The sermon 'In Whom Do You Trust?' delivered by Scott Brown, draws from Isaiah 36, which recounts the historical encounter between King Hezekiah of Judah and the Assyrian army led by Sennacherib's official, the Rav Sheka. This narrative illustrates the challenges of faith and trust, as the Rav Sheka tries to undermine the confidence of Judah's people by questioning their reliance on God and suggesting alternatives like Egypt. The speaker highlights the central theme of trusting God amidst fear and external threats, using the historical backdrop of a revival in Judah to underscore the distinction between divine and worldly solutions. The sermon calls listeners to recognize the voices that sway them away from faith and to reaffirm their trust in God, rejecting the seductive promises of worldly powers. It emphasizes the repeated biblical message that salvation and strength are found only in God, urging believers to hold firm against the lies that lead to fear and doubt.

Isaiah 36 verse 1 Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah That Sennacherub king of Assyria came up against the fortified cities of Judah and took them then the king of Assyria sent the revshak with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem, and he stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller's Field. And Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shedna the scribe, and Jehovah the son of Asaph the recorder came out to him. Then the Rapshaka said to them, Say now, Tezekiah, thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, what confidence is this in which you trust? I say you speak of having plans and power for war, but they are mere words. Now in whom do you trust that you rebel against me?

Look, you are trusting in the staff of this broken reed, Egypt, on which if a man leans, will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. But if you say to me, we trust in the Lord our God, is it not he whose high place is in whose altars Hezekiah is taken away? And said to Judah and Jerusalem, you shall worship before this altar. Now therefore I urge you give a pledge to my master the king of Syria and I will give you two thousand horses if you are able on your part to put riders on them.

How then will you repel one captain of the least of my master's servants and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen. Have I now come up withath the Lord against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it. Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rav Shaka, please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it, and do not speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people who are on the wall. But the Rabshaka said, Has my master sent me to your master and to you to speak these words and not to the men who sit on the wall, who will eat and drink their own waste with you." Then the Rav Shacka stood and called out with a loud voice in Hebrew and said, Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria.

Thus says the king, Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you, nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver us. This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Do not listen to Hezekiah, For thus says the king of Assyria, make peace with me by a present and come out to me, and every one of you eat from his own vine, and every one from his own fig tree, and every one of you drink the waters of his own cistern, Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, beware lest Tezekiah persuade you, saying, The Lord will deliver us. Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered its land from the hand of the king of Assyria. Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad?

Where are the gods of Sephiram? Indeed, have they delivered Samaria from my hand. Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their countries from my hand? That the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand. But they held their peace and answered him not a word, for the king's commandment was, Do not answer him.

Then Eli came the son of Lechaim who was over the household. Shebna the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told them the words of the rapture. Let's pray. Thank you for today Heavenly Father. Thank you that we could be together.

We have this liberty to worship you. Just pray you bless this passage, bless the preaching and we'd apply it as you see fit in Jesus' name. Amen. We have such a privilege to be in Isaiah. What we found though over the last months in Isaiah is that He's constantly bringing us back to a particular issue in our lives, and it has to do with trust, trusting in Him.

He shows us the many voices that come to our ears to cause us to lose all of our trust and all of our hope in Him that we would be just overcome by fear. And there's always one single reason we find ourselves overcome with fear, and that is that we believe the lies that are ringing in our ears. And this passage of Scripture is one that brings the voice of one liar, the Rav Shaka, who comes to speak lies to three individuals who meet with him in a very historic place. And what we find here is, in Isaiah 36, though, is this consistent message, do not fear the Assyrian. You know, fear God.

Don't fear the fearful threats of those who are around you. And I think there's perhaps there's some great reason that we are here in this section of Scripture where God is constantly appealing to us regarding our fears over and over again. You know, even in the last chapter, there are those beautiful words, say to those who are fearful hearted, do not be afraid. What wonderful words for a fearful people. I think that the people of God deal with fear, you know, and maybe in waves in their lives, and perhaps we're here because of that in our own hearts.

This historical moment is occurring in the lives of three men here in chapter 36. Now, I'm going to give you sort of an extended introduction because we're entering into a new section of Isaiah, so I'd like for us to think through what's happening here. But this historical moment is in the lives of three men, and it's another one of those freeze-frame moments in men's lives. And here, at the aqueduct on the highway to the Fuller's Field, this very same place where Hezekiah's father Ahaz met with the prophet Isaiah. And here we have another moment like that.

Ahaz was in one of those moments where he had, looking in the eyes of Isaiah, an appeal not to fear. And Ahaz does not take the appeal. He continues to want to trust in himself and in the world. He continues to want to trust in the things that you cannot trust in. And he's offered a sign.

And Ahaz says, I don't want a sign from God. I don't want God. And so there is this moment in Hezekiah's father's life on this very same location, that now we find this envoy of three great leaders of Judah. And these men are there at a critical moment in their lives. What they do in response to what they hear will end up showing who they really are.

We'll learn here that they're not all the same kind of men. There are three different men here. Will they trust God, Or will they trust the lies of Sennacherib? And at this point, the people of Judah are filled up with the lies of Sennacherib and they're shaking in their boots. And so Isaiah is showing us a moment in the lives of these three men that is actually repeated in the life of every Christian probably over and over again, where there are the lies of the devil being told to you and the result is you throw off your trust in God And you fear man, you fear everything around you, and this is the kind of moment that these men find themselves in.

The devil speaks like a broken record. He's always trying to destroy your confidence in God. Place your confidence back in yourself, your outward circumstances and things like that, and forget that there is a God in heaven who cares for you, a God who loves you, a God who says, do not fear the Assyrian. And so before these three men is an opportunity. And their opportunity is to compromise the truth for the comfort and the pleasure that is being promised by the Rab Sheka.

Now, they would never get the comfort that's promised by Rabshaka, but they're being tempted to go and grab it through a present, through a gift, through some kind of favor that they would give to the king of Assyria. And I think what God has brought before these two men, and He brings these three men, and He also brings it before our congregation today. And it's this question, who is your salvation? And here the message of Isaiah is God is your salvation. The Rabshecha is telling the people of God that they can trust in their works for their salvation.

They can trust in something other than God for their salvation. My understanding of this passage is that it is both historical and literal, and it is also figurative and it's typological. And the trust in God for salvation in the days of this great war that Judah is in is a figure for the trust that the people of God must have in God and in God alone, that only in Jesus Christ, only in His blood sacrificed for our sins, can we trust our salvation. We cannot trust in our works. But here is a type, is a figure, to show us the bankruptcy of thinking that we can earn our salvation in any way.

And there is such a great and wonderful passive nature in salvation that you trust in Him. You trust in His strength and His strength alone. You cannot trust yourself, you cannot trust in the world. And so, these three men are in the crossfire of this kind of situation, where they are being tempted to trust in the works of man for their salvation, specifically for the power of the king of Assyria. And This historical context also has to be reviewed here.

This is a time of revival and it's also a time of war. When this situation takes place in Isaiah chapter 36 verse 1, There's a revival taking place as a result of the repentance and the faithfulness of Hezekiah and it's spreading throughout the whole land. You can read about it in 2 Kings 18 and in 2 Chronicles 29-31. This chapter is repeated almost verbatim in those two sections of scripture. And what has happened here in this very difficult moment where Jerusalem is surrounded by a terrible army, It's right at the time of a great revival.

And Hezekiah has cleansed the house of God and they took all the garbage out of the temple and they threw it in the brook of Kidron. They were cleansing the temple, and they're now rejoicing. Even though havoc is being taken all over the land by the king of Assyria, they're rejoicing. They've gotten out the cymbals and the harps and all the instruments of David and the stringed instruments and the trumpets and they're praising God. So it's a time of revival.

You just have to think about what's happening here. When these men are standing with the Rabshecha at the aqueduct on the highway to the Fuller's Field, it's in a time of rejoicing, a time of tremendous renewal, right at that very same time. And you can read about this revival in 2 Chronicles 30 and in these other passages of Scripture. It's a wonderful time and Jerusalem is filled with joy on the one hand but at the same time there's this specter of this gigantic army that is gathering to come and destroy them. In 2 Chronicles chapter 31 we Read this, after these deeds of faithfulness, Sennacherib came against Jerusalem.

You would think that with revival that somehow you would be protected from every trouble. Well, that's not the way that it worked with the people of God here. After these deeds of faithfulness, the most terrible army shows up on your doorstep. And this is what God has designed for his people. At the same time, Hezekiah is speaking the words of God to the people.

And in chapter 32 verse 7, he's encouraging the people and he says, be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid nor be dismayed before the king of Assyria, nor before all the multitude that is with him. For there are more with us than with him. With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles." And the people were strengthened by the words of Hezekiah, the king of Judah. So what a dramatic moment it is, isn't it, where you have such a revival, such a marvelous king who's speaking encouragement into the hearts of the people.

At the same time, you've got a terrible army right at your doorstep. Now I also want to mention that there's a change that takes place right here in chapter 36 verse 1 and it continues to the end of chapter 39. And we have entered into a section of historical narrative. Up to this point Isaiah has been bringing prophecy and poetry and songs, those three things. Here now is a historical narrative.

So it's very clear that this change has taken place. And so in this section, Isaiah is dealing with the threat of Assyria. And the very first sentence in chapter 36 shows that there is this change in the literary genre of the prophecy. You know, Isaiah wears many hats. He must have been a remarkable man to know.

You know, writing songs, writing poetry, bringing prophecy. And he's a courageous and sensitive man. And yet, now he moves into the role of historian. And in these chapters of historical narrative, he's really demonstrating the fulfillment of the promises of his wrath against his enemies that he's been speaking of and God's mercy upon his people and the fact that they really only have salvation in one name and that is the Lord of hosts, the holy God of Israel. And so this must be an important historical narrative because it is repeated.

It's repeated verbatim in 2 Kings 18, 13 to chapter 20, verse 11. And you know, the Bible does repeat itself. You know, you find phrases that are repeated all over scripture. Here now is a historical narrative that is repeated. And why would it be that God would have it so?

That he would repeat such a long historical narrative in more than one place. And I just want to suggest that he repeats this historical narrative because of its importance as a type. How It declares two things, that your fears are so often related to the lives of the devil, like Reb Shekka. And your only hope is in God, your salvation. It is both literal for Hezekiah and all of his people, but it's also typological for our own salvation, that there is only one hope in salvation, in Jesus Christ and in him alone.

You know, we all struggle with our sins. We all often repeat sins that we hate, and we hate them every time we repeat them. But what is your hope? There's only one hope, and that is Jesus Christ and his shed blood. But this passage of Scripture declares one single hope, and that is God and God alone.

And the time frame here is between 705 and 701 BC. These four chapters picture this time frame, but they don't seem to proceed in perfect chronological order. However, the year of Isaiah 36 verse 1 is 701 BC. We know that for sure. When we come to Hezekiah here, being mentioned in this chapter, we realize that Isaiah is speaking about a time during the very last king that he served in the midst of.

And then finally, by way of introduction, the message. The message is focused on who do you trust. That's it. And the Rav Sheka is here to say, you can't trust God. He won't deliver you.

The rabshakha is always asking, who is this God of yours? He's not different than anything else you've tried to trust in your whole life. He's worthless. And that's the voice of the devil in the life of a believer. That is often the source of our fears.

It's the reason for many of our sins, that we do not trust God. We do fear man, however. And as a result, we're plunged into a life of fear. And God is, I believe here in this passage, here to show us the words of the Rapshaka, his lying, fearful tones, to help us to recognize is there anything that I'm fearing that has come from a lie? Is there anything that I fear that comes from a lie that I've heard and I keep repeating to myself over and over again.

Because many of our fears are directly tied to lies that we have heard and we repeat in our own hearts. If you forget everything I've said on this message, I hope you don't forget that. Because I think that this is here for us for a particular reason. The message of the Rav Sheka is, your God is just like all the other premy gods out there that we've destroyed. There's nothing special about your God.

And that's also perhaps one of the greatest sources of our fears. That we think that our God is just like all the other solutions that we've tried, and He's not at all. Okay, let's go into the exposition here. Beginning in verses 1 through 3, you see this threat that is presented first. And it's the threat of the empire of man that hates the kingdom of God and His subjects.

But it's a real threat, by the way, because Jerusalem is now surrounded and the nations are raging against the people of God and Sennacherib is wreaking havoc in Judah in verse 1 it says, now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. So he's saying that all the fortified cities all around Jerusalem have already been taken. And here I think we should just recognize for a moment that the prophecies of God are always grounded in history, in real events with real people, with real nations, with real dates hanging on them. And so this prophecy is grounded in history. And I think Isaiah is making that very clear.

And it is happening in the 14th year of the king Hezekiah. And we also introduce to this person the Rabshecha. Now, Rabshecha is not his name. The people don't say, you know, Mr. Rabshaka.

It's his title. You know, he's a king. He's some kind of a military leader here. Perhaps, you know, one of Sennacherib's great military leaders who is going around the ancient Near East, pillaging and destroying cities, as he has been known to do. Now according to the Assyrian records in Sennacherib's war annals, By this time he's already conquered 46 cities.

Here it says he's conquered all of them. I don't know if he all is literal, but what has happened is that there's a real threat here because Sinakrev has already destroyed an enormous amount of Judah. And so Hezekiah as a result begins to take protective measures. He secures the aqueduct to protect the water supply and he issues commands to begin, for the people to begin to prepare for war. But although Hezekiah was a godly man, he also trusted in man.

His trust in God was not perfect. He was perhaps one of the greatest and godliest kings that Judah ever had. But he's like every man. He's like every leader. There's a flaw somewhere.

And Hezekiah was like that. He did continue to try to please Assyria by gifts. In 2 Kings chapter 18, we read that Hezekiah actually repents to Sennacherib and he says, I've done wrong, turn away from me. Whatever you impose on me, I will pay. And the king of Assyria assessed Hezekiah king of Judah, 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold.

So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king's house. At that time, Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord and from the pillars which Hezekiah, king of Judah, had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria. You know, he had a weak spot and his fears overcame him, even though he was a godly man. But unfortunately, as it always happens, trusting in the world never works. And in the very next verse, verse 17 in 2 Kings 18, we find out that the tribute didn't work.

And so he sent his field commander to ask for surrender. That field commander was sent. And we read here in verse 17 and 17 and 18, then the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rav Serath, and the Rav Sheka from Lachish with a great army against Jerusalem to King Hezekiah. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they had come up, they went and stood by the aqueduct, by the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Fuller's Field.

That's this exact situation that's taking place here. While fear gripped Hezekiah, even while he was calling for repentance, even while he was telling his own people to trust in God and God alone, even when he was encouraging them to throw all their cares upon him. He still had that same fear in his heart. And there was a lot to worry about. Many cities had already been taken.

I mean, here we are. We're sitting in Wake Forest. It would be the same thing as if some great army came through and destroyed Charlotte and Winston Salem and Greensboro and Fuqua Verena and Raleigh and came all the way up through Nightdale and right up through Bunn and now in Lewisburg and now here we are in Wake Forest and the armies are around us. Hey there was something to worry about let's just say that for sure. This was not some kind of false terror.

There was a real threat and I think this is important to recognize that God is sufficient before the real threats. They're not fake. They're real. And sometimes we want to say, no, that threat's not real. But I think this passage is here to sort of tell us, no, the threats can be real.

Sometimes they're not real. But in this case, it's a very, very real threat. And Isaiah had already told Judah that this was going to happen. In chapter 8 verse 7 he says, Therefore, behold, the Lord brings up over them the waters of the river, strong and mighty, the king of Assyria, and all his glory. He will go up over all his channels and go up over all his banks.

He will pass through Judah. He will overflow and pass over. He will reach up to the neck. And the stretching out of his wings will fill the breadth of your land, oh, Emmanuel. Be shattered, oh, you peoples.

And be broken in pieces. Give ear, all you from far countries, gird yourselves, but be broken in pieces, gird yourselves, but be broken in pieces." So much had been broken in pieces in Judah, But Jerusalem was there under the protective hand of God. And so in verse 2 we see that the Rav Sheka is sent. It says in verse 2, with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah. You know, there are external historical records that verify this very thing that took place in the Akkadian account on the Taylor prism of war in Judah records this.

And an Egyptian, Stela, the Kawhi Stela 4 records this very scene where there's this army, the Syrian army, from Lachish making its way to Jerusalem. And they meet at this historic location at the aqueduct from the upper pool by the highway of the Fuller's Field, this exact same place where Hezekiah's father met with Isaiah. And there's this moment, this opportunity that takes place in your life when you're hearing a voice either from God or from the devil. In the last meeting it was the voice of God. It was the voice of Isaiah to Ahaz saying, do not fear the Assyrians.

And now it's the voice of the devil that is speaking. It's the voice of Rav Sheka. And I think what we should recognize, if you don't listen to the voice of God, you're going to be hearing the voice of the devil. That's the next thing that will happen to you, and you'll be tempted. Ahaz refused to trust in God.

But it is true though that both Ahaz and Hezekiah had the same Achilles heel, like father like son. But it was the power of God at work in Hezekiah that allowed him to resist the fearful threats of the devil in his life. And then in verse 3 we see that the names of these officials are given. And Eliakim the son of Hilkiah who is over the household, Shedna the sprod, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder came out to him. So there are these three men Eliakim, Shedna, and Joah.

Now you remember Eliakim and Shabna, we ran into them in chapter 22 verses 15 through 25. And it tells of the rise of the godly Eliakim and the fall of the ungodly Shebna. And Isaiah is, in chapter 22, is speaking of the valley of vision there, and he is talking to the people in the valley of vision, and he gives these two rulers, these two leaders that are representative of the people. And you have this situation in chapter 22 where the people are saying, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. And Shedna is sort of the icon for seeking your own pleasure in this world you know while Rome burns basically and Shedna is that kind of man and you know there's this parting going on in Judah while they should be repenting.

They're laughing when they should be mourning for their sin. And in chapter 22, these two individuals are mentioned. I think it's important to understand this in terms of Isaiah's prophecy. When he mentions them in chapter 22 it tells us something about this very scene in chapter 36 while they are standing before the Rav Shaka. And you remember what Isaiah was saying, he says what ails you now?

In other words, what is up with you? Why Shedna, what is up with you? Why are you building this fancy mausoleum for yourself? Why are you building this fancy grave to make a name for yourself in the future while all these threats and I just say what is up with you why are you living for this world why are you eating and drinking well you know while while this remarkable thing is happening in front of you there's he's a very powerful official and so you have Shabna who's representative of taking your pleasure now in this world, and Eliakim, who does not exalt himself. He's a shepherd, he's a father, he's taking care of people, while Shedna is just taking care of himself.

Now these two men are before the Rabshaka. So you need to understand who these people are. And you know, Shedna is building his own prominence in verse 16 in chapter 22 as he who hews himself a sepulcher on high and carves a tomb for himself in the rock. He wants to be remembered. He wants to have a big legacy.

And so he lives for himself here and now. But Isaiah says, he will surely be, he will turn violently and toss you like a ball into a large country. There you shall die and there your glorious chariots shall be the shame of your master's house." So here these three men, one of them is Shedna, and God already told Shedna that he's going to throw him like a ball and destroy him, because he's lived for the pleasures of this world. But at the same time, there is Eliakim, who is a servant and who is a blessing. He's clothed with fatherhood and the authority of God and fruitfulness.

He is a faithful man. So you have these two men here who are before this voice of the Rav Sheka. And it really matters who you are, where your heart is when you hear something like this. Because these two men are going to have two different reactions, even though they're standing side by side. You're often standing side by side people who really want this world as their portion.

And Shedna is that man here. But Eliakim is not. You know, let me just give a couple of applications here. I think that one thing that we should recognize is that there may be troubles in times of reformation. When you find people's hearts turning toward God and they're changing their lives, they might they might think that that means now all their troubles are over And that's just not the way that God works.

That in times of Reformation when people turn toward God, He often gives them tribulation for their own good, so that they would learn that there is salvation only in God. You know, God has a way of continually trying to wrench your idols out of your hand. And one of the most effective ways He does that is through trials, through threats, through real things to fear. And that's what we find here. You know, oftentimes we're on the Lord's way, we're seeking to glorify Him, and calamity comes to our doorstep.

And we should never second-guess it, but we should recognize that God is good, that He is your Savior, and He does all things for His own glory and for your own good as well. I like the way Matthew Henry said it. He said, It is good for us to keep out the expectation of trouble, that when it comes it will be no surprise to us. So after this introduction to the threat in the first three verses, then we come to Rev Shek's first challenge. And his first challenge, I think, is summed up in, you can't trust your God.

And that's pretty much his basic theme. But in verses 4 through 10, you get his speech here. And so, there are a number of themes in the speech. You know, the first is, you know, reliance on Egypt is foolish. Second, you know, trust in the Lord is foolish.

You know, third, Hezekiah's strength is ridiculous. Fourth, Assyria is being led by God. It's under divine authority. These are the kinds of messages that he brings. Now, six times in these verses, the Rabshekah uses the word trust.

Now, I think that's the theme here. You find it in verse four, verse five, verse six, verse seven, verse nine, and verse 15. This is the heart of Rabsheke's attack. Who do you trust? And I think that's the heart of this message today.

This one word, who do you trust for your salvation, for any kind of salvation you're looking for. Who do you trust? Isaiah has already preached this message. But we see in verse 4 that the Rav Sheka opens with boasting. Then the Rav Sheka said to them, Say now to Hezekiah, and then he proclaims his superiority, Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria.

Thus says the great king. You know, there are two kinds of thus says in the Bible. There's thus saith the Lord, and there's thus saith the liars. And so this is that kind right here. You know, they speak with the same kind of authority, but here he's just bragging about his power and he's making this great claim for his king who is Sinakirah.

And he belittles their confidence. He says, what confidence is this in which you trust? He's belittling the name of God. He's belittling God and his word and his promises. And then in verse 5, he slanders their strength for war.

He says, I say to you, you speak of having plans and power for war, but they're mere words. And he's implying, you know, that they should serve him instead, because he says, now in whom do you trust that you rebel against me? This is psychological warfare. And his arguments are really simple. Don't trust God.

He is nothing. And Hezekiah, he's saying Hezekiah has demonstrated his own distrust by taking down the high places. You know, we see, one of the things we see here is how, how, how the Rav Shaka really didn't understand what was going on. He didn't really get what Hezekiah was doing or what God was doing in this whole thing. And then he belittles Egypt in verse 6.

He says, look, you're trusting in this staff, this broken reed Egypt, on which if a man leans it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to all who trust him. So Rabshek, I think he's kind of appealing to him, to their sense of loyalty to what Isaiah's already said. Don't trust in Egypt. I mean, obviously, Rabshek has already heard that Isaiah has been going around saying, do not trust in Egypt.

Do not go down to Egypt for help. Do not go down to Egypt for help, do not go down to Egypt for advice. That's what the prophet Isaiah has been saying. That's nothing new. And now the Rabshak is just repeating what the prophet Isaiah has already said, don't go down to Egypt for help.

And it seems to me that there wasn't much trust in Egypt at this point here. He was declaring Egypt as a false assurance, which is absolutely true. And it's a false accusation. I don't think Hezekiah was trusting in Egypt. In fact, he was rebelling against both Egypt and Assyria, even though he was lured back in from time to time to bondage to Assyria.

And in verse 7, Rav Shaka declares the proof of his strength and of Judah's weakness in verse 7. But if you say to me, we trust in the Lord our God, is it not he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away and said to Judah and Jerusalem, you shall worship before this altar? Now here, Rav Sheka shows his ignorance of the revival that was going on. Rabsheka is misinterpreting the situation, and he's kind of offering his own political spin. Yeah, the high places had been taken down, but it's been because of faithfulness to God.

That's why. The high places were taken down because God is good, because He is true, not because He's a fake God. And so the Rav Shaka doesn't get what's going on. And you can read about that in 2 Kings 18 verses 3 through 7. So Hezekiah takes down the high places and the Rav Sheka is just misunderstanding that God is using Hezekiah to take down false worship in the land.

But the Rabsheka is using this to say, your gods are unreliable, they're not real. They're not real by your own admission. That's what he's saying. And he's saying, you know, you need to trust in me because your gods have already been proved by Hezekiah to be unreliable. Again it's that voice, your God is unreliable.

You need to trust in these other things other than God and God alone. And so he's making mockery. He's making mockery of God and the things of God. And then he asks that a pledge be given in verse 8. Now therefore I urge you give a pledge to my master the king of Assyria and I will give you two thousand horses if you are able to put riders on them.

So he's asking them to make a deal to give them a pledge, you know, some kind of favor, give them some kind of attention. And here he's saying, you know, it's 2000 cavalrymen and we'll give you 2000 horses. And you know, this urging to make a compromise for safety. He's asking for a trade. I'll give you this if you give me that.

And this is the devil's deal. You trust me and I'll give you something. I'll give you some pleasure. He's always promising some pleasure. And he wants to make a deal.

If you do what I want you to do, then I will give you something. And this is always the way that it works with the devil. And then in verse 9 he repeats this thing about Egypt. He says, How then will you repel one captain of mine, of my master's servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen? And then he says something really interesting in verse 10.

How I now have come up without the Lord against this land to destroy it. The Lord said to me, go up against this land and destroy it." Now he's getting very spiritual, very religious. The Lord told him. The Lord told him to go up. Now, In one sense, this is true.

God already said, Assyria is my rod. God already said, you know, don't say it's a conspiracy. Stop saying it's a conspiracy. Stop saying that this whole thing with Assyria is a conspiracy. It's me.

I am bringing Assyria upon you to judge you, to turn you to me, and to separate the sheep from the goats. That's the basic thing that's happening. And so here now, though the Rabsheka is saying that it was the Lord who told him. You notice all this sort of God language all throughout Rabsheka's appeal here. And here now he says, the Lord said to me.

The ungodly use, They use God words often to make their arguments. They use God words to lure you in to their trap. And we see it all the time. I don't know if you saw two weeks ago where the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, he declared that he was a homosexual. And I was amazed at the speech that he gave, the way that he described this whole thing.

He says, he said, I'm proud to be gay and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me." Oh, so it's a gift of God. This is just God. This is just relating with pagan thinking here. But he's using God language. And He says, now is the time to write these basic principles of human dignity into the book of law.

I mean, he's just using all this God language, he's using legal language, and this is what The devil does. He mixes up all kinds of God language with the devil's messages. And that's exactly what the Rav Sheka is doing. The enemies of God often use God words like gifts of God and justice and equality and law and freedom and things like that. But they are always the poison pill that will kill you.

You take a little bit of God and a little bit of the devil and you're dead. And that's exactly what we find with this man here. You know, here are just a few ways to think about this section here, some applications. The ungodly are often sent to test you. And often they use a little bit of God language.

And you have to be very careful in discerning. That somehow in their little God language, They're not really calling you to trust in Egypt or trust in Assyria, to go down to Egypt for advice, to go down to Egypt for your help. Because that's how it often works. And some of the nicest, most winsome people mix a little bit of God language into their Ravshekian fear-mongering. Okay?

And, you know, the ungodly are sent to test us. Their voices, their voices everywhere. And how you react to those voices that you hear matters. Because it probably shows you who you are on the one hand, but it also might reveal weaknesses. It might reveal the reasons for your fears.

That your fears really have come to you because you've listened to a little bit of this God language mixed in with the other stuff. And so you've got these three men. I mean, just think about that for a minute. I mean, Isaiah is so remarkable in the way he describes things. He has these three men standing silent before the voice of the Rev.

Shachar. And by the way, they don't say anything. They don't answer anything. They're just listening. And that kind of moment happens to us over and over again in this life.

I think it happens every day. It happens multiple times every day. Who are you going to listen to? Who is your salvation? When you get up in the morning, who do you believe is your salvation?

Is it your works, or is it God and God alone? You know, another, you know, fear is rampant in our society. And I think we should always ask ourselves, you know, what are we doing to help ourselves against the fear? Because we live in a society that does lots of things for its fear. You know, I got a letter from a friend of mine who's a doctor, not one of the doctors in this church, okay.

He's from another place. And he was telling me that, you know, most of the doctor visits could be eliminated if people would trust God and not fear. That most of the visits that he receives, The root of it is fear. It's not physical. Well, it is physical, but the root of it was spiritual.

And here's what he wrote to me. He said, The number one branded drug in America is Abilify. Branded means a doctor prescribes a non-generic. It is an anti-psychotic that is recommended as an adjunct to antidepressants that are not working. In other words, you're taking antidepressants and they don't work.

And so the number one branded drug in America is prescribed because the antidepressants didn't work. And there's a reason they didn't work. But so we just go on to habilify, and perhaps beyond that. Then he writes, the number one generic drug is hydrocodone, which is a narcotic drug for pain. He says this, either consideration, either this Abilify or hydrocodone, Either consideration points to a cultural decline.

In another time, antibiotics took the market share. When culture turns from the truth, its answers do too. When medicine under the guise of biology and pharmacology attempt to answer the problems of human behavior, the spirit of man is taken captive. This is what Paul Warren Timothy regarding, quote, opposition to science so falsely called, an element of the delusion in the last days when men would believe the lie is the loss of the image of God, we who our spirit must exercise great caution as the enemy of our souls, the deceiver, the seducer, the supplanter, uses sorcery or formicai to attempt to undermine the work of the Holy Spirit. He says, these are important considerations, and we must be wise as serpents and harmless as does.

Now he wrote this to me after a conversation about fear and people's fears and how it affects their bodies and what it does to them. But the root of it is listening to a voice like Rabbi Shaka, who says God's not your salvation. You see how simple, really the Christian faith is? It's very simple. It comes down to very fundamental loyalties.

It comes down to what you feed your mind upon. It comes down to what you tell yourself, whether you tell yourself lies and believe them, or whether you cast all of your cares upon Him, for He alone is your salvation. Now I say that recognizing that we'll continue to be a people that struggle with fear and different levels. That's part of our sin nature and some are more susceptible to it than others. I recognize it.

I'm a pastor. I'm a shepherd. I understand that. I have compassion on the fears that we all have, and I recognize that we're going to fall into sin from time to time. But I want us to recognize this morning that it might be that some of the fears that are here have just come from listening to a voice like Rabbi Shaka who says, your God's really not enough and you just need to go find something else to trust in.

To trust Him. You know, there's so much in the Bible about trusting God. In 2 Samuel 22, verse 31, We read, As for God, His way is perfect. The Word of the Lord is proven. He is a shield to all those who trust in Him.

Job, in chapter 8, we read of putting your trust in things that are so frail. He says, he speaks of those whose confidence shall be cut off and whose trust is a spider's web. You know, when you trust in Assyria, when you trust in Egypt, you're just trusting in a spider web that can get just pushed away in a second. Job also speaks in chapter 15 verse 31 of the same kind of problem. He says, Let him not trust in futile things, deceiving himself, for futility will be his reward.

Of course, David spoke of this over and over again in Psalm 5 verse 11. He says, but let all those rejoice who put their trust in you, let them ever shout for joy because you defend them. Let those who love your name be joyful in you." One of my favorite psalms, Psalm 20, we read it when anybody has a birthday around our house. Some trust in chariots, some trust in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord, our God." He also said in Psalm 18, The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength in whom I will trust, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold." He spoke about those who trust in wealth in Psalm 49, verse 6. "...those who trust in their wealth and boast in the multitude of their riches.

In other words, when you lose your trust, when you lose your wealth, that's the real problem. If you lose your trust when you lose your wealth, then it should tell you something. Your trust was leaning on that reed, on that frail spiderweb that was just going to go away. It's not really worthy of trust at all. In Psalm 71, there's this testimony of how important this is to learn in your youth.

You know, we have many youth here, most of this church is youth. And so what about you? How are you trusting? It seems to me, I mean, there are times in your youth when it's really hard to trust God. In your teens and in your twenties are some of the darkest periods for young people because they don't really know how things are going to turn out.

They're not sure if they can really trust God. And They wonder what's going to happen to them. Men, they wonder, am I ever going to be a productive member of this society? Am I going to be a success in my work? Both men and women, what's going to happen to me?

Am I ever going to get married? Is anybody going to love me? What's going on? You know, these fears are real. Especially, I think they get concentrated in youth, about the mid-late teen years and into the twenties.

Psalm 71, 5 says, For you are my hope, O Lord God. You are my trust from my youth. What a blessing it is to trust God in your youth. It will save you so many problems and heartaches. You know, trusting God in your youth sort of sets forth a pattern in your life that can sustain.

If you do not trust God in your youth, it probably means you're going to continue not to trust God in your older age. So get it down now. That's why David says, you are my trust from my youth. There's nothing better than to trust God in your youth, to recognize that God is your only salvation. He's your only true trust.

You know, in Isaiah 12, that familiar text, Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. For Yah, the Lord, is my strength and song. He also has become my salvation. Therefore, with joy, you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

And in that day you will say, praise the Lord, call upon his name, declare his deeds among the people. Well, that's what happens to you when you trust the Lord in your youth. Trust the Lord in your youth. You youth, Yes, I'm going to talk to you. This is a youth meeting right now.

So, you know, God uses moments like this to show us where our trust is. I pray that the scene with the Rabsheka does that. But you know, the troubles come upon the godly while they're reforming. And then the envoy appeals to the Rabsheka after he gives this first speech. After his first speech which says, you know, you don't need, don't trust God, trust us.

Judah's officials appeal to the Rabsheka in verse 11. This is really interesting. You know, They too have not been delivered from all of their fears. They're still scared. They're running scared.

And so, Eliakim and Shebna and Joah, they say to the Rabsheka, hey, would you quit speaking in Hebrew? Talk in Aramaic. We don't want people to hear this. You know? We don't want all the people to get scared.

We're scared. We don't want them to be that scared. And so they're trying to actually hide what's going on. Not a good thing to do. The people of God should face their trials.

Okay? And here, you know, the Aramaic was a West Semitic language that's related to Hebrew and Samarian. I'm sorry, Syrian, Hebrew and Syrian, it's kind of a mix. The Lord Jesus spoke Aramaic and Greek and Hebrew. And there are different passages of scripture that are in Aramaic.

Jeremiah 10, 11 is written in Aramaic. Daniel chapter 2 verse 4 to chapter 7, 28 is written in Aramaic. Ezra chapter 4, 8 through 6, 18 and 7, 12 through 26 were all written in Aramaic. So this is not unusual. But you know here's an example of fear.

They don't want the people to hear the truth of the severity of the situation. And so they want them to stop. They don't want them to speak in Hebrew. And of course they make this request to the Rav Shekha. Do you think he said, oh sure, oh yeah, yeah.

Thank you. I really, I made a mistake. I didn't realize what I was doing. No, He turns around and he screams it out in Hebrew. That's what he does.

He's not going to listen. You can't negotiate with terrorists. Who said that? I think it was Ronald Reagan. They're trying to negotiate with terrorists and it's just not working.

And so, so Rabshaka issues his second challenge. And in the second challenge, the big thrust of it is, you know, your God is not any different compared to the other gods. And he's pretending that he's acting for their benefit. You know, in verse 12 he says, look, you need to do this because your men on this wall are going to eat and drink their waste, and so are you. Just, hey, this is the voice of compassion.

We're trying to save their lives, okay? So we're going to talk to them because we're going to save their lives now so that they don't have to eat their waste on the wall. And it really is the voice of Satan. And in verse 13, He cries out in a loud voice in Hebrew, hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. And it's really the voice of blasphemy in verse 14 and 15.

He says, you know, do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you. That is the voice of the devil. God is not enough. Go try something else. God is not your salvation.

He says, He says, stop listening to Hezekiah who is saying the Lord will deliver us in this city. And then he makes a promise in verse 16, a promise of a good life. Don't listen to Hezekiah verse 16, For thus says the king of Assyria, make peace with me by a present and come out to me, and every one of you eat from his own vine, and everyone from his own fig tree, and every one of you drink the waters of his own cistern." You know, in other words, trust me and I'll give you a nice life." This is the devil's promise. He promises a good life, he gives you a lousy life. That's how it works.

It's never been different. This is the great lie. It's the old trick. He ran the first trick of this in Genesis 3 when the serpent, you know, said to Eve, you know, God's not really good. Did he really say that?

If he said that, that's not good. This is just the old trick. It doesn't ever change. It's the old lie. Oh yeah, worldly pleasure will bless you.

Truth is, worldly pleasure will kill you. And the Rav Shaka is the great blasphemer. He says, give me a present. This is code for, show some kind of favor. Give me some kind of attention.

Give me a sign of your favor. You know, taste and appreciate some of my delicacies. You know, Let your eyes look appreciatively at me. Let your ears appreciatively listen to me. It's okay.

You can listen to these nice little God words and these other things that I've slipped under with them. Just listen. Show me some favor. This is what the world wants you to do. Bend your ears, take it in.

And then there's this promise of abundance in verse 17. I'll take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine and land of bread and vineyards. He's promising all this abundance. You know, it's funny, on Tuesday, we read this passage on election day when all these politicians were making all these promises of a good life. We'll give you this.

We'll give you that money. We'll save you here. You know, if you get sick, we will take care of you. You know, I mean, all these politicians were making these promises. I thought Rev.

Schafer was all over the airwaves that day, you know, promising all these wonderful things. We'll take you to such a good land. And this blasphemous statement in verse 18, Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, The LORD will deliver us. Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered its land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphath?

Where are the gods of Sepharverim? Indeed, have they delivered Samaria from my hand? Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their countries from my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?" The Red Sheik is just saying these gods are no different compared to the other gods. You know, Sargon occupied Hamath in 720 BC. Tiglath-Poliser conquered Arpad in 740 BC.

So he's talking history here. He said that their gods didn't protect them, and your gods are not going to protect you either. You know, we're like, we're just picking up the eggs in the chicken house. You know, we're going to take whatever we want. Your gods are nothing.

They're not special. I think that's one of the hard, heart messages, heartbeat messages of this passage. That the gods are all equal and they don't really do that much for you. It's pluralism. But Hezekiah is out there persuading the people, no, the Lord will deliver you.

God does deliver on His promises. I mean, one day in His courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. He does show you the path of life. He does give the fullness of joy in His presence forevermore. He does put gladness in your heart more than in the season of their grain and wine, as Psalm 4-7 says.

Sin promises fulfillment, it gives you frustration. It promises happiness, it gives you heartache, it promises security, and it gives you only sorrow. And it began in the garden, it's the generic sin, it's the big sin. The big sin is, trust something other than God. Don't Listen to Him.

Do not listen to God. Don't listen to Hezekiah. I think we should just ask, how am I like that envoy standing there in a moment when really discouraging news is right in your face. How am I like? Who am I?

Am I like him or am I Shedna? The envoy's direct response to the Rev Shack is recorded in verse 21. They held their peace and answered him not a word, for the king's command was, do not answer him. So that was their response. They said nothing.

That was wisdom. And then they turned to God, but they did turn in grief. They were tearing their clothes, which was an expression of grief. This is in verse 22. They tear their clothes and they go and they tell Hezekiah what had happened.

And you know why clothes? Clothes were expensive in those days, not like today, and they were tearing, They were damaging one of their most expensive possessions to express the depth of their grief of what was happening. Was it inappropriate to tear their clothes? I don't know. Probably it was.

I mean, Elisha tore his clothes when Elijah was taken to heaven. Reuben tore his clothes when he found out that Joseph was gone. Job tore his clothes and he worshipped God in the midst of his losses. There are lots of different examples of tearing your clothes. You could say it was a sign of faithlessness.

You could say that. Here are some lessons. God is your salvation. The Rabbi Shekhi's message is that you can trust your own works. You can trust your own mechanisms.

And if it has to do with your salvation, you can trust your own deeds. You can actually feel good about yourself because of your righteousness. That is salvation by works. That is salvation by the voice of Rev Sheka. And the big question is, you know, in whom do you trust?

The big question is, do you view God as just like all the other gods or is He an almighty God? Is He almighty? Is He perfectly sovereign? Does He have power to save Or do you think that you'll be saved by your own mechanisms, by your own runnings around, by your own cultivating of your fears and all this kind of stuff? Or do you really rest in trust in the salvation of God?

What we'll find as we go on to this story is that the voice, is that Rabshaka made a miscalculation of historic proportions. He boasted and he was destroyed. And this is the danger of trusting in man. This is the danger of trusting in the arm of the flesh. I love the words of Hezekiah, he has the arm of the flesh.

We have Almighty God. And that's the heart of this whole message. Whom do you trust? Do you trust in man and the arm of the flesh for your life, for your salvation? Or do you trust and not be afraid?

For Yah, the Lord, is your strength and song. He also has become your salvation. Let's pray. Lord, I thank You for giving us historical moments to be a mirror into our own lives, to show us our weaknesses, our sins, to show us the things that can be shored up. I Thank you Lord that you are our salvation and that we can trust and not be afraid Amen.