"Lies of the Devil" Sermon: Isaiah 36:1-22

“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.