Isaiah Prophesies about Sennacherib

I. Tell the story
A.Characters in the story
1.Hezekiah: King of Judah
2.Sennacherib: King of Assyria
3.The commander of Assyrian army (Rabshakeh not a name but a title: field commander)
4.A group of Israelite officials: representatives or negotiators
5.Isaiah the prophet
B.The story
1. Divided kingdom for 225 years
2. Assyrian empire
a. Assyria ruled the world under Sargon, whose first act (722B.C.) was to finish the conquest of Israel begun by his predecessor Shalmaneser V.
3. King Ahaz (Hezekiah's father) capitulates to Assyria (Is.7), and Judah begins to pay tribute.
4. Sargon dies in 705B.C.
5. Liberation movement sweeps across Assyrian empire
6. Hezekiah leads the western nations in rebellion against Assyria (2Kg.18:7).
7. Sennacherib begins to take back the countries that have revolted.
a. Eastern nations first
b. Then he comes west: from north to south.
c. He destroys Judah, and then comes finally to Jerusalem, surrounding it and cutting it off from all supply.
d. The Assyrians began to taunt and threaten and mock the people of the city & its rulers & its God.
e. Sheer terror had preceded his conquest, but you can imagine how it was intensified in Jerusalem. Everyone else had been defeated. There was only one little city left standing up against this mighty world-dominating power.
8. Desperate prayers — In response to Sennacherib’s threats, Isaiah sends a prayer request to the prophet Isaiah. And in response, Isaiah sends a message from God back to King Hezekiah.
9. Isaiah’s prophecy
10. Overnight deliverance — “The angel of the Lord went out and struck down a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home.” (Is.37:36-37)
C. The sermon today will focus on Isaiah’s prophecy about Sennacherib.
II. Read Is.37:21-29 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, 22 this is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him: “ ‘She despises you, she scorns you— the virgin daughter of Zion; she wags her head behind you— the daughter of Jerusalem. 23 “ ‘Whom have you mocked and reviled? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes to the heights? Against the Holy One of Israel! 24 By your servants you have mocked the Lord, and you have said, With my many chariots I have gone up the heights of the mountains, to the far recesses of Lebanon, to cut down its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses, to come to its remotest height, its most fruitful forest. 25 I dug wells and drank waters, to dry up with the sole of my foot all the streams of Egypt. 26 “ ‘Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass, that you should make fortified cities crash into heaps of ruins, 27 while their inhabitants, shorn of strength, are dismayed and confounded, and have become like plants of the field and like tender grass, like grass on the housetops, blighted before it is grown. 28 “ ‘I know your sitting down and your going out and coming in, and your raging against me. 29 Because you have raged against me and your complacency has come to my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back on the way by which you came.’
III. Things to point out in Isaiah 37:21–29:
A. Sennacherib mocked God.
1. Is.37:23 “Whom have you mocked and reviled? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes to the heights? Against the Holy One of Israel!”
2. How did Sennacherib mock God? In his letter and in his message through his servants:
a. Isaiah 37:10 “Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”
b. Boasting in his accomplishments: “I have gone up the heights of the mountains to cut down its tallest cedars.” (Is.37:24, cf. Is.37:11-13), which only came to pass because of the Lord.
B. God says that He was the one who had granted Sennacherib his success.
1. Is.37:26-27 “Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass, that you should make fortified cities crash into heaps of ruins, 27 while their inhabitants, shorn of strength, are dismayed and confounded, and have become like plants of the field and like tender grass, like grass on the housetops, blighted before it is grown.”
2. I determined long ago that you should make fortified cities crash into heaps of ruins.
3. I planned from days of old that the inhabitants of these lands would be emptied of strength, that they would be demoralized and bewildered.
4. I am the One who has now brought it to pass that they went limp and faded like cut grass.
5. Sennacherib’s false assumptions about his success (v.25-26)
a. The sad pattern of false human assumptions about success — All success comes from God.
C. In light of these things, God decreed and brought about Sennacherib’s demise.
1. Is.37:28-29 “I know your sitting down and your going out & coming in, & your raging against me. 29 Because you have raged against me & your complacency has come to my ears, I will put my hook in your nose & my bit in your mouth, &I will turn you back on the way by which you came.”
2. You think you’re operating on your own. But I’ve been there watching the whole thing. I’ve been scouting each movement, and heard every word you’ve spoken against Me.
3. And because of all that ranting against Me, I’m going to show you who’s boss. I’m going to put My hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back to where you came from.
4. Because God remains silent, so often people conclude He’s not there. They conclude they can do whatever they want and no one will do anything about it.
IV. Application
A. God sometimes allows His people to experience terrible traumas.
1. Assyria’s threat
a. Conquest of many lands — but Isaiah 37:26-27 “I planned...that you should make fortified cities into heaps of ruins.”
(1) Sennacherib says of Judah: 46 heaps of ruins where 46 fortified cities once stood
(2) How many of you have seen those horrifying videos of a city in ruins from the war in Syria?
b. For the Assyrians, cruelty was part of the strategy. They paraded their brutality before the world.
c.Sennacherib comes to the edge of Jerusalem with his threats.
(1) The fear: your life is at stake. And everyone’s you love, everyone you know.
(2) The last of God’s people, and Jerusalem was God’s city.
2. Abraham movie: “Father, is there nothing that He might not requireth of thee?”
3. Emotional and physical pain in the Bible
4. Death of a loved one, sickness, bad marriage, unemployment, disability, rejection
a. Ashley W.
b. He chose for that person to be obnoxious to me, and He did it for my good, because I needed it.
5. He sometimes overwhelms us, to get us to the point where there’s nowhere to turn but to Him.
B. But He doesn’t leave us to suffer in silence. He assures us of His love. He explains His purposes. He promises prosperity and victory in the end. He gives us His word.
1. This is one of the great blessings of our lives!
2. I am with you! I am watching over you! I’m not going to let you be destroyed. I am much bigger than your problems. I have given you everything!
3. You see, God is not frightened of our problems. To Him “the nations are like a drop in a bucket” and like “dust on the scales...All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.” (Isaiah 40:15, 17-18)
a. Psalm 2:2-5 “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed...He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord ridicules them. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury.”
b. And if the nations and kings of the earth are like nothing before God, think how small our problems are in comparison to His greatness and power!
4. One of the things God tells us in His word is that God has the power to make our problems vanish, as soon as His purposes for them is complete. “I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back on the way by which you came.”
5. Notice that Isaiah’s prophecy is addressed to Sennacherib, but never actually given to him.
a. Why? It was actually for the benefit of God’s people there in Jerusalem (and us, of course).
6. We are between the prophecy & the fulfillment of the prophecy. That’s where we stand in history.
7. We have the problems and we have the prophecies.
8. The question is, Which will we pay attention to? Which will we focus on? Will we be more impressed by the apparent danger, or by the solid promise of God?
a. The all-wise, all-knowing and all-powerful God’s ways are so above my ways, and His thoughts above my thoughts! He has a wonderful plan He is working out to teach us who He is. He is telling a story through each of our lives. We just need to trust and wait.
9. But He gives us such wonderful help to trust and wait. For He guarantees His promise with an oath. And He proves His promise by giving His Son. Romans 8:32 “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”
C. What about if I don’t have any big problems or Sennacherib-sized crises im facing? What if my biggest temptation is to waste time or eat too much?
1. Well, God graciously addresses that kind of problem in His word, too.
2. He warns us of the dangers of ease. He assures us that storms are coming & that we must prepare for them while the sun is shining. He informs us that those who put their hope in earthly pleasures will experience eternal opposition which makes ancient Assyria look light in comparison.