A God Like No Other

A God Like No Other 2021 01 24

Isaiah 36:1,2,4,18 – 20; 37:1 – 38

  

Our theme for 2021 is that there is hope.  We have hope, not just some ethereal kind of wishful thinking hope, but a real living Hope, Jesus Christ.  We know who He is, we know Him, and we know we will one day meet Him in person!  That is because He is a God like no other.

 

Isaiah 36:1,2,4,18 – 20; 37:1 – 38

 

The Bible is not the only place where we find this record.  Sennacharib, himself, wrote about it.  It is written on three baked clay hexagonal prisms, now on display in the British Museum, the Oriental Institute of Chicago and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.  They describe his siege of Jerusalem during the reign of King Hezekiah and his sudden and mysterious departure without sacking Jerusalem as he had all the others. Secular scholars tend to put more weight on Sennacharib’s boastful records than on the Bible and claim that the Bible and Sennacharib are not in agreement, yet the fact is that they are very much in agreement, right up to the point of God’s judgment and his subsequent return to Assyria.  What they fail to mention is that just because Sennacharib does not mention the terrible defeat of his troops at the hand of the LORD does not mean it did not happen with his full knowledge.  Oriental kings generally never acknowledged their defeats in their records.  Even the death of Sennacharib, as recorded in today’s passage from the Bible, has been confirmed by archaeology in Babylonian and Assyrian records.  They all state that he was assassinated by his older sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, who were then defeated by the younger son, Esarhaddon, who then took the throne.

 

 

I History

  1. This is an historic record. We are given the date, the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, when Sennacherib launched a campaign against Judah, taking all the walled cities except Jerusalem, the capital.  There is minor disagreement regarding the exact date, but it is amazing how close we can come, even after all these thousands of years.  Most historians and archaeologists agree that this happened sometime around 701 BC.
    1. The record of Hezekiah, king of Judah, still exists today, not only in the Bible and Sennacherib’s prisms, but also in many other places. A wiki article online reads: “Extra-Biblical sources do much more for us than give us a pan-Mid Eastern picture into which we contextualize Hezekiah: there are extra-Biblical sources that specify Hezekiah by name, along with his reign and influence. “Historiographically, his reign is noteworthy for the convergence of a variety of biblical sources and diverse extrabiblical evidence often bearing on the same events. Significant data concerning Hezekiah appear in the Deuteronomistic History, the Chronicler, Isaiah, Assyrian annals and reliefs, Israelite epigraphy, and, increasingly, stratigraphy”.[12] Archaeologist Amihai Mazar calls the tensions between Assyria and Judah “one of the best-documented events of the Iron Age” (172). Hezekiah’s story is one of the best to cross-reference with the rest of the Mid Eastern world’s historical documents.”
    2. In East Jerusalem, today, is the Pool of Siloam, still fed by the Siloam tunnel built by Hezekiah. An inscription found in the tunnel in 1880, written in ancient Hebrew, was later surreptitiously cut out of the wall and smashed, as the Arabs are still doing today in an attempt to erase Jewish history and claim to the land.  Thankfully for the sake of history, the British Consul put in a great effort to recover all the pieces, which are today on display in a Turkish museum in Istanbul.  A copy of the inscription has been inserted where the original was removed.

                  

II  Hezekiah

  1. When we study the Biblical record of the kings of Israel and Judah, it’s not very flattering. Most of them did great evil in the sight of God.  The division of Israel into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah was a result of Solomon’s sin of disobeying and blaspheming God by building places of worship for the many false gods of his many wives and even going with them to burn incense.
  2. Hezekiah was different. The Bible tells us in 2Kings 18:3:5 that: “He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.”

 

III  The Threat

  1. We find as we study the history of the time that Sargon II, Assyrian king Sennacherib’s father, had died, and when that happened, some of the states including Judah, who paid tribute to Assyria, rebelled. As a result, Sennacherib launched several campaigns against Israel and Judah, including the one recorded here, and captured all the cities except Jerusalem.
  2. When his general, Rabshakeh, reached Jerusalem, he laid out the threat in loud, clear Hebrew, so that all the common people on the wall would understand and the fear of the Assyrians would spread throughout the city.
    1. Rabshakeh spoke great, bold, blasphemous words, warning everyone that nothing, including almighty God, could withstand the might of Sennacherib.
    2. The utterly vile blaspheming of Rabshakeh continued as he sent a letter to Hezekiah warning him that God was lying to him if He was telling him He could withstand Sennacherib’s armies.

 

IV Hezekiah’s Reaction

  1. Hezekiah showed his true nature when the greatest calamity of his life came along. Truly he was a king who did that which was right in the sight of God. When the threat came, we are told, he told his soldiers and their officers to remain quiet and not to answer Rabshakeh.  The first action taken by Hezekiah was to go temple seeking God’s counsel.  He literally was in mourning over the blaspheming against God.  “…Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy: for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.  It may be the LORD thy God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master hath sent to reproach the living God, and will reprove the words which the LORD thy God hath heard: wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left.”
  2. Again, when the letter came claiming that God was deceiving them if they though he would deliver them from Sennacherib, Hezekiah spread it out before the Lord in the temple and prayed, first of all that God would deal with the blasphemy and then that he would deliver Jerusalem.

 

V  God’s Action

  1. God made it very clear that he is in complete control of everything, including Sennacherib’s ability to successfully wage war. The success he had already had in Israel and Judah was not because he was such a mighty man, but because God’s judgment was upon Israel and Judah for trusting in gods of wood, stone, and precious metal instead of Him.  He took His protective hand away from them and strengthened the hand of Sennacherib.
  2. In answer to Sennacherib’s blaspheming and threats, God declared that He would force him to go back to his own land, just as if He put a hook in his nose and a bridle in his lips. He declared that Sennacherib would not enter Jerusalem, and further, that God would fight the Assyrians and defend Jerusalem.  The angel of the Lord went into the camp of the Assyrians at night and killed 185,000 men.  Sennacherib then returned to Assyria, and sometime later, his sons killed him, then were defeated by his younger son, whose mother was not even queen but a concubine, who then reigned in his place.  God’s judgment was terrible and complete.

 

VI  Application

  1. The world we live in, today, is a dangerous place. The news is filled with calamity.  We hear of terrorists in faraway places and rumors of terrorists at home. Our Prime Minister has openly declared that those who believe in the sanctity of life are not welcome in his party. Since March of 2020, our country has been operating without a budget under an emergency order due to the pandemic, giving him almost unlimited power. Our southern neighbors face chaos and uncertainty as anarchists destroy cities and up to half of their citizens no longer trust their election process. We might despair, as the leaders of Judah worried their citizens might when they heard the threats of the Assyrian king.
  2. .. God is still in control. King Hezekiah, faced with an unbeatable threat, put God first.  The first place he went in the face of an invading army was God.  The first concern he had was that God’s glory would not be diminished by the blasphemy of the enemy. Then he prayed for deliverance.
  3. Christians, we serve the same, almighty, all knowing, all seeing, personal, infinite and holy creator God. In this world, we are His children, joint heirs with Jesus Christ.  We have been saved from our sins by the grace of God and have everlasting life.  Don’t fear men or governments or anarchists or any such thing.  Jesus said there will be wars and rumors of wars.  But He is coming back for us.  Remember our purpose, to glorify God, as Hezekiah did, and to enjoy Him, forever.
  4. Our greatest days are still ahead of us!