Hezekiah’s Crisis In Isaiah 36 And The Courage To Seek God

A threatening army at the gates. A confident spokesman who sounds persuasive. A community tempted to trust anything that promises quick safety. That is Isaiah 36, and it is also a surprisingly clear mirror of what Christian life can feel like when pressure, noise, and fear start arguing with your faith.

We open with the reminder that we do not come to God on our own terms. God already invites us to meet him on his terms, and those terms are full of grace and mercy. From there, we step into the historical crisis of King Hezekiah and the Assyrian threat under Sennacherib. Pastor Carl walks us through the key players, why Hezekiah’s reforms matter, and how even good leadership can get shaken when the enemy’s message feels strong and immediate. Along the way, we explore the practical value of discernment: which voices actually keep our focus on the Lord, and which ones quietly train us to compromise.

The Rabshakeh’s strategy is a masterclass in intimidation and spiritual sabotage: mock their strength, attack their leadership, twist the meaning of worship, and promise comfort if they surrender. We talk about the danger of leaning on “Egypt” as a substitute security, the wisdom of refusing to argue with a fool in his folly, and why the turning point is not a clever comeback but a humbled heart. Hezekiah’s response points the way for us: treat sin and threats as serious, repent, and seek the Lord.

If this Bible teaching from Isaiah 36 and Isaiah 37 helps you, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find it.

Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways and we shall walk in his paths.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

We need to come to God on his terms, which are full of grace and mercy. And yet, we still want to do things our way, don't we? We still want to go and do the things that we want to do, and we listen to all the voices out there. Boy, are there so many voices out there today to tell us what to believe, what not to believe, what to do. How many of those keep our focus on the Lord? Very few of those voices do, do they?

SPEAKER_00 0:49

In today's message, Pastor Carl reminds you to stop trying to approach God on your own terms and instead meet him on his, which are already overflowing with grace and mercy. Even though his way is best, the human tendency is to pull back toward one's own desires. You're navigating a world that is filled with conflicting opinions on what you should think, do, and believe. Learn to tune out the distractions of the crowd so you can clearly hear the one voice that actually matters. And now, here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Verse 1 in chapter 36. Now it came to pass that in the 14th year of King Hezekiah, that Zenecherib, the king of Assyria, came up against all the fortified cities of Jerusalem and took them. So now we got a story. This is we've been hearing about uh prophecies, and now this is what happened in some of those prophecies. Now, Hezekiah, his name means Jehovah is my strength. Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, and his name said that. He was the son of Ahaz, though. Ahaz was a bad, bad king. Uh and is he the great-grandson of Uzziah, who was a great and good king. And in 2 Chronicles 32, it says of Hezekiah, after him, none was like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. So Hezekiah was a pretty good guy. He said, This is like the best, godliest king around, almost exalting him over David. So Hezekiah, as we look at him, he is a man of God. He is a king that we would want to have. He was over a great reformation of source in the kingdom of Judah. He abolished idolatry all over the land. Now, Senecherib, who was the king of Assyria, his name means sin multiplied brothers, which means uh there's a whole bunch of sin in his family, right? Um, according to the Eastern Bible Dictionary, was like the Persian exertses in that he was weak and vainglorious. He was cowardly under reverse and cruel and boastful in success. What does that sound like? That sounds like a bully that is not sure of himself, that doesn't know you know where he's coming, where he's going, but he knows that if he exerts power and cruelty over other people, he can gain an authority and in power and in and in position. That's who Senekareb was. He was the king of Assyria after his father Sargon, and he was murdered by his two sons, and uh later uh um was was uh succeeded by a third son after 24 years in power. So you just look at their examples of fathers. The brother of sin had sons that killed him and then ran away, and then a third son went and took his place. You had Hezekiah, who even though his father was evil, his great-grandfather was good, and he grabbed a hold of what was good and he passed it on. So these are two of the characters that we're dealing with so far, and there will be more. Verse 2 Then the king of Assyria sent the Rabshekah with a great army from Lachish to the King Heziah Jerusalem, and he stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller's Field. Now there's a lot in here. First of all, what is this uh Rabshekha? What is a Rabshekha? Well, that's a title, that's not a name, it's a title meaning the chief cupbearer, the chief of officers, or the chief butler. He was the number two guy, basically, from Assyria, and he was coming to represent the king of Assyria, and he had a message for uh Hezekiah. Now he had been coming down from Lachish, which was an area up in the north that they had already conquered. So they're coming from the area that used to belong to the northern kingdom, but is now belonging to the Assyrian kingdom as a threat. He's coming down to Jerusalem and he's having a word or two with Hezekiah. Now they were standing by the aqueduct from the upper pool. Hezekiah foresaw evil coming, and he was preparing his people for what was to come. He saw the armies of Assyria coming down over the years, and so what he wanted to do was to fortify the city of Jerusalem. And Hezekiah developed this great system of aqueducts within Jerusalem, taking water from a river that's north of the town and diverting it into the town under the town and having an upper pool and a lower pool. And it's an amazing place. Look up the aqueducts of Hezekiah and it's it'll blow you away. And the Fuller's field. What was the Fuller's field? Well, you remember where Abraham came from. He came from the Babylon area. He he brought some um some trades with him, and the fullers were basically textile workers, uh, people who could dye uh cloth and so forth. So look up Fullers, do a study on Fullers, do a study on the aqueducts, and it'll be very interesting reading. It'll be worth it, okay? So verse 3. And Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebnah the scribe, and Joash, uh Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to him. All right, well, who are these guys? Well, Eliakim means God raises or God sets up. Eliakim was a good man who had a good career serving the king. He was first Hezekiah's messenger and later became the governor of the palace, succeeding Shebnah. So he was a good and godly man, somebody a king wants in authority with him. You want to surround yourself with good, godly people when you're in authority. Hilkiah, my portion is with Jehovah. That's what his name means. And he seemed to be a godly man as well. Uh there was another Hilkiah that this guy may have been named after, who discovered the lost book of the law while repairing the temple under King Josiah. And he brought that that role, that that tablet, the uh the scroll to King Josiah, and he read it to the king, and and the king broke his heart, and and and that was the beginning of a revival, turning back to the Lord. When the word is hidden from our hearts, we fall away from the Lord. But when the word is rediscovered and we read it and apply it, and we repent before the Lord, recognizing the direction we were going. It brings revival, it brings change. Are you praying for revival in our land today? It starts with you and me. Are we serious about it? Are our hearts breaking because we aren't treasuring the word of God as we ought. So that's Hilkiah. Now, Sheibnah means vigor. He was full of vigor and pride and scheming. He was the treasurer for Hezekiah as well as the governor of the palace, until, of course, he got in trouble. Pride filled him, and because of that, he was ejected from that office. He was the one who pushed for an alliance with Egypt against Assyria. Now, uh Hezekiah had broken off a deal that his father Ahaz had made with Assyria. He was his father was paying tribute to Assyria for many, many years to keep themselves safe. So he is putting his trust in money, possessions to keep the enemy at bay. Hezekiah says, I'm going to serve God. This is not right for me to pay the enemy, not to attack me. So Hezekiah said, No more. However, when the Assyrians started coming down and they showed their force and their evil and their cruelty, Hezekiah kind of uh was a little bit shaken. And one of his advisors said, Hey, we ought to make a deal with Egypt, because Egypt is strong and Egypt can protect us. And Hezekiah, in a moment of weakness there, said, Well, okay, that sounds good. This must be from God. And it wasn't from God. And later on, he gets scolded by God for making that deal with Egypt. And that was Shebnah. Now, Joah was the recorder or chronicler, uh, he was the journalist, and uh his name means Jehovah is brother. God is my brother. And isn't that an interesting picture of the gospel? Who is Jesus? He is God's son, he became one of us, and because he became one of us and died and rose again, when we die and are given new life in him, we become brothers and sisters of Christ. Jehovah is our brother, and his father is our heavenly father, who we've been adopted into that family. Isn't that glorious? And his name means that. And uh there's not much more than we know about Joah except for those things. And Asaph, um, his name means gatherer. He was Joah was the son of Asap. Now, it may just be that Asaph was named after the Asaph we know uh under David's time, or it could have been that Asap was actually uh Joah's great, great, great, great grandfather. And in that line, this man with that legacy is is serving in the king's court. The legacy of being a worship leader in David's choir. So it could be that there's a lot of heritage here in this man of Joah that we don't know much of, but he may well have been offspring of uh Asaph, who was the worship leader for King David. Isn't that neat? Well, these are some of the characters that we're dealing with. Now the drama begins. Verse 4. Then the Rabshakin said to them, Say now to Hezekiah, thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, what confidence is there in which you trust? I say to you, speaking of having plans and power of war, they're mere words. Now in whom do you trust that you rebel against me? Look, you're trusting in the staff of this broken reed, Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to is will be to all who trust in him. A reed. Say if you use a reed as a as a cane of sorts, and you put your pressure onto it, it pokes you right through the hand. It's not any help to you, it's actually a hindrance. And what this person is saying, this representative of the king of Assyria, is if you're trusting in Egypt, it's not going to help you. There's no help. In fact, it's going to be a hindrance to you. Why are you trusting in Egypt? You should be trusting in us. That's what the enemy is saying. Verse 7 But if you say to me, We trust in the Lord our God, is that not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away and said to Judah and Jerusalem, You shall worship before this altar? You guys had such a great and vibrant time of worshiping God up on the mountains and all these different places, and you felt good about it. You had good feelings, and you saw the God of heaven was protecting you. But Hezekiah says, No, no, no, don't worship that God. You need to worship at this altar in my town where I am. He wants to trouble you to go all the way back to Jerusalem to worship God. But of course, he's pulled down the altars to God. Do you see what Senecherib or this representative of Surachidib is doing? He's he's twisting the truth a little bit. What did Hezekiah do? He tore down the idols to the false gods. Just because you're worshiping something as God, does not mean that is God. Does not mean that is the true God. Does not mean that you're going to have blessings from the Lord. What we need to do is is abhor evil and cling to what is good. What we need to do is worship the one true God in the way that he prescribed us to worship him. In the Old Testament, he was to be worshipped in the temple in Jerusalem. That's where God met with man. He made himself available to man in this way. Who is man to say to him, Oh, I don't like the way you offer me to meet with you. That's very inconvenient, God. Wait a minute. The God of all creation has humbled himself to meet with me. And I'm telling him what the terms need to be. That's a problem, isn't it? We need to come to God on his terms, which are full of grace and mercy. And yet, we still want to do things our way, don't we? We still want to go and do the things that we want to do. And we listen to all the voices out there. Boy, are there so many voices out there today to tell us what to believe, what not to believe, what to do. How many of those keep our focus on the Lord? Very few of those voices do, do they? May the Lord give us mercy as we sift through all this stuff and seek Him wholeheartedly and not listen to these strong, strong voices that come and influence our decisions. Verse 8 says, Now therefore I urge you to give a pledge to my master, the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses if you're able on your part to put riders on them. Ha ha ha ha. Boy, he's not really negotiating kindly. He's insulting them as he's negotiating. Just submit to us. We'll give you a bunch of horses to protect you if you can ride them. We'll give you a bunch of guns if you know how to shoot them. Verse 9, how then will you repel one captain of the least of my master's servants and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen? It's almost like say, We have more power in our pinky than the entire army of Egypt. Have I now come to you without the Lord against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it. Now, this is an interesting phrase, isn't it? Look, and you think God is on your side, God has called me, Sere Sir Necherib, whatever his name is, to come and to bring judgment against his unbelieving people, against his rebelling people. Was that true? Yes, it was true. Many times God used uh Israel's enemies to come and bring judgment against them. However, those enemy nations that he used to bring judgment against his people did not go unpunished. Now that's not fair. God uses these other people, then he punishes them for using them. That isn't what happened. They were doing that anyway. Their hearts were already bent on attacking Israel, and he used those things in order to accomplish his purposes. We don't understand the ways of the Lord, but he is just and he is holy, and he works in a fallen world, and he uses our enemies to sometimes get a hold of us. Are we listening? Are we responding? Are we turning back to him, the one we can trust? Because even though Assyria was coming down because God had taken advantage of the situation and was using them in order to judge Israel, does not make Assyria holy, does not make Assyria godly, does not make Assyria ones that have the blessing of God. Quite the contrary. In verse 11, it changes a little bit, and then Elachem, Shebna, and Joah, the son said to the Rabshek, please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for if we understand it and do not speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people who are on the wall. In other words, hey, hey, turn it to tune it down a little bit. And let's just talk and negotiate here. We can speak in Arabic so the people in the wall don't get worried and that they don't understand what you're saying. Which would be a kind way to negotiate, right? Okay, well, let's talk about it and you make your decisions and we'll make ours. But instead he continues to stir up the mess. But the Rabshak has said, This has my master sent me to your master and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall who will eat and drink their own waste with you. Hey, we're coming down to destroy you. Who are you to say, hey, be quiet? We're giving you an opportunity to surrender here before you die, before you're forced to do things that are not worth talking about. And then he continued in verse 13 The Rabshaka stood and called out with a loud voice in Hebrew and said, Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. Thus says the king, do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you, nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver us. This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. So he starts with boldness, starting to call out to the people, Don't listen to your king. He doesn't know what he's talking about. He says he knows God, but let me tell you, he doesn't. God is using us, God is on our side. Don't trust what he says to you. Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria make peace with me by a present and come out to me, and every one of you eat from his own vine, and every one from his own fig tree, and every one of you drink from the waters of his own cistern until I come and take you away to a land like your land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. Hey, if you want safety, I'll let you live your lives. Just continue that tribute that that Hezekiah's dad, the good king, was doing. He was smart, he had a deal with us, and we'll let you live in peace, and and we will take over, but hey, we're great. We're gonna take you to even a better place, or you're gonna have even a better life. Don't listen to Hezekiah. Don't listen to Hezekiah. Verse 18. Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, say, The Lord will deliver us. Should you trust anybody that says, Don't depend on the Lord? Should you trust in anyone who says, Don't believe the king when he says the Lord will deliver us? When the truth is the Lord is our only hope. Are we submitting to the Lord? Are we seeking after the Lord? Are our hearts broken before the Lord? Are we allowing the Lord to work in our lives? The enemy doesn't want us to get in that position. Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered this land, its land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hammoth and Arpad? Where are the gods of Serevim? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand? Who among the gods of these lands have delivered their countries from my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand? Look, there are all these gods around. None of them were strong enough to deliver us, to defeat us. We defeated them. And these are guys all around you, Jerusalem. These are nations that were all around, and yet they've been defeated. They're no more. Their gods didn't save them. What makes you think your god's gonna save you? What do we say when we're asked a question like that? Well sometimes we say nothing. Verse 21, but they held their peace and answered him not a word, for the king's command was, do not answer him. Don't answer a fool in his folly. There are just some people that you just can't negotiate with, that you can't talk sense into, that you can't have a conversation and learn from, and and and and and vice versa. This representative of the king had the heart of the king of Assyria, and that was we're gonna destroy you no matter what, but we'll be nice and give you an opportunity to surrender before you kill you, before we kill you. There was nothing to be done in that situation but to trust in the Lord. Then Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Sheba the scribe, and and Joah the son of Asap the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rabshekah. When you're shaken up by the representative of the enemy in your life, does that mean you're not trusting in the Lord? I mean, the Lord brings us through situations and the enemy comes and sideswipes us times where we're shaken up. And it's at those times we have a choice to make. Do we run to the king and represent, uh uh explain to him what happened? Or do we give in to the enemy and say, you know you're right. Everything that I believed in was a lie. Uh chapter 37, and so it was when the king Hezekiah heard it that he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord. He heard the threats of the enemy, and he recognized they were serious. That's the first thing we need to do when we recognize sin in our lives, is recognize it's serious. And this is something that we need to turn from, we need to repent from. Our hearts need to be torn as they tore their clothes. And then what? You seek the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Thanks for joining us for Come On Up. We've been hearing from Pastor Carl, the pastor at the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina, as he teaches us about the book of Isaiah. Toward the beginning of this book, the prophet Isaiah receives a vision of God's glory, and he is certain that he and the entire nation of Israel will be destroyed in the presence of a perfect creator. But God chose mercy on Isaiah and purifies him of his sin. This is an illustration of how God had mercy on us by sending his Son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. We don't have to be afraid to enter into the Lord's presence because the blood of Jesus has already paid the debt of our sin. We are made righteous and holy because of his sacrifice, which was prophesied to us all the way back in the book of Genesis and reaffirmed in the book of Isaiah. We're called to spread this message of hope to all who will hear it. And that is why this program that you're listening to is on the air. If you'd like to hear more from Pastor Carl, you can do so by visiting us online at themountaincross.com. If you're local to Waynesville, we'd also love to invite you to join us in person at the Mountain Cross. We meet every Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Smoky Mountain Cinema. You'll find more information about our services and our monthly faith film nights on our website. Pastor Carl has plenty more to share from the book of Isaiah, so be sure to come on up to the mountain with us again next time as we seek to learn more from the Lord through his word. Come on Up is sponsored by the Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.