Isaiah 36-39

Bible study with Pastor Terry Gray

Isaiah 36-39 is a historical account of 3 crises King Hezekiah faced around 700 BC and how he faced them.

CRISIS 1: International Threat
Action: Hezekiah IMMEDIATELY prayed.

Isaiah 36:1-3
Assyria was the world-dominating power back then. They had already captured Syria and the Northern Kingdom, and had weakened Egypt. They had started going after Judah, having taken over many of their fortified cities. They had but one more city to conquer: Jerusalem, the capitol city, where Hezekiah resided. Hezekiah was on the brink of watching his kingdom being destroyed.

Three military leaders from Assyria and three from Judah met outside the city walls of Jerusalem.

Isaiah 36:4-10 
The Assyrians taunted Judah, "You tried to depend on Egypt, and now, what of Egypt? King Assyria is obvious the superior. Why should you trust God?"

The Assyrian commander basically told Hezekiah's men, "Look. You have no friends. You have no allies. You can't trust God. And your military is weak. I could give you 2000 horses, and you wouldn't even have enough men to ride them. And if you did, one of my men can take 2000 of yours. Trust God? In fact, your God told me to come and take you! Your God is on my side! Don't trust your king, Hezekiah. He's not going to save you."

Isaiah 36:8-10, 13-19
These are blasphemous statements!

When we are down, when we face trials, Satan whispers these same words in our ears, telling us to give up, to stop trusting the Lord.

Remember what Satan is after. He is not after our safety. He does not love us. He only wants our souls to feed his pride. He will do whatever it takes through cunning deception and lies to pull our soul away from God.

Isaiah 36:11-20
Judah's commanders asked the Assyrian commander to speak in Aramaic instead of Hebrew. That is, "Please pipe down. The walls have ears." This only encouraged the Assyrians to speak louder, taunting not just Hezekiah's commanders but the people of Judah as well.

Isaiah 36:22
Judah's commanders told Hezekiah what the Assyrians had said. They were utterly defeated and frightened.

Isaiah 37:1-4
Hezekiah immediately prayed. He humbled himself and sought the Lord and sought the Lord's servant, Isaiah.

Isaiah 37:6-7
God replied, do not be afraid. God's got a plan. God's got it covered. God always takes care of His people!

Isaiah 37:8
Just as the Assyrians were getting ready to overtake Jerusalem, they were sidetracked and withdrew. Could this be a coincidence or God's will?

In our lives, we come across instances like this, where we pray for something, and when the situation turns to our favor, we are sometimes left wondering whether it's a simple coincidence or God's will. Sometimes, it may indeed be a simple coincidence. How do we know? 1) If circumstances like this happen to us more than once, we can pretty much throw simple coincidence out the door. No one is ever that consistently lucky. 2) We know because of our individual relationship with God! God speaks to each one of us. How He speaks to you may be very different than how He speaks to me. Thus, no one can tell me whether or not it's God except me alone (well, other than God, obviously)! By nurturing our growing relationship with God, we would get to know Him better and better. And as we get to know Him better, we become more confident in the things He does in our lives. At first, we may not be quite sure, but as He continues to build us up, our confidence becomes rock solid.

Back to the story at hand, though the Assyrians were sidetracked, they did not call off their attack on Jerusalem.

Isaiah 37:9-13
The Assyrians continued to taunt Hezekiah and his people, sending them an intimidating letter telling them they will all fall in the hands of the Assyrians.

Isaiah 37:14-20
Again, Hezekiah immediately prayed. He took the letter to God and prayed on it.

Read Hezekiah's prayer. That is an excellent example of how we should pray when we face trials that seem to crush us! Pray for God to move so that He may be glorified. This was exactly how Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, not in his will but in God's will. Pray with the heart of God, not with our selfish heart for our own gain.

Hezekiah opened his prayer in God's honor and closed it in God's honor. Sandwiched in-between God's honor was his glorifying prayer.

Isaiah 37:21-35
God responded to Hezekiah's prayer. God told Hezekiah that the Assyrians will not succeed.

This relief, however, did not come immediately. Hezekiah had to hold on to God's promise by faith while dealing with a worsening situation and stress.

The Assyrian commander came back with 200,000 soldiers. They surrounded Jerusalem, making an announcement, "In the morning, we're coming in, and we will take Jerusalem!"

Can we even begin to imagine the amount of stress this was for King Hezekiah? He must have been pushed to the brink of insanity! His city, his people were in danger of dying, in danger of being destroyed. And what did Hezekiah have to combat all this? God's promise. Even if Hezekiah did not know when God would fulfill His promise, Hezekiah faithfully held on to it. AND THAT WAS ENOUGH.

Isaiah 37:36-37
Though Hezekiah had to endure way more stress before the crisis was resolved, Jesus, the Angel of God, personally came and took care of the Assyrians!

When we face trials, do not run away from God. Stick with God, because God is faithful. Stay patient on God's timeline, even if our timeline may demand, "now, now, now!"

Others may intimidate us with chants like, "One of us can overtake 2000 of you." Well, just one angel can overtake 200,000 men in one night!

God may wait until the very last second before coming, but HE WILL COME.

CRISIS 2: Personal Crisis
Action: Hezekiah prayed. He humbled himself. He sought the Lord.

This crisis occurred in the midst of Hezekiah's first crisis, while Hezekiah was battling the Assyrians.

Isaiah 38:1
Hezekiah was in the prime of his life, in a crucial time during Israel's history. He was only 39 years old and without a son to succeed him. Yet, God told him that he was about to die.

Isaiah 38:2-3
Again, Hezekiah immediately prayed.

Isaiah 38:4-7
To those who wonder if our prayers ever reach God, look what God does in response to Hezekiah's prayer! God gave Hezekiah another 15 years! God didn't just gave him that. God even gave him signs to confirm His promise: God turned back the clock by 40 minutes. God is in complete charge. He can manipulate anything, including time.

Isaiah 38:9-20
Hezekiah wrote a song, thanking God for the increased time and promising to glorify God with this gift.

Isaiah 38:21
Note here that God did not heal Hezekiah miraculously. God healed him through medicine.

CRISIS 3: Loss of Kingdom
Failure: Hezekiah did not seek the Lord

Isaiah 39:1
Babylon, still a small power at the time, was also bullied by Assyria. They, however, would eventually overtake Assyria.

Isaiah 39:2
Hezekiah showed off to the Babylonian envoys, showing them everything--Even the armory! That is, Hezekiah, because of pride, unwittingly showed his hand to his future adversary!

Isaiah 39:3-7
Because of Hezekiah's pride, God will have Babylon carry off all of Hezekiah's treasures. And in less than 100 years, that prophesy was fulfilled.

Isaiah 39:8
Because of Hezekiah's pride and love for flattery, he lost his kingdom. And all he could say to himself was, "At least I'll be okay."

BOTTOM LINE: TURN TO GOD, RELY ON GOD THROUGH TIMES OF CRISIS AS WELL AS THE GOOD TIMES!

We aren't all that different from Hezekiah. It is easy for us to turn to God when we face trials. However, the little things in life that we face, the issues that we don't think "it's that big of a deal," we don't care too much about what God thinks. We make decisions without consulting God, whether it's because we deliberately choose not to in order to fulfill our selfish wants or it's because we unknowingly do it because our heart is not reconciled with God.

This is not a relationship. Treating God like a miracle fix only in time of need is not building a relationship with God.

In a true relationship, we share everything. There are no secrets. There are no lies. Everything is laid out bare, and we are honest. That is how we should build our relationship with God. That is how we build and strengthen our trust in Him.

Finally, we consistently seek God's glory because we are His image bearers. We represent Him. We are here because of Him. We are restored to righteousness because of Him. We are destined to be kings and priests because of Him! When we conquer trials in the name of God, we bring glory to His name, we fulfill our duty as His image bearers.