THE ENEMY AT THE GATES
There is a story told of an American on a walking trip through Central Europe. In a blinding rainstorm he seeks shelter in an old castle. It is inhabited by a brotherhood of monks who hesitate but eventually take him in.
That night the American discovers a cell with a man locked inside. An ancient wooden staff bolts the door. The prisoner claims he’s being held captive by the "insane" head monk, Brother Jerome. He pleads for the American to release him.
With his kind face and gentle voice the prisoner wins him over. But as the American confronts Brother Jerome about this prisoner the monk reveals that the prisoner is none other than Satan, the “father of lies.” It is only the Staff of Truth that keeps him locked in, the one barrier he can’t cross.
Surely Jerome is insane and when he gets the chance, the American releases the prisoner - who immediately transforms into a hideous, horned demon and vanishes in a puff of smoke!
The stunned American is horrified at the realization of what he has done. Jerome responds sympathetically. "I’m sorry for you, my son. All your life you will remember this night and whom you have turned loose upon the world."
"I didn’t believe you," the American replies. "I saw him and didn’t recognize him"—to which Jerome solemnly observes, "That is man’s weakness…and Satan’s strength." (Twilight Zone, “the Howling Man” circa 1960).
There is an enemy at the gates of our community. We are surrounded by forces that want to destroy our homes, our families, our marriages, our businesses and our very lives. When you recognize it you see a dark and insidious monster lurking at the door. If you don’t recognize his evil presence he appears as logic, human wisdom or “the right thing to do.” His influence seems innocent enough and we play right into his hands.
This is real folks. I have seen his work in recent weeks right here in our midst. His work is a painful reality among us and we have not even put up a fight. The Father of Lies has spun a convincing web and we have believed it.
As we study this story today in Isaiah 36-37 we will learn about the enemy at the gates, his method and how we can resist his methods.
1. When the enemy speaks…
We have jumped from chapter 11 to chapter 36 and many years have passed between these prophecies. Some say 40 years. This is the pivotal story in Isaiah, a bridge between the two halves. Here we see what Isaiah’s message is in story form: a message of trust and where trust should be placed.
As we join this story we notice that Israel, the Northern Kingdom no longer exists, all of Judah’s forts have been captured and Jerusalem stands like an island in the midst of Assyrian forces. They are surrounded and besieged. Then the king of Assyria’s general comes to speak at the gates of the city. He has a proposal to make. Notice three things about his message:
a) Sins come back to haunt us – Where does the general speak to the people of Jerusalem? Remember back in ch. 7 when Isaiah met king Ahaz and implored him not to make a rash decision? Isaiah met Ahaz at the Upper Pool on the road to the Washerman’s Field. Israel and Aram wanted to attack Judah and depose Ahaz. Isaiah said to stay calm and trust God. Instead Ahaz called on the Assyrians to come and help him fight Israel.
Now all these years later that decision has come back to haunt him. Ahaz is dead but his son Hezekiah must deal with the consequences of that horrible decision. The Assyrian general stands at the exact spot where that decision was made, a reminder of Judah’s failure to trust God.
Our sins have a way of coming back to haunt us. Even when they have been dealt with, the memory of them, the consequences, can return to create a defeatism within us. Imagine the regret that the people of Jerusalem must have felt. Isaiah also would not let them forget this poor decision.
b) Breaking down your defenses – When the Assyrian general speaks he uses psychological tactics to convince Jerusalem that resistance is useless. To break their confidence the general points out 4 weaknesses in their strategy:
1 – (v. 6) They can’t rely on Egypt to save them. Apparently Jerusalem had hoped Egypt would ally with them but Egypt was weak and in no position to even help themselves.
2 – (v. 7) They can’t depend on Yahweh, he says, because they have removed all the places of worship and insulted God.
3 – (v. 8) Then he mocks them knowing that they can’t find enough skilled riders to sit a horse. They would fall off while trying to throw a spear or swing a sword.
4 – (v. 10) His coup de grace is that Yahweh himself gave them divine authority to attack Judah and Jerusalem. This would have been a terrifying revelation for the people of God.
The Assyrian is really good at his job. His speech is a classic study in the satanic art of sowing doubt and unbelief through subtly twisting the truth. The reason the speech is so convincing is that it contains so much that is true. But the underlying argument is wrong, namely that Yahweh had forsaken Jerusalem. Satan’s greatest weapon is to make us think that God has abandoned us and will use half-truths to convince us.
c) Personal Attacks – Hezekiah’s representatives are shaken and they implore the general not to speak in Hebrew but in Aramaic so that the soldiers on the wall will not hear these taunts. His response is to continue speaking in Judah’s native tongue so that all will hear him. Satan is fluent in speaking our language and promoting his message.
Now the general gets personal with their king, Hezekiah, and tries to shake their confidence in him. He fires another 4 rounds of contempt at the people of Jerusalem. The Assyrian says:
1 – “Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you” (v. 14). Hezekiah was a good king and feared the LORD. He was the one who ordered the idols destroyed and a return to true worship of Yahweh. He trusted God to save them. Now this Assyrian sows doubt in Hezekiah’s people.
2 – “Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the LORD when he says, ‘The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria” (v. 15). This attack declares that Hezekiah’s faith is grounded on nothing. The situation is hopeless.
3 – “Do not listen to Hezekiah…Make peace with me and come out to me” (v. 16). Here he promises food and drink and a peaceful life. He does not even hide the fact that Assyria will deport all of them back to Nineveh for assimilation. Assyrians were apparently worse than Nazis; genocidal, ruthless, godless and bloodthirsty.
4 – “Do not let Hezekiah mislead you…Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the king of Assyria? (v. 18). Finally, the general delivers his greatest argument: Their God is powerless – as powerless as the gods of the other cities they have destroyed.
Satan will attack you at your weakest points. He will try to convince you of this one thing in your life – that God is powerless and always has been. That is when we stop praying and asking God to help us because we have come to believe what Satan has been feeding us.
What the general hoped to instill in the people of Jerusalem was fear. You see the devil knows that if a child of God is living in fear, he cannot be living by faith. One cancels out the other. Those two principles cannot coexist. Satan knows that if a saint lives in fear, their defeat is a foregone conclusion.
But remember this: Satan is a liar. Jesus said, “He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8:44).
2. How God’s people respond
What do we say to these accusations? How do we respond to the whisperings of Satan as he tries to destroy our fragile faith? See how the people of Jerusalem responded.
a) Silence – “But the people remained silent and said nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, ‘Do not answer him’” (v. 21). There are times when silence is the most eloquent testimony of God’s people. Silence may be the best response to insult.
b) In Humility – This humility was obvious when Shebnah and Joah went to see Hezekiah with torn clothes. That was their way of humbling themselves. “When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the temple of the LORD” (37:1).
In our humility we must recognize that Satan is picking on specks of truth about us. In fact, when he speaks about our weaknesses, he speaks the truth. However, when he speaks about God and His strength, and our position in Christ, he always lies. The Bible says, “…greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (I John 4: 4b). Don’t argue with the devil about your weaknesses. He wouldn’t have power over us if there wasn’t some truth in his accusation. But the fact is, if you face trials and temptations relying on the Lord and His strength, your weaknesses have nothing to do with the outcome.
Be humble about your weaknesses. Don’t deny them or mourn them. Just admit them. Peter wrote, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time” (1 Peter 5:6).
c) Seek Godly counsel – The next thing Hezekiah did was to seek the counsel of Isaiah. He still said nothing to Sennacherib’s general. Rather he went with these lies, these threats and these accusations to God’s man to ask Isaiah to pray.
Interestingly enough, Isaiah does not pray but responds immediately with a word from the LORD: “Do not be afraid of what you have heard – those words with which the underlings of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Listen! I am going to put a spirit in him so that when he hears a certain report, he will return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword” (vv. 6-7).
God will not be mocked. John Lennon, after announcing that the Beetles were more famous than Jesus, was shot six times and died. Marilyn Monroe was approached by Billy Graham to receive Jesus. She replied, “I don’t need your Jesus.” A week later she was dead. Is this God’s doing? Coincidence? The truth is Almighty God is not to be mocked.
d) Prayer – Then Hezekiah does the most significant act in this drama – he prays. Sennacherib sent a letter giving one final ultimatum to Hezekiah. In response Hezekiah takes the letter and spreads it out before the LORD and prays (see 37:16-20).
This is a beautiful prayer. Did you notice that Hezekiah does not make petition so much as he acknowledges God for who he is? Did you notice the similarity there is between this prayer and the prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples to use? Our Father who art in heaven…
Satan’s purpose in your trials is to get you to focus on you. God’s purpose in your trials is to get you to focus on Him. This is what we are to do when faced with the personal attacks of Satan. This is what we are to do when the enemy infiltrates our families and relationships and sets about to divide us with his lies. Spread out the matter before God like Hezekiah and present it to the Lord acknowledging that he is Supreme, that he is Almighty, that he is more than able to handle all that we present to him in prayer.
“This is the assurance we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 Jn 5:14-15). This is what Jesus promised us: “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it” (John 14:13-14).
3. God’s victory over the enemy
This event in Judah’s history has an amazing conclusion. In answer to Hezekiah’s prayer Isaiah receives a word from the LORD and two other significant events take place. I will give them to you in brief but I want to encourage you to read this passage and see the whole story.
a) He carries you in your weakness – First of all, part of the message that Isaiah gives promises sustenance. In the first year the people will eat what grows by itself in the fields. The second year they will eat what grows from that. Then in the third year the people will be planting crops again (vv. 30-32). That is a sign that God will carry them in their time of hurt and healing. Then they will stand on their own feet again. We can claim this promise too: God will carry us in our weakness for he loves to be strong in those times.
Isaiah said this, “For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this” (v. 32).
b) His power over the enemy – Secondly, we see God’s direct hand in their deliverance. “Then the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning – there were all the dead bodies!” (37:36)
Jerusalem could not put 2000 men on horses but God himself, as the angel of the LORD, wiped out 185, 000 enemy soldiers. If God can do that what is there that God can’t do?
c) His hand in politics – Thirdly, we see that God has a hand in politics. “One day, while (Sennacherib) was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer cut him down with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king” (37:38). This is exactly what the LORD said would happen in 37:7 and it did.
Can God be trusted to answer prayer?
Challenge
George Mueller believed in Jesus Christ as one who answered prayer. While sailing off the coast of Newfoundland in extremely heavy fog, Mueller came to the steamship captain and said, “Captain, I need to tell you that I must be in Quebec on Saturday afternoon.”
The captain told him that it was simply not possible, due to the weather conditions. Mueller said, “Very well, if your ship cannot take me, God will find some other way, for I have never missed an engagement in fifty-seven years. Let’s go down to the chartroom to pray.”
Again, the captain protested, saying, “Mr. Mueller, do you realize how dense the fog is?”
“No,” replied Mueller, “my eye is not on the dense fog but on the living God, who controls every circumstance of my life.”
The captain then told how Mueller knelt down and prayed one of the simplest prayers he’d ever heard. When he finished, the captain himself started to pray. But to his surprise, Mueller put his hand on the captain’s shoulder and told him not to pray.
“First,” he said, “you do not believe God will answer, and second, I believe He has. Consequently, there is no need whatsoever for you to pray about it. Captain, I have known my Lord for fifty-seven years, and there has never been even a single day that I have failed to get an audience with the King. Get up, Captain, and open the door, and you will see that the fog is gone.”
The captain got up, opened the door, and sure enough, the fog was gone. And George Mueller made his appointment for Saturday afternoon in Quebec.
This is a fantastic story. Almost too hard to believe. Does God actually do these things? We wouldn’t know, we don’t ask. I challenge you this morning to ask. I invite you to spread out your concerns before the LORD and acknowledge that he is God and that he is greater than your problems.
Pride may keep you from coming up here for prayer. You don’t want to look ridiculous.
Fear paralyzes you. You may fear the answer. You may fear stepping out and coming up here.
Your faith may be weak. You don’t believe prayer changes anything.
I want you to step away from those lies and put your faith on the line. Come and pray. I invite you to lay it all out before Jesus. (Come forward for prayer)
AMEN
