Security; In Whom Do You Trust? - 2
Kings 18:7-17
We have focused on the issue of
security and will continue that because this is an underlying factor within the
episode facing Hezekiah. Even though the situation that being faced
historically in 2 Kings 18-20 was a national crisis, a military crisis that
threatened the very existence of Israel, the southern kingdom of Judah,
we still face those same kinds of crises today. They may come in the form of a
national crisis in the history of the United States, it may come in the form of
an environmental or natural disaster, it may come in the form of an economic
crisis, and whether the crisis is national or international we all face certain
kinds of crises that threaten the security that as limited, finite creatures
that human beings are scare us to death and threaten our very existence and security.
And so we are constantly looking to something or someone—often in the wrong
place—to find some measure of stability, happiness and security. Part of this
is what is exemplified in the episode described in these three chapters.
We could face a number of
crises on any given day and there is no warning given. The issue is how we face
these crises. How are we going to handle them? Where is our source of security?
Or, in other words, in whom do we trust? In our nation we have a motto: In God
we trust. It is one thing to say “In God we trust,” it is one thing to say we
are a believer in the Scriptures and we believe the promises of God, but it is
another thing to really trust God when things are going very badly and when it
seems we are going to be overrun by the circumstances. So we must ground
ourselves in something that has enduring, everlasting stability; something that
is outside of creation that can give us real hope and security, and that can
only be God. Too often it is so easy for us to put our hope in human beings, in
human institutions, or in anything other than God.
This whole situation that the
southern kingdom of Judah is facing in 2 Kings 18-20 when the Assyrian empire has
been moving south-west into the area of Israel and Judah is one where they know
the power and the destructive force of the Assyrians and they were scared to
death. We can just imagine this must have had economically. We have looked at
the eternal principles embedded here in terms of how Hezekiah personally
prepared himself personally and the nation for the crisis. That goes back to
the fact that when he became the king he cleansed the temple, the priesthood,
and then restore the worship of God because it was a time when the people had
forgotten how to properly worship God and the Word of God no longer had a place
in the national life of the southern kingdom of Judah.
Hezekiah trusted in the
Lord. 2 Kings 18:5 NASB
“He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel; so that after him there was none
like him among all the kings of Judah, nor {among those} who were before him.”
That would exclude David. This was because of Hezekiah’s focus on God. That is
how God evaluates: in terms of obedience to His Word. This is explained further
in verse 6: “For he clung to the LORD; he did not depart from following Him, but kept His
commandments, which the LORD had commanded Moses.” Love for God is measured by
keeping His commandments; that is the objective barometer for our love for God.
As a result of that, we are told: [7] “And the LORD was with him, and this meant
that God was going to bless him in a number of ways because of what God had
promised in the Mosaic law. He is not blessing
Hezekiah because of some sort of quid pro quo, He is blessing Hezekiah because
this was the condition of the Mosaic law as God had
entered into this covenant with Israel—if you obey me I will bless you; if you disobey me I
will bring judgment upon you. So obedience to the law wasn’t a way of becoming
saved, it was a way that a saved person was to live. Israel was a redeemed nation and its purpose was to fulfill
what God had called them to, and of they failed to obey Him then God would
bring divine discipline into the life of the nation in order to get them back
on track. “… wherever he went he prospered. And he
rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.” Both the northern and
southern kingdoms had been in a position of paying tribute to Assyria, but
Hezekiah put his trust in God, not in man, and this gave him the moral and
spiritual courage to do the right thing.
As a result of that God
then blessed him in terms of his military expansion and granting military
security. 2 Kings 18:8 NASB “He defeated the Philistines as far as
Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city.” A lot of territory
had been lost under his father Ahaz and earlier kings
of Judah because of their apostasy toward God. Part of the
discipline was that if they were disobedient they would lose territory and
would be defeated, which is what happened, but under Hezekiah they were able to
regain territory and to reestablish their security. This is because Hezekiah
recognized the principle of Romans 8:31, that is God
is for us who can be against us.
The northern kingdom of Israel had completely forgotten that. We see the contrast in
2 Kin 18:9 NASB “Now in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which
was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser
king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it. [10] At
the end of three years they captured it; in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which
was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria
was captured.” Just about that the northern kingdom was conquered Shalmaneser died and was replaced by his son, Sargon II.
Sargon is the one who historically took credit for having defeated Samaria. Note that it doesn’t say here that Shalmaneser was the one who defeated Israel, it just says that he is the one who began the siege.
It was Sargon who finished it. The real issue in their defeat: 2 Kings 18:11,
12 NASB “Then the king of Assyria carried Israel away into exile to
Assyria, and put them in Halah and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in
the cities of the Medes, because
they did not obey the voice of the LORD their God, but transgressed His covenant, {even} all
that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded; they would neither listen nor do {it.}”
It had to do with their spiritual life. They didn’t even want to listen to the
Word of God, the teaching of God’s Word; it was irrelevant to them, and the
more a people or an individual becomes hostile and negative to God, the more a
person rejects God, the least they want to listen to God.
And today the very fact
that somebody cites a Bible verse or somebody at a football game holds up a
sign that just says “John 3:16” some people just go ballistic because somebody
has entered their world and had the arrogance and effrontery to even mention
God in their presence. We have so many people now in this nation who are so
deeply entrenched in their rebellion against God that just the very mention of
God, just the fact that there are people like us who exist in this country is
an effrontery to them.
The tool that God used to
defeat the northern kingdom of Israel was Assyria. Assyria was located in the northern part of modern Iraq and north-eastern Syria today and basically the history of Assyria was divided into three broad time periods. There was their early
history from 2000-1400 (from Abraham to the Exodus). The middle Assyrian period
was from 1400 BC – 912 BC. Third, 911-891 BC.
2 Kings 18:13 NASB
“Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came
up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them. [14]
Then Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, ‘I have done wrong. Withdraw from me;
whatever you impose on me I will bear.’ So the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of
gold.” Three hundred talents of silver is
eleven tons of silver; thirty talents of gold is equivalent of one metric ton
of gold. Where did Hezekiah get this? When Hezekiah began his reign he cleaned
out the temple, he had tremendous financial resources, God had blessed him; he
refurbished the temple and used a certain amount of silver and gold in
rebuilding all of the furniture inside the temple. Now, instead of trusting God
he is going to pay off Assyria. To do that he has to take the gold and the silver
out of the temple, and so he is going to rob God rather than trust God, and he
is going to give that to Sennacherib in order to buy him off and to get
security that is not a lasting security.
This is the historic
problem that we have as individuals and as nations. We only have two options:
either trust in God or trust in man. We can’t blend it because whatever we
blend is always basically trusting in man and human institutions, human
ability, politics and leaders; and that always fails. Ultimately man is nothing
more than a broken reed to lean on. Whenever we trust in man we always do that
at the expense of taking faith away from God, and that is the essence of
blasphemy and rebellion against God. We are ultimately either dependant upon
God or ultimately dependent upon man, and when we are dependent upon man we
have stolen that trust and faith in God.
2 Kings 18:15 NASB
“Hezekiah gave {him} all the silver which was found in the house of the LORD, and in the
treasuries of the king’s house. [16] At that time Hezekiah cut off
{the gold from} the doors of the temple of the LORD, and {from} the doorposts
which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.” This leads to a defeat.
What is the issue? It is:
In whom do we trust? That is the causative issue in our life and the causative
issue in the life of any nation, and it is the causative issue in the life of Israel in the Old Testament. That is the illustration but
the principle is true for us today. Is our trust in God or is our trust in man?
If our trust is in anything else than what God will do it demonstrates that we
can’t rely on Him, and that will bring us to some point of disappointment,
judgment, some sort of crisis in life where God is trying to get out attention
to realize that we can only ultimately trust in Him because He is the only one
who is trustworthy.
When Sennacherib brings
his army to surround Jerusalem he is going to send out his three leaders. 2 Kings 18:17 NASB “Then
the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rab-saris
and Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a large army to Jerusalem. So they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they went up, they came and stood by the
conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway of the fuller’s field.” They
are going to make it clear. They recognize that the ultimate issue is
theological. The ultimate issue in everything always comes back to God.
Illustrations