Growing in Prayerful Dependence

This is our last sermon in Isaiah until the fall.

I know. So if you bought the Book of Isaiah

from like a fancy bookstore and it was all, you know,

like leather bound and whatever, and it just had like

a ribbon in it, that ribbon would probably be prepackaged

to fall. Right after chapter thirty seven, that is like

the narrative halfway point of the Book of Isaiah. Up

until this point. You remember that the whole threat that

God has been using to try to draw his people

back to him are the Assyrians. And here in chapter

thirty seven, God deals decisively with that. And from here forward,

from thirty thirty eight onward, the book takes on a

very different narrative structure. It's different. This is the mark,

this is the spot. So I figured this would be

a good place for us to stop for the summer,

and we'll do some other things during the summer, and

then in thirty eight, sorry, in the fall. We'll pick

you up with thirty eight and you'll still be here, right,

You'll be waiting, you'll have remembered everything, just ready to go. Okay, Well,

if you've been with us through Isaiah, you've been seeing

how Isaiah in a whole variety of ways, has been

calling the people of God to stop living as if

they're fundamentally self sufficient, as if they're spiritually independent of God.

Isaiah has been calling people to recognize their need for

His grace and his provision and his protection, his instruction.

They need him, His people need him, and that's not

going too well. There aren't a lot of high points

in Isaiah regarding that mission of drawing the people back

in dependence on the Lord. But chapter thirty seven it

is a highlight. It's a high point. It's a beautiful

picture of growing in bold perfle dependence on God. And

I say growing growing in bold perfle dependence on God,

because the account that's presented to us in this chapter

comes in a repeated pattern. In other words, as we'll

read it in just a moment, you'll see that the

first thing that happens is Hezekiah is going to see

at least in part his need, and then he's gonna

go at least in part to the Lord, and then

he's gonna receive a response, and then that pattern gets

repeated all over again. He then sees his need clearer

than ever, and he goes to God more directly and

more dependently than ever. It's actually a high point for

prayer in all the scriptures, and God then responds more

definitively than ever. It's a picture of growing in prayer

full dependence, which is why we have the title we have.

So let's read it. It's long, let's tell you, so

buckle up. You remember thirty six, all right, because I'm

not reading thirty six. But the first verse goes like this,

as soon as Hezekiah, King Hezekiah heard it, and it

is the speech from thirty six where the spokesperson of

the king of Assyria lays out some pretty nasty threats. Okay,

soon as he heard it, he tore his clothes and

covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of

the lord pretty good. And he sent Eliakim, who was

over the household, and Sheevna the secretary, and the senior priest,

covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amos.

And they said to him, thus says Hezekiah, this is

a day of distress, of rebuke, of disgrace. Children have

come to the point of birth, and there is no

strength to bring them forth. It may be that the

Lord your God, will hear the words of the rab Shaka,

the spokesperson of the King of Assyria, whom his master,

the King of Assyria, sent to mock the Living God,

and will rebuke the words that the Lord your God

has heard. Therefore, lift up your prayer for the remnant

that is left. When the servants of King Hezekiah came

to Isaiah, Isaiah said to them, say to your master,

thus says the Lord, do not be afraid because of

the words that you've heard, with which the young men

of the King of Assyria have reviled me. Behold, I

will put a spirit in him so that he shall

hear a rumor and return to his own land, and

I will make him fall by the sword in his

own land. The rab Shaka returned and found the King

of Assyria fighting against Libna, for he had heard that

the king had left Lakeish. Now the king heard something

concerning Tirika, the king of Kush, and he sent out

to fight against And sent out to fight against you.

So said he was going to hear a rumor. Does

rumors flying around? And when you heard it, he sent

messengers to Hezekiah. He writes Hezekiah a letter Thus shall

you speak to Hezekiah, King of Judah. Do not let

your God and whom you trust, deceive you by promising

that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of

the King of Assyria. Behold, you've heard what the King

of Assyria has done to all lands, devoting them to destruction.

And shall you be delivered? Have the gods of the

nations delivered them? The gods that my father's destroyed, the

nations that my father's destroyed. Goes in Heron Rezef, the

people of Eden who were in the Tealsar. Where is

the King of Hamath, the King of Arpad, the king

of the city of Sepharvaim, the King of Hannah, the

King of Eva. Hezekiah received the letter from the hand

of the messengers, and he read it. And Hezekiah went

up to the house of the Lord again, and this

time he spread it before the Lord, and Hezekiah prayed

to the Lord, O Lord of Hosts, God of Israel,

enthroned above the Cherubim, You are the God, you alone

of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made

heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and here

open your eyes, O Lord, and see and hear all

the words of Sanacharib, which he has sent to mock

the Living God. Truly, o Lord, the kings of Assyria

have laid waste all the nations in their lands, and

have cast their gods into the fire. For they were

no gods but our work of men's hands, wood and stone.

Therefore they were destroyed. So now, o Lord, our God,

save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of

the earth may know that you alone are the Lord.

Then Isaiah, son of Amos, sent to Hezekiah, saying, thus

says the Lord, the God of Israel, because you have

prayed to me concerning Sanakareb, king of Assyria. This is

the word of the Lord that the Lord has spoken

concerning him. She despises you. She scorns you, the virgin

daughter of Zion. She wags her head behind you, the

daughter of Jerusalem, whom have you mocked and reviled, against

whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes

to the heights, against the Holy One of Israel. By

your servants you have mocked the Lord. You have said,

with my many chariots, I have gone up to the

heights of the mountains, into the far recesses of Lebanon,

to cut down its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses, to

come to its remotest height, its most fruitful forest. I

dug wells and drank waters to dry up with the

soul of my foot all the streams of Egypt. Have

you not heard that I determined it long ago? I

plan from days of old what I shall bring to pass,

that you should make fortified cities crash into heaps of ruins,

while their inhabitants, shorn of strength, are dismayed and confounded,

and have become like plants of the field, and like

tender grass, like grass, like grass on the housetops, blighted

before it's grown. I know you're sitting down, and you're

going out and coming in. You're raging against me, because

you have raged against me, and your complacency has come

up into my ears. I will put my hook in

your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I

will turn you back on the way by which you came.

And this shall be the sign for you, Hezekiah. This

year you shall eat what grows of itself, and in

the second year what springs from that. Then in the

third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards and ate

their fruit. And the surviving remnant of the House of

Judas shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.

For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out

of Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the

Lord of Hosts will do this. Therefore, thus has the

Lord concerning the King of Assyria. He shall not come

into this city, or shoot an arrow there, or come

before it with a shield, nor cast up a siege

mount against it by the way that he came. By

the same he shall return. He shall not come into

this city, declares the Lord. For I will defend this

city to save it for my own sake and for

the sake of my servant David. And the Angel of

the Lord went out and struck down one hundred and

eighty five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. And

when people arose early in the morning, behold these were

all dead bodies. Then Senacharb, king of Assyria, departed and

returned home and lived at Nineveh. And as he was

worshiping in the house of Nizrak's god, a Dremlek and Charezer,

his son, struck him down with the sword, and after

that they escaped into the land of Ararat eser Hayden,

his son reigned in his place. This is the word

of the Lord. Did you see that double pattern? How

Hezekiah first saw his need maybe dimly, then and he

approached the Lord, maybe indirectly, and the Lord responded. And

then the need got really clear, and his approach got

really direct, and the Lord responded very definitively. That account. Listen,

that account is conveyed in scripture for the next generation. Right.

God is doing something with his word here. He has

brought this account to be inscripturated in the Book of

Isaiah in order to teach a later generation to move

away from self sufficiency, to move away from independence, and

move towards grow in prayerful dependence on Him. And it's

a lesson for us as well. Even though the first

people who read this prophecy, who read this account needed

badly to return to the Lord in prayerful dependence, I

can't think of a need that's much greater amongst the

people of God today than to return to the Lord

in bold prayerful dependence and to grow in that way.

And what we see in this text is that bold

prayerful dependence grows as three spiritual realities become clearer, three

spiritual realities that, as they become clearer, prayerful dependence grows.

Here's the first one. Your need, your need. As you

perceive your need more and more clearly, you will grow

in perful dependence. Now, I don't know why it always

takes such thing like a crisis like this for us

to get clear on the fact that we need the Lord.

The Hezekiah starts to see his need right at the

top of this chapter. Right, he's going to get two

rounds of clarity. Like we've said, Chapter thirty six was

a speech, and it was delivered to Hezekiah through word

of mouth, through in the intermediary of the rab Sha,

then through the lieutenants it comes to Hezekiah. Hezekiah hears it.

It's a whole spattering of supposed needs. Right. In other words,

the enemy is trying everything he can. Is that you

think you need Egypt, They're gonna let you down. You

think you need your supplies to last, You're gonna you're

gonna run so low on supplies, You're gonna eat your own,

you know, wastes. You think you need God to come through.

He's not going to It's scattershot assault. It's meant to overwhelm,

and I think pretty effective. It's meant to make Hezekiah

and the people feel like there's nobody to turn and

they need to just give up. And through the haze,

Hezekiah starts to see, maybe dimly at first, the spiritual

reality of a situation. So verse one, he tears his clothes,

he puts on sackcloth. Verse two, he sends his lieutenants

to God's profit. Verse three. Here's the message. This is

a day of distress. In other words, we're in need.

This is a day of rebuke, in other words, we

deserve it. Of disgrace, we're wearing the shame of it.

Children have come to the point of birth, and there's

no strength to bring them forth. All of our hopes

and our plans, all of our scheming and maneuvering to

get out from underneath this Assyrian force have come to nothing.

Here we are. And he might not see things with

complete clarity yet regarding his spiritual need of the Lord,

but he at least feels the weight of neediness. He

sees enough to send men to God's profit. Maybe he's

not at bold peryerful dependence, but he's certainly gotten to overwhelmed.

I've been there, just overwhelmed with a sense of need.

It's not really clarified. I should know, Like I'm a pastor,

I am a professional Christian, I should know where my

need really lies. But it's so easy in the whole

scattershot assault of the world, the flesh and the devil,

to just go I don't know, I'm just there's a

lot of action on the camera, not a lot of focus,

and she's like, what's wrong, honey, am I everything? It's

all It's just everything. But Hezekiah sees, as eventually so

do I, that he needs God. And he sees that

and in some way moves to words God, at least

by sending messengers. That's round one at least. But as

the account progresses, as we look at round two, Hezekiah

gets clearer and clearer about what exactly he needs other

actually who exactly he needs. In the second round of trouble,

the attack doesn't come through the rabshaka, it doesn't come

through lieutenants. It's direct. It's King to king in a letter,

and the threat isn't scattershot anymore. It zeros in on

the central issue verse twelve. Do not let your God,

in whom you trust, deceive you. In other words, you

need your God to show up. He won't. None of

the other nations got what they needed from their gods.

Why should you be any different? And you can see

now because of what Hezekiah does, his perception of his

need is crystal clear. And in verse fourteen he goes

to the house of the Lord and he spreads out

that letter before the Lord, and he can see with

sharp focus just who he really needs, and he lays

it out. It's one of those situations, you know, the

kind that in the flesh feel like it's just the

worst thing that could possibly be happening, But spiritually it

may be the best thing for you because you get

to the point where you say, well, now there's nothing

we can do but pray, Like, oh, no, has it

come to prayer? I don't know why. So often it

requires the stripping away of every other recourse for us

to realize the central need has always been God. And

whether God strips away our self salvation strategies or just

by grace, he just opens up our eyes. What we

really need is for God to show up, and when

that gets clear, we get bold and prayerful and dependent.

When you see that in your marriage, what you really

need is not for your spouse to change this, or

that you need God to show up that in your parenting.

In my parenting, what I really need is not to

figure out a way to talk so that the kids

will listen, or listen so that the kids will talk.

What I really need is for God to show up.

And if I see that with clarity, I get bold

and perfle and dependent. In this country, with yes, so

many second place needs and third place needs and fourth

place needs, but nevertheless, the first place need, the ultimate

need that we have in this country is for God

to show up. And when we see that with clarity,

we'll get bold and dependent and prayerful. That's what happened

with Hezekiah. It got crystal clear. It wasn't that he

needed alliances, it wasn't that he needed horseman, it wasn't

that he needed silver. He needed God. And ironically, even

as enemy realizes that it sends it to him, he

sent it to him in a letter. It's important, though,

to know that there's a way in which if you

see your need clearly, and that's all you see. It

can crush you spiritually instead of grow you spiritually if

you only see your need and the need is real.

But if all you see is the need, it could

crush you instead of grow you. There is a second

spiritual reality that has to become clear if you're going

to get bold and prayer full and dependent. And here's

the second reality. Not only do you need to see

your need, you need to see your access. You need

to see your access. Right as the spiritual reality of

Hezekiah's access to God became clearer, that's when he got

really bold. Right, we already saw round one of Hezekiah's

approach to prayer, right in verse four, he sends he

sends messengers, and he's like, maybe maybe God would has

heard what all went down just now, and the Lord

your God will do something about the fact that his

name is being reviled. So therefore, please lift whose prayer?

What does the text say, please lift your prayer? That's

round one. That's bold prayer full dependence from Hezekiah Round one.

I mean, it's something, right, it's something. It kind of

reminds me of a story that a friend told me

once about a guy. He had bottomed out. He was

he'd lost everything due to substance abuse, and he was

he was getting he was getting some help. A guy

named Gary was helping him with his recovery. And Gary

said to this guy he noticed this. It's like Gary,

Gary said, you don't need just sobriety. Mere sobriety isn't

what you need. You definitely need that, but you need God.

You need to go to God in prayer. And the

guy said, I don't know him. I don't know what

God is like. And Gary said, well, I know him.

I know what he's like. If you don't know him,

you can just pray to him like this. You can

get down on your knees and say, Dear, Gary's God.

That might be you. You might be here at church

this morning, not because you know who God is or

what he's like, but you've been around some people or

a person who knows him and knows what he's like,

and you're here. And that might not be bold, prayerful

dependence of the sword that we're talking about here, but

it's something. And I'll tell you, all of us embarrassingly

often get to a place where we are less than

bold and less than prayerful and less dependent. All of

us get to the place where we're saying, I can't

even pray, I don't know what to say. I don't

know what to expect from God. You pray for me,

you pray over me, you pray with me, you pray

on behalf of me. I'm not saying that's a bad

place to be. It just is what it is. Even

if we want to grow beyond it, it's still a

good thing to grab someone else, someone else who knows

the living God, and say, will you pray for me

right now? That's the pro tip, pro tip right now,

pray for me right now. Some ways, that's what we

do here on first Wednesdays. This Wednesday at six forty five,

we're gonna gather as a church. We're gonna pray for

one another, and they're gonna be people. And you might

be one of them that walk in here not ready

to cry out to God, just hoping someone will pray

over you. And that's what we do for one another.

And you know what, what I find is that before

the night is through, not only have you been prayed over,

you're ready to pray over others. It's beautiful, that's round

one for Hezekiah. But in round two things shift, don't they.

You notice Hezekiah sees his need more clearly, and he

sees his access more clearly clearly, and he takes this

step of bold prayerful dependence. Look at verse fourteen. He

goes up to the house of the Lord and he

spreads that letter out before the Lord. And verse fifteen says,

and Hezekiah prayed to the Lord. That's it. That's the

whole verse. It gets its own verse. And Hezekiah prayed

to the Lord. His posture is different, his approach is different.

And what follows in verses sixteen through twenty is one

of the most glorious examples of prayer in all of Scripture.

Hezekiah says, God, you're in charge. Defend your name. All

other gods are useless. You are the living God, and

we need you. I need you. This is not a

thanks for the food prayer, or let's open this meeting

with prayer prayer. This is crying out to God. You

realize how often Scripture describes God's people crying out to Him,

calling out, lifting up their voices, And yet so often

we pray as if we have no access to the

throne room of heaven. Hebrews five says Jesus in the

day of his flesh, offered up prayers and supplications with

loud cries and tears. I'm not saying we have we've

got to cry all the time or be loud all

the time. But when was the last time you called

out to God like that? Like you had access, Like

you could really take these things in your life and

in your relationships, and in your family and in your

extended family, and in your work, and you could just

gather them up, and you could spread them out before

the Lord and say, I need you. The Bible says

that in Christ we can approach the throne of grace

with confidence. If you're in Christ, you have real access

to the throne room of heaven. And maybe you'll say, like, well,

I'm actually more like that guy who would be praying

to his friends God. I'm not sure that he's mine.

I'm not sure that i'm his. Well. Part of the

good news of Jesus Christ is that all who come

to Christ, trusting his work and in trusting themselves to him,

can be His. The Living God doesn't just have to

be your friend's God or your mom's God or your

dad's God. He can be yours, whether you've grown up

knowing nothing about him or you've grown up hearing but resisting. Today,

if you hear his voice in your conscience calling you

to himself, go to him. I mean, Christ is the

fulfillment of the very temple. This king of Israel is

prayed in Christ is the fulfillment of every king of Israel.

So if you're in Christ, you have the kind of

confident access that Hezekiah is just beginning to realize. And

sometimes we lose sight of that. But if we grow

in our clarity about that spiritual reality, who grow in

prayerful dependence. Now, let me slow down and insist on something.

You might see your need clearly, you might see your

access clearly, But clarity on this third spiritual reality is

where bold prayerful dependence truly emerges. Here's the third spiritual reality.

Not only seeing your need clearly and your access clearly,

seeing your God clearly, seen your God clearly. Hezekiah begins

to see that. He should have seen it before he

has the scriptures, but now he really starts to see it.

Right in round one, God shows his power, shows his

promise in verse For instance, in verse five through six,

Hezekiah sends messengers to Isaiah. God responds, do not be afraid,

which should sound familiar. He's heard this before, his father

has heard this before. How often God repeats himself for

our sake. He says, do not be afraid of these

words that the minions of the king of Assyria have

reviled me with. I'm going to put a spirit in

him so that he hears a rumor and goes back

to his own land to fall. And when what happens,

that's exactly what happens. He gives Isakiah word to trust.

He fulfills that word. The king of Assyria moves on

because he hears of a threat, and the Rabshaka hears

that the king of its total confusion. They all leave,

and just before he leaves, though, he sends a letter

to Hezekiah, Hey, I gotta go, Dear Hezekiah, I gotta go.

But one thing for sure, do not trust the Lord

love sanakrub That's his message. And that's when we get

round two. And Hezekiah's need is clearer than ever, and

his approach is clearer than ever, and he sees who

God is more clearly than ever. And this is how

God's response to Hezekiah starts in verse twenty one, because

you have prayed to me. Because you have prayed to me,

that is an astonishing phrase, massive geopolitical implications, higher empire

hanging in the balance, And the word of the Lord

begins with because you have prayed to me enemy. God

had already foretold that this was gonna happen, way back

in earlier chapters of Isaiah says I'm gonna use Assyria

and then I'm gonna turn them back. This is how

this is gonna go. But even though that has always

been God's plan, he answers, this way because you have

prayed to me. So what's it work here? God's plan

or Hezekiah's prayer? Some of you have been here for

a while. To paraphrase John Piper, prayer is the coupling

of primary and secondary causes. Prayer is the coupling of

primary and secondary causes. God's plans and your prayers connect

in power. And you see this elsewhere in scripture too.

Like God prophesied that John the Baptist would come, he said,

I behold, I will send my forerunner, my messenger before

the Christ. And yet when the Angel shows up to

tells John the Baptist's dad that he's gonna have a son,

the Angel doesn't say, oh, you know, this has always

been God's plan, So guess what You're gonna have a

boy's names John the Baptist. He says, your prayers have

been heard. Your prayers have been heard God's plan. Your

prayer power moves. Now. I don't want the message of

this chapter to be misunderstood, and so I want to

say that it would be a misunderstanding for us to

take away from this. Well, then every prayer for rescue

or escape that I ever pray, God is going to

answer in this way with particular escape. But that's not

what the Bible teaches overall. What the Bible teaches overall

is God's plan and your prayer together power. But it

may be the power to endure. If you look at

the Book of Hebrews, the author of Hebrews writes this

passage called the Hall of Faith. We often call it

the Hall of Faith, where he says, by faith these

heroes escaped and overcame and conquered, and by faith these

heroes were sawn into and lived in poverty, lived in caves. Well,

which one is it? Is faith going to grant me escape?

Or is faith gonna grant me endurance? Yes. In other words,

God is what we need. He is what we need,

and he knows whatever else we need. Our bold, prayerful

dependence is to go to him and have him, and

He provides all that we need. Whether it is escape

or endurance, he knows. Once again, God gives his word

and fulfills his work. At the end of this chapter,

God says to Sanakrab, you mocked me. Well, Zion's gonna

mock you. You're gonna leave here, and she is gonna

wag her head behind you. That's the biblical language for

n that's wagging her head. You've grown proud, You've told

yourself you conquer mountains. But I've been in control the

whole time. God says, you were never the sovereign. I've

been the sovereign. You have been my servant on a leash.

And now I'm putting a hook in your nose and

I'm taking you back the way you came, just like

you do to those that you hold captive. And Hezekiah,

just so you know, it's just you know, this isn't

a coincidence. I'm sending you a sign. Here's the sign.

For the next two years, you're gonna have your agriculture

is gonna be cultivating itself. You're just gonna be able

to eat whatever grows by itself for two years before

you now get back to planting and reaping in normal

agricultural life. A Syria is not gonna touch you. No

one's gonna come into this city. No one's gonna shoot

an arrow. And God sends his angel, wipes out one

hundred and eighty five thousand of their army, send Sinakra

back home, where he gets shanked by his boys in

the temple of his false God. All that talk about, oh,

all gods are the same. And the Living God has

his word fulfilled in the temple of the False God.

And God is saying throughout this all, do you see me?

Do you grasp who I am? Why would you not

depend on me? You've seen my work? Why would you

not seek my face? I'm the God who rescued Hazekiah.

I'm the God who led you out of Egypt. Why

would you not depend on me? And for us, we

are those to whom God has spoken through his son

the word made flesh. He has fulfilled his word through

a work of grace. We don't just have this rescue

in thirty seven. We've got the reality of the Cross,

then of the resurrection of the Holy Spirit. So the

question comes to us with greater force, even from the

mouth of Christ. Why would you not depend on me?

If you see him clearly, you know he's worth depending on.

He can untangle the knots of your sin. He knows

how to call back those who have lost their first love.

He can teach forgiveness to an embittered heart. He'd even

tutor you through his own grace. Do anything you can

to get a clear view of Christ, and you will

grow even yet again in bold, prayerful dependence. Would you

stand with me all over this place and pray