming from a victory where the allies have been defeated.

And there is very little reason for hope for these people.

There might be one additional reason that Lachish in particular is mentioned. And I hold this tentatively.

This is where one of Hezekiah's ancestors was murdered. 2 Kings 14, 19 says,

And they made a conspiracy against him, him being Amaziah, in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish.

But they sent after him to Lachish and put him to death there. So maybe that is or maybe that is not part of the intimidation that is going on here.

But regardless, everything about this, the protagonist, the antagonist, the setting, they are all very intimidating.

If interpreted according to eyes of faith. And this is how we are tempted to interpret things. We see our situation.

We see ourselves and our own weakness. We see after having relied on our strength and realizing that there is nothing there.

We see the enemy. The enemy appears very strong. We see our own setting. Nothing looks like it is working according to plan.

It is all very bleak. And if you interpret things according to eyes of flesh in this way, you will despair.

You will be tempted not to trust in the Lord. But Isaiah has placed this chapter after the other chapters that have been given.

So that we can see a few signals here letting us know that actually if all of these things, protagonist, antagonist, setting, if all of these things are interpreted according to the word of the

Lord, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, these are actually great reasons for trust in the Lord. They are not reasons to despair.

They are not reasons to be tempted away from trusting in him. They are reasons to trust in the Lord. So let's consider those.

First, the protagonist. We have here Eliakim, son of Hilkiah.

Shebna, the secretary. Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder. We can read about these earlier in Isaiah 22.

If you just flip over a few pages to 22, there is very relevant prophecy that Isaiah gave regarding these three men.

Or at least two of them. Isaiah 22 verse 15.

Thus says the Lord, God of hosts, come, go to the steward, to Shebna, who is over the household. So Shebna is over the household.

We have described some of his sins in the previous verses. What have you to do here?

And whom have you here, that you have cut here a tomb for yourself, you who cut out a tomb on the height and carve a dwelling for yourself in the rock?

Behold, the Lord will hurl you away violently, O you strong man. He will seize firm hold on you and whirl you around and around and throw you like a ball into a wide land.

There you shall die. There shall be your glorious chariots. You shame of your master's house.

So here in the face of threats, he is building a monument to himself and just accepting his death rather than trusting in the

Lord. And so the Lord is not pleased with Shebna. I will thrust you from your office and you will be pulled down from your station.

In that day I will call my servant Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, and will clothe him with your robe and will bind your sash on him and will commit your authority to his hand.

And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of David. And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David.

He shall open and none shall shut. He shall shut and none shall open. When we looked at that, we saw how that is likewise a prophecy of Christ.

But just considering here how it was literally fulfilled. Is Shebna still in charge?

Is Eliakim the lower? No. Verse 3 of 36. And there came out to him

Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the whole household. Okay, Isaiah's prophecy has come true.

Eliakim is now above Shebna, who is the secretary. So, as you look at your situation and you look at your own life and you see your own weakness, do not interpret things according to the eyes of the flesh.

Interpret them according to the eyes of faith. Do like the psalmist does and recognize all the ways that the

Lord has saved you in the past. All the ways the Lord has filled his word, whether it be for your building up through triumph or whether it be for your building up through discipline.

Look at all these things. You should be able to recount, as David does in the Psalms, the Lord's faithfulness and be encouraged on that basis.

Now also, there is a setting here. The conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the washer's field.

If you turn back to Isaiah 7. Isaiah chapter 7, verse 3.

And the Lord said to Isaiah, go out to meet

Ahaz, you and Shir Jaseb, your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the washer's field.

Same place, right? They're meeting them at the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the washer's field.

So, this is a meeting between Isaiah and Ahaz. And it's about the same topic.

It's about the threat of foreign nations. And say to him, be careful, be quiet.

Do not fear and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands at the fierce anger of resident

Syria and the son of Ramaliah. That's referring to Syria and the northern kingdom of Israel who are threatening

Judah. Because Syria with Ephraim and the son of Ramaliah has devised evil against you, saying, let us go up against Judah and terrify it and let us conquer it for ourselves and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of us.

Thus says the Lord God, it shall not stand and it shall not come to pass for the head of Syria is

Damascus and the head of Damascus is Rezan. And within 65 years Ephraim will be shattered from being a people and the head of Ephraim is

Samaria and the head of Samaria is the son of Ramaliah. If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.

Now God is prophesying that the northern kingdom of Israel will not be a problem anymore.

You don't have to worry about them making an alliance because any alliance they have will not succeed against you.

Now what happens? They do end up getting destroyed, but they end up getting destroyed by Assyria and then

Assyria turning on Judah. So God's word came to pass. The last time when

Hezekiah's father stood here with Isaiah and was challenged not to trust in the nations, to instead trust in the

Lord, God's word came true. So this very setting, if read in light of Isaiah's prophecies, teaches us to trust in the

Lord, not to be tempted away from trusting in the Lord. So once again, you look at these things with eyes of flesh, reasons for despair.

You look at these things, interpreting them according to the word of the Lord, reasons for trust in the Lord. And then the last one is the antagonist himself,

Assyria. And the Lord has interpreted Assyria and his strength very specifically in Isaiah 10.

In Isaiah 10, verse 5, it says, So God calls

Assyria a tool of discipline against Judah, so they don't have any strength of their own. They might think that they're strong, but really their strength is the

Lord's strength, and so the people should trust in the Lord. Against a godless nation

I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

But he does not so intend, and his heart does not think so. But it is in his heart to destroy and to cut off nations, not a few.

So Assyria thinks he's going to have it all, he's going to have the whole world. But God is saying, no, he has his purposes, and it is not that he takes everything, but only that he takes some.

And as it says later on in verse 15,

So here Assyria is boasting as though it is the strength, but it is just the axe. It's just the axe in the hand of the strong man.

Who is the strong man here? Strong man is the Lord. So each one of these things, whether it be the protagonist, the antagonist, the setting, each one interpreted with eyes of faith, reason for trust in the

Lord, interpreted with eyes of flesh, reason for despair, the situations that you face every day, you have all kinds of reasons to think that it will be easier to not trust in the

Lord, to go your own way, to disobey his law, to not be faithful, to selfishly take things for yourself rather than giving them to others, to not invest yourself in the kingdom of God, to not invest in reconciliation, to not invest in forgiveness.

You are tempted towards these things all the time, and if you are interpreting your situation, yourself, your enemy, and by enemy

I'm not referring to whatever person you're dealing with, I'm primarily referring to powers of Satan.

If you interpret those things just by what you see in a very worldly way, you will not follow the

Lord's will. But if you have your mind being led by the Lord, you will do as God would have you to do, and you will be very blessed in the matter.

If Isaiah were to start with this chapter, there'd be no reason for hope, but Isaiah's not starting with this chapter.

He has given the people, he's given the reader everything they need at this point to understand,

I'm supposed to be interpreting these things according to the prophecy that is given before, and I'm supposed to know that people should trust the

Lord. Right now, whatever your situation may be, you are not to interpret it as though it's the first chapter, as though you're a total noob who has no idea what's going on.

You are to interpret it as one who has had his head in the word of God, who has heard from God of his faithfulness, who has told you about how to consider your own weakness and his strength in your weakness, who has told you how to consider the enemy and his apparent strength as being given by God for a short season and for a limited purpose, how you should interpret your own situation as something that brings glory to the

Lord, and you should see his history of faithfulness. And if you have your mind on those things, if you are following his word, there is no weapon or form that can prevail against you.

If you are equipped with the word of God, if you are trusting in his Spirit, the one who has his mind set on the things of the world will not prevail, but the one who trusts in the

Lord will prevail. Why? Because God has sent his own

Son, who died on the cross, gave us his blood, who gave us his Spirit, in order that we might have eternal life, in order that we might be quickened by the

Spirit, in order to see things, not as dead, blind individuals that Isaiah was describing earlier, who are lame and deaf and can't understand the things of God, but as people who have been given this blood -bought gift of the

Spirit, that we might interpret his word and live lives that are full of life and power, trusting in the

Lord, living in the wonderful blessings that are to be had as we walk in faith.

Amen. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your kindness to us.

I thank you for your word. I pray that we would be a people who have our heads in the word and are able to interpret all our circumstances according to your precepts.