Isaiah chapter 36. Somewhat of
a lengthy reading. I want to read this entire chapter.
It has 22 verses in it. An incident that took place that
we're going to concentrate on in the morning service. We're
going to look at chapter 36. In the afternoon, we'll look
at Hezekiah's prayer. The king of Assyria, Sennacherib, There was three of Noah's sons
in the ark. One of them was named Shem. He
had a son. His second son was named Asher.
And the Assyrians were his descendants. Some of them were pretty rough
tribe. And they had came against Jerusalem. They came down and
taken many of the cities, hauled them off captive. They came against
Jerusalem. Shemashareb demanded money. Hezekiah even took gold out of
the house of the Lord in his own house and gave it to him.
But this Shemashareb was such a crook, such a deceiver, that
he was going to take Jerusalem anyway. Took the money, and now
he wanted the city. And he writes this letter. I imagine it was a letter. He
sent his general to seek the surrender of Jerusalem. And man,
it's a nasty letter. Some of you children may want
to hold your ears when I come to one or two places. But we're
going to read it because it's in God's Word. If there was ever
a letter written in hell and read on earth,
it's got to be this letter. to Hezekiah and the inhabitants
of Jerusalem at this time. He had came against the city.
Soldiers had surrounded the city. And now he begins to speak to
them, desiring their surrender. And let's begin in chapter 36
and verse 1. And it came to pass in the fourteenth
year of King Hezekiah that Shennasherib king of Assyria, came up against
all the defense cities of Judah and took them. And the king of
Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah
with a great army." It was a great army. The angel of the Lord finally
slew 185,000 of them. You can imagine what an army
this was. And he stood by the conduit of
the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field. Then came
forth unto him Eliakim, Helkiah's son, which was over the house,
and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, Asaph's son, the reporter. And
Rivsheka said unto them, Say ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith
the great king, the king of Assyria. What confidence is this wherein
thou trustest? I say, saith thou, but they are
but vain words. I have counsel and strength for
war. Now on whom dost thou trust that
thou rebellest against me? Lo, thou trustest in the staff
of this broken reed on Egypt, Whereon if a man lean, it will
go unto his hand, and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt
to all that trust in him. But if thou say to me, We trust
in the Lord our God, is it not he whose high places and whose
altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and said to Judah and to Jerusalem,
You shall worship before this one altar at Jerusalem? Now therefore
give pledges, I pray thee, to my master the king of Assyria,
and I will give thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy
part to set riders on them. How then will thou turn away
the face of one captain of the least of my master's servants,
and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? Am I now
come up without the Lord against this land to destroy it? The
Lord said unto me, Go up against this land, and destroy it. Then
said Eliakim, and Shebna, and Joah unto Rav Shecha, Speak,
I pray thee, unto thy servants in the Assyrian language, for
we understand it. And speak not to us in the Jews'
language in the ears of the people that are on the wall. But Rav
Shecha said, Hath my Master sent me to thy Master, and to thee
to speak these words? Hath he not sent me to the men
that sat upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung,
and drink their own piss with you?' Then Rav Shecha stood and
cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language, and said, Hear
ye the words of the great King, the King of Assyria. Thus saith
the King. Let not Hezekiah deceive you,
for he shall not be able to deliver you. Neither let Hezekiah make
you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver
us. This city shall not be delivered
unto the hand of the king of Assyria. Hearken not to Hezekiah,
for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make an agreement with me by
a present, and come out to me, and eat you every one of his
vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one
the water of his own system, until I come and take you away
to a land like your own, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread
and vineyards. Beware, lest Hezekiah persuade
you, saying, The Lord will deliver us. Have any of the gods of the
nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?
Who are the gods of Haman and Arpad? Who are the gods of Sepp
Arbaim? Have they delivered Samaria out
of my hand? Who are they among all the gods
of these lands that have delivered their land out of my hand that
the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? But they held
their peace. and answered him not a word.
For the king's commandment was saying, Answer him not. Then
King Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, that was over the household,
and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder,
to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and told him the words
of Remchicka." See what I meant when I said that was a vulgar,
distasteful, blasphemous letter. And what he was trying to do
was cause them to surrender unto
him. He didn't want to take time to
build an embankment against the city and besiege it and starve
them out. He wanted them to come out voluntarily
and surrender to him. And he said, I'll take you to
a better country. And this speech of Rav Sheikah
to Hezekiah in Jerusalem was the very way, and is the very
way, that Satan seeks our surrender as the church and members of
this church. That's why I say this is a letter
out of hell. You can see Satan's fiery breath
and stinking breath on this letter. Isaiah, Hezekiah had rebelled
against Shemasherib. And it made Shemesherib mad. He said, who do you think you
are that you can rebel against me? I've come to win you back. I've come to subdue you again.
Isn't that the attitude of the devil? He was our master. He had us bound in darkness and
in sin. He's depicted in the Scriptures
as a strong man that keeps his castle. What is His castle? It's our unregenerate hearts.
And He keeps us. He binds us. We can't escape
from it. The Lord Jesus comes into man's
soul, drags Satan from without, tells him never to enter there
again. The Lord Jesus takes His place
upon the throne of our conscience, but Satan can never get over
it. He's a sore loser, you see. And He's always coming back.
and slipping up to our conscience, and intimidating us, and threatening
us, and enticing us with His promises, wanting to win us back. And this is the way He does it.
Just like He sent this ungodly general to do it to the children
of Hezekiah and the children of Israel. Now let's look at
these things. I want to say four or five things
here in this passage. First of all, let's begin. I
want you to see his tactics. And here in verse 4, we see his
first tactic. Now, the devil is very smart.
Boy, he knows us. He knows how to strike terrible
blows. He knows what gets us down. And
here is the first thing he struck at in verse 4. Here is what he
says, And Red Sheikah said unto them, Say ye now to Hezekiah,
Thus saith the great king, the king of Israel, what confidence
is this wherein thou trustest?" What's he doing? What's his intentions? To diminish his confidence. What confidence is this wherein
thou trustest? Now this is a question all of
us should ask ourselves. What is my confidence in? Who
is my confidence in? That's a good question for us
to ask ourselves. When we ask it, we've got good
motives behind it. When Satan asks it, his motives
are wicked. It's to weaken our present confidence
in the Lord. When you and I say, where's my
confidence at? I could ask us all that question
this morning. What are we relying upon? Where is your confidence at this
morning? You and I are living in a life
that's difficult, aren't we? Life is difficult. There's trials
in it. There's dangers in it. We have
enemies on every hand, the enemies of our souls. We're growing older. There'll come a time when we'll
be so weak and we'll die. We'll face eternity. We'll go
off into the judgment of God that's to come. We must live
with confidence in this world. Where is our confidence? That's an important question
as we face life and as we face eternity. The Apostle Paul was
facing death. He was writing to young Timothy
and he said, the time of my departure is at hand. And he said, I've
suffered trouble. There's trouble all around me.
Men have forsaken me. My friends have forsaken me.
But he told us where his confidence was. And this is what he said. He said, though I suffer trouble,
even as an evildoer, I'm not ashamed. I'm not disappointed. I'm not confused. For I know
whom I have believed." There is his confidence. I know him. I know what he tells me about
himself and what he has done. I know Jesus Christ. I believe
him. That is my confidence. I know
whom I have believed, and listen to this, I am persuaded that
he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against
that day. That's his confidence. But when
Satan asks this question, his intention is to call into question
our confidence in the Lord, to make us doubt our confidence
in Him. And listen to what the Scripture
says about confidence. This is why it's so important,
and this is why Satan attacks it first. If he can weaken your
confidence, boy, he's got the door cracked. Listen what Hebrews
10.35 says about our confidence. Cast not away, therefore, your
confidence. Cast not away your confidence
in Jesus Christ, in his glorious person, in his work, in his offices. He's the prophet, priest and
king. He's the mediator between you
and the Father. Don't cast away your confidence
in Him. Don't cast away your confidence
in His Word. We have the infallible Word of
God that's been given to us and preserved. Is there truth in
this world? Yes, there is, and here it is.
And we can believe it. Don't cast away your confidence
in His Word. If we do that, where are we to
go for truth? Where are we to go for stability
of mind if we cast away our confidence in His Word? Don't cast away
your confidence in God, in His faithfulness, in His providence,
in His power, in His goodness. Don't cast away your confidence
in His Spirit, in His faithfulness to abide, to uphold His graces
in our hearts. Don't cast away your confidence,
listen, which hath great recompense of reward. If we lose our confidence,
how can we stand when Satan comes and tries to strip us of our
confidence? If you hold your confidence,
you'll have peace of heart and you'll have peace of mind. He'll
help you endure your trials. and wait patiently on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Confidence will keep us from
fainting when the enemy comes in like a flood. That's why Satan
hates when he sees a Christian have confidence in the Lord. If he can, cause us to cast away
our confidence that he has a foot in the door, doesn't he? He has
a foot in the door. Where is this? He said. Wherein
you have your confidence. In other words, he was saying
this, you don't have any confidence. Your confidence is not in anything.
You might as well give up now. No, we have confidence, don't
we? And it's in the right place.
It's in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's in God. It's in the Holy
Spirit. It's in His Word. The second thing he does, and
look at this, he brings up the old false confidence that they
had had. He tells them in verse 6, Lo,
thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed on Egypt. And you know they had been guilty
of that. We're told in this very book that they had been guilty
of that. Listen to Isaiah chapter 30 in verse 1. Woe be to the
rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but
not of me. that walk and go down to Egypt,
and have not asked at my mouth, to strengthen themselves in the
strength of Pharaoh, and they trust in the shadow of Egypt."
Many of these Jews, when they got in trouble, when the armies
began to come against them, you know where they ran to? They
ran to Pharaoh. They put their trust in Pharaoh. Well, what happens now? Their
enemy brings that up, doesn't he? He brings that up. He's saying here, he's saying
here, you think you've got a good confidence now? You think you've
got a good hope now? Well, just the other day, he
was trusting and favorable. And everybody knows he was a
broken reed. Here's the problem, brothers
and sisters, that you and I face sometimes. We don't think too
much about it, but it comes back to haunt us. How many of us,
often, I say often. I wish I could say seldom. But
our hearts are so deceitful. How many times have we put our
confidence in the arm of flesh? Have you been guilty of that?
I tell you, I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed. I have wept tears
over the time when I was lost. The things I put my confidence
in, and I look back now with shame and embarrassment and still
repent over it. What I trusted in. But since
the Lord saved me, when I look sometimes how I lean to the arm
of flesh. And I tell you, Satan uses that
against us too. You think you've got a good confidence
now? Look what you did just last week. What were you trusting
in last week? Weren't you trusting in the arm
of flesh just last week? Yeah, we were. Yes, we were. John Bunyan was talking about
in his Grace Aboundant of the Chief of Sinners. Seven abominations,
he said, that were still in his heart. And one of them was leaning
to the works of the law for justification. He said he still found that in
him as a believer. leaning towards the works of
the law to be justified before God. And he said, it makes me
hate myself. Well, it should make us hate
ourselves. But Satan uses it to make us despair. Look how
despicable you are. Look how you turn from Christ
and trust in other things. The Lord rebukes us from it when
we do it. But He doesn't do it to bring
us to despair. He does it to bring us to repentance.
He does it to humble us. And then when we confess it,
He forgives us. But what does Satan use it for?
Oh, he uses it to drive us to despair, doesn't he? That we
so abhor ourselves, we'll just throw up our hands and say, we
might as well have quit. We're such a mess that we're
just trusting in everything and anything. Oh, he's a trickster,
isn't he? I tell you, he'll use every sin
he can against you. But he doesn't use it to soften
your heart. He uses it to drive you to despair. You fellows have had vain confidence. You trusted in Egypt. Why don't
you just give it up now and surrender and come out to me? And I'll
take you away to this good land. Have you ever had that to happen
to you? Paul said, we're not ignorant of His devices. Boy,
he tricks us, doesn't he? He tricks us. He'll tempt us
to sin. He'll tempt us to forsake Christ
in our minds. Then you turn right around and
say, you might as well despair. You've forsaken Christ. He's
Satan, all right. He's the devil. And this is a
peculiar thing about this letter and this discourse found here
in verse 7. Look at this. But if thou say
we trust in the Lord our God, is it not He whose high places
and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and saith to Judah
and to Jerusalem, Ye shall worship at this altar." Now this is peculiar
here because you and I have been studying on Wednesday nights
in Deuteronomy chapter 12 that this is the very thing that the
Lord instructed the children of Israel to do. Remember that?
When you get into the land and you've built the temple, What
I want you to do is go through there and destroy all of the
altars of the heathen. Tear down their images, burn
all their groves, and there's one place that you can go and
bring your offerings and celebrate the feast, and that's at Jerusalem.
There's one altar, and that's at Jerusalem. That's exactly
what Hezekiah did. But now Reb Sheikah says, you've
destroyed the Lord's orders. There's people truly worshiping
God in those groves, and you've destroyed them. Reb Sheikah. Somebody said he was an apostate
Jew. If he was, he knows he was lying. But here's the catch, you see.
Here is what he was trying to do. He was trying to discourage
Hezekiah and these Jews by saying this. You have destroyed the
very worship of God. You have destroyed the means
by which people are worshiping Him. And you know something,
if he could have convinced them of that, man alive, they would
have been guilty, wouldn't they? What have we done? We've destroyed
God's places of worship. We've destroyed God's altars.
We've destroyed the groves where they've been worshiping Him.
We're guilty. We might as well surrender and
give up. See what He was doing? They destroyed the molds and
the methods of these false gods and false idols. And you know
something, brothers and sisters, we do the same thing. We do the
very same thing, don't we? I was reading a book Mr. Baker
gave me a few days ago. It said in that book there was
a half a billion, 500,000 charismatics in our day. Can you imagine that?
A half a billion charismatics, real charismatics. Everybody
from the Baptists to the Catholics now, are going into these charismatic
churches. And you see them, if you ever
watch the religious services on TV or radio, you can hear
them. I was watching some just this
last week, watching two people, a man and a woman, talking about
the prosperity gospel, the two charismatics. And if you're not
prospering in finances, and you're not prospering in health, then
you're not walking in the will of God. It's God's will for you
to prosper. That's what they preached. I
turned the channel and here was this other man. He had his hand
raised up and he said, listen, I've got a prophetic statement.
It's more prophetic than prophetic, but that's what he said. And
he started telling, God's speaking to me. God's speaking to me. You better write it down. Ain't
that what you said, Larry? God's speaking to you. You better write
that down. That's inspired. I saw another
one. He had a whole big line of people
in front of him, and he was knocking them out, hitting them here and
slaying them in the Spirit. You know something, brothers
and sisters? We have separated ourselves from that mess. That mess is not of God. Those are alders of the heathens. Those are groves that they built
themselves. And we burn them, we pull them
down, we destroy them. Do we not? What if Satan could convince
you that we have isolated ourselves here in this little place, and
those people and those modes of worship and their methods
of worship are of God? You know what I'd do if he could
convince me of that? I'd just give up in frustration. If that
stuff is of God, I'm so confused, I'm going to quit. I'm just going
to give up. But it's not of God. That's not
God's offer. That's not God's Word. It's not
the way in which He's worshiped. It's not the truth. The masses are gathering around
in our day the altar of free will to worship in their groves
of human merit and powers. Others have set up an image of
grace that is so general and weak that it's trying to save
everybody, and it saves nobody. If you hear people talking about
a grace that saves everybody and yet saves nobody, that's
not grace. It's like the bridge, Spurgeon
said, that gets everybody on it, but nobody across it. We
hear a lot about grace, but it's not Bible grace, is it? They talk about a redemption
that does not redeem. They talk about a purpose of
God that can be frustrated, dependent upon man's will and his power.
They talk about a power that does not save and keep from the
damning influences of sin. They talk about a love that can
let the objects of it perish in hell. They exalt corruptible
flesh and they abase the eternal triune God. And if such things
are true worship of God, then I'm guilty and you're guilty
because we have no part of it, do we? We have no part of it. And here the devil comes to our
poor conscience and says, well, you're against God. You're against
the people of God. You're against the worship of
God. No, we're not. We're exclusive. We're exclusive. But why are we exclusive? Because
the Bible is exclusive. The worship of God is exclusive. Destroy those altars. Destroy
those groves. But those people are sincere.
Yes, they are. And they're sincerely wrong. They're wrong. You and I reject flesh in worship. We worship before one altar.
And that's Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We come to one throne,
and that's the throne of God's sovereign grace. And we have
only one demand for those who come here and worship. Be still
and know that I am God. That's it. That's it. We are
exclusive, aren't we? Yes, there's a cowboy. He
got real exclusive. He started burning those groves
and tearing down the altars. He made a mess of those places.
And here comes this fiend of hell and says, that was God's.
That was God's. You're destroying God's worship. Verse 8, he tries another tactic. Threatening and accusing, now
he tries promises. In verse 8, look what he promises.
Now, therefore, give pledges, I pray thee, to my master, the
king of Assyria. And I will give thee two thousand
horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders on them."
Promise you. You give up the city, I'll give
you two hundred horses. That's a good trade, isn't it?
The devil promises things he can't deliver. I don't think
the devil owns anything, to be honest with you. I think he's
a bankrupt creature. He told the Lord Jesus Christ
during the temptation in Matthew chapter 4, he said, if you'll
fall down and worship me, I'll give you all these kingdoms.
I don't think those kingdoms are his. I think those kingdoms
belong to the Lord. I think the earth is the Lord's
and the fullness thereof. The earth and they that dwell
therein, everything's in it, is. The devil owns nothing. I promise you this. If you'll
give me that. This word pledge, it has the
idea of close association. If you will associate with me.
It means to be agreeable to, to be pleasant, to be sweet. If you'll be sweet, I'll give
this to you. You be sweet to me and give me
Jerusalem and I'll give you 200 horses. You be sweet and forsake
the worship of God, and I'll give you all kinds of things
to satisfy your flesh. You give up the hope of heaven
and eternal life, and I'll give you all kinds of worldly pleasure. You give up your love for Christ
and your confidence in Him. You give up your affection for
His church, And I'll give you more things than your heart could
desire." And you know the sad part about it is, he gets so
many people this way. He gets so many people this way
by promises. And he promises them great things.
He whispers it to their conscience and they don't even know it's
him. And they take him at his word. Don't you go to church
this morning. They've got a sale on Wal-Mart.
He's got a big cell at Wal-Mart. You better head down that way.
Blue Light Specials. The lake's warm this morning.
That's where you need to be, not there worshiping. Boy, the water's warm. You can
swim. Man, there's a nice car out on
the car lot. Instead of going to worship,
why don't you go look at it? Maybe take it for a drive. I'll
give you that. I'll get you that. I'll get you
friends. You forsake your true friends,
and I'll give you more friends than you can desire. He promises. He promises. Show us one promise
in the Scripture that He ever fulfilled. He promises great
things, sweet things, but He brings darkness and despair in
the end. Give up Jerusalem, Zion for 200
horses? My goodness, that don't seem
like a good trade, does it? Give up the place where God's
presence is, where He's worshipped, where He's manifested His Shekinah
glory for 200 psi horses? That's not a good trade. He never
presents a good trade, because He never keeps His promise, and
He has nothing to give. This Shemasha rib, He promised
other places the same thing. But what happened to them? He
carried them off to foreign countries. and starved a bunch of them to
death. He's not faithful to His promises. Only God is faithful. Boy, this is tough. Look in verse
10. This is tough. He's gnarzing
on down now. Boy, in verse 10 is probably
the toughest thing He had to say to these people. And am I
come up without the Lord? Is the Lord not with me? I've
come up with the Lord against this land to destroy it. The
Lord said unto me, go up against this land and destroy
it. The Lord told me to come here.
The Lord hates you fellows. And He told me so. And He sent
me here to destroy you. Boy, I tell you, Satan is not
above lying to our conscience. And misrepresenting God to us. and our dear Savior to us. And
quoting Scriptures to us and confusing us by it. And in times
of severe trials to make us think that God Himself is against us
and even hates us. Boy, if you've ever been in a
terrible trial in your mind, and you start thinking, God's
against me. God's against me. Even the Lord
Jesus Christ is against me. Boy, you talk about affliction
now. That's the worst affliction. Because if He's against you,
what else matters? What does it matter if you hold
out or not? If He's against you, just quit and surrender. It's
all over with anyway. If He is against you, if God
hates you, if He's out to destroy you, what's the use? And boy,
this is a temptation that the devil afflicts the weak consciences
of God's little children. This is what he convinced Eva
of back there in the garden. The Lord is withholding something
good from you. He don't even like you. If he
loved you, he'd give you this thing that he's withholding from
you. And he convinced her that the Lord didn't really love her.
He wasn't seeking her good. The children of Israel went out
into the desert, into the wilderness. And they got in trouble. They
ran out of water and food. And the devil whispered this
to their conscience. He's brought you out here to
destroy you because he hates you. That's a lie. But they believed
it. And you know what they started
to do? And when they believed it, they started complaining.
I would too, wouldn't you? If I was convinced That God didn't
love me? That He got me on this way to
destroy me? I'd be discouraged to that. But
brothers and sisters, hold the love of God in great esteem.
Hold the goodness of God to your soul in great esteem. Don't lose
your confidence in His faithfulness. He didn't call you to destroy
you. He called you to do you good.
Don't think He is going to love you yesterday and hate you today. Don't think the blood of Jesus
is going to plead for you today and not tomorrow. The Holy Spirit
is in your heart today and He is gone tomorrow. That will not
hold water. The Lord has sent me here to
destroy you. Man, what an awful temptation.
The Lord is against you Himself. And you know, don't you imagine
these poor fellows sitting on the wall. He said there in verse
11, he said, don't speak in the Hebrew tongue anymore because
these fellows on the wall here can hear you. And they're poor
things, they're weak minded. And they're going to hear what
you say and they're going to faint. They're going to faint
in their hearts. Well, this is an awful temptation,
an awful temptation. Look in verse 12, we've got to
go on. Look in verse 12. Man, this is something here.
And Reb Shecha said, Reb Shecha said, Hath my master sent me
to your master and to speak these words? Hath he not sent me to
the men that sit upon this wall, that they may eat their own dung
and drink their own piss with you? Man, that's vulgarizing.
You know what I like about the Word of God? That it pulls no
punches. I mean, it lets us know the kind
of battle we're in. It lets us know what our enemies
would do to us if they get the advantage of us. And eating our
dung and drinking our piss is nothing compared to what the
devil will do to you if God lets it. He hates God, he hates the
Son of God, and he hates you. He's like a roaring lion going
about seeking whom he may devour. We live in the most open and
profane time that I've ever known in my lifetime. And yet everybody says, let's
be nice. Have you ever noticed what a
nice generation we live in? We have our poor politicians
that lie like dogs to us. They heap to themselves all of
this power while they strip us of our freedoms. And when they
get caught up in their defrauding ways, one of their colleagues
will stand up and say, well, I want to be nice and not call
him a liar. Well, that's nice. We should
be nice. I saw Joel Osteen. This is how
nice we are. I saw him a year or so ago, and
he wasn't even defending the deity of Jesus Christ. And he
smiled when he said it. When Mr. King said, What about
Jesus Christ? Is he God or not? Well, Larry,
I don't like to get caught up in those. Now, Bruce, be nice.
Yeah, be nice. Be nice. You know, we've killed
more babies in this country in the last five years. than any
other country in the history of the world that we know of? If you turn down certain streets
in almost any inner city that you go to in our nation, you're
taking your life into your hand. These great institutions that
seem to hold countries together are crumbling before our eyes. We've got sodomites now. Living
in uncontrolled, unnatural lust? And what are we saying about
it? Let's call them husband and wife. And yet, let's be nice. This
is one of the most open and profane generations, and what are we
saying? Let's be nice. And I'm telling
you this, brothers and sisters, We've got an enemy, and he's
not nice. He hates you. He seeks nothing
but the destruction of your soul. And if he drags you down to hell,
it won't be a nice place. If you're not tough this morning,
you better get tough. If God hasn't made a Christian
out of you, I pray that He does, because we haven't seen anything
yet. We haven't seen anything yet. This battle is serious. It's serious. And look at this, lastly, look
at this. Look in verse 14 and verse 50. Well, this is what
Reb Shecha feared the most. Here in verse 14. Thus saith
the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you. For he won't be able to
deliver you. Neither let Hezekiah make you
trust in the Lord, saying the Lord will surely deliver us.
This city shall not be delivered unto the hands of the king. Boy, that's what he feared the
most, wasn't it? You're going to trust in the Lord. If you
trust in the Lord, I can't overthrow you. That's what he said. And then he says here in verse
16, hearken not to Hezekiah. But thus saith the king of Assyria,
making an agreement with me by present, Come out unto me, and
eat every man of his vine, and every man of his fig tree, and
drink every one of the waters of his sister, until I come to
take you away into a land like your own." Yeah, right. A land
of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards. Yeah. Yeah. Are you going to believe that?
I don't think so. Look at, lastly, look at verse
18. Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, The Lord will deliver
us. Don't let him tell you the Lord
is going to deliver us. Because listen to this. 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 Seraphim? Have they delivered Samaria out
of my hand? Who are they among all the gods
of these lands that have delivered their land out of my hand, that
the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? Boy, that's a
good argument. Well, look, this afternoon, when
Hezekiah went before the Lord, he said, Lord, I have a truth.
Boy, he's destroyed these great nations. Man, he's done it. And now he's ready to destroy
us. You and I have seen a lot of
nations fall, haven't we? Boy, the last year or two, look
at the countries that fell and are just what we've seen. Iraq's basically gone now. Afghanistan's
going to be gone in another year at the most. Libya, they're fighting
for Syria. We've seen some pretty strong
nations fall. You say, Bruce, those ungodly nations. Yeah,
but they were strong nations. These were strong ungodly too,
but they were strong people. But they fell. We've seen a lot
of powers come down. We've seen a lot of names fall. Where's old spiritual England
at? Where's England? Where's spiritual
England? that raised the Puritans for
us, wrote all their literature, God-honored literature. Where
is Switzerland and Calvin and all of those men there at those
institutes that glorified God and humble flesh? Where is France
and where is Germany with Luther? Where are they? They are gone,
aren't they? The spiritual aspect of them
is gone. Where's the Baptist? We talked
about Baptist a while ago. Where's the Baptist? I don't miss the name, but I
miss the truth that they used to hold to. Where's the old Methodist? I'm just saying, brothers and
sisters, there's a lot of institutions, mighty institutions, a lot of
great names that have been brought down to nothing. And here's my
point. They were brought to nothing
because they're man-made. They're the names of men, the
institutions of men. When it's all said and done,
there's going to be one kingdom that cannot be shaken. And that's
the kingdom of God's dear Son. There's going to be one name
that will endure forever, and that's the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And if you fled to Him for refuge
this morning, you don't have to be concerned about that kingdom
falling. This great country is coming
down, I guess. Maybe it's time God has set it
up and He'll pull it down in His own time. But there's a kingdom
that will never be shaken. And if you're in that kingdom
this morning, you won't be shaken out of it. That's the kingdom
of God, dear son. Have you fled for refuge to lay
hold upon Him? What other refuge have I none?
Hangs my helpless soul on thee." Well, you will not be shaken
from Him then. Everything around you is going to be shaken. Your
kingdoms is going to be shaken. But you will not be shaken from
Jesus, your refuge. Therefore, resist the temptation
of the devil. resist his enticements and his
promises, and do this, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord. For as much as you know,
your labor is not in vain in the Lord. If you are in Christ,
you are in the church, and the gates of hell will not prevail
against it. He may threaten it. may make
promises, may try to entice her, but he'll never overthrow her.
He'll overthrow these other kingdoms as God gives him permission,
but he'll not overthrow this kingdom of Jesus Christ. Well,
we'll take up there tonight, if the Lord's willing, and look
in chapter 37. Let's pray.