https://youtu.be/1zuMxwrz3lg
Exodus 20:2-5; "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3 "You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol (covid), or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
5 "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
Jer 17:5; Thus says the Lord, "Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind And makes flesh his strength, And whose heart turns away from the Lord.
Psalm 91:1-9; (NET) 1 As for you, the one who lives in the shelter of the sovereign One, and resides in the protective shadow of the mighty king -
2 I say this about the Lord, my shelter and my stronghold, my God in whom I trust
3 he will certainly rescue you from the snare of the hunter and from the destructive plague.
4 He will shelter you with his wings; you will find safety under his wings. His faithfulness is like a shield or a protective wall.
5 You need not fear the terrors of the night, the arrow that flies by day,
6 the plague that comes in the darkness, or the disease that comes at noon.
7 Though a thousand may fall beside you, and a multitude on your right side, it will not reach you.
8 Certainly you will see it with your very own eyes - you will see the wicked paid back.
9 For you have taken refuge in the Lord, my shelter, the sovereign One.
Heb 2:14-15; NET Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he likewise shared in their humanity, so that through death he could destroy the one who holds the power of death (that is, the devil),
15 and set free those who were held in slavery all their lives by their fear of death.1Peter 2:16; Live as free people, not using your freedom as a pretext for evil (destroying liberty), but as God's slaves.
Dan 3:16-18; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to King Nebuchadnezzar (CCP)"We do not need to give you a reply concerning this.
17 If our God whom we are serving exists, he is able to rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he will rescue us, O king, from your power as well.
18 But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we don't serve your gods, and we will not pay homage to the golden statue (covid) that you have erected."
Rev 13:16-17; He also caused everyone (small and great, rich and poor, free and slave) to obtain a mark on their right hand or on their forehead.
17 Thus no one was allowed to buy or sell things unless he bore the mark of the beast - that is, his name or his number.
We are presently in a study of Jonah, Nineveh and Nemesis and now Israel Judah Assyria and Nemesis where we see God's policy of grace before judgment. God always provides the opportunity for repentance before he executes judgment.
Some principles we can derive from of our brief study of Jonah, Nineveh, Israel, Judah, Assyria and Nemesis is that anyone can repent, because God extends His mercy even to the merciless and help to the helpless but judgment is always waiting in the wings because ultimately the truth wins because God is truth and He cannot deny himself. 2Cor 13:8; John 17:17; 2Tim 2:13;
Last time we were noting Isa 36:15; where Rabshakeh contradicts Hezekiah and blasphemes God because he calls God a liar. He attacks the messenger (Hezekiah) and once the messenger is discredited he attacks the message (the Word of God).
His attack is designed to tear down their deeply held belief systems. To do this the attack must be embellished with hyperbole as illustrated earlier in verse 12 or camouflaged by the invention of a new vocabulary.
These deceitful tactics are the same tactics that the manipulators of the American culture are using to attack the founding principles of our nation. Their latest attack is to deceive the benighted democrats by redefining the definition of "packing the court."
These cultural Marxists democrats are in the process of impugning Christians in order to cast aspersions on Christianity that is the basis of Western Civilization and American Culture.
Rabshakeh's propaganda continues in Isaiah 36:16; "Do not listen to Hezekiah because this is what the king of Assyria says, 'Make your peace with me and come out to me. Then each and every one of you will enjoy his own vine and fig tree and all will drink from his own cistern,
v17 until I come and take you to a land like your own, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.'"
This is a Maleficent Deception because Rabshakeh uses rhetorical veils to advance while concealing his hidden agenda.
Maleficent is the transliteration of the Latin word maleficus that means wicked. It means the act of committing or producing disaster, harm or evil.
Deception means to cause someone to accept a lie as true or with the objective of gaining an advantage.
After repeating his demanding that Hezekiah be ignored, Rabshakeh offers a deal that is too good to be true. He paints a rosy picture of a future life in a land of prosperity if the people of Judah will willingly surrender to the benevolent offers of maleficent Sennacherib.
His hidden agenda is to control them until the Egyptians are properly dealt with and then the Jews will be deported to Assyria where they will spend the rest of their lives in slavery.
What politicians say to convince the masses to agree to their deceitful schemes for a better tomorrow is completely opposite of the maleficent things that they will actually do once they are elected.
This is what the democrats are presently doing to the voters in our country. They are offering 2 cars in every garage and a half dozen chickens in every pot but it is actually maleficent deception because they are going to destroy the economy and everything else.
What Rabshakeh proposes is an example of this: Sennacherib's conditions for a new tomorrow. Condition number one is, "Make your peace with me." NASB "Send me a token of your submission and surrender to me" Net note 15 The Hebrew word is "berachah."
The noun form of "berachah" has to do with prosperity, favor, gratuity, blessing, or benefit. Such blessings are transmitted from one person to another or from God to individuals or nations.
When a person blesses God it is actually an expression of appreciation, thanksgiving, or praise as a response to God's benevolence. It is a reciprocal salute of respect to God for what God has done. 1John 4:19;
In the context Sennacherib is proposing that the citizens of Judah join him in making peace." The idea here is that Sennacherib and the people of Judah are to enter into a negotiation that will result in peace.
On behalf of Sennacherib, Rabshakeh proposed a peace treaty or agreement or contract made by belligerent powers, where they agree to lay down their arms, and stipulate the conditions of peace and regulate the manner in which it is to be restored and maintained.
The Sennacherib's second condition is that the Jews "come out to me." The word for "come out" is the Hebrew word "yawtsaw" that is the same that verb is used to refer to the emancipation of slaves: Exodus 21:2; If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall go (yawtsaw) out as a free man without payment."
Rabshakeh knows that the Jews were once enslaved to the Egyptians. He has tried to shame them for voluntarily entering into a coalition with the Pharaoh to protect their freedom.
Since Assyria has defeated Egypt, Egypt has failed them and so they are now in jeopardy of going into slavery to the Assyrians.
This is true but in the Maleficent Deception this is not what the Rabshakeh says in his rhetorical veil. He previously made the point that Judah's allegiance to the God of Israel would not protect them and that they would soon be in slavery to Sennacherib but he is willing to offer them a deal if they surrender.
He uses the very same word employed by the Lord in His instructions regarding master and salve relationships in God's Word to imply that if the citizens of Judah "come out to him that they will be made truly free.
The conditions that Sennacherib places on the Jews are that they (1) negotiate a treaty of peace with him and (2) surrender to him in order to escape slavery.
This is indeed a Maleficent Deception since this is exactly what the king of Assyria plans to do to them. However, in order to continue the deception he must make them an offer to entice them to vote to surrender.
What Sennacherib proposes through the Rabshakeh is that if they do submit to these conditions then they will be allowed to go back to their homes and drink their own wine, eat their own figs, and drink water from their own reservoirs.
Sounds too good to be true doesn't it. Well, what comes next is a bright red flag for those who recognize the deception. The key word is "until."
Isaiah 36:17; until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, and land of bread and vineyards."
The word "until" a preposition that is used to indicate a temporary situation that extends from the past or the present into some definite point in the future where things will change.
In other words, the people of Judah could stay in their homes and return to their normal lives but only for a short while. "Until" indicates that Sennacherib would be back and when he arrives the Jews are going to willingly accompany him back to Assyria where they will live in a land that is rich with grain, new wine, bread, and vineyards.
But there is a very important difference between the description of their circumstances in Assyria as compared with those in Judah. In verse 16 the Jews would be free to drink their own wine, eat their own figs, and drink water from their own cisterns.
Verse 17 lacks the use of those personal pronouns. The Rabshakeh simply says that when Sennacherib returns he will take them to a land like their own land but they won't own it. He then describes the land's bounty but none of it will belong to the people of Judah.
The land has grain, new wine, bread, and vineyards but the Jews will not be able to call any of it theirs. Instead they will be the ones providing the slave labor to plant, tend, and harvest these crops and manufacture the products.
They will harvest the grain and bake the bread; they will tend the vineyards and produce an Assyrian wine. And there will be even more for them to do according to the parallel passage.
2Kings 18:32; until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey, that you may live and not die....
In addition to the duties already mentioned, they will also harvest olives and make olive oil and attend the hives and fetch honey for the nice Assyrian people in their new location.
Those who are listening carefully will discern from the Rabshakeh's proposal that the personal possessive pronoun is missing once the Jews arrive in Assyria and that the only benefit for agreeing to this Treaty of Peace? "They will live and not die."
Sennacherib grants and unprecedented concession to the Jews while he is organizing their deportation back to Assyria. He will systematically select those he thinks will make good slaves and tell them they won't believe how good life is in Assyria.
The others will either be executed or allowed to remain alive to eat their own dung and drink their own urine.