Sunday School Lesson

1. Isaiah 34-39
God Listens
October 18, 2020
His Followers Sunday School Class
First Baptist Church
Jackson, Mississippi
USA
What’s the number one thing?
The glory of God!
1 Corinthians 10:31 NKJV
31 Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of
God.
References
• Grogan, Geoffrey W., Isaiah: The Expositor’s Bible Commentary,
Zondervan, 1986
• Guffen, Gilbert L., The Gospel in Isaiah, Convention Press, 1968
• Keil-Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament - Isaiah, Eerdmans, 1866
• Knapp, Christopher, The Kings of Judah and Israel, Loizeaux Brothers, 1908
• Watts, J. D. W., Word Biblical Commentary: Isaiah, Word Books, 1985
• Wright, G. Ernest, The Book of Isaiah: The Layman’s Bible Commentary,
John Knox Press, 1964
• Young, Edward J., The Book of Isaiah: A Commentary, Eerdman, 1965
• The New American Standard Bible has been used.
• The New King James Version has been used.
Before we hit the historical events in chapters 36-39, it would be good for us to
mention 34 and 35.
Chapter 34 is a warning of utter destruction of Edom, but the warning seems to
be for all nations.

2. Isaiah 34:1-2 NASB
1 Draw near, O nations, to hear; and listen, O peoples!
Let the earth and all it contains hear, and the world and all that springs
from it.
2 For the Lord’s indignation is against all the nations,
And His wrath against all their armies;
He has utterly destroyed them,
He has given them over to slaughter.
Chapter 35 is a beautiful passage that may refer to the remnant returning to
Jerusalem from Babylon, but it’s language may better fit the redeemed of all
times returning to Jerusalem.
Isaiah 35:10 NASB
10 And the ransomed of the Lord will return,
And come with joyful shouting to Zion,
With everlasting joy upon their heads.
They will find gladness and joy,
And sorrow and sighing will flee away.
Back in Session 3, we were primarily in Isaiah 7. King Ahaz of Judah was being
threatened by Syria and Israel. Isaiah told him to trust the Lord for deliverance
and offered him a sign from God. Instead, Ahaz reached out to Assyria for aid.
Assyria, ruled by Tiglath-Pileser III, invaded and conquered Syria and Israel (732
BC) but they also forced Judah to pay heavy tribute. Overtime, this made Judah
an easier target for conquest.
Last week, Session 6 spanned Isaiah 28-33. Assyria, now ruled by Sargon II, had
attacked the Philistine city, Ashdod. (711 BC) This neighbor of Judah had been
allied with Egypt. Isaiah warned Judah, now ruled by Hezekiah, not to ally with
Egypt. (Isaiah 30 & 31)
The historical setting for Session 7 is the rebellion of Hezekiah after Sennacherib
became king of Assyria. We believe these events played out in 701 BC. Prior,
Hezekiah had tried forestalling the destruction of Jerusalem by a big payment of
tribute to Assyria and alliances with Egypt.
The passage that begins in Isaiah 36 is almost word-for-word what we see
beginning in 2 Kings 18:13. Much scholarship has been expended trying to
discredit the unity of Isaiah. One of the claims is that the compilers of Isaiah
incorporated material from 2nd Kings. Conservative scholarship affirms that
Isaiah’s material is original to Isaiah.

3. Isaiah 36:1 NASB
1 Now it came about in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king
of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them.
• The Annals of Sennacherib says that he took 46 walled cities and
countless villages.
Sennacherib was the son of Sargon II and came to power at his father’s death in
705 BC. Much of his attention was demanded by repeated rebellions by
Babylon. He reclaimed the southern portion of Babylonian territory in 700 BC.
This distraction encouraged revolt in the Levant.
Isaiah 36:2 NASB
2 And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King
Hezekiah with a large army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on
the highway of the fuller’s field.
Three officials went out to meet the field commander sent out by Sennacherib.
His speech was a masterpiece of psychological warfare, but it also contained a
challenge aimed toward the Lord of Hosts.
Isaiah 36:4-6 NASB
4 Then Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king,
the king of Assyria, “What is this confidence that you have? 5 I say, ‘Your counsel
and strength for the war are only empty words.’ Now on whom do you rely, that
you have rebelled against me? 6 Behold, you rely on the staff of this crushed
reed, even on Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce
it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him.

4. Isaiah 36:7-10 NASB
7 But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose high
places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away and has said to Judah and to
Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’? 8 Now therefore, come make a
bargain with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand
horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. 9 How then can you
repulse one official of the least of my master’s servants and rely on Egypt for
chariots and for horsemen? 10 Have I now come up without the Lord’s approval
against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land and
destroy it.’”’”
The Rabshakeh has been speaking in Hebrew. At this point Hezekiah’s three
officials ask him to switch to Aramaic so the populace will not understand his
threats. The Rabshakeh’s response is to speak even louder and to address his
words more directly to the citizens listening on the wall.
Isaiah 36:12 NASB
12 But Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me only to your master and to you
to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, doomed to eat
their own dung and drink their own urine with you?
13 Then Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in Judean, and said, “Hear
the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. 14 “Thus says the king, ‘Do not let
Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you; 15 nor let Hezekiah
make you trust in the Lord, saying, “The Lord will surely deliver us, this city shall
not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” 16 ‘Do not listen to Hezekiah,’
for thus says the king of Assyria, ‘Make your peace with me and come out to
me, and eat each of his vine and each of his fig tree and drink each of the
waters of his own cistern, 17 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.
18 ‘Beware lest Hezekiah misleads you saying, “The Lord will deliver us.” Has any
one of the gods of the nations delivered his land from the hand of the king of
Assyria? 19 ‘Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of
Sepharvaim? And when have they delivered Samaria from my hand? 20 ‘Who
among all the gods of these lands have delivered their land from my hand, that
the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’”
The impact of this speech was devastating to those who heard it. They stood
silenced. When the officials told Hezekiah, he tore his clothes, covered himself
with sackcloth and entered the house of the Lord. Then he sent distinguished
messengers to Isaiah.

5. Isaiah 37:6-7 NASB
6 Isaiah said to them, “Thus you shall say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Do
not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants
of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me. 7 “Behold, I will put a spirit in him so
that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land. And I will make him fall by
the sword in his own land.”’”
When Rabshakeh returned to find his king, a rumor had been heard that an army
was coming up out of Egypt. Rabshakeh put his words in a letter and sent it by
messengers back to Hezekiah. In it, he again disparaged the Lord.
Isaiah 37:14 NASB
14 Then Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it,
and he went up to the house of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord.
Is God without power?
1 Samuel 4-6 tells the story of the Ark of God being captured in battle by the
Philistines. God is able to fight His battles.
Is the Lord of Hosts unable to act?
1 Samuel 17 tells the story of David facing Goliath and the army of the Philistines.
1 Samuel 17:47 NASB
47 and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or
by spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and He will give you into our hands.”
Isaiah 37:15-20 NASB
15 And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord saying, 16 “Oh Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,
who art enthroned above the cherubim, Thou art the God, Thou alone, of all the
kingdoms of the earth. Thou hast made heaven and earth. 17 “Incline Thine ear,
O Lord, and hear; open Thine eyes, O Lord, and see; and listen to all the words of
Sennacherib, who sent them to reproach the living God. 18 “Truly, O Lord, the
kings of Assyria have devastated all the countries and their lands, 19 and have
cast their gods into the fire; for they were not gods but the work of men’s hands,
wood and stone. So they have destroyed them. 20 “And now, O Lord our God,
deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou
alone, Lord, art God.”
Please notice that Hezekiah has acknowledged that the Lord is God. Hezekiah
is not. He has asked God to act to deliver Judah; not because they are worthy
but so that God might be exalted and recognized.

6. Isaiah sent word to Hezekiah that the Lord had heard his prayer.
Isaiah 37:22-29 is God’s response spoken against Sennacherib.
Isaiah 37:22-29 NASB
22 this is the word that the Lord has spoken against him:
“She has despised you and mocked you,
The virgin daughter of Zion;
She has shaken her head behind you,
The daughter of Jerusalem!
23 “Whom have you reproached and blasphemed?
And against whom have you raised your voice
And haughtily lifted up your eyes?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
24 “Through your servants you have reproached the Lord,
And you have said, ‘With my many chariots I came up to the heights of
the mountains,
To the remotest parts of Lebanon;
And I cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypresses.
And I will go to its highest peak, its thickest forest.
25 ‘I dug wells and drank waters,
And with the sole of my feet I dried up
All the rivers of Egypt.’
26 “Have you not heard?
Long ago I did it,
From ancient times I planned it.
Now I have brought it to pass,
That you should turn fortified cities into ruinous heaps.
27 “Therefore their inhabitants were short of strength,
They were dismayed and put to shame;
They were as the vegetation of the field and as the green herb,
As grass on the housetops is scorched before it is grown up.
28 “But I know your sitting down
And your going out and your coming in
And your raging against Me.
29 “Because of your raging against Me
And because your arrogance has come up to My ears,
Therefore I will put My hook in your nose
And My bridle in your lips,
And I will turn you back by the way which you came.
Isaiah 37:30-35 is God’s message through Isaiah for Hezekiah and the remnant in
Judah.

7. Isaiah 37:30-35 NASB
30 “Then this shall be the sign for you: you shall eat this year what grows of itself,
in the second year what springs from the same, and in the third year sow, reap,
plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. 31 “And the surviving remnant of the house of
Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. 32 “For out of
Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and out of Mount Zion survivors. The zeal of
the Lord of hosts shall perform this.”’
33 “Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, ‘He shall not
come to this city, or shoot an arrow there; neither shall he come before it with a
shield, nor throw up a mound against it. 34 ‘By the way that he came, by The
same he shall return, and he shall not come to this city,’ declares the Lord. 35 ‘For
I will defend this city to save it for My own sake and for My servant David’s
sake.’”
Sennacherib returned to Nineveh, just as the Lord had told Hezekiah. He built his
great capital city there with wondrous palaces and temples. It was in one of
those temples, roughly 20 years later, that he was murdered by two of his sons
who sought his throne. And yes. They did use swords.
What can we take away?
• God will win the victory!
• His name will receive honor and glory!
• He hears us when we speak and sees us when we enter His presence.
• When we pray seeking His glory and according to His will, He will grant our
petition.
The Plan of Hope & Salvation:
John 3:16-17 NKJV
16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not
send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him
might be saved.”
John 14:6 NKJV
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through Me.”
Romans 3:23 NKJV
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

8. Romans 6:23a NKJV
23a For the wages of sin is death,
• Death in this life (the first death) is 100%.
• Even Jesus, the only one who doesn’t deserve death, died in this life to
pay the penalty for our sin.
• The death referred to in Romans 6:23a is the “second death” explained in
Revelation 21:8.
Revelation 21:8 NKJV
8 “But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral,
sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with
fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
• Anyone who’s lifestyle is one or more of the sins listed in Revelation 21:8,
will experience the “second death,” if they do not repent.
• To Repent means to turn around, to go in the opposite direction, to turn
away from sin and believe in Jesus.
Romans 5:8 NKJV
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.
Romans 6:23b NKJV
23b but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Revelation 21:7 NKJV
7 “He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be
My son.”
• Romans 10:9-10 explain to us how to be overcomers.
Romans 10:9-10 NKJV
9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that
God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one
believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto
salvation.
Romans 10:13 NKJV
13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Do you have questions?
Would you like to know more?
Please, contact First Baptist Church Jackson at 601-949-1900 or
https://www.firstbaptistjackson.org/contact-us/