“Lies of the Devil”
February 1, 2020 YouTube
Isaiah 36:1-22
As
we reach chapter thirty-six of Isaiah, we come to a historical text. We will remember that King Ahaz is at the
conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer’s Field – just as we
read now with King Hezekiah – and King Ahaz is shaken because Israel and Syria
are planning to attack Judah. Isaiah
comes to Ahaz and tells him that the Word of the Lord is to do nothing – wait
on the Lord – not to seek to make alliances and build up a force to fight Syria
and Israel. We remember that Ahaz does
not listen – he makes an alliance with Assyria and Egypt against Israel and
Syria. And the Assyrians defeat Syria
and Israel, and they push back the Egyptians, and then they turn their eyes on
conquering Judah. And that’s where we
are this morning.
And
what we want to understand from our text is the devil is a liar.
Jesus
condemned some of the Pharisees, saying, “You are of your father the devil, and
your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning,
and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he
lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of
lies” (John 8:44, ESV).
After
conquering Syria and Israel and pushing back the Egyptians, the Assyrians scrap
their alliance with Judah and turn to conquer them. They lied.
They always intended to lie.
Their father is the devil, because he is the father of lies. Even though King Hezekiah had rebelled by
refusing to continue to pay tribute to the Assyrians – the fact that they had to
pay tribute to the Assyrians shows that they lied and are no longer allies with
Judah.
We
pick up our text at the point when Assyria decides it is time to conquer Judah
outright. We read that in the fourteenth
year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib, the King of Assyria conquers all
the fortified cities of Judah. He breaks
down their walls and defeats the armed forces of Judah, and he turns his
attention to Jerusalem.
Sennacherib sends the Rabshakeh – a
high ranking military officer – with a large army – to deliver a message to
Hezekiah, King of Judah. And when the
Rabshakeh and the great army arrive at “the conduit of the upper pool on the
highway to the Washer's Field.” Hezekiah
sends three officials out to find out what he wants: “Eliakim the son of
Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son
of Asaph, the recorder.”
And here we have the first lie: you can’t trust God.
“And the Rabshakeh said to them, ‘Say
to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you
rest this trust of yours? Do you think that mere words are strategy and power
for war? In whom do you now trust, that you have rebelled against me? Behold,
you are trusting in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the
hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust
in him. But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ is it not he
whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to
Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?”
The Rabshakeh asks them if they
think they can rely on the word of Hezekiah to save them – and the answer is
“no.” The Rabshakeh is being truthful is
this assessment. They could not trust
the word of the good King, Hezekiah, because Hezekiah is a sinner.
Jeremiah writes, “Thus says the
LORD: ‘Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose
heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not
see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in
an uninhabited salt land’” (Jeremiah 17:5-6, ESV).
Jeremiah – on behalf of the Lord –
is not saying that there is never a man who does what he promises. He is saying that every human being
fails. Every human being sins. Even your pastor will fail you and sin against
God. So, to place any person as our
ultimate hope is doomed to failure.
Likewise, the Rabshakeh says that
you can’t trust the army – because the army is made up of sinful humans, and
other nations have better armies. A few chapters ago, we read, “Woe to those
who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because
they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to
the Holy One of Israel or consult the LORD!” (Isaiah 31:1, ESV).
Isaiah is not saying that it is
wrong for a country to have a strong military.
He is saying that if your trust is in your military above God, you will
fail. The greatest army on earth cannot
overturn the will of God. David writes,
“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the
LORD our God” (Psalm 20:7, ESV). That
doesn’t mean “our side” will always win.
It does mean that we must submit and trust our God in all things.
And the Rabshakeh says one more true
thing – you can’t trust Egypt – because the Egyptians are sinners, and because
the Assyrians broke Egypt and sent them home.
All three of these things are true,
but then he lies: you can’t trust God.
The Rabshakeh’s reasoning is that
Hezekiah tore down the high places.
What is he talking about?
God authorized worship in the Temple
in Jerusalem, but some said they were worshipping God through various “holy”
places and shrines in the high places dedicated to other gods. Hezekiah had these torn down because they
were not legitimate places of worship to God.
God was only to be worshipped in the Temple in Jerusalem.
So, the Rabshakeh has bought into
the idea that “it doesn’t matter what you call God, He is still the same
God.” You may have friends that say,
“God doesn’t care what religion or lack of religion we follow, so long as we
are good people.”
The problem with that is that God
says, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of
the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:2-3, ESV).
When Moses came down from the
mountain, he found the people worshipping a golden calf. Yet, listen to what comes before this: “And
he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and
made a golden calf. And they said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought
you up out of the land of Egypt!’ When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before
it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, ‘Tomorrow shall be a feast to the
LORD.’ And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and
brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up
to play” (Exodus 32:4-6, ESV).
Aaron, the High Priest, says, “We
are worshipping the Lord when we bow down and worship the golden calf.”
God says, “I am the only God and you
will worship Me the way I want to be worshipped and that is the end of the
story.”
So, the Rabshakeh is wrong. God can be trusted.
Again and again, we read in the
Psalms verses like this:
“In God I trust; I shall not be
afraid. What can man do to me?” (Psalm 56:11, ESV).
Jesus says, “And do not fear those
who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy
both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28, ESV).
Paul
writes, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or
distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it
is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are
regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than
conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life,
nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35-39, ESV).
We
can trust God because He is our Sovereign Savior Who loves us.
Then the Rabshakeh mocks them, “I’ll
make you a deal – so this is a fair fight:
I’ll give you two thousand horses for you to put warriors on, so you are
better able to fight us. But, oh, you
don’t have that many warriors do you.
You trusted in Egypt, and we took them out. And, besides, your God told me to destroy
you.”
The important thing for us to notice
here is that the Rabshakeh is right:
Judah did not have the warriors to fight and God did send the Assyrians
against Judah and Jerusalem.
And we might think, “Wait a minute,
didn’t you just quote Paul and say we can trust God because He is our Sovereign
Savior and loves us? How can that God
send an evil nation against His people to destroy them?”
Remember the history of Job. God sent the Chaldeans to steal from Job and
to kill. And in the end, Job is further
along in his sanctification.
God uses evil people to bring glory
to Himself and to discipline and grow His people.
And some of us will say that’s not
fair – it’s not just. And so, we ought
to consider whether God’s election of us – His choosing us out of the whole
damned race of humans is fair and just.
Then the three officials of Hezekiah
ask the Rabshakeh to stop talking in Hebrew, and to speak to them in Aramaic,
because everyone understands Hebrew, and they are going to scare the people of
Jerusalem. And the Rabshakeh says he
will speak in Hebrew because the people should know that soon they will be
drinking their own urine and eating their own dung.
And then the Rabshakeh voices the
second lie of the devil:
The God of Judah is no different
from any of the other gods.
“Beware
lest Hezekiah mislead you by saying, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’ Has any of the
gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?
Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have
they delivered Samaria out of my hand? Who among all the gods of these lands
have delivered their lands out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver
Jerusalem out of my hand?’”
I’ve already touched on this a
little bit, but the Rabshakeh says, “We defeated the gods of Hamath and Arpad
and Sepharvaim and Samaria – every god that has been called on has failed to
protect his people, and your God is no different. The God of Judah cannot deliver you from us.”
Is there any difference between the
gods of Hinduism and the gods of the ancient Roman and Greek religions and the
God of Judah – the Father of our Lord, Jesus, Christ?
We’re on Mars Hill, aren’t we?
“So
Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: ‘Men of Athens, I perceive
that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed
the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: “To
the unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to
you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and
earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands,
as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and
breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live
on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries
of their dwelling place, that they
should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is
actually not far from each one of us, for
“‘In him we live and move and have
our being’;
“as even some of your own poets have
said,
“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
“Being
then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold
or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The
times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to
repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in
righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given
assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:22-31, ESV),.
Yes,
our God is different from all the other gods, because our God created and
sustains everything that is and He alone provides the Only Way to be made right
with God through the work of His Son, Jesus.
How
do the three respond to these lies – that God cannot be trusted, and He is no
different from any other god?
Hezekiah
had told them to listen and not respond – so they didn’t say anything. But when they go back to report to the King,
they tear their clothes as a sign of distress and sorrow, and they tell the
King all that the Rabshakeh has said.
I
suspect that most of us have not had to face down an army and be told lies
about God in the form of intimidation – to get us to turn away from God and
give in to their threats and demands.
But
what if you are diagnosed with cancer?
What if someone tells lies about you?
What if your child or grandchild is in a car accident? What if our
President does something you disagree with?
Can
we trust that God is able to intervene and bring good out of these events? Maybe not what we want – maybe not in the
time we would prefer. But do we believe
that our God is Sovereign – the One Sovereign God – unlike every other God –
Who loves His people and promises, “And we know that for those who love God all
things work together for good, for those who are called according to his
purpose” (Romans 8:28, ESV).
Can
we believe that God is Who He has revealed Himself to be, and trust Him, even
if we don’t have any idea how things can be made right, and come to Him in
distress, heavy-laden with burdens, and fall before Him knowing that whatever
He answers is an answer in love?
It
may not be easy, but will you come to our God, trusting Him Alone, crying out,
knowing that He will answer in His Fatherly Love?
Let
us pray:
Almighty
God, we thank You for this example of the Assyrians coming against Jerusalem,
knowing that people still come against us, telling lies about You, trying to
get us to give in and give up. Loving
Father, strengthen us by the Holy Spirit that in whatever we suffer, we will
trust You whole-heartedly, knowing that You are the God unlike any other god –
the God Who sovereignly saves and loves us.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
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