Let's open tonight's service
with hymn number 24 from your gospel hymns, spiral hymn book.
Let's all stand together. Number 24, Jehovah Sid Canu,
the Lord, our righteousness. Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord our
righteousness. We love to call you by that name,
our Savior Christ Jesus. Jehovah Sidkenu, God man live
for us bringing eternal righteousness which God imputes to us Jehovah
said can you our substitute who died. Your blood has put away
our sin, and we are justified. Jehovah Sidkenu, Your love has
won our praise. Trusting your blood and righteousness,
we're saved by your free grace. Jehovah Sidkenu, we stand in
you alone. Our only fitness before God is
in our Lord, His Son. Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord our
righteousness. Christ Jesus, you alone we call,
the Lord our righteousness. Please be seated. Good evening. I want us to read
from Psalm 80 for our call to worship tonight. And I want to
thank Robert and Michael for faithfully preaching Christ for
you this past Sunday. And thank you for your prayers.
I feel like the Lord blessed the meeting in Lexington and
was very encouraged the brethren there send their love to you. While I'm thinking about it,
Sunday, Christmas is on Sunday and New Year's is on Sunday.
And what we'll do on those two Sundays is only have one service.
Okay? So we'll meet at 11 o'clock on
Christmas morning and New Year's morning. All right? All right, you have your Bible
open to Psalm 80. Give ear, O shepherd of Israel,
thou that leadest Joseph like a flock, thou that dwellest between
the cherubims, shine forth. What was between the cherubims?
The mercy seat. The Lord said, put the blood
right there, and there I will meet with you. Before Ephraim
and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up thy strength and come and
save us. Here's our prayer. Lord, stir
up your strength. Send your spirit in power. Open
the eyes of our understanding. Give faith to our hearts. Cause
us to come to Christ. Turn us again, oh God. How often do you need to be turned?
All the time, don't we? To whom coming? We're so prone
to look away from Christ as our righteousness and think that
there's something we can do. And every time we come together,
we hope the Lord will enable us to preach and hear the gospel
so that we can be saved. we can be saved. Turn us again,
O God, and cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. O Lord God of hosts, how long
wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people? Thou feedest
them with the bread of tears, and givest them tears to drink
in great measure. So many afflictions, so many
disappointments, so much sin in our own lives and in this
world causes grief to our souls. Thou makest us a strife unto
our neighbors, and our enemies laugh among themselves. Turn
us again, O God, of host, and cause thy face to shine, and
we shall be saved. Let's pray. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
this is our prayer, and we thank you that you've put it in our
hearts to desire such a thing, that you would turn us. Lord,
we come before thy throne of grace in the name of thy dear
Son, thanking you, Lord, that you delight in showing mercy
towards your children. And Lord, we confess to you that
so many things in our lives and in this world, in our own flesh
and our own hearts, cause us to be in need of being turned. Lord, we thank you for the hope
of knowing that where two or three are gathered together in
thy name, there you are in the midst of them. And Lord, you're
pleased to turn. Oh, how we pray that you would
send your spirit in power and turn us. How we need for you
to confirm to our hearts that we are saved. We ask it in Christ's
name and for his sake. Amen. Let's stand together once again.
Hymn number 235 from our hardback teminal. 235, let's all stand
together. ? Pass me not, O gentle Savior
? ? Hear my humble cry ? ? While on others Thou art calling ?
? Do not pass me by ? ? Savior, Savior, hear my humble cry ?
While on others thou art calling, do not pass me by. Let me at the throne of mercy
find a sweet relief. Kneeling there in deep contrition,
help my unbelief. Savior, Savior, hear my humble
cry. While on others thou art calling,
do not pass me by. ? Trusting only in thy merit
? Would I seek thy face ? Heal my wounded, broken spirit ? Save
me by thy grace ? Savior, Savior ? Hear my humble cry While on
others thou art calling, do not pass me by. Thou the spring of all my comfort,
more than life to me. Whom have I on earth beside Thee? Whom in heaven but Thee? Savior, Savior, hear my humble
cry. While on others Thou art calling,
do not pass me by. Please be seated. Will you open your Bibles with
me to Isaiah? And we'll begin in chapter 37,
but then we're going to go back to chapter 36. But I want you
to see the end of the story before we look at the beginning of it.
You ever do that? Get a book and go to the last
chapter and see how it's going to finish? Here's the end of
the story. Chapter 37 at verse 33. The city
is Jerusalem. That's the church. Assyria translated means steps. It's man's works gospel. If I do this and do that and
don't do this and don't do that, I can earn favor with God and
climb the ladder to heaven. I can work my way into the presence
of God. That's what Assyria represents
in this story. It's a works gospel. It goes
all the way back to the Tower of Babel and it's been the means
by which man has in his own perverted imagination attempted to atone
for his own sins and make himself right with God. It is a complete
denial of the gospel of God's free grace. Now, our whole life
as believers is a struggle between grace and works, isn't it? We're born with that spirit of
works. We're born, as Michael reminded
us Sunday, at enmity with God. We hate grace by nature. We're drawn to works and then
the Lord converts us and shows us the glory of Christ and the
success that he had in redeeming his people once and for all on
Calvary's cross and we bear the old flesh with us, don't we?
And there's something in us that keeps and so that's what this
story is about It's about it's about long grace It's about works
versus the free grace of God in the finished work of Christ.
And the Lord says to the children of Israel, to Jerusalem, the
city, the church, He's saying to you and to me, Assyria is
not coming in here. We're not going to tolerate a
works gospel. They're not even going to shoot
an arrow in here. They're not going to destroy any of my people.
They're not going to take any of them captive. They're going
to besiege the city and you're going to be taunted by them,
but you're not going to fall. Why? Because I'm going to keep
you. By the way that he came, by the
same shall he return. He's going to go out the same
way he came in and shall not come into this city, saith the
Lord. You see, if Assyria ever comes
into Jerusalem, then Jerusalem has ceased being Jerusalem. If a message of works ever enters
into this place, then the gospel will have to leave. You cannot
mix law and grace. You cannot mix works and grace.
It won't work. And so where the gospel of God's
free grace is and where God's people are gathered together,
there is an intolerance to a message of works and there is the grace
of God that protects his people from such a message. For I will
defend this city to save it. for my own sake, and for my servant
David's sake. I'm not going to do this because
of any virtue in you, but I'm going to do it because I made
a covenant. I'm doing it for my name's sake.
My name's on the line. I made a promise. God the Son
made a promise to God the Father to keep them, which the Father
had given to him. And he was sworn to that promise. And so the Lord said, I'm going
to do it not because you're worthy of it, not because you deserve
it, not because you've proven yourself to be virtuous, but
because for my sake, for my name's sake, my name's on the contract.
He's the surety. He's the, you know, we think
of a cosigner, you know, it's much more than that, but the
cosigner's name is on the contract. And if you've ever been a cosigner,
you know, you say to that person you signed for, you let me know
if you can't make that payment because I'm going to make it.
If you can't make it, I'll make it. Why? Because my name's on
the contract. That's what the Lord's saying.
You're not going to make the payment, I'm going to make it. I'm going to do it for my servant
David's sake, the promise that I made to him. Then the angel
of the Lord went forth and smote in the camp of the Assyrians
104 score and 5,000. Now four score is 80, so that's
185,000. The Assyrians were encamped outside
of Jerusalem. And they were threatening to
destroy the city. And Hezekiah whose name means
the Lord is my strength and is a picture of every child of God,
lays out his petition before the Lord. Look at verse 14 in
chapter 37. And Hezekiah received the letter
from the hand of the messenger and read it, and Hezekiah went
up into the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord.
So this threatening letter that came from Sennacherib, whose
name translated means sin multiplied. Now, the only thing worse, the
only thing worse than breaking God's law is to try to atone
for having broken God's law. I'll say that again. The only
thing worse, I mean, you think of the most shameful act of rebellion
against God, the worst sin in our mind that you could imagine,
there's something worse than that. And that's trying to atone
for that sin. because your attempt to atone
for your sin is what robs Christ of His glory and robs you of
the hope of your salvation. But is there not something in
us that thinks, well, you know, if I could just pray a little
bit more, if I could just stop that sin, if I could just do
more, if I could work harder, and we ought to do those things. You know, we ought to pray more,
and there are things obviously we ought not to be doing. But
too often times we have those things as the cause of our blessing
rather than the result of our blessing. We think, well, if
I can do this, then God will bless me. That's self-atonement. And that's the most evil thing
that we can do. And so that's what Sennacherib's
name means. Sennacherib is the king of Assyria.
Assyria, remember, means steps. Sennacherib's name means sin
multiplied. You want to multiply your sin?
The things that you're shamed of, the things you're convicted
about, you want to make them worse? Try to atone for them. And we all do it, don't we? We're just bent that way. That's
why we have to keep hearing the gospel. And that's why we have
to keep coming to Christ. And that's why we have to keep
praying what we just read in Psalm 80. Lord, turn me. Turn me again. Again. Why? Because I'm so prone to
look away. And so the Lord sent an angel
into this camp and killed 185,000 Assyrians, one angel. 12 legions of angels were leaning
over the precipice of glory, prepared to come and destroy
this entire world when the Lord Jesus Christ was on Calvary's
cross, waiting for him to just say, come. What would 12 legions
of angels have done to this world? One angel kills 185,000 Assyrians. The Lord didn't do it, did he?
He laid down his life willingly for his sheep. Why? Because that
was the only means by which our sins can be atoned. We cannot
atone for our own sins. We cannot make up for what we've
done. We don't even have any idea how bad our sins are. We
just don't. We can't imagine what the Lord
went through when he prayed in the garden, Father, if there
be any way this cup can pass from me, let it be nevertheless
not mine. He felt the full burden. By my servant's understanding,
he shall justify many. What is it that he understood?
He understood sin. He understood it. We don't. We're so used to it, we're so
accustomed to it, and when we do feel convicted, we just immediately
try to atone for ourselves rather than coming to Christ, looking
to Christ, resting in Christ, rejoicing in Christ, believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ for His atoning work. It's the only
thing God's satisfied with. God's not satisfied with our
attempts to make up for our sins. He's just not. But that's what we do. Sennacherib
went back to Assyria. His two sons murdered him while
he was in his pagan temple worshiping his false god. And that was his
end. You know, I was thinking about
the man that the Lord said had a demon in his house. Let's say
that demon was addiction whatever so this man had an addiction
and He got sick and tired of being sick and tired and finally
he cast that demon out he got rid of that sin and And the scripture
says he garnered he swept his house clean and garnished his
house He dressed it all up What did he do? He put on the garb
of religion and Then what happened? This demon that went was wandering
around came back to the man's house and saw that the house
was swept clean and garnished and Brought seven of his friends
back with him and so there were seven demons possessing this
man at the end that was only one at the beginning and The
Lord makes it clear that he was worse off at the end than it
was at the beginning He was a lot worse off addicted
to religion that garnishing of the house and sweeping up is
that was his that was his self-atonement And that's what men do. That's
why people become religious. They're trying to make up for
their sins. And the demons of religion are so much stronger
than the demons of any addiction. And that's exactly what this
story's about. And it's to remind us that we
cannot atone for our sins. Assyria is a representation of
all man-made religions, and Sennacherib is a representation of our enemy,
the devil, whom the Lord came to destroy. And Hebrews chapter
10 makes it clear that he destroyed the works of the devil. I remind you that the devil's
God's devil. He's a whole lot stronger than you and I are,
but he does God's bidding, and he's on God's chain. He does
exactly what God sends him to do. And there's a time where
Sennacherib says, the Lord sent me to this city, and he speaks
the truth. The Lord did send him. All right,
let's let's go back to the that's what the Lord came to do He came
to destroy the works of the devil. We are always in a battle between
law and grace Between the flesh and the spirit that which is
of the flesh is flesh all the flesh can do is try to make up
for its sins with its religious activity and And the scripture
says the flesh profiteth nothing. It's the spirit that giveth life.
And so we're in this constant battle as believers with two
natures, aren't we? The spirit warring against the
flesh and the flesh against the spirit. And that's why we have
to keep hearing the gospel. Restrain my flesh Lord, I believe
and I do believe if God saved you you believe the gospel with
all your heart all your mind and all your soul if You believe
anything at all in this world You know it If somebody asked you Would you risk The destiny of
your soul, your immortal soul, the eternal destiny of your immortal
soul, would you risk it on two plus two equaling four? Would you? Would you? I wouldn't. I've seen
tricks with mathematics that, you know, there may be a situation
or a formula or a circumstance where two plus two doesn't equal
four. I don't know about that. I'm not gonna risk my soul on
that. But by God's grace, I have risked
everything on the truth of the gospel. And my new man believes
it with all my heart, all my mind, and all my soul. I believe
that. And what'd that man say? Help
thou mine unbelief. That doesn't mean that there's
unbelief in my belief. It means that my flesh never
has believed anything. Help my old man by restraining
him. Lord, I believe. I do believe. Help my unbelief. Help that old
man. Restrain him. Don't let him have
his way. Don't let him enable me to look
away from Christ and put the hope of my salvation in anything
other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Always in a battle. Trying to... Having thoughts
of atoning for our sins. Oh, if I could do more. If I
could pray more if I if I could just mourn more if I could be
more sorry for my sin No Only thing we need to know about
our sin Is what it costs God? to pay for it and when the Spirit
of grace and supplication is poured out upon the house of
David upon Jerusalem They will mourn for him For Him, as they
mourneth for their only Son, Him whom they have pierced, God Almighty broke fellowship
with His Son over my sin. And the agony of that is beyond
my comprehension. I can't even begin to enter into
it, but I believe it. And I know he did it because
he loved me. Now that's the story. Sennacherib
is killed, the Assyrians are annihilated, and Jerusalem is
saved. They never came into the city.
Look how it starts out. Verse 36, verse 1, Now it came
to pass in the fourteenth year of the king Hezekiah, And what
Hezekiah means, the Lord is my strength. The Lord is my strength,
my hope, my rock, my pillar. The Lord is my salvation. We
just sang that. Jehovah Sidken you. The Lord
is my righteousness. I will speak of thy righteousness
even of thine only, Lord. I don't have any righteousness.
All my righteousnesses are as filthy rags. I cannot atone for
my sins. I cannot justify myself before
God. I cannot present to him a righteousness
that will be acceptable in his sight. The Lord himself is my
strength. Hezekiah. Lord make us to be
like Hezekiah a Sennacherib king of Assyria
came up against all the defensed cities of Judah and took them There's a Verse of scripture. I want you to turn to if you
will first Peter chapter 5 verse First Peter chapter five. Look at verse eight. Be sober. Be clear minded about
the gospel of grace. Don't confuse grace with works.
Be vigilant. Be persistent. Don't tolerate
anything but grace. Don't give glory or credit or
fame or hope to anything other than Christ and his sacrifice
on Calvary's cross. Because your adversary, the devil,
as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. We've
got an enemy. His name is Sennacherib. Sin
multiplied don't think that the devil just wants you to do bad
stuff He's getting a whole lot more
mileage out of morality and religion than he is out of out of licentious
living People like I said, they're seven
times more secure when they're religious than when they're doing
things that their conscience convicts them of and So he's
talking about the adversary being like a roaring lion, seeing whom
he may, whom resist steadfastly in the faith, in the faith. How are you gonna
resist the devil? Only by looking to Christ. Now,
if I said to you right now, and most people say, well, you resist
the devil by saying, I'm not gonna do that. The law is thou shalt not. Is
it not? If I said to you right now, I
do not want you to imagine in your mind an elephant standing
in the aisle right there between these pews. Put it out of your
mind. Don't think about it. You can't think about anything
but that, can you? But now if I portray a beautiful landscape
of some place that you've been and describe it in great detail,
now your mind goes to that, doesn't it? And you're not thinking about
the elephant. God doesn't say thou shalt not. That's the law.
You can't do that. The strength of sin is the law. As soon as you tell someone not
to do something, that's the very thing they want to do. And so what's the Lord do? He
directs our attention to the beauty and the success and glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in looking to him, in looking
to him, he takes that, he causes us to will and to do his good
pleasure. We fall in love with him, don't we? So when he says
resist the devil in the faith, he's not saying grit your teeth
and pull yourself up and say, I'm going to fight the good fight
against the devil and I'm going to beat him. You're not going
to beat him. You resist the devil in the faith by looking to Christ. Whom resists steadfastly in the
faith. Now I want you to see the rest
of this verse, knowing that the same afflictions, what are the
afflictions? The Satan is called the accuser
of the brethren. What does he accuse you of? He's always getting you to look
to the law, isn't he? He's always getting you to look to your life
and the inconsistencies of your life and the failures of your
life and saying to you, if you were really a child of God, you
wouldn't be thinking that way, acting that way and talking that
way. And as soon as you start doing that, you're afflicted
by the accusations of Satan. And you lose all hope and assurance
and you start thinking like an Assyrian. Well, I'll just do
this step and that step and I'll act a little bit better and I'll
pray a little bit harder and I'll read my scripture a little
bit more and I'll go to church more often and I'll be a better
person. Now, you should do those things,
but when you start thinking in that pattern, now you're thinking,
well, that's going to absolve me of my sins, atone for my sins
before God, and bring the blessings of God back into my life. That's
the afflictions of the devil. That's exactly what he says.
Resist steadfastly in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions,
now notice the next two words, are accomplished in thy brethren
throughout all the world. God sent Satan to Job, did he
not? And the whole purpose of the
book of Job is to draw the contrast between law and grace. And Satan is God's Satan, so
these afflictions that are brought on the people of God are for
an accomplishment. The same afflictions are accomplished
in your brethren in all the world. Every child of God is experiencing
exactly what I'm describing right now. It's my experience, it's
your experience, isn't it? And it's every believer's experience
in this world. And God caused it to be that
way. It is necessary that heresies
be among you. It's necessary that Satan, that
you be in this world where the prince of the power of the air
is busy, he's working, he's a roaring lion, but he's God's lion and
he's sent for a purpose. And that's to accomplish the
message of grace in the hearts of those who are approved of
God. That those which are approved
might be made manifest. Yes, Lord, I see that. I see
the difference. I see what He's trying to do. And I've got no choice but to
flee to Christ. Is that your experience? These
afflictions, God has sent them for the accomplishment of your
comfort and your hope and your salvation. We're not, you know, we're not
pointing to the works of the devil out there in the world
and say, oh, look at all those, look at all those things that those
people are doing. He he's a roaring lion in my
life and if God doesn't keep Keep teaching me the gospel and
keep showing me the glory of Christ and the holy hope of my
atonement I'll be to see he's a deceiver. That's what his name
means. He's a deceiver. He's a liar
and the father of lies and You see, he doesn't care whether
you live morally or immorally. He doesn't care if you're religious
and upstanding or, you know, total faith. He doesn't care
about any of that. He hates Christ. And his desire is to rob from
the Lord Jesus Christ, his glory and salvation. And if he can
get you to atone for your own sins, then he succeeded in that. So Sennacherib, the king of Assyria,
Sennacherib sin multiplied, Assyria steps. You see the picture, don't
you? You see it in your own life.
And they came up against all the defensed cities. There's
not a child of God in the world who hasn't had Sennacherib come
up against him and offer him steps. Not a one. All the defense cities were surrounded
and were taken by Sennacherib. I know how you feel. Nobody really
knows what I experienced, the shame that I feel, the guilt,
the fears, the doubts. Yeah, they do. Your brethren
know, because they're experiencing the same thing. They've got to
deal with the same devil. More than that, your savior knows. Oh, and he defeated him. He slew
the Assyrians. He destroyed the works of the
devil. What was the devil's very first
work? Genesis chapter 3 was the devil's
very first work. God knows in the day in which
you eat of the fruit, Your eyes are gonna be open, you're gonna
become like God. Right now, you're just a robot. Right now, you
don't have free will. Right now, you're just doing
everything God says to do. But when you eat that fruit,
your eyes will be open, you'll be able to discern right from
wrong, and like God, you'll choose that which is right. Free will,
steps, Sin multiplied, Sennacherib. And he hasn't changed his tactics
ever since, has he? He's still doing the same thing. I'll say it again. The only thing
worse than breaking God's law is trying to atone for having
broken God's law. Verse two, and the king of Assyria
sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem under King Hezekiah
with a great army. The scripture tells us that one
third, Revelation chapter 12, that Satan, when he rebelled
against God, he took with him one third of all the angels in
heaven. So he's got a great army. And notice where Sennacherib
stations his army. And he stood by the conduit of
the upper pool. Now that was the waterway that
brought the water from the upper pool into the city. The conduit. Christ is that well of water. He said, if any man thirst, let
him come unto me. And I'll give him living water,
and out of his belly shall flow living water. And this he spoke
of the spirit which he would send. So the Holy Spirit is the
conduit by which the water of life is brought into the city.
And that's exactly where Sennacherib stations himself, casting aspersions
and doubts into the hearts of God's people. What do we say? Oh Lord, give us your spirit.
If I have not the spirit of God, I'm none of his. Lord, I'm completely
dependent upon your spirit to open the eyes of my understanding,
to cause me to believe, to give me hope and faith and rest in
Christ. I can't do it. It's expedient
for you that I go away. Isn't that what the Lord said?
It's necessary, it's good for you that I go away. For if I
go not away, the Comforter will not come. But when he comes,
When He comes, He will convict the world of sin, of righteousness,
and of judgment-of sin because they believe not on Me. O Lord,
help Thou mine unbelief, of righteousness because I go to my Father. I've
established your righteousness before God and of judgment because
the prince of this world is judged. When Christ Jesus, the Lord bowed
his mighty head on Calvary's cross and said, it is finished. Not only was righteousness established,
not only was judgment taken care of, but Satan was destroyed.
He was destroyed. We can't go back to works, can
we? And yet there's something in our flesh that keeps drawing
us in that direction. All the more reason for us to
have to hear the gospel. The world is in that direction.
My flesh is in that. Everything that I know believes
in steps and multiplies my sin by self-atonement. Everything. And so he stations himself by
the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the Fuller's
field. Now, what is a Fuller? A launderer. You remember when the Lord was
with Peter, James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration
and the veil of his humanity was taken away and the radiance
of his deity shined forth and the scripture says that his radiance
was so white that no fuller could make it that white. A fuller
is one who cleans your clothes. And there's an example of the
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ being the robe that the
father placed upon the prodigal when he came home. Bring the
robe and put it upon him. Why? Because he's righteous. He's perfect in my sight. And
we have to hear the gospel to believe that. Because if we looked
ourselves, we don't see any perfection at all. And so where does Sennacherib
station himself? At the conduit of the water going
from the pool into the city. Causing us to doubt the power
of God and to not rely upon... How much do we do that we do
not rely upon the Holy Spirit? I mean, we're so vain and presumptuous,
are we not? That's because Sennacherib has
stationed himself at the conduit. Causing us to think, well you
know, you can fix this. If you'll just take these steps
and if you'll just do this and stop doing that, you can make
it right. And so he stations himself at
the conduit and then he takes, then he goes to the fuller's
field. You can establish some value and worth and credit before
God based on what you do and what you don't do. And God says,
no, I can't. No, no, you can't. The robe of righteousness has
to be given to us. And there's only one righteousness.
Man at his very best state. The best prayer you've ever prayed.
The best thing you've ever done for anybody. the best thoughts
you ever had, the most selfless deed that you've ever performed,
God says is altogether vanity. Altogether vanity. Oh, there's so much in this story. Look at verse 3. Then came forth
unto him Eliakim, Hilkiah's son, which was over the house, and
Shebna the scribe, and Joah, Asaph's son, the recorder. So
these are the men who handled the word of God. Who come to
the servant, that was the cupbearer,
actually, Rapsaca, the cupbearer of Sennacherib, these men who
handle the scriptures go to him at the city wall. So they're
on the walls, Sennacherib's down here in the, you know, with his
army. And Rabshakas said unto them,
say ye now to Hezekiah, thus saith the great king, the king
of Assyria, what confidence is this wherein thou trusteth? Why are you having confidence?
Now he's going to accuse Hezekiah of two things. Number one, he
puts his confidence in Egypt. Number two, he puts his confidence
in the Lord. And Egypt is a picture of works. You know, when the children of
Israel were in slavery in Egypt, they were required to produce
a quota of bricks, and they could never, as soon as they got close
to measuring up to their quota, they increased the quota. And
if they got close to that, they took away their straw. You see,
that's the way the law is, isn't it? You can never measure up. What confidence is this? Are
we confident? See, most people would say that
we're being presumptuous. Let's go on, verse five. I say,
sayest thou, but they are but vain words. I have counsel and
strength for war. Here's what he's saying. You're
saying that you have counsel and strength for war? Now, on
what dost thou trust that thou rebellest against me? What are
you trusting in? You're rebelling against works,
against steps, against sin multiplied, self-atonement. Lo, thou trusteth
in the staff of broken reed on Egypt, whereon if a man lean,
it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king
of Egypt to all that trust in him. Yeah, don't try. You see, Hezekiah probably had
an alliance with Egypt, you know, and they had an agreement. They
had paid Egypt some tribute to say, you know, if the Assyrians
come against us, you guys come up from the south and help us.
And now the Assyrians are saying, you trust in Egypt, they're not
coming. They can't help you. And he speaks the truth. They
can't. But if thou say to me, we trust
in the Lord our God, is it not he whose high places and whose
altars Hezekiah have taken away and said to Judah and to Jerusalem,
you shall worship before this altar? Now Hezekiah, prior to Hezekiah
becoming king, the previous king had allowed the children of Israel
to set up altars all over Israel for convenience. God said, you
come to the temple and say, and make sacrifice here. This is
where I will meet with you. But out of convenience, they,
they, they started all these little, these little temples
all over the place. And Hezekiah knew that that was
a sin against God. And when destroyed every one
of them and told the people of Israel, you've got to come to
Jerusalem. If you're going to worship God.
This is where the sacrifice is. And now what is, what is, what
is a Sennacherib Rabshakai saying to Hezekiah? He said, you're,
you're, you're trusting in your God? You think that this is the
only place where God is? What is your beloved more than
our beloved? How is he so special? You think you're the only ones
that know God? It was a matter of intimidation.
I got a letter this week accusing me of not being loving,
not being a man of God, not being tolerant because of something
I did and said to offend someone's religion. You've offended my
religion. What they were saying was, you've
robbed me. If what you're saying is true,
you've robbed me of my hope. You remember when Nehemiah came
back from Babylonian captivity and started building the wall,
and Tobiah and Sanballat said, they kept sending
him letters, you know, come on down off that wall. Meet with
us in the valley of Ono. Surely we can find, the word
Ono means common. Surely we can find some common
ground where we can agree. And maybe we can just agree to
disagree on all the other stuff. No, Christ is not divided. But
have you been made to feel intimidated by Sennacherib and thinking,
you know, am I being overly confident or presumptuous or am I being
too narrow or too judgmental? You know, maybe the accusations
come and you have to think through them and you think, you know,
maybe I don't want to be too narrow, I don't want to be judgmental,
but I don't want to compromise the truth. And it's always been,
it was the Pharisees that hated Christ and that brought him to
the cross. Pilate didn't want to crucify
him. This is your own business. Pilate crucified Christ, number
one, because God ordained it to be so. But for his own sake,
I mean, he was just trying to keep peace in Jerusalem. He didn't
care about what he was teaching. Truth, what is truth? It was the Pharisees that caused
the disciples and the believers in the first century to have
to flee from Jerusalem, wasn't it? Why? Because the gospel threatens
men's religion because of its exclusivity, because of the narrowness
of it. Now, what is Rapshachi saying
to Hezekiah right now? You've destroyed all the other
temples. You think you've got the only place of worship. You're trusting in this God?
I mean, look at your God. How few are there of you? Surely
your God doesn't have We'll finish with verse eight.
Now, therefore give pledges. Now that word pledges is the
word hostages. It's the word hostages. Now here's
the enemy saying, give yourself, give us some hostages and we'll
give you your freedom. And what's the Lord say in Galatians
chapter 5? Stand fast in the liberty wherewith
Christ has made you free and be not entangled again with the
yoke of bondage. Don't go back to Egypt. Don't
go to Assyria. Don't try to atone for yourselves. Look to Christ, the only freedom. You see, you see, Sennacherib
offers them freedom. He offers them liberty. But it's
false freedom. There's no liberty. There's no
hope. There's no salvation in steps.
There's no salvation in atoning for your own sins. There's no
hope there. What did the Lord do with one
angel? And that one angel represents
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the angel of the Lord. And
what did He do? He killed 185,000 of them. One
night. One night. He woke up the next
day, 185,000 corpses. Dead. Lord, do that in my heart
for all the Sennacheribs and all the Assyrians and all the
thoughts and all the unbelief of my old flesh. and cause me
to find Christ to be all and in all. Brother Tom, number 27, let's
stand together in the hymns of grace, number 27. Free from the law's great curse,
in Jesus we are free. For Christ became a curse for
us and died upon the tree. The rituals of the law and all
the law's commands have been fulfilled in Christ the Lord,
established by His hands. No covenant with the law can
now with us exist. Complete in Christ we stand by
grace, both free and ever blessed. No more the dread of wrath, no
more constrained by fear. We worship and we serve our God
with gratitude and cheer In Jesus we are free In Jesus we are free
Free from all sin and from all guilt We live in liberty We'll
join the happy song With all the blood bought from And sing
the praises of the Lamb, Whose grace makes us His own. No experience.