Now let's turn in our Bibles
to Isaiah chapter 36. Isaiah 36. The title of the message this
evening is in the form of a question. And it was a question that was
asked posed to the city of Jerusalem, to its officials and the whole
population essentially, it was asked by one of the most blasphemous
individuals that you'll ever read about in scripture. And
here's the question. On whom do we trust? On whom do we trust? And that's
a question that we ought to ask ourselves quite often. We're
going to see that here it was asked in the day of trouble.
Well, days of trouble are quite often, aren't they? And we asked,
on whom do we trust? I had Brother Stan read in Psalm
5, that portion of scripture where David was in trouble. David was surrounded by his enemies. Things seemed to be so out of
control for him, and they were for him, not for God, but for
him. And the last three verses of
that psalm express the theme of this message, where he says
in verse 11 of Psalm 5, But let all those that put their trust
in thee, that is, in God, rejoice. Let them ever shout for joy,
even in the day of trouble, because thou, God, defendest them. He is our defense. Let them also
that love thy name be joyful in thee, for thou, Lord, wilt
bless the righteous Why will He bless the righteous? Because
He's made them so. That's His people. That's the
ones for whom His Son died on the cross. And He said, Bless
the righteous, and with favor wilt thou compass, that is, crown,
but it's also surround him as with a shield. And so, on whom
do we trust? Now, chapter 36 and 37 of the
book of Isaiah, they go together. And these chapters record the
fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecies that he had given in the past.
First of all, Isaiah had prophesied that God would destroy Judah
through Assyria. Look at verse 1 of Isaiah 36.
He says, Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King
Hezekiah that Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all
the defensed cities of Judah and took them. So he was successful
up to this point, Sennacherib was, the Assyrian Empire. Well,
that was prophesied. Isaiah had told the king, he
told Ahaz, Hezekiah's father before him, he told the people
that this was going to happen. So it happened. And then secondly,
Isaiah had prophesied that Assyria was going to besiege Judah. the army of Assyria was going
to surround Jerusalem rather, the city of Jerusalem, the capital
city, and that's what's recorded here in most of the rest of this
chapter, that siege of Jerusalem and what took place with the
men on the walls of Jerusalem and with Sennacherib and his
ambassador who came to speak to Jerusalem. Thirdly, Isaiah
had prophesied, and thank God for this, that God, out of all
this trouble, that God would, without fail, according to His
promise and by His power, that God would deliver His faithful
remnant out of that trouble. Now, that's what chapter 37 is
about, which we'll get to next time, but we'll look into it
a little bit tonight, too. But God is faithful. to deliver
His people. He will never fail. He will never
forsake us. That's what David's psalm is
about there, isn't it? Psalm 5. He's never going to
forsake. No matter what happens now, no matter what, God's going
to deliver His people. He's made that promise and He's
never gone back on a promise. And you remember we talked quite
a bit, especially in light of Hebrews chapter 6, about God's
promise and God's oath. God made the promise, he's going
to keep his word, and God's engaged, he swore by himself, he's engaged
himself behind the fulfillment of that promise. God's behind
it. That's one way we could say it. You know, it's almost like
if somebody said, well, I'm going to give you a million dollars,
and you don't know them, and you don't trust them, and you
say, well, Bill Gates is behind it. You know, well, you know
he's got it. You know, if he's willing to
give it, you know. But God's behind this thing. So that's
what Isaiah prophesied, and it happened. And then fourthly,
God promised, and he prophesied through Isaiah, that Assyria
will be destroyed. And that's what the last part
of chapter 37 is about. God's threats and God's promises
always come true. There's never been one that's
failed. God is true and faithful to all His promises. Now, why
is that so important? Brother Bill read in the study,
Lamentations chapter 3, that's where you see that great phrase
that says, great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. Why
is that so important? Well, it's important because
it shows us that not only can we have confidence in God for
salvation, But it also shows that it's the highest blasphemy
and sin not to have confidence in God. That's why unbelief is
such a heinous sin. That's why it's the root of all
evil. To not believe God? Is there any reason that we should
not believe God? And the answer is absolutely
not. You may have reason not to believe me in certain areas
or not to believe each other in certain areas. We may have
every good intention of keeping all our promises, but we may
not have the ability. We may not foresee all the obstacles. We may not have all the means
that we think we have. But not God. Great is thy faithfulness. He said there in Lamentations
3, before he said, Great is thy faithfulness, listen to this.
You didn't know I had this in my message. I know that. But
it's right here. So we're thinking on the same
lines. But here it is. It's of the Lord's
mercies that we're not consumed. Now, what kind of mercies are
those? Well, the psalmist said in one
place, they are the sure mercies of David. Isaiah said that. The
sure mercies of David. And it says, because his compassions
fail not. They are new every morning. In
other words, there's not a day goes by that God is not faithful
to preserve us and protect us, to keep us. Not a day goes by. Now, we may have a bad day. We
may have a day where things just seem to go out of whack, you
know. But God's – listen, everything's right in order now. And this
is when He says, great is thy faithfulness. Now, this certainly
ought to drive our minds and our hearts to understand Even
more so, the faithfulness of God to save us from our sins
in Christ. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians
1, verse 20, For all the promises of God in Christ, in Him, are
yea, and in Him, amen, unto the glory of God by us. Every promise
that God made to His people is fulfilled and secured by the
Lord Jesus Christ in His obedience unto death. so that we can honestly
and with confidence say, we're blessed with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ. Now, the events of these chapters
are recorded, as I've said several times as we've gone through these
prophecies, in 2 Kings chapters 18 and 19 and 2 Chronicles 32. In fact, chapter 36 and 37 of
Isaiah sort of reads almost like a carbon copy of those. So you
can see that the history of these from the kingly point of view
and from the priestly point of view. Chronicles being the priestly
point of view, Kings being the kingly point of view. And it's
not that one's political and one's religious. It's just from
different points of view, but it's the same message. God is
faithful. God is faithful. Now, on whom
do we trust? Let's look at these verses for
a moment. Here, about 700 B.C. is when
this took place. And here's King Hezekiah. The
king of Judah, he's the one who sits on David's throne. We've
seen how many times, over and over again, how we see these
things play out according to God's purpose, according to God's
plan. That the scepter is not going
to depart from Judah until Shiloh comes, until Christ comes. And
here's this king, who is a type of Christ, sitting on the throne
of David, ruling and reigning in Jerusalem. Now, not every
king was a good king, of even Judah. We know all the kings
of the northern kingdom were evil, wicked kings. They were
unbelievers. They were idolaters. They did not do that which is
right inside of God. But there were a few kings in
Judah who did, and Hezekiah was one of them. He was a godly king.
He worked hard to reform the nation that his father Ahaz had
brought into utter idolatry. He worked hard to reestablish
the worship of God in the nation. Sometimes he wasn't too successful.
In the end, we see that he wasn't. But he did tear down the altars
of idolatry. He tore down the high places.
Anytime you read in the Old Testament about the altars and the high
places, that's idolatry. The place of worship was in the
temple, in the holiest of all, through the high priest, through
the Levitical priest. They typified Christ. Man's way
was always the high places. Man's way was always the man-made
altar. Sometimes Jeremiah, he referred
to the prophets of the groves. That's what he's talking about,
idolatry. They went to the high places and to the groves. They
were in the religion of Cain, worshiping the works of their
own hands. But Hezekiah wouldn't have it. As the king of Judah,
he led the people in the worship of God. But listen now, just
because the worship is right doesn't mean that there's not
going to be days of trouble and days of testing. For here we
see Jerusalem is under siege. Back in Isaiah chapter 1, this
whole thing, a prophecy of Isaiah opened up describing Jerusalem
and Judah as a city and a country under siege. Let me read this
to you. This is symbolic language, rather, but he says it here in
verse 7. He says, your country is desolate.
Your cities are burned with fire. Your land, strangers devoured. That's what's taking place when
the Assyrian Empire and the army comes through Judah, and they
took these cities. He says, they devoured in your
presence. It means like it's an in-your-face kind of way of
dealing with things. They're not hiding. They're not
sneaking around. They're just coming up, bearing the sword,
and taking it. And he says, "...and is desolate,
as overthrown by strangers." Now, this is through the reign
of Ahaz also, you see. And he says, and the daughter
of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in
a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city, and he says in verse 9,
except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant,
we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like
unto Gomorrah. God has a remnant. Now, we're seeing this play out
right here in Isaiah 36 and 37. Now, the Egyptians had already
been defeated. Back over in chapter 31, we read
about that. You remember Ahaz and his bunch,
they wanted to make alliances with Egypt because Egypt had
horses. They had chariots, you see. They
saw strength in horses and chariots. There's no strength in those
things. There's only strength in the Lord. There's only power
in the Lord. So Egypt had already been defeated. So here in this
passage, Isaiah 36, Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, He sends
one who is known by the title of Rabshakeh. Rabshakeh. Now that's probably not a proper
name. It's probably a title. It means one high in office. So it's one of the king's right-hand
men. Somebody that he trusted and
somebody who represented this king of Assyria. And Sennacherib
sent this man, Rabshakeh, to demand the surrender of Jerusalem. And he met with the Jewish officials
that Hezekiah sent to him in the same place. And this is something. He met him in the very same place
that Isaiah had met with King Ahaz years earlier and warned
him about this. Warned him about it. The very
same place. And Ahaz, this is the place where
Ahaz rejected the promise of God. and decided to put his own
faith in Assyria rather than God. Now, on whom do you trust? Don't trust your enemies. It's
called the conduit of the upper pool here. It's an aqueduct.
It was the water supply of Jerusalem. And people of Jerusalem trusted
in that rather than the Lord. Isaiah 22 speaks of it. It's
always something, how all these things come back around. You've
heard that old saying, what goes around comes around. Well, here
it's coming around. Now, the Assyrian army had the
city surrounded, and all supplies had been cut off, and all the
people of Jerusalem sat upon the walls of the city to hear
what Rabshakeh had to say. Look at it again. Look at verse
2. He says, The king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to
Jerusalem unto King Hezekiah with a great army. And he stood
by the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's
field. That's the place where Isaiah had met with Ahaz and
warned him about this. Warned him what was coming. Don't
put your trust in Assyria. Don't put your trust in Egypt.
And so right here we are again. And it says, Then came forth
unto him Eliakim, Hilkiah's son, which was over the house, that
is, over the house of Hezekiah, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah,
Asaph's son, the recorder. He was the secretary. And these
were men that Hezekiah trusted in, and he sent them out to hear
what Rabshakeh was going to say. Well, beginning at verse 4 now
and through verse 10, notice Rabshakeh's language. Now, he's
going to speak to these men. And I want you to notice something
that's real interesting here. Notice how Rabshakeh's method
and his language is in the same method and message that's similar
to Satan's way of dealing with things. His message is satanic. His message is basically, don't
trust the Lord, and the Lord is on our side. This is this
man from Assyria saying this. Now, Assyria was an idolatrous
nation. But you know, back then, it was common in those eastern
empires, when they conquered a country, they felt like the
gods of that country came over to be on their side. And so now
he's saying, your Lord, Israel, Judah, is now on our side. And
the proof of that is, look at the devastation. Look, we've
won. We're strong and you're weak. We've got you surrounded.
You've had it. That's what he's saying. So your
God's on our side. So he's speaking a satanic message. You know Satan's minister. And
he even speaks in the language of the Judeans. And that scares
them to death. The reason he does that is because
he wants not just these ambassadors to hear what he has to say. He
wants everybody to hear it. In fact, they even beg him. They
say, don't speak in our language. Speak in your language. We understand
Assyrian. They say, we don't want everybody
to hear this. You know, that's the way Satan
does. He can speak the right language for a little while,
and it'll scare you to death. 2 Corinthians chapter 11 says
that when Paul writes to them, he says, marvel not that Satan's
ministers are transformed into angels of light. They can speak
the language of grace for a time. They can say right things for
a time. I've heard people say, they'll hear somebody on TV or
hear somebody, they say, well, that was a good message, you
know. Well, and I hope it continues to be. But you have to understand
is that what Satan's ministers will not do, they will not stay
with that message. Because they're transforming.
The word that Paul used there in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 is
a word of temporary change. It won't be long, they'll change
back. They can't stay with the message of God's grace in Christ.
Well, look at this in verse 4. Notice how Rabshakeh's message
is like, when Rabshakeh spoke, He refused to speak his own language.
He said, And Rabshakeh said unto them, Say ye now to Hezekiah,
now you take this message to your king, Thus saith the great
king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this wherein thou
trustest? Why are you doing this? Why are
you trying to stand firm and defend your city? What do you
have confidence in? I mean, you look around Here's
the Assyrian army with all their power and all their numbers,
all their weapons, and you look at Jerusalem and you don't see
anything worth anything. So where's your confidence? And
he says in verse 5, I say, sayest thou, but they are but vain words. I have counsel and strength for
war. This is Rabshakeh. Now, he's
bragging. He's boasting in his power. It's like Satan's false
preachers do. They want to talk about what
they've done for God or what God's enabled them to do. I have
power. I have counsel, strength for
war. Now, on whom dost thou trust? Now, who are you trusting? Who
am I trusting? On whom do we trust? There's
the issue, isn't it? Where's your faith? Where's your
confidence? Where's your glory? Rabshakeh
wants to know. That's right. He wants to know. And he says, that thou rebellest
against me. Where is your confidence that
you rebel against me? Who are you trusting in that
you rebel against Sennacherib and this army? He says in verse
6, lo thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed on Egypt.
Are you trusting in Egypt? They're gone. That's a broken
reed. That's a staff of a broken ring, whereon if a man lean,
it will go into his hand and pierce it. If you lean on it,
it will go right through your hand and pierce you. He says, so was
Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him. Pharaoh's
nothing. Think about that. I mean, this man had some, and
you know what? He was right. Pharaoh was nothing. He says in verse 7, now listen
to this, he says, but if thou say to me, we trust in the Lord
our God, Now listen to him. Here's Satan's way. He says,
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 altar? Now you're saying you trust in
the Lord God. Listen. He said, Wasn't it the
Lord God that Hezekiah tore down his altars and his high places?
You know what he's saying here now. He's taking the Lord God
and putting him in the same category as idols. That's what Radshek
is doing here. We're all worshiping the same
God, we're just going different ways. Have you ever heard that?
That's the kind of logic this man is using. That's satanic.
No, sir. If there's one God, there's one
way. And that one way is Christ and
Him crucified. And he says, now, don't trust
in Hezekiah. Now, here's what he does. He goes after the king.
He tries to discredit Hezekiah. Now, that's Satan's way, too.
He'll try to discredit God's ministers, God's ambassadors. And he says, you're trusting
in the Lord. And he argues that when Hezekiah
tore down the idolatrous high places and altars that his father
Ahazad built, he rebelled against God. In other words, he's saying,
God's on our side. Hezekiah is the rebel. Now we
know that's not so, because God had already stated in the Law
of Moses, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt
not make any graven image. There's one God and one way to
go. One God and one mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus. And so he starts bringing that
in. And then he says in verse 8, he says, now therefore give
pledges, I pray thee, to my master, the king of Assyria. Give service. and give credit to him, and gifts
to him. And he said, now here's what
I'll give you. He said, I'll give you 2,000 horses if thou
be able on thy part to set riders on them. He said, I'll give you
2,000 horses if you have the riders to put on them. So what
does he do? Well, he tries to offer them
something better. And that's the way Satan does,
too. See, in his false message of salvation by works, he tells
people they'll have something better than what God, by grace,
can give them. Now, what would we talk about
that would be anything better than what God has given us in
his Son? Because if we have Christ, now
listen to me, if we have Christ, don't we have it all? I mean,
is there anything missing that we have to make up? Not so. But Rabshakeh says, there he
is now, and he says in verse 9, look at it, he says, how then
wilt thou turn away the face of one captain of the least of
my master's servant, and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots
and for horsemen? And am I now come up without
the Lord against this land to destroy it? The Lord said unto
me, the Lord said unto me, go up against this land and destroy
it. We're here by commission from the Lord. Well, don't Satan's
ministers say the same thing? I hear these preachers on TV,
they'll even look up in the air and act like they're talking
to God for people. God just told me that. I heard one of them
say one time, he looked up and he said, wait a minute, Lord,
I'm getting to that. And I thought, my soul. You know, I know God
doesn't open up the ground and swallow people these days, but
I thought it might happen then. Let me tell you something. If
you have a message from God, it's going to come from this
book right here. And it's going to, listen, it's
going to exalt God in His sovereign, holy, gracious mercy. It's going to put us in the dust
where we belong, and it's going to praise and exalt and cause
a sinner to trust only in Christ and Him crucified. Nothing else will do. Well, verse
11 of Isaiah 36. Now, Rabshakeh, here he begins
what is known as one of the most famous blasphemies in history. It goes all the way down to verse
20 or 21, I think, or 20. And he speaks here, and later,
as if the true and living God was like the false gods of other
nations that they had conquered. Now, we've conquered Judah. Now,
your God's on our side. We're here by commission of God.
And he speaks it in the language of the Judeans, so that everybody
can hear. And that scares Shebna, scares
Eliakim and Joah, and they beg him to speak in the Assyrian
tongue. He said, we understand that,
just talk in your own language. Their understanding of the whole
issue was wrong at that time. They just didn't want to scare
the people. And he issues forth some of the
most blasphemous language. The Jews, some of them, wouldn't
even read these passages in public because it was embarrassing how
bad it is. He essentially tells Judah, he
says, now listen, he says, it's going to get so bad for you if
you don't do what I say and if you don't give in and surrender,
it's going to get so bad for you that you'll have to feast
upon your own waste. in order to survive. And he doesn't
use pretty language to describe that. That's how blasphemous
this man is publicly, openly. And then he goes after Hezekiah
again. He starts on Hezekiah. He says
Hezekiah, he wants to bring the people to doubt the king. And
that's the way false religion is. They want us to doubt our
Savior. I know they don't say it that
way. It doesn't come out that way, but now listen to me. Listen
to me. If Christ, if you preach a message
that communicates that Christ has not secured the whole salvation
and blessedness of his people under glory, that's exactly what
you're doing. You're discrediting him and his
finished work. He either did it all or he did
none of it. To preach a salvation that's
part God and part man, part Christ and part man, is to discredit
him. It's to say he has not done enough.
He didn't get the job done. You better get busy. And that's
the kind of logic he's using. So he wants to discredit Hezekiah,
and he wanted to instill fear that would cause them to surrender.
He wanted to sow discord among the brethren. Look at verse 14.
He says, Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you,
for he shall not be able to deliver you. He says, Neither let Hezekiah
make you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver
us. This city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of
Assyria. That's what he's saying. Don't let Hezekiah tell you that.
Verse 16, Harken not to Hezekiah, for thus saith the king of Assyria,
Make an agreement with me by a present, that is, by a gift,
a token, and come out to me, and eat ye every one of his vine,
and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one of the
waters of his own cistern. Health and wealth. Gospel. 17,
he says, "'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. Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out
of the hand of the king of Assyria?' In other words, none of those
other gods could deliver these other nations that we've conquered.
What makes you think that your god can?" Then he says, where are the gods
of Hamath and Arphat? These are places they conquer.
Verse 20, he says, who are they among all the gods of these lands
that have delivered their hand out of my hand, that the Lord
should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? Sowing discord, discrediting
God's people. Satan often tempts men and women
to acts of unbelief and disobedience by promising them better circumstances.
We're going to conquer you, he said, but we're going to take
you somewhere better. Jeremiah said, in his day, believe
them not, though they speak fair words unto thee. Well, look at
verse 21. But they held their peace. Now,
this is Eliakim and Shebna and Joab, the ambassadors of King
Hezekiah. They held their peace and answered
him not a word, for the king's commandment was, say, answer
him not. Hezekiah's servants held their
peace because that's what Hezekiah said to do, because, you know,
The rebuke is going to come from the Lord. And I like that. The Lord rebuke thee. Wise men leave it to God to stop
the mouths of the enemies. The Bible says, Answer not a
fool according to his folly. And this was certainly foolishness
proceeding forth from the mouth of Rabshak. When you answer railing
with railing, that's fleshling. It never serves any useful purpose.
The way to answer railing accusations is with quiet confidence in God. God's Word. Well, later on, Hezekiah
sends Eliakim and Shebna and the elders of the priests to
Isaiah to hear God's Word from the prophet. Now, we're going
to get into this next week, but let me just give you this preview.
Eliakim and Hilkiah and Shebna, they They rent their clothes. They tore their clothes. That
was a sign of sorrow and repentance. God has been blasphemed. And
it says in verse 1 of chapter 37, it came to pass when King
Hezekiah heard it, then he rent his clothes and he covered himself
with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord. He went
to pray. He went to God. That's where he went. And then
he sent these men to go to Isaiah, God's prophet, and get a word
from God. And it says there, look at verse
3, it says, And they said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, This
day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy.
For the children are come to birth, and there is no strength
to bring forth. What are we going to do? Well,
in whom do you trust? What do you say? And we're going
to see that Hezekiah trusted the Lord God. Who do we trust
in the day of trouble? Who do we trust in the day of
salvation? Who do we trust in the day of trial? Well, we trust
God, our Heavenly Father. If we come to God pleading the
marriage of Christ, person and finished work, we know that God
is for us. That's what the scripture says.
God is for us. And the reason we know that if
we come before God in Christ, we know He's for us because it
honors Him. It exalts Him. It doesn't blaspheme
Him. It doesn't discredit Him. It
doesn't misrepresent Him. It shows Him forth in His Shekinah
glory, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We can
say it over and over again, and I love to hear it, who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who is He that condemneth? It's
Christ that died. Yea, rather He's risen again
and seated at the right hand of the Father. We trust in God,
our Heavenly Father, who loves us, who bought us, lock, stock,
and barrel, who chose us, redeems us, who keeps us, who covers
us, who protects us. We trust God the Son incarnate,
our Savior. We trust Him as our Redeemer,
for He paid the full price. I want to read once again one
of my favorite passages of Scripture for you in Revelation 12. Whenever
Satan and his minions, whether they be Rav Shecka or somebody
today, come up against the people of God with their accusations
that they think will reach and be accounted to the people of
God. In the form of Satan, that great
dragon, verse 9, who was cast out, that old serpent called
the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world, he was cast
out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him. And I
heard a voice, I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now has
come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the
power of his Christ. We don't trust in our own power
to redeem ourselves, we trust in the power of Christ. For the
accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before
our God day and night, and they overcame him by the blood of
the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved
not their lives unto death." Just plead the blood of the Lamb.
That's all. Trusting Jesus. That is all. You know, when you sing that
song, when I used to sing that song, I said, that's too simple. That's
just too simple. No. Trusting Jesus. For he is all." That's enough. They overcame Satan. Think about
how powerful Satan, think about how powerful Rabshakeh and the
Assyrian Empire was. Well, they're invincible. Think
about how powerful Satan is. What do we have to do? Just plead
the blood of the Lamb. That's it. Plead the blood of
Christ. Just don't try to answer Him
yourself, just let God speak. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's will? Who can condemn us? That's it. We trust our Savior. He is my
Savior. He saved me from my sins. He
saved me from Satan. He saved me from death. He saved
me from the curse of the law. He's my intercessor. He's right
now praying for me, and He never stops. That's right. Christ! He's at the right hand
of the throne of His Father, praying for His people, every
one of us who know Him and whom He knows. He's my preserver. He's able to save me to the uttermost. That's to the nth degree that
come unto God by Him. He's my provider. He's all I
need and He gives me all I need. He's my protector. He keeps me
safe from all harm. He's my advocate. He pleads my
cause. And He's Jesus Christ the righteous.
And He's the propitiation for my sins. He's my judge. And He judges me according to
truth. And somebody accuses me. They think they know me. They
don't know the half of it. But He knows it all. And He's
my judge. And let me tell you something,
he took all my punishment under the judgment of God for my sins,
and he satisfied the justice of God on my behalf, and he made
me righteous in the sight of God, so that I can say, hearing
as our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day
of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. I don't
have to be ashamed of my good works, for I have none. He is
my goodness. I don't have to be ashamed of
my righteousness. I don't have any. He's my righteousness. And he's all I need. And I'll
tell you what, we trust God, the Holy Spirit, our comforter.
He convicts me of sin. He constantly shows me my sin
and he won't let up. But you know what? That's good.
That's a good thing. Somebody said one time, I get
tired of hearing about how much of a sinner I am. Will you get
tired of hearing the comforter speak? Because that's what he
does. But thank God he doesn't leave
us there. He convicts us of righteousness. He convinces us of our sin only
to drive us to Christ, the Savior from our sins. He convicts us of judgment. He
leads us to Christ. He glorifies our Savior, and
that warms our hearts, and that comforts our hearts, and that
assures our hearts. He subdues my will. He enlightens
my understanding. He checks my passions. He strengthens
me in weakness. He preserves me in trouble. He
comforts me in sorrow. And He guides me in His way by
His Word. And then we trust God's Word.
I like that again, what we read there in verse 21, that they
answered Him not a word. You see, it takes God's Word
to deal in these situations, doesn't it? Man's Word just won't
do. Man's opinions and philosophies
Theologies and wisdom just won't do here. It takes the Word of
God. Well, how do we see the Word
of God? First of all, number one, first
and foremost, Christ himself is the living Word of God. Secondly, Christ himself is the
incarnate Word of God. He was made flesh. He identified
with his people without sin. The Bible is the written Word
of God. This is our sword right here. This is the sword of the
Lord. That's why we need to study,
to show ourselves approved unto God, workmen that needeth not
to be ashamed, rightly dividing this word of truth. The gospel
is the preached word of God, which tells us of the grace of
God. And then lastly, we trust God's way. Trust His way. Now, I imagine if Hezekiah here,
if he called forth these wise men of Judah, or of Jerusalem,
And he says, now I need some ideas, folks. What are we going
to do? I need some information. I need
some advice. I imagine they would have come
up with all kinds of different ideas, all kinds of ways to deal.
Probably most of them said, well, we just better surrender. We
better just give in. We're surrounded. But you see,
that's not God's way. God's way is not a way of defeat.
God's way is a way of salvation. It's a way of deliverance. And
Christ is that way. He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. And then
we trust God's way of worship. Do you remember it said here
that Hezekiah, before all this took place, that he tore down
the high places, he tore down the altars. In verse 7 there
it says, you shall worship before this altar. What altar? God's altar. The altar of sacrifice. The burnt offering. where the
blood was shed and collected and given to the high priest
and taken into the holy of holies and spread on the mercy seat.
That's God's way of worship. Man has their different ways
and their ideas and they'll entertain and they'll draw a crowd, but
it's not God's way. What is God's way? Preaching
Christ to his people and letting them feed upon his word. Feast
upon it. And then we trust God's way of
providence. Now that's a toughie. We don't know what an hour is
going to hold. We don't know what we're going
to face tomorrow. We don't know what information we're going
to hear, whether it be from a doctor, from a financial advisor, from
whatever, from one of our children. Tomorrow could be the most disastrous
day of our lives. Do you realize that? You think
about that. You say, well, I don't think
it's going to be. You don't know, and I don't either. You say,
well, couldn't get any worse. I used to hear a man all the
time say, well, couldn't get any worse than it is. Oh, yes, it could.
Just hold on. We just don't know on whom do
we trust. Where is our hope? Where is our
salvation? I'll tell you what it is. It's
this. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. and lean not
unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him,
and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes,
fear the Lord," that means worship him, trust, and depart from evil. Amen. I dropped my paper, Joe. $3.59.
Thank you. $3.59. My faith looks up to thee. That's
359.