“God Strikes”
[Isaiah 37:21-38]
February 17,
2020 YouTube
We
come to the end of the history of the attacks of the Assyrians on Jerusalem in
this morning’s text. We remember that
King Hezekiah of Judah sinned and made an alliance with Egypt to fight against the
Assyrians when God had said to trust Him alone.
At
the beginning of this chapter, the Assyrians have conquered all of Judah except
Jerusalem, and they are encamped around the city. The Rabshakeh speaks for the King of Assyria,
telling Hezekiah to give up or there will be death and destruction – there is
no one to trust – not even the God of Israel and Judah – Who is powerless at
the hands of the Assyrians.
And
so, Hezekiah calls for Isaiah – and prayers ascend to God: Hezekiah repents of his sin, and God assures
Hezekiah that he need not be afraid because God is mighty to deliver. Rather, we are to be preoccupied with God as
Hezekiah is – seeking His glory, following in faith and obedience.
Isaiah
again brings an answer to the prayers of Hezekiah and tells him:
First,
God will not be mocked.
“She
despises you, she scorns you— the virgin daughter of Zion; she wags her head behind
you— the daughter of Jerusalem.”
“Sennacherib,
the daughter of Jerusalem, the untouched – undefeated daughter of Jerusalem –
she despises you – scorns you – wags her head behind you. You have already lost in your desire the crush
Jerusalem.”
God
asks Sennacherib who he thinks he is mocking and reviling. Who does he think he is looking upon and
blaspheming? Jerusalem? Hezekiah?
“No, you have mocked and reviled and blasphemed
Me, the Holy One of Israel. Isaiah saw Me
in the Temple, high and lifted up, and he fell before me a penitent sinner, but
you have looked upon Me and blasphemed.
You say you conquered the mountains of Lebanon and cut down all their cedars
and cypresses, and you say you have drunk up all the water of the land and left
the people with nothing. Blasphemy!”
And someone might think, “Well, isn’t
this an overreaction? The Rabshakeh did
threaten and boast, but it was not all about the God of Israel. Sure, he said you can’t trust God and God is
the same as all the other gods, but how is all this boasting and threatening
before Jerusalem blasphemy against God?”
We find the answer in the fact that Christ
loves His Church:
Paul writes, “Husbands, love your
wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,” (Ephesians
5:25, ESV).
And Luke records Saul’s conversion, “But
Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord,
went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at
Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might
bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he went on his way, he approached
Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the
ground, he heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting
me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are
persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to
do’” (Acts 9:1-6, ESV).
What do we see? Since Christ died for the Church, anyone who
acts against the Church acts against God.
If you declare war on God’s people, you have declared war on God. If you make false representations about God
and what He has said to the people of God, you have blasphemed against God. Anyone who teaches that which is clear in the
Word of God and says it is not true, they have blasphemed against God. And God will not be mocked. He will take revenge for the Sake of His Name
and the Church who bears it.
Second, God is sovereign over the nations.
God rebukes the egotism of
Sennacherib:
“Who do you think ordained that you
would become the nation you are today? I
– the One True God – the God of Israel – ordained from before the foundation of
the world what has come to pass in your life, Sennacherib – and in the life of
the nation of Assyria. I am the One Who
enabled you to destroy walled cities. I
am the One Who enabled you to conquer peoples as though you were merely walking
over tender grass.
“I ordained everything that has happened,
and I know everything that will happen.
And you have the audacity to rage against Me? Because you have acted like a dumb and
vicious animal, I am going to put a hook in your nose and a bit in your mouth –
metaphorically – and I am going to send you home. And I will not let you come back!”
And some might raise the question,
“If God ordained the Assyrians to be the people they were and to do what they
did – even to blaspheme God, how can God hold them responsible?”
Jeremiah speaks to the Northern
Kingdom of Israel and explains God ‘s sovereignty over the nations:
“Then the word of the LORD came to
me: ‘O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares
the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O
house of Israel. If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom,
that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation,
concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the
disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a
nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight,
not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended
to do to it” (Jeremiah 18:5-10, ESV).
God is Holy, the Sovereign and
Creator of all, and does what He pleases with His creation.
And so, God raises up Assyria and
Sennacherib to accomplish His purposes, and in 702 B. C., the Assyrians
surround Jerusalem and threaten them and mock and blaspheme the One True God,
and God sends them back to Assyria, never to return.
Third, God will restore His people.
After telling them that the Assyrians
will be sent home, God comforts His people – the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and
promises to restore them – giving them a sign.
“And
this shall be the sign for you: this year you shall eat what grows of itself,
and in the second year what springs from that. Then in the third year sow and
reap, and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. And the surviving remnant of
the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. For
out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.”
God
tells Hezekiah that He knows that the Assyrians have trampled their fields so
they have nothing left to eat, and it’s too late to plant anything that will be
ready for harvest before the seasons change, so this year and next year, God
will cause the grain and the grapes to grow and to grow quickly enough that
they have enough food. The third year,
the people will be able to plant the fields and receive the harvest in due
time.
God
knows their need and does not fret about it.
He knows how to provide for His people.
He knows the timing and the abilities needed. God says, “For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts
than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9, ESV).
Sometimes
the best answer we can give when we don’t know what to do – and it the true
answer – is to say, “God knows.” “I have
no idea how I am going to get through this and get to where I want to be. I don’t know what to do.” But God knows. God knows better than we could ever know,
much less understand. And – as we have
said before – we might not like God’s answers for us – but here – the answer to
Jerusalem from God is, “I am driving the Assyrians back and I will grow your
crops for two years, and then you will be able to take over again.”
God
loves His people. God loves His people
so much God the Son became a human being so He could live and be offered up as
a sacrifice for sin to God that all we who believe would be reconciled to Him.
So,
God promises that the King of Assyria won’t set foot in Jerusalem – neither he
nor his armies will set foot in Jerusalem – not one arrow will fly into the
city, not one shield will be thrust against it, not one siege mount will be
built against it – not one structure to help the Assyrians over the wall will
be built. Rather, Sennacherib will go
home – they will all go home. They will
never, never, never enter into the city of Jerusalem.
Why
not? Because God Himself will defend the
city for His Own sake – for the sake of His Name – for His glory – “and for the
sake of my servant David.”
“Wait. What? ‘For
David’s sake?’ David has been dead for one hundred and thirty-five years – what
does this have to do with David?”
Remember,
David is promised that there will always be an heir to the Davidic throne. Throughout all of eternity, there will be a
son of David on the throne of God’s Kingdom.
As
we will remember, Gabriel comes to Mary, “And the angel said to her, ‘Do not be
afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive
in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be
great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give
to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of
Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:30-33, ESV).
God
is faithful, so God sent the Assyrians away for the sake of the promise God
made to David to always have an heir of David on the throne – culminating in
the Perfect Son of David, Jesus of Nazareth, God the Savior.
So, God strikes!
That
night, while the army of the Assyrians sleep snugly in their sleeping bags, the
angel of the Lord goes among the Assyrians and slaughters 185,000 of them, so
that when the others wake up, there are dead bodies all around them. “Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed
and returned home and lived at Nineveh.”
Sennacherib
and the army of the Assyrians were terrified, and they went home. God left some to go home and tell the story
in defeat and in embarrassment that the God of Israel could be trusted, and He
is different – far greater – than all of the other gods of the nations.
Now,
when we hear that he returned home and lived at such-and-such, we might think of
a twenty minute ride home from church.
That was not the case here. If
Sennacherib had a car and went on a pretty direct road from Jerusalem to Nineveh,
it would be 580 miles. In Googling
ancient army marches, it likely took them a good month to walk home.
Now,
that’s not the end of the story, because Sennacherib did not just go home and
later that month his sons kill him. No, historical
records show that Sennacherib was assassinated by his sons in 681 B. C. –
twenty years later. So, God prevented
Sennacherib from attacking Jerusalem for twenty years after the death of 185,00
soldiers at the hand of the angel of the Lord. Twenty years – that’s about a generation
– for the entire next generation – God kept the Assyrians away and then allowed
Sennacherib to be assassinated.
As
we noted last week: “And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god,
Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword. And after they
escaped into the land of Ararat, Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.”
God
restores and will restore His people.
Hezekiah and Jerusalem repented, God humiliated Sennacherib, sent him
back to his country, kept him away from Jerusalem for the next generation, and
then had him assassinated. And the
people were restored.
And
all we who believe will be restored. It
may be right away. It might be in two
years like with Jerusalem. It may not be
until the last day. But we will be
restored. After we have been
disciplined, after we have repented, after the devil has come after us, as
Peter says, “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace,
who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore,
confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and
ever. Amen” (I Peter 5:10-11, ESV).
Let
us pray:
Almighty
God and Father, You Who loves Your people so much that You sent Your Son to
save us eternally, help us to fear mocking You and using Your Name
wrongly. Help us to portray You to the
world as You are. Help us to trust You
as the Sovereign over all the nations and even each one of our lives. And help us to believe and have hope that
whatever happens to Your people, through sin and through the works of the
devil, You will restore us and welcome us into the Kingdom of Your Beloved Son
Who sits eternally on the throne of His Father, David. For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
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