FaithWalk Radio

Ron Susek: Hello my friend, and good friend of FaithWalk. I appreciate you being with me today. We're going to continue our discussion about Assyria. It is so critical because it's a main piece of history, and history is the foundation of the present and the future. That's why this is so important, and there are things to see in this that challenge your faith and mine, so 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: Well, we've been talking about how it all began with Solomon. When Solomon sinned against God late in life after a stellar kingship, he sins against God by marrying pagan women and bringing in their foreign gods. God said, "I'm going to split the kingdom under your son because of what you did."

So we showed you a map last time, and I'm sure Will is putting it on the screen for you, and that is the Northern Kingdom is in the blue, the Southern Kingdom is in the red. The Northern Kingdom is Israel. The whole region was called Israel. That was the northern part of the Promised Land, and that gold part, that is the Southern Kingdom, and that is Judah. Benjamin was also one of the tribes involved with Judah to form that southern nation.

So we have the northern nation and the southern nation. That is the Promised Land that God had given to the Jews. Now the top ten tribes had Jeroboam as the king of the top tribe and Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, was the king of the southern tribe, and there was conflict between them. Rehoboam was Solomon's son. Jeroboam was not his son, and every year the Israelites from the north were to come to Jerusalem and worship God and bring their gifts.

Jeroboam got intimidated by that because he was afraid his people would go down and see the beautiful city of Jerusalem, the great temple, and want to go under Rehoboam, since he was Solomon's son. So there was tension between these two nations all the time and these two kings, and it built and built and built until it came to war. Jeroboam in the north, coupled with the King of Syria, those two kings now, two nations, teamed together to come down on that gold section, the Southern Kingdom, and attack the Southern Kingdom.

That is what set it off. In this war, Ahaz is now the king of the gold part, the Southern Kingdom. He's now the king, and he's terrified. God said, "Don't be afraid. They're smoldering ends. They're going to burn out. This is not going to happen." But Ahaz couldn't believe that, and God gave him two tests. He said, "First of all, you test me. You ask me for a miracle that only I could perform." And he said, "No, no, I won't put you to the test."

And then God said, "Okay, I'll put myself to the test. I'm going to tell you a miracle I'm going to perform: a virgin will be with child." And that virgin was not just a young girl that had had sex; that virgin was without sex. Don't get seedy about this. God in his glory simply needs to speak and things come into being, and he spoke by the Holy Spirit into Mary's womb, and a seed was formed and she gave birth to the Son of God.

Well, Ahaz never lived to see those two miracles occur. First of all, the miracle of the two nations not able to overcome him, because God said in 65 years, "I'm sending another nation to wipe out those ten tribes. I want them out of my sight." And that happened. We covered that last week. By the way, if you missed anything that you want to go back and look at, these are all on YouTube and on our website, so you can get into these programs anytime you want, slow them down, stop them, think about them, make notes, and get ready to teach your Sunday school class or preach a great sermon in your church.

Now with that having been said, God was raising up a rod to discipline the nations, and that rod happened to be Assyria. When the 65-year deadline came to pass, God sent Assyria to wipe out the top ten tribes. Heaven's prophetic clock struck high noon in 722 BC. That's when the top ten tribes in that blue area were taken away and scattered across Assyria, and implants of pagan nations were brought in to live in their homes and work their fields, thus the bitterness for many, many centuries to follow.

The Jewish tribes were scattered across Assyria, we know that, and then we looked also at the six stages of God's dealing with Ahaz. Now I want you to see how God created the Assyrians. Again, I'm coming at this because many people, including me many, many years ago, just had them written off as bad people, so who cares? They dropped off the pages of history, so I thought. No, they didn't. They certainly did not. A great story of how that unfolds.

However, God created them and God gave his opinion about them, even after they failed, and he gave his opinion about them to Egypt, warning Egypt, "Be careful." And here is what God shows us about his thoughts of Assyria. And Assyria, if you're an Assyrian, sit tall in your seat right now and take notes; you're going to love this. Number one: God raised up Assyria to act as God's rod of his wrath. That's found in Isaiah chapter 10, verse 5. He raised them up intentionally. By the way, the Assyrians did not become great people by genetic fortune. They became great people because God did it. Watch this carefully.

Number two: God made her the tallest cedar in the garden of nations. In other words, he's using cedar trees as an illustration of nations. And now Assyria becomes the tallest, the greatest, the strongest. And you remember, that's in Ezekiel 31:5, by the way. And indeed, Assyria was the first to invent iron and became known as the iron army, able to wipe out any army because of their powerful weapons. But more than that, she also became the master of the cradle of civilization. She literally created civilization.

Well, number three, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Number three: under her boughs lives all great nations. Ezekiel 31:6. What's that telling you? Great nations, even though she was greater than all of them, the tallest cedar in the forest of trees, they did extremely well under Assyria. And by the way, if you want a hint as to what that means, when Assyria conquered a country, they didn't badger the people and turn them into sweating slaves crawling on their knees.

They brought to them the culture of the civilization that they had developed, such as: they formed the first library known to civilization, the first hospital, the first aqueduct, the first wheel, on and on. Your house key they invented. On and on goes the list. It's unbelievable. All came out of the Assyrian genius that God put into them.

Number four: her shade provided safety and comfort. Ezekiel 31. So be careful now before you say they were barbarous people. They were not. They were builders, inventors, creative educators, medical people, agricultural people, and they were spreading that cradle of civilization to the nations they conquered, including water supplies. Ah, I know, I know. Your history books didn't tell you that. Satan is a terrible liar and a murderer, and he has got to try to stop these people and cover them up and bury them and even wipe them off the face of the earth if he could. Why? Because they are named in a prophecy that when that prophecy is fulfilled with Israel and Egypt, Satan will be chained in a pit for a thousand years. We've talked about that in the past; we'll really be getting into that in the days ahead.

So number four: her shade provided safety and comfort. Lock that in your thinking. That's in Ezekiel 31. Number five: she provided water and nourishment for the nations. Ezekiel 31:4-7. She provided the necessities of life: water and nourishment. She provided that, taught them how to irrigate, taught them how to grow things. She didn't go in there and just have them as slaves, as I said before. In a real sense, she became a co-partner, and they became a co-partner with her. Ah, why did not the historians tell us? Why did they turn her into a beast?

Well, number six. Look at this. God said, "I made it beautiful." Ezekiel 31:9. You going to knock that down now? You going to belittle that? "I made it beautiful." Who are you to over-kill the Assyrians, knock them down, try to turn them into bad people, try to say that they were not good? They had their faults like every other nation on earth, but look at what they did, and God said, "I made them beautiful." So let's be careful here how we look upon them.

Number seven: Assyria had brought such value to the nations she conquered—get this now—that they mourned at her downfall. Ezekiel 31:15. When a bad government topples, the people rejoice, they can hardly contain themselves. But when Assyria fell in 612 BC under Babylon, the nations mourned. Incredible.

And get this one, this is the last one, number eight. It's in Ezekiel 31:15—I'm sorry, number eight—the animal world flourished under her boughs. Ezekiel 31:6. The whole animal world did well under the care of Assyria. She was into botany, she was into animal care, she was into forestry, she was into education, she was a builder. She built the cradle of civilization, not just her nation; all the nations she conquered, she was building them into this cradle of civilization, and you and I are enjoying those benefits to this day. Oh, how dare we? How dare we underrate? Not the Assyrian as people; the Assyrians as God made them to be.

They are God's creation for God's purpose: to be a rod and to be a blessing. A rod is not only used to correct; it's used to bless, to draw a straight line, to strengthen. Now with that in mind, Assyria truly forged the cradle of civilization, and we are beneficiaries of that brilliance. And as I said earlier, they built the first library. Ah, you'd love to have seen that. You're talking about a whole big room full of clay tablets. It was awkward, but they did it, and that's where a lot of our history comes from.

And why then did God bring her down in 612 BC if she was so flawless? Well, you know, it's interesting the profane historians—and what I mean by profane is non-biblical historians—want to write her off as almost as cruel and wicked and godless as Hamas. Not true at all because the Bible uses one word, and one word alone, to tell you why he brought them down. What do you guess it is? Write down your guess and see how close you came. Maybe you got it. What one word? Here it is: pride. Pride. Pride. Ezekiel 31:10.

Therefore, thus says the Lord God, "Because it towered high and set its top around the clouds, and its heart was proud of its height," that's why they were brought down. And their fall was not a pretty picture. They were attacked by Babylon and a couple of other smaller nations. And why? Because they were abusive? No, because of the pride in Babylon. Pride battles pride, pride battles pride, pride battles pride. Watch your news; it's going on to this day.

And here's what's interesting. While nations think they're in charge—"We're going to attack that one, we're going to do this, we're going to do that"—here's a discovery I came across that is so amazing. God is the Commander-in-Chief of all armies on earth. By the way, I wish I had originated that. That came out of the ESV commentary on this verse I'm going to read: "The Lord of Hosts," they said, "the Commander-in-Chief of all human armies." Boy, I love that. I love that.

In Isaiah 13:8 we read this: "The sound of a tumult is on the mountains, as of a great multitude! The sound of an uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathering together! The Lord of hosts is mustering a host for battle!" He is the Commander-in-Chief of all the armies of earth. And it was God who stirred the heart of the Assyrians to go down and capture the top ten tribes of Israel.

Now here's why I know that God sent them and blessed them and empowered them to do that. Because later, there was another great king named Sennacherib, and he sent his men down to surround Jerusalem in Judah to conquer that and failed miserably. 185,000 soldiers died on one night at the hand of one angel. Don't mess with God. If he sends you to do something like he sent them to the top ten tribes, do it. He'll protect you, he'll bless you, he'll use you and not condemn you. If he doesn't send you and you go on your own, you're done.

Josiah was one of the greatest kings of history. Boy, did he really clean up Israel, and he just did an amazing job: tearing down the high places, getting rid of all the gods, burning all the trash that was offered to the gods. He was marvelous. But toward the end of his life, he got involved in a war that God did not send him to, and Josiah was killed by Necho, the King of Egypt. Don't mess with God. Don't play games with God. Seek his will; do his will.

The Lord of hosts, Commander-in-Chief of all human armies. Think of all the things God has at his disposal. And we experience them and we never ask, "Where have we violated God?" We just say, "Hey, the human spirit can rise up and we can beat this." God can send an earthquake, and he's sending more and more of these days. God can send a flood. He can send fires. You know what I'm talking about; you've been watching it on television over and over again. We can hardly get a week in between the events. He is able to raise up armies. He is able to send hurricanes, tornadoes, you name it. He has drought, everything at his access.

There's not a nation that can stand against God, and yet the nations of this earth try to neglect him and ignore him, and they try their best to run their nations as they see best fit. And according to Psalm chapter 2, God is laughing at their fumbling, bumbling ways of staggering like a drunk from pillar to post. Ah my friend, there's no solution to this until the kingdom comes.

Now let me come back to the premise that I've been trying to build on in all of this teaching, and that is: how did this shift in names come? This blue region that we talked about in the Northern Kingdom was Israel. And then when we read in the Bible of the launch of Jesus' ministry, it's called the Galilee of the nations. And guess what? Isaiah called it that in Isaiah chapter 9, verse 1, long before it was called that technically. I believe he was speaking prophetically, and unfortunately, Israel didn't have the brains to pick up on it and realize what he had said. And so they just went on their way and sinned against God until God supplanted them. He took them out of the region, brought in the nations of the world, and now we went from being Israel to Galilee of the nations.

And here is the beautiful and marvelous thing. It was God who declared this to take place when he said to his son in Isaiah chapter 49 and verse 6, "It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel. I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach the ends of the earth."

That's what God was doing when he brought Assyria down to take out the rebellious, sinful ten tribes of Israel and put nations in there because his son was to be the Lord and the savior and redeemer of the nations. God was already the king of the nations; now his son is to become the redeemer of all the nations over which God is the king. Are you getting the picture? This is fantastic.

We read in Matthew chapter 28, verses 1 to 10. It's so fascinating when we read that—well, let me back up here—after that occurred, when Jesus was born and as he entered his adult years, he learned that John the Baptist had been beheaded, and he went up to Capernaum to live in Capernaum on the northwestern corner of the Sea of Galilee, in the Galilee of the nations. And when you read your Bible, keep in mind the overwhelming majority of events in the New Testament happened in the Galilee to the nations. Yes, he had encounters with Jews, but most of it was to the nations.

And then when he was crucified and raised again—this is so beautiful—when he was crucified and raised again, now we're in the Easter season, I want to read this text for you. It's grand. Matthew 28, verses 1 to 10. "Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.

But the angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell the disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.' So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and said, 'Greetings!' And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, 'Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers... and go to Galilee, and there they will see me.'"

Now think about this: why didn't he tell them to go to Bethlehem where he was born, to Nazareth where he was raised, to Jerusalem where he redeemed the world? Because he was going to the place where he began his ministry to the nations of the Galilee, which represent the nations of the world: America, Canada, South America, India, Africa, all the nations of the world. That's what was happening when he, in the Galilee of the nations, said this to his disciples after his resurrection.

It was there that he said, "And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, go in my authority. I'm bestowing authority to you. You have the right to go to every nation, even if they resist you. You have my right. You have heaven's blessing. You have our right, my Father and I. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'"

So don't sit around fearing the coming tribulation and all the things that we read about. It's going to happen, but Emmanuel, God is with you, and Jesus is with you to the very last second of the end of the age. That's why he kept telling his disciples and telling you: fear not, fear not, fear not.

Please get my book *The Assyrian Prophecy*. Please read it slowly, one chapter a day. That's easy to handle. In one month, you're going to begin to light up more and more with what I'm trying to show you and teach you, because this is foundational to where God is heading in the world, which touches your life and mine. I can't tell you how wonderful it is to be with you and to share this with you. And if you're Assyrian, I hope that you are getting steel in your spine and a broken heart toward God as never before that you can be a great instrument in this movement of God as we come down to the back end of the age.

If you're not an Assyrian, learn this because the Assyrians are named with Israel and Egypt in one of the most important prophecies you'll ever see. Got to go, so sorry. We'll have more time in our next program. God bless you, and remember: Emmanuel, God is with you.

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. 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.