The sermon by Scott Brown, titled 'Do Not Be Afraid of the Blasphemers,' examines Isaiah 37:5-20, where Hezekiah faces threats from the Assyrian king. Isaiah assures Hezekiah that God will intervene against the blasphemous Assyrians, emphasizing God's sovereignty and control over all events. The sermon highlights the importance of true worship and how nations are judged based on their worship practices. It contrasts the deceptive voice of fear, propagated by the devil, with the voice of faith and blessing found in God's word. Hezekiah's response to the Assyrian threats, characterized by prayer and reliance on God, is presented as a model for believers. The sermon draws parallels between Hezekiah's time and contemporary challenges, encouraging believers to trust in God's sovereignty despite worldly threats and to seek God's glory above personal fears and desires. Historical context is provided, illustrating the authenticity of biblical events through archaeological evidence. Ultimately, the sermon underscores the power of prayer and the futility of the devil's attempts against God's people.

Today's text is from Isaiah 37 from verse 5 until 20. So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah and Isaiah said to them, Thus you shall say to your master, Thus saith the Lord, Do not be afraid of the words which you have heard, which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Surely I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land. Then the Repshaka returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Lipna, for he heard that he had departed from Lachish. And the king heard concerning Tirhakat, king of Ethiopia, He has come out to make war with you.

So when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Look, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by utterly destroying them, and shall you be delivered? Have the gods of the nation delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed? Gozann, and Heron, and Rezeth, and the people of Eden who were in Tel Azhar. Where is the king of Hamad, the king of Arbat, and the king of the city of Sephardim, Hina, and Aida?

And Hezekiah received a letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. And Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord. Then Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, saying, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, the one who dwells between the caravan, you are God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear.

Open your eyes, O Lord, and see. And hear all the words of Sennachera, which he has sent to reproach the living God. Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands, and have cut their gods into the fire. For they were not gods, but the words of men's hands, wood and stone. Therefore they destroyed them.

Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the Lord, you alone. We praise you, Almighty God. We praise you because you are the true God. We praise you because we are your children. We praise you because we can trust in you.

We can turn to you and cry unto you, knowing that you have everything in control. We praise you, Lord, for your Word. Oh Lord, I pray that you open our ears and our eyes to see in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, it really is a joy to bring Isaiah 37 to this congregation.

It's such a powerful and remarkable testimony of the strength of Almighty God. This passage is a critical passage in Scripture. It's repeated three times in the Bible. It's repeated almost exactly in Second Chronicles and in Second Kings. And when something is repeated, you ought to, you know, listen up.

And this is what we have here and what we have here is in broad terms is a is a picture of what happens when worship dies in a nation nations are judged by their worship we We know that from reading the Bible. And here Judah is no different. God is bringing a hand of chastisement upon his people. And so this chapter here gives us a window of a moment of time in the history of this nation and its worship and how how their worship has affected really their destiny And Isaiah is preaching over a span of four different kings. And it's interesting when you look at what is happening here in this text, Isaiah is now preaching to comforting Hezekiah.

But Isaiah had been involved in Hezekiah's family for generations. He spoke to his father Ahaz and said many of the same things to Ahaz, but he rejected it. He spoke to his grandfather Jotham earlier on. Jotham was a godly king. And Isaiah is spanning a number of kings of Israel, and he's bringing a message of the true worship of God.

But he's also bringing a message of judgment. Because during the days of Ahaz, the true worship of God was set aside and the judgment is falling upon the land and the society is really in a state of collapse and so the story line is really about the people and the political leaders and the prophets and the punishments that come upon nations that reject God. And they are judged on the basis of their worship. And so when true worship is rejected, there are always fearful times that come upon the people. And so we have to recognize this broad theme that is here.

And we should look at this text and we should think about our own lives. You know, how is the story of my life reflected here? In the things that I hear from Isaiah the prophet, in the ways that Hezekiah responds, and in the ways that the different personalities in the text are working. The theme here is critical, I think, to be reminded of. The theme that we've observed continues from what we saw in chapter 36.

And that is how blasphemers attempt to discourage the people of God through deception, through luring them away from their trust in God. And hey, by the way, there's a big revival going on right now. There has been for years because when Hezekiah came to the throne at age 25, he began to cleanse the worship of God. And there's this beautiful revival that's taking place. At the same time, the people in large part are still in a state of collapse.

And the devil is not done with trying to discourage them. The devil is doing with the people of Judah what he does to every person, and that is he incites fear in their lives. The devil is at work in engendering fear in the life of every believer and that is exactly what he's doing and he's doing everything he can to cause Hezekiah and his envoy and the people who are listening on the walls to undervalue his worth, to underestimate the power of God, and actually to make a terrible, devastating miscalculation. It's a miscalculation of the truth of the sovereignty of God over all things. And so when these threatening and fearful situations come, as they are here, every believer knows this.

There are always two voices that are ringing in your ears. There's the voice of fear, whose source is blasphemy of the evil one, that diminishes trust in God. And the other voice is the voice of faith, and it's the source of blessing. And that's the voice of Isaiah. And it's also been the voice of Hezekiah.

Because from what all we can tell, Hezekiah is going out throughout the land and he's repeating what the prophet Isaiah is telling him. Do not fear. Do not fear. Now this immediate context in chapter 37 is that Hezekiah is now 39 years old and he is in his 14th year of his reign. He became king at age 25 and this brutal enemy is coming upon the nation like a whirlwind threatening to devour them.

The wolf is really at the gates And Hezekiah stands as a person who only has one hope, God. As only one help, the sovereignty of God. And so that's the immediate context that we find here. And in this immediate context, that we'll finally see the result of it in the very last verses of this chapter Christ will destroy all of his enemies the angel of the Lord the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who destroys the blasphemous, the abusive, the brutal, defiling agenda of the devil. And this really should serve as a great encouragement to us.

For those of you who believe in Jesus Christ and the power of His blood, that Jesus Christ has destroyed the works of the devil and this this remarkable moment in the life of Hezekiah is a parable it's a type to help you understand the work of God against the power of the devil. Even in your own life, the angel of the Lord is at work. And here we find at the end of this chapter that the angel of the Lord is going to mysteriously kill 185, 000 of Sennacherib's soldiers. It really is absolutely one of the most remarkable military stories in all of history. And I think what we ought to say here today is what Isaiah says in Isaiah 40, O Zion, you who bring good tidings, get up into the high mountain.

O Jerusalem, you who bring good tidings, lift up your voice with strength. Lift it up. Be not afraid. Say to the cities of Judah, behold your God. And I think that's really the primary theme that we find here.

You have an outline here before you and you see the contours of the text and the various things that are taking place here in this chapter. But I do believe that the wider context here in chapters 36 through 39 is a disclosure of the way that Satan treats us and how futile his work is because God is going to destroy him. And in chapter 37 verse 23, You have this window into this matter where the prophet says, 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 service you have approached the Lord and said, By the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, 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." And so this is a chapter about the zeal of the Lord of hosts to destroy the works of the devil. And I think the central message here is, don't follow the world or its princes. The devil blasphemes in order to discourage and deflate and distract the people of God. But God is going to destroy him. He may look so successful.

He may be so well appointed. He may have shields and swords and siege works and thousands, hundreds of thousands, multitudes of his own. They will die. You cannot trust them. Don't listen to them.

And don't listen to their voice of fear as they bring it to you. And I think that here is where the gospel is preached in this text, that Jesus Christ destroys the work of the devil. That he comes and he seeks and saves the lost. And he plucks them out of their hopeless state. And they are hopeless.

But he saves them. And then he destroys the works of the devil in them for all of eternity. So this story is such a brilliant and beautiful picture of the gospel. Here's what I'm praying for this morning. That our faith would grow.

That we would see God as greater than we saw him when we came in here today. So let's go into the text. Verses 1 through 4, I'm just going to remind us of where this chapter started. In 1 through 4, Hezekiah tears his clothes, he goes into the house of God, and he asks Isaiah to pray. This is such a wonderful thing.

He trusts the prophet of God, and he calls upon the prophets of God. This is where Hezekiah gets his stability and his strength. And then after Hezekiah humbles himself before God and calls upon Isaiah to pray for him, Then Isaiah sends a message to Hezekiah, and that message is declared in verses 5 through 7. So, the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, And Isaiah said to them, You shall say to your master, thus says the Lord, do not be afraid of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Surely I will set a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land." The first thing that we encounter here that I want to identify is this phrase, thus says the Lord, because Isaiah is sending a message from God to Hezekiah and the message carries divine authority and it's a very simple message of hope and it is it is the declaration of God's absolute authority in all things and when when you find yourself you know afraid under the threats that that are upon you, for really anything, the most important thing you need is the, thus saith the Lord.

When you get lost in your fears, You need to hear, Thus saith the Lord. How many times has that happened to you when you've gotten lost in the terrors of what might happen to you? Your only hope is, Thus saith the Lord, to turn to God and to the Word of His grace. Stop listening to yourself. Maybe you should even stop listening to people around you, but listen to Almighty God.

Open up His holy book and hear the words that He has for you. Thus saith the Lord. This is the most important issue here. The rabbi Shaka has been saying, thus says Sennacherib. And now we have, thus says the Lord.

And there really are only two alternatives in this life. The inclination of your ears makes all the difference in the world, particularly when you're in a time of fear. Are you in a time of fear? Is there anything that's terrorizing you? Go to the Lord.

Go to His Word. Trust that. And not the voice in your own head and not the voice of your culture, but the Lord, the Lord God alone. Now there are three aspects of Isaiah's message here in these verses. The first is do not fear.

The second is I am in control. And the third message is I will destroy. Those are the three things that Isaiah is telling Hezekiah. So first of all do not be afraid. You know this is This is a command that appears in scripture more than any other command.

Do not be afraid in one form or another. Fear not, do not be afraid. This is the most prominent command in the whole Bible. The Lord Jesus Christ follows the same pattern 21 times he says this and the next closest in frequency and command is love one another but he speaks of fear more than anything else and here he says do not be afraid of the words which you have heard. There are words that you hear in your head.

There are words that you read. These are the things that cause you to fear. What are the words that needs to be exercised from your brain so that the fear of the Lord and his sayings replace them. He says, don't be afraid of their blasphemy, which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me." You know, when you face times of fear, you have to recognize that it's pointing to something. It's pointing to the place where you put your security.

It's pointing to the place where you put your security. It's pointing to the place where you put your hope. You know, if your God, for example, is security, Like if that is the highest value that you maintain in your heart, that you would somehow be safe and secure, then you'll always be afraid and you most likely will be angry when your security is threatened. If your God is safety, you'll always be vulnerable and angry about your vulnerability. If your God is peace, you'll always be in turmoil and angry.

But if your God is God, then you will have the greatest treasure living in your thinking, and that is the words of God. Thus saith the Lord. The second thing that he says is that I am in control. Verse 7, Behold, I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land." Now this to me is one of the most amazing disclosures in all of the Bible. And it should help you understand everything about every person you've ever met, every situation you've ever been in, every political leader you've ever served under, every boss you ever had, every pastor you ever had, every wife you ever had, every husband you ever had.

This is the same thing. God is in control. He's in control of absolutely everything. And here we find that God is going to send a spirit in order to control one of the greatest kings in the ancient Near East, King Sennacherib. And the word that he uses here is ruach, it means breath.

And it's the word that the New Testament translates as the word of God being God breathed. It's literally breath, a breath from God, as if just a poof, a poof of wind comes. And it has a spiritual impact on his life. And he changes. You know, God does this.

He will send a lying spirit. Here he sends a certain spirit to King Sennacherib to turn him. Sennacherib is actually getting jerked around by God. Sinakarib thinks that he is so self-sufficient. He thinks he has such a strategy.

He does not know that he is just the rod of God. He doesn't know that God is using him to glorify himself. And here's what all of us need to understand, that God is using everyone else to glorify himself through our lives as we respond. And if you don't understand that, you will never be happy. If you don't understand that, you will never be able to maintain relationships with people in this world.

If you do not understand that God is in absolute control and he can change the direction of any person, any time he desires, by a breath. Well, he also uses another thing, he uses a rumor. But before we leave the Spirit, just an observation I want to make. And that is that God says that the Spirit will come upon him. In other words, he won't be able to resist it.

It'll come to him from the outside and it'll work on his insides and his outward responses will be the result of all of that. That's why the Lord Jesus Christ said, the wind blows wherever it wishes. And God is in control of the impressions that people have and the impulses that those impressions produce. Please, I pray that we understand that as a church. Here we are as a church, and we need to recognize that about our church too.

Maybe someone has offended you in this church. They are sent from God. They are not your enemy. Maybe someone's disappointed you. They're sent from God.

God is in control. And if you don't understand that, you won't be able to have a happy marriage, you won't be able to have a happy church, and you won't be able to have a happy workplace because God is in control. And then He sends a rumor. God is going to send to a rumor that His ears are going to hear. He's just going to be at a certain place.

He's going to be at the right place at the right time and He's going to hear something and it's going to change the whole trajectory of his plan. You know, it's interesting how people's lives are led, often by what are seemingly some of the most random things. They're not random. They seem random, but they're not. You know, you think about that in so many levels.

Think about the person you married. How many sort of like random things happened that caused you to get to the place where you got married to that person you're sitting next to right now. It's because God is in control and he rules everything. So the third thing that he says that he will destroy, he says he will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land. So God will make him fall.

Sennacherib was going to return to Nineveh and 20 years later he's going to be killed by his own sons while he's worshiping his God. You know, it took a lot. You know, God's God is patient. God waits. Here you have Sennacherib, you know, defiling the name of God and telling telling Hezekiah that his God ain't nothing.

And then he goes into his own temple and is murdered there. It's ironic. But God takes 20 years. He lets him go on. He lets him dance along his life until he finally fulfills his prophecy.

You know, people think that because God hasn't done anything about their sin, that He's not going to do anything about their sin. Don't think that way. And the wicked of this world who have not repented and turned to Jesus Christ. They will be able to dance along in their life, maybe for years, maybe for decades. But God knows, God is watching and He is going to fulfill all of his prophecies.

And here this is a prophecy that is given, he will destroy him. And all this to say that God is in control. Proverbs 16, 4 says, the Lord has made all for himself, yes, even the wicked for the day of doom." You know, one of the things that is so striking to me about these verses is that you have this picture of Hezekiah and Isaiah, a king and a prophet, And a king who has known this prophet since he was a little boy. A king who the prophet knew his father and his grandfather. This long lineage that this whole context implies.

Remember in Isaiah 1 we remember that Isaiah is a prophet during four kings, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Those four kings, Isaiah has been there consulting Hezekiah's family for years and years. You know, now Isaiah is an old man, and he's seen it all. He saw the righteous king Jotham, and then he saw everything collapse in the days of Ahaz and the debauchery that he brought in. But his grandfather was a godly man, you can read about him in 2 Chronicles 27, And there were four godly kings before Ahaz.

And so there was this legacy of godliness that really was collapsed by Ahaz. There was 137 years of a good king, And then you get Ahaz. Imagine what it would be like to have 137 years in your nation with a godly king. Wouldn't that be amazing? And yet it can turn around so quickly as it did in those days, but Isaiah was there consulting the grandfather and the father of Isaiah.

And it's such a remarkable picture. You know, Ahaz experienced enormous upheaval. Ahaz experienced enormous upheaval. And Hezekiah was young in 722 BC when the northern kingdom fell. He saw all that happen.

He saw Judah losing 120, 000 soldiers in one day in a battle with the northern kingdom and they kidnapped 200, 000 men or women and children, not men. And he saw the prophet Odette intervening and taking care of those captives and they were able to come back to Judah. Isaiah and Hezekiah lived through all of this together. I just want us to understand when Hezekiah asks for Isaiah to pray for him, there's been a long history there. And Hezekiah, all his life long, has loved the voice of the prophet Isaiah.

That's the kind of man he was. He loved the voice of the prophet. So that's what you find here. And so he sends for the prophet to pray for him. And so then after Isaiah sends this message to Hezekiah, the message of do not fear, I'm in control, I am going to destroy the works of the devil.

After that, then the Rav Shaka returns to Sennacherib. And you read about this in verses 8 and 9. Then the Rav Shaka returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Libna for he heard that he had departed from Lachish. So what's happening here in verse 8 is that the king of Assyria, Sennacherib, was making war against Lachish, the second greatest city in Judah. And so the Rabsheka hears that the battle for Lachish is over, the victory has been secured, and he's moved now to the battle of Libna, another smaller city in Judah.

And So he reports back to Sennacherib that Hezekiah ain't moving. Hezekiah is not coughing up any more money for tribute. He's not going to take the 2, 000 horses. He is not going to capitulate. He has listened to the prophet Isaiah.

And so the Rabshecha goes back to Sennacherib with that message and he finds him warring against Illybna. And so as a result, he sends a message to Hezekiah, a threatening message. And Sinakrub tells Hezekiah that Terhak of Ethiopia is going to come and attack Judah. And he's just using more and more fear tactics to destabilize this whole thing. Now with the mention of Lachish, we find ourselves having to recognize what is one of the most important biblical archaeological discoveries of all time.

And that is that this battle against Lachish was highly documented by Sennacherib. And if you go to the British Museum you can see the whole story in an 80 foot long relief, 8 foot high of the battle of Lachish. And Lachish, like I said, was the second most significant city in Judah. And it was the final and the largest city before Jerusalem would be taken. Remember, Sennacherib is on a tear.

He's already destroyed, according to his records, 46 cities. And now he's going to come in in the 14th year of Hezekiah at age 39 to destroy Jerusalem. But the reason we have this record is that Sennachera built a palace in Nineveh, a huge palace, and it was called, he called it the Palace Without Rival. And the walls were limestone slabs with this long relief in one of the rooms. It was discovered in 1847.

But on these walls you see all these carvings that show the whole battle. It shows the soldiers firing arrows, the chariots, the battering rams, the shields, the towers of Lakish, and soldiers throwing rocks off of the walls and torches down upon the attackers. And I mean, you can see the clothing they were wearing, the facial hair that they had, how the women were dressed. It's all right there. And they're, you know, they're in one of the reliefs you have, you know, throats are being slit and people are begging for mercy apparently.

But this is all just highly documented, one of the most remarkable discoveries and here it is right here in Isaiah and being verified. And we have other sources as well that speak of this battle, but I think Sennacherib's palace relief is the most significant. But what's the point? The situation with Hezekiah and Isaiah and Sennacherib, they were real events. They were real people, real wars, real cities.

The Bible is not a story book. It's not mythology. Every single word of it is true. And we will find as time goes on that more and more of it will be verified by the archaeological and historical testimony. So anyway, when the Rav Shaka finds the Nakarab there at Libna after he's come off the Battle of Lachish, he decides to go direct with his message.

He's been speaking through the Rav Shaka. Now he's going to speak directly to Hezekiah through a letter that he sends. And so this is what we find in verses 10 through 13, the contents of that letter. And there are several messages in this letter. And they really show us that the devil pretty much does the same thing all the time.

God is not sovereign, God is not wonderful, God is not good. It's just the same old thing. Somehow the world is better than the things of the Lord. The lie of the devil is always the same. Go taste this thing.

Oh, it's so good. And then you'll find that it'll kill you. It's a poison pill. So the message is, you know, is consistent. Trust yourself, trust your culture, trust the system, trust what people say.

But no, he, he, God is saying, you know fear God and so So now this this message The further there's several messages. The first message is this don't let your God deceive you He was saying through through the rabshaka don't let has a kaya Deceive you now. He's saying don't let God deceive you. He's kind of ratcheted up the discussion. He says, do not let your God, verse 10, in whom you trust deceive you, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

He's saying don't be so stupid, don't be so backward to believe in this God. His second message is I'm a winner, verse 11. He says look, you've heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands by utter destroying them and shall you be deceived? He's saying, I'm a winner. Be successful like me.

You know, I'm the path of greatness. Be successful. Walk with me and you'll walk with the stars. That's really his message. You want to have a life of security?

I'll give it to you. The devil's always offering security to people, But when they pursue it, they never have it. They have the opposite of it. And his third message is, your God cannot stand against me. You see how increasingly blasphemous this is?

Verse 12, have the gods of the nations delivered, those who my fathers have destroyed? Gozan and Heron and Rezef and the people of Eden who are in T'lasser? These different places, these are the places that he has already overcome and he's just saying your God is no different and his fourth message is your kings cannot stand against me verse 13 where is the king of Haman the king of our pod the king of the city of Sepharvam, and Hena, and Iva? So here what we find is, you know, Sennacherib wants to give Hezekiah another chance, And he's continuing to batter his faith, accusing him of his inability. And what he's saying is, your kings can't stand against me.

One thing that Sennacherib doesn't understand is that God can turn anyone he wants, any way he wants, and all he needs is a breath or a rumor. He doesn't need an army. He doesn't need anything. And so he's, he hears Sennacherib is blaspheming God. And he's basically saying God is not good.

God is not truthful. God is not strong. God will not protect you. Trust me. This is just the same old message the devil always uses with everybody, no matter what age they are.

Whether you're young or old, This is the voice of the devil. The world is always arguing with you to believe that the world will free you from your bondage. And then you learn, once you taste of the world, that you're not free, that all of your options are dark and fear drives you and it drives you into a box canyon. So this is the issue that's on the table here. This is really the story of your life and my life, where the devil lies and he tells you that God is not anything to trust.

He's not anything to write home about. And remember, this is a time of revival, too. And many people have turned toward the Lord. And in a lot of ways I think the devil is saying to these people, the revival you've seen is a fake. Don't trust that either.

Think about your own life and how the story of your life is reflected here. And then Hezekiah reads the letter in verse 14. This to me is one of the most dramatic parts of this. And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. And Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord.

I think this is such a helpful thing to see. First he read it and then he takes it into the house of God. He goes to the place of help. He goes to meet God In the same way that David did when he said, one thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion.

In the secret place of his tabernacle he shall hide me. This is exactly what Hezekiah did. He did what his father David did. Because he is in the direct line of David and he's following this path of faithfulness that all faithful people follow. They go to the secret place, they go to God, they take their problems and they lay them before God.

There's no better place to be in a time of trouble than in the house of God. You know, my prayer is that when people are in their greatest times of trouble that they don't neglect the house of God. Sometimes People face a time of trouble and then they stay away. It's the wrong place for them to be. The place to be is in the house of God, in the time of trouble or discouragement, to come before God in His house.

And then Hezekiah does to me what's the most astonishing thing about this verse. He spreads out the letter before the Lord. Can you picture that? He just lays out, he lays the threat before the Lord. I mean, Did the Lord already know about the letter?

Yes, absolutely the Lord knew about the letter. The Lord didn't need to read the letter. But He is acknowledging, Hezekiah is acknowledging that both He and the Lord see the same thing and they are observing the same problem. That they are together in this world. That God is drawn near to man.

And when a person lays out his troubles before the Lord, He acknowledges that, behold, I am with you even to the end of the age. He's acknowledging that God sees and He cares. It's a picture here of God and man being unified. You know, we sing that song before the throne, before the throne of God above, I have a strong and perfect plea, a great high priest. That's what we see here.

Let your requests be made known to God. Spread them out. Lay them before God. Tell Him what has happened. This is such a helpful insight for our prayer life.

We bring our things before God. What a marvelous gift. You know, what a marvelous gift of grace it is to spread out a letter before God. You know, A letter that you're no longer employed and you spread it out before the Lord. Lord, here it is.

This is the real, this is the situation. A letter from the IRS, you spread it before the Lord. A Dear John letter, and you spread it before the Lord. News of a great disappointment. A letter about a wayward son or daughter, and you spread it before the Lord.

News of a great disappointment, a letter about a wayward son or daughter, and you spread it before the Lord. What a wonderful thing God has given us. And then Hezekiah prays in verses 15 through 20. Then Hezekiah prayed to the Lord saying, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, the one who dwells between the cherubim, you are God. You alone of all the kingdoms of the earth, you have made heaven and earth.

Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear, Open your eyes, O Lord, and see and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations of their lands and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. Therefore they have destroyed them. Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, and that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the Lord, you alone." It says here that Hezekiah prayed to the Lord. He had nowhere else to turn.

And so he went to the most beneficial place. And then, by the way, there are three prayers of Hezekiah. At some point we'll look into them. The first prayer he prayed was in the midst of this great revival and he invited the people from the northern kingdom to come and worship and they had defiled themselves, they had not prepared themselves, they had been worldly and they had not been walking in the ways of God, but they came down anyway and they worshiped. And there was so much wrong with their worship, and Hezekiah praised for them, that God would bless them.

He would bless the intentions of their heart, even though they had not purified themselves in the ways that they should have. It was a prayer of mercy for a people who were in the midst of a revival, a people whose lives had been messed over in so many ways, and everything wasn't right, but they wanted to worship God. And that was Hezekiah's first prayer. And now there's this prayer. And there's a third prayer that he prays, but we'll deal with that some other time.

But here, Hezekiah is praying, and There are several elements of his prayer, and I'd like to just walk through them. The first element is to acknowledge his power. In verse 16 he says, Oh Lord of hosts. Again Isaiah uses this term, he uses it all the time in his prophecy, Lord of hosts, the Lord of the armies of heaven. He's really saying that all power is at his disposal, that he rules all armies everywhere in heaven and earth everywhere and it's Isaiah is or Hezekiah is acknowledging God's power you can go back to Isaiah 10 and you can see where God says, Assyria is just my axe.

Don't say it's a conspiracy. I'm doing it. And here Hezekiah is just acknowledging God's absolute power. And then secondly, he prays regarding his care, his care for Israel. He calls him the God of Israel because he knows, he knows the scripture says that he has his eye on his people and he chose them not because they were a great nation but because he loved them.

So he acknowledges his care, first his power, then his care. And then thirdly, he acknowledges his presence. He says, he's the one who dwells between the cherubim. The cherubim in the temple is the place where God meets with his people. In Exodus 25 verse 22 you can read about it where God says, And there I will meet with you, I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim, which are on the ark of the testimony, about everything which I give you in commandments to the children of Israel.

Hentheki is acknowledging the presence of God, that God is near his people. And then fourthly, he acknowledges his rulership. He says, for you, you are God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. He's acknowledging his rulership over absolutely everything. And then he speaks of his sovereignty over creation.

You have made heaven and earth. Think about your own life. You know, how does this fit with your own life, your own prayer life? What a wonderful way to pray. And then Hezekiah appeals to the Lord as he gives thanks with all of his heart for God's love and his power and his mercy and his absolute sovereignty.

After he acknowledges all these things, then he actually begins to command God. You might find that interesting. And there are five imperative verbs that Hezekiah uses. The first is in verse 17, incline. He is commanding God to incline his ear.

He's calling God because he is a friend of God. As Chronicle says that he's the servant of God And he's calling God to incline his ear. And then the second imperative is to hear, oh Lord, and hear. The third imperative is, open your eyes, oh Lord. The fourth imperative is, and see.

And the fifth imperative is, and hear all the words of Sennacherib which he has sent to reproach the living God. And this is bold praying. It's coming boldly before the throne of grace. It's like that woman who wouldn't quit knocking at the door, but who goes before God and cries out to God. Like a real person.

Like you would with a friend, like you would with a wife or a son or a daughter. You speak to him that way. And here you have this tenderness, this submissiveness, but yet there's a freedom, a freedom to speak with God, Almighty God. By the way, almost all the words in this text are promises about the future. They've not been fulfilled yet.

Isaiah is living, Isaiah and Hezekiah are living in the time before the fulfillments of the words and still they have faith. And then in the middle of this prayer, Hezekiah makes a declaration in verses 18 and 19. He acknowledges what's going on. Hey, this is a real threat. This is not some fake phantom of your imagination.

Most of our fears are about things that will never happen. Well guess what? This was a little bit different, okay, because there was an army there ready to devour the city. And so, Hezekiah acknowledges this in the prayer. He explains to God what's happening.

He says, truly, Lord, the Kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands, and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. Therefore they have destroyed them." So Hezekiah in the middle of the prayer acknowledges what is really happening. And then Hezekiah's final appeal is in verse 20. Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the Lord you alone Hezekiah sees this whole attack not as an attack on his own glory, but he sees it as an attack on the glory of God. This is really significant.

God's work in Hezekiah's life has been a beautiful work. And as time has gone on, God has secured in Hezekiah an understanding of the glory of God, that God is interested in his own glory. And this prayer reflects that. And here is a man praying for the glory of God. It's the same thing as praying in Jesus' name.

When the Bible says to pray in His name, it's not an appeal to tack on in His name after every prayer. It really is an appeal to pray for the glory of God, to pray for the things that are consistent with his name, to pray for the things that glorify his name. And Hezekiah is offering this very same kind of prayer. And so as we pray, we ought to remember this prayer, how he spreads it out in the midst of a real crisis. So here's what happens in this prayer.

First of all, Hezekiah meets with God in a specific place. That's a lesson for us. Meet God in a specific place. Set aside specific time. Don't just pray while you're driving in your car or laying in your bed.

Go to God at a specific time and a specific place. Here's the second thing. Recognize the greatness of God. That's what Hezekiah does. He recognizes His greatness in multiple categories of His greatness.

And then thirdly, make requests. Lay them out. Lay them before the Lord. What are the things that are on your heart? What are the things that are burdening you?

Lay them out like a letter before God. And then fourth, Seek the glory of God alone. It's so clear that Hezekiah's desire is for the glory of God. This is often the area where we err in our prayers. We care too much about our own glory, too much about our own comfort, our own reputation, our own finances, and our prayers are offered up because of pride, because our pride is being threatened.

How many of our prayers are prayed because of pride, and yet how patient God is even with prayers prayed in pride. So as we pray, we need to ask ourselves, why, why am I bringing this before God? Is it for my own glory? Am I just obsessed with my own comfort, my own finances, my own reputation, and my prayers are really just all about me and not the glory of God? Hezekiah is such a marvelous example to us.

These things were given to us for an example. So that we could see where our idolatries are. This is what 1 Corinthians 10 says, these things are given for an example in the Old Testament to show you how you are an idolater. And I think this prayer of Hezekiah is one of those examples to show us how it might be that some of our prayers are really nothing more than self-serving, idolatrous, comfort-seeking, success-seeking prayers, and they're not for the glory of God. Okay, let's move to some applications here.

You know, it's hard not to ask this question as we ask all the time. Who are you in this story? Do you speak the words of unbelief to others like Sennacherib? Do you listen to the words of unbelief? Are you like Isaiah who contradicts and counteracts the messages of unbelief, and you find your comfort in the knowledge of the majesty and the supremacy of the sovereignty of God.

Are you like Isaiah who listens to the prophet? He loves to hear of the prophet. He's not running from the prophet. He wants to hear. He's not afraid of a word from God.

Are you afraid of a word from God? Like, have you ever thought, I don't want to read that. I don't want to talk to that person. I'm afraid of what they're going to say. And I'm afraid it's from God.

Hezekiah wasn't like that at all. Hezekiah loved the words of the prophet. You know, it's always so harmful when we don't love the words of the prophet. Because when we don't, we just keep banging our head against the wall until, and we will keep banging it against the wall because God is not going to let us go. He's jealous for His glory.

And He'll often Continue to chastise people until they finally turn. As the heat turns up, as the pain gets greater, and then finally they turn and they hear the word of the prophet. Is there anything like that in your life? Is the Spirit of God revealing anything in your life, or you're running from Him? You do not want to hear it.

Let this be an opportunity that the Holy Spirit is giving you to Identify a poison that's been there for maybe a long time God wants to relieve you He wants he wants to bless you He wants all of your trust to rest in him Now What why is hezekiah so important he's important for so many reasons You know has a kind of walked with God from a young age. You know, he speaks of this in 2 Kings 20 verse 3. He says, Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes. This really is the story of his life. He did lose his faith a couple times that we know of.

But the biblical testimony is that he was absolutely one of the most marvelous kings Israel ever had second to David. In 2 Kings we read there was none like him before or after, meaning maybe he was greater than David. And so he's a significant person. In 2 Chronicles 31 verse 20 and 21 it says, Thus Hesekiah did throughout all Judah, he did what was good and right and true before the Lord is God. And in every work that he began in the service of the house of God and in the law of the commandment to seek his God, he did with all his heart so he prospered." Here's what I'm getting at.

Hezekiah is such a marvelous guideline, you know, guiding light for all young people because he sought the Lord from a young age. And you know what it says? It says, he prospered. You want to prosper? There's only one way.

Seek the Lord in the way that He did. Now I think we need to also remember that He lived in troubled times. A financial crisis, terrible crises of leadership. The men were not taking up the mantle of leadership. We know that from what Isaiah has already prophesied.

There was economic collapse. There was moral decline that was the backwash of Ahaz in 2 Chronicles 28-19. We read that because Ahaz encouraged moral decline in Judah, and he was continually unfaithful to the Lord, There was moral decline that Ahaz encouraged. It's very much like our times. It's very much like, I think, the wicked kings of the world who are encouraging moral decline.

Our kings are encouraging moral decline. We live in times just like this. Like that, I mean. And the future was uncertain. And what did Hezekiah do?

He prayed. His prayers were desperate. They were passionate. They were personal. They were prayers of belief in Almighty God.

He removed all the junk and the false worship of the temple, and God blessed him for his faithfulness. So as you consider Hezekiah's life and the troubles and the victories that he experienced, think of the story of your own life. We're coming to the end of the year. I don't know about you, but my mind has already shifted. It's beginning to shift into the coming year and what changes need to happen in my life and what should I spend my heart and my soul on in that coming year.

You know, think of the trajectory of your life and where you're going in for 2015. And think of Hezekiah. You know, think of Hezekiah's Fame. He was God's servant. That's what he's called.

Abraham was the friend of God. Moses was the meekest man who ever lived. Enoch walked with God. Hezekiah was God's servant. That's 2 Chronicles 32, 16.

He was a God's servant. So as you're thinking about the trajectory of your life, you know, what should 2015 look like for you? In this passage of Scripture, I think Hezekiah is so helpful to us. First of all, he believed the prophets of God. So believe the prophets of God like Hezekiah did.

That's verses 5 through 7. Acknowledge the fiery end of the deceiver like Hezekiah did. That's verses 8 through 13. Lay out your letters before God like Hezekiah did. That's verse 14.

Cry out to God in faith as a friend and a servant like Hezekiah did in verses 15 through 19. Love the glory of God more than your own life like Hezekiah did in verse 20. Think about your family. Think about your city. Think about your nation.

And pray. In the same way that Sennacherib was the lying king of Assyria who said that God was not enough, you know, if there are voice in our heads that says that God is enough and that we would pray like Hezekiah for the defeat of such an imposter. He will be defeated. The angel of the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, will defeat the blasphemers. And we need to recognize that and not love any of their messages.

Well here's the deal. One man prayed and a whole nation was saved. One man prayed and the devil was belittled. One man prayed and God received glory. You know, and this happened 2, 700 years ago.

And it can happen today. In your heart, in your family, in your church, in your city and in your nation. Do not fear. Don't be afraid of the blasphemers. They have no hope in this world.

Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, I praise you that with a breath, with a rumor, you control all things. I thank you that you've called us to lay, make our requests known to you, to lay out our letters before you. Oh Lord, I pray that you would, you would bring out of us hundreds of letters laid before you, more letters than we've ever laid before you to cry out for your glory not for our own safety but for your glory oh God I pray you'd make us a people like this in this little church Amen.