Grace and Truth
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Doctrinal believers are not fooled by propaganda and they wait quietly and confidently on the Lord God

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 the Rabshakea was trying to deceive the Jews and get them to surrender with a Maleficent Deception" that is similar to what the progressives are doing today.

Isa 36:18; 'Do not let Hezekiah mislead you by saying, "The Lord will deliver us." Has any one of the gods of the nations we have fought delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

v 19 'Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand?
v 20 'Who among all the gods of these countries have delivered their land from my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hands?'

The constant theme of the Rabshakeh's propaganda was to destroy the people's faith in Hezekiah and the God of Israel and to replace it with faith in the word of Sennacherib.

The Rabshakeh uses Assyrian military history to give examples of how the gods of the nations invaded by Assyria have failed to deliver the peoples who looked to them for protection.

He gives the examples of the gods of Hamath, Arpad, and Sepharvaim. These are cities located in Syria the north. The assertion is that if their "gods" were not able to deliver them how can the people of Jerusalem expect the Lord God of Israel to deliver them?

The Rabshakeh viewed the "gods" of the nations Assyria invaded as mere inventions that assuaged the fears and soothed the emotions of the people but were nothing more than illusions to be destroyed by Assyrian power.

This same viewpoint has become the mantra of our increasingly progressive culture. The allegation that all religions are based on mythology and that the "gods" worshipped by the followers of these religions are no more real then the "gods" worshiped by the people of ancient cultures.

The self-anointed progressive elites have concluded that all religions are simply inventions designed to support and sustain the values, morals, and traditions of various cultures and since diversity and multiculturalism demand tolerance of all cultures then all religions must be tolerated as well.

However, the power of any religion is neutralized when they are all accepted as being equal. This lends credence to the claim that religion is a characteristic of all cultures and that in the end all worship the same "god."

Further, since all cultures are equal then all religions are equal. But should one religion assert that it is superior to all others, as most of them claim, then it must be silenced or discredited. In the interest of diversity all religious discourse is considered to be unfit for public discussion.

Therefore religions are not only forbidden to be the government, that is a biblical principle for the church age, but they are also forbidden to even influence the government, which is the sine qua non of the survival of the client nation.

Religion is "tolerated" as long as it is personal, exercised privately, and its teachings are never widely introduced into the marketplace of ideas. This results in the false hope that the utopian socialist ideal of world peace, free of religious friction and conflict, is attainable.

The Bible is divine revelation of principles, guidelines, and mandates designed to create order within the chaos of the devil's world by establishing a framework for the protection and survival of the human race.

This framework establishes the true authority structures that have the delegated authority and power from God to keep the sin nature in check. The progressive anti-authoritarians resent any system of authority other than their own especially from a source that they believe is a myth.

Those who choose to worship their "god" are allowed to do so if they don't make waves or subscribe to some written standard they claim to be divine revelation.

Those who do claim divine revelation are characterized as radical fundamentalists whose literal interpretation of the Bible results in the development of authoritarian personalities that are the source of totalitarianism.

This exposes the true motivation and incentive behind political correctness, multiculturalism, diversity, and globalism. They are all methods that satan deploys to tear down all systems of traditionalist authority in order to install his own globalist totalitarian society.

Satan is the first anti-authoritarian. But satan and all anti-authoritarians who followed him are not opposed to all authority they are only opposed to those systems they do not control.

In fact, progressives promote the removal of all systems of restraint except those that would restrain them. And the authoritarian systems that restrain satan in the Church Age are Bible Doctrine, advancing believers, and client nations. Consequently, these become satan's primary targets in the Invisible War.

Without doctrine, believers quickly fall under the influence of the doctrine of demons and a client nation that has been robbed of the influence of mature believers will quickly fall under the influence of satan's ambassador demons.

The Bible clearly reveals that human sin is inspired by a genetically formed OSN and is committed in complicity with the free will.

However, if a Christian identifies certain attitudes, statements, and behaviors as sinful, the progressive accuses him of being judgmental. Progressives don't believe in sin. They do believe that people have genetic propensities but they are not of the "flesh" as defined by Scripture but rather of the "mind" as suggested by the priests of psychotherapy.

Their view is that what the "flesh" does is not sinful but instead it is simply an expression of a person's individual rights and as long as this expression does not interfere with any other person's "rights" then one should be free to do it.

"Mental propensities" must not be criticized but understood as having been inherited. If thoughts, statements, or behaviors violate another's "rights" then the indiscretion is addressed by counseling and, when counseling fails is treated with drugs.

However if the indiscretion is viewed as a criticism of another's thoughts, speech, or behavior from a traditionalist worldview then it is the accuser who has the problem not the one who has committed the indiscretion.

The accuser must therefore be "re-educated" with sensitivity training and, should this fail, disciplinary measures that characterize the person as intolerant, mean-spirited, and judgmental must be imposed.

Public confession of wrongdoing is equivalent to confession of sin followed by strict adherence to political correctness that is the progressive's equivalent to spiritual growth.

This is the principle found in 2Tim 3:4-5; ...lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power...

By using these methods progressive ideology has made great progress in achieving satan's campaign to discredit the influence of doctrinal believers on society while neutralizing the impact of the client nation in the world.

The Rabshakeh promotes this same type of "religious equality" in his dealings with the citizens of Jerusalem. He proposes that their "god" is simply incompetent to stand up against the Assyrian army and he recites recent history to confirm it.

Where were the "gods" of Hamath, Arpad, and Sepharvaim when the Assyrian army arrived? The people depended upon them to defend their land but they could not.
He then implies that neither could the God of Israel defend Judah against the power of Assyria. If so, then where was He when Assyria destroyed the Northern Kingdom in 721 b.c.?

The Rabshakeh is not competent to analyze the functions of God's will. God's omnipotence is employed to defend a client nation in its ascendancy, but it is often withheld when that same client nation is in decline.

The inventory of doctrinal truth in the souls of believers determines this ebb and flow. If Assyria was successful in subduing the Northern Kingdom then it was only because God's permissive will had allowed it.

Omnipotence was withheld from Israel as a disciplinary measure, but it was not a sign of God's approval for Assyria. The reason that the Northern Kingdom fell to Shalmaneser was not because of the power of the Assyrian army but because of the doctrinal weakness in the souls of Israel's believers.

2Kings 17 documents the spiritual decline and ultimate fall of the Northern Kingdom. The fifth cycle of discipline was administered during the reign of Hoshea (732-721 b.c.).

The final king of the divine kingdom of Israel is described in 2Kings 17:1; In the twelfth year of Ahaz ( father of Hezekiah ) king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah became king over Israel in Samaria, and reigned nine years.

v2 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, only not as the kings of Israel who were before him.
v3 Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him, and Hoshea became his servant and paid him tribute.

2Kings 17:4; But the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea, who had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and had offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year; so the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison.

v5 Then the king of Assyria invaded the whole land and went up to Samaria and besieged it three years.
v6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried Israel away into exile to Assyria, and settled them in Halah and Habor, on the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

A summary of this Assyrian victory over Israel is provided in "Israel to the Time of the Babylonian Captivity." by, M. J Mulder. In The World of the Old Testament, edited by A. S. van der Woude. Translated by Sierd Woudstra. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1989), pages 57-58:

Under Shalmaneser V, Hoshea tried not only to escape his tributary status to the Assyrians but also to form a coalition of revolters against Assyria. In this connection So, "king of Egypt," is mentioned. Shalmaneser, hearing of the revolt of his Israelite vassal, promptly took action.

He invaded Israel and for three years laid siege to Samaria. In 722-721, shortly before Shalmaneser's death, the city fell. Around 720, Sargon II, his successor, decided to put an end to the regularly recurring revolts in Samaria.

He recaptured the city and deported the remaining population to Calah, the Habur River area, and some cities in Media. At the same time the Assyrians repopulated the formerly Israelite territory with people deported from Babylon, Cuthah , Avva , and some other cities.

According to a figure from Sargon II, 27,290 inhabitants were deported from Samaria. A considerable segment of the Israelite population must have been left behind. For a long time to come this remnant may have kept alive the hope for the restoration of Israel.

The ten northern tribes did not just disappear; on the contrary, with the immigrants they constituted a mixed people, the Samaritans, whom the Judeans on account of their deviant religious views later despised.

The fall of Israel was due to its sins: Baal worship, nature worship, and practicing the customs of the Canaanite peoples. It is undeniable that Jeroboam I (first king of the Northern Kingdom) erected the bull images in order to couple Yahwism and Baalism and thus integrate the Canaanite population into the state of Israel.

Israelite kings followed this policy until the end of the nation. The success of this policy varied, with Yahwism and Baalism alternately becoming dominant. Though separate religions are never easy to integrate and though Yahwism did not cease to condemn the religious situation in the northern realm, it nevertheless was infected by Baalism. As a result a YHWH-Baal syncretism could develop, as mentioned in the book of Hosea.

This summary is very instructive because it gives us clues as to what we might expect in the USA in the years to come. Observe that the Northern Kingdom allowed a syncretism of Yahwism and Baalism throughout its history.

This advances the idea that the two were compatible since both of their constituencies worshiped "god". This fostered the false conclusion that all God's children are just trying to get to heaven the best they know how. This is heresy and God's prophets consistently prophesied of calamity because of it.

This same notion is being promoted in America today. We hear that Judaism's Elohim, Christianity's God, and Islam's Allah are the same deity worshipped by different religions in a different ways.

This is 100% wrong but it also creates the environment for syncretism. When the permissive will permits an aggressor nation to strike a future generation in this country the opinion will be voiced that none of these "gods" were capable of resisting the assaulting predator nation.

The reality will be that the permissive will of God is disciplining a reversionistic population because of their failure to worship him with orthodox doctrine.

This is similar to what happened to the Jews in our Lord's generation and was one of the reasons that they rejected him. Matt 15:9;' But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.'

After the fall of the Northern Kingdom the Assyrians imported immigrants from Babylonia. These were Semitics who intermarried with the remaining Israelites who had forgotten the spiritual life of Israel. Thus their syncretism was further amplified with the introduction of the cultic religion of Babylon that worshipped the moon god, al-ilah.

This is the danger client nation USA faces. We do not have enough doctrinal knowledge to sustain the influx of heathen peoples who will gradually syncretize Christianity with their imported belief systems.

The resultant problem is addressed by Hosea in Hosea 4:1; Shama Listen and obey the Word of the Lord, O children of Israel ( Northern Kingdom ), for the Lord has an indictment against the citizens of the client nation, because there is no truth being taught, no grace being applied, and no knowledge of God in the land.

v2 Instead there is lying and deceiving, murder and stealing and committing rape. Therefore there is violence in the land as bloodshed follows bloodshed ( mob violence as civic order erodes ).

v3 For this cause ( the breakdown of the divine institutions ) the land shall mourn, and everyone who lives in it has lost his integrity. The animals of the field and the birds of the sky; also the fish of the sea shall be taken away.

v4 Only let no one challenge the prophet to impugn his message; for those who do are like those who try to destroy the authority of the priesthood.

v5 Therefore you have stumbled by means of arrogance in the light of accurate instruction, and the false prophet will stumble with you in the night and I will destroy your government.

v6 My nation is destroyed because of lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowing doctrine, therefore I will reject you from being a client nation to Me. Since you have rejected the Law of your God, I also will neglect your citizens.

Hosea's prophesy was directed toward the Northern Kingdom and as we have seen its predictions came true. But the Rabshakeh interpreted this as the failure of the God of Israel to defend and protect His people. And if He was incapable of doing so in the Northern Kingdom it stood to reason this would also be the case in the Southern Kingdom. He therefore concludes his speech with...

Isa 36:18; 'Do not let Hezekiah mislead you by saying, "The Lord will deliver us." Has any one of the gods of the nations we have fought delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

v19 'Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad ? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand?
v20 'Who among all the gods of these countries have delivered their land from my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hands?'

The error in the Rabshakeh's rationale is that he assumes that the God of Israel is as much a myth as the wood and stone idols worshipped by the heathen nations that the Assyrian army had conquered. His assumptions are wrong an is about to run up against the real God of Israel, the Lord of the armies.

The Rabshakeh's tenth propaganda objective was to extrapolate from the failure of others to convince his target audience that they fall in the same category. If other nations have fallen to the military power of Assyria then yours will also.

But unknown to him there was a difference. The difference was that Hezekiah and the citizens of Judah in 701 b.c. had acknowledged their sins and resumed the spiritual life of their dispensation. The people sitting on the wall, according to Isaiah 36:21; were silent and answered him not a word; for the king's commandment was, "Do not answer him."

People with doctrine in their souls cannot be brainwashed because they are not susceptible to propaganda. Their high inventory of Bible doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness provides them with the discernment that is necessary to override any propaganda no matter how well it is conjured and presented.

The Rabshakeh views his previous victories as being not only the defeat of national entities but also of their gods. But these were false gods of rock and wood. Nevertheless, when observed from the Rabshakeh's viewpoint, his ten propaganda objectives were masterfully delivered.

However, the message of Sennacherib's Secretary of State was neutralized by his inability to comprehend the theology of Judaism and the principles that enable the discernment of the Lord God's management of history.

He did an excellent job of propagandizing the citizens of Judah but because of their loyalty to Hezekiah's leadership and their faith in the Word of the Lord God they did not choose to be brainwashed.

We have seen that the Rabshakeh's propaganda laced speech was given at "conduit of the upper pool on the highway on the fuller's field." He had selected this location because he wanted to remind the people that during the reign of Ahaz, Isaiah had selected this same location deliver his prophecy that the Assyrians would invade Judah.

The Rabshakeh thought he had done his research well and that by positioning himself in this spot the people would see the clear implication that Isaiah's prophecy had come true.

But Isaiah never prophesied the fall of Judah, he only prophesied that there would be an invasion. There were other implications regarding the location of Isaiah's speech that as an unbeliever the Rabshakeh was incapable of understanding.

And it is this disadvantage that caused his selection of the "conduit of the upper pool" as the place for his speech to result in a confirmation of Hezekiah's commandment, "Do not answer him."

Only those who had a doctrinal inventory could possibly pick up on the subtlety but the citizens of Judah did. The Rabshakeh sought a propaganda advantage by choosing the conduit as the site for his address but by doing so his assumed advantage was actually a disadvantage.

Isaiah had indeed delivered his prophecy of the Assyrian invasion on the conduit, but he also sent with it a coded message that provided the solution to the problem about which he prophesied.

It is this coded message that takes our study of the Assyrian invasion of client nation Judah and segues us to satan's primary objective for the attack that was an attack on the line of Christ.

This coded message will also show us into how divine omniscience and omnipotence anticipate satan's every move and defeat him at just the right time and often in the nick of time in order to glorify God to the maximum.

Isa 7:1; It came about in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Aram and Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not conquer it.

v2 When it was reported to the house of David (King Ahaz), saying, "The Arameans have camped in Ephraim," his heart and the hearts of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake with the wind.

Ahaz, Hezekiah's father was the king of Judah from 732-716 b.c. He was a disobedient king. 2Kings 16:2; Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and he did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord his God, as his father David had done.

v 3- But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel (the syncretism of Baal and YHWH worship) and even made his son pass through the fire (a Molech offering, in this case to appease the Assyrian gods, Adrammelech and Anammelech, adopted in Sepharvim and later by Ahaz in Judah ), according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had driven out from before the sons of Israel.

v4 And he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

In Isa 7:2; Ahaz is being given a situation report in that informs him that a coalition of forces, made up of the Aramean and Israelite armies, has assembled in Ephraim and plans to put a siege on Jerusalem.

A summary of the report is provided in Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah by Franz Delitzsch where information is gathered from the three parallel passages: 2Kings 15:37 -2Kings 16:6; 2Chron 28; and Isaiah 7;

Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah. by Franz Delitzsch, Translated by James Martin. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1969), volume 1 page 207:

Rezin conquered the seaport town of Elath , which then belonged to the kingdom of Judah. While Rezin was on his way to Elath, Pekah resolved to attack Jerusalem, but failed in his attempt. Rezin was more successful in his expedition, which was a much easier one, and after the conquest of Elath united his forces with those of his allies.

Following the sacking of Elath, Rezin returned to Ephraim and "camped" there." This term indicates that the Aramean army bivouacked in the Northern Kingdom while Rezin and Pekah developed a strategy to make an allied assault on Jerusalem:

The expression nuach (camped) is explained in 2 Sam 17:12; by the figurative simile, "as the dew falls upon the ground:" there it denotes a hostile invasion, here the arrival of one army to the support of another.

The allies now prepared for a second united expedition against Jerusalem. In the meantime, Jerusalem was like a besieged city, in the midst of enemies plundering and burning on every side.

Elath had fallen and in the prospect of his approaching junction with the allied army, it was quite natural, from the human point of view, that the court and people of Jerusalem should tremble like aspen leaves.

While these allies were assembling in the Northern Kingdom the Lord commissioned Isaiah to meet with King Ahaz at Jerusalem:

Isa 7:3; Then the Lord said to Isaiah, "Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway to the fuller's field."

The Lord's first instruction to Isaiah is to take with him his son "Shear-jashub" whose name has great significance in the context because it means "A remnant shall return." (NET note 7) Isaiah's son's name is symbolic of the message that the Lord intends for him to communicate.

The Rabshakeh is using a prophecy that has encoded in it the fact that the Assyrian army will be destroyed.

 

© Copyright 2007, Michael Lemmon Bible Ministries. World Rights Reserved.  This document was created on 2/13/2013