The Devil's Microphone Text: Isaiah 36:4-10
Introduction: The Pressures of Pagan Propaganda
We live in an age of managed narratives, of high-pressure propaganda, where the enemies of God have seized control of virtually every microphone. They stand on the walls of our culture, much like the Rabshakeh stood before the walls of Jerusalem, and they shout their blasphemies in a language everyone can understand. Their goal is not simply to conquer, but to demoralize. Their primary weapon is not the siege engine, but the carefully crafted word, the psychological operation designed to make God's people feel isolated, foolish, and abandoned.
The scene in Isaiah 36 is a master class in spiritual warfare. Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, the global superpower of the day, has rolled over every fortified city in Judah. He is the beast, the leviathan, and Jerusalem is the last city standing. But before he attacks, he sends his chief of staff, the Rabshakeh, to engage in a bit of public diplomacy. This is not a negotiation; it is an ultimatum wrapped in a series of sophisticated, calculated taunts. The Rabshakeh is a smooth talker, a cunning diplomat, and he knows exactly where to apply the pressure. He attacks Hezekiah's leadership, his military strategy, his foreign alliances, and most importantly, his trust in Yahweh.
This is precisely the strategy of the devil. He is the accuser, the slanderer, the father of lies. He comes to us, not with horns and a pitchfork, but with reasonable-sounding arguments that mix truth with poison. He questions God's goodness, he magnifies our weakness, he points out the failures of our leaders, and he even has the audacity to claim that God is on his side. Every Christian who has ever tried to stand firm in the faith has heard the voice of the Rabshakeh whispering in his ear, or more likely today, shouting from his screen. "What is this trust you have? It's just empty words. Your God can't save you. In fact, your God sent me."
How we respond to this kind of assault is a test of our foundational loyalties. Do we believe the report of the world, or do we believe the report of the Lord? Hezekiah's men were commanded to be silent, to not even answer the fool according to his folly. But before we get to their faithful silence, we must first dissect the devil's speech. We must understand the anatomy of the lie so that we can recognize it, despise it, and stand firm against it.
The Text
Then Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, “What is this trust that you have? I say, ‘Your counsel and might for the war are only empty words.’ Now in whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me? Behold, you trust in 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 trust in him. But if you say to me, ‘We trust in Yahweh 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’? So now, 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 give riders for them. How then can you turn away one official of the least of my master’s servants and trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? So now, have I come up without the approval of Yahweh against this land to make it a ruin? Yahweh said to me, ‘Go up against this land and make it a ruin.’ ” ’ ”
(Isaiah 36:4-10 LSB)
The Arrogance of Empire (v. 4-5)
The assault begins with a blast of imperial arrogance and a direct challenge to the foundation of Hezekiah's confidence.
"Then Rabshakeh said to them, 'Say now to Hezekiah, Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, What is this trust that you have? I say, Your counsel and might for the war are only empty words.' Now in whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?" (Isaiah 36:4-5)
Notice the titles. The Rabshakeh doesn't just represent the king of Assyria; he represents "the great king." This was a standard title for the Assyrian emperor, a man who considered himself the center of the world, the ruler of all he surveyed. This is the voice of secular power in every age. It speaks with an absolute, self-referential authority. Caesar is lord. The state is ultimate. The expert consensus is settled. The great king has spoken.
From this position of assumed supremacy, he launches his first dart: "What is this trust that you have?" The word for trust here is confidence, the basis of your security. The Rabshakeh looks at Jerusalem, a tiny city-state surrounded by his master's invincible army, and he sees Hezekiah's defiance as sheer madness. From a purely materialistic, geopolitical perspective, he's right. Hezekiah has no army to speak of, no powerful allies, no strategic advantage. His confidence must therefore be baseless. It is, as the Rabshakeh says, "only empty words." The Hebrew is literally "a word of the lips." He is accusing Hezekiah of cheap talk, of religious sloganeering with no substance to back it up.
This is always the world's first line of attack against the church. "You Christians talk a good game. You speak of faith, hope, and love. But what does that amount to in the real world? Look at the numbers. Look at the power structures. Your counsel is foolishness and your might is non-existent. You are clinging to empty words." The world measures everything by what it can see, count, and control. Faith, by definition, is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. To the Rabshakeh, and to his modern secular heirs, this is lunacy.
He frames Hezekiah's faithfulness to God as rebellion against Assyria. "in whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?" This is how godless power always sees things. If you are not submitted to them, you are in rebellion. They cannot comprehend a higher allegiance. For them, there is no court of appeal beyond the great king. To declare your trust in Yahweh is to declare yourself an enemy of the state. This is why the early Christians were persecuted. It wasn't because they worshipped Jesus in their homes. It was because they confessed "Jesus is Lord," which was a direct, treasonous contradiction of the state's claim that "Caesar is Lord."
The Crushed Reed of Human Help (v. 6)
Next, the Rabshakeh demonstrates his shrewd political intelligence. He knows about Judah's foreign policy debates, and he attacks their weakest link.
"Behold, you trust in 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 trust in him." (Isaiah 36:6 LSB)
Here is the poison of a half-truth. The Rabshakeh is absolutely correct about Egypt. Egypt was a washed-up power, a shadow of its former glory. They were notorious for promising help and then failing to deliver. Leaning on Egypt for support was like leaning on a reed that has already been crushed. Not only will it fail to support you, but its sharp, broken edges will pierce your hand. This is a brilliant and accurate metaphor.
And here is the kicker: Isaiah the prophet had been saying the exact same thing for years! God had repeatedly warned Judah not to make an alliance with Egypt (Isaiah 30:1-7, 31:1-3). So the Rabshakeh is quoting, in principle, the prophetic word of God back to God's people. This is one of the devil's favorite tricks. He will use Scripture, or true principles, to lead you to an ungodly conclusion. He did it with Jesus in the wilderness. "It is written," the devil says, "He will command his angels concerning you."
The Rabshakeh's goal is to sow division and doubt. He wants the pro-Egypt faction in Jerusalem to feel exposed and foolish. He wants the faithful followers of Yahweh to think, "Well, he's right about Egypt. Maybe he's right about everything else too." When the enemy starts making sense on one point, it is a temptation to grant him credibility on all the others. But we must distinguish. The Rabshakeh is right that trusting in Egypt is folly. He is dead wrong about the conclusion he wants them to draw, which is that they should therefore trust in Assyria. The biblical position was to reject both pagan alliances and trust in God alone.
The Twisted Truth about True Worship (v. 7)
Having dismissed their human hopes, the Rabshakeh turns his attention to their divine hope, and here his blasphemy becomes more direct and his cunning more subtle.
"But if you say to me, ‘We trust in Yahweh 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’?" (Isaiah 36:7 LSB)
This is a masterstroke of satanic propaganda. Hezekiah had recently instituted a series of sweeping religious reforms. He had torn down the idolatrous "high places" and pagan altars that had polluted the land for generations, and he had centralized worship at the one true altar in the Jerusalem temple, just as the law of Moses commanded (Deuteronomy 12). This was Hezekiah's greatest act of faithfulness. It was a national repentance, a return to the covenant.
But the Rabshakeh, with exquisite malice, spins this act of obedience as an act of impiety. He says to the people on the wall, "You trust in Yahweh? Your king just went on a rampage destroying his altars all over the country! You think this God is pleased with him? Hezekiah has offended your God, not honored Him. He has made it harder for you to worship, not easier."
He is appealing to the syncretistic, superstitious folk religion of the common people. Many of them probably did feel that Hezekiah's reforms were extreme. They liked the convenience of their local shrines. The Rabshakeh is exploiting a fissure within Judah itself. He is portraying reformation as destruction. He is painting obedience to God's Word as an attack on God.
And don't we see this everywhere today? When a church disciplines an unrepentant member, the world shouts, "How unloving! How judgmental! Is that what your God is like?" When Christians insist on the exclusive worship of Jesus Christ, the world says, "How intolerant! You are tearing down the altars of other gods. You are offending the divine." When we call for repentance from sexual sin, they accuse us of attacking people's identity. The enemy's tactic is to take our most faithful acts of obedience and rebrand them as acts of hateful bigotry.
The Mockery of Weakness and the Blasphemy of Divine Commission (v. 8-10)
The Rabshakeh concludes his opening salvo with a contemptuous offer and a final, blasphemous claim.
"So now, 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 give riders for them. How then can you turn away one official of the least of my master’s servants and trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?" (Isaiah 36:8-9 LSB)
This is pure mockery. He knows Judah has no significant cavalry. The offer of two thousand horses is a sarcastic jab at their military impotence. "I'll give you the hardware, but you don't even have the men to use it. You are so pathetic you can't even stand up to the lowest-ranking captain in our army, and yet you think you can defy the great king himself?" This is the language of the bully, designed to humiliate and intimidate. It is an argument from sheer scale. Might makes right. We are big and you are small, therefore you must submit.
But the final thrust is the most wicked of all. He wraps his threats in the mantle of divine authority.
"So now, have I come up without the approval of Yahweh against this land to make it a ruin? Yahweh said to me, ‘Go up against this land and make it a ruin.’" (Isaiah 36:10 LSB)
Here the devil's microphone is turned up to full volume. After mocking Hezekiah's trust in Yahweh, the Rabshakeh now claims to be Yahweh's personal agent. "Don't you understand? I am not fighting your God. Your God sent me. Yahweh Himself commissioned me to destroy you."
And once again, this is a venomous half-truth. God had indeed designated Assyria as the "rod of His anger" to punish a godless nation (Isaiah 10:5). The prophets had warned that judgment was coming at the hands of a foreign invader. The Rabshakeh had likely heard reports of these prophecies from spies or defectors. So he takes this truth, that God uses wicked nations to accomplish His sovereign purposes, and he weaponizes it. He twists God's sovereignty into a justification for his own wicked ambitions.
The lie is in the motive and the message. God was using Assyria, but He was not on Assyria's side. God's purpose was to chastise and purify His people. The Rabshakeh's purpose was to blaspheme God and enslave His people. He claims to be acting with God's approval, but he is doing so in utter rebellion against God's character and law. He is claiming a divine commission for a demonic mission.
Conclusion: Answering Blasphemy with Silence and Faith
So what are we to do when the Rabshakeh stands on the wall and shouts his propaganda? What is our response when the world mocks our faith, twists our obedience, and claims God for its own wicked causes? Hezekiah's command to his men was simple and profound: "Do not answer him" (Is. 36:21).
You cannot win a shouting match with a demon. You cannot reason with the unreasonable. To engage the Rabshakeh on his own terms is to grant his premise that the situation is up for debate. But it is not. The question is not whether Assyria's arguments are persuasive, but whether Yahweh's promises are true.
The proper response to this kind of high-pressure blasphemy is not a clever retort, but a quiet confidence. It is to turn away from the wall, go into the house of the Lord, and lay the matter before Him in prayer, which is exactly what Hezekiah did. The battle is not won on the wall of public opinion, but in the sanctuary of dependent faith.
The enemy will always have his talking points. He will always be able to point to our weakness. He will always be able to point to the broken reeds we are tempted to trust. He will always misrepresent our acts of faithfulness. And he will always have the audacity to claim that God is on his side. He will say, "Look at the mess in your church, look at the disaster in your family, look at the weakness of your faith. God has sent me to ruin you."
Our answer must be a resolute trust in the God who is for us, not against us. The God who sent His Son, not to ruin us, but to redeem us. The Rabshakeh speaks for the great king of Assyria, but we have a greater King, the Lord Jesus Christ, who holds all authority in heaven and on earth. Sennacherib was a mere man, and his army was destroyed by one angel of the Lord. The devil is a defeated foe, and his accusations are empty words. Let the world shout. We will be silent, and we will trust in the Lord our God. And He will deliver us.