Good morning, every one of you, and welcome to Grace Baptist Chapel. Let's pray. Oh, almighty God, what a grace. What a wretched sinner you saved. And you led us through many toils and dangers. We already come and we will go through, Lord. And yet, You have saved us and we are saved and we will be saved. We pray now that as we come to Your Word, we will bow before You. We will find strength in Your Holy Spirit and in Your guidance and in Your blessings. Please, Lord, refresh our hearts in times of great need, as many of us as are going through trials. Please, Lord, Help us to hold on to You in this spiritual warfare. We ask You that You will open our eyes, open our ears, and open our hearts, Lord, that Your Word may be planted and rooted in us, and that we may be made new. We ask You these things in the powerful and precious name of our Savior Jesus Christ. And it is in His name, and it is in His attributes, it is in His presence that we can find strength and ask You to bless us. We pray this. Amen. How can you maintain strength when the ground before you shakes and you have no No place. No sustaining power. All your help has gone away. And you are faced before a great trial. Perhaps a phone call that you received. Perhaps an email that you read. Or a text. Or a conversation. Sharp words have come to you as knives. And they pierced through your soul. And you are in front of that desk and you are like, this is it. Life as I knew it is going to change. I'm going to lose everything. And I have nowhere to turn to. And this was the case even in the past. of not just a spiritual warfare, but a physical warfare in Europe during the years of wars of religion between Protestants and Catholics. We are told of this Spanish king, Philip II, during the period after the Reformation. And this king was a very ruthless king. And he was ruling over the whole world. Colonies and Spain. And he had built this invincible army. And he was ready to wipe off the only enemy that was standing between him and a supreme rule over every kingdom. England, which at the time was ruled by a Protestant Queen, Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen from which comes the name Virginia, where we stand today. And as this army was approaching, 20,000 ships and all this great army ready to wipe off England. Queen Elizabeth speaks to the army, and it's recorded for us, and she says, We command your prayers, for they will move the heavens. For that will shake the earth of our earthly hearts and call us to repentance, whereby our good God may relieve us and root up His mercy, His deferred judgment against us. Only be faithful and fear not. And as this incredible, invincible army was approaching England, ready to wipe it off, what happened? Storm came through the channel. And all those ships sank. And all these people sank. And all these idols of statues of Mary sank through the bottomless ocean of that channel. So that the army was completely defeated without one act of man. And the whole Europe knew that this was, even the Pope knew that this was an act of God in His sovereignty. And this was what Hezekiah, the king of Israel, felt. as He knew that not by might, not by power, but through my Spirit and the interceding Spirit in prayer that the enemy can be won. I ask you to turn to Isaiah 37. Isaiah 37 records for us this episode of Hezekiah, the king, the good king, who has to face an assault and a siege in Jerusalem from Sennacherib, a wicked king. This king has already brought the northern kingdom of Israel into exile. They will never return home because of their sin. They will never come back. And now he's headed toward Ethiopia and Egypt because he has heard that there is an attack coming from the south. And the only thing that stands between him and that is Jerusalem. And God had promised to Isaiah that Jerusalem shall yet not be taken because there is still a king in Jerusalem that fears God. And that king is Hezekiah. And already in the previous chapter, Sennacherib, this wicked king had come through the walls of Jerusalem, speaking in Hebrew so that the inhabitants of the land could hear and say, Let not Hezekiah deceive you. You will eat the flesh of your own sons if you do not submit to me. And the king had ordered that all the people will not say a word. And now we come to the words of our text that now Sennacherib is sending his final ultimatum, his final threat. And we read, we start at verse 8 of chapter 37. Then the rabbi Zechariah returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Libna, for he heard that he had departed from Lachish. And the king heard concerning Terahka, king of Ethiopia, he has come out to make war with you. So when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah, king of Judah, saying, Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria." Look! You have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands by utterly destroying them. And shall you be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed? Gazan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the people of Eden, who were in Telassa. Where is the king of Amath, the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvahim, Hanna and Hivah? And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. And Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord. Then Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, saying, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, the one who dwells between the cherubim, you are God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth, you have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see. And hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyria has laid waste all the nations and 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. Now therefore, 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. Thus far, the reading of God's word. May God bless the meditation on his word. on the soul spreading in times of need. This spreading. It says, spread it. That's what Hezekiah did. And I would like to meditate upon this. Lay it. Lay out of the soul of Hezekiah. The bearing of our soul before the Lord in times of great trials. Perhaps you have gone through those seasons of life. And as I was going through a season of testing, The Lord has brought this passage to me. A passage that is found also in 2 Kings 19. But now, Isaiah reports it in the prophecy because of its crucial role in, again, God defending Jerusalem in the face of impossible, impossible circumstances. The focus of our attention today will be specifically on the spreading of Hezekiah in prayer. And now, first of all, what Hezekiah does not do in the face of Sennacherib ultimatum. Then we will meditate of what Hezekiah does by running to God in prayer. And lastly, we will reflect on the nature of this spreading. And what does that mean? I know that some of you have gone through the Sunday school on prayer and maybe kind of disappointed. Why is he so obsessed by prayer? I mean, I heard it, okay, I got it. And the point is this, when you are faced with the worst trials of your life, there will be a power at work within you that will keep you away from God. And the more you will allow that to grow, the more devastating the consequence will be, as the devil tempts you and comes and is ready to destroy you. So it's really a severe point that we need to think of very carefully. From verse 10 to 13 we see that this wicked Sennacherib, which you could say is an atheist, is now coming and giving his final ultimatum and threat by saying, I am confident that no God can withstand my power. And we will see what Hezekiah doesn't do in face of such threat. Sennacherib is calling this Israelite king to a surrender. And it's not now a speech. He is sending this letter to him. And he says, let not your God deceive you. He's saying that the living God Yahweh is deceiving. He is accusing God of a lie. Who does that? Who does that but Satan? What power is at work? And he's saying, let not him deceive you in whom you are trusting. Naively trusting your little God like all these other pantheistic gods. That Jerusalem will not be destroyed. And that again, in the Garden of Eden, which is mentioned in our text, in the Garden of Eden, was deceiving Eve and Adam. And that same battle between the seed of the woman, which is now in the people of God who are in this siege, this holy war, violent holy war that is trying to take Jerusalem from the seed of the serpent, which Sennacherib stands, and he just pours out these words of blasphemy. like Apollyon in Pilgrim Progress or the Holy War of Jambanian. The enemy sends fiery darts and accuses us of unfaithfulness, reminds us of our failures, and leads us to doubt God's goodness. Your enemy, Christian, wants to quench any hope that you may have and lead you into despair. He screams at you. Stop trusting the Lord. Just once, do it your way. Just adapt God's command to the circumstances. And it will be fine. And he sends intimidations. And he says, use your head. Don't you see that you have no more defense? Don't you see that all of your allies are gone? It's a real threat. And it's a threat that comes from us from the world all the time. Verse 11, what is the ground of this trust? What is grounding? You have heard all of my victories. You can watch all my trophies, all the victories and the battles and all this kingdom that I destroyed, me and my father. Assyria had conquered the whole world. It was like a Roman Empire ready to crash every opponent. And what is Judah but a little town? What is Jerusalem but nothing? A little spark between me and Egypt. And you want to be spared and rescued? Are you any different? Don't you see that you are alone? Where is your God now, Zechariah? This temptation. These gods cannot deliver. None of the gods of these people, you see how he's equating the living and true God with gods of the nations. And he's saying none of them has delivered them. Where are they? They're dead. Their kingdoms and their kings are dead. Their gods are in the dust. And Yahweh is not different. In fact, what Sennacherib is saying here is, I am God. I am God and I do not care of anything that stands my way over all the children of Eden. You hear those who today are growing among our midst. Atheism and people who are proudful and they boast of great things and they say that God is dead. And perhaps even in our midst, there's practical atheists. How many people go through the motions and actually are no difference. And they live as if God does not exist. As if His standard is completely absent and is man-made religion. Here's the overwhelming evidence. Here's the historical facts, they say. And you are a fool if you do not acknowledge. And you are a fool if you don't bow down to atheism. But in reality, what Sennacherib and those men before your eyes do not realize is that precisely because of God's sovereign work, those nations have been entrusted to this wicked king who has brought judgment and is a tool in God's hands to bring judgment over his own people. And so, precisely those atheists have answers to their ridicule, Questions and objections. But even as believers, we can come to this state of self-reliance where God is a tool and what happens is that we are brought to ruin. Think of King Saul. And let's see what Hezekiah does not do. What could Hezekiah have done in face of such challenge? As all of his allegiance are gone, Egypt is not coming. Ethiopia, Babylon, which was a rising kingdom at the time, cannot help me in this. They have come short. And he himself, Hezekiah, is not a perfect man. We learn in 2 Chronicles 32, Verse 31, that actually in future episodes he will fail. He says, I obeyed in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to inquire the wonder that was done in the land. God left him, God left Hezekiah to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart. Sometimes God, we thought, is present in the believer. And he puts him in an impossible circumstance to test what his reaction will be. And in fact, Hezekiah failed, he said. Hezekiah thought, 2 Kings 20, 19, will there not be peace and security in my lifetime? As he received the prophecy of judgment, because Jerusalem ultimately has to be destroyed. But in this case, the consequence of Hezekiah would be terrible. Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him for his heart was lifted up. which means you can have a circumstance in life which you are humble enough to go to the Lord. But in that case, he failed. His heart became proudful and self-sufficient. Therefore, there was wrath upon him, says 2 Chronicles 32, and upon Judah and Jerusalem. And judgment ultimately came. But here, we see there is not yet the time. Ezekiel doesn't do that. He doesn't respond to the boast. He says nothing to the messengers. He doesn't go to the prophet Isaiah asking for his intercession. He doesn't complain or rely on his right. He doesn't wish the death of his enemy. He doesn't put his safety first. He has no question on military strategy. No question of how and when will such promise come to place. What is his immediate reaction? He looks to God and he waits upon God before he does anything else. What will you do when you are faced with the worst news that you could ever bear? What will you do? Sometimes, as believers, we find ourselves facing very broken situations. And we realize that those broken situations have come our side because we did not do the thing that could have avoided all these mistakes, which is running to God in prayer. What do others see when you are in trouble? I struggle with anxiety and some of you may have other struggles. And depression and all these things. And yet the Prince of Peace, He gives us the perfect model in the boat as the disciples are desperate and they come to Him. Don't you care that we are dying? And He calms their storms. And you look at them. Where is your faith? Why are you so fearful? Can He say the same thing about you when you will face that challenge? And we often feel like the disciple, we get lost in a glass of water when we have the One who created all the waters. And He calms the wind. And He calms the water. The question is, on whom are you relying upon? Are you trusting in the Lord? Are you taking refuge in Him? Or are you going to men to find your strength? And in your sources. I will do it. That is rooted. in the American dream. I can handle this. Let me do it. No. True men go to God. And the storm often reveals the true or consistent, the inconsistent or false nature of our faith. when true tests come, and He tries us with fire, then all the uncleanness comes to pass. I was thinking of John Wesley, who he himself was not even converted, and yet he wanted to be a preacher and come to the colonies, and crossing the Atlantic, went through a storm, and he was so afraid for his life, and then he looks around and there's these Moravian brothers, who are so peaceful through the storm, and he's convicted of sin. He realized he does not know the Lord. He was afraid of his life, and he had no peace. And he looks at this young man, and later will come to know Christ and be a preacher of the Gospel. So what does Hezekiah do? Verse 14 and 15. He runs in prayer. The faithful runs to the only God who can answer all of his needs. He receives this letter. He read it. And he quickly goes up. He runs. And where is he running? To the only place where he could find his strength in times of need. To the only hospital he knows there is a cure for all of his anxiety. He approaches God in his house. Oh, I meditated, says the psalmist, Psalm 73. I meditated upon the wicked, and I could not make sense of it, but yet I enter your house, and I see their end. Maybe your circumstances in life now is too painful to understand, and yet He commands you to run to Him. Run to Him whatever fear, even if you feel that He is far away from Him, He still commands you to run to Him. And what does He do? The text says, He spread this letter before the Lord. This word in Hebrew, parash, is a breaking apart, a scattering, a spreading and a stretching out, perhaps of this scroll where the letter was placed. But we find the same term actually in the Book of Maccabees, which records historical events happening before the Old Testament and the New Testament. In the part between those ages. And it says that a priest went into the temple of the Lord, during the Antioch Epiphan and destruction of the temple, and they spread before the Lord a copy of God's law, which was painted with idols. And they said, almost like a showing, not that God did not know, God knows exactly what's going on, but it's like, God, let this not go unpunished! Let this insult toward you! This is not about my need as a king. This is not about what they did to me, they offended me. This is an assault on your character, God. Vindicate this insult. And this spreading reflects the disposition of the heart in Hezekiah's heart. And it is a disposition that has several qualities. First of all, Notice how it is done in secret. It is not standing up and showing to others how godly He is. He's done in secret. Secondly, it reveals a broken internal state of the soul of Hezekiah. With all of his brokenness, he goes to God for healing. That's the only way for healing. And thirdly, he carries with it a struggle to uphold God's honor. It's not a selfish prayer. Although he had all the reasons to do it, he wants to uphold the honor of God. And lastly, it is accompanied by godly grief and sorrow in the semblance of a tender heart that is changed before the Lord. And we see some pattern in Ezekiel's life later on. Isaiah will come to his deathbed and say, fix your things in the house because you're going to die. And what does Hezekiah do? Chapter 18, verse 2 of Isaiah says, Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the Lord, and said, Remember now, O Lord, I beseech Thee, how I have walked before Thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in Thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore. Do you see the entreaty of these tears? that the soul is spreading before the Lord in secret, is able to bring a total healing. Those tears are dear to the heart of God. He counts them all one by one. Christian, as you shed those tears in your bed and nobody saw them, Christ sees those tears. And even if your heart during those seasons of testing and trials may be chopped in pieces, God can recollect each of those pieces. This spreading is also a sign of submission, of humility, and dependence of God. It hides a broken and repented soul in front of not just an offense that I received, but because they are mocking the living God. And I am broken. for the insult toward you, God. How many of us have this? Or they just, yeah, that's normal. That's how things are. It causes a contrition of the heart when the faithful is ensnared and the law of God is trampled underfoot before our eyes. Think of Christ on the Mount of Olives that is spreading His sorrows as He's about to, almost His tears were of blood and shed in that Mount of Olives. And He shed His blood on the cross. And His body was broken as we will remember and meditate in a few moments. Think of that. Hezekiah is praying and the pattern of his prayer is something that we find also in the New Testament. Acts 4.24, it's almost parallel to this. Hear what the apostles pray when they are persecuted, when they are prohibited to preach the gospel. And when they heard that, they lifted up their voices to God with one accord and said, Lord, you are God which has made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them. Mordecai, with the Jews, when they faced the threat, your people are going to be slaughtered. Be ready. Or Moses before the oceans. This spreading, again, this spreading is bringing the saints of God into a greater level of maturity, a greater spiritual blessing, a deeper knowledge of the heart of God. And if this is the economy of prayer, friends, where is our investment? Where is our investment? Instead, our prayerlessness life. leads us to practical atheism, reliance on yourself, and a life of bitterness, damage to you and to all the people around you. I see Catholics and Buddhists spending their whole time and lifetime in monasteries, and they pray for four or five hours a day. They have all these strict rules, and they pray. And who are they praying to? False gods. And we, who know the living God, who have the Holy Spirit, who have all the knowledge of the true God, and as we reflected through the weeks, in the communion with Him, where is our life of prayer? We don't have time. Think of the, oh, yeah, we share with one another all the struggle. Oh, this is happening in my life, this is happening in my life. Have you prayed? Have you done like the widow that is so impatient and comes to this wicked king, that the wicked king is enough? I will answer her, not because I fear God, but because she's so impertinent. And understand that, again, this is, also then laid out in specific patterns of prayer. Look at the verse 16-20, as we look at the content of Hezekiah's prayer, and the nature of his praying. He's grounded on the Creator. Like in the Acts of the Apostles, here he is there praying, and he is praying that the Creator of the universe will not allow His name to be trampled by mockers. He calls the... Lord of hosts, the captain of all the armies of heaven to intercede, and He's relying on the character of God, on His attributes as Supreme King, enthroned and created, that you dwell on your carabines, on which that temple that is before His eyes is only a copy. He knows that God is in heaven. And He's transcended, which means He's above all things created. But He's also imminent. He's concerned to the deepest core to what is going on in my situation. And therefore, as we approach God in our sweet hour of prayer, and our life is at danger, We can receive all the consolation in the world, in our anxiety, in our depression, in our frustration, because our marriage is sinking down, because our circumstances are overwhelming, I do not have a job, I do not have this, and we think of the sovereignty of God that has brought this to place in my life, that is sovereign over your circumstance. Oh, what a sweet ointment it is to think of the sovereignty of God, Like a medicine to my wound. Comforting doctrine that will lead us to assurance and praise in times of storm. Why don't we get it? Why are we so slow of heart like the disciple? He's even using here figurative speech. He says, see, hear. Incline your ear. God does not have ears. This is anthropomorphic language. But it is interesting in this context because those idols have eyes and do not see, and they have ears and do not see. And he's asking the living God to do exactly the opposite and to intervene. He relies on God's reputation and he relies that God will vindicate his glory and holiness over his church. We don't understand why the wicked prosper. We don't understand why even in the church They prosper, but we rest on the sovereignty of God. We rest on the judgment to come. And in fact, we also know, like Hezekiah knows, yes, this is what he says. He conquered those idolatrous kingdoms, but because they were not God's. So, he can boast about his accomplishments, but it's no accomplishment at all. He was actually a tool in the hands of God, and now He's asking that in front of this Jerusalem that is sieged, that He may display His holiness, so that all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you are the living God. Every time that God comes in judgment, in the prophets, the prophets say, so that the earth may know that you are Yahweh, you are the Lord. Anytime that Nebuchadnezzar, the pagan king, comes and he bows after a period of humiliation, he says, indeed he is His Lord over all kingdoms, and He placed whoever He wishes. Elijah as in Mount Carmel, and what happened? Our Lord displayed that you are the Lord, displayed it to them. And so, this spreading, starting in secret prayer, does not remain in secret. God will use us to make His name known among the people, so that those trials that come our way will actually result in His glory. And despite Satan using of those, He will be magnified through those trials. And Hezekiah in this season of his life is still He's still a faithful King. And what does He point to? He points us to the ultimately Son of David, who is in the line of Hezekiah, and that the people are waiting for, even under devastation, even under the judgment over Jerusalem. There will be a faithful one that will pray and He will be answered. There will be a faithful one who will always How does He bring victory? With the unlikely instrument of the cross. That which would sound like a defeat and a complete defeat. Miserable defeat of the King of Kings. Under the attacks of the evil one and under the wrath of God Himself who turned His face away from the Son in wrath. And yet, that will bring victory over all nations. The gospel will go into all nations and triumph over the darkness and triumph. In fact, in the case of Sennacherib, what has happened? Sennacherib goes back to the end of the chapters. The next morning, as the Israelites look from their walls, what do they see? Thousands of men slaughtered down to the ground by the angel of God, which at night has slaughtered them all. Thousands of them. And Sennacherib has to watch this and run away into his own country. And what does he do? He enters into his false god's temple. And ironically, he who said that the living God was not able to defend himself, Sennacherib is not able to defend himself from the hands of his sons who take a knife and kill him right in the temple of his false god. There is a judgment over the wicked. As much as they're boasting continuous in pride, they will face the king of kings and they must prepare themselves to that judgment. Because God will reveal Himself and you have to take big care over this. Don't mess with the living God. And they fail to see that. Unbelievers fail to see that this boasting will soon end in ruin. Pride comes before the fall, but let us also learn from Hezekiah. Let us learn from his earnest prayer in the true temple of the true living God in the midst of all the impossible circumstance of his life and how God rescues him despite his failures and he brings about an impossible victory. In whatever situation, therefore, we find ourselves in, we need to find courage and put on the whole armor of God, knowing that God will win, whether temporarily or ultimately, over every, every attack. Your enemy, which seems so invincible, which has continuous through trials, sometimes through years, and what matters is, again, whether sin, or foes, or attacks on your assurance, or spiritual depression, or doubts, losses, or threats, sickness, wrongdoing, persecution, whatever it is, it is only by the sovereignty of God. that the final chapter is still yet to be written for you and me. And it will play to our advantage, even the evil plans of man. And this evil, which you don't know why has come your way, sometimes God brings it to purify your faith. He doesn't respond to the attack of Sennacherib in a humanly fashion. That's what Hezekiah does, and so should we. Don't try to handle your situation on your own strength. Don't rely on the help of men. Don't go left and right telling people about your problem. Tell God about your problem. Tell Him! Go to Him! Because Satan wants to keep you from that as long as he can. so that there will be division, so that there will be defeat, so that He has some foothold in you. Because He has no other foothold. You are dressed in His righteousness. You are covered with His blood. And the only way He can do is to divide you from the Lord. And yet, if we rely on the Lord, we can indeed sing those words that we sang today from Psalm 124. Saints of old have sang those words with spiritual warfare, but also physical warfare as we saw in the case of England under Queen Elizabeth. And they sang those words, Now Israel may say, and that in truth, if that the Lord had not our right maintained, if that the Lord had not with us remained when cruel men against us rose to strive, we surely had been swallowed up alive. Oh, blessed be the Lord who has not made us their prey, as from the snare a bird escaped free, their net His rent. and escaped are we. Our only help is in Jehovah's name, who made heaven and earth and all the heavenly frame. The answer, my friend, to this boasting, to a soul spreading under threats, in the face of the boasting of man. It's our Sovereign Lord glorifying Himself in the wicked, being blown in the wind, and we finding our refuge in the living God. Let's pray. O God, we thank You. Our Sovereign God who are sovereign over all circumstances in life, we thank You because in the fullness of time, that battle between the seed of the woman which we see at the doors of Jerusalem, between the seed of the woman of your church, under attack of the seed of Satan, with their blasphemies, with their attacks, their errors. Oh Lord, protect Your church. But we thank You because we fight out of Your victory 2,000 years ago through Jesus Christ, which went outside the gate in face of the enemy and He died. He paid the price so that the Jerusalem above may be ours. Defeat, Lord, any obstacles. Help any brothers or sisters who may go under this time of trial right now. And is faced with all sort of doubts, Lord. And perhaps is going left and right trying to find answers. And he finds himself lost. I pray, Lord, that He will come to you. that he will find strength in the living God. In times of need, may our soul be spread. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.