Sermon #95           Series: Isaiah

 

 

Title:  Five Lessons From Isaiah 37

 

Text:  Isaiah 37:1-38

 

Scripture Reading: Larry Criss, (Ps. 79:9, 13).

 

Subject: Hezekiah's Prayer and God's Promise of Deliverance

 

Date:  Sunday Evening - December 1, 1991

 

Introduction:

 

What a tremendous contrast there is between Hezekiah and his father Ahaz.  Hezekiah was a man of faith.  His father Ahaz was a man of compromise.  Hezekiah was a man of prayer.  Ahaz was a man of presumption.  Hezekiah sought the glory of God.  Ahaz provoked the Lord to anger.  Hezekiah honored God and was honored by God.  His father Ahaz sought his own honor and was buried in dishonor.

 

In the time of trouble Ahaz connived with Tiglath - pileser and became an accomplice with the Assyrians.  Because of his unbelief, cowardice and compromise the northern kingdom was forever destroyed and Samaria was carried away into captivity and slavery.

 

It was not so with Hezekiah.  In the time of trouble he believed God.  He refused to compromise.  He went into the house of the Lord in sackcloth, covered with ashes, and spread his case before the Lord; and in response to his prayer of faith the Lord God delivered his people from their time of trouble and destroyed their enemies.

 

These things "were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope" (Rom. 15:4).

 

Proposition:

 

This chapter shows us that- God's people are the apple of his eye, always under his care and protection, and he will both deliver them from all their troubles and destroy all their enemies.

 

 

The title of my message tonight is Five Lessons From Isaiah 37.  I might have called it, "A message for the Time of Trouble," or "The God who Delivers by Prayer," or "The Goodness and the Severity of God."  All those things are revealed in the chapter; but any one of those titles could not cover the whole scope of this chapter.  So I called the message Five Lessons From Isaiah 37.  I will give you the outline as we move through the chapter.

 

I.  Our first lesson is a lesson for the time of trouble (vv. 1-7).  In the time of trouble we should, like Hezekiah, worship the Lord Our God.

 

When Ahaz was in trouble, he sought to deliver himself from trouble by his own cunning, conniving, and craftiness.  When Hezekiah was in trouble, he sought the Lord his God.

 

A.  He went to the house of worship with a broken heavy heart (vv. 1-3).

      He took his troubles to the Lord (Heb. 4:16).  Don't take things in your own hands.

 

B.  Though Hezekiah was in trouble, his concern was not so much for himself as it was for the glory of God and the People of God (vv. 2-5).

 

1.  He sought a Word from God.

2.  He sought the glory of God.

3.  He sought the welfare of God's people - "The Remnant."

 

C.  God met Hezekiah with a word of grace in the house of worship (vv.6-7).

 

1.  An encouragement to faith - "Be not afraid"- "The Battle is the Lord's!"

 

No matter what my battle is, if I am God's child, if I am his servant, if his cause is my cause, the battle is the Lord's.  I have nothing to fear.  Satan's people are just Hot Wind.  The words of men are just words.

 

2.  A promise of deliverance - (v. 7).

 

II.  Secondly, in verses 8-13, there is a lesson about faith - true faith will be tried and proved (James 1:1, 2, 12). Rom. 5:1-5; II Cor. 4:17; I Pet. 1:7.

 

Hezekiah already had the promise of God.   Deliverance was sure.  God, who cannot lie, promised to destroy Sennacherib.  Yet, the first thing Hezekiah met with when he came out of the house of the Lord was Rabshakeh, Sennecherib's blaspheming ambassador.

 

"The vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie; though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry" (Heb. 2:3).

 

A.  Usually, God's promises are not immediately fulfilled.

B.  But every promise of God is sure - Just Wait!

 

      Note:  v. 10 Satan's common play - Just look around you!

 

III.  The third lesson is a lesson about prayer (vv. 14-20) - Prayer is the cry of the needy heart to the God of all grace, seeking the glory of God and the will of God, believing the Word of God.

 

The knowledge of God's purpose is not a hindrance to prayer, but an encouragement!  Hezekiah knew what God had promised.  He knew God's purpose.  He was not trying to get God to change his mind!  He was simply asking God to do what he had already sworn he would do - Predestination is the handmaid of prayer.  Now, look at Hezekiah's prayer.  Knowing what God had promised…

 

A.  He spread his cause before the Lord (vv. 14, 17-19).

B.  He praised the name of the Lord (v. 16).

C.  He asked God to do what he promised he would do - "save us" (v. 20).  II Sam 7:27.

D.  He offered an argument God could not resist (v. 20) "That all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord, even thou only."

All True Prayer is the Work of Faith.

 

 

You cannot separate the Church of Christ from Christ himself.  We are his body, "the fulness of him that filleth all in all."  Christ rules the world for his church.  He counts our enemies his enemies and our friends his friends, and anything done to us as done to him (Matt. 25:40-45).

 

 

A.  God counted Sennacherib's reproach and rage against Hezekiah and Judah to be against himself (vv. 23, 28).

 

B.  The people Sennacherib opposed were the objects of God's special care, whom he was determined to bless (vv. 22, 30-35).

 

C.  Sennacherib, the great enemy of Judah, had no power but what God had given him (vv. 24-29).

 

He could do nothing without God's permission; and at God's appointed time he would be cast down.

 

V.  The last lesson is a lesson about God's Judgment (vv. 36-38).  The judgment of God is sure.

 

 

What became of Sennacherib, that blaspheming king who shook his fist in God's face and dared to come against God's people in the rage of persecution?  The eye of the Lord followed him back to his palace at Nineveh.  The finger of God pointed at him every step of the way.  When he thought he was safe in the company of his own sons, in the house of his own god, the Lord God killed him with the swords of his own sons!  "The wheels of justice grind slow; but they grind to powder.  God will slay his enemies!

 

Application:  "Be not afraid" - In the time of trouble.

 

1.  Worship God.

2.  Persevere in Faith.

3.  Seek the Lord in Prayer.

4.  Trust God's Providential Care.

5.  Wait for God's Deliverance.

 

"The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished" (II Pet. 2:9).