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Wednesday, July 30, 2025
When the Enemy Attacks; Isaiah 36-37
I have always found the
Hezekiah stories interesting. He’s one
of those mixed bag Judean kings. He gets
rid of the high places and idols, emphasizing that the temple is the only
legitimate place to offer sacrifices to the Lord. He undoes a lot of the evil that his father
Ahaz had done. He worships the Lord, but
he also makes some pretty stupid mistakes, which we will see in the next couple
of weeks. In today’s story the
Rabshakeh, which means cup-bearer, comes to Jerusalem on behalf of King
Sennacherib of Assyria with a large army to threaten the people and try to get
them to make an alliance before it is too late.
Assyria has already defeated the Egyptians and several prominent Judean
cities. That alliance God said would
fail has fallen. The threat is real, and
they knew it was coming. They had been
given opportunities to repent, and they had not. In this story, I think there are some lessons
we can learn when we are threatened by enemies.
One good thing to do when the enemy attacks is to keep
your mouth and don’t escalate the situation.
The Rabshakeh’s insults are strong.
He attacks the King. He attacks
the Lord. He tries to put doubt in their
minds about Yahweh, insinuating that it is a bad thing that Hezekiah has
limited their place of worship. He
claims that Yahweh is the one who has told them to go up and destroy the land
and that Sennacherib and the Assyrians are the ones with Yahweh’s approval, and
it’s not a total lie. God has directed
them to go up and attack, but perhaps what he doesn’t know is that God has
already assured the Judeans that Assyria will not succeed. He tells of other conquests and how those
lands gods did not save them. He
threatens their lives with starvation and death. A lifetime ago, I was a 6th grade
teacher at Gramercy Christian School, and the Hezekiah stories were part of our
Bible curriculum. This story is a bit
spicy, and of course certain kids wanted to be the one to read particular
verses from the King James Version! I’m
sure it was spicier when Rabshakeh said it.
The leaders didn’t want the regular folk to understand what he was
saying, and so they asked him to speak in Aramaic instead of Judean, but
Rabshakeh doubles down on his insults.
I’m sure in more modern language it would be something like, “Eat sh—and
die.” In fact, if someone insults you in
this way, you can reply, “I didn’t know you could quote the Bible.” And then tell them this Bible story, and the
next thing you know you could be having a spiritual conversation with someone
who was an enemy and end up telling them about Jesus! Hey, you never know. But the leaders of Judah wisely do not
respond to the Rabshakeh. “They were
silent and answered him not a word according to the king’s command.” When you refuse to respond to threats, you
buy time. You don’t have to prove
anything. Reason doesn’t work when
emotions run high. Our tendency is to
get defensive. We even think we have to
defend God’s honor, but there are times for apologetics discourse, and there
are times to remain silent. Sometimes
the best thing we can initially do when an enemy threatens us is to remain calm
and not respond in haste.
The next good thing to do when the enemy threatens is to
turn to God’s word. The three return to
the king in mourning and despair. The
king also rends his garments in mourning, but he immediately, through these
same ambassadors, sends for Isaiah t, whom he knows speaks the Word of the Lord. Isaiah gives a reassuring word from the Lord
that the Lord will cause the Assyrian army to return to their own land, and
God’s answer is quite specific. When our
enemy threatens us, we can turn to God’s Word to hear a reassuring Word. God tells us again and again to not be
afraid, that He is with us no matter what, that He has and will overcome all
our enemies, that He holds us in His hands.
We have so many promises right here in this book. We can’t go and ask Isaiah in person what God
says, but we have God’s words through Isaiah written down for us, and not just
his but so many others have recorded God’s words for us in this book.
Another good thing to do when your enemy threatens is to
pray. Notice as Eliakim goes to Isaiah
on Hezekiah’s behalf, he asks Isaiah to pray for them. Hezekiah specifically says, “Perhaps the
Yahweh your God will hear.” Hezekiah’s
faith is weak. Although he has destroyed
all the false places of worship, his trust is not fully in Yahweh. Like his father, he still thinks of Yahweh as
Isaiah’s God, not his own, or it could just be that in the face of threat,
Hezekiah is in a place of doubt.
Friends, this is part of the reason the Church exists. We were not meant to face all the threats of
the world on our own. We need the
spiritual support of other believers.
When you have doubts, other believers can pray for you. It is a good thing to enlist others to pray
for you and your circumstances, especially when your faith is weak.
But we should also pray for ourselves. hen Hezekiah gets a letter back from King Sennacherib,
who had turned back, just as God promised, but who still threatened, Hezekiah
prays for himself and his nation. Look
at how Hezekiah prays. He takes the
threatening letter to the temple, spreads it on the floor and prays over
it. His requests are very specific. He asks God to pay attention. He tells the specific things that Sennacherib
and his army have done. We should be
specific and intentional in our prayers as well. Tell God what has happened and ask for His
intervention. In describing his circumstances,
Hezekiah realizes that some of his fears aren’t all that rational. As he talks about Assyria destroying the gods
of various nations, he realizes, “O, those gods are just manmade idols anyway. They don’t have any power. Of course their gods couldn’t save them, but
You the real God.” Naming our situation when
the enemy threatens us helps us to clarify it and what we need God to do about
it.
Notice that Hezekiah begins his prayer with praise. When the enemy threatens, we should begin our
prayers with praise. Praise reminds us
who God is. It helps us to remember
God’s power and presence. It reminds us
of the reality of God. Did you catch how
Hezekiah’s praise reflects his circumstances?
His praise of God is relevant to the threat at hand. He praises Yahweh as Yahweh of Hosts—Lord of
the Armies. This is a military threat,
but God’s got a mightier army. He lifts
up Yahweh as the God of Israel. This is
the God of his people, but then he goes on to praise God as not just the God of
Israel but the God over all, the only true God, the maker of heaven and
earth. Whatever threat we are facing, we
can praise God as being the One who can overcome that threat. If faced with a medical situation, we can
praise God for being the one who heals, the Great Physician, the one who saves,
the one who has power over life or death.
If we are faced with financial threat, we can praise God for being the
one who owns all things, the one who provides for all our needs. If we face natural disasters, we can praise
God for being Lord of Creation, the one whom the wind and waves obey, the One
who can walk on water, the one who sends rain from heaven, the one who draws a
line in the sand for the sea. Whatever
kinds of threats we may face, we can praise God in a way that reminds us that
He is in control and has all power against every enemy that may come against
us.
When petitioning God, Hezekiah gives the “why” for the
outcome he desires. Hezekiah asks for
deliverance, but he does so that, “all the kingdoms of the earth will know that
You alone, Yahweh, are God.” We need to
think about our petitions and tell God our “why”. What is the purpose of the outcome we
desire? It is just to solve a
problem? How does the answer we desire
play into the bigger part of God’s plan for the world? Maybe we ask God to deliver us for what God
wants to do through us to expand His kingdom.
Maybe we ask for God’s help so that in answering it can show an
unbelieving friend or even the enemy who threatens us who God is. Sometimes when I have come to the “why” of my
prayers, it has changed my request. I
realized that what I was praying for was completely self-centered. We are told to pray in accordance with God’s
will. The “why” of your prayer can very
often help you determine whether or not you are praying in accordance with
God’s will.
The story ends with God answering Hezekiah’s prayer. First God brings the word of promise through
Isaiah, and then we have the actual account of how that answer came to
pass.
God’s answer came in multiple
parts. The angel of the Lord, symbol of
the pre-Incarnate Christ, destroyed 185000 Assyrian soldiers, causing the
retreat of the army and Sennacherib to go back to his home in Nineveh. God promised the land would provide for them
for the next two years, taking care of all those who were faithful to the
Lord. God promised that a faithful
remnant would remain and continue to rise up.
Sennacherib was killed by 2 of his sons while he was worshipping his
false god 20 years later. When we ask in
confident faith according to the will of God, we can trust that God will answer
our prayers.
When the enemy threatens, remember, sometimes the best
thing to do is to keep your mouth shut.
You don’t have to respond to the threat.
Turn to God’s Word to see what God has already said about your situation. Ask others to pray for you. Pray for your situation remembering to praise
God in light of the threat you face. Be
specific about your situation. Remember
to not only ask the Lord for what you want God to do buy why you want God to
answer, so that you can pray in accordance with God’s will. Look for the answer, and remember to thank
God for it.
Wednesday, July 23, 2025
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