The Son Revealed In Salvation

Isaiah’s Climax in the First Half of the Book

Please turn your copy of the Word of God to Isaiah chapter 37. We will finish Isaiah 37 today. This is in many ways the climax of the first half of the book of Isaiah, the first half of the book of Isaiah going from chapters 1 to 39, and this last passage of 37 really being the climax of that.

When you have that, please stand for the reading of God's Word. Beginning in verse 33. Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, he shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it.

By the way that he came, by the saying he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the Lord, for I will defend this city to save it for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.

And the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185 ,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh.

And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his God, Adrammelech and Sherezer his sons struck him down with the sword. And after they escaped into the land of Ararat, Esarhaddon, his son, reigned in his place.

Amen. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for this great report of salvation. We pray that as we see the angel of the Lord strike down so many that we would look to Your Son and His strength as our salvation.

In Jesus' name, amen. This passage continues with the promise that has been made to Hezekiah. Hezekiah had turned to the Lord, asked for His mercy, and so God has promised that the Assyrian would be destroyed, that they would be restored, and here after having described how they would be restored, He explains how the Assyrian will be destroyed, and then furthermore we see it actually take place.

So this is the further fulfillment of this prophecy that is given. So at the risk of being repetitive, let me restate what has happened at this point. Every last city in Judah has been defeated until only Jerusalem remains, and Sennacherib the king of Assyria has come up against Jerusalem, and they have enough troops that basically what they are going to do is sit outside the walls until everyone inside starves and then take them captives to Assyria.

This has all taken place because of sin, because of Israel's sin, primarily in two categories, false worship and false alliances. False worship, allying themselves with foreign gods, not trusting in the Lord as they ought, has brought upon them God's discipline, and then on top of that, they have trusted in foreign nations as they should not have done.

They trusted in Assyria when God told them not to. They trusted in Egypt when God told them not to, and all of these have brought upon them the discipline of the Lord, and so when He is recognizing that and repenting from that, that Hezekiah has come to the Lord, he has prayed, he has asked for mercy, and God has given mercy, He has promised salvation, and now we see that salvation take place.

The Complete Defeat of Assyria

That salvation that is given is a complete one. Look at the way it's described in verse 33, "'Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, you should not come into this city or shoot an arrow there or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it.

By the way he came, by the same way he shall return, and he shall not come into the city,' declares the Lord.". It says, "'He shall not come into the city, he shall not cast up a siege mound against it.'".

So in other words, not only will he not enter the city, but he will not even begin to enter the city, siege mound being a mound made of dirt or other kinds of materials to be able to just build a ramp up over the city wall.

Keep in mind, these city walls are not so high that you could not construct something like that with enough men together. You go ahead and you construct a ramp so that you can go over into the city, but not only will they not enter the city, they won't even be able to build, begin to build the ramp to do this.

And on top of that, he says that they won't shoot an arrow and they won't come before it with the shield. So neither offensive weaponry nor defensive weaponry will have any effect on the people. It says, "'By the way that he came, by the same he shall return.'".

And remember, this is precisely what was just prophesied in Isaiah 37, 29. It says, "'I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back on the way by which you came.'".

So this is God's promise that the king of Assyria will have no success in his battle against Jerusalem. Now beyond the statement that this victory will be complete, we see in verse 36 and onward, it describes how complete that victory is.

Excuse me, let me start in verse 37 and onward, "'Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh. And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sherazer his sons struck him down with the sword.

And after they escaped into the land of Ararat, Asarhaddon his son reigned in his place.'". Okay, so you see the completeness of this victory that's accomplished against Assyria described I'm going to put it into two categories, these are somewhat arbitrary, but you see this highlighted in certain details.

Some of those have to do with the nature of the patricide itself, and some of those have to do with the places that are mentioned. Okay, so the nature of the patricide itself, right, patricide being killing your father, which is what happens to him, demonstrates the greatness, the completeness of the destruction of Sennacherib.

First of all, it happens by the sword. It happens by his sons killing him, and this is precisely what was prophesied in verse 7. It said, "'Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he shall hear rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.'".

This is something that fulfills this prophecy. He falls by the sword in his own land, so prophecy is fulfilled. Now this happens, according to extra-biblical records, this is something that does not take place until 20 years afterward.

So given what we know from the Bible, Hezekiah already dies at that point, so he would not see the fulfillment of this promise given to him that Sennacherib would fall by the sword, and yet God is faithful regardless, even if Hezekiah is not around to see that faithfulness.

A lot of times we don't trust the promises of God because we don't see them in action. The fact that you do not see them in action or that you are not capable because of your limited eyesight, because of your limited vantage point, because of your limited lifespan, does not mean that He is not faithful.

It's important to remind yourself frequently that you have a limited vantage point because of your limited lifespan and perception. So just because you do not see the faithfulness of God, do not let that be temptation to depart from His ways thinking that He will not be faithful because He is.

He fulfills His promises. So next, given that this is a patricide, shows how especially cursed Sennacherib is. It's a terrible thing to be killed by your own son, your son who is supposed to be building your legacy, being one who destroys your legacy, one who destroys you, shows a special kind of curse from God.

Micah 7, 6 says, "'For the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, a man's enemies are the men of his own house.'".

You know, this is describing a very awful state where you have children rising up against their parents. And then not only that, but you also have the two sons who have killed him, Adrammelech and Sherezer, his sons, they escape, and then Esarhaddon, another son, is the one who takes over.

So you don't even see a unified house taking over the kingdom of Assyria. What you see is a divided house. So the two sons who have struck him, they run away, and then it's a different son. And so now you have sons against each other, presumably, given this passage.

This is a great destruction that's happening on Sennacherib. Now, we also see this emphasized in the details of the places. First of all, he goes back to Nineveh, Nineveh is the capital city of Assyria at this point.

And just as it says he goes to his homeland, just as it prophesied in verse 7, he goes back to his homeland and there it says he dwells. In other words, he stays, he does not go back out to war. This victory that God gives Jerusalem without them wielding a single weapon is great enough that Sennacherib no longer has the forces capable to go back out to war again.

It describes him as just dwelling back in his capital city. So it mentions Nineveh, it mentions the house of Nisrach, his god. So very ironically, as he's worshiping the god that he serves, the one who is supposed to give him strength, the one who is supposed to have given him the ability to have conquered all these different nations, it's while he's in that very house that he is the most vulnerable, that he is destroyed.

And you remember this whole contention, the whole thing that Hezekiah pleaded on behalf of was the fact that Assyria had claimed that their gods were more powerful than the Lord. This is the whole contention.

Is the Lord like all the other gods, that He can be defeated by the gods of Assyria? Or is He stronger? Well, not only can the Lord not be defeated by the god of Assyria, not only can He not be defeated by Nisrach, but on top of that, He is so great that Sennacherib dies even in the house of Nisrach, where he should be most protected by his god.

And then the last place it is mentioned is Ararat. Now if you're a student of the Bible, hopefully that name rings a few bells for you. This is where the ark landed when Noah escaped the flood. And so you have people here escaping judgment, this empire that's kind of had a worldwide domination that is now being struck down, and you have people escaping to Ararat.

Does that not evoke images of Noah escaping a worldwide judgment to Ararat? Okay, so I believe this place even is intended to highlight the greatness of God's destruction upon Assyria and Sennacherib.

So you have all these things demonstrating the completeness of the destruction, but then you have in verse 36 a description of what actually happens at that event. And the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185 ,000 in the camp of the Assyrians, and when the people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

What an incredible, miraculous thing for 185 ,000 to die. If you just sit there and you think about how large that number is. Sunnyvale has 150 ,000 people in it. That's men, women, and children, right?

Pretend that they're not men, women, and children. They're all warriors, okay? That's still not as many people as God is destroying in one blow in one night here against Assyria, a population even greater than that of Sunnyvale and all strong men destroyed at once.

This is a scene of a mighty destruction, really unlike…there are many great scenes of destruction, many great scenes of God giving supernatural victory that happen in Scripture. There are none I can think of that quite are like this one, where not a single sword is wielded.

You know, even with Gideon, you've got 300 men doing something, right? But here you have no one doing anything, and God still defeats…God still defeats the army. This has led people to…people who have spent time thinking about this passage, it has led them to think great thoughts about God's strength, about His might.

I'd like to read to you a poem from Lord Byron, if you're familiar with that poet. This is six stanzas, so if you are wondering about halfway through how long this is going to go, the answer is six stanzas.

He wrote this poem about the destruction of Sennacherib because this is a scene that should make the heart leap for just how great God's victory was. The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, and his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold, and the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea when the blue waves rolled nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, that host with their banners at sunset were seen, like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, that host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast, and breathed in the face of his foes as he passed. In the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, and their hearts but once heaved and forever grew still.

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, but through it there rolled not the breath of his pride, and the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf and cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale, with the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail, and the tents were all silent, the banners alone, the lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown. And the widows of Asher are loud in their wail, and the idols are broke in the temple of Baal.

And the might of the Gentile, unsmoked by the sword, hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord. Melted like snow. Not a single sword from Jerusalem came against them, and yet God, by his word, destroyed them all.

The Angel of the Lord and the Son of God

By the angel of the Lord. Who is this angel of the Lord? The angel of the Lord is the Son of God. He is the one who is God himself and is of God. John 1 .1 says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

You see, in Genesis 31 .13, it describes the angel of the Lord as being God. He says, I am the God of Bethel. In Exodus, the angel of the Lord describes himself as God. In Judges, it is said that the one who is God has seen the face of the angel of the Lord, has seen the face of God.

Throughout scripture, you see that the angel of the Lord is the Son of God. This is the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. Now, Christ is a term of incarnation, is a term of him being anointed as a man. And this is prior to his incarnation.

But this is the Son of God. This is a precursor to his great salvation when he fights and defeats that ultimate enemy. Satan, when he defeats death itself. And we've seen throughout scripture how Sennacherib, we've seen throughout Isaiah, how Sennacherib points forward to that great enemy that Christ defeats.

And here he defeats that enemy in great measure as a precursor to the final enemy, Satan, to the final enemy, death. And so consider the ways that this foreshadows the great salvation that God has rendered in Jesus Christ.

He has defeated death itself, and he has done it through death. Just as he died on the cross defeating death, he has defeated death. It describes the people arising in the early morning. And behold, these were all dead bodies.

So just as the angel went through the camp in Egypt and all the bodies died, just like Jude 1, 5 says that Jesus smote the Egyptians, so this is happening to the Assyrians. And in the morning, they were all dead bodies.

In the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, this says, it uses the Greek word proi, which means toward the morning. This is the same word that's used in the New Testament to describe the time when Jesus was found, when the tomb was found to be empty, proi, toward the morning, toward the dawn of the first day.

But rather than not finding a body, here are found many bodies. Here, you see all the death, all the destruction that has been wrought by the sun. In that final scene, proi, toward the dawn of the first day, you see life, nobody found in the tomb because Jesus has defeated death itself.

He has been raised to life. So I've gotten in a few conversations recently about the timing of the Sabbath. This is not something you've ever considered. In the Old Testament, the Jewish Sabbath is celebrated from evening to evening.

The consistent determination among reform theology in our tradition is that because it was discovered that Jesus was raised from the dead toward the dawn of the first day, that the beginning of the Christian Sabbath begins when you are going toward the dawn of the first day, is from midnight to midnight, toward the dawn.

That is the first time that you are approaching the light. Now, why is it that God does this? Verse 35 says, for I will defend the city to save it for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.

Salvation for God’s Glory and for David’s Sake

It glorifies God to bring salvation through his son. It glorifies him. John 1 .18 says that no one has seen God. The only God who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. God is made known through Jesus Christ and it's through him that he is glorified.

He is not glorified in other ways as well, right? All of his creation glorifies him, but it's through his son that he is revealed in a special way that we can more fully know who he is. And so he chooses in these moments, even these moments prior to the New Testament, as he is foreshadowing the great salvation that is to come, that in these moments of lesser salvations, as great as this one is, foreshadowing it by accomplishing it through his son.

Angel, being a word that means messenger, you know, he is the one who has come from God. In the New Testament, he's described as the Word of God. He is the one who is from God. And is accomplishing this, bringing glory to God, revealing God's glory through salvation.

Now, additionally, it says that he is doing this for the sake of his servant, David. There are two ways that this could be taken. The first is that he is doing this in order to fulfill his promise to his servant, David.

That is David, the son of Jesse. Second Samuel 7, 16 says,. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever. Yet throughout Isaiah, throughout Isaiah, we have these statements about God's servant.

Behold, my servant whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights. I put my spirit upon him, and he will bring forth justice to the nations. This is Isaiah 42, 1, speaking of the Messiah. The servant of the Lord being a common phrase in Isaiah referring to the Messiah.

And so here, when he speaks of doing this for the sake of his servant, David, yes, while it may be to fulfill his promises to the immediate son of Jesse, is it not to fulfill his commitment to his own son, the one who David repeatedly speaks of, even in the Psalms, where he uses himself of that image of that son, where he speaks of the anointed.

The anointed is the Messiah. You are my son, this day I have begotten you. Who is that ultimately referring to? It's not referring ultimately to David. It's referring ultimately to Jesus Christ, the great son of David.

And so he, this is being accomplished through the angel of the Lord in order that God's glory may be more fully revealed. He defends the city to save it. He gives salvation for his own sake and for the sake of his servant, David.

Knowing God Only Through His Son and Salvation

Now, as you consider this and you consider what it means for you, what this means is if you want to know God, if you want to know who he is, you can only know him through his son. If you want to know his son, the only way you can know him is through salvation.

This is how God reveals his son. He reveals his son through salvation. It is at the appropriate time that Christ was made incarnate in order to save people from their sins. He was not revealed so manifestly prior to that.

God has determined to reveal his son through salvation. This means in order to know his son, you must be saved. In order to be saved, you must be aware of your sin. You must repent of your sin in order that you can turn from it and enjoy the salvation that he gives.

He gives no salvation apart from turning to him in faith, apart from repentance. You see in this passage, all of Judah is being destroyed. It is only Jerusalem that is left. It is only when the people finally return to the Lord in repentance, acknowledging their sin, that this son is revealed to them in order to save them and he does not come before that.

So many people miss this and they want one without the other. They end up divorcing the son in salvation. They want a salvation apart from the son or they want the son apart from salvation. Many people want salvation apart from the son.

This is the case with many different religions that have their own various gods. They want some kind of salvation. This is true within the realm of cultural Christianity as well. Many people want some kind of deliverance experience, some kind of salvation, but they aren't so interested in Jesus Christ.

They want all sorts of things, but their mind of what that eternal state is, the heaven that they are hoping for, is not a heaven where the joys are the presence of Jesus Christ. The joys are something else entirely.

Now many people also want, not only do they want salvation without the son, but many people want the son without salvation. So many people want to know Jesus Christ. You know, they say they want to know Him.

They end up going to His Word in order to learn more about Him, but they want Him apart from salvation. In other words, they want Him without having to acknowledge their own sin, without having to stare it in its face, without having to recognize their guilt so that they would repent and turn from it.

So this is so frequent that people want to go about without acknowledging their guilt. You know, once they are, especially once you are saved and you've acknowledged your guilt once, there's a great temptation to continue in that path without continuing to acknowledge your guilt, right?

Our confession even addresses this, that there's a danger of just saying, well, I confess my guilt once, I don't have to do it again. And so you live as though you are free from sin, as though there's no reason to repent of future things, and as though this is a situation that should be greatly avoided.

Acknowledging your sin is something that's to be avoided. Going to God's Word in a way that would actually discover sin within you, something to be avoided. Few are honest about this, but many Christians do not want to learn more about their sin.

They're not willing to pray with David as he does in Psalm 19, show me my hidden faults. So just consider the things that are present in this chapter, right? False worship, false alliances, basically allying yourself with other heavenly powers, allying yourself with other earthly powers.

How much do we have to repent of? It's very common for people to neglect worship, either neglect worship by failing to attend the worship of the Lord, but beyond that, even failing to uphold it in their homes.

You know when Joshua says, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. The word that's used for serve there is not a... It's a word that can be used of other kinds of service, but it's a word that's particularly used of worshipful service.

You know there's a phrase in Scripture, the worshipers of Baals. In the Hebrew, it's the same term that's used, that Joshua uses to talk about serving the Lord. He's talking about worshiping the Lord.

He and his family will worship the Lord. Worship is something that should be engaged in regularly, that so many people neglect it and push it to the outskirts of their lives. And this goes beyond just those who would only worship on Christmas and Easter, right?

It goes to all of us who would neglect the worship of God as it ought to exist in our homes and find it sidelined for other things. Then on top of that, there's false worship. The people in Isaiah's time were not just guilty of neglecting worship, they were guilty of false worship.

In fact, this is what Isaiah 1 starts off with, that God despises their new moons and their festivals. He despised them because they were insincere. They either give false worship sincerely to the wrong God, observing the wrong things, and that's common, right?

It's way more common than you think. I grew up in churches that did all kinds of weird things when it comes to the worship of the Lord. I grew up for a long while in a Pentecostal church and all kinds of errors that exist in that environment, with all kinds of things that do not belong in New Testament worship, with all kinds of disorderly shouting and languages people don't understand, languages that aren't even real languages.

I've encountered all sorts of things. That's common, but it goes even beyond that. How many people really put thought into the songs that they sing, you know, that they choose to make their songs to the Lord?

How many people really put thought into how they're going to approach Him? And, you know, it's not the case that there's a lot of protections that come from using a hymnal, but not even that protects you from false worship, from choosing to worship God in ways and manners that He has not called for.

So there's sincerely worshiping the Lord in ways that He has not called us for, but then there's also insincerely worshiping Him the ways that He has called us for. How frequent is it that when you worship God, when you're singing, when you're hearing the Scripture, when we're praying together, your mind is elsewhere?

Is that not the kind of sin that is being addressed repeatedly in Isaiah where He says, with their lips they draw near, but their hearts are far from me? This is such a frequent problem. Isn't not a problem for us as well?

And then false alliances, not just allying wrongly with heavenly powers, but allying wrongly with earthly powers. So many people want to be liked. They are not willing to make enemies with the world. They want to be friends with the world.

James 4 .4 says that friendship with the world is enmity with God. You cannot be a friend of the world. You must resolve yourself that in this world you will not be friends with the world. And if that is the case, there's no reason to restrain from declaring God's truth, refrain from having His Word on your lips.

There's nothing that you will be ashamed of in that last day. Yet so many want to hedge their bets. This is precisely what Ahaz, Hezekiah's father, had done. Rather than trust the Lord, he said, we'll continue trusting the Lord, but we also want to trust Assyria.

We also want to trust Egypt. We want to continue going to other things. This is what a lot of people want to do. They want to say, okay, we're going to trust the Lord, but we're also going to trust other things.

I'm going to trust the Lord to give me my contentment, but I'm also going to trust other things to give me my contentment. I'm going to trust other things to give me the pleasures I deserve, the pleasures that I crave.

There's so many, as was said earlier, I think it was in the, it's either the sermon or Sunday school, the desires that God has given us are not desires that should be cut off, but they are desires that need to be channeled correctly.

And so many people, rather than wanting to channel them the direction that God gives, choose to trust the direction the world wants to channel them in. It doesn't matter what kind of sin it is, whether it be sexual sin, whether it be sins in your relationship with others, whether it be the way you uphold the truth, the way you uphold the different things that God has given us to uphold, property, whatever it be.

Anytime you trust the world's ways to uphold those things, and you do not trust God's ways, you are engaging in this same kind of sin of making an alliance with the world. I would encourage you today to resolve yourself simply to not desire any sort of friendship with the world, to not desire to have your needs met by other things, to recognize that though it be that you be the last man standing, though it be that only Jerusalem is left and nothing else, that you will trust in the Lord knowing that He is faithful.

It's frequent that I will encourage someone with something the Bible says, and the first thing they respond with is not an engagement with what Scripture says, but some kind of pragmatic concern that they think may have some possibility of overriding God's Word.

This is not the way to interact with Scripture. This is not a Berean attitude to say, yes, Scripture may say that, but what about this concern? Now, we can address those concerns, but they must all be subject to Scripture.

They must all be submitted to Scripture. They must not rise above Scripture. But it is in that that salvation is truly enjoyed. In recognizing your sin, in recognizing it places, confronting it, confessing it, that you are able to more fully appreciate Jesus Christ.

Paul asks the question, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? The answer is, of course, no. If we've died to sin, how shall we live? How shall we live through it? But if you are not more and more recognizing your sin, you will not grow in an appreciation of the grace that you have received.

If you refuse to embrace the breadth of God's law, the extent to which it affects your life, instead wanting to hold on to what is comfortable for you, you will not fully appreciate the salvation that Christ has given.

You will not appreciate it because if you think that your sin is this small, then you will think that God's grace is this small. But if you see the breadth of the law and in that see the breadth of your own sin, then you can greater appreciate the greatness of the salvation that God has given.

And it is in that salvation that He reveals Christ. Just as here as He sends the angel of the Lord in order to save Jerusalem, so He sends His Son to us in order to save us. He has already done so in the incarnation.

And as we turn to Him to be forgiven of our known sins, as we repent of them each individually, He reveals His Son to us in that moment. Do not be afraid of the word of God, of the breadth of God's law, of the things it commands of us.

Do not be the one who looks at God's law, looks at applications of God's law, and immediately wants to narrow it down to only the most biblicist interpretation, right? Biblicist meaning like someone who just takes only the most explicit meanings of Scripture, right?

Embrace God's word in its fullness that you might be able to fully appreciate salvation and might be able to fully appreciate Jesus Christ Himself being filled with the joy of salvation. Amen. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your great salvation that You have given in Your Son.

He is the great angel of the Lord who is capable of defeating every last enemy. And He has already done so and we thank You for that. In Jesus' name, amen.