“When Distress Comes” – FBC Morning Light (9/15/2023)

Well a good Friday morning to you. I hope your week has gone well, and as you look forward to the weekend, you're already making plans to gather together in God's house on the Lord's Day. I encourage you to do that.

The Lord Over the Nations in Isaiah 37

Well today in our Bible reading we're in Isaiah chapters 37 and 8, 1 Thessalonians 3, and Proverbs 14. I want to look at two ideas from the book of Isaiah, one of which we've emphasized in some previous other passages in this Old Testament scriptures, and that is the fact that the Lord, our God, is over all the nations of the earth.

He protects those whom he chooses to protect. He uses those whom he will use to accomplish the purposes that he has established. He will even see to the defeat of those whom he sees fit to bring about their defeat, and sometimes those whom he uses to cause defeat of others, he brings their defeat sometime down the road.

Let me show you an illustration of this. I think of the Assyrians as they're reported, as it's recorded for us here in Isaiah 37. The Lord had punished his people Israel, the northern tribes, with the Assyrian Empire, and he warned of it.

He said this was going to happen. He said, I'm going to use the Assyrians to bring judgment upon my people who have erred, who've strayed, who've departed from me. And he did. The Assyrian Empire attacked the northern tribes of Israel, defeated them, took thousands and thousands into captivity, and repopulated their land.

The Assyrians did this. But then the Assyrians came against Judah, and they came to attack the capital city of Jerusalem. And the king of Judah, Hezekiah, he turned to the Lord, and he appealed to the Lord for mercy and for help, and trusted the Lord for deliverance.

And the Lord brought about that deliverance. And I want to notice that here in verses 30, well, it was really starting in verse 32, because in verse 32, the Lord says, out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant and those who escape from Mount Zion.

How is it that that remnant is going to survive? He says, the Lord of hosts will do this. So the Lord is sovereign and is the Lord of hosts over this remnant, and he will ensure that this remnant survives and thrives.

Then he goes on to say, therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, the king who has come against Jerusalem and has sought to completely overthrow Judah. He says, he, the king of Assyria, shall not come into the city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor build a siege mound against it.

By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into the city, says the Lord. Well, how can he say that? How can it be such confident affirmation and assertion that this enemy, a very powerful enemy, isn't even going to shoot an arrow?

Because, verse 35 says, the Lord speaking and says, I will defend this city to save it for my own sake and for my servant David's sake. I will protect it. I will deliver it. And indeed he did. You go on in verses 36 through 38, and here's what we read.

Then the angel of the Lord went out and killed in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses, all dead. A hundred and eighty-five thousand soldiers just slain.

So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh. He did not come back. And then verse 38 says, now it came to pass as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his God, that his sons, his own sons, Adrammelech and Cherezer, struck him down with a sword, and they escaped into the land of Ararat, and Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.

And exactly what the Lord said would happen, happened. Why? How? Because the Lord is over all the nations of the earth, and he can decree which nation he's going to use to bring about the defeat of others, and he has the power and authority and does decree which nation is going to be defeated, which will rise, which will fall, when they will rise and fall, and how.

It's all under his control. It's all under his authority. Let's take great encouragement in that today, in this crazy, crazy mixed up world in which we live. There's another thought I want to get at, and it's sort of related, but in the next chapter we read about Hezekiah getting sick, and I want you to notice how he responds to this.

Hezekiah’s Response to Distressing News

Isaiah the prophet comes to Hezekiah, and he says to him, thus says the Lord, set your house in order, for you shall die and not live. So Hezekiah had some kind of a sickness, and it sounds like when you read the whole story that he got some boils and they got infected, and that he was going to die of this.

Set your house in order, you'll die and not live. Well, how did Hezekiah respond to that? What I want us to see is he responded to that word of personal threat to his own health and life the same way he responded when Sennacherib and the Assyrians came against Jerusalem on a couple of different occasions, attempting to overthrow it.

What did he do? He turned his face toward the wall and prayed to the Lord. Turned to the wall, and he prayed to the Lord, which begs the question of me, and of you, I think. What do we do when distressing news reaches our ears, particularly that which affects us personally, personally?

Is it our instinct to simply turn to the Lord and pray to him? I trust we'll develop that instinct if it's not already there. So our Father and our God, we thank you that you are the God who is sovereignly in control of every nation on this planet, and as we read in this prayer of Hezekiah, it's also true that you are the God of our individual personal lives, and what encouragement it is to see the power of prayer, the effectiveness of prayer, the instinct of prayer.

May it be ours, O Lord, we pray, and we ask it in Jesus' name. All right, well listen, have a good weekend, wonderful weekend, and do gather with God's people on the Lord's Day to worship him. Have a good day.