In Scott Brown's sermon titled 'The Zeal of the Lord of Hosts', he discusses Isaiah 37, focusing on the concept of God's zeal and its implications for believers. The sermon highlights the importance of understanding God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, particularly in the context of prayer. Brown emphasizes that God's zeal is demonstrated through His actions, such as using the Assyrian King Sennacherib as an instrument for His divine purposes. The sermon explores how Hezekiah, King of Judah, responded to Sennacherib's threats with prayer and faith, illustrating the power of specific prayers and the necessity of trusting in God's promises. Brown also reflects on how God's zeal purifies and preserves a remnant of His people, encouraging believers to have faith in God's sovereignty and to engage in purposeful, specific prayers. The sermon concludes with a call to trust in God's sovereign will and to recognize His actions in history as evidence of His enduring zeal for His people.

Please remain standing as we hear from the Word of God, Isaiah chapter 37. If you would like to turn there, Isaiah chapter 37. Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Because you have prayed to me Against Sennacherib, king of Assyria. This is the word which the Lord has spoken concerning Him. The virgin, the daughter of Zion, has despised you, laughed you to scorn.

The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head behind your back. Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice, and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel. By your servants you have reproached the Lord, and said, By the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the limits of Lebanon.

I will cut down its tall cedars and its choy cypress trees, I will enter its farthest height, To its fruitful forest I have dug and drunk water, And with the soles of my feet I have dried up All the brooks of defense. Did you not hear long ago how I made it from ancient times that I formed it. Now I have brought it to pass that you should be for crushing fortified cities into heaps of ruins. Therefore their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and confounded.

They were as the grass of the field and the green herb as the grass on the housetops and Grain blighted before it is grown But I know your dwelling place you're going out and you're coming in and you're rage against me Because you're rage against me and your tumult have come up to my ears, therefore I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way which you came. This shall be a sign to you. You shall eat this year such as it grows of itself, and the second year what springs from the same. Also in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. And the remnant who have escaped at the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.

For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and those who escape from Mount Zion, the zeal of the Lord of hosts, will do this." Let's bow our heads and ask God's blessing upon Scott's preaching this morning. Oh Heavenly Father, as we read your word, we see that you will not be mocked. Whatever a man sows, that he can expect to reap. And so Lord as this brash man Sennacherib came boasting threats and violence against Jerusalem, you Lord will have the last laugh as we're on Seneca Rib. And Lord, that you would put down the pride that so easily grips each of our hearts.

Oh God, we are not unlike Seneca Rib. We are not unlike the Rav Shaka. And so God, humble our hearts here today. Help us to be a repenting people, a people turning towards you and not to the things of this world. Oh God, I just cry out to you now that you would render this book to us most precious indeed.

And so God, I just pray that as Scott comes and renders to us your word, Oh God, that we would have ears to hear and that we would drink deeply of what you would say. So God, help us this day. Have your spirit present for our understanding and quicken us more and more for those who are not saved here among us, Lord, that you would open up stopped ears and hard hearts and you would soften them, Lord, and bring a refreshing. Thank you, God, for this day of great gladness and rejoicing. Amen.

This morning we're in a passage of Scripture which ends with what is perhaps some of the most comforting words in the Bible, and it is a message of the love of God. It's the message that can be summed up in the phrase in verse 32, the zeal of the Lord shall accomplish this. And this is the great cause of everything, the zeal of the Lord. And God is superintending all of history in order to prove himself zealous for his people. And so this passage of Scripture, it speaks about the zeal of God for his people.

My prayer has been that somehow as a people we would see more clearly the zeal of God, not only through all of history, which this is a snapshot of one aspect of the zeal of the Lord, but also his own zeal for our own lives. You know, how have you seen him zealous to prove you, to sanctify you, to save you? And That's the whole picture that we see here. There's something that is happening that is the result of the zeal of the Lord. Now we've been getting what I've been calling an advanced degree in the judgment and chastisement of God.

You know, Isaiah speaks of God's judgment and his chastisement, particularly in the first 39 chapters. And we've been getting that advanced degree. One of the most wonderful things about being in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is that God changes your mind about things. He slowly moves you along. He moves you by His Word.

God is designed to lead His people by His Word. And so we've been sort of washing our minds with the water of the Word regarding the judgment and the chastisement of God. The truth is, most of us have been too afraid of the judgment and the chastisement of God. It's because we didn't understand what God does when he chastises and judges his people. And Isaiah shows us what that is.

And this phrase, the zeal of the Lord, I think encapsulates so much of what this chastisement means for us. Because the zeal of the Lord is designed to be shown in so many different ways. And one thing that we, I think we should recognize here, is that it's not our zeal for God that Isaiah is concerned about in Isaiah 37, but it's rather his zeal for us. And I want us to see what his zeal for us is through this passage of Scripture. The zeal of God for us, in short, is the love of God for us.

All of his zeal is pointed to glorifying himself and magnifying his love. And so in Isaiah 37 verses 21 through 32, we find a letter from the prophet Isaiah to Hezekiah proclaiming God's zeal. And he does this in a number of ways. Now, as we consider the zeal of the Lord, we have to remember a critical hermeneutical principle. And that is, when you see an Old Testament phrase quoted in the New Testament, you know what it's all about.

The Lord Jesus Christ quotes this when he clears the temple. He goes in and he turns over the tables of the money changers and he says the zeal of the Lord has accomplished this. And the zeal of the Lord has many faces. And one of its faces is to clean out a corrupt religion. And the zeal of the Lord in Isaiah chapter 37 is about cleaning up a corrupt religion.

And God has sent a terrible king, King Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, had one of the most terrifying armies in ancient Near Eastern history. And God uses this corrupt king to come and clean out the household of God in order to preserve a remnant. God is doing in Isaiah chapter 37 a very similar thing that he did to the Lord Jesus Christ when he cleared the fake religion out of the temple. And God took the money changers and he cleared them out of the temple. And here in chapter 37 of Isaiah, God is demonstrating his deal and how he would cleanse his people.

And we find that he cleanses his people through even the bringing of a corrupt king in order to terrorize his own people. That as they hear the threats, they turn to God. They trust Him more than ever. Often when God desires to build your faith, He builds you a faith-building enemy, a trouble that comes upon your life, so that your faith and trust would be more and more in him. The zeal of the Lord is accomplishing this.

And so that's what we have here. And the zeal of the Lord is communicated in this letter, in this prophecy of what Isaiah is bringing here. And Isaiah 37, Isaiah writes a letter to Hezekiah proclaiming his zeal. And he does it by proclaiming his absolute sovereignty over all things and including Sennacherib's strength and including the people's weakness in the path of his military campaigns. And so as we're considering the zeal of the Lord, let's just consider what the zeal of the Lord has accomplished in our own lives as well.

And now the wider context of this passage is the section in Isaiah that runs from chapters 36 through 39. And this is the historical section of Isaiah. And in chapter 36 we learn that an army, a great army of Assyria has been sent to destroy Jerusalem. Sennacherib is at the door of Jerusalem and Hezekiah is in Jerusalem appealing to the people to trust God and not to fear Assyria. Hezekiah is the voice of faith and trust in God.

When this massive army is getting ready to devour the city, This massive army has already devoured 46 cities, or as actually the Bible says, all the cities of Judah. So it's a real live threat. It's not some phantom threat that we are often terrorized by in our own lives. This is a real threat by a real army with an army that had been destroying already and had cleared a path of destruction through the whole region. Now, That's chapter 36.

Chapter 36 discloses the blasphemous conversation of the Rabshaka, who is the emissary, one of the emissaries of the king of Assyria. And so, when we get to chapter 37, however, we see that Hezekiah receives two letters. In Isaiah's classic dramatic form, he shows you these scenes. And the first scene that he shows you is that Hezekiah receives a threat letter from Sennacherib and it's a blasphemous, threatening letter to destroy him if he does not turn and give up his money and pay homage to him. And Hezekiah takes that letter into the temple and he lays it out before the Lord.

He spreads out the thread, which is such a marvelous picture for all of us. When you get a letter like that, you should do what Hezekiah did. And so he receives this letter from Sinakarib, and then he receives a second letter from Isaiah, And that's the focus of our teaching today. We're going to look into this letter. And the second letter is the letter of encouragement and praise to God.

The second letter exposes the fraud of the first letter. The second letter is a commentary on the first letter and if you see in your outline I've broken up our walk through this passage of scripture sort of as a commentary on the letter that Isaiah received and Hezekiah received from Sennacherib. And Hezekiah, after receiving the first letter from Sennacherib, rejected his appeals. He rejected his blasphemy, he rejected his entire message, and went throughout the land and said, No, trust in God and God alone. And so he threw off the offers of Rav Shaka and Sinakarib And has thrown himself on the grace of God because Hezekiah will not put his trust in princes or offers of prosperity from the wicked because he really believes there's only one hope in the world and that is in the Lord God.

And so this passage of Scripture I broke up into three sections as you can see in front of you. First of all, in verse 21, this revelation of an answered prayer. And then second, this letter of encouragement which has a number of points to it. And then finally, the third section beginning in verses 30 and 32 discloses a sign to prove the prophecy. So Hezekiah is receiving letters.

And now in verse 21, we read these words. Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah, saying, thus says the Lord God of Israel, because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib, the king of Assyria." Now this word, because, in verse 21, is important for us to stop upon. Because this means that a man prayed a prayer, and as a result, God came and answered that prayer. Because you have prayed. These are beautiful words.

Because you have prayed. Can you think of the various things that have happened in your life and in the lives of others? Because you have prayed. Or perhaps because you have not prayed as well, because there's always a flip side. He says, because you have prayed, this is what is going to happen to Sennacherib.

And here we see the power of prayer. James spoke of it when he talked about those who are sick. And he says, those who are sick, you should call for the elders of the church and they should pray for you and you should confess your sins if perhaps your sickness is because of sin. And then James gives the illustration of Elijah. He said Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months.

And then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit." And so here we have before us in verse 21 an illustration of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. You know, trying to harmonize these two things, God's sovereign will and man's responsibility to take action is almost impossible for man's brain to try to reconcile. But here, right here in this verse 21, is the mystery of God's sovereignty and man's prayer. God purposes, His purposes, not only according to the counsel of His own will from eternity past, but also as a result of the prayers of sinners. It's a remarkable, astonishing fact of the Bible.

Now there are two reasons that we should pray. First of all, we should pray because He is sovereign. In fact, this is really the only reason anybody prays anyway, because they believe that God is sovereign. We pray because we believe God works. And it's the only way that prayer makes sense.

If God was not in control, we would have no reason to pray. So our very prayers are an acknowledgement of God's might and His sovereign control over everything. That there is someone outside of ourselves who is mighty enough to do what we could never do. And so this is the great assumption behind prayer, that God is sovereign. So we should pray because God is sovereign, but we should also pray because we are responsible.

We pray because we know that we are in league with God, that God has given us a life in this world, determining the place of our habitation, the people that we will know, the places that we'll live, determining all these things so that He would place us in the way of evil and that we would be in league with Him, we would be unified with Him to do His will in the world, to cry out to Him for the things that please Him. And so, because we are responsible, we pray. Because we know God, we cry out to God. And so prayer is a result of these two great, great realities, God's sovereignty and our responsibility. And they're not contradictory at all.

And so here Hezekiah's prayer is before us this morning, and it stands as an example for why we should pray. Hezekiah understands that he cannot control the future. So he goes to the one who does control everything. And so it's an illustration of God and man in harmony. It's an illustration of what it means to be a man or a woman or a boy or a girl in the world.

That we stand before God, literally with God in the world, to execute his kind intentions in the world. And this is why why Hezekiah spread out his letter before God because he believed that he and God were one, that their minds were in league together. This is a life of sharing with the Lord, hand in hand, heart to heart, mind to mind, one with Christ. You know, We are in Him and we have life in His name. We are His inheritance.

We are His instruments. All of these things converge in the whole doctrine of prayer. That God and man are working together in the world. And they are working together for particular purposes. We learn here in this prayer that Hezekiah was going against something.

We read in verse 21, "'Because you have prayed to me against'." You have prayed to me against." Sinakarib, the king of Assyria. The word against indicates a motion in opposition to something. The Hebrew word gives a picture of proactively moving towards something, moving against a force in a direction. That's exactly what Hezekiah was doing. He was praying against Sennacherib.

And that very word provides for us a brilliant help and illustration for us about our prayers. That God has put us on this world to pray against certain tides, against various forces, against acts of darkness that are in the world today. We do believe that God is sovereign, but that doesn't mean that we sit on our hands. No, we get up and we move against things. And we pray.

We don't just let the waters wash over the world, the poisons to destroy our communities and our families and even our own hearts. No, we get up out of our seats and we move against in the same way that Hezekiah prayed against this terrifying king. It's a proactive, it's aggressive, it's the same word that is used in Genesis 4-8 where Cain rose up against Abel and he killed his brother. It's that kind of proactive, determinative action. And it should cause us to ask ourselves, what is it that we ought to be praying against?

What should you be praying against? What should we as a church be praying against. You know, as we move into a new year coming soon, you know, we ought to consider what things we ought to be moving with determinative action against. We are for so many things. We should pray for many things.

And we should also pray against things. And Hezekiah has been resisting the evil blasphemies of Sennacherib. And he has been praying against Sennacherib, going against the tide. One of the great callings of a Christian in the world is to be against certain things. You know, there's a whole philosophy of life today that it's wrong to be against something.

You know, that's just so judgmental. That is, you know, just so intolerant. But there is an intolerance in Christianity. If you find a brand of Christianity that has no intolerance, you have not found true Christianity. Because true Christianity comes against things in the same way that Hezekiah did.

Now notice they were not only prayers of resistance, And I just want us to just pause on this before we move to the next thing in this prayer. It would be right for us as a church to be bound together against certain things. Now I know that we are. There are particular things that we have bound ourselves against. But we should be very clear as a church that God has called us to stand against particular tides that are rolling in our own world.

But the second thing that you see here is that Hezekiah's prayers are very specific. Now this is the, There are three prayers of Hezekiah that are recorded in the Bible, and each one of these prayers has teeth. At another time, I think I'm going to walk through the three prayers just to give a sense of it. But you'll notice they are prayers about very, very specific things. They are prayers with teeth, prayers that you know whether they have been answered or not very specifically.

And so he prays very specifically. And I think that's just another thing that we should recognize about prayer, is that our prayers should be dangerously specific, maybe even terrifyingly specific. It's too easy to pray general prayers. I've had a lot of general prayers in my life. But here Hezekiah prays differently than that.

You know, There are many, many examples in the Bible where people prayed very specific things. I'm here today to call us to pray very specifically about the things that are before us. Abraham prayed for Abimlek to be healed, and he was healed. Abraham's servant prayed that God would bless him in finding a wife for Isaac in Genesis chapter 24. The children of Israel cried out in their bondage in Egypt in Exodus chapter 3.

Abraham prayed for strength during the battle against Amalek in Exodus chapter 17. Moses prayed for his sister Miriam to be healed of her leprosy in Numbers 12. In the days of the judges, the people were constantly going back to God after times of apostasy, crying out very specifically for deliverance. Gideon prayed for deliverance. Elijah prayed for fire from heaven.

Elijah prayed for resurrection of a child who died. Elisha prayed that his servant's eyes would be opened. David prayed to the Lord that whether he would go into battle against the Philistines would be successful or not, and God gave him an answer. Solomon prayed for wisdom. Hezekiah prayed for longer life.

Jonah prayed for mercy to the sailors. Peter prayed, Lord save me when he was sinking. Jabez prayed for expanded borders. The Canaanite woman prayed for her daughter who was terrorized by a demon. A blind man prayed in Mark 10.

Ten lepers prayed in Luke 17. Pray specific prayers. Let's pray very specifically about things. God has put us in the world that we would be praying both for and against particular things. And the Lord Jesus Christ said, Ask and it shall be given to you.

Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. The Lord Jesus Christ many times appealed to His disciples to pray. And verse 21 is sitting before us today to do the very same thing for this church, to call us to very specific prayers, both for and against particular things that are important. Often God does not hear our prayers because of unbelief.

Mark 9, 23 makes this plain. Or if we are doubting, as James chapter 1 speaks of, often we pray for things that are contrary to God's will. We sometimes pray with sin living in our hearts, unconfessed. Solomon said that if you have turned your ear away from the law, your prayers will be an abomination to him. So God is not promising that he'll answer every person's prayer every time.

There are actual conditions for the answering of his prayer. Broken relationships and even the poor treatment of a wife causes prayers not to be heard. That's what 1st Peter 3.7 says, that husbands should dwell with their wives in an understanding way, giving them honor as the weaker vessel and as being heirs together of the grace of life that your prayers may not be hindered." In other words, if you're not living with your wife in an understanding way and giving honor to your wife as the weaker vessel, your prayers will fall to the ground. So God has called us to prayer, but He's also called us to holiness as well. The Lord said, If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Second Chronicles 7, 14. This is the kind of prayer that Hezekiah prayed. What a blessing. And God used that prayer to turn back the biggest and baddest army in the region. And then there's this letter of encouragement, this remarkable letter, this commentary really on the first letter that Hezekiah received.

In verse 22 we see these very important words, this is the word which the Lord has spoken concerning Him. This is a word from God. If we seek consolation about anything, then it ought to be out of the mouth of God. What do we do when we find disturbances in our lives? What do we do?

Where does our consolation come from? Here, this is a word that the Lord spoke. This is the place of consolation. If you're looking for consolation, there's really only one place it can be found, in God. You know, we have a world that is seeking its consolation in everything you can imagine.

In this internet site, or shopping, or some pleasure or some interest, some you know, lawful thing, you find your comfort there or maybe it's alcohol or maybe it's maybe it's in a person you're seeking your consolation there Here the consolation comes from the Word of God. If you need consolation, turn to God. It's the only place that it exists. And then in verse 22 is this commentary on Sennacherib's blasphemous letter. God is in this letter is declaring his position on the things that the blasphemer Sennacherib has stated in his previous letter and I believe all the things that the Rav Shaka was blasphemously speaking about as well.

And so this commentary begins in verse 22. And the first thing that he declares is that he's speaking to Sennacherib. This is a letter from Isaiah, or from the Lord, literally, to Hezekiah, but he is speaking about Sennacherib. Okay, do you get that? So the voice is actually to Sennacherib and he says here the virgin the daughter of Zion has despised you Sennacherib has lapped you to scorn The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head behind your back." In other words, Sennacherib, you got no hearing.

The daughter of Zion didn't listen to you. That frail precious virgin daughter of Zion, vulnerable as she was, she didn't listen to you. And you know what she did? She just shook her head. She just snapped her head in derision against you.

It's a great picture. Have you ever seen a girl do that? Well that's exactly the picture that is being portrayed here. And she shook her head behind his back. And Sinakarib is walking away.

The daughters of Zion are mocking him, they're throwing their heads back and shaking them. And I think we learn here from this verse that Sennacherib was not just dealing with Hezekiah, but rather with the whole people of God, with the daughter of Zion, with the people of God. And when the devil persecutes the church, he's... He is... When the devil is persecuting a believer like Hezekiah, he's simultaneously persecuting the whole church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the church is this virgin daughter, and the church is safe in the face of its enemies and we can mock and we ought not to spend too much of our woe on the attacks of the devil. But the daughter of Zion just flipped her head and mocked him as he went. She was strong. We need a strong church. We need a strong church that is willing to mock even the works of the devil.

And then the second commentary that Isaiah or the Lord brings is in verse 23. Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted up your eyes on high against the Holy One of Israel. So the second aspect of this commentary is, do you know what you're doing? Do you have any idea who you are coming up against?

You are blaspheming the Holy One of Israel. You're blaspheming the one that controls all the armies of heaven and earth. And so, this is the commentary. Do you know who you are reviling? And he uses this term, the Holy One of Israel, which is used multiple times in the book of Isaiah.

And the use of this term just communicates that God is the defender of his people. That God is the shield and the defender of his people. He is the Holy One of Israel. Our protections are not earthly, but they're heavenly. We are not protected by earthly means, not by horses, not by armies, not by appearances.

Like Peter said, you are protected by the power of God. And in here, God is commenting to Sennacherib saying, do you have any idea who you are dealing with because the protection that the people of God have is the protection of God. You know, whenever we hear the sabers of the devil rattling, We need to recognize that our defense is God. And these sabers rattling are actually given to us by God to build our faith in God. And here he acknowledges the words of pride that the king of Assyria has been breathing.

He uses various words to explain the pride. He uses the words reproached, blasphemed, raised your voice, lifted up your eyes. These are all the evidences of pride and blasphemy. And then the third commentary is found in verse 24. By your servants you have reproached the Lord and said, By the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the limits of Lebanon.

I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypress trees. I will enter its farthest height to its fruitful forest." And here is a picture of the servants reproaching the living God. And they're bragging in their self-sufficiency and their strength. And what Isaiah is saying to Sennacherib is, not only did you yourself reproach me, but you sent out servants to reproach me. You trained people to reproach me.

Trained people to reproach me. And Sennacherib is, as in this, has declared his control over the whole earth and even over nature. And the word I here appears five times in these two verses here. And Sennacherib is, has sent out servants who are just as boastful as he is against the living God. And God is mocking his servants in their boastful arrogance.

You know, Sinakharov is pretending that he is the big winner of it all, that he is so strong. He even, you know, he mentions the cedars of Lebanon. To the limits of Lebanon, I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypress trees. I will enter its farthest height to its fruitful forest. The cedars of Lebanon were symbols of beauty and strength and power.

There's some record of one of these cedars being 36 feet, 6 inches across at its base and 100 feet high. These were huge trees, some of them. And they were symbols of power. So the servants of Sennacherib are saying that they are reigning over nature. Does that sound familiar?

Is there anybody today that is acting like man can somehow reign over nature? This is nothing different than the global warming crowd that are pretending that man is going to be able to control nature. It does not happen. It has never happened and it will not happen. Man does not rule over nature.

But here the servants of Sennacherib are running around acting like they control all of nature. You know, as if they can stop up the rivers with their feet and do all these wonders. This is just a picture of wicked mankind, fallen away from the knowledge of God. And here God is mocking him for this. He's in denial.

He's denying the power of God in all these things. You know, I read recently an acronym about denial. What is denial? Don't even know I am lying. Each word of that, each letter of that word.

Don't even know I am lying. Each word of that, each letter of that word. Don't even know I am lying. Denial. That's exactly what Sennacherib was doing.

He was in absolute denial of the reality. And you know, it would have been painful for Sennachery to admit that he was nothing and less than nothing, as Isaiah declares in chapter 40. But it's a critical matter, isn't it, to be in denial. And when we study the whole matter of the judgment and the chastisement of God, it's very easy to be in denial. You know, are any of us in denial of God's activity in our lives?

Are we denying the reasons for the difficulties that maybe have come to us? Are we in denial that our troubles may be sent from God for our sanctification? Are we in denial that there are areas that we've lifted up our hearts in pride and God is bringing various things to us? He may bring a trouble. He may actually bring a sermon on Isaiah to help us to see that we've lifted our eyes up in pride.

But that Sinakre does not getting it. And here this letter is sent in order to tell Hezekiah that God is dealing with this situation. The fourth commentary is found in verse 46. Verse 26, Did you not hear long ago how I made it, from ancient times that I formed it? Now I have brought it to pass, that you should be for crushing fortified cities into heaps and ruins." Here God is disclosing to Hezekiah about Sennacherib, that it was God that ordained it.

He's saying, I ordained all of this. I ordained that you were able to do all of these things. It's a rhetorical question. Did you not hear long ago how I made it? Well, we know he knew, because the heavens declare the glory of God.

We know because, as Romans 1 says, that every man knows. Every man knows and he denies it. He rejects that thought. He does everything to medicate himself against that thought, that God has ordained all things. In Isaiah chapter 10, this has already been very clearly marked out.

God makes it clear in Isaiah chapter 10 that Assyria is not just a rogue nation doing its own thing, but it's a tool, it's a weapon in the hands of God. He says, woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger and the staff in whose hand is my indignation. I will send him against an ungodly nation, and against the people of my wrath I will give him charge." You know, Sennacherib thinks that he is such a hot shot, And God is saying, no, I am the one who has ordained this. That He is just a staff, a rod, an axe in His hands. In that same chapter, He says, God says, this is the purpose that is purposed against the whole earth.

This is the purpose that is purposed against the whole earth. This is the purpose that is purposed by God. And God is in control of all these things. The Lord has purposed it. He planned it long ago.

From ancient times, he planned it all, because God is sovereign. God is affirming his unbreakable intention to glorify himself, even through a wicked king like Sennacherib. God's chief concern is for his own glory. And he uses all things for his own glory. He says, What have you been made to do that you should be for crushing and fortified cities into ruins and heaps?

In other words, God is the one that made that happen. This is the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. I'm going to give you nine marks of the sovereignty of God. Number one, everything you've received is determined by a sovereign God. 1 Corinthians 4, 7, what do you have that you did not receive?

The second mark of the sovereignty of God. He is the only potentate and king of kings first Timothy 6 15 and 16 the third mark He will capture his enemies and no one will stop him Isaiah 43 13 He says There is no one who can deliver out of my hand. I work and who will reverse it? The fourth mark, nothing is outside of his will. He works all things by the counsel of his will." Ephesians 1, 11.

The fifth mark of the sovereignty of God. Nothing can hold back his hand. Daniel 4, 34, 35. The sixth mark. God initiates all calamity.

Amos 3, 6, and 7. He says, If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid? If there is a calamity in the city, will not the Lord have done it? The seventh mark of the sovereignty of God, God uses all evil for good. Genesis 50 verse 20 says, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

Romans 8 28 says the same thing. The eighth mark of the sovereignty of God is that the most wicked thing that was ever done was done by the sovereignty of God. In Acts chapter 4, verse 27, the wicked men who crucified Jesus Christ were only tools in God's hands. Read that passage, Acts 4, 27 and 28. The most wicked thing that ever happened was ordained by God.

The ninth mark of the sovereignty of God, he hardens and he softens hearts according to his own will. Exodus 7, 3 and 4, where God declares that he has hardened Pharaoh's heart. Let's make it something very clear. God does not do this thing. God does not watch the evil that takes place and then figure out a way to deal with it.

That's open theism. That God is not in control, but you are. This doctrine runs all throughout scripture. But on a very practical level, we need to connect this doctrine with our lives. We experience so many things in our lives.

There are disappointments, our plans are frustrated, there are problems in relationships, we're mistreated, we're misused, we're mishandled in different ways. This happens to people in life. You know, some of you are with your families in Thanksgiving and wounds, you are reminded of different wounds that are running in your family. There's not a family in the world that doesn't have wounds somewhere. But Hezekiah is being reminded that that synachryb is a tool in God's hands and this towering principle, this theological reality is meant to affect your life, your whole life, and it's meant to affect the interpretation of everything that is happening in your life.

I read this last week of something that Nancy Lee DeMoss published. It was a pledge written by a Bible teacher and she was encouraging believers to write the words of this challenge and to consider them. Here's the challenge. Or here's the sort of a confession and a challenge. Having been born into the kingdom of God, I do hereby acknowledge that God's purchase of my life included all the rights and control of that life for all eternity.

Next. I do further acknowledge that He has not granted me to be free from pain or to have success or prosperity. He has not guaranteed me perfect health. He has not guaranteed me perfect parents. He has not guaranteed me perfect health.

He has not guaranteed me perfect parents. He has not guaranteed me perfect children He has not guaranteed me the absence of pressures trials misunderstandings or persecution Next what he has promised me is eternal life what he has promised me is abundant life What he has promised me is eternal life. What he has promised me is abundant life. What he has promised me is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, meekness, and self-control. He has given me all of himself in exchange for the rights to my life.

Therefore I acknowledge this day the relinquishment of all my rights and expectations and humbly ask him by his grace to replace these with a grateful spirit for whatever in his wisdom he deems to allow for my life." This is this doctrine of the sovereignty of God. These are the implications of it in the heart of a believer. The next commentary on this, blast from this letter, is found in verse 27. Therefore their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and confounded.

They were as the grass of the field and the green herb, as the grass on the housetops and grain blighted before it is grown." In other words, God is telling Sennacherib, I made your enemies easy to overcome. I was the one that made it easy for you to walk through them and just pick up the eggs like a chicken farmer is picking up eggs in his chicken farm. But it says they had little power, did you notice that? They were dismayed, they were like grass and herbs, They were like grass on housetops. They were limited.

They were limited by God. God made them weak so that he would glorify himself through Sennacherib. We often think that our limitations limit God, and they don't. Our limitations have never limited God, not for a single day. You know, those people who were weak, they thought maybe their limitations were limiting God.

That is not true at all. Their limitations were ordained by God. And they were weak and like grass on the housetops because God ordained that they would be so. And then the sixth Commentary, verse 28, but I know your dwelling place. You're going out and you're coming in.

This is like God's saying to Sennacherib, I'm tracking you. I'm tracking you. I'm documenting you. I know your rage against me. The seventh commentator, commentary, I'm controlling you.

Verse 29, because your rage against me and your tumult have come up to my ears, therefore I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips and I will turn you back by the way which you came." This is the way that Assyrian kings dealt with their their enemies and now God is going to do the same thing to him. Tiglath-Paleaser did this to the Jews in 722, and later the king of Assyria is going to lead Manasseh to Babylon with hooks, the same way in 2 Chronicles 33 verse 11. But God looks down on these raging of men and he says, no, I'm putting a hook in your mouth. And then there's a sign, a sign to prove the prophecy. So after this disclosure of the reality behind the blasphemies of Sennacherib, as Isaiah has unmasked what is really going on with that letter and he is dishonored, Sennacherib, for his duplicity.

Then there's a sign that's given in order to prove the prophecy, verses 30 and 32. And there are two aspects of this sign. God is going to give the people a sign and all who are looking upon the situation. And there are two aspects of it. First of all, Hezekiah and his people will prosper.

After the Assyrian army dies mysteriously in the night, then there will be a time of prosperity. This shall be a sign to you. You shall eat this year such as grows of itself, and the second year what springs from the same. And in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. Now verse 29 was in the singular, verse 30 is in the plural.

And so it seems like he's now speaking to the whole people of Judah and I would suggest and to the Rebshaka and the Assyrian nation and Sennacherib himself. So he's speaking of this sign that they will see, and what he's saying is that God is going to sustain them even through all the devastation because Sennacherib has already destroyed the landscape. He's destroyed most of the cities. Only Jerusalem is left. How are they going to feed themselves?

And God is promising them that they are going to be able to feed themselves just by what naturally comes out of the ground that first year. Even though there's really no visible way of provision, God is going to provide for them just out of the natural growth of the ground. It would be a marvelous miracle. They can't see any way that God is going to provide for them, but He's going to provide for them, even though they can't see it with their eyes. Has that ever happened to you?

Where you just couldn't see how you were going to make ends meet. But somehow they met. And that's exactly what's happening here. On a grand scale, God is a rewarder of those who seek Him. And then the next year, There will be another increment of improvement.

And then finally in the third year, the crops will be very fruitful and the land will have been restored to its former, to its previous fruitfulness. And God is destroying the unrighteous here. His zeal is wiping out fake religion so that the remnant will bear fruit. That's the purpose of it all. This is the purpose of the zeal of God.

And then the second thing that will happen, the second evidence, the second proof of the prophecy, is the remnant will bear fruit, Verses 31 and 32. And the remnant who have escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant and those who escape from Mount Zion." So the proof of the prophecy is that there will be a true people of God. They will have real roots. They're not just surface.

They're not just an outward appearance that looks real. They are real and they have real roots and their roots are in God. And what has brought this about? It's the judgment and the chastisement of the Lord. This is why we should never be afraid of it because God brings it in order to prove what's true, to burn away the dross, to take away the things that are not true.

God uses chastisement for that purpose so that there would be something real. The wicked are like chaff, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord stands forever. This is the contrast that Isaiah is constantly working with us over. That God is going to preserve a real remnant and they will take root. This is the gospel in chapter 37.

It pictures a true abiding in Jesus Christ. It pictures a sinner who has repented of his sins. It pictures a person like Hezekiah who's turned away from the blasphemous message of this world. A person that's not looking to this world for their confidence, a person that's not looking for their hope and their comfort in some kind of earthly provision. They're not looking there at all.

They're looking to God. And guess what? That's what they get. They get God. They get a true root.

And all of their reproaches have fallen on Christ. The guilt that they had from reproaching Christ fell upon Christ. That's what happens to the believers. Their reproaches fall on Christ. Sinakarov, he receives his due punishment and his reproaches fall upon his head and 185, 000 of his troops die mysteriously in the night.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is that Jesus Christ came to save sinners, and he often uses chastisements. If we took a poll here today, it would be very interesting. How many of you, don't raise your hands, how many of you began to come to Christ because of a terrible calamity in your life? Because something fell apart and something so significant unraveled in your life and you had no hope but God, and you turned to Jesus Christ, and you said, I repent, and you turned, and you said, I trust in your salvation and your righteousness alone. I have no righteousness of my own.

How many of you began to turn to Christ because of a trouble? This is the beauty of troubles. And God does give beauty for the ashes. And that's what we see here in these final verses of this text here. The remnant goes free, the remnant bears fruit out of the ashes of God's chastisements.

And it's not our zeal for God that Isaiah is concerned about in chapter 37, But it's God's zeal for us. God has such zeal. He declares it in the last verse. Why? Why did all this happen?

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. It's the zeal of the Lord that saves sinners who will bear fruit and who will glorify His name. This is the zeal of the Lord. What a wonderful thing the zeal of the Lord is. God is wiser than our own understanding of everything, and He uses His zeal to bring us to a place of blessing, even though it might be difficult on the way.

Well, here are some applications. First of all, have faith in the prophecy. Believe in the prophecy. Why should you believe in the prophecy? Well, this historical event that Isaiah has been documenting has happened.

It already happened. But when he was speaking to Hezekiah, it hadn't happened yet. But now for us, we look back and we can see it happened. Have confidence in the prophecy. It happened.

Hezekiah hadn't seen it happen yet. And yet he believed. How much more should we believe having looked back and seen that the history was actually fulfilled exactly as God determined it. Believe the prophecy. Believe the whole Bible.

Believe every single word of the Bible. Here's another. Remember your role in society to pray, to pray specifically. Prayer is a battle. Prayer is for healing and restoration.

You know, what are the urgent needs that we as a church need to be praying for? What about you and your family? Please go home, go home today. Go home today and consider what things you and your family ought to be praying for. Pray against.

Pray for. Here's a third. Pray four. Here's a third. This is a letter of encouragement.

It should help us to be delivered from all of our fears because God is sovereign. God does control every wave, every breath of air, every tree, every ocean, every cloud, every person in the world. Every nanosecond is under His control. Every synapse of every brain is under His control. Let's trust in God.

Let's throw all of our trust in the God that we can trust. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish all these things. Let's be a people who rest in his sovereign promises. Let's be a people who have faith, who trust in Him and in Him alone. Would you pray with me?

Lord, I thank you for this letter of encouragement that you, through the prophet Isaiah, penned in order to destroy the works of the devil, to expose them, to show the truth about the world, and to lead us to be a people of prayer, to stand both for and against. Oh Lord, that you would make us the people of prayer like we've never been before. Amen.