Let's turn in God's Word to the book of 2 Chronicles chapter 32. I want to read the first 23 verses of 2 Chronicles chapter 32, and then we'll come to think about this storyline of Sennacherib and Hezekiah. 2 Chronicles 32, this is God's Word. After these things and the establishment thereof, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came and entered into Judah and encamped against the fenced cities and thought to win or break them for himself. And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was come and that he was purposed to fight against Jerusalem, he took counsel with his princes and with his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains, which were without the city, and they did help him. So there was gathered much people together, who stopped all the fountains and the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying, why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water? Also he strengthened himself and built up all the wall that was broken and raised it up to the towers and another wall without, and repaired Milo in the city of David, and made darts and shields in abundance. And he set captains of war over the people, and gathered them together to him in the street of the gate of the city, and spake comfortably to them, saying, Be strong and courageous. Be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him, for there is more with us than with him. With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord, our God, to help us and to fight our battles. And the people rested or leaned themselves upon the words of Hezekiah, king of Judah. After this did Sennacherib, king of Assyria, send his servants to Jerusalem, but he himself laid seeds against Lachish, and all is par with him. unto Hezekiah king of Judah, and unto all Judah that were at Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith Sennacherib king of Assyria, Whereon do ye trust that ye abide in the siege in Jerusalem? Doth not Hezekiah persuade you to give over yourselves to die by famine and by thirst, saying, The Lord our God shall deliver us out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Hath not the same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall worship before one altar and burn incense upon it? Know ye not what I and my fathers have done unto all the people of other lands? Were the gods of the nations of those lands any ways able to deliver their lands out of mine hand? Who was there among all the gods of those nations that my father's utterly destroyed, that could deliver his people out of mine hand? That your God should be able to deliver you out of mine hand. Now therefore, let not Hezekiah deceive you, nor persuade you on this matter, neither yet believe him. For no God of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of mine hand and out of the hand of my fathers. How much less shall your God deliver you out of mine hand. and his servants speak more against the Lord God and against his servant Hezekiah. He also wrote letters to reel on the Lord God of Israel and to speak against him saying, as the gods of the nations of other lands have not delivered their people out of mine hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver his people out of mine hand. Then they cried with a loud voice in the Jews' speech unto the people of Jerusalem that were on the wall, to affright them, to trouble them, that they might take the city. And they speak against the God of Jerusalem as against the gods of the people of the earth, which were the work of the hands of men. And for this cause, Hezekiah the king and the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz, prayed and cried to heaven. And the Lord sent an angel which cut off all the mighty men of valor and the leaders and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he, Sennacherib, returned with shame of his face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his God, They that came forth of his own bowels slew him there with the sword. Thus the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, and from the hand of any other that guided them on every side. And many brought gifts unto the Lord, to Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah, king of Judah, so that he was magnified in the sight of all nations from thenceforth. Let's pray. Father, we still ourselves just now again and ask for your help to consider your word. We pray, Father, that you would give us that fresh taste of heavenly truth that we might see and love the Lord Jesus and turn to him and look to him. We pray in his name. Amen. This afternoon, we went home to Randallstown for mother's Sunday dinner. No better hospitality than that of your mother. Things were being set out in the kitchen, and as you might know this about me to look at me, but I was eyeing things up before they were set on the table. And at my request, there was a roast lamb. And just something that I love, and I could never cook myself, and there's only two of us, we don't really need two, but there was a roast lamb. And I had been eyeing this lamb up, and nobody knew I was eyeing it up. And sort of a knife close by, and it was in a pot. And on the pot was a glass lid with a handle. And I had looked through the lid and I had picked the part that I was just going to cut off and make sure was safe. Again, nobody really knew what I was at. Just walked over nice and quiet on my own. and attempted to lift the handle of the pot, only to realize and figure out that the whole thing had been in the oven for hours. And I never knew I could Irish dance until I touched the lid of that handle. And then I spent the next 15 minutes under the tap, trying to reverse the damage. I had been eyeing up something that I thought was so easy to take, so easy to sample, so easy to just go over, lift the lid, take a wee bit off, make sure it was safe for everybody else, and just calm the wee bit of hunger that I had from this morning's sermon. It wasn't so easy. And actually what we find with this storyline, this account that we have read in God's Word is something quite similar. So as we come to look at this passage, to understand this account, this narrative or this storyline, it's very helpful to go back a little bit to the start of the Bible before we come to it. Let me read just a passage, a couple of verses to you, just to help set the scene for the bigger story. that's at play here. Sin has entered into the world. Satan has tempted Eve. And that temptation has led to sin, has led to a pollution of the souls of Adam and Eve, a spiritual death And what God says in response to that, in Genesis 3, 14 and 15, And the Lord God said unto the serpent, that is Satan, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, above every beast of the field. Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And here's the important part. and I will put enmity, or enemy status, between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Now, right back in Genesis, God makes this promise. He makes a promise to the serpent. And he makes a promise to Eve. And the promise has to do with their seed, or who comes after them. In the passage, the verse really promises that one day, a serpent crusher will come to the earth. And there is this enemy status between the seed or the family line or the people that come from Eve, but also there is this enemy status between them and between what comes and what is influenced by Satan. And that's the story of the Bible. And no matter what character you go to in the Old Testament, there's always someone there to oppose. There's always someone there to threaten. I've listed a couple here just to highlight to you. You have Moses, but you have Pharaoh. Moses, from the seat of the woman, bringing that promise to light, but also Pharaoh, who wants to crush and destroy the people of God. You have David and Goliath. David, one of God's people, a forerunner in the family line of Christ. But you have Goliath and the Philistines who want to crush them and destroy them and wipe them out. And so we come to two more characters, Hezekiah and Sennacherib. Same story. Different details, but the same big picture of the Bible. Light versus darkness, good versus evil, and in the bigger scheme, God versus Satan. God had promised in Genesis 3.15 that a savior was to come, and right through the Old Testament, character by character, enemies rose to try and stop it happening. And this morning we were reminded in Psalm 46, the storyline that we've just read, is Sennacherib, this evil king from Assyria, wants to come and destroy God's people. Two reasons. Reason number one is Sennacherib's reason, because he loves war and he wants to win and wants to conquer, and that's just what he wants to do as a king. But the bigger reason, reason number two, is the influence and the power of darkness, wanting to stop the family line of God, eventually bringing forth Christ, the great serpent crusher. Good way to see the big picture of the Bible. And so we have this book of Chronicles that writes out the storyline for us. There's written down in Kings as well, written down in Isaiah. I've just picked Chronicles because it's the shorter of the passages and it's easier to work through for us tonight. The books of Chronicles really work in a cycle system where they highlight the consequences of sin and the saving power of God. God constantly coming after his people. And God's people are either seeking him or they're forsaking him throughout the cycles of this book. So let's look at this passage that we have read together tonight. Really three natural sections that we want to work through. The first point that I want to share with you From verse 1 to 8, Sennacherib comes to this city, this power of darkness. And remember, whenever I say Sennacherib, we can associate him with Satan. We can associate him with the enemy of the gospel. We can associate him with the enemy of God, the enemy of the good news, and the enemy of our souls. Sennacherib, is like a mini representative of the powers of darkness, wanting to destroy the people of God. So, let's take this first section from verse one to eight, and here's what we really see is this, and there's two kings at play here. There's good and bad, as I've said. The first point is this, is that the enemy of your soul would seek to destroy you But the good king would save and protect you. The enemy of your soul would seek to destroy you, but the good king, he would save and protect you. Sennacherib have said is this strong picture of who Satan is and what he wants to achieve and what his big plan is to try and wipe out the word of God, the name of God. And verse one really just describes in a nutshell the work of Sennacherib. It says that he thought to win them for himself. Now, when we talk about winning someone, it's kind of like, you know, bringing them on to your side. Well, actually, that's not what Sennacherib's trying to do. The word used is to break them up, is to decimate them, is to run over them and destroy them and leave them non-existent. Again, the powers of darkness wanting to wipe out the people through whom Christ will one day come. And it's a pointer to Satan's dark mission in the world today, and possibly Satan's dark mission in your life. If you're here tonight and there has been no conversion experience, no change, no repentance and turning from sin, no realization of that, and no transfer over into the kingdom of the Lord Jesus, no saving experience, no salvation moment in your life, then you're still under this breaking power, this polluting darkness of Satan and sin in your life. What is Satan's dark mission, as was Sennacherib's? I've just written my own quotation here. To do as much damage to as many people for as long as he can. To do as much damage to as many people for as long as he can. Now I want you to think carefully about your life. I want you to think carefully about the choices you make. I want to think carefully about the condition of your soul, the part of you that will last on after your body goes into a grave. You're making decisions. Are you choosing a life that is actually a life of destruction? of being broken by sin? What about you young people? How do you use your phones? How do you use the internet? And older people. What company do you keep? Is it good? Or is it destructive? What motives do you really have in your life? What drives you? What sets you off? Are you still under that power and influence of a destructive force in your life? Maybe you're here tonight and you do have an awareness a slight awakening in your soul that things have gone wrong, or maybe things have been wrong for a long time. And no matter what you're wearing, no matter whether you stand and sing with everyone else, there's something in your heart, something in your soul, and actually the enemy of your soul is winning at that destruction. Sennacherib wanted it, for these people then, the enemy of your soul wants it for you now. How does Hezekiah, the good king, react? If Sennacherib points us to Satan, then Hezekiah, the good king, points us to a greater king to come, the Lord Jesus. Hezekiah gets his mention in the family line of Christ in Matthew chapter 1. And the reason Sennacherib wants Hezekiah wiped out is because through Hezekiah comes that family line. Hezekiah's reaction is this, is that he prepares the walls. He rebuilds the walls back up to the same height as the towers that are strong and standing. He prepares weapons for warfare. But here's the real thing that he does. Here's the thing that really counts, is that he doesn't just prepare walls or weapons, but he prepares the hearts of the people. Be strong and courageous. Do not be dismayed. Don't be afraid of this king of Assyria or all that gather out with him. He comes with an arm of flesh. He comes on his own. And although his army is greater, it is not necessarily as powerful. as what the people of God have on their side, because the people of God have God. Beautiful language that's used at the end of verse eight. And the people rested themselves, or if you look on a margin, it might say that they leaned on the words of King Hezekiah. What a beautiful picture of faith. Outside their city is camped 185,000 men with the command to kill. And yet these people, the people of God, the people with faith, they rest, they lean on the truth of what God has promised them. Christian life is not easy. Christian life can be a life of tears, it can be a life of sorrow, it can be a life that is painful, it can be a life that knows the storms and the difficulties, but there is something beautiful in the Christian life, and it is the fact that we rest and we lean on the goodness, the grace, the keeping power of God. What condition is your soul in tonight? Are you still polluted by the powers of darkness? Are you still being broken by your sin? Are you resting? Are you leaning? by faith in a saving and keeping God. The enemy wanted them, but Hezekiah's reaction led them to faith. And so, this ramps up a bit from verse 9 to 19. Sennacherib, or his spokespeople, the Rabshakeh, his envoy, they really begin to use tactics that strike fear into the hearts of God's people. And I've just listed them in a little list. Let me just read what they did. In verse 10, they asked the question, who are you trusting? In verse 11, they said, are you really trusting Hezekiah? Hezekiah has told you to do nothing, but that'll lead to starvation and thirst and death. In verse 12, they try to convince the people that Hezekiah is a bad king. Something Hezekiah had done in the past was he tore down a lot of the altars where people had gone off to worship on their own. And that was a good thing because he wanted the people to come and worship at one. But the enemy tried to twist it and make it look like a bad thing. Well, Hezekiah's pulled down all your altars. He's not very good at all. Why would you trust him? Verse 13 to 15, they make this argument, there's no other gods on the earth that could stand against our army, and you think yours can? See the seeds of doubt that they're trying to sow? We like to think we're a very advanced and civilized society, but actually, we still have the very same problems. We still have doubts. We still can hear things that worry us and trouble us. Perhaps you have something against God tonight. Perhaps you have believed the lie that he isn't good. Perhaps you've believed the lie that he's bad for you. What a tragedy. That is the twisting, manipulative language of the enemy of your soul. You're here tonight and you think God will be bad for you. You think the Christian life will some way hamper your plans and your life. Listen, it might hamper things, but it will make things so much better. His plans and his ways are far better. In verse 16, they speak yet more against the Lord. They intensify this attack on God and on his people. In verse 17, they try to write letters. I don't know how they got them in. Did they throw them over? I don't know what they did, but they tried to write letters and get people to go into their homes and read how God was going to let them down, how they were going to be defeated. You see, the second point is this, is that the enemy of your soul would have you doubt the power of God and the ability of God, the greatness of God. If you're here this evening and you're not saved, there is something in you that is not convinced of your own sin, your own desperate need, and of the ability and the greatness of God to save you. There's something there. that's keeping you thinking that you're okay the way you are. In verse 18, they actually speak in the language that all the Jews can hear. And so there are certain men within the city of Jerusalem who can converse in the Assyrian language. And in another passage, they actually say to the Rabshakeh, to the enemy people, look, speak to us in your language because we don't want everyone else in the walls to hear the threats that are going on. But of course, being enemies, they shout all the louder. They shout their taunts. They shout their wicked, hateful sentences in the Jews' language so that they might affright them, so that they might cause them to tremble. And by verse 19, they're telling them, you're making a mistake. by holding your trust in this God who you live under. It all takes us back actually to Genesis again, when Satan came to tempt Eve. Did God really say that if you eat you will die? Did he really mean that? Is that really what God means? Surely that's not the case. Surely you'll be okay. Look at it. It looks lovely. It looks appetizing. Take it. Nothing will happen to you. God didn't really mean what he said. Perhaps you're here this evening, you've been here for years, and you're not saved. You're lost. You're falling for it. You're falling for the lie. that everything will be okay. It's just not the case. If you're here this evening and you have no faith and no trust, no belief, no resting on the work and the person of Christ, then you are in danger and you better believe it. You better let it sink in fresh tonight. It doesn't matter about anything else. And so, these seeds of doubt, all that has come over the wall from the enemy, it's been a barrage, it's been an earful, Perhaps day after day, doubt after doubt. And so how in our last section does Hezekiah come and react? He hears all that has been said. He sees the threat outside. And he comes and he gathers Isaiah the prophet, and they pray. And they roll out this letter of threat, and they spread it out before God, and they plead with God. Lord, your name has been defamed. Your name has been mocked. Your character and your nature Your goodness has been rubbished by these people. Lord, stand for us and save us." And in that moment, they realized the danger, the severe danger that they were in. They realized the threat. They cried. They cried hard to be saved. And so you know how the story ends. God promised them that no arrows would come over the wall, that no ramp would be built up against the wall. And in the other passages, God goes to great lengths to speak to Sennacherib. Sennacherib, you have rebelled long enough. You have gone on in your wickedness long enough. And the language the Lord uses to Sennacherib is, I will put my hook in your nose, Sennacherib. You think you are great? I can steer you, Sennacherib, wherever I want. You have meddled, Sennacherib, with many gods, with a small g, who were the imaginations of men, but you have not met me yet. Welcome, Sennacherib, to how I deal with wicked people. the enemy of your soul this evening, has been defeated and will be destroyed. And the final thing that I will share with you is that the good king will be exalted eternally. Sennacherib, as we read or mentioned this morning, he, for some reason, in his shame, because he couldn't take hold of Jerusalem, he returns home. And for those of you who maybe didn't hear this morning, this wicked king, this man who thought he ruled the world, this man who thought he was unstoppable, this man who thought he could mock God, he returns home, and as he worships his false god, he's struck down dead by his own sons. You see the irony of a man who will stand against God? of a man who thinks he can hold his own against the Almighty, he doesn't stand a chance. Even the very direction of travel of Sennacherib's carriage and horse is directed by the Lord. Thus, verse 22, thus the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib, the king of Assyria. And the reaction, the reaction of the people inside the wall, It's one of relief, one of joy, as they bring praise and honor to God, who alone could save them. But also, there's beautiful language here, they exalt Hezekiah. And it's like a little foretaste of what will happen with the Lord Jesus when we, his people, saved by his grace, Exalt Him for eternity. Light after the darkness. Today's Reformation Sunday is one of the most used phrases, popular phrases from the Reformation. Light after the darkness. And you see the darkness of this story of evil seeming to be in control, but yet God wiping it out, and His King being exalted, honored, and praised. I want to finish in these closing moments, and I want us to reflect on a certain group of people that I've said very little about in this story. And that's the armies of Sennacherib. They had been gathered, ready to fight, ready to storm, ready to do Sennacherib's evil work. And here's the thing, is that if you're not a Christian, if you're still lost in your sin, If you sit week after week, or this is your first time, I don't mind, but if you're not saved, if you're not following daily the Lord Jesus, and trusting in him to make you right with God, and leaning on what he's done on the cross, then you, this is where you fit into this story. You're just like those 185,000. Why is that? Well, you're not a soldier. You think of those 185,000. They didn't really hate the people of God the way Sennacherib did. He was the king. He wanted to win. They were just soldiers. Some of them maybe did, but others of them were just passive. They were just there because they were soldiers, and that was their role, and that was their job, and they didn't have any great views either way. They were just there. Is that not like so many? You're under the power and influence of darkness. You're under the rule and the kingdom of Satan. You've no real hatred for God, you would say. You're passive, you're respectful of Christian things. But those 185,000 soldiers, they received the same treatment of the king they were under, and the kingdom they were a part of. And so the question to you tonight, as I finish, the question that you need to answer honestly is this. Whose kingdom are you part of? Whose eternal kingdom are you part of? Are you one of the kingdom of darkness? Is that the way you've come in? Is that the way you plan to leave? then you will receive the same treatment as the one over that kingdom, Satan himself, in hell and the lake of fire for eternity. But there is a passage tonight, a way to transfer kingdoms, and that is to come in faith, leaning Believing, running, trusting in the King of the Kingdom of Light, Christ Himself. Hezekiah was a good king, and he'd done a lot to save his people. But he's only a shadow of the Lord Jesus. Because the great King who came, not just built walls, didn't just prepare weapons, he died! The King died! to pay for our sin, to pay for our rebellion. And the King has risen again. And so the question for your soul, whose kingdom are you in this evening? May God bless His word to our hearts.