Faith, when facing an overwhelming Situation

 Read Isaiah 36.

The fourteenth year of Hezekiah's reign places this event in 701 B.C.  Twenty-one years prior to this the Assyrians defeated the northern kingdom of Israel. They marched down the coast conquering city after city.   The last significant piece left standing in the land was Jerusalem.

Sennacherib sent thousands of troops to surround the city and demanded its surrender.  One of his field commanders, with the military rank of Rabshakeh, stood to negotiate the final terms.  King Hezekiah dispatched three of his most trusted men to the meeting.

 With enormous confidence and sarcasm, the Assyrian spokesman presented his case in no uncertain terms.
He began in verse 4 with the question that everyone must answer when facing an overwhelming situation.
"On what do you rest this trust of yours?"  Then, he made five pronouncements.  Some of these may sound familiar.

1. Hope is not a strategy. (v.5)
Positive thinking and words of affirmation about a crisis will not resolve the problem.  This is a war.  Just saying, "We will do the best we can and hope things will all work out" won't win the battle.

2. You cannot trust your neighbor to help you. (v.6)
In this case, Egypt was not the powerhouse of the past.  They could not be depended upon to come to Judah's rescue.  Isaiah had already said this in his messages.

3. You cannot rely on your own gods. (v.7)
Two things are at work in his point here.  One is that every city Assyria had systematically destroyed had their own faith systems.  None of them proved effective because they were false gods.  The big mistake by this spokesman was that he lumped the One true God along with all the others.  He, perhaps, thought that Hezekiah had lost his faith due to the removal of all the false altars to strange gods.  The truth was that the king had purged the land of all but worshiping the LORD.  (2 Kings 18)

4. You do not have enough resources to win. (v.8-9)
He even bet them that if they could come up with enough riders, he would give them 2000 horses.  But evidently he knew Jerusalem did not have that many.  Even if they did, he sarcastically said that all of those could not win a fight with one of his captains.

5. This is what God wants. (v.10)
The pagan who did not know God at all tried to bully them by claiming to speak for the LORD.  He was lying and using it as a manipulative tactic.  Beware when someone who does not profess a personal relationship with the LORD and who has never read and studied God's word endeavors to quote God. 

This encounter caused the three men to return in near despair.  Much of what the Assyrian had said was true.  What could they do?  How could they respond?  How could they survive?

But God in His faithfulness had already delivered His word through the Prophet Isaiah.  Jerusalem would not be conquered by the Assyrians.  Indeed, the Assyrians would be defeated and go home.  That required a ton of faith. 

Jeff and Sherri Easter sing a wonderful gospel song that says:
"Over and over, again and again, God is faithful.
Over and over, again and again, through it all He's made me able
To stand and survive, to come through alive, when it sure looked like I could not win.
But Jesus is with me, so I'll claim the victory, over and over again."