Reform, Resistance, and Response: Trusting the Lord Alone (Kings 18-19) with Pastor Andrew Courtis

Well, let us come before the Lord in a word of prayer before we open our Bibles to our next instalment in Kings, which will be two Kings eighteen and nineteen.

Let us pray.

Our gracious and almighty Lord, we thank you and praise you for your kindness to us.

You are so good to us, Lord.

We thank you for your covenant faithfulness.

We thank you for the blessings that we have in Christ.

We thank you for the work that you are unfolding in this world.

And as we have the opportunity to look back in redemptive history to a very powerful encounter, I pray that this would draw us closer to you and give us a deeper confidence, not only in what you have done, but also in how you continue to unfold this for us today.

I do pray for your blessing to be upon us now as the word of God is opened in Christ's name.

Amen.

On the wall in our house is a piece of Australian art.

This picture is by Frederick McCubbin, and it is known as the Pioneer.

Maybe you've seen that piece before.

What makes this piece fascinating is I know that when it was painted, it is capturing a little bit of a glimpse into old Victoria, the state of Victoria, and also a little bit of a glimpse of the development and progression of the city of Melbourne.

But what makes this painting, and we have a print of the painting, absolutely fascinating, is it is a triptych.

And a triptych is a piece of art that has three panels.

And each panel by itself tells a story.

But generally, in a triptych, the middle panel is the largest, and your eye is drawn to it.

In this particular triptych called The Pioneer, you have progression, you have the pioneering days, you have family being emphasized in it.

You have hard work being conveyed, but you also have progress and legacy being shown in it.

In the very first image, you have a couple who are just settling.

They're in the bush.

There is a small settlement occurring.

You see their wagon.

In the next image, you see a house in the background, and you see that development progressing with a little child now with the couple.

But then you finally come to the last panel, and in the final panel, you have in the background a city beginning to form and develop.

And there is a family member, perhaps from generations to come that visit the graveside of where the family first pioneered and settled.

It is a triptych.

Each panel tells a distinct story.

But when you put the three panels together, you have this complete story.

Why do I tell you about McCubbin's picture of the pioneer and information about a triptych and artwork?

Well, 2 Kings 18 to 19 is what we could call a biblical cryptic.

It's got three panels.

It's got three pictures.

And each picture by itself is most meaningful and tells a story, a very deep, profound story.

But when you put these three panels together, you have a total story which has so much depth.

Every time you stare at it, you'll notice something different and something that can be learned.

But there is something distinct about the middle panel.

It's not so much that it's the largest, but it stands out differently.

What do I mean by that?

Well, I think you'll see it by means of my headings.

What we see in the very first panel of the portrait of 2 Kings 18 to 19 is we have a picture of godly reform.

Godly reform.

In the final picture, which is chapter 19, we see a picture of a godly response.

Isaiah 19 · chapter mention

So you already see what panel one and two hold in common.

There is godliness, godly reform, and a godly response.

But there in the middle, in chapter 18, from verse 9 all the way to the end of the chapter, which I think takes us to verse 37, we have a picture of godless resistance.

And that's what makes that middle panel stand out.

A godly reform, a godless resistance, and then a godly response.

And the beauty of what we see in the portrait painted for us in 2 Kings 18 to 19 is we see a beautiful flow in this story.

I think there's lessons for us to take away from this chapter.

We learn some valuable insights in terms of what is godliness and what is godlessness.

But more than some examples and lessons, this passage, by means of a very specific phrase, points us to where the resolution is ultimately found.

And of course, we know that ultimately to be in our Lord Jesus, for all scripture points to him.

And in him is every resolution, in him is every answer, in him is all hope.

So as we look at this passage, I hope that you can be greatly encouraged by the example of one of the most remarkable kings in the southern kingdom, the kingdom of Judah.

But not only will we be impressed by how remarkable he was, and I hope you are impressed, I hope that you can ultimately see that this story, by means of an embedded phrase, a prophecy, points us to the ultimate descendant of Hezekiah, the ultimate descendant of David, the greater son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ, and his present rule and reign, and the wonderful work that he is carrying out until all things are brought under his feet.

Well, with all of that in view, we're going to come now to 2 Kings 18 to 19.

And what I want you to note is as you look at 2 Kings 18 to 19, whilst we're going to be looking at those two chapters, and the reason for that is because those two chapters do create the triptych, the three-part panel, uh where we have three pictures.

Chapter 18 really belongs to 18, 19, and 20.

Chapter 20 will be a separate sermon next week.

But what we have going on in these chapters is we have the life and times of King Hezekiah.

And what you need to understand about King Hezekiah is that he was a good king in the kingdom of Judah.

He was far from a perfect king because we know that there is no perfect king from that kingdom other than the greater son of David, the Lord Jesus.

But if you were to put them in a ranking tally, King Hezekiah is right up there.

I love the description of him immediately in chapter 18 and verse 3.

And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord.

What a commendation of his kingship.

To think that this man reigned, and the assessment of this king was he's a king who did that which was right.

But what was it that made King Hezekiah's reign right?

Well, the answer is found in the next part of verse 3, but it's also found over in chapter 18, and we read at the end of chapter 18 another reference to King David.

Have a look, first of all, at the end of verse 3.

I want you to note the wording here.

And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father David had done.

This here is a description of Hezekiah's commitment to reign in the spirit of David.

And what this is showing is this king is matching the requirements that God had called of a king back in the book of Deuteronomy.

And this was exemplified in David.

Now, just a very quick partial word.

This is a really important thing to remember.

Isn't it interesting that King Hezekiah, who though was considered a faithful king, a good king, who did have weakness, and we will consider a little bit of his weakness in this message today, is considered a good king because he did what his father David had done.

I actually find that fascinating in the economy of God's grace.

Why?

Because when you stare at the life of David, you know that David was not a perfect man.

Very often people are very fast to say, when we think of David, we need to remember that David was a murderer and he was an adulterer.

I don't know if you've ever seen this float around on social media.

I actually loathe this particular thing that gets shared.

I understand the point that's being made from it, but I think it's actually extremely unhelpful.

There's a little thing that goes around often, and I might misquote it, but it simply points out a list of characters in the Bible.

It will say things like, Noah was a drunk, David was an adulterer and a murderer.

And then it will say Abraham was this, and it just goes through all these Bible characters, zeros in on a particular failure, and in the end, the whole point of it is to say, Well, I'm just a sinner too.

That's true.

I'm not here to refute that.

The Bible does record those sins.

But isn't it fascinating that here it says Hezekiah did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and it was according to what his father David had done.

David is not characterized by those sins which were real and were grievous and deserved the fury of God's judgment.

But instead, David was characterized by the mercy of God as a man after God's own heart.

And it is a huge reminder for us that when we do make an assessment on things, that we aren't to be zeroing in on areas of failure, but we are to be looking at things as a whole, particularly through the lens of God's redemptive work within someone.

Quite often those who zero in on the minor sins are really, as one theologian said, simply disguising their own iniquity.

It makes them feel far better in their own sin.

So I find it absolutely remarkable and fascinating that David, who failed and failed badly, would still be called by Scripture a man after God's own heart.

And here is a man who knew what it was to experience repentance, experience the mercy of God, and Hezekiah is stacked up against him, and what Hezekiah did was pleasing in the sight of the Lord.

I hope that just encourages you as a Christian.

I don't know what your failures are.

I don't know what things may have come up in your life even recently where it is a rebellion, it is a sinful thing.

But know and understand this, Christian.

If you run to the Lord Jesus Christ and confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

Your life does not have to be marked by your failures.

Your life is marked by the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

The question is, are you in union and communion with him?

But that's not the point of this whole passage.

That pass that text simply points us to how remarkable this man was.

He was a king deemed as a faithful king, a good king, a king who reigned like David.

But what made him remarkable was seen in the fact that he was a man who took the law of God seriously in his reign.

When you read the book of two kings, you need to remember every passage in Kings needs to be measured up against God's covenants with his people.

It needs to be measured up against God's covenant with Abraham and the purposes that God will accomplish through Abraham.

The book of Kings needs to be measured through the covenant God made with Moses.

And when the people transgress that covenant, there are consequences for them while they are in the land.

But this book is also reminding us that God is going to keep the promises that He had made.

Because the people who are reading this at the time in which it was written were in captivity.

And they are in bondage.

And they need to be reminded that the same God who speaks in these stories continues to speak to them in their difficult situation.

And we need to be reminded that the same God who spoke in these occasions and events continues to speak in our lives and in our world today.

So what are we going to now learn in this chapter?

Well, I want us to see three pictures.

Picture number one, a picture of godly reform.

This is the first panel of the total painting.

We have this incredible description in chapter 18, verses 1 through to 8, of the godly reform that King Hezekiah brought into the southern kingdom.

This is what made him a remarkable king.

This is what received the applause from heaven.

This is what made him favorable in God's eyes.

This is what brought the showers of heaven to rain upon the reign of King Hezekiah.

The man was committed to godly reform.

What was that godly reform?

Well, in a sentence, it was this.

He took the law of God seriously, and he sought to see to it that the southern kingdom would submit itself to what the law of God said.

He wanted to regulate the life in the southern kingdom, the public worship, the private worship, all of life in the southern kingdom under the rule of God.

He wanted to submit to the covenant agreement that the nation had submitted to and had agreed to.

What are they?

Well, let me say them to you up front.

We see in verse 4 that his godly reform was marked by the removal of false worship.

Secondly, verses five to six, it was marked by restored covenant faithfulness.

And thirdly, in verses seven to eight, it was marked by him refusing ungodly allegiance.

Let's just quickly look at them one at a time.

What made his reign a godly reform is that he removed false worship.

Verse 4, he removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden image, and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made.

For until these days the children of Israel burned incense to it and called it Nehushtan.

Now, prior to this, there were kings who had eradicated some of the idolatrous practices that were taking place in the land, but not Hezekiah.

Hezekiah got it all done.

He radically removed idolatry.

He understood that at the heart of the law of God is that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And it's not enough to use words, but those words must be manifested by obedience.

And if God is going to be honored, then we must worship God God's way.

Worship in Judah must be regulated by the law of God.

It must come under the clarity of what the law of God says.

And King Hezekiah was clear in his mind.

This is what the law of God says.

This is what we're doing as Judah.

So what we're doing in Judah must change.

Scripture is our authority, the law of God reigns, the law of God is our rule, and he removed false worship.

And he went all the way.

It wasn't half-hearted obedience like some of the kings.

There were some kings who removed portions of false worship.

There was a level in which some were commended, but it was still pointed out that it was half-hearted obedience and they didn't go all the way.

Some even removed these gods for political reasons and advantage, but not Hezekiah.

He's being driven by something else.

He's doing what's right in the sight of the Lord according to his father David.

David was a man after God's own heart, and that tells us Hezekiah loved the Lord.

He removed false worship.

He destroyed the high places, he broke the sacred pillars, he cut down the wooden image, and broke in pieces, note this, the bronze serpent that Moses had made.

You remember that story in the book of Numbers when God had sent those fiery serpents among the Israelites?

And the only remedy for them as they were injected by the poison of these venomous asps, was this bronze pole, which had a bronze serpent on it.

And if the people would look, they would live.

Well, amazingly, those who looked lived.

They experienced life, they experienced the grace of God.

They were released from the venom that was burning inside of them as they simply looked to that pole.

Well, that pole was a keepsake.

It was it's there among the people of the southern kingdom.

But the problem was the people of Judah started worshiping the pole.

Can you believe it?

The pole was a sign of God's grace, a sign of God's mercy, ultimately a picture of the gospel.

Yet the people took something that in and of itself is not bad, something in and of itself was not transgressing any law, and they distorted it and worshipped it.

You see, this is what corrupt worship does.

Corrupt worship takes the good things that God gives and distorts them, ruins them and perverts them.

And we end up serving and worshiping the creature rather than the creator.

We also see this form of false worship, also seen in churches today, who decide to not regulate their worship services by what the scripture says, but they allow an intrusion into the worship services.

Of course, we have the most extreme examples of that, where people will actually do things that defy God and are clearly contrary to his word.

But we also see it in the more subtle things.

Subtle things like seek a sensitive activity.

The inclusion of dramas, the inclusion of joke telling, the inclusion of activities that aren't regulated by the word of God and aren't pointing people to the holiness of God.

Well, when Hezekiah saw such practices in the life of the kingdom, he treated this seriously.

He was a king who loved God.

He was a king who loved the law of God.

He understood the covenant relationship that the people had entered into with God.

And he would not have it in the kingdom.

He understood that as king, his role was to represent God as he would rule over the people of God.

And he reformed.

He removed false worship.

He even took that thing which was a sign of God's goodness and grace and said, if that's going to mess you around and prevent you from regulated worship according to the law of God, then I am going to break up and burn this ridiculous pole.

Because it's the Lord that we worship, it's not the things that we create.

What a king.

He's a reformer.

A reformer is a man who is committed to saying, We will remove any false worship.

Anything that is not commanded in the word of God, that which goes against what God requires, it's removed.

It's gone.

It will not be a part of this sea.

So he removed false worship.

But not only that, his reformation continued.

He was not only a reformer because of his removal of false worship, he was a reformer because in verses five and six, he restored covenant faithfulness.

He removed that which was false, and he said, We're going to replace it with that which is right.

And this really is the most important part of his reformation.

Everything flowed out of this one.

Look at the language, it's covenantal language all over.

He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was no one like him among all the kings of Judah who were before him.

Here's the covenantal language, for he held fast to the Lord.

He did not depart from following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord had commanded Moses.

This is completely different to the northern kingdom, who we're going to see in the next few verses, as there is a description of what happened when the king of Assyria invaded them.

Look at how they're described in verse twelve.

Because they did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed his covenant.

And all that Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded, they would neither hear him, hear them, nor do them.

What was their crime?

Why did God punish Israel?

They transgressed the covenant.

They broke the covenant.

That's what it says in verse 12.

But notice what Hezekiah is doing.

He is restoring covenant faithfulness in the southern kingdom.

And covenant faithfulness was seen in the fact that you trust the Lord, you hold fast to the Lord, you do not depart from following him, you keep his commandments, you love the Lord your God, and you do what the Lord your God says.

That's covenant faithfulness.

Hezekiah took that seriously.

And he did it from a heart, again, that loved the Lord.

So this man is marked by godly reformation.

Godly reformation seen in the removal of false worship, godly reformation seen in the restoration of covenant faithfulness.

But thirdly, his reformation was marked by a refusal to have allegiance with the ungodly.

He refused ungodly allegiance.

Then the Lord was with him, he prospered wherever he went, and he rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.

He subdued, that is, he struck down the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory from watchtower to fortified city.

The most powerful man in the world at that time was the Assyrian king.

We all learn about him in just a moment.

He was a powerful man, and he believed it.

He viewed himself as great, and anyone who worked for him would preach, our king is great.

But Hezekiah, who is the king of a very small kingdom, refused to have any ties with this man.

The king of Assyria is a tyrant.

The king of Assyria is a transgressor of the law of God.

That Assyrian king, who might be the main character of many movies, is not impressive in Hezekiah's eyes.

He is a little man, he is a man who defies the great and almighty God of heaven and earth.

This man is a tyrant, and Hezekiah refused to cooperate with him.

We will not have allegiances with ungodliness.

That is a mark of godly reformation.

I want you to see in this first panel a picture of godly reformation.

Godly reformation isn't just changing the outside of one's life to look good in the eyes of others.

But true godly reformation is simply reforming our lives to match what Scripture says out of a heart that trusts God, a heart that loves Him, delights in Him.

We need godly reformation today, don't we?

We need godly reformation in our personal life.

Does your life need to be reformed?

Do you need to remove idolatry from your life?

Are you chasing after a person, a place, or a pleasure in place of God?

Do you need to remove idolatry?

Do you need to restore covenant faithfulness?

Do you need to remove and resist any ungodly allegiances in your personal life?

We need reformation in our families and our households.

We need a restoration of father leadership in homes and in marriages.

We need a restoration of family worship.

We need a restoration that will say, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

We need godly families.

Does your family need to be reformed?

We need reformation in the churches.

We need to cast aside seeker sensitive worship.

We need to cast aside our preferences.

We need to cast aside our experiences and feelings.

We need to be regulated by what Scripture says.

We need to be a real people who have covenant faithfulness to our Creator.

We need to be a people who will say, we will not have allegiances with the world.

Oh, we need reformation in our nation.

But where does it all begin?

When you reform your lifestyle, when you reform your family, and when your church is reformed, we will see the outflow of that upon society.

May God extend his kingdom.

May he give us a reformation in our land.

But it all begins with a heart that says, I will trust the Lord.

Hezekiah was marked by godly reform.

But we move to the second panel, and the second panel introduces us to godless resistance.

Godless resistance.

We need to remember that when a believer commits themselves to faithfulness to the word of God, even in small areas that may have objections to others, even small areas that some may feel is going too far, know and understand a truism.

Where there is a heartfelt commitment to faithfully obeying God's word and being regulated by God's word in all of life, it inevitably will be faced with resistance.

And that resistance can be discouraging.

It can tempt you to despair.

It can cause you to question whether you should be doing what you should be doing.

But we need to understand that godly reformation will always have a cost.

For Hezekiah, his commitment to reform the nation had resistance.

We're not going to be able to look at everything with great detail, but let me just quickly pass through this quickly.

We see in verses 9 all the way down to verse 37 a picture of godless resistance.

I want you to note that we see in verses 9 down through to verse 12, this description of how the people of Israel had been taken away into captivity and how they had been defeated.

And then we learn in verse 13 that in the 14th year of King Hezekiah, 14 years into his reign, he's been putting his reforms into place, he's been committed to these tasks as king.

In his fourteenth year, Senecherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.

So the Assyrians have already succeeded in demolishing the northern kingdom.

Now the Assyrian king Senecherib, the most powerful man on earth, a very impressive individual, complete a-type character, a man who goes into this relentless campaign of taking over the world, has now strategically taken over the fortified cities of Judah.

And interestingly enough, we have kept in the British Museum the annals of Sennecherib.

And when you read through the annals of Senekib, you have all the success stories of this king.

And there is a particular boast that is actually written in the annals of Senekarib, and it is this I had Hezekiah caged like a bird.

Why?

Well, I've taken his fortified cities.

And it's going to cost you so much.

Hezekiah, and this here I believe is a weakness of Hezekiah, Hezekiah pays the money.

And in order to pay the sum, in order to have peace with this tyrant, he has to take the treasures from the temple.

He takes the silver from the temple.

He even strips the gold off the walls in the temple, gold off the doors in the temple to raise the funds and give to this Assyrian king.

We have to be careful with modern-day equivalents because gold and silver would have been worth different ways in which we would measure it today because of what a day's work would have been worth.

But if we were to just give a very conservative comparison, this is at least a quarter of a billion dollars worth of money here.

A significant sum.

And to give away such treasures would actually put economic pressure on the people of Judah.

And regrettably, Hezekiah did it.

He did it with goodwill.

He did it with the fact that this would bring peace to the kingdom.

But Senecherib does not give him peace.

Instead, he continues on with the view of bringing the people down.

And what happens?

Sennecherib sends an impressive crew.

Have a look at verse 17.

The king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshaka from Lakish with a great army against Jerusalem to Hezekiah.

Those three names aren't personal names, but these are titles.

But the attention falls on the third one, the Rabshaka.

The Rabshaka is literally a cupbearer, but he probably wasn't the one who actually was bearing the cup of the king.

That's probably what it was originally.

But it's moved into a very powerful position.

He's the spokesman as they all come together.

And he is a very good negotiator, and he is a very forceful speaker.

The Rabshakar probably was the equivalent of the chief of staff.

And what happens is King Senekarib, the king of Assyria, has sent these three impressive officials with an army, and they arrive at the walls of the southern kingdom, and King Hezekiah, holding his dignity, sends his officials out to meet them, knowing that there is going to be some kind of discussion or negotiation.

And as they go out, the Rabshaka is going to employ psychological warfare.

He's going to use tactics to bring down his enemy.

He is going to crush them to the ground.

He is going to dominate them.

He is going to say to them, hand me the keys to your kingdom, because the great king of Assyria is here.

And what I want you to see go going on here is that this is a picture of godless resistance.

This resistance from Senekarib's point of view is simply coming from the fact that resist that Senekarib will just simply resist anyone who opposes his ways.

But we need to remember that behind Senekib ultimately is Satan, and Satan hates the people of God.

Satan hates the reformations that Hezekiah is doing.

Satan rages against anything that upholds the law of God.

And Satan will use all sorts of means.

He will use wicked tyrants to go and resist reformation.

And so what happens is the Rabshaka issues these tactics from Satan to undermine and to attack the godly reforms of Hezekiah.

And how does he do it?

He does it through three tactics.

He does it through accusations, verses 18 down to verse 30.

He does it through appeals, verses 32 to 30, 31 to 32, and he does it through attacks on God, verses 33 down to verse 37.

Just quickly, he gives these accusations.

What are the accusations?

He tries to undermine the heart of the Reformation in Judah.

What is the heart of the Reformation?

Go back to verse 5.

Hezekiah trusted in the Lord God of Israel.

He believed God.

He trusted God.

So what does the Rabshikar do?

He issues rhetoric that undermines the people's trust in God.

But he does it by mixing truth with error.

First of all, he he undermines them by saying in verse 19, what confidence is this in which you trust?

You people are trusting something.

But where is your confidence coming from in what you're trusting?

And he actually says something that's true.

He says to them in verse 21, you're trusting this staff of a broken reed called Egypt.

And he's saying to them, Egypt's not going to help you.

They're weak and powerless compared to the Assyrians.

Well, he's right.

But his error is mixed with truth.

The error is seen in what he goes on to say in verse 22.

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 in Jerusalem down to verse 30.

Nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver us.

This city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

What he says, and he says seven times in verses 19 down to verse 30, the word trust, and he's trying to say to them, You are trusting the Lord.

Don't do that.

He's accusing them that your trust in the Lord is actually not working out for you.

And if you keep trusting the Lord, how's it going to work out for you in the future?

Look at what our kingdom has been doing.

We've been defeating other kingdoms, we've been defeating these other kingdoms of the gods, and those people trusted in those gods.

And you, you're trusting in Yahweh, your trust is useless.

So he begins to question their narrow conviction that Yahweh and him alone, removal of false worship, the restoration of covenant faithfulness, the refusal of ungodly allegiance, though there was weakness in Hezekiah, he issues these accusations to undermine their trust in Yahweh.

He also makes appeals to false peace.

We see that in verses 31 to 32.

He says that if you come to us, if you listen, if you stop listening to your king Hezekiah, and you start listening to us, we will give you peace.

We will make your life great.

But it's a lie.

The prophets warn that there will be those who say, Peace, peace when there is no peace.

Woe unto them.

And he's promising peace, but he will not deliver.

It's all a lie.

And then he crosses the line, he attacks.

He attacks verbally in verses 33 to verse 37, and we see the word delivered five times.

He says, Do not listen to Hezekiah, the end of verse 32, lest he persuade you, saying, The Lord will deliver us.

And then he goes on to say, The other nations and their gods could not deliver them, Yahweh will not deliver you.

He actually attacks God and says, Your God is not good enough, and he's not going to be able to deliver you at all.

This Rabshaka was arrogant.

When the negotiation began, the council of Hezekiah quietly said to the Rabshaka, who was speaking in Hebrew, Can you speak in Aramaic?

We understand you, so that this conversation can just be us, because there were people from Judah on the walls listening in.

And what did the Rabshikar do?

He spoke even louder in Hebrew so that they could hear that Sennacherib is the great king.

He is the ruler of the world.

And your king Hezekiah, he is a bird in a cage.

He's trusting Yahweh.

It's not going to work.

Stop trusting your king.

Don't listen to your king.

Don't trust Yahweh.

My very quick application before we quickly move on and summarize all of this is we need to be ready for resistance when we commit ourselves to the Word of God.

Resistance will come from the world, and it will even come inside the church.

Church, resistance will even come from your own mind.

And it will come by means of accusations, appeals, and attacks.

And it will not be grounded on the authority of God's word.

And these points of resistance are designed by Satan to discourage and to stop the progress of reformation.

First of all, I want to say to you, don't be shaken by the rhabshakas of this world.

But know that they are but the tools of Satan.

Secondly, don't be a rhabshaker in the church.

Don't ever shake and question the commitment to fidelity and faithfulness and godliness.

Don't be shaken by rhabshakas, and don't be a rabshaker.

Finally, we see that this group of men were grieved.

Verse 37, they tore their clothes.

They were humbled by what had just happened.

And we see the final picture, and we'll be brief.

It's a picture of a godly response.

A godly response.

It's in chapter 19.

Hezekiah responds by doing a number of actions.

Four actions that mark a godly response to resistance.

The temptation would be to compromise, to capitulate, to despair, to get frustrated, to get agitated, to go on Facebook and rant, to whatever it would be.

But not godly Hezekiah.

What does he do?

He shows humility.

Verse 19, chapter 19, verse 1.

And so it was when Hezekiah heard it.

He tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went to the house of the Lord.

His first instinct was to say, I can't do this myself.

I need the Lord.

I'm going to him.

I'm going to seek the Lord.

Secondly, he not only responded with humility, he responded with a desire to seek the word of God through the man of God.

That's verses 2, all the way down to verse 13.

He sends a message to Isaiah the prophet.

And as he sends this message to Isaiah the prophet, he shares his trouble, he shares the turmoil that they're in.

And he seeks the prophet to seek the Lord to hear what God's word has to say on their situation.

He wanted to hear from God.

He wanted to hear from the Lord God concerning this difficulty, the resistance that he was experiencing.

And then after doing all of this, the Rabshaka returns.

He sees the king of Assyria warring in a different region.

The king of Assyria writes a letter and has it sent to Hezekiah, saying that you are not to be trusting in your Lord.

I am going to bring you down.

I am going to crush you.

Hezekiah then gets this letter.

But he's gone in humility.

He's gone to seek the word of God.

And now he goes to the Lord in prayer.

And I love what we see in verses 14 to 19.

Verse 14, he received the letter from the hand of the messengers.

He read it, and he went up to the house of the Lord, and he spread it before the Lord.

And it's as if he's saying, Lord, I bring all my trouble before you.

I bring all this resistance before you.

And he prays.

And his prayer is stunning.

Verse 15, O Lord God of Israel, the one who dwells between the cherubim, you are God, you alone of all the kingdoms of the earth.

You have made heaven and earth.

Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear, open your eyes, O Lord, and see, and hear the words of Sennecherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God.

Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste to the nations and their lands, and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone.

Therefore they destroyed them.

Now, therefore, O Lord our God, I pray, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the Lord God, you alone.

Hezekiah couldn't care less about his own reputation.

He wanted the Lord's renown to be on display.

That is the mark of a godly man.

He prayed.

And after he prayed, verses 20 to 37, he trusted God.

He trusted the Lord.

And he then received the word of the Lord back through the prophet.

You can read it for yourself, but Isaiah the prophet, with eloquent language, talks about the destruction that's going to come upon Sennecherib.

God will bring this man down.

And he concludes by saying in verse 34, I will defend this city to save it for my own sake and for my servant David's sake.

I am not finished with my people.

I have made a covenant.

How encouraging would this be for the people who read this who were actually now exiled because of disobedience that came after Hezekiah, knowing that God is not finished with his covenant?

Incredible encouragement.

We then see in verses 35 to 37 that Senecherib was camped outside ready to fight the people.

The Lord sends an angel and in one night kills, slays 185,000 of the Assyrian soldiers.

There were corpses all over the ground, dead.

Senecherib then decides, we're out of here.

And he goes to Nineveh.

And then at Nineveh, he is worshipping one of his gods, and suddenly his two sons turn on him and throw a blade at the back of him and kill him.

Senecherib is dead.

But I have to finish by pointing something out to you.

This gives us lessons on godly reform.

This teaches us about godless resistance.

It reminds us of godly response, and that is to be humble, to seek out the word of God, pray and trust God to do the results.

But none of this must ever be detached from the major lesson that is embedded into this passage.

The Lord said in verse 30, The remnant who have escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.

For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and those who escape from Mount Zion, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

The zeal of the Lord is referring to his commitment to keep his covenant.

But again, look at that phrase the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Does that sound familiar to you?

That exact phrase appears three times in the Old Testament.

It appears here, it appears over in Isaiah 37 and verse 32, which is actually recounting word for word this exact story.

But it appears one more time.

And it appears in Isaiah 9.

And in order to understand Isaiah 9, verse 7, you need to begin in verse 6.

Isaiah 9:7

Because we learn that the Lord will carry out his commitment to his covenant, not just by defeating Zenecherib, but he is going to actually fulfill that covenant with an ultimate purpose, and that is through the descendant of David's throne that is not Hezekiah.

Because after Hezekiah, the people are exiled.

Have a look at Isaiah 9:6-7, and with this we finish.

Isaiah 9:6–7

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

God will carry out his purpose through the Son of God, the greater son of David, and we need to remember that all authority in heaven and on earth has been endowed upon him, upon his resurrection.

He is the risen king, he is reigning now, and he says with authority that we are to then go.

We are charged to go into the world with the glorious gospel of Christ, knowing that that king has ascended into the glory of heaven, is seated on the throne of David, is ruling and reigning, and he is unfolding his purposes in this world in which his enemies are being subdued, and the day will come in which they will be all brought under his feet, and he will hand things over, in which God will be all in all.

This triptych of two kings, two Kings 18 and 19 reminds us that we need godly reformation.

Godly reformation will be resisted by godless resistance, and when godless resistance comes, we must respond with a godly response of humility, seeking out the word of God, praying, and then trusting God.

But know this we can trust the promise, and the promise is the greater son of David.

He's reigning, and he is subduing his enemies.

So let's go.

Let's pray.

Our Heavenly Father, I thank you for this beautiful portrait of three parts that you've given us in your word.

Help us to embrace it, help us to look to Christ and to live it.

In Christ's name.

Amen.