All right, if you can make your
way back over to Isaiah and have your, if you're
going to follow along, have your Bibles ready to turn back to
Psalms as well. So we'll be going back and forth
a little bit. But by way of introduction and It's kind of interesting how
things work, I guess, by way of thinking about it. We had the first two songs, and
Eric read those psalms, and they were upbeat, and then I ended
in a pretty negative place, and they were right to praise him,
and like, whoa, what? Kind of like a record screech
there a little bit. But it's providential. I listened to a message from
Joe, from 2 Chronicles, and if you remember the story from the
passage, they send out singers with no weapons at the front
of the army, and they're singing praise, praise him, so it's kind
of interesting. Here we have another case of
the people of God under attack. And providentially that song
was there. But let me give you a little
bit of background here. So as you're aware, as students
of scripture, there were only three kings in
a united Israel, Saul and David and Solomon and then we had a
split between the northern tribes which were known as Israel and
the southern tribes which were known as Judah and I didn't think
about it that much other than I've heard it said plenty of
times there were no good kings from the northern tribes over
there were good, or at least ones who tried to serve God from
the southern tribes, and King Hezekiah is one of those good
kings, one who wasn't perfect, but one who desired to serve
God. And at this point, the northern
tribes had been carried off into captivity, and as you Look at
what we have in our passage here. Like I said, I believe I said,
mentioned in 2 Kings and I believe it's 2 Chronicles as well, we
have essentially Judah surrounded in a city. They're under siege. And there
was a, apart from scripture, there was a common military doctrine
that was taken, and essentially it was, we want to take over
this territory without any bloodshed. So if we can use psychological
warfare, as it was, to cause people to give up then that's
what we'll do. And that's what we see in this
opening portion here in Isaiah 36. Sennacherib's commander,
the literal translation is used, or not even translation, transliteration
is used, the Rabshakeh, or something like that in the King James Version.
But this representative is going there and his goal is essentially
to psych the people out. And it was working to a degree
without getting into all the things leading up to this and
everything that could be brought into it. Hezekiah was in distress. That's what we see in Psalm 120
with the word distress being used there and then we made reference
to Isaiah 37 3 where Hezekiah says this day is a day of distress. We were talking about some of
the flooding that's going on out east, and we've certainly
had our own share of distress, but we haven't been, and I don't
want to downplay that, it sounds like I am when I put it this
way, but we haven't been completely, that I know of, surrounded by
enemy where they were essentially threatening to kill us off by
starvation or dehydration. That was the stress that was
there. And we aren't faced with the greatest military might known
to our day, literally camping outside the walls of our city. What was causing Hezekiah distress? What did he have to be stressed
about? It's fine, right? Well, I say that, but obviously
we know that there is going to be distress in a situation like
that. And the word is an interesting
word. It's one that talks about being
pressed externally, either by enemies, and or internally, by
wrong decisions or passions. You may have caught it in the
dialogue there, but essentially, in one of the questions that
asked and that we're going to use here, what are you basing your confidence
on here? You know, what's your move, Hezekiah,
he says, You know, what is causing you to rebel? What are you trusting
in? What are you depending on that
you decided to do this? And if you were to read the history
before this, you would see that Hezekiah had made some decisions.
So it wasn't just the external forces that Hezekiah was dealing
with, but he was dealing with what I think a lot of us deal
with when we are in these situations, the what-ifs. What if I wouldn't
have done this? What if I wouldn't have done
that? What am I thinking? And the commander here, the Reb
Sheka, knows that. There's belief that he had spies
inside of Jerusalem. It was either that or he was
just good at his job and knew human nature. But the title of this message
and the subject that I want to talk about is distress. And Joe always said you want
to have a catchy title. I don't know if this is catchy.
Distress Redressed. Distress Redressed or Distress
Remedied. I want to look at some of the
things a little bit more in depth that were causing Hezekiah distress
specifically with the assumption that the Psalms that we read
are related to what was going on here as well as some of the
surrounding verses. So I think the first thing, and
this isn't an exhaustive list, there's lots of things that can
cause stress or distress. But the first thing that caused
Hezekiah distress was those who mean us harm by their speech. Psalm 120, verses two and three,
when Eric read this, you may have caught this. Save me, O
Lord, from lying lips and deceitful tongue. And you might think,
well, what was lying here? I mean, a lot of what the commander
is saying here is true. Outwardly, it looks like Hezekiah
is up a creek without a paddle, or whatever term you want to
use. But like all unbelievers, the
rabshakeh, the commander, overplays his hand. And if you read down
here in Isaiah 36 verse seven. If you say to me, we are depending
on the Lord our God, isn't he the one whose high places and
altars Hezekiah removed? So there was a fundamental misunderstanding
of the religion of the people of Israel that allowed him to
make that Now, it's true that for years
and years, decades and decades, if not longer, Israel had this
false worship, even if they said it was directed towards the one
true God, and they would use the pagan idea of having a altar
or a high place other than at Jerusalem. And the lie that's
being told here is you can't even depend on God because you
didn't obey him. I think sometimes we have the
same sort of thing happen to us. There are people who say
to us, not believing sovereign grace the way we do. Well, God
loves everyone. How could you be so hateful that
you would not tell people that God loves them? How could you
be so hateful to say that Jesus is the only way to God? People have good intentions.
Why are you so narrow-minded? Well, we can see the lie. It
doesn't necessarily make it easy for us, as I don't think it made
it easy for Hezekiah in this situation. And he takes this
even further, verse 10, Have I come to attack and destroy
this land without the Lord? The Lord himself told me to do
this. Now a long time ago, I was going
to say in a galaxy far, far away, but a long time ago, I worked
at a workplace and there was a gentleman there who was fairly
learned in the things of scripture and he loved to take and twist
scripture and say, well God is, you say God tells you this about
this passage and he would say God tells me this. And maybe
it's in that way, maybe God did audibly speak to to the king of Assyria, I don't
know. We know, and I didn't read it,
we know that this turns out with God delivering Judah from the
snare of Assyria. But sometimes God will give a
command to an unbelieving nation only to destroy them. But other
times, and this is how I understand this, other times they'll just
straight up lie about it. You know, I understand you want
a word from the Lord. Here's your word from the Lord,
right? You want a hot tip? Stop this, you know, this sovereign
grace Jesus nonsense. You know, get with the program.
Look at all these other places and people who are going along
with where people are at today. Your religion needs to evolve.
The Lord told me this. Well, he goes further, and usually
people like this push themselves Even further, don't let, verse
15 in Isaiah 36, do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the
Lord when he says, the Lord will surely deliver us. And again,
providentially, watching a TV show, and the main character,
I'm not gonna mention the show, but this could probably be on
a lot of them, Religious in the Roman Catholic sense says, well,
God helps those who help themselves. What a utterly hopeless thing
to say as somebody who claims to believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ. I'm thankful I don't have to help myself. Now I get
it, I got up this morning, I didn't wait for God to miraculously
shower, feed me, dress me, and transport me down here, but I
did so all in the belief that if I was intended to come up
here and stand and preach Christ to you, that the only way that
I would be able to do so is by the sovereign grace of God. But
yet, here we have the world saying, don't let anybody say or persuade
you to trust in the Lord. So speech, unlike the common, sticks and
stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Well,
words can hurt. They can harm us. They can cause
us distress. Secondly here, I want to point
out the distress over conflict. I guess the captain obvious,
the obvious moment here is pointed out is that of the impending
conflict. And it's being used and manipulated
masterfully to try to get a decision out of Hezekiah to just give
up. But back in Psalm 120, even if you go back to verse
five, woe to me that I dwell in Meshech, that I live among
the tents of Kadar. Apparently those were warring
tribes. Those were well known in the
day of the psalmist as being people who loved to fight. So
woe to me that I dwell in, I can't pick on the US here, but I dwell
near the Russians and near the Chinese or whatever, however,
whatever, people you want to put there. Too long I have lived
among those who hate peace. I am a man of peace, but when
I speak, they are for war. And I'm sure Hezekiah, in fact,
a lot of his actions in stripping that we didn't read about, if
stripping the temple of its gold and silver and paying it as a
tribute to Assyria, he was just like, I just want peace. And
yet here's this army surrounding the city, having taken over all
the cities around Jerusalem, here they are camped out ready
to essentially carry them off into captivity. And I don't know if you caught
it, but they even mock be Old Testament promises. If you remember
from Joshua, part of what Joshua was to do was to take them into
a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of great provision. And down in verse 16 of Isaiah
36, he's like, I'll take you to a land like your own, a land
of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. I'm sorry
if you have to show up and persuade me with an army, I'm not guessing
you're taking me to the Four Seasons, right? I mean, you're
not taking me to a resort hotel. But he's bold enough to put it
that way. He's camped, like I said, without
a large army, and there's a little bit of trash talk back in Isaiah
36.9. actually back up in verse 8 essentially
what he's saying here is hey I'll give you 2,000 horses and
in those days that's like saying I'll give you 2,000 tanks you're
so weak you don't have enough people to even ride those horses
into combat. I'm paraphrasing what he's saying
he's like hey give it up We're going to crush you if you don't
do what we say. And he says in verse 9, how can
you repulse? How can you even stop us? I could
spot you, 2,000 horses, and you still would be in the hole. And of course, like I had already
read, multiple times he says, don't let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you. And if Hezekiah was in his right
thinking at the time, Hezekiah is probably thinking, right,
I can't deliver you. God has to deliver us in this
situation. But think of the level of stress
there. You're responsible. God has ordained
you as the leader of this special people of His. And here you are
thinking, all I want to do is the right thing. Maybe I made
some bad decisions. Here we are. And they're going
to kill us. They're going to take us off
into captivity. And the third thing, they're
not even trying to hide it. In verse 11, we have this phrase,
please speak to your servants in Aramaic. Don't speak to us
in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall. While they are related, they
are different languages, and at the time Most of the people
who were there would not have been able to speak Aramaic. As
time went on, what they say is during the time
of Jesus, Aramaic was probably more in use. But essentially
what he's saying here is, hey, don't air my dirty laundry in
a language the people can understand. And they were doing it on purpose. It was like broadcasting over
Radio America or whatever to another people. You speak in
their language so they can understand what you're saying. You don't
speak in Latin or in English if they don't understand either
one of those. You speak in their language.
But how often stress is one of those things, hey, don't bring
that up. I don't want anybody to know what our true situation
is. I don't want these people here
to know how bad things are. Just keep it covered up. And that definitely can cause
us stress when we think about our weaknesses being exposed
to others. And then lastly, as far as the
areas of distress, is distress over, essentially, our well-being. Our translation sanitizes a little
bit, but essentially, in a siege situation where water
and food from the outside was cut off, people would resort
to eating their own feces and drinking their own urine to try
to stay alive. And it was well known in those
days that that would be the plight of people if they were there
long enough. And essentially, it's being used
psychologically against them to say, hey, You resist long
enough, what are you going to do? You're going to be basically in a situation where
you have no choice but to do the thing you would never consider
in a million years otherwise. So what is our redress or remedy
for this? And I want to just use two points
from this passage from the unbelieving commander, or Reb Sheka, because
I think In the providence of God, his questions are the right
questions to ask. And they kind of dovetail into
each other, but I think that separating them out is helpful. So first of all, he asks in verse
5, on whom are you depending? And then in verse 4 he says,
on what can you base your confidence? Now, if we're honest, when we're
in a trial, under distress, we either try to depend on ourselves
or on our circumstances. But if you look back in Psalms,
Psalm 120, What it, who is Hezekiah if indeed
this is Hezekiah? Well he said, and he says in
the passage he does as well, I call on the Lord in my distress. And then verse two, save me O
Lord. When we're in stress, The thing
that should come to mind for the child of God every time,
but because of our weakness of our flesh, it doesn't, at least
it doesn't for me all the time, is God is on my side. And even if I don't survive this
particular situation, even if it doesn't turn out the way that
I think it needs to turn out, I need to call on the Lord. because
he is the only one who can deliver me in this trouble. Psalm 121, throughout,
but all this, verse one and two, where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord. And it goes on, the Lord watches
over you, the Lord will keep you, and so on. So who we should
depend on is God himself. But what about our confidence?
What is it about God that we can have confidence? Now, people overemphasize sometimes
what's called systematic theology, but there's definitely a benefit
in knowing who our God is and understanding that in context
for our troubles. What is it about God that we
can have confidence? Well in Psalm 121 he is the maker
of heaven and earth and in this last week I will disclose how old I am, or
kind of how old I am, in saying I think of them as contemporary
songs. One's probably about 15 years
old, and the other is probably 30 plus years old. And they both
reference Psalm 121. I mean, the first two verses
of this psalm are very well known. I lift my eyes to the hills,
Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord,
the maker of heaven and earth. And another song I didn't realize
they made reference to this, a little bit newer song, and
it's just those two verses. And it is true, God is the creator
of the universe. He created the heavens and the
earth. But unfortunately, those songs,
that's what they emphasize over and over again, and they miss
some other things that the psalmist and our passage don't miss. So he is the creator. Back over
to Isaiah, a passage, part of the passage I didn't read, but
it's part of some of the trials of Hezekiah that probably lended
to this passage being thought to be his. Later, after God had
delivered them from this impending invasion, Hezekiah fell ill in
chapter 38, and in verse 15 he says, but what can I say? He
has spoken to me, and he himself has done this. And the he who
he's speaking of is God, and he's saying God is sovereign.
I don't know what I would do if I thought the universe was
just contingent, you know, God has a vote, the devil has a vote,
and I had to cast, as it were, the deciding vote. We would be
doomed. But a God who is sovereign is
the God who Hezekiah took refuge in, and in the God that we should
take refuge in. And he's not just a sovereign
who's sitting outside, he's the grand watchmaker. Psalm 120 and
verse 1, he interacts, he answers me. He answers me. We might not like the answer,
but God is present in the universe. He knew and knows what will happen
in the future. He's here with us now, and he
guides us. what is happening in our universe.
Even when we are pressed so hard by enemies from without and decisions
from within that we just want to fall apart, God answers. And he's powerful. Psalm 121
verse 3 says, he will not let your foot slip. Verses three
and four, he doesn't slumber. And I think of that passage where,
you know, where's your God? I always mess this up. I think it's Elijah. Maybe it's
Elisha. It's like, is your God on the toilet? Is he sleeping?
You know, what's going on? Our God isn't sleeping. He's
awake. He's alive and well. He won't let our foot slip. He will keep us. verse 7 of Psalm 121. He will keep us from all harm,
and that doesn't mean that we won't have anything bad happen
to us, but what it means is that ultimately God will work in the
interest of those who belong to him by the blood of Christ. Something that a lot of people
don't think is a polite thing to bring up, but I think it's
important. In verses 3 and 4 of Psalm 120, what will he do to
you? And this is a psalmist speaking
to those with lying lips and deceitful tongues. And what more
beside, O deceitful tongue? He will punish you with a warrior's
sharp arrows, with burning coals, of the broom tree. God is just. He will punish evildoers. God is also, and again we're
going to draw from the Psalms here, verses 7 and 8, he's eternal. He will watch over your life,
not right now, only but he will watch out over your coming and
going both now and forevermore." What a great comfort that is. God isn't just gonna show up,
bail you out, and then leave. Hey, you're good now, right?
I didn't really wanna violate your personal sovereignty, but
now that I bailed you out, I'm gonna go. You got this from this
point. No, God is watching over our
lives, those of us who belong to him, those of us who are under
the blood of Christ. He's watching over our life now
and forever. One of the reasons we know that
heaven is permanent is because God doesn't stop watching over
us. And then, lastly but not least,
we saw it in Psalm 120. He says, save me. Now there is
that sense of what we call a temporal or timely deliverance that he's
talking about. But he is one who saves us. If you turn back over to Isaiah
38, 17. Isaiah 38, 17. Hezekiah, I believe,
reflecting back on all that had happened to him up to this point, says, surely It was for my benefit
that I suffered such anguish. Surely it was for my benefit
that I suffered such anguish. I know Romans 8 and 28 and following
come to mind in that. No one of us, and I certainly
don't pray for hard times to come, but the comfort that we
can find in these situations is that we can know if we belong
to the Lord Jesus Christ, if we've trusted by sovereign grace
and a miraculous work of regeneration where God causes us to be born
again and have faith in him. When we have trials, when we
have distress, when enemies are pressing us from the outside
and our bad decisions Our indecisions, our non-decisions are causing
us distress. Our remedy is that we can know
that God means all this for good. The anguish that we have in those
trials, whether they brought on from the outside or they come
from within, it is for our benefit. And I love
this passage, I have to confess, I probably have read through
this several times, and this didn't strike me as much as when
I read through it this time. Surely it was for my benefit
that I suffered such anguish. In your love, you kept me from
the pit of destruction, and you have put all my sins behind your
back. That's gospel truth there. The Father sent the Son to be
the Savior of the world and then he sent the Spirit of God to
renew our hearts and minds and it's in love that God keeps us
from that pit of destruction whether it's outside sinful influence
or inside sin that we've committed. In love, God keeps us from the
pit of destruction, child of God. In love, he keeps us from
the pit of destruction. And in love, he puts all of our
sins, not some of them, Not the ones that we, he doesn't exclude
the ones that we should have known better. You're a mature
Christian, you should have known better. No, he puts all of our
sins behind his back. As John Gill said, he removes
them as far as the east is from the west and no more to be seen
upon them, nor will they be set any more before his face or in
the light of his countenance, but as they are out of sight,
they will be out of mind, never more remembered, but forgotten. God, when he looks at you, who
belong to him, and when he looks at me, doesn't see our sin. He doesn't see all the things
that we've done that cause distress in our life. He sees Christ. He's forgotten all of our sins. He doesn't chastise, he won't
chastise us for them anymore, because as Gil wrote later on,
because Christ took them on himself and made satisfaction for them
and an end of them. That great exchange where Christ
has taken all of our sins upon himself and paid for them and
then in exchange has given us his righteousness, his holiness. We stand before God and we should be able to say
he has kept us by the grace of God from the pit of destruction.
Even if we don't survive our trials, even if evil befalls
us, he put all of our sins behind his back. I was hoping I came
across something here and it isn't in our hymnal. And it is a song that I just like
to read from in closing here. It's a shorter one, but it's
entitled, Oh Heart, Bereaved and Lonely. And I think it really
fits with this and the subject of distress. O heart bereaved
and lonely, whose brightest dreams have fled, whose hope, like summer
roses, are withered, crushed, and dead, though link by link
be broken and tears unseen may fall, look up amid thy sorrow
to him who knows it all. O cling to thy Redeemer. Thy Savior, brother, friend.
Believe and trust His promise to keep you till the end. Oh, watch and wait with patience
and question all you will. His arms of love and mercy are
round about thee still. Look up. The clouds are breaking. The storm will soon be o'er,
and thou shall reach the haven where sorrows are no more. Look up. Be not discouraged. Trust on whate'er befall. Remember,
oh, remember, thy Savior knows it all. Eric.