111 - Strategies for Distraction [B]

Strategies for Distraction. 2 Kings 18:19

It is the revelation from God to man that is constantly being challenged. Despite the fact that we have an overwhelming amount of evidence people still reject the Bible because the issue isn't evidence. The evidence is good for us as believers because it gives us confirmation that what we believe is true and that we really can trust the Word. But ultimately it doesn't matter how much evidence we have on the veracity of God's Word, the bottom line is still volition: Do we want to believe God's Word? No one had more evidence of the veracity of God and of His care and His existence than Adam and Eve in the garden, because God came and spent time with them every day and they heard the self-authenticating authoritative voice of God every single day. They had more evidence than we could ever possibly have in an experiential way and yet they chose to disobey God. In the same way, when the Lord Jesus Christ was on the earth and we had the living Word of God who revealed God in the flesh, and all that He said and did in terms of miracles and teaching carried the same weight, authority and validity as everything that God the Father communicated in the garden to Adam and Eve. And when we come to the New Testament and see the Lord Jesus Christ on the earth incarnate He is still rejected, not because there was not enough evidence but because evidence isn't the issue and reason isn't the issue; the problem is our volition and sin, and despite an overwhelming amount of evidence for the existence of God and the veracity of His Word, in sin the human race wants to suppress that truth in unrighteousness.

So the center focus of the battle is always: are we going to trust God or are we going to seek some other solution to the problems and challenges that we face in life? Are we really going to truly take God at His Word and trust Him radically and completely or are we going to try to solve the problem some other way? Do we believe in the sufficiency of God's power and grace, the sufficiency of the Word, or do we think that somehow we are going to try and solve our problems from our own resources? Are we going to look somewhere else for help or are we going to trust God and something else, or maybe bail out and try God as a last resort after first trying to solve our problems on our own? That is part of what Hezekiah did when he was faced with the invasion of the Assyrian army and with the overwhelming power of the Assyrians preceding that invasion because he tried to buy them off with money, the gold, silver and other objects out of the temple. Again, Hezekiah was going to try to handle it his own way by trusting the Egyptians as his allies and as the ultimate resource to give him military power in order to resist the invading force of Sennacherib.

What this does is depict for us in terms of a battle—which is how the spiritual life is often depicted in Scripture—and what it focuses for us is the same issue that we face no matter what our battle or challenge may be. The battle always comes down to the same issue: are we going to try to solve the problems, the challenges on our own, or are we going to trust in God? That becomes the key issue.

2 Kings 18:19 ^NASB 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?" The Rabshakeh's mission was an early form of psychological warfare: twisting and manipulating data in order to forget trusting in God and to trust in something else. In this we see the classic strategy that Satan always uses in order destroy our effectiveness in the spiritual life. The Rabshakeh focuses on the real central issue, and that is trust. The word that is used in this verse for confidence and trust is the Hebrew word batach, which has the idea of the expression of assurance, of confidence, what are you relying upon, what are you depending upon? It is not a trust in the sense of what it is that you believe, it has more the idea of what it is that you are placing your confidence, your hope, your confident expectation. So we see that in this verse the real issue is trust.

In the Old Testament there are three key words that are translated "trust." The first is amen which has the idea of expressing something that we believe. It comes from the root aman, which means to believe something, to trust in something. It relates to that which has a sure and stable foundation. In one place it is used to refer to the foundation stone that is under the door posts of the temple—that which cannot be shaken. The idea underlying this word aman is stability, cannot be shaken, that which provides a firm foundation.

This is used in 2 Chronicles 20:20 ^NASB "They rose early in the morning and went out to the wilderness of Tekoa; and when they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, 'Listen to me, O Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, put your trust in the LORD your God and you will be established. Put your trust in His prophets and succeed.'" The context is the description of the battle between Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, and the Amonites and Moabites who live in the south eastern flank of Judah. God gives victory to Judah and to Jehoshaphat, and after the victory they gather in the Valley of Berachah [Blessing] to worship and praise God. They had faced an enemy that overwhelmed them in terms of military ability and strength, but when God is on our side God plus one is a majority and we really don't need to be concerned about what the enemy has in their arsenal. The battle is always the Lord's for the believer. That doesn't mean we go into some sort of mystical trance and say we don't need to have technology and don't need to understand anything about strategy and tactics or the enemy, but that is not our focal point. The Bible never authorizes us to just close our eyes to reality and ignore those other factors, but it is the question of where our ultimate trust lies. Is it in money, people, technology, or is it in the Lord? 

"…put your trust in the LORD your God and you will be established. Put your trust in His prophets and succeed." Putting our trust or believing in Him are parallel or synonymous concepts. Notice, you first "put your trust in the Lord and you will be established." That means you will stand firm. The way to stand form and have stability in life doesn't come from the details of life, it comes from having our trust in God. The second statement is to "put your trust in His prophets and succeed." Why in His prophets? Because the prophet is the one who gives the message of God. How do we listen to the prophet today? We go to His Word. By putting pour trust in His Word—meaning the physical Bible, the revelation that he has given—we are in the same way putting our trust in Him. So this word aman means trust, and notice that it is trusting God that gives victory.

The second word that we find, the primary word that is emphasized and translated "trust" in the Old Testament, is the word batach. This emphasizes confidence. What are we relying on? What are we depending on? It is not trust in the abstract, it emphasizes more the result of trust which is a confident relaxed reliance—what we sometimes call faith-rest, because we trust God and that allows us to rest and relax in the midst of our circumstances. This word is used in passages such as Psalm 28:7 ^NASB "The LORD is my strength and my shield; My heart trusts [rests in confidence] in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart exults, And with my song I shall thank Him." The result of putting our confidence in Him and relaxing in His strength is that we are helped, strengthened. This leads to praising God which is a part of worship. So there is this movement from understanding who God is and what He provides for us—which is why the writer can say the Lord is his strength and shield—leading to a change of mental attitude because volitionally we are going to put our trust in God, and this leads to a solution to the problem. Then we rejoice and praise God.

Psalm 31:6, 14 ^NASB "I hate those who regard vain idols, But I trust in the LORD" Notice the "but" which indicates the contrast. There are those who put their trust and reliance in the things of creation—money, things, people, various problem-solving techniques that human viewpoint generates—but we are going to put our trust and hope solely and exclusively upon God. That is the battle, the contrast. "…. But as for me, I trust in You, O LORD, I say, 'You are my God.'" David makes it very personal here: You are my God.

In other passages in the Psalms we see what we are not supposed to have confidence in. We are not supposed to have confidence in, for example, military technology. Psalm 44:6 ^NASB "For I will not trust in my bow, Nor will my sword save me." Does that mean he is not going to take weapons into battle? Of course not, but he is not relying upon human ability, human skill, human technology to be the ultimate source of victory. Psalm 49:6 ^NASB "Even those who trust in their wealth And boast in the abundance of their riches?" Does that mean there is something wrong with wealth or accumulating material things? Not at all, it is only wrong when the accumulation of wealth and material things is designed to solve the problems that only God can solve. That is why the apostle Paul in Colossians chapter three defines greed as idolatry, because when people become greedy in terms of that materialistic lust what they are doing is assigning to things, to money and the things that money can buy, and possession of things, a source of security and stability that only God can provide. At that point it becomes idolatry. Psalm 52:7, the man who did not make God his strength "But trusted in the abundance of his riches {And} was strong in his {evil} desire." It is not that he strengthened himself by means of wickedness but that his focus in finding strength and stability somewhere other than God was that which was wicked. 

A third word that is sued in several passage sin the Old Testament is the Hebrew word shaan, which means to lean on something. From that is means moving from the physical leaning upon something to the mental dependency upon something. 2 Chronicles 3:18 ^NASB "Thus the sons of Israel were subdued at that time, and the sons of Judah conquered because they trusted [shaan] in the LORD, the God of their fathers." This is during the initial years of the division between the northern kingdom and southern kingdom. This is after the death of Rehoboam so it would be at the end of Jeroboam's life. Jeroboam uses a tactic to create an ambush on the army of Judah. Judah cried out to the Lord. They were looking ultimately to the Lord as their stability and strength. The priests sounded the trumpets: a call to worship. There was a significance to the trumpet blasts which was calling attention to what the people are doing in terms of God—coming to God to aid them in this time of need. The battle is the Lord's. It is God who intervenes in history to change things. Here they "trusted" [shaan] in the Lord; they leaned upon God; they were dependent upon Him.

2 Chronicles 14:2-4 ^NASB "Asa did good and right in the sight of the LORD his God, for he removed the foreign altars and high places, tore down the {sacred} pillars, cut down the Asherim, and commanded Judah to seek the LORD God of their fathers and to observe the law and the commandment." But then he is faced with military conflict. [9] "Now Zerah the Ethiopian came out against them with an army of a million men and 300 chariots, and he came to Mareshah." Asa will clearly be outnumbered but he has God on his side so he doesn't need anything else. [10] "So Asa went out to meet him, and they drew up in battle formation in the valley of Zephathah at Mareshah." Then we have the determinative issue. [11] "Then Asa called to the LORD his God and said, 'LORD, there is no one besides You to help {in the battle} between the powerful and those who have no strength; so help us, O LORD our God, for we trust [shaan] in You, and in Your name have come against this multitude. O LORD, You are our God; let not man prevail against You.'" Notice how they keep defining every conflict in terms of God versus whatever the challenge is. It is not us against them; it is always defined in this theological way. That is something we have lost in our culture: defining battles in terms of God. We define it is all kinds of ways but not in terms of the ultimate issue that faces us.

In Genesis 3 the serpent/Satan appeared to the woman: "Did God really say that you can't eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?" He is questioning God's revelation. The Rabshakeh asks the question: "Where is your confidence?" Today we get the same question: Where is your confidence? What are you depending upon for happiness in life, for stability in life, for meaning in life, for solving the problems being faced in life. What are you depending on? Are you focusing on God ultimately or on the various things that we have in the world system?

Previously Hezekiah had trusted in himself. He had tried to buy off the Assyrians. Then he tried to solve the problem by entering into military alliances with the Egyptians, and the Egyptians did not have the military strength to withstand the Assyrians. But there is no hope in man, no trust in man; yet that is what Hezekiah was doing. 2 Kings 18:19 ^NASB 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? [20] You say (but {they are} only empty words), '{I have} counsel and strength for the war.' Now on whom do you rely, that you have rebelled against me? [21] Now 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."

The problem we have is trusting in everything in the world but having an exclusive and unique trust in God. Psalm 118:8, 9 ^NASB "It is better to take refuge in the LORD Than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the LORD Than to trust in princes." The solution is not politics. But that doesn't mean we don't get involved in the political process.

As we get into the next section we see that the Rabshakeh takes an interesting tack in his strategy. He starts talking in terms of religious categories. 2 Kings 18:22 ^NASB "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 in Jerusalem'?" Because he doesn't understand the true religious beliefs of Israel in terms of the Mosaic covenant he doesn't see a distinction between the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob [Yahweh] and the other false gods. He lumps them all together; this is his fundamental error. He doesn't understand ultimate reality in terms of God's revelation, and because of that he looks at this is a sort of single way to the modern comparative religions approach, that all religions are basically equal and all gods are basically equally impotent in his view.

There are some things going on in our world today that are very similar to this. When there are people in power—like Sennacherib, the Rabshakeh—who are dealing with true religious reality but they reject the validity of any religion they can't properly assess or interpret the situation because they don't believe at a core suppositional level that religious ideas have any significance—whether it is true or false religious belief. For example, when Muslims have victory over an enemy they believe they should indicate that by building a mosque there. It is a strategic concept militarily, and of we let them do it then that is just fanning the flames of fanaticism on their side. We have to think in those terms. If you are secularized and have rejected the validity of any religious thinking then you can't think that way and can't make good decisions.

The other issue is that of a nuclear Iran. We often hear people say that if we don't do anything we can contain it just like we contained the Soviet Union. But there is a difference between the Soviet Union and Iran. The Soviet Union was comprised of secular atheists who did not believe there was an after life, so all there was in what is here now. In Islam ultimate reality is the after life, so let's commit religious suicide and martyrdom so that we can have a better after life. It will be better for them to cause the world to explode in a nuclear holocaust so that they can all end up with their 72 virgins in Paradise, so there is nothing to deter them. With the Soviets there was nothing after they died but with the Muslims they don't care of they die because things only get better for them and therefore there is no restraint within the way they think to cause them to refrain from actually using nuclear weapons. If we can't think in terms of religious beliefs and religious presuppositions as having validity then we are bound to make really bad decisions.

The really bad decision that the Rabshakeh is getting ready to make is because he doesn't believe that any of these gods or foreign powers that the Assyrians had defeated had any validity, neither did this God of Judah. But it is the God of Judah who is going to destroy his army and hand him and Sennacherib the greatest defeat that Assyria ever knew.