Well, good morning, everyone. It's nice to be with you this morning. It's been a good time this weekend.
With the men's retreat, looking at some of the archaeological evidence for the Bible that helps to illuminate the scriptures for us, shed light on what they're actually saying in many ways, since there is so much distance between our time today and the time and cultures in which the biblical text was written.
We've been thinking about some of the ways that the Word of God is confirmed by the archaeological record.
And so this morning what I'd like to do, we've kind of looked this weekend at the men's retreat at a wide swath of different archaeological evidence related to the Bible. This morning I want to make it smaller and just look at one particular passage.
So I want to invite you to turn with me to the Old Testament book of 2 Chronicles and chapter 32. And while you're turning there, I'll spend just a moment to introduce myself. And to the Emmaus students that are here, I will say spring break is just about over.
So I hope you had a good week because classes start tomorrow. I'm sorry to you, Carlos and Daniel. You just can't get away from me, you guys.
So we're going to look at 2 Chronicles 32. I've been teaching at Emmaus now for a number of years. I started in 2013 full-time in student life overseeing our chapel program and SLT, our servant leader training program. I did that for several years.
And then started teaching archeology courses. We had a minor in archaeology at Emmaus.
So I did that half time and served our alumni, worked with the alumni for the other half of the time.
And then in 2020, I moved into the Bible and theology department full time. That was the best thing that came out of 2020 for me.
So I've been blessed to be able to work there for a number of years now. My wife, Janelle, works part-time with the online school at Emmaus in student services for the Global Campus. And she teaches part-time, substitute teaches, I should say, part-time at Tri-State Christian School where our two children attend.
So the Lord has greatly blessed me and my family. My father was born in the Milwaukee area. My grandfather lived here in Milwaukee. I think a number of you would have known.
Ray and Laura Routley, they attended a chapel here in Milwaukee. They met in a chapel when they were actually teenagers.
And got married and my father was born here. And I was born near the Lake Geneva area. So lots of connections to this area.
Going to be taking a look at 2 Chronicles this morning, and I'm going to be showing you a number of the archaeological remains that correlate to this chapter of the biblical texts. I've titled this How to fight an ancient Assyrian bully, which is what the king of Assyria, Sennacherib, was in this chapter. We're going to have a couple of names that might sound a little bit foreign to us.
But my goal is to help you understand that what we have written in the biblical text is not some kind of an ancient Israelite fairy tale.
Or mythology, but that it is actually grounded in historical truth and provable factual data. So we're going to look at some of the archaeological remains. We'll look at some of the things related to this chapter and kind of walk through and I'll give you something of an archaeological commentary on the first 23 verses of 2 Chronicles 32. I also want to take this as an opportunity to show
That you can include historical details and archaeological details in a preaching service and it doesn't have to be boring.
It can be exciting. In fact, it can be very engaging. And I think a lot of times we may shy away from some of those things because We maybe have heard it done not in a very engaging way. And so we may think, well, if we're too heavy on the history, people are going to zone out and their eyes are going to glaze over and they won't pay attention to what's being said.
But actually, it can really strengthen our faith. To understand that what we're reading in the biblical text is grounded in reality.
In the world in which we live. So we're going to take a look at the first 23 verses of this chapter. Let me just read the first verse as we begin.
And then we will open once again with a word of prayer. 2 Chronicles 32 and verse 1.
After these things And after these acts of faithfulness.
Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came and invaded Judah. And encamped against the fortified cities Thinking to win them for himself.
Father in heaven, we pray that your spirit would guide our thoughts.
And our conversation as we study this passage before us this morning, that it would encourage our hearts to see all of the connections to work that is been done to uncover ancient artifacts and texts.
That speak to the truthfulness of this passage and of your word.
And that it would encourage our hearts to live in a way that is resolved and purposeful for you as followers of your Son.
The Lord Jesus Christ today. It's in his great name we pray.
Amen. All right. Well, starting in verse 1, we've got a number of things that I want to go through just to set the stage for this chapter before we progress and see what happens. You might be wondering.
Who are these people? Sennacherib, king of Assyria. Verse 2, we'll talk about Hezekiah. Who is that? And so I just want to quickly go through some of the material related to this here.
Let's see. Maybe I'll use this one.
Maybe it's frozen. There we go. Just keep pressing the buttons. Eventually it'll work, right?
This is a map of the southern territory of Judah at the time of King Hezekiah. Now to situate this in the biblical text, where we're at in 2 Chronicles 32 is now toward the end of The Israelite monarchy. Of course, the greatest times of the monarchy were during the lifetimes of David and Solomon when the kingdom was united and expansive throughout the land of Israel and beyond into territories
Reaching all the way from the Euphrates down into parts of Egypt. And yet after the time of Solomon, we saw this throughout our men's retreat. The kingdom was divided because of the unfaithfulness of some of the children, the descendants of the Davidic dynasty. And so the northern kingdom broke away
And they were separated then from the southern kingdom of Judah, the northern ten tribes retained the name of Israel, and the southern kingdom went by the name of the largest tribe, the tribe of Judah.
The northern kingdom had just recently, by this chapter, been taken off into captivity by the big bad bully Assyria. Assyria was the world power of this time, and nobody could stand up to them, particularly not small little kingdoms like Israel or Judah.
Ultimately, we know from the biblical text, however, that there is a spiritual reason behind why the northern kingdom was taken away. And that was because their hearts had turned away from the one true God. They were following after false gods.
They were not adhering to the law of the Lord the way that they should have if they had truly believed what the Lord had spoken to them. And so because of that, the Lord caused them to go into exile, and only now the southern kingdom remained.
Hezekiah, the king of the southern kingdom, would have seen this captivity taken place Years before the events of our chapter, which are probably taking place around 701 BC. We begin with the words.
After these things and these acts of faithfulness. Well, to understand what these acts of faithfulness were that the author is talking about, we'd have to go backward into chapters 29 through 31.
There, the author of Chronicles goes into great detail about The faithfulness of King Hezekiah.
Judah kind of vacillated between following the bad example of the northern kingdom and playing with idolatry, worshiping some of the false gods.
That the peoples of Canaan around them worshipped. And every once in a while a good king would come forward and revive the people. No, we're not going to worship all these other false deities We're going to worship the Lord Yahweh alone. Hezekiah was one such faithful ruler. And those previous chapters of 2 Chronicles record how Hezekiah…
Meticulously went throughout the southern kingdom of Judah, tearing down false places of worship. You know, the Lord had made it so that there was really to be one place of worship in the city of Jerusalem.
Here on the screen before you, we have the remains of an altar from the city of Beersheba from this time period that was found broken apart.
Because the people of Judah played around with idolatry. They would worship false gods and they would worship in places other than the city of Jerusalem.
And so what Hezekiah did, and it's described in these chapters, was to go throughout the southern kingdom and break down these false places of worship.
This altar, this four-horned altar that was found at Beersheba was found destroyed, deconstructed, and the stones of it were actually used in other walls in later buildings. It's a testimony to the truthfulness of the Scriptures.
That just as the Word of God tells us, Hezekiah went out and sought to tear down false worship We find it in the archaeological record here at Beersheba. There are several other sites, by the way, I should say. One particular site, they took an altar and turned it into a latrine, bathrooms, to intentionally desecrate it so that it would not be continued to be used.
In the future. We hear about these acts of faithfulness that Hezekiah performed, and yet… The big bad bully of the ancient world, Sennacherib, here he is seated on his throne on one of the reliefs.
Came knocking at Hezekiah's door. Sennacherib was the king of the nation of Assyria. Assyria had as their goal, as corny as that might sound.
Total world domination. They wanted to take over everything. The main deity of the Assyrian nation was the god Ashur, who was a god of war, similar to like Mars or Aries, if you know Greek and Roman mythology.
So the kings of Assyria would go out conquering on behalf of their God and they would dedicate their conquests to their deities.
And they would record their conquests on prisms or cylinders and place them in the temple of their gods.
Sennacherib, this tells you a little bit about the individual himself.
Here he is being fanned on one side. He's holding a scepter in his hand, talking to some likely captives who are bringing tribute. This is from a relief.
At the palace of Nineveh, his palace that is called the Palace Without Rival, Sennacherib had really grandiose things to say about himself.
He really thought he was all that. And in this relief, you know, I decorate my house with pictures of my family and maybe some nice scenes of sunsets and beautiful verses, things like that. Sennacherib decorated his palace.
With his conquests and reliefs of war and how he had tortured the people of the cities that he conquered. And we will see more of these Lachish reliefs a little bit later on.
Now we come in verse 2. To talk about Hezekiah. Verse 2 says, when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and intended to fight against Jerusalem He planned with his officers. And we'll keep reading in just a moment, but Believe it or not, we do have archaeological evidence of the existence of this Judean ruler. What you are looking at on the screen up here, and I'm going to get out of the way so that everybody can see it, this is a little clay boula about the size of your thumb.
And what these were, the kings would take their signet ring or their seal and they would impress this into the clay to stamp their name on something, and then they would use it to seal maybe a scroll, maybe it would be placed on a piece of pottery or even as the pottery was formed, sometime they would stamp their name in this. This particular symbol says
Belonging to Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah. And the winged sun disc in the middle seems to have been a visual representation used by the king, kings of Judah at different times.
So this is a seal that demonstrates possession, much like today when we're in school or somewhere we might, or if we're making a piece of artwork, we would sign our name on it to show that we were the creators, the designers of this thing. In the ancient world, they would stamp their own seal impression.
On these various things. And so we have Hezekiah attested to. Now, believe it or not, this was actually found very recently, 2009 excavation season, just to the south of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
In an administrative complex that may have actually been part of the Davidic palaces, the palaces of the kings of Judah at this time.
Keep this in mind because there's another artifact that we're going to look at in a little while that was found very close to this, very close to this.
Okay, reading onward, when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and intended to fight against Jerusalem.
What he does is not to cower. Or not to throw his hands up in despair, although that may have been, humanly speaking, a perfectly reasonable response.
Sennacherib was the king of the entire world, really, at this time. The greatest empire that had ever been in existence.
And now he was coming and knocking at Hezekiah's door. It seemed to Hezekiah, I'm sure, like he was facing an impossible situation.
Have you ever been in a situation in your life that has felt impossible.
To you. You don't know how you're going to get through this circumstance.
How is the Lord going to bring you through? I'm sure that's how Hezekiah felt with the greatest king of the ancient world coming and knocking on his door.
How am I going to overcome this? Look at what he does and the way he responds.
When Hezekiah saw, verse 2, that Sennacherib had come and intended to fight against Jerusalem.
He planned with his officers and his mighty men to stop the water of the springs that were outside the city And they helped him. A great many people were gathered and they stopped all the springs and the brook that flowed through the land, saying, why should the kings of Assyria come?
And find much water. Now this might take a little bit of explanation for us. I'm going to show you the picture here, artistic drawing of the city of Jerusalem.
And on the eastern side of the city toward the Kidron Valley, which is down here, just outside the main city walls was what is called the Gihon Spring. And that spring was a natural spring that had been around the city of Jerusalem from ancient times, and the water from that spring sort of flowed out on the eastern side of the city there watered the valley, watered the Kidron Valley. And so it was very, very fertile.
The problem for Hezekiah was it's all outside of the main city walls at this time. And so if Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, comes to the city of Jerusalem and all the people have to hunker down inside the city wall. Suddenly there's a big problem.
Lack of water supply. While outside Sennacherib is drinking literally all the water of the city.
Hezekiah says, okay, if he's going to come and attack us, if this is really his plan, we need to take steps and action to prepare for this.
And so Hezekiah undergoes one of the greatest engineering feats of all human history. I'm not exaggerating here. He has a water tunnel dug from the Gihon Spring. Here you can see it up on this side, through the mountain down inside of the area that would have been surrounded by the city walls. You can see the city wall extending down here.
To what becomes the area of the pool of Siloam, which is important in New Testament times there.
Now, you might say, well, what's the big deal? Remember, they're digging this underground in about 700 BC through what is the equivalent of solid rock without any ground penetrating radar.
Or anything like that, and let me make it a little bit more miraculous for you.
They start on either end. And they met in the middle.
You can go through Hezekiah's tunnel in the city of Jerusalem today, rather underneath the city, and you can actually see the marks of the pickaxes against the stone going in one direction as you go through the tunnel and about halfway through, if you're paying attention very carefully, you can see where the axes change direction.
Now, there are all kinds of theories about how the Israelites did this at this time.
Ultimately, the greatest theory, the true theory, is that the Lord was helping them.
There could have been some kind of a fissure in the stone naturally already so that water was already running and so Hezekiah had his engineers sort of follow this as they cut the tunnel. That's very possible. The Israelis today will tell you that they did soundings from the top, the surface, down underground, and they followed the soundings.
I find that a little more hard to believe, having been in Hezekiah's tunnel a couple of times myself.
No matter how it was accomplished, humanly speaking, the Lord allowed this to take place very, very quickly as a way for Hezekiah and his people to take water, natural water from the spring, channel it inside the city, and then once it was done, they collapsed All of the walls around the spring and sealed it off completely so that the Assyrians would have no access to this outside water supply.
Absolutely incredible, incredible feat. That's not all that Hezekiah did. If we can continue to read in verse 5, we see he set to work resolutely And built up all the wall that was broken down and raised towers upon it and outside it he built another wall and he strengthened what is called the Milo in the city of David. He also made weapons and shields in abundance.
In the face of an impossible situation, Hezekiah doesn't fall into despair.
Instead, he begins to prepare for the attack. And I think as he's preparing, the implication is He's trusting in the Lord who he knows is ultimately sovereign over all the affairs of men.
He doesn't need to worry about this great king of Assyria coming to conquer him.
If he's got his eyes fixed. On the Lord. There's a couple more things archaeologically that we could look at. There are portions of the wall that Hezekiah rebuilt and strengthened within the city of Jerusalem, this is one area that's known as the Broad Wall within the city of Jerusalem. You can go and look at this
Foundational area of the wall that remains. You can see how thick it was there, about 15 feet thick, several meters thick.
And he had these reinforced very quickly within a series of months in preparation for the attack from the Assyrian king. We also read about his building up of Something that is called the Milo. Now this is a little more disputed, but archaeologist Eilat Matsar, who I mentioned yesterday for the men who were at the retreat, she was the one who excavated the large stone structure that may very well be David's palace.
In the city of Jerusalem. That's just at the top of this large retaining wall area.
That was probably what the Milo was. It's referred to archaeologically as a stepped stone structure.
And Matsar believed that this was the area that David had had built.
Milo in Hebrew can be related to the word fulfill. So they may be filled in this area, built this large stepped retaining wall as sort of part of the foundation for David's palace at this time in the city of Jerusalem. By the time of Hezekiah, of course, a couple hundred years had passed and so this structure was starting to fall into disrepair.
And so Hezekiah had this Milo strengthened as well as part of his reinforcements.
So that the Assyrians would not be able to just come up and waltz right up into the city. It would have been very, very difficult for them to get up these areas of the city of Jerusalem.
We know if we keep reading here that Hezekiah made weapons and shields. He's taking preparations.
To resist the Assyrian attack as they come. Verse 6, he set combat commanders over the people and gathered them together to him in the square at the gate of the city and spoke encouragingly to them, saying, Be strong and courageous.
Does that sound like any other biblical passage that you've read before?
Immediately evokes the words of Joshua chapter 1 and the Lord's command to Joshua. Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or dismayed.
Before the king of Assyria and all the horde that is with him. For there are more with us Then with him.
For with him is an arm of flesh. But with us is the Lord our God.
To help us and to fight our battles. Hezekiah was a great leader here because he didn't just tell his people, oh, you know what?
You might as well give up and head for the hills because Sennacherib's more powerful than we are.
King of the greatest empire in the world. No, Hezekiah says he might have a lot of physical people and military and weaponry, but we have something that he doesn't have.
The Lord our God. The one true God. There are more with us than are with him.
Hezekiah directed his people toward faith in the one true God. You know, that's really what a good leader will do.
And it's contagious. Their dependence on the Lord rubs off on others.
And teaches others how to respond in times of difficulty and times of crisis. Look what happens at the end of verse 8.
The people took confidence from the words of Hezekiah, the king of Judah.
Now verses 9 through 19, we could classify as… a Syrian propaganda. This was a pretty common thing that Assyria used, and actually it's still in use by many cultures today in the Middle East.
The Assyrians were masters of something that could be called psychological warfare.
And it went like this. They would come and they would conquer a city and they would do all kinds of horrific things to the people of the city.
And I will not go into detail on a Sunday morning, sparing you the details of how horrible it was, but you can very easily look up on an encyclopedia site or Wikipedia some of the barbaric practices of the Assyrian people.
But they would leave a couple people alive who watched all of these atrocities, and then they would take those individuals and they would say, okay, run for your life Go to the next town.
And these people would run to the next town and say, the Assyrians are coming, the Assyrians are coming. And this is what they do to their enemies.
They did this and they did this and it was horrible and only I survived.
Well, what does that do? To the psyche and the hearts of the people of that city, they're terrified.
Now, of this military that's coming to get them. And so long before the Assyrian troops ever stepped foot in this town.
The Assyrians have started to wage this mental war against the people of that city who are terrified and many of them would just run away or give up, throw up their hands. This was how the Assyrians very quickly conquered much
Much of the ancient world. This is reflected in 2 Chronicles in verses 9 and following of chapter 32 here.
We have Sennacherib as the ancient bully, sending out some propaganda against the people of Jerusalem. After this, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, who was besieging Lachish.
With all his forces. You'll remember we talked about the Lachish reliefs.
That Sennacherib had put in his palace. Decorating his palace with all of the atrocities that he did to the people of Lachish. Another good connection between archaeological evidence and the biblical text here. As he was besieging Lachish with all his forces, he sent his servants to Jerusalem, to Hezekiah king of Judah, and all the people of Judah who were in Jerusalem. And this is what he said.
Thus says Sennacherib, king of Assyria, on what are you trusting?
That you endure the siege in Jerusalem. Is not Hezekiah misleading you that he may give you over to die by famine and by thirst when he tells you the Lord our God will deliver us?
From the hand of the king of Assyria. You see what Sennacherib's doing here.
He's saying, you're not going to survive. You think you're going to outlast me? You think your God is going to help you?
Verse 11, is not Hezekiah misleading you? Verse 12, has not this same Hezekiah taken away his high places and altars and commanded Judah and Jerusalem Before one altar you shall worship, and on it you shall burn your sacrifices.
Do you not know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of other lands?
Were the gods of the nations. Able to deliver their lands out of my hand.
Who among all the gods of those nations that my fathers devoted to destruction was able to deliver his people from my hand? That your God should be able to deliver you from my hand. Now, therefore, do not let Hezekiah deceive you or mislead you in this fashion.
And do not believe him, for no God of any nation or kingdom has been able to deliver his people from my hand or from the hand of my fathers.
How much less will your God deliver you out of my hand?
See what Sennacherib is doing? He's tempting the people of Jerusalem.
Placing doubt into their minds. Don't believe, Hezekiah. He's not going to be able to save you from me. And your God is powerless.
Your God is just like the gods of all the peoples that I've conquered and destroyed. He's no different.
Well, the response to this in verse 16, we read his servant said still more against the Lord God and against his servant Hezekiah.
And he wrote letters to cast contempt on the Lord, the God of Israel, and to speak against him.
Saying, like the gods of the nations of the lands who have not delivered their people from my hands. So the God of Hezekiah will not deliver his people from my hand.
And they shouted it with a loud voice in the language of Judah to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall to frighten and terrify them.
In order that they might take the city. They spoke of the God of Jerusalem as they spoke of the gods of the peoples of the earth which are the work of men's hands.
That's very important. The author of 2 Chronicles is giving us a window into what was really happening here.
You know, sometimes in this world, the bullies like Sennacherib, want us to take our eyes off of the Lord.
And put them on the difficult circumstances in which we find ourselves.
And when we look at the world. Our response is going to be to fall into despair.
To become hopeless. If we're trusting in our own power to get us through.
Impossible situations. Are quite impossible.
But if we're trusting in the Lord our God. To bring us through those impossible situations, our God is in the business of doing what is humanly speaking.
Impossible. And so that's what happens here.
How does Hezekiah respond to this propaganda? That Sennacherib uses to bully the city of Jerusalem. How do you fight an ancient Assyrian bully?
Well, it's not by sort of manning up and getting your own strength and gritting your teeth and going out and do it. Look how Hezekiah responds in verse 20.
Hezekiah the king. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amos.
Prayed because of this. And cried to heaven.
Hezekiah got down on his knees. And confessed to his God, there is no possible way that I can get through this circumstance on my own.
Lord, it is going to have to be you. That brings us through.
You know, that reminds me about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And what our Savior has done for each of us. If I'm relying on my own power to save me from my sin, my wickedness, my corruption, and the Word of God tells me very clearly.
That I am a sinful person. All have sinned. And fallen short of the glory of God. If I'm relying on myself to bring me through.
And make me right before God. That is a quite impossible situation.
There's no way for me to be right with God on my own power.
But God has done what we were not capable of doing.
In sending his son into the world, the Lord Jesus went to the cross.
And on the cross suffered and died on our behalf. And through his sacrifice made provision for the forgiveness of sins, something that I could never accomplish on my own.
And I receive the good salvation of the Lord, forgiveness of sins simply through faith.
In him, not through any work. That I have done or could do.
It's simply by believing. In the good news of the Lord Jesus. Maybe there's some in this room who have heard the gospel of Jesus before.
Presented. But for one reason or another, your heart is resistant to trust in God's work on your behalf.
He's done everything that's needed in order to save you from your sin.
And all that you need to do is respond like Hezekiah in faith. If that's you, you can get down on your knees right now. You don't necessarily have to even get out of your seat, but in your heart of hearts, bow yourself down before the Lord.
And say to God. I know I'm a sinner.
I know that I've done what's evil and wrong in your sight, but I believe that you sent your son, the Lord Jesus, to die on my behalf.
So that my sins could be forgiven. The Lord delights to do what is impossible, humanly speaking. And it is ultimately impossible for you to save yourself from your sin.
But God has done what we could not do. Through the Lord Jesus Christ.
What a wonderful morning it would be if someone here bows down the knees of their hearts before the Lord and trusts in him. Just like Isaiah trusted in him through this impossible, impossible situation. Archaeologically speaking, I think this is wonderful, wonderful, very close to the Bula of Hezekiah that was excavated within the same excavation square, another bulla was found.
That contains the name Isaiah. Isaiah is not disputed on this bulla.
What is partly disputed is the word prophet. We have a portion of the word prophet.
On this bulla. Specialists, epigraphers, those who look at the language, have looked at this and looked at any other possibilities for what this Hebrew word could be and have concluded the best possible writing of this would be to say this is the Hebrew word navi or prophet.
So this is very likely. With almost full certainty, the Bula of Isaiah the prophet frowned in close proximity, we're talking less than a couple meters away, from the Hezekiah Bulah in the same layer of the same excavation square. Praise the Lord.
That's wonderful. Wonderful affirmation to the veracity of the Word of God.
What happens next? You probably know this story. Verse 21. The Lord did.
What Hezekiah couldn't do. The Lord sent an angel.
Who cut off all the mighty warriors and commanders and officers in the camp of the king of Assyria.
So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he came to the house of his God, some of his own sons struck him down there with the sword.
Sennacherib's prism, and actually we have several different prisms. Sennacherib recorded his campaign against Judah on at least three different prisms. One of them is very close by in the Chicago ISAC Institute, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, the name has changed in recent years.
On these prisms, Sennacherib records closing up Hezekiah within the city of Jerusalem like a bird in a cage.
Taking possession of many other, I think he mentions 46 cities of the territory of Judah, but what Sennacherib does not say is that he ever took possession of Jerusalem.
Or that he ever deported Hezekiah or put him to the sword or anything like that.
Sennacherib just concludes his account by saying, yeah, I had him trapped.
Let's move on to the next topic. And so this corresponds very, very well with the biblical text. Sennacherib's annals, of course, you know, they're dedicated to his deity, so he would not champion any kind of failure.
On his behalf. He wouldn't present the destruction of 185,000 of his men. But he does.
Leave room for what the biblical account records. And furthermore, a prism of his son, Escher Haddon, who was not one of the older sons.
It was one of the younger sons who became king of Assyria. Comments about his father's last days, that his older brothers became usurpers of the throne and went and tried to do all kinds of rebellious acts within the land of Assyria and Nineveh in particular. Again, corresponding very, very well to what's written here.
In the biblical text. Verse 22 and 23 now to close out the passage. So the Lord saved hezekiah.
And the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib, king of Assyria.
And from the hand of all his enemies. And he provided for them on every side.
And many brought gifts to the Lord to Jerusalem and precious things to Hezekiah, king of Judah, so that he was exalted.
In the sight of all nations. From that time onward.
Three lessons that we can learn from this chapter and from the actions of Hezekiah here as we conclude.
First of all, Hezekiah, when he was faced with an impossible situation, didn't immediately fall into despair.
Began to act. He acted in faithfulness Look to the Lord in reliance on him and he went out and strengthened what he could of the city of Jerusalem in anticipation of the siege by the Assyrians.
When we are faced with a crisis, it doesn't do us any good to sort of hunker down into ourselves We can do what we can to prepare in faithfulness.
Knowing that our God is capable of doing impossible things. We learn how we can respond to crisis in our lives.
I love that verse that tells us how Hezekiah and Isaiah, when they heard all this propaganda coming at them by Sennachibrib.
They got down on their knees. And ask the Lord for help.
Lord, we're faced with something that we can't overcome. Would you do it for us?
There's another passage that actually tells us when Hezekiah received some of the letters from Sennacherib.
He took the letters up to the temple. This is so beautiful. And he unrolled them.
In the temple before the Lord. Like he's presenting them before God and saying, here it is. I don't know what to do with this.
Maybe there's a situation in your life today and you just, it's the same thing. You just don't know what to do with this.
You can take it and you can present it before the Lord. God is in the business of doing.
What is very impossible in our thinking and in our eyes. And finally.
To rest in the comfort and knowledge that God is our ever-present help And hope during times of crisis.
Hezekiah encouraged his people, be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be dismayed.
Why? Because the Lord, the one who fights for us. Is stronger than any false god that fights for this other kingdom.
If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, that is true of you, the God of all the universe has come to reside with you personally in the person of His Holy Spirit.
He walks with you from day to day in whatever situation you find yourself, whatever crisis, you can take comfort to know that God is present with you.
And he is able to help bring you even through the most difficult of situations and circumstances.
So I hope this has been an encouragement for you in multiple ways to see some of the physical evidence that speaks to the truthfulness of a passage like this.
I said this yesterday for the men at the end of our retreat, but I had a professor at Emmaus, Dr. Dave Reid, who loved to say, when you become a believer in Jesus, you don't have to throw your brains out the window.
It is a reasonable faith. That we hold to.
And secondly, to take courage. That even in the most difficult of situations.
The Lord desires to help you. He loves you. And ultimately, he wants your good.
Maybe that good starts this morning. With your salvation.
Will you put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ? If you've never done it before.
You can do it right now. Let's bow together and pray.
Our Father in heaven. We're thankful that your word is true.
Lord, we're thankful that what we find coming out of the ground, archaeological artifacts, historical evidence.
Only serves to confirm the truthfulness of your word. Father, our faith is not in archaeology or in any of the physical remains, but our faith is in you.
As you've revealed yourself to us in your word. We thank you, Father, for the example that we have of your faithfulness to your word and to your people, to Hezekiah during this chapter of 2 Chronicles.
We thank you for your faithfulness to us as well who have trusted in you.
Through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And again, Father, if there's anyone here Who, for one reason or another may have heard the gospel before or never heard it.
But this morning realizes that they're lost in their sin. Facing the impossible situation of becoming right before you on their own.
We pray, Father, that they would understand they don't need to do that. They don't need to work for that.
It's all been done already. Through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We pray that any who don't know the Lord Jesus would turn and trust him this morning for salvation.
It's in Jesus name we pray Amen.