In our study of the enmity between the serpent and his seed and the woman and her seed Gen 3:15; we are presently looking at the Assyrian attack on Hezekiah king of the nation of Judah at the time that Hezekiah was still childless.
Last time we saw that God answered Hezekiah's prayer regarding the Assyrian threat because of His integrity and His promise to David regarding the seed of the woman. Isa 7:35;
The Net Bible translates v35 as" I will shield this city and rescue it for the sake of my reputation and because of my promise to David my servant".
Responding to Hezekiah's prayer, the Lord sent a message to him through Isaiah that Assyria would be defeated. The message included three parts.
First, the Assyrians would be driven back Deliverance would come to Jerusalem (the Virgin Daughter of Zion; for Assyria would flee the tables would be turned and Zion would mock Assyria.
This would come about as an answer to Hezekiah's prayer) and as punishment on the Assyrians for their blasphemy and pride.
Second, God assured Hezekiah that a remnant would remain and that life would go on as usual but that for the next two years life would be difficult as they worked to get their crops back to normal, but in the third year there would be a bountiful harvest. The LORD would do this because of his zeal for Judah.
Third, addressing the king of Assyria, God told him that he would not set foot inside the city of Jerusalem or even build a siege ramp against its walls. He would have to return home because God would defend the city because of his integrity and his unconditional promise to David that his seed would sit on the throne of Israel forever. 2Sam 7:8-16; in the Davidic covenant.
Isa 37:36; Then the angel of the LORD went out and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men arose early in the morning, behold, all of these were dead.
v37 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh.
v38 It came about as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons killed him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son became king in his place.
The account of the destruction of the Assyrian army is almost anticlimactic. The overnight slaughter did not come from the hand of an army but by the Angel of the LORD GOD, who personally killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers.
Not all scholars agree, but this angel was probably a theophany of the preincarnate Christ. Sennacherib returned to Nineveh and was assassinated 20 years later by two of his sons in 681 B.C.
We see her that at the right time, in the nick of time in order to bring praise to his name and honor his covenant God destroyed the attacking army.
The principle is that while God permits satan and his minions to prowl around like a roaring lion to seek those who may be devoured. 1Pet 5:8; but those who have doctrine in their souls are delivered because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. 1John 4:4;
In the context of our study it is worth noting the rise and fall of Assyria. A historical Panorama for this is provided in Ezek 31:3-14;
The Assyrians prospered because of positive volition to Bible doctrine. They became great because they responded to Jonah's doctrinal teaching. Jonah 3:3-10; The greatness of any nation always lies in positive volition to God's word..
Assyria's ascendancy resulted in other nations being blessed by association. The pivot of mature believers in a nation is the source of blessing by association. Assyria is therefore a perfect example of how Bible Doctrine works no matter who the believers are or where they are located.
The blessor (the pivot) is greater than the blessee (the nation). The blessor has the authority; the blessee has the response. When the blessee revolts instead of receiving blessing by association they receive divine discipline.
In Eze 31:5-6;, the boughs represent economic prosperity; the branches represent military strength. The Birds represent unbelievers and evil. When a nation no longer believes. When Bible doctrine is rejected the "nesters' come in and take over. This is what is happening in the USA today. The "nesters" are taking over.
An empire is a nation that is so great that all the nations of that continent are blessed by association with it.
The prophet Jonah's ministry to Assyria was so phenomenal that our Lord even mentions it, Luke 11:29-30; Jonah's teaching gave new power to Assyria in decline and resulted in the revival of the empire.
The pivot became great and the negative volition of reversionists so low in succeeding generations that Jonah's ministry added 142 years to the Assyrian empire but as negative volition grew and evil became the viewpoint of the people, the nation was ultimately destroyed by the fifth cycle of discipline in 612 B.C.
Greatness in a nation is based on the spiritual heritage that comes from metabolized Bible Doctrine. When a generation forgets the importance of Bible doctrine, then the nation begins to go down into disaster under the principle of the 3rd and 4th generation curse.
The Assyrians' prosperity caught up with them and they forgot the true source of their blessing. The warning to Assyria was given in Isa 33:1; Treachery is the result of loss of honor and integrity, Zeph 2:13.
The arrogance of Assyria, as the "rod of God's anger" (anthropopathism) is documented in Isa 10:5-8; God used Assyria to discipline Israel under the fifth cycle of discipline. Assyria became arrogant. because of this and they failed to realize that God had only used them, not replaced Israel as His client nation.
All nations fall because of a decision of the Supreme Court of Heaven, Nah 1:1-3,9;. Nahum was a Jewish prophet that the Assyrians took captive. The plundering of the destroyed nation is described in Nah 2:8-10;.
The timeline of the fall of Nineveh goes like this: In B.C. 626, Ashurbanipal died after ruling Assyria from 669-626BC. His son Sinsariskun, the last Assyrian king, 626-612BC. succeeded him. His ascension was followed by revolts. In 625BC, Nabopolassar of the Chaldeans captured Babylon.
In 616 B.C., all of Babylonia was under the control of Nabopolassar and he was ready to move north. In 615 B.C., Cyaxares the Mede also attacked from the east.
In 614 B.C., Cyaxares and Nabopolassar arrived at the same time to fight Assyria. They didn't trust each other. So Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar, married the daughter of Cyaxares.
In 613 B.C., Sinsariskun went to the Scythians for help. They were to attack the Medes.
In 612 B.C., Cyaxares met with the Scythian princes and persuaded them to double cross the Assyrians. The Scythians betrayed their alliance and this sealed the Assyrian's doom.
The armies of all three nations assembled at Nineveh in June of 612 B.C. The Chaldeans come from the south, the Medes came from the east, and the Sythians came from the north.
The hard-core Assyrians defeated the Scythians, then the Medes, and lastly they fought the Chaldeans. The main attack came from the northeast. The hard-core fighting men were on the south side of the city while the weak fighters in the north ran in fear, Nahum 2:8;
Sinsariskun burned everything he owned. One hard-core group fought their way out of the city and fled to Harran.
In 610 B.C., the combined armies marched on Harran. The Assyrians who fought were not defeated, but Harran was plundered.
In 609 B.C., Assur-uballit, the general of the hard-core Assyrians, formed an alliance with Egypt through Pharaoh Neco. He fought Josiah, king of Judah, at Armageddon and defeated Israel, killing Josiah.
In 605 B.C., Neco fought the Chaldeans at Carchemish. This battle was one of the greatest in history. Neco was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar. This is when Nebuchadnezzar first saw Jerusalem.
The Medes took most of the prisoners. The Scythians took most of the plunder. Most of the Persian art was Assyrian. Some Assyrians stayed with the Egyptian army and remnant of Assyrians still exist around Syria and Harran.
The sons of Sennacherib went to Armenia and became the source of Armenian nobility. Some live in southern Russia, Turkey, and Iran today.
Two thousand years of wealth was divided between the three nations without any argument. No treasury was greater than this. The Assyrian craftsmen produced the art of the Persians.
In 437 A.D., the Vandals plundered Rome and took the treasury in history back to Carthage. On the way across the Mediterranean a storm struck and sunk the treasure fleet.
The Biblical Account of the Fall of Nineveh is found in Nahum 2:13; The elite infantry forces were destroyed, Nahum 3:1-19. The Assyrians fell because the men of the army became women in their souls and their great leadership was gone.
Although Assyria was not a client nation, the same principle applies. the nation was destroyed because the Bible Doctrine was no longer the prevailing viewpoint in the nation. Hosea 4:6;
Under the principle of the Divine solution is the only solution it is useful for us to discuss the issue of what believers do to try to solve the problems that they face in the devil's world.
We will briefly discuss this under that topic of "Pivot power versus Political power.
Problems of life demand solution. These problems are both individual and collective. Self-righteousness is the motivator for power politics, which is the satanic system for problem solving on earth.
While man cannot solve his personal problems, he likes to compensate by trying to solve collective problems in his society or nation.