The Faithful Remnant

A threat hits your doorstep and suddenly you feel the urge to do something, anything: fire back, fix it fast, distract yourself, make a deal you’ll regret later. We go to Isaiah’s account of King Hezekiah facing Assyria’s intimidation and ask the question that keeps showing up in real life: what do we do when the danger is real and we’re not strong enough to handle it alone?

We talk through Hezekiah’s response step by step: he refuses pride, names his weakness, and brings the letter to the Lord. That move turns the moment from panic into prayer and it reshapes how we think about spiritual warfare, fear, and control. We also dig into the heart of his prayer, because he’s not just asking for relief; he’s asking that God’s name would be honored so people would know the living God. Along the way we contrast the one true God with the false gods we craft from our own preferences, and we sit with a hard but comforting truth: God is not surprised by the powers that rage, and He can stop them.

The message lands on the theme of the faithful remnant: ordinary people who choose faithfulness when the culture drifts and the world feels like it’s coming apart. We connect God’s defense of Jerusalem to His promises to David and to Jesus, the King who reigns forever. 

If you’ve been tempted to cope instead of pray, to compromise instead of repent, this is an invitation to run to the Lord, open His Word, and listen. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs steadiness, and leave a review with the biggest takeaway you’re sitting with today.

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

And the remnant that was in Jerusalem was a remnant that still trusted in God, that didn't go their own way, that didn't trust in chariots and packs with other nations, who didn't listen and fall into the lies of the enemy, but stood firm and says, we're going to trust in the name of the Lord no matter what. And that remnant has been saved. And there's a remnant in the world today that says, No matter what comes my way, I'm going to trust in the Lord. Are we part of that remnant?

SPEAKER_00 0:49

In today's message, Pastor Carl highlights the remnant of people in ancient Jerusalem who refused to run from God when things fell apart. Instead of looking for quick fixes or making desperate alliances, they simply stood their ground. They knew that their commitment to God was non-negotiable. That historical moment mirrors the exact choice people face right now. Being part of that modern remnant means making a conscious decision to stay faithful, regardless of how unstable the world around you becomes. And now, here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

When you receive a threatening letter, how do you respond to it? One way to respond to it is just to throw it away. I know I'm doing what's right. I'm doing what God has called me to do. I am safe in the arms of the Lord. Another way to deal with it is to start to write back and start to say mean things to the people that are saying mean things to you, right? That's another way to do it. But what did Hezekiah do? He recognized the threat was still real. And he recognized in himself he was weak. If he really looked at his situation, he knows that what the enemy is speaking is true. Do we recognize that? On our own, the enemy will destroy us. We have no power against the enemy on our own. But with the Lord, we have victory. And Hezekiah recognized that. He humbled himself before the Lord. He said, Lord, some of this is my doing because I went against what you said to do, but now the enemies are coming. All these other cities and towns in my area under my rule have been destroyed. Lord, I cannot do a thing about this. I lay this before you and I humbly ask that you would work. This attitude reflects what we're directed to do in 1 Peter chapter 5. It says, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. The pride says, I can handle this, I can do it, I can, I you'll be proud of me when I get this done. But the humble say, This is totally out of my league. Lord, I need your help. And so Peter says, Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. That hand of God that, you know, if you recognize he's the God that's the judge, can crush you. But instead of crushing you, when you humble yourselves before the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. Verse 15, then Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, saying, O Lord of hosts, God of the armies of heaven, God of Israel, the God who chose this people, the one who dwells between the cherubim, the one who comes to the temple, and his presence is there between the two angels in the Holy of Holies on the most holy place, on the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat. You are God, as opposed to all these other nations that were worshiping false gods. You are God. There is no other God beside you. You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth, you have made heaven and earth. God, I appeal to you, the one who has revealed himself to be the one true God. Have mercy. And verse 17 he says, Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear. Open your eyes and hear all the words of Sir Senecherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. Senecherib is just trying to instill fear on his people, and then he and he's won a lot of battles, a lot of wars as a result of being a bully. But Lord, I recognize that he's reproaching your name. He's blaspheming your name. Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste to the nations in 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. Lord, these this nation went in and destroyed all of our neighboring nations, who were worshiping other gods, other gods that were created by their own hands. Not like Israel never did that, right? The problem is they did that a lot. That's why they got into trouble. That's why God was using Assyria to judge the nations and Israel for making their own gods, to bring judgment against those who are worshiping false gods, and you've destroyed the nations and the gods. Now, therefore, in verse 20, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the Lord, you alone. Did you notice that? Hezekiah is not praying on his behalf necessarily. His biggest concern is that the name of the Lord would be glorified. His greatest concern is that people would know who God is, and that their false gods weren't him. He prayed that the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the Lord, you alone. And that ought to be our prayer if we're in trouble or not, right? That's the heart of God, that the nations would know that He is God and He is loving, He is compassionate. He sacrificed Himself on the cross to pay for the sin of the world, that whosoever would believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. They'd move from death to life. They move from doing things their way to doing things God's way. And the only way we could do things God's way is by the Spirit of God living within us. We need the Lord, the one true God. We don't need to be dictating to God how good we are and the things that we've done. Because that leads to us actually just saying, God, I have a different image of you, and this is who it is, and that's who I'm worshiping. That's a false God. We only find salvation in the one true God. Verse 21 then Isaiah the son of Amos sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus says the Lord God of Israel. Again, God is speaking, God is answering your prayer. This is what he has to say. Are you listening? Because you have prayed to me against Senicarib, the king of Assyria. Let me just stop right there. The first thing that God tells Hezekiah is, Because you prayed. Because you prayed against your enemy, with the implication, because you prayed for the honor of my name, I'm gonna answer. Which begs the question what would have happened if Hezekiah would have just hidden himself in his palace, watched Netflix forever, ate a bunch of ice cream to help make the the bad thing go away. That's what we do, don't we? We see a big problem in our lives, we ignore it, and we go and do other things that make us feel better instead of running to the Lord and praying, praying in the spirit, praying in his will, which is kind of like wrestling with God because it's my flesh does not want to say these things, but God wants me to say these things. So I'm going to say these things. I'm going to seek God and I'm going to find him and I'm going to declare the evil of the enemy and why it's evil, not just because I don't like it, but because he's blaspheming the name of the living God. So Isaiah, by Isaiah, the word of the Lord comes to Hezekiah. Verse 22. This is the word of the Lord. Because you prayed, the Lord has spoken concerning him. This is a word to give to Senecherib. The virgin, the daughter of Zion, has despised you, laughed you to scorn. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head behind your back. Senecherib, you're coming and you're wanting to destroy Jerusalem, which is described as the daughter of Jerusalem, the daughter of Zion. Also described as the virgin. All the nations around have been touched and defiled by you, Senecherib. But you're not going to touch this city. You're not going to touch my daughter. Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? You thought you were instilling fear in the neighboring nations and cities and all these things. You thought you were bringing them to a reproach. But the truth is, you are raising your voice against the Holy One of Israel. You think you're stronger than any of the gods. Well, they're all false gods. I'm the one true God, and you're blaspheming against me. By your servants you have reproached the Lord. And the word for servants is kind of a derogatory statement. Your little boys. Your little boys who just do what you tell them to do without thinking because they aren't mature enough to think. You've kind of taken advantage of them, and they do your bidding. That's who the Rabshaka was in the eyes of the Lord. Through them you have reproached the Lord, and said, By the multitudes of my chariots, I have come up to the heights of the mountains, to the limits of Lebanon, I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypress trees, I will enter its farthest height to its fruitful forest. I have dug and drunk water with the soles of my feet, I have dried up all the brooks of defense. You thought you did this. You thought it was your strength that gave you the ability to conquer all these places. Verse 26, did you not hear long ago how I made it? From the ancient times that I formed it? Now that I have brought it to pass, that you should be for crushing fortified cities into heaps of ruins. And it's hard to get our hands around this, but it God is saying, I created all this, and I put nations in their places, and I knew that nations would be rebelling against me, and I would need to bring judgment, and you were the ones that I was going to use to bring judgment to the nations. Do you not understand that what you have done was my doing? That's hard to get our heads around, isn't it? God chose to use Assyria because it was already in it in their hearts. The kings of Assyria, even before Sunnecherib, have been doing this. They've been conquering and they've been cruel and they've been bringing destruction and death all around. And yet God was using them to bring the judgment. Therefore, their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were as grass of the field and of the green herb, as grass on the house tops and grain blighted before it is grown. But I know your dwelling place, your going out and your coming in, and your rage against me. I have used you for this purpose, but you hate me. Because your rage against me, and because of your tumult that you have come up in and because your tumult has come up into my ears, because you're mad, because you're angry, because I can hear it in your voice, therefore I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way which you came. Just like you take captives into your into your area. And then they were cruel that way. They would stick a fishing hook, not a little fishing hook, but a big hook, into their noses and into their lips, and and and tie each other by chains to each other. And they'd they'd walk them hundreds of miles this way. This was to bring them to the nice land that they promised. You can't trust the ways of the enemy. You can't trust the ways of the Lord, the ways of the world. You can trust the way of the Lord, right? He's the only one we can trust. Why do we run from him? Why does God have to come and bring judgment upon us? Because we're not seeking him, we're not finding him, we're being distracted, we're being enticed by the things of this world, by the lies of the enemy. And then the Lord changes and he says, This will be a sign to you, Hezekiah. This will be a sign to you. That was a sign, that was a message for Senecherib. And we're not sure that Senekarib ever heard that message. But do you think it was encouraging to Hezekiah to Herod? This is what God, the living God, has said is his attitude towards Sennecherib and what is going to happen. And now, assign to you, Hezekiah, you shall eat this year such as grows of itself, and the second year what springs from the same. Also the third year, sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. In other words, in 702 BC is when the armies of Assyria came down and destroyed all the areas around the north and west of Jerusalem and south of Jerusalem. And as they destroyed the towns, they also destroyed all of the plantings, all the fields. And of course, with an enemy army out there, you can't go and plant seed and prepare a crop. So he said, next year, when he's gone, as he leaves, you're going to be able to eat what naturally occurred in the land. You won't be able to sow, you won't be able to plant and water, but you will be able to eat what is there naturally. And the following year, because by the time the armies leave, it's too late to plant for the next year. So in the year 700, there's still going to be miraculous food that is there that you haven't prepared, that you haven't sowed. But in the year 700, you can start planting again. The Lord is not only going to get rid of your enemies, but he's going to restore what the locusts have eaten, have devoured. He's going to restore to you miraculously in some ways what the enemy has taken from you. Will you trust him? Will you walk in him? And 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 that. As we talked about at the beginning, this zeal is the jealousy of God, because God is jealous for his chosen people. He will accomplish these things. He didn't allow you to be completely annihilated. And the remnant that was in Jerusalem was a remnant that still trusted in God, that didn't go their own way, that didn't trust in chariots and packs with other nations, who didn't listen and fall into the lies of the enemy, but stood firm and says, We're going to trust in the name of the Lord no matter what. And that remnant has been saved. And there's a remnant in the world today that says, no matter what comes my way, I'm going to trust in the Lord. Are we part of that remnant? We have a choice. We can be. I see more and more of the world falling away and saying, No, I don't believe that there's a God in heaven. I'm going to live my life the way I want to live my life. But it's the power, it's the love, it's the jealousy that God has for us that causes this to happen, that will save this remnant in Jerusalem. And even though Hezekiah made a mistake in taking the advice of making an alliance with Egypt, God would forgive it, and God would take his faith and bless it, and they would again be established. Yet it would only be for another hundred years or so, because again the hearts of the people of Judah would become hard against the Lord, and eventually Babylon would come and take them away a captive. Therefore, verse thirty three, thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, he shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with a shield, nor build a siege mount against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and he shall not come into this city, thus says the Lord. For I will defend this city, not you, not Egypt, I will defend this city, to save it for my own sake, and for my servant David's sake. Hezekiah had prayed for for the name of the Lord to be glorified among the nations. And God says, I'm going to save your city for my sake, for the sake of the name of the Lord, and for David's sake. Why would he save the city of Jerusalem? For David's sake? Because David was the king that was a man after God's own heart. He made mistakes, right? And yet God said, Because of your faithfulness and your love for me, David, I'm going to establish the throne forever in your name. In fact, the Messiah that comes, that will reign on this throne for forever, will come from your line. That Messiah is Jesus. He would be a son of David. He would be in the line of King David. And when he returns and establishes his kingdom and sits on that throne, he will be on that throne forever and ever and ever. That's why God honored Hezekiah's prayer. And that's why Sir Necherib would not be able to take Jerusalem. And we see that in the next verse, verse 36. Then the angel of the Lord went out and killed in the camp of the Assyrians 185,000. And when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses, all dead. That's an interesting phrase, isn't it? There were the corpses, all dead. All the dead people, they were dead. So Senicarib king of Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained in Nineveh. Of course, the king wasn't killed, so he went back home. And he kind of hid out in Nineveh. But there was this miraculous victory over the enemy's armies. The angel of the Lord came in and destroyed this great army outside of the gates of Jerusalem before they could do anything to start sieging the city, before they could start building battering rams, before they could do all these other things that threaten the people in the city and eventually take it over. Before they could even get started, it was over. And Senecherib returned home. And it came to pass as he worshipped in the house of Nisroch, his god, which is a false god that cannot do anything for him, that his sons, Adramelech and Sherzir, struck him down with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Arat. Then Escarhaban, his son, reigned in his place. There is a Jewish folklore, Jewish tradition on what happened here. Somehow Senekarib was exposed to the story of Abraham and And he heard that Abraham had sacrificed his son, and as a result, he had the blessing of God. And the truth was Abraham did not sacrifice his son, but he was willing to. He had the knife up and ready to go. But God said, Stop, I see your faithfulness, I see your willingness to be obedient, to give me anything that I asked for, including your only son. Now unleash him and grab a hold of that ram that I have stuck in the thicket. God had provided the sacrifice. And that very same spot that Abraham made that sacrifice was where Jesus would later die on a cross. He would be that ram stuck in the thicket. He would be the Lamb of God that God provided in order to take the sin of the world away. God did sacrifice his son, and it blessed the whole world. And so the tradition says that Senekarib heard about the story of Abraham, and while he was worshiping, he was about to sacrifice his two sons. If I sacrifice my two sons, then I'm really going to be blessed. And they turned against him and says, There's no way, Pops. And that was the end of him. But then they were afraid because they just killed the king and they left. So their brother got to take over. I don't know if that's true, but that's Jewish tradition. But it does make you think if we're not trusting and following and seeking after the one true God who has revealed himself through the word of God through all creation, then we'll believe anything. It'll cause us to do things that just lead to destruction. How much better it is to seek after the Lord. And when we've made a mistake or when we see trouble coming, don't try to solve it or cover up or excuse it. But run. Run to the Lord. Repent. Fall on your knees before him and pray. And then listen. Get into the Word. Let Him speak to you the answers that lead to life.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Thanks for listening to today's lesson from the Book of Isaiah here on Come On Up. You're hearing from Pastor Carl at the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina. Now, the book of Isaiah ends with a section that prophesies a new heaven and a new earth, which will come to replace the world that we currently know as it passes away. All of the promises and prophecies that God has made through the prophet Isaiah will come to their ultimate conclusion in this new kingdom. Death and evil will be no more, and goodness and justice will flow like a river. When we look at the world around us right now, it seems like chaos has already won. We can see live images of war, inequality, and sadness in just a few clicks, and it can seem like things will never get better. But Isaiah reminds us to look past the chaos that is right in front of us and fix our eyes on God's promises. That's how we can stay afloat when everything around us feels like it's collapsing. Well, if you want to join a group of believers who are looking together towards the new kingdom, we'd love to invite you to join us here at the Mountain Cross. We meet on Sundays at 10 a.m. at the Smoky Mountain Cinema. For more information, you can visit us online at themountaincross.com. There you will also find our How to Know God page, where you will learn more about how you can belong to the kingdom of God. Thanks for joining us today. 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.