Chapter 5

The Certainty of God’s Victory

(Isaiah 36—37)

Mark Dever

Things look bad right now.

The evil and bitter nature of sin presses us on every side. We contend with our own sin. Problems in our churches occupy us, such as false teachers who go unopposed. Movies and television hold up evangelical, biblical teaching for mockery and ridicule. The press portrays Christians as silly or, worse, as hostile and menacing. Our federal courts campaigned for a decade to legalize same-sex marriage, resulting in the recent Supreme Court decision on the matter. And corporate America forces out CEOs who believe what the president himself said he believed only a few years ago (but no longer does)—that marriage is between a man and a woman. That was hardly a controversial statement for most of our lives. The speed of the change is breathtaking. So-called toleration seems to be a one-way street. Divergent opinions are by definition intolerant. The Christian life is increasingly the “alternative lifestyle.”

Elsewhere in the world, Christians face intense violence. Christians face their worst persecution in Egypt in seven hundred years. Though Christians in Egypt comprise the largest Christian minority in the Middle East—around 10 percent of the population—many Muslim citizens are literally trying to drive them out of the country. Last August, over forty church buildings were destroyed on one day over a few hours.

In Nigeria, Christians are killed, and their families are threatened with death if they bury the bodies. The killers want the bodies left unburied as a warning to anyone who would follow Christ.

In Afghanistan, Christianity is outlawed, and the conversion of Muslims is a crime. The Taliban regularly attempts to kill people suspected of being Christians. These tragedies go on day by day. And we’re not even talking about trying to reach the millions who’ve never heard the gospel of Christ in Eritrea, or Pakistan, or Iran.

Does it not therefore seem a little far-fetched to devote chapters and books, conferences and sermons, to the topic of evangelism? Perhaps we should instead tar the ark, repair the walls, and call our lawyers!

Before we sink into cynicism or despair, though, it is worth recalling what Paul told the Ephesian church: “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12).19 Might our struggles not point toward a larger drama, and a drama which itself points toward reasons for hope?

Hope is the confidence that something good will happen in the future. The Bible teaches that both God and the devil work to destroy our hopes, the devil so that we stop hoping altogether, God so that we stop hoping in the passing things of this world. To draw us into the larger hope for which we were made, God lovingly peels these smaller hopes from our grip. He has a long record of placing his people into situations where human hope exhausts itself. Think of Joseph in prison, or the children of Israel with the Red Sea in front of them and the Egyptian army behind them. Think of David before Goliath, or Jonah in the fish. Most of all, think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, and then dying on a cross.

The topic of evangelism may cause fear and discouragement in the hearts of many ministers. We may feel ill-equipped or defeated personally. And we face a world that feels more hateful to the gospel than it did in 2006 when the Together for the Gospel conferences began. But could it be that God means through all of these things to dash our smaller hopes so that we put our hope in this larger thing—that if he is with us, we cannot fail?

Our churches must learn this lesson for the sake of evangelism. And it’s the lesson of the story at the heart of Isaiah’s book in chapters 36 and 37. If God is with us, we cannot fail.

In these chapters, we find the “great public event” of Isaiah’s lifetime, the event that defined an era just as the Civil War defined the nineteenth century for anyone living in the United States. This great public event was the Assyrian assault on Jerusalem and its dramatic conclusion.

Isaiah’s own ministry could be characterized as forty years spent preparing people for this event, followed by ten years of unpacking what happened, just as Moses’ ministry was spent preparing a people for another great public event in Israel’s life, followed by years of explaining it. And the basic lesson of Isaiah’s ministry? God’s judgment and salvation would come through trusting in God alone.

As we read and meditate on ten different scenes from these chapters, I pray that you will trust the Lord alone for your salvation, for your ministry, and even for your evangelism.

Scene #1: The Assyrian Invasion

Chapter 36 begins, “In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.”

The verse places us in 701 BC in the southern kingdom of Judah. But let’s back up and recall the larger history. Four decades earlier, in 745 BC, the Assyrians had taken Damascus and subjugated Aram (or Syria). That opened the way for them to move south into Palestine. Just two years later, in 743, the northern kingdom of Israel began to pay protection or tribute to the Assyrian king (2 Kings 15:19). In 727 the Assyrian king died, and Israel stopped paying tribute. God decided to use this moment to judge Israel for centuries of idolatry. So, in 724, Assyria invaded Israel. They laid siege to the capitol city of Samaria for two years, and finally took it in 722 BC.

The Assyrian Empire had a policy of relocating conquered peoples far from their native lands in order to dilute their national identity and to cut people off from the power of their local gods (see 2 Kings 17). By Assyria’s own records, they deported 27,290 Israelite citizens to other parts of the empire following the 722 conquest. They decapitated the society and subjugated any survivors. To top it all off, they brought in people from Babylon and resettled them in Israel (2 Kings 17:24). In short, the northern kingdom was destroyed.

Meanwhile, down south, Isaiah’s ministry began around 740 BC with the death of King Uzziah, who had reigned fifty-two years. His son Jotham briefly followed him, followed in turn by his own son Ahaz, who reigned for sixteen years. In 735 BC, Ahaz put the nation of Judah into vassalage to Assyria and its gods in order to save Judah from invasion by the northern kingdom of Israel and Syria (2 Kings 16:7–9). Ahaz also offered human sacrifices to Baal. During these years, Judah was in decline, losing portions of its land to the Philistines, the Edomites, and the Syrians.

Ahaz eventually died. His son Hezekiah succeeded him on the throne. Isaiah convinced King Hezekiah to stop paying the Assyrians tribute (see 2 Kings 18:7). And now the worst fears of Judah were realized. Assyria, after putting down a rebellion in Babylon, turned its full attention to Palestine. The Assyrians crushed the Philistines, conquered Tyre, and defeated the Egyptians. Then they invaded Judah with tens of thousands of troops. And they were successful. So says Isaiah 36:1: “Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.” The people of Judah were beyond human help.

The Assyrians weren’t merely conquerors and empire-builders like the Egyptians or the Greeks. Instead, they were renowned for their brutality. They would torture their enemies and cut them into pieces. They would burn people alive in order to terrorize the population. They would sometimes skin the defeated rulers and display their skins on the walls of the conquered city. They impaled prisoners on stakes. They decapitated many. All of these things are shown in their own carved records. They liked to brag! But those records never show a dead Assyrian. They presented themselves as indestructible.

How then were the people of Jerusalem feeling when Sennacherib attacked Judah? Like God had let them down?

The nation had undergone a great reformation under Hezekiah. Hezekiah had refurbished the Temple, reconsecrated the priests, reinstituted the Passover celebration, and invited the survivors from the northern tribes to join them. The Bible says:

There was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the days of Solomon son of David king of Israel there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem. . . . When all this had ended, the Israelites who were there went out to the towns of Judah, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. They destroyed the high places and the altars throughout Judah. . . . (2 Chron. 30:26; 31:1)

If they had been so faithful, why was God letting this terrible thing happen now? Isaiah had been exhorting them for decades to trust in God alone. Had they been foolish to do so?

There is a lesson here about our fears: In a fallen world, our fears don’t always lie to us. Some fears come true. Repentance doesn’t get us out of all of our trials. That church board may reject your ideas about evangelism. That friend may not speak to you again after you witness to him. Remember 1 John 3:13: “Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.” Do you fear the world hating you? It just might. Some of our fears do come true.

But our fears always lie to us about how important they are.

Scene #2: The Field Commander’s Speech

Do Jerusalem’s fears come true? The Assyrian field commander’s speech in the next scene tempts us to believe they do.

Then the king of Assyria sent his field commander with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. When the commander stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman’s Field, Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to him. The field commander said to them, “Tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: On what are you basing this confidence of yours? You say you have strategy and military strength—but you speak only empty words. On whom are you depending, that you rebel against me? Look now, you are depending on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces a man’s hand and wounds him if he leans on it! Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who depend on him. And if you say to me, “We are depending on the Lord our God”—isn’t he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, “You must worship before this altar”? Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them! How then can you repulse one officer of the least of my master’s officials, even though you are depending on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? Furthermore, have I come to attack and destroy this land without the Lord? The Lord himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.’” Then Eliakim, Shebna and Joah said to the field commander, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don’t speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.” But the commander replied, “Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the men sitting on the wall—who, like you, will have to eat their own filth and drink their own urine?” Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you! Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when he says, ‘The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ ‘Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern, until I come and take you to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. Do not let Hezekiah mislead you when he says, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’ Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand? Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand?” But the people remained silent and said nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, “Do not answer him.” (Isa. 36:2–21)

Lachish, mentioned in verse 2, was the second largest city in Judah, and capturing it was essential for isolating and capturing Jerusalem. Today in London’s British Museum you can view the relief sculpture from Sennacherib’s palace in Nineveh that shows this very siege and capture of Lachish.

The biblical passage begins with envoys from Hezekiah meeting Sennacherib’s field commander in the same place that the Lord had told Hezekiah’s father Ahaz to stand firm in his faith (Isa. 7:3). But now the Assyrian asks the question that drives the whole story: What are you basing your confidence on? It’s like God himself was speaking to them again through this commander, pressing on them the question that drove Isaiah’s whole ministry. The field commander asks again in verse 5, “On whom are you depending?”

The commander calls their bluff should they point to Egypt as their trust. Yet then he oversteps and reveals that he misunderstands Hezekiah’s reformation. He was a diplomat who knew facts, but not their significance and meaning. Yes, altars to Baal and other false gods had been torn down, but that wasn’t an attack on religion, as it would have been in Assyria. The reformation promoted devotion to the true God, the Holy One of Israel.

Still, this Assyrian officer knew how to exploit the fears of his audience. He addressed his unsettling words to Hezekiah’s envoys within earshot of the soldiers at the gate. In Hebrew! And what satanic stuff we find in verses 15 and 18. He calls them foolish for being tempted to trust in God. Then in verses 19 and 20 he puts God into the category of false gods and denies that he can deliver Jerusalem from the Assyrians. Truth and error are mixed together. It was true that Egypt was unreliable. It was true that Hezekiah had destroyed many altars, and that the Assyrians had conquered many nations. But these truths are placed in service of the lie that God would abandon his people. God will never abandon his people. To abandon his people—to abandon us—is to abandon his own promises. And he will never be untrue to his own Word.

Here is a lesson for us about trust: the most important thing about us is the object of our trust. “In whom will you trust?” (v. 5). The field commander’s speech demonstrates how utterly helpless the people were. Yet their helplessness was the doorway to complete trust in God.

So it is with us. As Paul says to the Corinthians, “when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). And understanding this reality should help our churches in the evangelistic task. There is no such thing as a pastor too discouraged to be re-invigorated by the Lord; nor a church too cold to be changed by God’s Word; nor a people too hostile to be converted by God’s Spirit when we preach the gospel!

Scene #3: Hezekiah Hears the Assyrian Ultimatum

How then will Hezekiah respond to the field commander’s speech? This brings us to scene 3, in which the envoys report the Assyrian ultimatum to Hezekiah:

Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went to Hezekiah, with their clothes torn, and told him what the field commander had said.

When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the temple of the Lord. (Isa. 36:22—37:1)

In the ancient Near East, tearing the clothes was a sign of distress and mourning. So Hezekiah demonstrates his distress, but then immediately turns to God for help by going to the temple. He could have turned to Egypt, or idols, or his own military strength, as kings of Judah had done before. Or he could have sunk into despair. Instead, he goes to the one true God.

Brother pastor, when you’re in a time of increasing hopelessness, where do you go? To whom do you turn? Here’s a lesson about making choices: choose to go to God with your problems.

But that’s not all that Hezekiah does!

Scene #4: Hezekiah Asks Isaiah to Pray for the Remnant

He also asks Isaiah to pray for Israel, which brings us to scene 4.

[Hezekiah] sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. They told him, “This is what Hezekiah says: This day is a day of distress and rebuke and disgrace, as when children come to the point of birth and there is no strength to deliver them. It may be that the Lord your God will hear the words of the field commander, whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to ridicule the living God, and that he will rebuke him for the words the Lord your God has heard. Therefore pray for the remnant that still survives.” (Isa. 37:2–4)

Hezekiah clearly understands that the Lord is the object of the Assyrian mockery. So Hezekiah prays, and he calls on Isaiah to pray.

What a simple but profound lesson for us on prayer: when you are in trouble, turn to God in his Word and prayer.

Jesus taught his disciples that they “should always pray and not give up” (Luke 18:1). That applies to you even while reading this chapter. Prayer is what faith looks like. We talk to God because we believe what he’s told us in his Word—that he wants to help us, that he can help us, that he will help us, if we ask him to. Through prayer and God’s Word, God draws us into his own purposes.

Of course, prayer is powerful not because of who is praying. In our text, it’s a repenting and desperate king who prays. Prayer is powerful because of who is prayed to—the sovereign God of the whole world; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the Holy One of Israel! It’s the same with us. We bring honor to God by believing his promises, and by boldly approaching the throne of grace. Prayers of intercession are in fact prayers of praise. By our asking we testify to God’s faithfulness and reliability.

Dear church leaders and elders, if there is to be any culture of evangelism in our churches, it will begin in our prayers. I am so thankful for the time that our congregation in Washington has to pray together—in our morning and evening services, in our elders meeting and in our families, in small groups, and in our own personal times with the Lord. We pray for ourselves. We pray for unreached peoples, persecuted Christians, the advance of the gospel, other evangelical churches in our city by name, and many other things. God’s grace has made us a praying church. Prayer is the preview of God’s action.

Scene #5: Isaiah Delivers God’s Word to Hezekiah

Wonderfully, God answers Hezekiah’s prayers:

When King Hezekiah’s officials came to Isaiah, Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master, ‘This is what the Lord says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard—those words with which the underlings of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Listen! I am going to put a spirit in him so that when he hears a certain report, he will return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword.’” (Isa. 37:5–7)

I love the dismissive reference to “underlings” (or young men). Neither the Lord nor his prophet is intimidated by the mightiest of men. They are but dust! God condemns the field commander’s speech as blasphemy. And then he reveals his plan: he will destroy the Assyrian king.

Do you see the lesson here about God’s promises? God promises to save his people. And he promises to destroy those who would destroy them.

In our churches, we hold out God’s promises to one another. We do this when preaching God’s Word. We do this when singing and celebrating baptisms and the Lord’s Supper. We encourage each other to persevere by reminding each other of the fellowship that we will experience with our Savior when he returns. We are a people shaped by God’s promises, like iron shavings pulled along by a magnet. His promises are the magnet that gives us direction. And God promises to save his people!

Scene #6: Sennacherib’s Word to Hezekiah

What will happen with Jerusalem and Hezekiah? Will Isaiah’s words get back to Sennacherib and cause him to retreat in fear?

When the field commander heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah. Now Sennacherib received a report that Tirhakah, the Cushite king [of Egypt], was marching out to fight against him. When he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah with this word: “Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Do not let the God you depend on deceive you when he says, ‘Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.’ Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely. And will you be delivered? Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my forefathers deliver them—the gods of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar? Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, or of Hena or Ivvah?” (Isa. 37:8–13)

It seems that Sennacherib had now moved to take another city—Libnah—perhaps to set up a defensive position against a coming Egyptian force. Yet to make sure that Hezekiah doesn’t try anything while he is momentarily detained, Sennacherib looks back over his shoulder and says to Hezekiah, “Don’t mistake what I’m doing here. I’ll be right back!” Verse 10 suggests that Sennacherib had heard about Isaiah’s prophecy, and now he turns to blaspheming God. He suggests that he better knows the future and that he is more truthful than God.

Verse 11 tells us that such pride was characteristic of the Assyrian rulers. One of Sennacherib’s predecessors had left this description of himself carved into the side of the old Assyrian Pass in Lebanon: “The legitimate King, King of the Universe, the King without rival, the ‘great Dragon,’ the only power with the four rims of the whole world who smashed all his foes like pots.” I can’t recall this king’s name. The description sounds similar to our passage, and to the Lord’s earlier reference to “the king of Assyria with all his pomp” (Isa. 8:7).

There is a lesson for us here about pride: beware the blinding and self-destructive effects of pride. It makes you confuse yourself with God, just as Sennacherib did.

What will happen when we confuse ourselves with God? Isaiah had answered that question earlier in his book: “The eyes of the arrogant man will be humbled and the pride of men brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day” (2:11; cf 2:17; 14:12–15).

If you are not a Christian, have you ever considered how dangerous pride is? Haven’t you seen how your pride hurts or even kills relationships? You would not have your job had God not given it to you. You would have not been able to do any of the good you have done were it not for God’s many gifts to you of life, talent, opportunity, and time. But notice how offended you become when people don’t treat you as more than you really are. Friend, humble yourself to confess your sin and repent of it, and trust in Christ. Without him you have no hope of being born again and having a restored relationship with your Creator and Judge.

Christian, the pride left in us after conversion insults God and confuses us. It causes us to care more about what our non-Christian friends think of us than about how God will treat them in their sins. If we cared more about what God thought of our friends who don’t know Christ, and cared less about what they thought about us, we would share the gospel more. If you want to grow in practicing evangelism, and for a culture of evangelism to grow up in your church, preach grace and pray for humility. It’s like a spiritual superpower!

Scene #7: Hezekiah Prays to God

How would Hezekiah respond to this threat, coming now from the mighty Assyrian emperor himself?

Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: “O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; listen to all the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God. It is true, O Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these people and their lands. They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands. Now, O Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God.” (Isa. 37:14–20)

Notice that Hezekiah begins his prayer with a wonderful and impressive statement of who God is. He next points to the fact that Sennacherib has insulted the living God. Then he draws out what was true in the words of Sennacherib. Finally he asks God for deliverance.

What does this passage have to do with evangelism? Notice in verse 20 the purpose for which Hezekiah implores God to act: “so that all kingdoms on earth may know that the Lord alone is God.”

This is the point of Isaiah. More than that, this is the point of Israel’s whole history. God means to make the truth about himself known. And verse 20 tells us that this remarkable story at the heart of Isaiah is all about evangelizing everyone in the world—from those on our doorstep to those at the ends of the earth.

Here’s a lesson for us about God: Get God wrong and you will ultimately misunderstand everything else in the world. Get God right and everything else in the world will ultimately fall into the right perspective. The point of everything in life is the truth about God and his glory.

Scene #8: Isaiah Sends Hezekiah God’s Word about Judah and Sennacherib

What would God do in response to Hezekiah’s prayer?

Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, this is the word the Lord has spoken against him: “The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises and mocks you. The Daughter of Jerusalem tosses her head as you flee. Who is it you have insulted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel! By your messengers you have heaped insults on the Lord. And you have said, ‘With my many chariots I have ascended the heights of the mountains, the utmost heights of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the choicest of its pines. I have reached its remotest heights, the finest of its forests. I have dug wells in foreign lands and drunk the water there. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.’ Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it. In days of old I planned it; now I have brought it to pass, that you have turned fortified cities into piles of stone. Their people, drained of power, are dismayed and put to shame. They are like plants in the field, like tender green shoots, like grass sprouting on the roof, scorched before it grows up. But I know where you stay and when you come and go and how you rage against me. Because you rage against me and because your insolence has reached my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will make you return by the way you came. This will be the sign for you, O Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows by itself, and the second year what springs from that. But in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit. Once more a remnant of the house of Judah will take root below and bear fruit above. For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant; and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning the king of Assyria: He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here. He will not come before it with shield or build a siege ramp against it. By the way that he came he will return; he will not enter this city,” declares the Lord. “I will defend this city and save it, for my sake and for the sake of David my servant!” (Isa. 37:21–35)

Sometimes Bible commentators describe chapters 36 and 37 as a hinge, or a bridge, taking us from the first half of Isaiah (with a lot of judgment) to the second half (with a lot of hope). There is a sense in which that’s true. But even more, these chapters present us with the point of Isaiah’s whole ministry. His ministry was to prophesy and prepare and explain and instruct and utter God’s promises for even more! In that sense the rest of Isaiah—the chapters before and after—forms a very thick frame around this masterpiece of God’s utter and complete faithfulness in a most desperate hour. It hangs there in the hall of masterpieces of God’s love and faithfulness to his people, from Abraham to Joseph to David and now to Hezekiah. And this hall of portraits all prepare the way for the greatest masterpiece of all—the faithfulness of God as seen in Jesus Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and promised return for us.

Verses 22 to 29 present the Lord’s answer to Sennacherib, which he meant for Hezekiah and his people to hear and understand. He says in verse 22 that the Assyrians would flee. He asks devastating questions in verse 23, and condemns Sennacherib for heaping insults on him in verse 24. Then he mocks Sennacherib’s pride in verses 24 and 25.

I think the climactic verse comes in verse 26. Here God drops the veil and offers the true interpretation of history. Sennacherib may have boasted about all that he had done, but now God presents the bigger picture. Even a terrible event, placed in a larger context, can look entirely different. If I told you that someone cut my wife’s neck last month, you would be horrified, at least until I explained that it was a surgeon who was protecting her life. Satan, of course, always wants to offer his rival interpretation of the events of our lives.

Then comes God’s menacing statement in verse 28: “I know where you live, Sennacherib!” Only someone blinded by pride would not recognize the threat here. This is no local deity that Sennacherib has turned against him. In verse 29, God employs the brutal imagery of “hook in nose” that the Assyrians had used with others. Then God turns in verse 30 to giving a loving sign to Hezekiah: there will be enough food, and agriculture will soon resume.

There should be no doubt: God will completely defend Jerusalem. Why? For the sake of Hezekiah and his pious prayers? No, God will defend the city “for my sake and for the sake of David my servant” (v. 35).

Do you see the lesson here about the sovereign God and his purposes? The truth is that we are not that great, but God is. God alone is sovereign. God alone will fulfill his purposes.

Of course, God’s people needed to know this during the Assyrian invasion, and they would need to know it when they suffered exile in Babylon, as well as when he brought them back from exile. God’s people always need to know that God alone is sovereign and that we can trust him through the trials and tribulations that he allows in this fallen world. It was Hezekiah’s faith in the sovereignty of God that led him to realize that nothing was impossible with God, that no situation was hopeless. The Lord will always be as good as his Word.

God has no peace for us to experience today apart from our faith in him, his sovereignty, and the certainty that he will accomplish his good purposes. Praise God for the confidence we can have in him who has not spared his own Son for us!

Scene #9: Assyrian Army Destroyed

So God promised to defeat the Assyrians and deliver his people. What happened?

Then the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there. (Isa. 37:36–37)

The text does not say how the angel of the Lord put one hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrian soldiers to death. But this messenger of God did it at God’s command.

Of course, the Assyrian records say nothing of this. But they wouldn’t, would they? Amidst all their relief sculptures, never once do they show one dead Assyrian soldier. It wouldn’t fit with that almighty image they wanted to project. God had said that the Assyrians would fail, and would retreat, and so they did. God had promised earlier in the book, “I will crush the Assyrian in my land” (Isa. 14:25). And so he did.

Some wonder if God is justified in killing 185,000 people, even if they were part of a terribly brutal invading army. I have to say, from the Bible’s perspective, the question is not so much why they were killed, but why we are all left alive. Our sins cry out for God’s judgment. It will come unexpectedly and swiftly, Jesus taught. Therefore, Jesus said, “Be ready” (Matt. 24:24; Luke 12:40).

There is a lesson here for us on mercy: God will save and God will judge. And anything other than immediate and eternal punishment for sinners is an act of God’s mercy.

Scene #10: Sennacherib’s Death

The last verse of Isaiah 37 offers a postscript. It occurs fifteen to twenty years later.

One day, while [Sennacherib] was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer cut him down with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king. (v. 38)

This one who spoke like he was immortal was killed. He was killed by some of the very few humans to whom he had, in some sense, given life—his own sons. And he was killed while worshipping his god Nisroch. How sufficient, then, was the protection of this other god, particularly in contrast with Yahweh, the living God and protector of Jerusalem.

So much for human boasts!

And there is a lesson here for us about human glory: human glory is very short-lived.

I love John Wesley’s reflection on human glory, penned after watching the king of England dawn his robes:

I was in the robe-chamber, adjoining to the House of Lords, when the King put on his robes. His brow was much furrowed with age, and quite clouded with care. And is this all the world can give even to a King? All the grandeur it can afford? A blanket of ermine around his shoulders, so heavy and cumbersome he can scarce move under it! A huge heap of borrowed hair, with a few plates of gold and glittering stones upon his head! Alas, what a bauble is human greatness! And even this will not endure.20

Human glory is not everything it’s cracked up to be. In fact, it’s a cheat and a lie. Did you know that within three years of retirement, 50 percent of former NFL players are bankrupt, unemployed, and divorced? For that matter, if you ever come to visit me in Washington, DC, take notice of all the statues scattered throughout the city and see if you can identify any of them.

Still, so many people come to DC in pursuit of something that will never satisfy, and that, even if gained, can only last for such a brief time. When I came to Capitol Hill Baptist, one of our church members was one of the most powerful men in the Senate. A few years ago, when I asked the congregation, the only people who had heard of him were older members of the church. Not even the young people who worked as staffers on Capitol Hill, where this senator had been so well-known and respected, had even heard of him.

Friend, what are you spending your life on?

Conclusion

According to the Bible, we all are born “Assyrians,” spiritually speaking. We all by nature oppose God. And God will judge us for it, even if our lives appear to prosper for a time in our opposition to him. The difference, of course, is that we can actually change from being Assyrians, to being adopted by God as his own special people.

Brother pastor, you need to know that God specializes in these kinds of deliverances. And to draw our eyes onto him, he will sometimes remove all the other idols that tempt us. He will turn the drawers in our lives upside down, emptying them out, so that we have nothing left to rely on but him.

And just when we think he will never do it, he delivers us! Remember that promise Jesus made: “I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it” (Matt. 16:18).

No combination of killings in Nigeria, jailings in the Middle East, and public scorn and job loss and even financial penalties in America for believing and preaching the gospel will falsify Christ’s promise. None of them.

We can join Jesus in his work to build his church not only without worry that our work will be in vain, but with confidence that our evangelism will most certainly succeed in all the purposes that God intends for it.

And, brother pastors, you and I have the honor of leading Christ’s church in proclaiming his glory to all people! What a privilege! What a joy!