On Whom Are You Depending to Defeat the Evil Tyrant?

Isaiah 36

What are you relying on? (Isa 36:4)

Main Idea: The taunts of the royal spokesman of the Assyrian army before the walls of Jerusalem picture Satan’s assaults on our souls.

1. A Foretaste of the Greatest Battle in History
   1. Climactic showdown: good versus evil
   2. Historic context
   3. An intimidating evil tyrant
2. The Crisis Comes at Last: Assyria Invades Judah (36:1-3).
   1. Sennacherib shows his power.
   2. God judges Judah.
3. Psychological Warfare: The Spokesman’s Intimidating Speech (36:4-17)
   1. The royal spokesman’s mission: talk Judah out from her fortress
   2. Wave upon wave of intimidating talk
      1. “Can mere words save you?”
      2. “Egypt is a splintered staff.”
      3. “The Lord won’t deliver you; he is offended at you!”
      4. “You are militarily pathetic.”
      5. “If you refuse, you will suffer.”
      6. “If you surrender, you will thrive.”
4. Blasphemy: The Spokesman’s Fatal Error (36:18-22)
   1. Evil overreaches itself.
   2. “Not only won’t the Lord deliver you; the Lord can’t deliver you!”
   3. The greatest power in the universe is God’s zeal for his own glory.
5. Central Question in Life: What Are You Relying On?
   1. The royal spokesman’s two striking statements
   2. The key issue in life: What are you relying on?
   3. Splintered staffs that will pierce

A Foretaste of the Greatest Battle in History

We come at last to the climactic showdown between good and evil played out in the pages of Isaiah’s history. Christians are not dualists; we do not believe that good and evil are equal and opposite. We believe that God is infinitely more powerful than Satan and his evil minions. The fact that an omnipotent God allows Satan not only to continue to exist but also temporarily to harm God’s people will perpetually be one of the most perplexing issues of theology. Only by embracing Scripture can we make some sense of the twists and turns of history.

Ultimately, this awesome struggle between Assyria and Judah is a picture of God’s salvation for us in Christ: his intervention to rescue a people from Satan’s tyranny, a people who had no chance at all of defending themselves. In 1682 John Bunyan published The Holy War, an allegory of the spiritual warfare Christians face in this world that is dominated by Satan and his spiritual forces of evil. It pictures a walled city called “Mansoul” under siege by Diabolus (Satan), with five gates allowing access to the city: Eye-gate, Ear-gate, Mouth-gate, Feel-gate, and Nose-gate. These represent our five senses and Satan’s assault on our souls by means of sensual temptations. In The Holy War it was at Ear-gate that Diabolus made his first attack to gain entrance, and by means of his wicked and clever words the inhabitants of the town were deceived and allowed him in (Bunyan, 256–57).

For Christians, it is helpful to read Isaiah 36–37 with a similar eye to analogies, to see in the walled city of Jerusalem a type of our souls and to see in the rabshakeh (“royal spokesman”) a type of the devil, who uses an array of words to intimidate, allure, insult, and persuade the inhabitants of the town to open up and thereby be enslaved and killed by him. Yet as we look at these chapters analogically, we must not disregard the genuine history of it all. There really was an Assyrian invasion of Judah, a tyrant king named Sennacherib, a godly king named Hezekiah, and a cowering remnant of Judahites who could not save themselves from enslavement and death. And God really did intervene in space and time and slaughter 185,000 Assyrian troops. Biblical history is often both literal and analogical. In this way, it speaks to every generation of Christians whose souls are under constant assault by the devil. And only the angel of the Lord, Christ, can slaughter our enemy.

The Crisis Comes at Last: Assyria Invades Judah

Isaiah 36:1-3

For thirty-five chapters Isaiah has been preparing God’s people for this crisis—exposing the sins that caused it, warning that it would come, predicting the limitations of it, speaking of God’s judgment on both Judah and Assyria. Now the prophecy becomes history. Sennacherib, the newly crowned king of Assyria, led his mighty army down the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, subduing other small kingdoms: Tyre and Sidon, Ammon, Moab, Philistia. It seemed that nothing could stop the Assyrian juggernaut (Pfeiffer, Old Testament History, 336). Finally, Assyria invaded Judah and conquered all her fortified cities except Jerusalem. The tiny remnant of Judah cowered behind Jerusalem’s formidable walls. Because siege warfare was so costly, Sennacherib sent his royal spokesman with a sizeable detachment to Jerusalem to try to persuade Hezekiah and Judah to surrender without a fight.

Psychological Warfare: The Spokesman’s Intimidating Speech

Isaiah 36:4-17

With intimidation and insult, the royal spokesman begins to speak to Hezekiah’s delegation. He calls Sennacherib “the great king, the king of Assyria.” He was the mouthpiece for his master like the prophet of a god: “The great king . . . says this.” He then begins to chop down Hezekiah and Judah’s grounds of confidence, one stroke at a time.

He begins by asking a key question: “What are you relying on?” In his mind there is no possible answer. But like a master intimidator skilled in the arts of psychological warfare, he seeks to get inside the heads of the people of Judah. He asserts that their military strategy is nothing more than “mere words.” Isn’t it interesting it is all the royal spokesman is using at that moment! This man is seeking to undermine Hezekiah’s words with his own words. Then he addresses the possibility of Egypt coming to aid Judah. Remarkably, the royal spokesman says the same thing God has been saying: Egypt cannot save you. He calls Egypt a “splintered reed of a staff that will pierce the hand of anyone who grabs it and leans on it” (v. 6).

Finally, the royal spokesman goes for the jugular: their faith in the Lord. He mixes error with truth in his verbal assault, saying that Hezekiah removed the Lord’s high places (the Lord hated them) and commanded that the people worship at one altar (true), and that the Lord commanded Assyria to invade (sadly true). He also mocks the military weakness of Judah, saying that even if Assyria were to supply Judah with horses, they would not have enough skilled men to ride them. What hope could they possibly have?

At this point, the royal spokesman raised his voice even louder and sought to crush the confidence that the warriors on the wall had in Hezekiah and in the Lord. He said Hezekiah was trying to deceive them that the Lord would deliver them. He urged them to surrender, promising them peace and prosperity if they did. Here he is most satanic, promising pleasure in return for enslavement. Of course, the Assyrians were notorious for breaking such promises and leaving cities in ashes with piles of heads stacked high.

Blasphemy: The Spokesman’s Fatal Error

Isaiah 36:18-22

But here, evil overreaches itself, as it always does. Just as Satan overreached his power by seeking to ascend to sit on the throne of God (Isa 14:13-14), so the royal spokesman’s words soared in an attempt to topple God’s rule over the nations. He has already implied, “The Lord will not rescue you.” He now moves into blasphemy: “The Lord cannot rescue you!” His logic is based on history: None of the gods of other nations has ever been able to deliver their lands from the hand of the king of Assyria, so why should the “god” of your puny land be able to do so? This blasphemy, especially since it was believed by Sennacherib and all the Assyrians, is the very thing that will bring down Assyria at the walls of Jerusalem. He has committed a fatal error, and God will respond to it by slaughtering his evil empire. The delegation that the spokesman addressed returned to Hezekiah with their clothes torn as a sign of their humiliation in the sight of the Lord. Their humble repentance and faith would be the conduit of the Lord’s deliverance.

Central Question in Life: What Are You Relying On?

The blasphemous royal spokesman’s words amazingly get to the central issue in life: “What are you relying on?” While this was an important military question, it is even more poignant spiritually, as a far greater tyranny threatens us: Satan, sin, death, and hell. As we face the overwhelming power of these vicious tyrants, we must feel the weight of the royal spokesman’s penetrating question: “What are you relying on?” It seems we live in a world of people who are leaning on many different “splintered reeds” as they face the impending terror of judgment day. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormonism, etc. will pierce those who lean on them—so will materialism, Darwinism, and academic philosophy. Those who are depending on their good works to save them will be pierced. Stunningly pierced will be those who leaned on a pale reflection of true Christianity—nominal Christians—who will find their superficial “commitment” to Christ was a fatally false hope. The piercing will begin with Jesus’s words on that day: “I never knew you. Depart from me” (Matt 7:23).

It is eternally vital for each person to take stock of his or her true condition before God and ask, “What am I truly relying on to deliver me from Satan, sin, death, and hell?” The only true Deliverer is Jesus Christ.

Application: How Satan Assaults Our Minds

We end by reverting to the idea of Isaiah 36 as an allegory of Satan’s assault on our souls by his alluring, insulting, persuading, intimidating words. Ever since the garden of Eden, Satan has sought to trap us by his words. In his approach to Eve (Gen 3:1-5) he used three timeless strategies of speech: (1) questioning God’s word (“Did God really say . . . ?”); (2) contradicting God’s word (“No! You will not die.”); (3) employing partial truths to tell a bigger lie (“God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil”). Satan still does the same three things every day: causing people to doubt God’s Word, contradicting things taught in God’s Word, and crafting religious systems that incorporate some truths in overall systems that are false (like Islam’s teaching of monotheism).

Beyond this, Satan loves to promise us a delightful life if we will just come out of our fortress of holiness and surrender to him. He seeks to undermine our will to fight by getting us to forsake holy resolutions. Someone who is seeking to stop drinking, stop using Internet pornography, or stop reacting with sinful anger, Satan will assault by intimidation: “Sin will always be your master; you’re mine, I own you, and you will never get away. What hope do you have of resisting me? I will relentlessly come after you until you yield as you always have in the past!” His words flow like poison through the rivers of this world’s thought systems, and some of the pollution inevitably seeps into the wellsprings of a Christian’s mind. We must learn to “resist him, firm in the faith” (1 Pet 5:9).

Reflect and Discuss

1. How does John Bunyan’s allegory The Holy War fit well with Isaiah 36? How is the royal spokesman a type (picture) of Satan in his assault on the human soul?
2. On the other hand, why is it important for us to embrace the significance of the fact that all of this actually occurred in human history?
3. How is Isaiah 36–37 the culmination of one of the major themes in Isaiah 1–39: the rise and fall of Assyria?
4. What does this chapter teach us about the sinfulness of the human heart?
5. What was the overall goal of the royal spokesman in front of the walls of Jerusalem?
6. How do the royal spokesman’s words display a powerful form of psychological warfare?
7. How does the royal spokesman blaspheme and overreach himself?
8. How is the royal spokesman’s question “What are you relying on?” a vital one for all Christians, who face the tyranny of Satan, sin, death, and hell?
9. What are some of the “splintered reeds” of false hopes with respect to the tyranny of Satan, sin, death, and hell?
10. How can we use this chapter to defeat the assault of Satan on our minds?