Episode Transcript
All right, it is time.
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Good morning. The hour is
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10 o'clock. We are in 2nd Kings
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chapter 18. That is our text.
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Glad to see you all this morning and
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for those who tune in online,
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thank you for your faithfulness.
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2nd Kings chapter 18 verse 24.
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At the end of last week's study, we observed that
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Rab Sheikah, the leader of the Assyrian military, told Judah
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that their choice of turning to Egypt was useless.
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And he was mocking their military might
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and he was trying to get the people to be
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and he was mocking their military might
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when he said, "Here, I'll give you 2,000 horses if you can
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find enough men in Judah to put riders on them."
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So as Rab Sheikah sees it, Judah has only one choice remaining
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and that is to surrender and serve the Assyrians.
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He's quite the salesman, isn't he? So let's look now and read
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verse 24 again and we'll continue with our study of it.
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2nd Kings chapter 18 verse 24.
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Where Rab Sheikah says to the men of Judah,
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"How then will thou turn away the face of one
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captain of the least of my master's servants
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and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots
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and for horsemen?" Now Rab Sheikah, in all of his mockery
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of Judah, has been assuming that God will have nothing to do
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with delivering Judah out of the hand of Assyria.
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And he narrowed Judah's choices down to at least two.
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One, choose Assyria's horses to get on
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and you all come try to fight us with that.
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Or choose Egypt's chariots and horsemen.
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Now although Rab Sheikah posed those as the two choices they had,
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that was a false choice. All of them were because they're not the only two choices Judah had.
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He had already insinuated that the Lord was not going to help them
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because in his words Hezekiah took away the Lord's high places
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and he narrowed the choices of altars for Judah to worship down to one.
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And that was the one in the temple in Jerusalem.
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And Rab Sheikah challenged Judah to put a mere 2,000 men on horses
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and said Assyria would provide the horses.
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So how many choices does Judah really have?
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Well there seem to be a lot of choices, a lot of combinations,
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but really there are only two choices.
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This battle, although we're reading about an earthly battle and the preparations for it,
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it was more spiritual than it was earthly.
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And in spiritual matters there are always only two choices.
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That simplifies things doesn't it?
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I like the way Elijah put it,
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he challenged the prophets of Baal in speaking to the children of Israel in that day.
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It's found in 1 Kings chapter 18 verse 21.
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If you want to just make a note of it, we studied it at length when we were in that chapter.
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1 Kings 18, 21 where Elijah said,
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"And Elijah came unto all the people and said, 'How long halt ye between two opinions?'"
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Or two choices.
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"If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.'
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And the people answered him not a word."
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How many choices or opinions did the children of Israel and the prophets of Baal have?
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They had two.
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How many choices do the people of Judah have?
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They have two.
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Turn to the Lord or turn to the world.
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Because all of the other solutions that don't involve turning to the Lord are about turning to the world.
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You can call them Egypt's horsemen and chariots or Assyria's horses
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or the strength and might of your own counsel.
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But they're all worldly choices.
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So don't complicate things in your spiritual life.
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Just like there are two choices for us, there are also two ways for us.
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Matthew chapter 7 verses 13 through 15.
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Matthew 7, 13 through 15.
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Where Jesus said, "Enter ye in at the strait gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in there at.
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Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
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Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves."
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Now in that passage there were two gates and there were two ways.
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One way leads to one gate and one way leads to another gate.
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Or you may say one gate leads to one way and one gate leads to the other way.
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But in either case there are only two choices.
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But verse 15 in that passage that I just read you.
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Jesus follows that up by saying, "Beware of false prophets."
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Now that verse doesn't just happen to be next. There's a reason it's put there.
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It is part of teaching the entire chapter 7 there in Matthew.
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Because a false prophet will tell you one of three things.
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Jesus said, "Beware of false prophets." Right after he told them, there's two gates, there are two ways.
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One gate is associated with one way and one gate with the other and that's it.
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He didn't say there are three ways or four choices. He said, "You go this way or that way."
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And a false prophet will tell you one of three things.
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He'll say, "Well there is more than one way and one gate that leads unto life."
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He won't disagree that there's a gate that leads unto death, destruction.
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But he'll say, "Now there's more than one way that leads unto life." That's a false prophet.
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Or he'll tell you that the straight gate is actually wide and the narrow way is actually broad.
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That God just accepts everybody just like they are.
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Come from all religions, come from all ways of thinking.
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God's merciful and he'd never send anybody to hell. That's what a false prophet will tell you.
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Or a false prophet will tell you none of those are true.
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Either you can't be saved or everybody will be saved.
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Or either they like to say there's a heaven but not a hell. That's all a false prophet.
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Both are incorrect.
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Now the false prophet tries to complicate things, but Jesus simplifies them.
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In fact Paul admonished the Galatians, I believe it was, he said that they were removed from the simplicity of the Gospel.
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It is simple.
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The choices Judah has to make in our text are not many, they are too.
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The Assyrians, the Egyptians, the military strength of Judah, all of those are worldly solutions.
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All of them added together are really just one choice.
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The other choice, the choice choice, is for Judah to repent toward the Lord God.
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And all the worldly solutions available to Judah are not going to solve a spiritual problem.
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And after all, it was a spiritual problem that led Judah to be in the fix that they're in now.
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A spiritual problem resulted in an earthly problem.
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And it always will.
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Some may think, well, I don't believe in God, I don't believe in the Bible, and I'm just fine right now.
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Come see me when you're on your sick bed, when you're about to die, when you're afraid you're going to die.
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Tell me how confident you are in your decision to ignore God and to say he doesn't exist.
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When you know you're about to draw your last breath, will you have that same confidence?
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I think you won't.
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You know, right now the nation of Israel is in bad shape.
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And they've been attacked on every side and from within as well.
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And perhaps you may be thinking, well, if Israel's enemies, Hamas, Hezbollah, now Iran,
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and every radical Muslim who wants to destroy Israel, if all of them were just wiped off the face of the earth, then Israel could have peace.
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No, they wouldn't.
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That's an earthly solution to a spiritual problem.
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Their problem is a spiritual one, and as we should, I pray for the peace of Israel, but I pray for the true peace of Israel.
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Whether they win this conflict with Iran or not, I don't know.
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But the true peace will come when they accept the Prince of Peace as their Savior,
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you're the one who came from their very land, from their very lineage, the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
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And he's the answer to all of their problems, spiritual and earthly as well.
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Now I want you to go to 2 Chronicles.
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Keep your place in 2 Kings.
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Go to 2 Chronicles chapter 32.
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It's not very far over.
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You're in 2 Kings, so then you go first in 2 Chronicles.
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And find chapter 32, please.
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We're going to be here for just a few moments because this passage parallels what we're learning in 2 Kings.
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It's about the same people in the same time, in the same situation.
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2 Chronicles 32.
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Go down to verse 9.
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"After this did Sennacherib king of Assyria send his servants to Jerusalem."
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Now that's who Rabshekah is.
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"But he himself laid siege against Lachish and all his power with him."
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"And unto Hezekiah of Judah and unto all Judah that were at Jerusalem saying, 'Thus saith Sennacherib king of Egypt.'"
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Now the one who's saying, "Thus saith Sennacherib king of Egypt" is Rabshekah.
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We don't see his name here, but that's who's doing the talking if you match these two passages up.
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And here's what he said.
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"Whereon do you trust that you should abide in the siege in Jerusalem?
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"Doth not Hezekiah persuade you to give over yourselves to die by famine and by thirst,
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saying, 'The Lord our God shall deliver us out of the hand of the king of Assyria.'
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"Hath not the same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars
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and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, saying, 'You shall worship before one altar and burn incense upon it.'
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"No ye not what I and my fathers have done unto all the people of other lands,
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were the gods of the nations of those lands any ways able to deliver their lands out of mine hand?
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"Who was there among all the gods of these nations that my fathers utterly destroyed
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that could deliver his people out of mine hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of mine hand?
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"Now therefore let not Hezekiah deceive you nor persuade you on this manner,
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neither yet believe him for no God of any nation or kingdom
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was able to deliver his people out of mine hand and out of the hand of my fathers.
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How much less shall your God deliver you out of mine hand?"
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Now this passage gives us a little more detail than what we had before
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about the mindset of Rabshika and of the king of Assyria, Sennacher.
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And I don't know if you see it there, but there is a tremendous amount of contempt shown toward the Lord God.
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Two times Rabshika asked Judah,
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"How is God going to be able to deliver you out of my hands?"
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And when he said the gods of other nations with a little gee couldn't do it,
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how's your God going to do it?
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That means he saw the Lord God as just another God.
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That was a bad mistake.
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While we're in this chapter, I want you to know that Hezekiah,
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and we didn't read this in 2 Kings, so again we're getting more detail,
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but I love about the Kings and the Chronicles.
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You can find the parallel passage in 1 to help you understand the other a little better,
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and that's what we're doing today.
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But I want you to know Hezekiah made some preparations for this battle with the Assyrians that we haven't read about.
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And the greatest preparations he made were not military,
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although he did strengthen the military men and their weaponry, as we'll read.
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But the greatest preparation he made was what he told his people here in verses 7 through 8.
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So look back at 2 Chronicles 32 verse 7.
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He's talking to his captains of war, his people.
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"Be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria,
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nor for all the multitude that is with him.
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For there be more with us than with them."
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He didn't say there be more of us than them.
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He said there be more with us.
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Yeah, you get that?
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"than with him."
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Now here's the key verse.
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He said, "with him," that is with the king of Assyria,
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"with him as an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God,
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to help us and to fight our battles.
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And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah, king of Judah."
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We're going to have some fun with this. This is good.
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Notice in those two verses, or really in verse 8,
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you have an arm of flesh and you have the Lord our God.
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So we're going to enlarge upon the truth that we've already touched on
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about having only two choices in spiritual matters.
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What does this passage tell us?
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It tells us that for deliverance from your enemy,
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you will either trust in an arm of flesh or you'll trust in the Lord your God.
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Hezekiah hit it right on the head.
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The phrase "an arm of flesh" is a metaphor.
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I mean, this is an arm of flesh underneath this jacket,
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and that's not what's going to save anybody in a battle,
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this actual arm of mine.
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So the arm of flesh is a metaphor because the Hebrew word translated
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as the arm of flesh is also translated as power, strength, and mighty
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in the Old Testament.
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So the arm of flesh is any power or strength that comes from the flesh,
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that is from man.
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And from an earthly point of view only,
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the arm of flesh is everything when it comes to an earthly battle.
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In sports, the strongest man will usually win the strongest man competition
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if he does everything right.
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If he executes all the lifts and lifts all the pounds that he's put on the bar
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or picks up the stone or whatever it is he's doing.
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And the fastest man will usually win a foot race if all other things happen.
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He doesn't trip or get a late start.
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The runner with the greatest endurance will usually win the marathon.
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And in the military, the strongest army with the best weapons
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and the best strategy if everything works like it's supposed to
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will usually win a battle.
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But this is not how the Lord works.
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In fact, there are many places in the Bible where God specifically tells people
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to do things that weaken their own strength before he'll intervene.
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Now you may think, well, that doesn't make any sense.
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If Israel's about to fight a battle, why would God weaken them?
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Well, we'll see. I think you already know.
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God has them do things that make no sense to the earthly mind.
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Why would you have a pitcher of water and break it?
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Why would you march around a city seven times and shouting and blowing a trumpet?
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Why would you and you could go on and on?
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Here's an example of something God did to weaken the arm of flesh for his people.
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It's found in Judges, Chapter 7, where Gideon was about to take on the media nights
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at the Lord's command and Gideon, if you do the math,
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he had about 32,000 men ready for this battle.
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Now listen to what God told him to do in Judges, Chapter 7, Verse 2.
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"And the Lord said unto Gideon,
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'The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the media nights into their hands,
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lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, 'Mine own hand hath saved me.'"
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So God, in other words, he didn't want there to be any chance that Gideon would say,
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"An arm of flesh is with us."
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I've got 32,000 men and they're good fighting men.
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And if you've read the story, Gideon whittled down his force to 300 men.
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God told him to.
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And then God delivered the media nights into his hands in victory.
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So there was absolutely no way Gideon could say,
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"My mighty fighting force of 32,000 men overwhelmed these media nights."
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300.
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God would not allow an arm of flesh to determine who would win a victory.
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Now Hezekiah's encouragement to his troops,
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most importantly, teaches us that it's not an arm of flesh we want with us anyway.
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But the Lord our God, because those are the two choices.
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He said, "With him as an arm of flesh, with us is the Lord our God."
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Can the arm of flesh save you? Of course not.
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Now I'm going to ask you to turn to one more place and that is Ephesians, Chapter 2.
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Ephesians, Chapter 2.
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Remember in the song Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus, it says, "The arm of flesh will fail you.
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You dare not trust your own." That's where that came from.
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It came from the Bible. It came from stories like we're reading.
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Ephesians, Chapter 2.
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If you need a second, I'll wait till you get there
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because I want you to see this with your own eyes.
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All right, sounds like we are probably all there.
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Now look with me down in verse 8.
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"For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
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It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
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For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
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which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."
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All right, in that passage, those three verses,
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it tells us how we're saved, it tells us how we're not saved,
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and it tells us who we are in terms of works.
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This is some good stuff.
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Most of you are familiar with those first two verses, verses 8 and 9.
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In fact, many of you may be able to quote those verses.
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But verse 10 will help you understand verses 8 through 9 even better.
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How does the passage say we are saved?
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By grace through faith.
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What does that passage exclude when it comes to how we got that grace and that faith?
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It excludes us.
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It excludes ourselves.
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It says, "And that not of yourselves."
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So drawing from what Hezekiah said,
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another way to put "and that not of yourselves" is,
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"And that not an arm of flesh."
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And that not of the arm of flesh.
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And Paul follows up with this phrase, "not of works."
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What does that mean?
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That means it's not an arm of flesh,
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because that's what our works are, is an arm of flesh.
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So your sinner's prayer, that's an arm of flesh.
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Your sincerity in repeating it over and over again is an arm of flesh.
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You're coming down here and doing all these things that independent
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and probably first Baptist churches,
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Southern Baptist churches and Northern Baptist churches
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and Eastern Baptist churches and all the others
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have told you you have to do to be saved.
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That's all an arm of flesh.
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Your good work is an arm of flesh.
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Your show is your church attendance, your baptism, your tithing.
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They're all an arm of flesh when they are used to be saved.
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Now remember I said verse 10 would help you understand verses 8 through 9 better.
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Look at it again.
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Who does Paul say we are?
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He says we're workmanship.
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We're workmanship.
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Now listen closely.
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That means someone else worked and made us into something
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that the workman calls workmanship.
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In fact it says his workmanship.
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What does that mean?
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He did it.
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He did the work.
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If I build a fence, that fence is my workmanship.
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Without my work, that fence would be a pile of pickets and rails
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and wood screws and brackets and sacks of concrete.
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It would stay there and it would never become a fence without my work.
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Once I do all the things I know to do to build a fence,
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I look at that fence and I say that's my workmanship.
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I created it.
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I didn't create the wood by making it,
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but I put everything together that turned it into a fence
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instead of just a pile of materials.
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So the Ephesians verse teaches us that not only can our works,
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which are an arm of flesh, not save us,
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but further that we are in fact the workmanship of another workman,
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the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And what Hezekiah taught his men is the same thing Paul is teaching.
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How will we be saved?
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By the Lord our God with us, not by an arm of flesh.
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Because it said by grace are you saved through faith and not not of yourselves.
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So somebody had to give that to us and that was the Lord our God.
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And Hezekiah reminds, his words remind us of something else.
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What were those words?
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He said, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.
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And listen to this,
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"And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah king of Judah."
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Turn back to your text in 2 Kings.
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We're through in Ephesians for now.
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2 Kings chapter 18, go right back there.
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Now the people, when they heard the words I read in 2 Chronicles 32,
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the captains of Hezekiah, when they heard those words,
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it said, "And the people rested themselves upon those words."
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Matthew chapter 1 verses 21 through 23, just write that down.
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Matthew 21 through 23.
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Hang in there, this is all coming together.
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Speaking of Mary, the mother of Jesus, Matthew 1, 21 through 23,
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speaking of Mary, it says, "And she shall bring forth a son,
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and thou shalt call his name Jesus,
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for he shall save his people from their sins."
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Now what was the Lord God going to do for Hezekiah's army?
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The Lord with them would save them from the Assyrians.
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The Matthew passage continues, "Now all this was done,
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that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophets,
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saying, 'Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son,
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and they shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted is..."
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What is it?
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God with us.
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Who shall save his people from their sins?
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God with us.
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Immanuel.
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So Hezekiah told them...
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I just got chill right then.
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I don't get cold very much, but...
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Hezekiah told them, "God with us, which is Immanuel, who is the Lord,
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will help them and fight their battles."
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That's who will do it, is God with us.
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And here's another important thing we're taught in that text.
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Look back at how the people responded to the words of Hezekiah,
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because what did he tell them?
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He said, "The Lord with us."
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That's who's with us.
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He'll help us and fight our battles.
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God with us.
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But the way the people responded was everything.
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And it said, "And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah,
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king of Judah."
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They rested themselves upon those words.
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And because they rested themselves upon those words,
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they could be saved by the promise contained in those words.
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They rested in the words Hezekiah spoke to them about God with us.
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Now, when the gospel is preached,
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those words are telling you about Jesus,
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who is Immanuel, who is God with us.
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And to be saved by the truth in those words, what do you have to do?
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You have to rest on them, don't you?
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You have to trust them.
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That's what resting in them is.
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You must not change them.
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You must not fight against them, but rest in them.
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And when you rest in them, you're saved, not by an arm of flesh,
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because an arm of flesh is not resting.
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You don't rest in it.
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An arm of flesh is working.
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We rest in the Lord our God, but you can't rest in an arm of flesh
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because that's working.
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That's what your works are.
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And you'll never rest, by the way.
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If you're thinking I'm going to trust in an arm of flesh,
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I've got this prayer I heard this preacher say,
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and it'll really get me close together.
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It'll save me if I'll just say it right.
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Or I've got these little rosary beads, and man,
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I'm going to run them through my fingers and say all these things.
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Or I'm going to take this Lord's supper, I'm going to get baptized, whatever it is.
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You'll never rest because you can't rest in an arm of flesh.
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It's always working.
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It's always doing something.
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But you can rest in the promises of the Word of the Gospel.
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And when you rest in the words of the Gospel,
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you're resting in the work the workman has done for you and in you
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because you are his workmanship,
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created in Christ Jesus, and you're saved.
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And nobody can undo that workmanship.
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What do we know about the arm of flesh?
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Yes, it'll fail us.
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As the song says, that's very true.
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But if the arm of flesh, let's say that people in Judah said,
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well, we're going to turn to Egypt.
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They're pretty strong.
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They have a lot of chariots and horsemen, and we're going to use them.
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Well, let's say they win that battle for them.
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And so Judah comes to trust that Egypt will always win their battles.
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And the next battle they fight, Egypt loses.
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Uh-oh, the arm of flesh failed them, didn't it?
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At no point did they turn to the Lord their God.
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But the workmanship created in Christ Jesus,
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nobody can undo that because nobody did it.
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It was Jesus who did it.
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Now listen to verse 25 back in your text where
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Rab Sheikah tries to shake the faith of these Jews.
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He says, verse 25,
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"Am I now come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it?
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The Lord said to me,
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'Go up against this land and destroy it.'"
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In other words, by asking this rhetorical question,
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Rab Sheikah is saying,
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"I didn't come to destroy this place without getting God's permission
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and authority to do it first."
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That's a very bold claim.
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Now how were Judah and Israel delivered into the hands of the Assyrians?
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They were delivered.
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There's a lot of ways to explain it, but one is they made a covenant with them.
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We read about the covenant they made with Assyria.
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Ahaz did it.
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Hosea did it.
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Now how will Judah and Israel be saved or be delivered from the hand of the Assyrians?
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By breaking the covenant with them and joining the covenant to the Lord,
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or of the Lord.
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The Lord made a covenant.
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And that's all they have to do is join themselves to that covenant
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by resting in that covenant.
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And joining himself to the Lord's covenant is what Hezekiah has done
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when he ordered the taking of the Passover,
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the restoring of the temple,
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telling the priests to sanctify themselves,
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tearing down the high places,
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and commanding Judah to come to Jerusalem to worship in the temple.
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Now, Rab Sheikah said,
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"The Lord said to me,
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'Go up against this land and destroy it.'"
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Now that's quite a statement to make.
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Here's the next question.
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Is it true?
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Did God actually tell him to do that?
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Did God really tell Sennacherib, who is the king of Assyria,
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or Rab Sheikah, who is general, or anybody,
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to go up against Judah and to destroy it?
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Now listen, you have to remember something here about Judah.
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Where did the Lord Jesus Christ come from when it came to earthly genealogy?
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He came from the tribe of Judah.
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So at no time in the Bible do you see God telling Rab Sheikah or Sennacherib
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to destroy Judah.
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He doesn't.
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He delivers Israel or Judah into their hands,
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but to completely destroy every single person in Judah
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would be to cut off the line of the Savior,
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and God's not going to do that.
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And He didn't do that.
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So the absence of that command from God to Sennacherib,
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or God to Rab Sheikah, gives us a clue that God probably didn't say it,
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but the way we know God didn't say that is that He would never command
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that the seed of the Savior be completely cut off.
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Oh, there were times in the eyes of man where it was nip and tuck.
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You think, "Boy, that's a good thing that guy didn't die,
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because the Savior came from Him,
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but it was never close in God's eyes, just ours."
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So why would Rab Sheikah say, "God told me to destroy Judah"?
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Well, first of all, Rab Sheikah is an unbeliever,
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so that's really all you need to know,
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and one of the marks of an unbeliever is that he lies,
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especially when it serves his own purpose.
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And any time somebody says, "God told me to _____,"
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you better be suspicious.
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The only time we can be sure that God...
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Let me tell you something God told me.
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"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."
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Do you know where He told me that?
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In His Word. I've got it right here.
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You don't have to say, "Really, Andy?"
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Because I'm going to show you, and I'm going to say, "Yes, right here."
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He's telling you that too, and you.
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He's telling everybody that if you read that,
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"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shalt be saved."
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God told you to do that.
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This is God's Word. It's how He speaks to us.
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And all the principles and commandments and prohibitions God has for us are in His Word.
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That's where He tells us to do things or not to do things.
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That's where He tells us who we are and who we ain't.
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We don't need some lying, self-serving false preacher to tell us.
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God told me to tell you to send your money, send a seed offering to me.
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We don't need people like that.
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Or God told me to tell you to join my church.
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I remember, and I appreciated this later on, the last church where we were members.
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It's been years ago, but I was convinced that that was the church we needed to be a member of at that time.
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So I told the pastor after the service, I said, "Pastor, I believe God's leading us to join the church."
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He said, "Whatever the Lord wills."
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I thought, "Well, that's quite a thing to say."
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You know, a lot of them will go, "Oh, good, good, good.
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Let's get you signed up and get you in here and make sure you stay and don't go.
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What can we do for you?" Not Him.
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So whatever the Lord wills. In other words, "All right, if this is where God's leading you,
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I don't know whether He is or not, but this is where He's leading you."
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Now, God did not say, "Andy, go join that church." He didn't do that.
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How would I know when to join a church anyway?
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Are you being taught the Bible?
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Is God's Word being preached?
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Are people being pointed to the cross?
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That's a good start right there.
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In fact, that's most of it right there.
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That's just about all of it right there.
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But, Rab Sheikah would fit in well with the likes of Benny Hinn and Robert Tilton and Jimmy Swaggart
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and a whole bunch of others who have said to vulnerable people,
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"God told me," and they fill in the blank.
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Let me tell you, if you're watching that stuff or if you're reading after people like that, put it away.
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If they cannot point you to what the Bible says and teach you what it says,
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and that's hard enough to do, by the way, that takes up enough time.
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There aren't enough hours in the day to deal with all that other foolishness.
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You need somebody to teach you the Bible, whether it's me, Brother Fulton, or somebody else.
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It doesn't matter whoever God uses.
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And with that being said, here's another question.
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Was there ever a time in the Bible when God delivered His people into the hands of their enemies?
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Well, of course we know there was. There were plenty.
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We did it specifically to Judah, who was a sinful lot when King Zedekiah was over them.
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And we found it in Jeremiah 21.7.
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Jeremiah 21.7, "And afterward saith the Lord, 'I will deliver Zedekiah, King of Judah,
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and his servants and the people, and such as are left in this city,
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from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon,
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and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that seek their life.
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And he shall smite them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity nor have mercy.'"
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In Jeremiah 27.6, God said, "And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon,
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my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him."
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There is no doubt that God delivered His people into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon.
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There's no doubt that Nebuchadnezzar was God's servant in that matter.
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And if anyone could have said, "God told me to take Judah captive," it was Nebuchadnezzar.
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But what God did not tell Nebuchadnezzar to do was completely destroy it.
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And by the way, that same Nebuchadnezzar repented, and blessed the Lord.
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If you read Daniel 3.28 and then 4.34, Daniel tells us about Nebuchadnezzar's last days.
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I wish Solomon's last days could have been like Nebuchadnezzar's.
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But it wasn't. It was the other way.
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So the words of Rab Shaka are suspect.
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In fact, I believe they're false and they're deceitful.
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And what he does not know at this time is that Hezekiah has already encouraged his men by telling them,
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"The Lord is with us."
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I don't know of any more encouraging news I could ever give somebody than to say,
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"Christian, in all of your sickness, your weakness, your sorrow, all of the terrible things that are happening to you,
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the Lord is with you."
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If you're a Christian, that ought to comfort you.
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And further, Rab Shaka did not know that the men rested in the words, Hezekiah told them.
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They applied the truth to their inner men.
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They said, "We believe that. We're resting on that.
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And that's what you have to do for those words to be of any benefit to you."
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And with that, we'll stop and pick up in verse 26 next week.
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Let's pray.
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Father, we're grateful again for a Lord's Day where Your people come, where they tune in,
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and listen to God's Word being taught.
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And you've been so faithful to guide me to truth that I might share it with others.
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And I pray the Spirit of God would impress upon us what we've learned today,
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that we'd not soon forget it, but would take it away and make it a part of our lives and our testimony before others.
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We ask you to bless our pastor during the next hour as he teaches Your Word to Your people,
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as he evangelizes the lost who may be here or who may be listening.
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And, Lord, that Your Son Jesus would be high and lifted up,
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and that Your Word would be front and center in our minds,
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and that all distractions the world has would be cast out.
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That we'd not lean on the arm of flesh, all of these things are our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.
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