FaithWalk Radio

Ron Susek: Hello my friend, Ron Susek here, so glad to be with you today and glad you're here in my little studio with me through video. My friend, we're going to look again at part two of looking at Assyria through the eyes of God. What did he think of them? What does he think of them? They are the work of his hands.

He has prepared them for a tremendous future role, and he's been shaping and molding them all these centuries and millennia, preparing them for a great service under the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ. This is such a thrilling story. Stay with me. I'll be right back.

Guest (Male): Finding and knowing God is a faith walk. The Bible says that without faith, it is impossible to please God. Our hope lies in the coming Messiah, who will establish God's peaceful kingdom on earth.

This is FaithWalk with Ron Susek. Dr. Ron is an evangelist committed to encourage and equip your faith walk as we pass through these turbulent end-time days, awaiting that soon-coming kingdom. Here again is Ron Susek.

Ron Susek: Assyria was a major Semitic kingdom and eventually an empire of the ancient Near East. It existed for approximately 19 centuries. We're only two and a half hundred years deep; they were 19 centuries long. That's an amazing thing. Assyria's greatest days, the Neo-Assyrian period, spanned roughly 911 to 609 BC, about three centuries.

Verse 5 or 6: "All the birds of the heavens made their nests in the trees." All the nations were now becoming very dependent on this mighty empire that was serving them. "Under the branches all the beasts of the field gave birth to their young, and under its shadow lived all great nations." Beautiful poetry, but it's telling you that the nations were benefiting from Assyria, not being abused and used by them. Even the animals were flourishing under the boughs of the great Assyrian Empire.

And then verse 7: "It was beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its branches, for the roots went down to the abundant waters." In other words, they were creative; they invented medicine, the library—we talked about that. "The cedars of the garden of God..." Isn't that a beautiful phrase? The garden of God. Nations are the garden of God.

"The cedars of the garden of God could not rival it, nor the fir trees equal its boughs, neither were there plane trees like its branches; no tree in the garden was equal to its beauty." Now you're going to see something about that word "beauty" that's really thrilling in just a moment. In verse 8: "I made it beautiful." They didn't rise up because they had superior genetics; they were raised up by the hand of God.

And they were raised up by the hand of God for the purposes of God, and that was partly to be a rod in his hand to discipline other nations that probably may have been a bit barbarous. And then in verse 9: "I made it beautiful in the mass of its branches, and all the trees of Eden envied it, that were in the garden of God."

So God is saying, they didn't make themselves great; I made them great. But they did something that we do, and I'm going to show you that in a moment. The thing that brought them down, I'll show you this in a moment, but I'll forecast it. God made them great, the nations were depending on them for food supplies, water supplies, all kinds of inventions. And what would be the one word that brought them down? One word.

Who said that? Raise your hand. Stand up. We owe you a thousand dollars. He got it. He got it. Pride. He's ready now. Pride, pride, pride. God... we're going to... I'm emphasizing that even before we read it because why have historians say they were brought down because they were beasts? You're reading the opposite, aren't you? It's right here in the Bible.

So in, where are we now, verse 10: "Therefore, thus says the Lord God, behold, it towered high and set its top among the branches... or through the thick clouds again, and its heart was proud of its height." What did Peter tell us? Humble yourself beneath the mighty hand of God, and he will exalt you in due time.

They were exalted by the hand of God. He made them beautiful, he made them prosperous. God did all of this, and they thought they did it themselves. That's what pride is. Do you know the difference between pride and humility? Pride is believing stuff about yourself that is not true. Humility is accepting reality.

You're not God and you never will be. So humility is not looking down on yourself; it's accepting your place in creation and being happy with that. I'm created, I need God, and without God I am nothing, and if I believe anything else, that's pride and I will collapse under that. That's what brings down nations. That's what brought down Assyria.

Now remember why God is giving this. He's warning Egypt: you're next. You're next if you don't get... look what I did for Assyria. I raised them up, I brought them down because of pride, and you are next. That's the warning that's in this. By the way, this is a warning that we really need to take personally and deeply, isn't it? It really is.

Only God, only God. This is one reason why I am... I feel like Phinehas, I'm so jealous for God. I'm sick of a world that puts him on a shelf and brings him off once a year and then puts him back and says, "You behave, we're going to run the show." That is so disgusting, so ridiculous, so out of natural, you know, who can run this thing?

And I have to say that it is my hope and prayer, and I've prayed this many times: God, please don't let anyone get ahead of you in helping Assyria and take credit for getting them home. You heard that young lady, how they longed to go home. It's in their DNA; they long to go home.

I'm praying that God will do this in such a way that no one can explain it apart from God. And I hope to be privileged to write that book, because I know all the facts behind it and what went on behind the scenes and who did what and how they came to that. And to this point, we have advanced amazingly far. I'm not free to say too much yet, but it's amazingly far.

And just to say that in light of the fact that I can tell you step-by-step over the last 11 years how God just did it and did it and did it when we couldn't have made things happen. They're happening. And here's why I want to write that book and here's why I want it to go that way, because there are people competing to want to be the hero that saved the Assyrians and got them home and they want a statue of themselves inside the front gate and all that crazy stuff. Pride.

I want this for two reasons: of course, first for the Assyrians, but second, for the suffering church around the world. Have hope. The underground church in China, the suffering Christians in India, the tortured Christians in Egypt. I want them to be able to say, if God did that for Assyria, look what he did for Israel in Egypt, look what he did for Israel in under Cyrus in Persia, look what he did with the Assyrians, brought them from the diaspora around the world and got them home. He is coming for me. I want to hope that this will encourage their faith to stand firm.

And secondly, I am hoping that this will be the greatest evangelistic thrust across Islam that they have ever seen. Because many, many millions of Islamists are seeing through this thing and saying, "Wait a minute, why is it if you don't buy our message you lose your head? What is wrong with us?"

And the Holy Spirit is going to get that through, and it could be by planting the light of the gospel right in the heart of Islam. Are you getting the picture? This deserves our attention and our prayers and our efforts. Then let me just read this. After Assyria conquered the top ten tribes of Israel that we saw this morning, her ride must be sky-rocketed.

In 721 BC, they conquered Israel's ten tribes. In 701, only about 20 years later, they failed to conquer Judah and lost 185,000 soldiers in one night. You know the story. I'm showing you that for this reason: God sent them to the top ten tribes; they sent themselves to Judah. God empowered them to take out the top ten tribes and bring in the Gentiles, and he nailed them at Judah. He didn't tell them to go to Judah. You don't touch Judah. That's the temple.

And so it's a marvelous thing to see. Pride fell. What was the pride? You listen to them standing at the walls of Jerusalem talking to all the Jews that were up on the wall sitting there and they were told to be silent. And the Rabshakeh, who was there on behalf of Sennacherib, he was listing all the names of the gods they conquered in all these other nations.

If their gods couldn't stop us, why won't Hezekiah's God... how can he stop us? Pride. Pride. They were now up against the true and the living God and they didn't fully realize it and lost 185,000 men. They were in Lachish; they brought down Lachish just before coming to Jerusalem. All of that is inscribed on the stone walls of caves. The loss at Jerusalem? Not even a whisper. They didn't write about it in their history.

Verse 12: "Foreigners, most ruthless of nations, Babylon, have cut it down and left it." They cut down Assyria, and that was in 612 BC at the Battle of Nineveh. That was the turning point where they began to lose. "On the mountains and in the valleys its branches have fallen, and its boughs have been broken in all the ravines and the land, and all the people of the earth have gone away from the shadow and left it."

When Assyrians... and this is my note... when Assyrians fell, their support systems to the nations collapsed as well; they knew this is over. And then in verse 13: "On its fall... now I'm going to show you something that's very important to remember. "On its fallen trunk dwell all the birds of the heavens and on the branches and all the beasts of the field."

What are we seeing here? Even when they were falling, the nations they conquered had been so blessed by them they're still trying to hang on. Who are these characters who called them bad barbarian people and gave them a bad name and soured the church on them? Do you see how clever Satan is in twisting history?

Look at verse 14: "All this is in order that no trees by the waters may grow to towering height or set their tops among the clouds, and that no trees that drink water may reach up to them in heights, for they are all given over to death." In other words, I'm bringing down the whole empire, and the Assyrian Empire will never rise again. That's not scripture, I'm reading my notes.

Assyria will return in the kingdom. And here are the principal differences between the kingdom of Christ and the empire of Assyria. This is the difference, and this is the difference that our world is facing, and it's this. Empires conquer; God's kingdom serves. Opposite. Empires grow pride; God's kingdom reigns in humility.

Jesus came into Jerusalem on a donkey carrying a towel to wash feet, not on a high-stepping steed to show his power. Why is it we have Christian ministers who are trying to be big shots, important, flying their own private planes? What are we doing here? How sick can we be? Empires are ruled by man; God's kingdom is ruled by his hand.

Empires use metal swords; God's kingdom uses the sword of truth. Empires force compliance; God's kingdom calls for conversion. I don't... you probably don't know what a Lamassu is, but you've seen them. It's an ugly beast thing made out of stone; it's huge.

I had a picture taken by one and it's about, I don't know, 10, 12 feet high, but it's a grotesque face of a man, a very stern, firm face, and wings of an eagle, and the body of a bull, and the feet of a bull, and it's all for intimidation. They had it at the doorways of the palace and all that stuff. So one of the lines I use with them when it seems to be the right time is that you've got to leave the Lamassu and follow the Lamb of God.

Leave the Lamassu and follow the Lamb of God. They are opposite in what their statement is. And then when we come to verse 15: "Thus says the Lord, on the day the cedar (or Hebrew means 'it') went down to Sheol, I caused them to jump up and down and celebrate with rejoicing." Is that in the Bible? What's the word? "I caused mourning."

Assyria had so blessed those nations that when she toppled, the nations she conquered were mourning. What does that tell you? They were blessing those nations. That is the opposite of what you've been taught, even by Bible teachers. And I'm not criticizing; please don't take it that way, and I'm not trying to build a negative thing.

I'm just showing you we have been mistaught, and that's why we wrote them off and we're not interested, and it's such a heavy lift to awaken the church of the biblical truth about them. I read a whole book declaring that they are the Antichrist by a Christian writer. The guy couldn't be more wrong. Jesus said, "I am going to call on the men of Nineveh when I judge the leaders of Israel." Remember that? It's in the book of Matthew.

Then when we come to verse 15: "I caused mourning. I closed the deep over it and restrained its rivers, and many waters were stopped." In other words, they were no longer able to help the other nations. "I clothed Lebanon in gloom for it, and all the trees of the field fainted." Fainted! All the other nations fainted when that... when that empire fell.

And then verse 16: "I made the nations quake at the sound of its fall." Can you imagine that? I mean, that shook the whole Middle East, all the nations they had conquered. And again, what God is doing to Egypt is to say, "Look, look how great I made Assyria. She got proud in that greatness and took it as her own glory.

I brought her down, not because she was slaughtering babies like the fake historians paint the picture. I brought her down because of her pride. Pharaoh, wake up. You're next if you don't humble yourself." That's the message here. "I made the nations quake at the sound of her fall, when I cast it down to Sheol with those who go down to the pit.

And all the trees of Eden, the choice and the best of Lebanon, all that drink water were comforted in the world below." They went... they all went down to Sheol with it. In other words, they were destroyed along with Assyria. "To those who are slain by the sword, yes, those who were its arm, who lived under the shadow among the nations." That is God's view of Assyria.

And that's transforming. And that is why, that's the background to Assyria's conversion to Jesus Christ. They took pride in the greatness God gave them and the service they brought to the nations, and then God brought them down, and they turned to Jesus while Jesus was on earth; many of them did.

And then shortly after his resurrection, the declaration was made and they turned to him as a nation—the first nation. In fact, I don't know of another nation that has ever turned to Jesus as a nation. Assyria did. And I'm going to repeat again what I said earlier about them. They went on... they took the Great Commission seriously.

They funded the men who would travel across the Middle East, mainly barefoot, loaf of bread in one hand, the Bible in the other hand, and they would stop in other nations along the way. But they went 3,400 miles to China. And we found a stele buried in the ground, declared, made by the Chinese, calling them the luminous religion.

They took the gospel all the way through Thomas, all the way to India. There are Assyrian churches in India and many nations in between. And then God in his wisdom allowed Satan to beat them into a pit of obscurity until the world doesn't even know about them today. And the church is ignoring them because we thought they were bad people, so we're glad they're gone.

I didn't even know they existed anymore 40 years ago when I first read that prophecy. And so it's imperative that we get a biblical view of who they are or we'll never have a heart for them. And to this day, now that I've studied them and know them and am working with them, I can't go to a movie, a good movie with my wife, because I sit there fighting bawling.

Because in my mind I'm imposing on that movie the story of Assyria and the people I know, and my heart is so pounding to get them free and to get them known and to get them back to being a great voice of the gospel that they were in the first seven centuries after the resurrection, and to get them home and to give them a name and a face and a place in the world.

That I can't hold it back; it's God has put it into me. I never thought I'd be that way, but I mean it's... it is a blessing of a burden, if I can put it that way. I would never give it up. But a warning to Pharaoh comes in the last verse: "Whom are you, Pharaoh, after now you've heard the story of the Assyrians?

Who are you, Pharaoh, thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden?" It's a question. "You shall be brought down with the trees of Eden to the world below. You shall lie among the uncircumcised with those who are slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude," declares the Lord.

Just a few concluding thoughts. Few people know that Assyria, the work of God's hands, converted to Christ shortly after the resurrection. How many here knew that before I got here this weekend? Not a hand, right? I didn't know it. It's not been taught, but it's in the word of God. Through centuries of suffering and hardship—and I'm going to tell you a couple of stories to show you how deep it was—most Assyrians have proven themselves to be people of peace.

They've never put together a guerrilla army. You can't beat a guerrilla army. They're unbeatable by anyone because they strike and disappear, strike and disappear, strike and disappear. And that's what made Robert E. Lee so famous in the Civil War. Nobody could tackle him; strike and disappear.

And these people, even after massacres, never figured out a way, never even sat down to think of a way, how do we take out revenge and kill the people that killed our people? They don't do it. You know why? They believe Jesus. He's the judge. But they carry the wound, the pain of that. To give you just one illustration.

World War II, there was a White army and a Red army in Russia. And the Red army was very loyal to the Russian government; the White army had a heart for the Assyrian people. And they said, "We're here with you." And one morning, the Assyrians heard something outside and they went to their doors and they saw the Russian soldiers running.

And they knew what that meant: the Germans were right behind them. They've got to go. And the Assyrians, it's winter, blizzard time, and the Assyrians ran out of their homes without their coats and without their shoes in the snow, the freezing winds, to try to stay up to the Russian army just to live. How rough did it get?

Old men died of heart attacks. Some women delivered children on that snowy road and had to let them die by the roadside and keep moving. Didn't have a choice. You may say, oh, we sit here in comfort and say they didn't have a choice. And when they finally got to safety, there was only about 40 percent straggling in, frost-bitten and beaten.

That is just one of many, many stories I could tell you of what they've been through and God has permitted that. And that is why I am hoping and praying that I'm forming a great prayer team up here that you will take this very seriously, because I believe it's God's time to take them home, but I know he acts through prayer.

He does his works through prayer. That's his choice; he doesn't have to, but he's made you that important that you can actually be a player in rearranging world events. One final thought, then we'll just do some questions. Many that I know have hearts of gold and desire to prepare for their role in the coming kingdom of God.

So that's... we've been through four sessions on the Assyrians. I hope you have a different worldview of them, and I hope this young lady and Sabro helped you gain a face for them. That they are real people and they're handsome people and they're bright people. She's going for a law degree.

Sabro, the man on her left, is getting his doctorate in Dallas. And they're doing this so that they can fight for their nation. And so they really still will need... I'm going to say what we know they would need, but God knows what they really need, so don't hold me too to this.

But it seems like the most obvious way for this to turn around is one stroke of a pen by a man named Donald Trump. If he does an executive order, game's over. They'll be going home safely. And I say that to tell you that we are moving in that direction. That's the most I can say, and it is advancing. So don't think your praying is like in an immovable hole.

There are movements taking place and I beg of you to pray.

Guest (Male): Now Dr. Ron has been talking to us about the end-time days and wants us to prepare for the coming kingdom. And he has written a book titled The Assyrian Prophecy that is a missing part of the end-times puzzle.

"And he who sat on the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.' Write, for these words are true and faithful." The world is not ending; God is preparing a new world soon to begin. Amid today's chaos, God is searching for righteous people through whom he will bring the prophecy to completion.

When you reach the end of this book, one question will be in your mind: "Lord, what would you have me to do?" You can learn more at theassyrianproject.org. Well, thanks for being with us today, and we hope you'll join us again next week as we find courage for the journey in our faith walk.