Isaiah 37-The Lord Defends His Name
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[00:00:00] Uh, we have a still a guest speaker, so it's all arranged. Uh, so Caleb Schmidt comes to us from, um, a congregation here in Bonners Ferry, and he's gonna come and bring the word to us this morning. Um, I will just make a quick note. We're gonna do things a little bit differently this morning. He's been recovering from, uh, an illness and so he's asked us to help out with some of the scripture readings.
So. Our format for the surface is gonna be a little bit different as we're going to have men from the congregation come up and read specific assigned passages of scripture throughout the message just to give him a little bit of a break. So with that, Caleb, please come.
Thank you.
Well, it's really good to be here with you this morning. Uh, like he said, I got sick about a week and a half ago and it turned into some pneumonia in my lung, and so it only hurts when I breathe. So I've been trying not to breathe as much, but, um, [00:01:00] I'm, uh, glad to be here and, uh, I know that the Lord just carries us through what we need to do, so I'm yeah, happy to be here.
Um, like he said, I am from, uh, Memorial Hall Fellowship. We meet down at the fairgrounds and I get a preach down there about once a month. We have a group of us that rotate through, so. Um, I'm gonna give you one of the sermons that I used a few weeks ago that I, you know, really resonated with me and, and, you know, some of my congregations said they really liked, so I'm hoping it's a blessing.
But, uh, this message comes from Isaiah 37, and the main idea here is that the Lord defends his name. And I think you'll find in your bulletins a little outline of what I'm gonna go through. So if you want to follow along with me, that might help, but I wanted to give a little bit of a. Back
backstory on where we are leading up to Isaiah 37. Um, in my church, we've been going through chapter by chapter through the book, so that part's not necessary. But, um, for this, I wanted to give that, [00:02:00] so the book of Isaiah was written during a time where God's people we're spiritually divided and they were drifting.
And the nations of Israel are already split into two nations at this point. So there's the northern Kingdom of Israel, which was consist, which had 10 tribes in it, and there was the southern kingdom of Judah, which was two tribes. And the northern Kingdom had already been conquered at this point in the book by Assyria because of their rebellion against God.
Assyria was the dominant superpower of the day, but they were conquered because they were rebelling. They ignored warning after a warning, and eventually judgment came. Judah, the Southern Kingdom was still standing, but not because they were any better than anybody else. They were dealing with the same problems.
They were dealing with idolatry and pride and trusting other nations instead of trusting God. And throughout the book, Isaiah has been calling [00:03:00] them back constantly. He keeps saying, trust the Lord. Stop relying on human strength. Stop looking for other nations to help you. But they don't listen and they keep drifting.
And so by the time we get to the end of Isaiah 36 and 37, every, everything Isaiah has warned about to the people is happening. Assyria, the most powerful empire in the world, has come to their doorstep. They have already conquered city after city, and they have already crushed nation after nation. There was no power on earth that was able to stop them.
And now they're standing at the gates of Jerusalem, the main city. And so this isn't a warning anymore. Isaiah's not warning them anymore. The moment of crisis in this chapter is here, and everything that Judah trusts in is about to be tested. And so the question at the [00:04:00] center of Isaiah 37 is this, when everything falls apart, will we finally trust God?
Yeah. When everything falls apart, will we finally trust God? So I know most of us, I know myself included, like to believe that we are in some form of control in our lives. We plan, we prepare, we build systems that make life feel stable, and most of the time that works, or at least we think it works on the surface.
But every once in a while, something happens that reminds us how fragile that control really is. I can tell you that hit me really hard when I got sick and it just turned into worse. Um, and it wasn't part of my plan, but a situ. Um, but every once in a while, situations that we cannot control come up, things that we can't fix, things we can't [00:05:00] solve, and suddenly.
We really figure out who we've been leaning on. Are we leaning on ourselves or are we leaning on Christ? And that's where Judah finds itself in this 37th chapter of Isaiah. They had plans, they had alliances, they had a king. And now the Assyrian army is standing at the gate of Jerusalem and none of it matters anymore.
And what we're going to see in this chapter is this. When human control ends, real trust in God begins. So my, my main idea is when all human options fail, God calls his people to trust in him, and he acts decisively for his glory and their salvation. So at the very end, or all the time, God acts decisively for his glory and [00:06:00] for our salvation.
So Isaiah 37 takes place during one of the most intense moments of Judas history. The army of Assyria, as I've said, was led by Sori, and they were the absolute dominant power. They had already destroyed every kingdom that was basically known. They had conquered all the rest of Jerusalem, and now they were sitting at the gates of the city.
This was not just a military threat. It was a psychological one as well because the cities that they had gone through had all fallen armies of the rest of the world have already been crushed. Nations have already been wiped out. No one has been able to stop them. And Judah, in this moment when this chapter's happening is not guessing what could happen.
They know exactly what this army is going to do. They're gonna come in and they're gonna kill everyone in their path. And [00:07:00] humanly speaking, there is no way out of this for them. And so this chapter parallels the second book of Kings Chapter 19. So it confirms that this was a real historical event, but Isaiah also knows that there is a deeper reality here.
This is not just about Assyria versus Judah. This is about whether God can be trusted. That's the big question that we have to answer. So that brings me to my first point. A crisis that drives people to God. And we're gonna read Isaiah chapter 37 verses one through seven,
Isaiah 37, 1 through seven. As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes [00:08:00] and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord, and he sent Ekim who was over the household and Shena the secretary and the senior priest covered with sackcloth to the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amos.
They said to him, thus says Hezekiah, this day is a day of distress, of rebuke and of disgrace. Children have come to the point of birth and there is no strength to bring them forth. It may be that the Lord your God, will hear the words of the Rka whom his master, the King of Assyria, has sent to mock the living God and will rebuke the words that the Lord your God has heard.
Therefore, lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left. When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, Isaiah said to them, say to your master, thus says the Lord. Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard with which the young men of the King of Assyria have Rev reviled me. [00:09:00] Behold I will put a spirit in him so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I'll make him fall by the sword in his own land.
Thank you. So when King Hezekiah hears the report, he responds immediately. He tears his clothes, he covers himself in sat cloth, and he goes to the house of the Lord. And this is significant. It's a moment where a king might call his generals or strengthen his defenses or send more tribute, more money to the Assyrian army.
Hezekiah goes to the temple, and I can tell you after going through the first 36 chapters of Isaiah. This is not how most of the kings respond in this book. In the Old Testament, it is very, this is the odd one out. So this does not mean that Hezekiah did nothing practical, but it [00:10:00] shows us the order of his trust.
Before he acts outwardly, he turns inward or upward, excuse me, before he tries to fix the crisis that they're facing. He brings the crisis before the Lord. And this is the difference between using prayer as a last resort and living in prayer as our first response. This shows us something important. He knows that this problem that they are facing is bigger than human solutions.
And the message he sends to Isaiah the prophet is vivid. This day is a day of distress. Children have come to the point of birth and there is no strength to bring them forth. So to all the men out there who have kids, we've been. Close to this position. I know for me that was the most helpless couple, you know, the most helpless I've [00:11:00] felt in my entire life.
Like our wives do all the work and then at the very end, they're still doing all the work and there's nothing that we can do about it. So this imagery here is powerful. It describes a moment where everything is led up to this point, but now there is no strength left to finish it. They are at the very edge of disaster.
They are completely helpless. Judah is not just weak. Judah is exposed. They have come to the moment where human strength has run out, and sometimes God allows his people to reach that point, not because he has abandoned them, but because he is stripping away the illusion that they were ever had any strength without him.
So before anything changes externally, God speaks. In this chapter, he says, do not be afraid. He shall fall by the sword. And this is critical. [00:12:00] The situation has not improved in the slightest. The army is still standing at their gate, but God gives his word. Faith begins with trusting that God, trusting what God says before circumstances change.
That is very important. I wanna repeat it a second time. Faith begins with trusting what God says before our circumstances change. That is often the hardest part of faith. We want God to change the situation first, and then we will have peace. But here God gives his word before he gives deliverance. The call is, trust me, while the army is still standing at the gate.
So for an application crisis doesn't create our dependence on God. It exposes it. It reveals what we've actually been [00:13:00] trusting all along, because when pressure hits, we don't rise to our ideals. We fall onto our habits. So what habits have we built in our lives? Have they been ones of. Getting angry or trying to control situations, or is our habit to turn to prayer when things go wrong?
Some of us instinctually want to take control. We start fixing things or planning or managing or trying to retain some bit of stability. Other people shut down. We avoid, or we, um, come up with distractions. Because the weight of whatever we're dealing with feels too heavy and others spiral into fear running through worst case scenarios over and over and over.
But what we see in this chapter is, is different response. The king goes to the Lord first, [00:14:00] and that forces a question on us. Where do we go first? Everything around us starts falling apart. Not where do we say we go, but where do we actually go? Because that reveals what you believe will save you. And the call here is simple, but it's not easy.
Before you reach for control, bring your problem to God. Before you try to solve anything, bring it to him and ask him for a solution. Before you let fear take over in your life, anchor yourself in God, and listen for his response. And that brings me to my second point. We're gonna read, uh, Isaiah 37 verses eight through 20, and this is the battle for trust.
Oh, okay. We'll give it one second.[00:15:00]
Okay, then Rab Shaka returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Ebna. For he had heard that the king had left Laish. Now the king heard concerning Tka, king of Kush. He set out to fight against you, and when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah saying. Thus, shall you speak to Hezekiah King of Judah.
Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands devoting them to destruction and you shall be delivered. Have the gods of the nations delivered them the nations that my father's destroyed, Zen Heron, RESPA, and the people of Eden who were in Teles.
Where is [00:16:00] the king of Hamath? The king of Arpa, the king of the city of se, king of Hannah, or the king of Eva. Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it, and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord and Hezekiah prayed to the Lord. Oh Lord of hosts God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim.
You who are the God, you alone of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth incline your ear. Oh Lord, hear and open your eyes, oh Lord, and see and hear the words of sinna, which he sent to mock the living God. Truly, oh Lord, the king. The kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations of their lands and have cast their gods into the fire.
For they were no gods, but they were the work of men's, hands, wood, and stone. Therefore, they were destroyed. So now, oh Lord, save us from his hand. All that the kingdoms of the earth. That all the kingdoms of the earth may know [00:17:00] that you alone are the Lord.
Thank you. A lot of names in this chapter that are, uh, difficult and I know for myself when I'm going through these sermons to read.
I'm sitting there watching YouTube videos, search the name of it. I listened to him a handful of times and I have to write it out myself just to try and pronounce things right, but, um, it was good. Soak rib here sends another message, and this time it goes deeper. Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you.
He says, this is no longer just intimidation. This is spiritual warfare. The enemy's attack is, attack is not only against Jerusalem's walls, it is against Hezekiah's confidence in God. The real question is not just will Jerusalem survive, the deeper question is, will Hezekiah believe the word of the Lord or will he [00:18:00] believe the voice of fear?
So Assyria builds its argument logically. We have destroyed every nation. Their gods did not save them. Your God will not save you either. And that is a direct attack on their confidence in God. So the same pattern exists today. Everyone else's failed. What makes you any different? God doesn't, God won't come through for you this time, or you are on your own, but.
We see Hezekiah's response in these verses as well, and this is one of the most powerful moments in the chapter. Hezekiah goes to the house of the Lord and he spreads that letter before God. There is something deeply simple and practical here. Hezekiah does not pretend that the letter is not real. He does not minimize the threat.[00:19:00]
He reads it. And he carries it into the presence of God and he lays it before him. And this is what prayer does. Prayer does not deny reality. It brings reality under the authority of God. He literally lays the problem out. And this is not vague prayer. This is specific. It is honest and it's direct dependence on who God is.
What was the context of this prayer? He begins with who God is. You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth you have made heaven and earth. So we need him. Notice that Hezekiah's prayer does not begin with Assyria. It begins with God, and that matters because if we begin with the problem, God can seem small, but when we begin with who God is.
The [00:20:00] problem will be put back into its proper place. There is no problem when we are comparing it to the size and the scope of who God is. So he grounds his prayer in God's sovereignty, God's power, and God's identity. And then he asks for deliverance. But notice why he asks for that deliverance that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are Lord.
And that is key. The ultimate goal, even in where he is, was not survival. His goal was that the name of God will be glorified in all the land. And so what is our application for these verses? Real prayer. Real prayer brings a real problem and. Honestly lays it before [00:21:00] God. We hold nothing back. We don't clean it up at all.
We don't pretend it's smaller than it is. We name it for what it is and we lay it before the presence of the Lord Real. Um, real prayer focuses on who God is, his power, his authority, and his unchanging character. We worship the same God today. This entire book was written about everything that we study is the exact same God.
It will recenter us, not on our situation, but on who God is. And give us a foundation and real prayer ultimately seeks God's glory over what our outcome is or what we want our outcome to be. Trusting that his purposes are greater than our immediate relief, even if the answer looks [00:22:00] different than what we hoped for.
But here's where it gets practical. Many of us thinks that our problems. Many of us think about our problems constantly, but we rarely bring them to God specifically. We replay them in the back of our minds and we talk about them with other people in our lives. We carry the weight of them all day long, but we don't actually stop and lay them before the God of the universe That created us real power takes that exact thing, the situation, the pressure, the uncertainty, and it brings it directly to God clearly and personally, and then we get to leave that burden there.
Not picking it back up when we get anxious, not trying to control it again, but trusting that God has heard our problem and that he will act for His glory and for our good. [00:23:00] Alright, let's continue with, uh, Isaiah 37 verses 21 through 35.
Hello, if you could please stand, if you're willing to read the holy scriptures. Isaiah 37, 21 through 35. Then Isaiah, the son of Amos, Hezekiah, is saying, thus says, Y Yahweh, Adonai of Israel, because you have prayed to me concerning Sinna, king of Assyria. This is the word that Yahweh has spoken concerning him.
She despises you. She scorns you, the Virgin daughter of Zion. She wags her head behind you, the daughter of Jerusalem, whom have you mocked and reviled against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes to the height. Against the holy one of Israel. By your servants, you have mocked Yahweh. You have said, with my many chariots, I have gone up to the heights of the mountains to the far recesses of Lebanon to cut down its tallest cedars, its choices cypresses to come to its remote heights, its most [00:24:00] fruitful forest.
I dug wells and drank waters. I drank up with the sole of my foot, all the streams of Egypt. Have you not heard that? I determined it long ago. I planned from days of old that now I bring to pass that you should make fortified cities crash into the heaps of ruins while they're inhabitants. Shor of strength are dismayed and confounded and have become like plants of the field and like Tinder, grass.
Like grass on the housetops, blighted before it is grown. I know you're sitting down and you're going out and you're coming in and you're raging against me because you have raged against me and your complacency has come to my ears. I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back on your ways by which you came.
And this shall be the sign for you this year. You shall eat what grows of itself, and in the second year, what springs from it. Then in the third year, sow and reap and your plant vineyards and eat the fruit and the surviving remnant of the house of Judas shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward [00:25:00] from out of Jerusalem shall go remnant.
And out of Mount Zion, a band of survivors, the zeal of Yahweh of hosts will do this. Therefore, thus says Yahweh concerning the king of Syria. He shall not come into the city or shoot an arrow there or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mount against it by the way that he came. By the same, he shall return and he shall not come into the city declares Yahweh for I will defend the city to save it for my own sake and for the sake of my servant.
David. Thank you.
Thank you.
So now in these verses, God responds and his tone is striking. He speaks against sakib with mockery, whom have you mocked against the holy one of Israel. He says in verse [00:26:00] 23, Assyria thought that they were just conquering another city. That's why he's been so arrogant and God says, you are opposing me. And this is one of the great comforts of this passage.
God sees what his people are facing. He hears the threats. He knows the pressure. He does not threaten, he does not treat, excuse me, he does not treat the attack against his people as a small thing. But because Sakib has mocked the living God, God is responding and God is sovereign over Assyria, over everything and every one.
And God says something profound. I planned it long ago. I brought it to pass. This does not excuse Assys [00:27:00] evil, but it does show that Assyria was never outside of God's control. Even the nations that rage against God are still under his rule. They may act proudly, violently, wickedly, but they never act independently of God's sovereign hand.
Assyria in this moment was not acting independently. They were an instrument, but now their pride has crossed a line that God will not stand for. And so what is really the problem with their pride? Sinna Robb's error was not just violence, it was arrogance. He assumes that his strength is his own and his victories provide.
Proved that he is superior to everyone else. [00:28:00] God was no different than any of the Gods that he had defeated in all the lands that he had gone through up until this point. And then God responds in verse 29. He says, I will put my hook in your nose. This is the imagery used for controlling an animal the mighty king of.
Nearly the entire world at this point is completely subject to God like he is cattle, and God makes a promise to his people. God assures Judah, the land will recover, the people will survive, and Jerusalem is going to stand. And why does he do that? This comes to us in verse 35, he says, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant, David.
This means that Judah's hope does not rest in Judah's worthiness. Like I said before, the other 10 tribes had [00:29:00] been destroyed and Judah was no better than them. But their hope rests in God's character and God's past promises, and that is the good news. Because our security is not based in how good we are or who we are as people, but it is based in God and his faithfulness to us and the the promises that he has given to us throughout the scriptures.
So our application for this is pride is not always loud or obvious. Sometimes it might look more like confidence in our lives. Sometimes it looks like independence. Sometimes it even looks like strength. But at its core, prides pride in our lives will say, I can handle this. I don't need [00:30:00] help. Or, I've got this under control.
This is something small. I can do it. And the danger is that we start living like that day after day for a long time. Until something comes along that exposes how frail our control really is. And what this passage shows us is very clear. God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. And so that means that the very thing that we often try to avoid.
Weakness, dependence or not having an answer is actually the place where God wants to meet us. So the question is not, are you strong enough? The question is, are we humble enough to admit that we have no strength outside of God because God is not looking for people who have it all together. We see that over and over and over [00:31:00] all the way throughout the scriptures.
He is looking for people who know that they need God and the people who aren't looking in that direction, he like Paul or Saul sometimes has to hit over the head. But, uh, let's continue. Finally, we get to the last couple verses, uh, 36 through 38, and this is the Lord delivering his people.
And the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold these were all dead bodies. Then Sin Arab King of Assyria departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh. And as he was worshiping in the house of Ni Rock, his God, AEK and shazer, his sons struck him down with the sword.
After they escaped into the land of Ara Zer Hadden, his [00:32:00] son reigned in his place.
Thank you. So the solution so far, we've gone through 35 verses leading up to this point, and the solution here is short and it comes suddenly. The angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 men in one night. There was no warning, no buildup, no battle scene that took place.
Just one act of God and the entire problem was over. I think one thing to point out here is that the army was believed to have been between 200 and 300,000, so that means that this angel that wiped out 180,000 people, either it was between 93% of the entire army and 62% of the entire army. If. Depending on if there was closer to 200, 300,000 people.
So the angel left just enough people to take back to [00:33:00] their land and tell them what the God of Israel was capable of. There was nothing that they had any power to do. It just came and went and it was over. So this shows us something important. God does not struggle to save. This chapter builds tension for a long time, but the deliverance itself is described in only a few words, and this was intentional.
What is overwhelming to man is not overwhelming to God. The army that terrified Jerusalem was gone in one night, and what seemed impossible was absolutely effortless to God. So Akra returns home and later dies at the hands of his own sons. The proud King who mocked God was brought low exactly as God [00:34:00] said he would be.
The king returns home, but he does not return victorious. He returns defeated, and even in his own temple, before his own false gods. He is not safe. God, he trusts cannot protect him from the judgment of the living God. Isaiah 37 in this chapter, it ends with a very powerful contrast. Hezekiah goes into the house of the Lord and he finds mercy sin.
Rib goes into the house of his God and he meets judgment. One king humbles himself before the true God. And the other remains proud before his false gods and their endings could not have been more different. So for our application, one of the hardest parts of trusting God is that he does often does not work on our [00:35:00] timetable.
He doesn't fix things when we think they have to be fixed. And. The tension builds up. The pressure stays on us at times, and situations don't change as quickly as we want. And in waiting, it is easy for us to think maybe God isn't going to act. But this passage reminds us that God is never late. He acts at the right time, in the right way, and for his purpose, and when he does it is clear.
That it was God acting. It has nothing to do with the effort that we put in, not our strategy, not our control. Christ alone. And that leads us to a deeper kind of trust, not just trusting God to act, but trusting in how he acts and when he's going to act, even when we don't understand, because real faith [00:36:00] says God.
I trust you, not just for the outcome, but for the timing.
So in all of my sermons, I like to bring my Old Testament passages back to Christ, and so that's what I want to do now. Isaiah 37 ultimately points forward to a greater deliverance that was accomplished by Jesus like Assyria. Humanity faces an overwhelming enemy, sin, death, and Satan and we as individuals, as humans, are completely powerless to overcome it.
And just as Hezekiah brought his crisis before God, Christ becomes the true mediator that we bring our problems to.
He not only helps us with our day-to-day problems. But he [00:37:00] solved our ultimate problem of sin and death through his death and resurrection on the cross, and just for as God acted for the sake of his name and his promise to David, that promise is fulfilled in Christ, the true son of David, whom God established his eternal kingdom through not just a temporary deliverance.
From an enemy like we see in Isaiah 37, Christ was the complete and eternal salvation that was. That is a free gift that is offered to every single one of us. God is not just preserving a city anymore. He redeemed his entire people through Christ. It's not just a moment where God intervened in history to change an outcome, but when Christ died and rose.
It was the moment when God secured eternity for everyone who [00:38:00] would put their faith in him through Christ. God does not simply remove a threat. He transforms our standing before God. He forgives sin. He defeated death. He brings us into his kingdom, and what Isaiah 37 shows us in part is. God defending his people and acting for his glory.
And this finds its full and final fulfillment in Christ alone, where God displays his glory most clearly, not just in judgment, but in salvation. So if you don't know this salvation, please talk to me or one of the elders, someone here. We would love to talk more about this. I know every one of us would so.
To tie this all together, to bring it to our lives today. How does this help us in the week as we go forward? [00:39:00] What are we called to do? Isaiah 37 doesn't just show us what God does. It shows us how we are meant to live in response to him. Because if these things are true, if God really is sovereign over all the nations, if crisis really does reveal what we trust.
God really does oppose the proud, and if he really does act for his glory, then there is only one right posture for all of us. We must come to the Lord in humility and hand over everything that we deal with in prayer, just like Hezekiah did when everything else is stripped away, when the pressure is at its highest, when there is no solution left in our lives.
We don't harden ourselves. We don't pretend like we have control. We don't double down on our human effort or on our [00:40:00] solutions. We need to go to the house of the Lord. We need to lay our problems down at his feet and we need to pray. And Hezekiah's pattern is the same pattern that we need to follow.
Because prayer is not something that we just turn to when everything else has failed. It needs to be a part of our lives each and every moment of every day. Prayer is not where we start. It is where we need to constantly be. Hezekiah came not in pride, not in strength, not in self-sufficiency, but he came in humility.
He tore his clothes, he's put on sackcloth, and he showed his utter dependence on God. He says, I cannot fix this, and that is exactly where God meets him. And the same is true for us today. God does [00:41:00] not respond to pride. He does not respond to self-reliance. God gives grace to the humble. So the question this passage presses on us is not just what are you facing?
How are you facing it? What are you coming to? Are you bringing it to him? Are you trying to deal with it yourself? Are you coming in control, trying to manage everything, or are you coming independence, recognizing your need for God? This chapter in Isaiah calls us to lay down the illusion of control that so many of us have and come before the Lord in humility.
Bringing everything to him and trusting him to act. So I got a real world example of this. I always try to get in one of these in my sermons, but there was a man named George Mueller who lived in England in the 18 hundreds. And what makes his [00:42:00] story so powerful, it's not just what God did for him, it's how he chose to live his life.
So he grew up in Germany. As a young man, he was known for lying, stealing, deceiving others. He would take money, he would spend it recklessly, and then he would lie to cover it up. At one point, he was even imprisoned for fraud after trying to live outside of his means. He was very clever, but he used it in all the wrong ways.
But after coming to faith in Christ, his life completely changed. What made his life remarkable was not just that he cared for over 10,000 orphans during his lifetime, but how he chose to live his life. Day by day, Mueller became convinced of something very simple, that God is not just able to save, but that God can be trusted to provide [00:43:00] completely daily, in everyday real life.
So he made a decision that shaped everything. He would never ask people for money. He would never manipulate, he would never pressure, he would never fundraise. Every need that he had, food, money, supplies he would bring before God in prayer. And this wasn't a small ministry that he ran. Over time, Mueller cared for thousands of orphans.
They had over five different sites. Entire buildings filled with kids who had nowhere to go, which means that every single day of his life, they had real needs. Meals had to be provided, clothes had to be supplied, and bills that had to be paid, and many times he had nothing in hand, but Mueller believed something very deeply.
If God had called him to this work, then God would provide for it. [00:44:00] If God had called him to this, God would provide one morning That belief was tested in a very real way. And if there is several books on Mueller out there, if you've never read one of his books, read it. Because this story I'm gonna tell you is just one story.
His entire life was like this, and it is so encouraging. But the orphanage, uh, the orphans woke up and they had no food. They were not low on food. They were not stretching things thin. There was nothing left in the orphanage to eat. There was no bread, there was no milk, there was no breakfast for the kids, and there were hundreds of them.
So now imagine the weight of this moment, children waking up, coming to the tables expecting to be fed, and there is nothing to give them. Most people in that situation would panic. They would rush out the door, they would try to borrow money, they would start scrambling for a solution. [00:45:00] But Mueller did something that doesn't make sense to the world unless we believe that God is who he says he is.
He had the children sit down at the table anyway, empty plates, empty cups, no food in sight, and he said to them, children, you know that we must be in time for school. Then he bowed his head and he thanked God for the food that they did not have yet. So think about that. He was not pretending, he was not denying their reality.
He knew that there was no food, but he also believed that God knew there was no food and that God would provide. And then within minutes there was a knock at the door and a Bakker stood there and he said, Mr. Mueller, I couldn't sleep last night. Somehow I felt that you and the kids wouldn't have bread this morning.
So I got up and started baking and he brought enough to feed all the children. And before that, they had [00:46:00] even brought all of the bread in. There was another knock at the door and the milkman stood outside and his cart had broken down right in front of the orphanage. And he said, the milk is going to spoil.
Could you guys use it? And just like that, what they did not have, God provided. Not early, not late, right when they needed it. And this wasn't a one time story. This is how Mueller lived day after day need after need, bringing everything to God and trusting him to act. Mueller never pretended like he had any control.
He never had a backup plan. He simply brought his needs before God and trusted God to act. This is what we've seen throughout this chapter as well. Not just a king, but a man who reached the end of himself and brought everything to the Lord. The same God who defeated Assyria is the same [00:47:00] God who reigns today.
The God who spoke, and an army that fell overnight has not changed in any way. The God who humbles kings who brought. Down. The proud who defend his people when they have no strength left to defend themself is still our God today.
And the same God who acted for his glory in this chapter has acted fully and finally in Jesus Christ, not just to deliver us from an army, but to deliver us from sin, not just to preserve a city. But to save his people for eternity. And so when everything else fails, when our plans run thin, when strength is absolutely gone, when the situation is beyond your control, our hope is not placed in what we [00:48:00] get to do or what we can do.
Our hope is in the Lord who saves and answers prayer. So I asked. To have Philippians four, verses four through nine red for us this morning, uh, at the beginning. But I want to close in the same way that we, we kind of open there by turning back to this New Testament passage that comes from the Apostle Paul.
Because these verses don't just give us something to understand. They give us something to live. This is God's call to us to turn from anxiety, to bring everything before him. In prayer and to rest in a peace that does not depend on our circumstances. A peace that guards our hearts, a peace that steadies our minds, a peace that comes from God himself.
And so as we read this, these verses one more time, hear them not just as instruction, but as an invitation [00:49:00] to bring everything to the Lord.
Verse four through nine, rejoice in the Lord. Always. Again, I will say rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts.
And your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received, and [00:50:00] heard and seen in me.
Practice these things and the God of peace will be with you. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the many, many, many messages that you bring to us from you, your scriptures. Lord, we thank you for the salvation. We thank you for. The strength that you have, Lord, that continues to remind us that we don't have control and that we get to turn everything over to you, that there is no power on this earth, no army that is outside of your control, Lord.
And we just thank you for that. Thank you Lord for this country and being able to worship freely. We pray for those who are meeting today that [00:51:00] don't get that or that are under persecution, Lord, that you will just be blessing them, that you will be protecting them. Just pray, Lord, that as we go through our week, you will remind us how weak we are.
Not for our own sakes, Lord, but just so that we will be constantly turning to you in prayer and allowing you to lead us and guide us in everything that we do. We pray these things in your name, amen.
