Isaiah 36

[calm music] October 7th, evening.

In whom do you now trust? Isaiah 36:5.

Reader, this is an important question.

Listen to the Christian's answer and see if it is yours.

Rather than just threatening them with death, he says he makes them an offer.

And he says, speaking on behalf of Sennacherib, he says, he says, and this is Isaiah 36, he says, "Make an agreement with me by a present.

Come out to me and eat, everyone, off the vine and from the fig tree, and drink the waters of your own cistern, and I will come and take you away to your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards." So he's offering his o- it's like a, it's like a, basically offering another, a second offer, a counterfeit offer of a promised land.

Mm-hmm.

Are they all hostile against, you know, God's people?

Oh, absolutely, and that's the thing.

And in fact, when you look in that chapter, it's amazing because repeatedly in that chapter, in Isaiah 36, they tell Isaiah, they're telling, uh, Hezekiah and Isaiah and then the Israelites, they say, "Don't call on God.

Don't pray to God." There's a...

Now there's a little context here.

The psalmist is likely remembering events that took place that are recorded back in Isaiah 36 and Isaiah 37, and you can also see it in 2 Kings 18 as well.

Events happening in Israel when a guy named Hezekiah was king.

I know a lot of you ladies are pregnant.

They're rolling through the known world at this time, conquering everyone.

And they end up rolling up to the gates of Jerusalem and laying siege to the city.

And you can read about this again in 2 Kings 18 and Isaiah 36.

And one of the ways that you would attack a city is you'd surround it.

And we're going to get into that in a minute.

But as we jump into Isaiah 38, one thing that we have to understand very clearly is Isaiah 38 is taking place at a different chronology than what we see Isaiah 36 and 37.

Okay, so let's go back to Hebrew storytelling because it's important.

We have two problems, main problems, when it comes to understanding biblical languages.

And what is the theme? The theme is that Hezekiah was a man who dedicated himself to go to the Lord in prayer when he saw encumbrances that he could not handle.

When he recognized that the situation in front of him was insurmountable, he went to the Lord.

Why do you think that Hezekiah went to the Lord with such determination and conviction, moral conviction in chapter 37 of Isaiah? Why is it do you think that in Isaiah 36, the men themselves who were being spoken to very aggressively by the commander of Assyria, why is it that they were able to maintain discipline and not say anything back to him? You remember the story? Let me show you one of the verses.

I love the way that it ends here because this is so, so important.

When it comes to God, the more you know something, the more dangerous it's getting.

so David comes gets to his brothers and but you know what the problem of David's brothers were they had been listening to Goliath for too long the bible says that Goliath had been preaching to them for 40 days okay he was preaching that's what some people don't know Goliath was actually preaching okay let's let's look at the bible go to the book of isaiah there's something i want to show you there the same Isaiah chapter 36 the same stories in 2nd Kings but let me read the one from Isaiah Isaiah chapter 36 let's read from verse 4 I want to read from verse 4 Isaiah 36 from verse 4 Now, there's a guy there called Rabshakeh, if you read the story, and he's from the Assyrians.

And his king had sent him to go to the Israelites.

Now, war is so simple.

The secretary went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and reported to him what the chief advisor had said.

Isaiah chapter 36 Chapter 36 Sennacherib Invades Judah In the 14th year of King Hezekiah's reign, King Sennacherib of Assyria marched up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

The king of Assyria sent his chief advisor from Lachesh to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem, along with a large army.

The chief advisor stood at the conduit of the upper pool that is located on the road to the field, where they wash in dry cloth.