Sermon Tone Analysis

The Sign of Immanual

In the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham: Ahaz was a wicked king of Judah, worshipping other gods and even sacrificing his son to Molech (2 Kings 16:1–4).

The only good thing Ahaz seemed to do was father Hezekiah, who became a good king of Judah.

“He was a cowardly, superstitious and hypocritical ruler, one of the worst kings Judah ever had.” (Bultema)

Rezin king of Syria and Pekah … king of Israel: The alliance between these two nations and their unsuccessful attack on Jerusalem is described in 2 Kings 16.

The attack on Jerusalem was ultimately unsuccessful, but the war against Judah took a great toll against the southern kingdom. 2 Chronicles 28:6 documents the damage: For Pekah the son of Remaliah killed one hundred and twenty thousand in Judah in one day, all valiant men, because they had forsaken the LORD God of their fathers.

2 Chronicles 28:5 “Wherefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria; and they smote him, and carried away a great multitude of them captives, and brought them to Damascus.

And he was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who smote him with a great slaughter.”

says that the Syrian army carried away a great multitude of them as captives.

The king of Israel also captured 200,000 men, women and children as captives, but sent them back to Judah at the command of the prophet Oded (2 Chronicles 28:8–15).

All in all, when the events of this chapter unfold, the nation of Judah had faced terrible calamity, and was devastated.

As the combined armies of Israel and Syria approached Jerusalem, it looked like everything would be lost.

Ahaz was challenged to trust God when things were bad, and it looked like soon, all would be lost.

Went up to Jerusalem to make war against it, but could not prevail against it: How was Ahaz saved from this attack?

Because he entered into an ungodly alliance with Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, and even gave Tiglath-Pileser silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD as a present to win his favor and protection (2 Kings 16:7–9).

When Ahaz went to meet Tiglath-Pileser, his new master, in Damascus, he saw the pagan altars and places of sacrifice.

He copied these designs and remodeled the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem after the pattern of the pagan temple and altars in Damascus.

Ahaz is a powerful, extreme example of someone who enters into an ungodly alliance for “good” reasons, and is thoroughly corrupted thereby (2 Kings 16:10–18).

It is important to understand that the events of this chapter happened before Ahaz made his final decision to put his trust in Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria.

Though we are told the end result of the attack in Isaiah 7:2 (could not prevail against it), Isaiah is telling us the end result before he describes his prophecy to Ahaz.

This disregard for chronological order may be frustrating to us, but is completely natural to the ancient Hebrew mind.

Syria’s forces are deployed in Ephraim: Ephraim is another title for the northern nation of Israel.

King Ahaz heard that Syria and Israel had joined together to make war against Judah.

So his heart and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the woods are moved with the wind: King Ahaz and his people react with fear instead of with trust in God.

They are shaken and unstable in their hearts.

In this, the people of Judah really are the people of Ahaz (his people), not the people of the LORD.

God was not shaken or unsettled by this threat.

If the king of Judah and the people of Judah had put their trust in the LORD, they would have had the peace of God in this conflict.

Isaiah (2.

The Word of the Lord to Ahaz through Isaiah (3–9))

You and Shear-Jashub your son: Isaiah was told to take his son, named Shear-Jashub, and bring a word from the LORD to Ahaz.

He brought his son as a walking object lesson, because the name Shear-Jashub means, “A Remnant Shall Return.”

At the end of the aqueduct from the upper pool, on the highway to the Fuller’s Field: These seemingly irrelevant details make an important point.

All this happened to real people at a real time and in real places.

This isn’t make believe or fairy tales.

This is real.

Take heed, and be quiet: Seemingly, Ahaz needed to pay attention (take heed) and stop his talking about the problem (be quiet).

He needed to trust God, and take courage in the LORD (do not fear or be fainthearted).

Perhaps also, the calamity and devastation that had wracked Judah thus far had made Ahaz stop trusting in God.

“If God loves me, why am I in this mess at all? Trust Him now, after all He has allowed to happen?

Are you crazy?”

Why was it so hard for Ahaz to do this?

Because he didn’t see the situation the way the LORD did.

Ahaz looked at Israel and Syria and saw a terrible threat.

God looked at Israel and Syria and saw two stubs of smoking firebrands.

To the LORD, they were all smoke and no fire!

“One would think that they are endued with so great power that they could burn and destroy the whole world.

To put down the excess of terror, the Lord declares that what we imagined to be a burning, and a perpetual burning, is but a slight smoke and of short duration.”

(Calvin)

“Calleth them in contempt a couple of firebrands, such as would do mischief but cannot, because smoking and not burning, and but the tails of smoking firebrands neither, such as are smoking their last, and shall shortly be utterly extinct.

In a word, they have more pride than power, being a mere flash.”

(Trapp)

It shall not stand, nor shall it come to pass: Certainly, the king of Israel and the king of Syria had their plans—they have taken evil counsel against you.

They wanted to attack Jerusalem, defeat the capital of Judah (make a gap in its wall), then depose Ahaz and set up their own king.

But God was not worried about their plans.

They looked like a big, flaming threat to Ahaz, but God looked and saw two stubs of smoking firebrands, and simply said, “It shall not stand, nor shall it come to pass.”

Their plans will not succeed because the nations are led by ungodly men (Rezin and Remaliah’s son), and not by the LORD.

This is God’s promise, and Isaiah calls Ahaz to trust in the LORD and in His promise.

If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established: Here is the challenge to Ahaz.

God has promised, now the king of Judah must believe.

If he will not believe, it will not affect the outcome of the attack against Jerusalem.

God has already decreed that their attack would not succeed.

But it would affect the course of Ahaz’s life and reign as king (surely you shall not be established)

As it happened, Ahaz did not believe.

He did not put his trust in the LORD.

He put his trust in carnal methods and the king of Assyria.

Jerusalem was spared, and Ahaz no doubt believed he was successful, and his plan worked.

But if he would have just trusted in the LORD, Jerusalem would have been spared, and Ahaz would have been blessed.g.

Why did Isaiah bring his son Shear-Jashub?

Because his name meant A Remnant Shall Return, and God wanted Ahaz to know that because of the kind of ungodly trust he put in the king of Assyria, Judah would eventually be taken into captivity, and only a remnant would return.Isaiah

The Sign of Immanuel (7:10–25))

Ask a sign for yourself: Through the prophet Isaiah, God invites Ahaz to ask for a sign.

God has just challenged Ahaz to believe and be blessed, and now God offers to give Ahaz a basis for belief—a sign for yourself.

But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, nor will I test the LORD!”

This sounds very spiritual from Ahaz.

He almost seems to say what Jesus said in Matthew 4:7: “You shall not tempt the LORD your God.”

Though the words are similar, the hearts are far apart.

Ahaz refused to ask for a sign, because when God fulfilled the sign, he would be “obligated” to believe.

This was not tempting or testing God in wrong way.

It is never testing God to do as He says, and if the LORD invites us to test Him, we should.

For example, in Malachi 3:10, the LORD invited Israel to give as He commanded, and thereby to prove Me now in this.

Again, perhaps Ahaz was bitter against the LORD, because of all the disaster Judah had already been through at the hands of Israel and Syria.

Perhaps his mind is, “I want nothing to do with the God who allowed it to get this bad.”

Haven’t we, in some way, to some degree, been where Ahaz was? Haven’t we rejected the gracious, free gifts of God for silly and strange reasons?

“Here let us each descend and dive into his own conscience, to see whether we also have not matched Ahaz in his madness, or at leastwise coasted too near upon his unkind usage of the Lord, by rejecting his sweet offers of grace and motions of mercy, by slighting his holy sacraments, those signs and seals of the righteousness that is by faith.”

(Trapp)

The Lord’s Sign to Ahaz: The Sign of Immanuel (13–16))

Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also?

The rulers of Judah treated other people poorly, but they treated the LORD even more poorly.

If many of us expressed the same distrust we have towards the LORD towards other people, we might get a punch in the nose!

“How heartily angry is the prophet, how blessedly blown up in this case to so great dishonor done to God!

We should be so too.”

(Trapp)

Spurgeon speaks well to this point: “Did I not hear some one say, ‘Ah, sir, I have been trying to believe for years.’

Terrible words!

They make the case still worse.

Imagine that after I had made a statement, a man should declare that he did not believe me, in fact, he could not believe me though he would like to do so.

I should feel aggrieved certainly; but it would make matters worse if he added, ‘In fact I have been for years trying to believe you, and I cannot do it.’

What does he mean by that?

What can he mean but that I am so incorrigibly false, and such a confirmed liar, that though he would like to give me some credit, he really cannot do it?