Strategies
to Distract You. 2 Kings 18:19-37
In 2 Kings chapter
eighteen we have a warfare taking place where the enemy of
If we take a summary of what
the Bible says about spiritual warfare the Scripture says that we fight three
enemies. Two of them are external and on is internal—the world, the flesh and
the devil. The world is an external concept relating to the ways in which human
beings try to make sense out of life and try to organize the various details of
life in terms of the philosophy of life that gibes them hope and meaning and
ability to solve problems and challenges in their own life apart from God. So
the world system is just a general term describing a multitude of world
religions and philosophies that are invented by human beings in order to make
life work without having to submit to the authority of the unique God of the
Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who sends His Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ who is fully equal with Him is deity, to go to the cross and die
for our sins.
So we are to submit to His
authority, and the way that God looks at reality is what we often describe as
divine viewpoint. All the other systems that we talk about under the
terminology of the world system (cosmic thinking) are all of the different t
ways that man tries to make life work apart from God. As we study satanic
thinking as it is described in the Scripture the emphasis is twofold:
antagonism toward God and autonomy. That is characteristic of every kind of
human system of thought that is antagonistic to God. In autonomy it emphasizes
man’s ability to solve problems whatever they may be, spiritual or physical,
apart from God. It is emphasizing human self-ability. Antagonism to God is
always the consequence of that because God is trying to teach us to be
dependent upon Him as creatures created in His image and likeness with a
mission to rule over the planet, and in rebellion man seeks to do this in
autonomy from God and so there is constantly this warfare that takes place.
So when we come to any
passage of Scripture where there is warfare between one nation and the people
of God there are going to be principles there that relate to the spiritual
warfare which we all face. No matter what we face in the spiritual life,
whether it is a challenge from the world system, a challenge from Satan or
demons who are ultimately behind the world system, or whether it is just a
challenge from the internal enemy, the flesh or the sin nature, it doesn’t
really matter what the source of the attack is, the primary objective is always
to distract us from dependence upon God. The key word is Scripture that we have
is Scripture for dependence upon God is “faith” or “trust.” We have seen three
different words that are used in the Hebrew to emphasize trust. They emphasize
leaning upon God, having our confidence based upon God, and the idea of the
stability that comes from God.
This is crystallized for us
in the challenge that comes from the Rabshakeh. This
is explained in verse 19 NASB “Then Rabshakeh said to them, ‘Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says
the great king, the king of
This is something we always have to
recognize. Whenever we are facing a problem or challenge in life—and not just
the big challenges—are we going to respond as God in terms of grace and humility
and love and kindness, or are we going to try to solve the problem through our
own attempts to intimidate, sound off, and be angry and to show our superiority
based on our irritability? On what are we trusting
ultimately? And when the Rabshekeh focuses this he is
right, because in every issue we face, small or great, the issue ultimately is
theological. It always comes down to whether we are going to do things God’s
way or our way. That is the challenge, and we have to think of it that way. That
should be the first thing that comes to our mind. It is a part of spiritual growth
to get to the point where that thought coming to our mind isn’t the thought
that we think about the next day when we say, I should have thought about that
first and then I wouldn’t be in the mess I’m in now. The focus on any problem
is always what does God want me to do? what might be God’s
purpose for me to be in this situation? Or, whatever the case
may be.
Psalm 118:8,
9 NASB “It is better to take refuge [batach] in the LORD Than to trust in
man. It is better to take refuge in the LORD Than to trust in princes.”
This is what
is going on in 2 Kings chapter eighteen. The argument
that the Rabshakeh is presenting is an argument that
they need to trust in the government of
That
ultimately is what the Rabshakeh is offering to
2 Kings
18:22 NASB “But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the LORD [Yahweh,
the personal name for God which distinguishes the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob from all other gods] our God,’
is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and
has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in
Jerusalem’?” It was the various religious high places that the Israelites had
erected around
In this
context what is being put in that place as a replacement for God is really the
power and the authority of the Assyrian empire. This is a trap to which many governments
have walked in to down through the ages where they began to think they could
solve all the problems and could bring in the ultimate utopic
kingdom.
Whenever we
are facing a challenge in life we ultimately put our hope and confidence in
something to solve the problem. Often we put it in our own personality, our own
native ability or intelligence, or in some human viewpoint stress management
systems, something of that nature rather than God. In any situation where we
are putting our ultimate confidence in something other than God and His Word we
are divorcing ourselves from reality. The divine viewpoint is that God is
eternal and distinct from all creation. He is unique and not like any other
god, and because He is the one who created the heavens and the earth and all
that is in them He defines and determines the role, function and purpose of
every cell that is in that structure. When we come along and reject His
description—throw away the user’s manual (the Scriptures which define reality)—we
are operating on arrogance, thinking we can by or own intuition figure out how
everything works, and to the degree that we are living on our arrogance we are
separating ourselves from reality. Every single human being who has rejected
the truth of God’s Word ultimately has had a psychotic break. They are divorced
from reality and living as if their fantasy is reality. This is true of any one
of us, because this is true of anyone living apart from God’s Word. When
believers live apart from God’s Word and the truth of God’s Word they have
basically said, I am so omniscient that I can redefine reality on my own terms
and live as if that is true and it won’t fall apart.
That is what
happened with Hezekiah. Earlier he was very dependent upon God; then he became
arrogant and began to lean upon his own resources to solve the problem of
When we face
challenges in life do we want to depend on finite resources or infinite
resources? That is the option: whether we are going to depend on God who is omniscient
and who knows all the issues related to our problem, and He is also omnipotent
so He can solve the problem, or are we going to rely on finite human reasoning
and ability? We have to recognize that whenever we are depending on the broken
reed of human resources it is always within the framework of a counterfeit
reality, so these are counterfeit resources, counterfeit helps; they don’t
really work but they have the trappings of working. They work for a while, they
make us feel good for a month, they relax us for a
while. That “for a while” may last for several decades but ultimately they are
all broken reeds like
One other
thing that we learn from this passage is that these counterfeit resources are
always wrapped up in some sort of religious garb. We see that in the rationale of
the Rabshakeh because as he presents this argument he
argues that he is the one who is actually doing the will of God. 2 Kings
The human
viewpoint solution that the Rabshakeh is presenting
to Judah and Hezekiah is that they need to just surrender. Quit trusting in
this God, he can’t really save you; just give up and trust in us. So the human
viewpoint solution that is offered here is to succumb to the authority of
Sennacherib. He even says he can give them the powerful things that they don’t
have on their own—horses and chariots. If we were an Israelite and thinking
theologically this should wake us up. Who are the horses and chariots of
Also, this
religious terminology involves the offer of various universals that are only
supplied by God. In the process of doing this, by looking at God in this way is
just the equivalent of all the other generic gods. The Rabshakeh
makes the argument in vv. 33-35 that
What he is basically
saying is, we can provide the solution. 2 Kings 18:31,
32 NASB “Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of
Assyria, ‘Make your peace with me and come out to me, and eat each of his vine
and each of his fig tree and drink each of the waters of his own cistern, until
I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new
wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey, that you
may live and not die.” But do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you,
saying, ‘The LORD will
deliver us.’” What is he offering? If you will just surrender to me I will give
you everything that you need in life. It is the government, the empire, that is going to be the solution to all of their
problems and will bring in this utopic state. Of
course it is all false, all wrong; they couldn’t do it and even if they tried
it would fail because that is not the capability of the government. But governments
and empires have a tendency to take on messianic roles. They are going to
provide what only the Messiah can provide, and it is only when we have the
Messianic kingdom in the Millennium that we are going to achieve these kinds of
things. We are not going to get it through government programs and solutions.
There is a name for that, it is called socialism, and socialism is 180o contrary
to anything taught in the Word of God. Socialism is a destruction of human
freedom whereas Biblical truth always promotes human freedom.
The root of
the problem that we see is always a challenge to God and a person’s thinking
about God. The Scripture emphasizes that the God of the Bible isn’t like any
other god. You can make Him like any other god—which is always the attempt of
unbelievers and those who have rejected Biblical truth. Deuteronomy 6:4 NASB
“Hear, O