Hope, God is with us!
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10 Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz:
11 “Ask a sign from the Lord your God. Make it as deep as the grave or as high as heaven.”
12 But Ahaz said, “I won’t ask; I won’t test the Lord.”
13 Then Isaiah said, “Listen, house of David! Isn’t it enough for you to be tiresome for people that you are also tiresome before my God?
14 Therefore, the Lord will give you a sign. The young woman is pregnant and is about to give birth to a son, and she will name him Immanuel.
15 He will eat butter and honey, and learn to reject evil and choose good.
16 Before the boy learns to reject evil and choose good, the land of the two kings you dread will be abandoned.
Hope, God is with us!
Hope, God is with us!
Author Max Lucado tells a remarkable story of the son of a rabbi who battled severe emotional problems. One day the boy went into his backyard, removed all his clothing, assumed a crouched position, and began to gobble like a turkey. He did this, not just for hours or days, but for weeks. No pleading would dissuade him. No psychotherapist could help him.
A friend of the rabbi, having watched the boy and shared the father’s grief, offered to help. He, too, went into the backyard and removed his clothes. He crouched beside the boy and began gobbling, turkey-like. For days, nothing changed. Finally the friend spoke to the son. “Do you think it would be all right for turkeys to wear shirts?” After some thought and many gobbles, the son agreed. So they put on their shirts.
Days later the friend asked the boy if it would be acceptable for turkeys to wear trousers. The boy nodded. In time, the friend redressed the boy. And, in time, the boy returned to normal. (4)
What an amazing story. What amazing love. Do you understand that this is what Christmas is all about? It’s more than the birth of a special baby, it is more than an angels’ song. It is God invading our world, stripping himself of all His power and dignity that he might die naked on a cross in our behalf. [1]
Hope is not just getting everything on our Christmas lists. Hope was all wrapped up in that baby that was born in Bethlehem, Immanuel, God with Us!
Jerusalem need hope. If you back up to the beginning of this chapter. The King of Israel and the King of Aram had gathered for war against Judah.
Isaiah wrote in verse 3
2 When the house of David was told that Aram had become allies with Ephraim, their hearts and the hearts of their people shook as the trees of a forest shake when there is a wind.
The people were afraid and need of a sign of hope. To give you an idea, biblical histories identify that King Pekah of Israel and his forces killed 120,000 or Judah’s soldiers. They took 200,000 captives back to Samaria. That was an awful time to be living in Judah. The people needed their king to do something, they were surrounded.
Ahaz for his part is doing something. He is inspecting the water supply. Knowing how much water they had was an indicator of how long they could hold out against this attack.
That is where Isaiah and his son meet up with him. God gives him the words to say to King Ahaz in verses 4-7
Is 7:4-7 “4 and say to him, ‘Be careful and stay calm. Don’t fear, and don’t lose heart over these two pieces of smoking torches, over the burning anger of Rezin, Aram, and Remaliah’s son. 5 Aram has planned evil against you with Ephraim and Remaliah’s son, saying, 6 “Let’s march up against Judah, tear it apart, capture it for ourselves, and install Tabeel’s son as its king.” 7 But the Lord God says: It won’t happen; it won’t take place.”
King Ahaz was someone who took charge, who got things done. Now he was not one of the good kings of Judah. He marched to the beat of his own drum.
God says through Isaiah to “Be careful and stay calm. Don’t fear, and don’t lose heart over these two pieces of smoking torches.”
God totally reverses things. Ahaz would have gladly responded to the command “Don’t just stand there, do something.” Instead, God reversed it all and said “Don’t do something, just stand there.”
It is interesting to note how God finished out that diaglouge between Isaiah and Ahaz. Isaiah said to him there in verse 9
Isaiah 7:9 (CEB)
If you don’t believe this, you can’t be trusted.’ ”
Faith is the foundation for faithfulness. Ahaz was not faithful to God. He made a pact with Assyria. The Bible records that he went to Assyria to pay homage to the king and swear his allegiance to the Assyrian king and Gods. He even brought back worship aspects of the Assyrians.
It is written that he took a “fancy to an altar which he saw there, he had one like it made in Jerusalem, which, with a corresponding change in ritual, he made a permanent feature of the Temple worship. Changes were also made in the arrangements and furniture of the Temple, "because of the king of Assyria" (2 Kings 16:18). Furthermore, Ahaz fitted up an astrological observatory with accompanying sacrifices, after the fashion of the ruling people. “ [2]
In 2 Kings we read this about him
3 Instead, he walked in the ways of Israel’s kings. He even burned his own son alive, imitating the detestable practices of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.
A total lack of faith in God. Ahaz should have been looking to God for help but was doing everything but.
The Wesleyan Bible Commentary, Volume 3: Isaiah–Malachi 1. Ahaz Trembling with Fear (7:1–9)
Ahaz needed to have increased faith in God so that he would learn to be faithful in obedience to God’s will. God would then be able to lead the people into a greater stability. The plight of King Ahaz is a common one. It takes courage to do the will of God in times of temptation and trouble, and courage must be based on faith in God’s assistance and providential care. So a lack of faith can be the source of disobedience and unfaithfulness.
The transition from verse 9 to verse 10 is a demonstration of the patience of God. Ahaz was stubborn. He was bent on doing things his way. Do we ever act that way?
God through Isaiah says there in verse 11
11 “Ask a sign from the Lord your God. Make it as deep as the grave or as high as heaven.”
God is giving Ahaz permission to ask for a sign from deep down in the earth as high as the heavens. What was the purpose of the sign? It was for proof that what God had said in those earlier verses were true. God is taking the initiative and gives Ahaz permission to ask for some miraculous sign.
David McKenna wrote: No one can ever claim that God is unfair. When He asks us to “stand firm in our faith” against the evidence of circumstances and our natural impulses, He will also give us a sign of His faithfulness. [3]
Ahaz was not going to do it because he had already made an allegiance with the King of Assyria. Ahaz says there in verse Is7:12 “12 “I won’t ask; I won’t test the Lord.””
He is not suddenly following the law about not testing God. He is not suddenly being faithful. Ahaz was trying to justify the decision that he has already made. He was already compromised. He was compromised because he looked to a foreign king and he looked to foreign gods and pagan worship. McKenna went on to write “As so often happens, a political alliance with the secular world includes a spiritual allegiance to its Gods.”
If Ahaz had really believed that God was God then he would have accepted Isaiah’s invitation to ask for a sign. If had asked for a sign it would have been evidence that he had some faith in God’s ability to help him. If he had some faith he was unwilling to show it. He did not want to trust God, he wanted to trust Assyria.
What happened is important to understand. It is important because we can fall into the very same trap. Ahaz was turning his back on God and setting himself up as a better judge of what he should do.
How easy it is to do that. We think we know better than God and end up making a mess out of life. The truth of the matter is that God is with us even we feel like he is far away. The writer of Hebrews wrote
Hebrews 13:5 (NIV)
“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
God is here. This promise in the Greek could be paraphrased Never Never will I leave you; Never Never will I forsake you. God was there for Ahaz and he is here for us.
Ahaz had already made a royal mess and he confirmed it here.
God doesn’t stop, He says through Isaiah.
13 Then Isaiah said, “Listen, house of David! Isn’t it enough for you to be tiresome for people that you are also tiresome before my God?
Have you every offered help to someone and they reject your assistance? You might do it many times. Sort of like offering to help a little kid and they tell you no and that they will do it. I know with my therapy ministry that I offer help all the time and often it is rebuked. As someone on the outside looking in and have a different perspective. I see people keep doing the same thing time and time again and hoping for a different result.
It doesn’t work, that is the definition of insanity.
Isaiah opens the conversation to the house of David, the king and all the rulers under him. He says that they weary him. It is tiring when you try to lead people in the right direction and they keep running off in all the wrong directions.
Isaiah says that they were also wearying God. I’ve often wondered do I ever weary God. When I try to do things my own way is God thinking “My son, come to me and let me hand it” and I act like a little kid who says “No, it’s mine.”
Isaiah then uses that great theological word, he writes in verse 14
Therefore
Therefore
Because of all that was said and offered before God says through Isaiah, and this is my paraphrase.
Ok, king Ahaz, you do want you want to do. Don’t ask for a sign, that’s ok. I’m still going to give you all a sign.
14 Therefore, the Lord will give you a sign. The young woman is pregnant and is about to give birth to a son, and she will name him Immanuel.
There in one sentence is the promised hope for God’s people.
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel
Immanuel - God with us. Expecting a baby is such an exciting time. I read a funny story about a family who thought they were done having kids.
“It seems that after having two children, Fran Castro of Townsville, N.C., had her tubes tied. She and her husband, Moe, had decided that their two daughters, Jessica and Sheree, then ages five and three, were enough. But the next year. Fran was sitting at the dining room table when she felt something move.
"Moe, if I didn't know better," she told him. "I'd swear I just felt a baby kick."
"You know that's not possible," he replied.
That's what Fran thought until she went to the doctor. Five months later she gave birth to the couple's third daughter, Kristy.
Moe decided to get a vasectomy. After the procedure he confidently told Fran, "Now there's no chance of our ever having more children."
He was right . . . for a while.
In 1993, Fran started having the telltale signs of pregnancy again.
"No, it couldn't be," she thought. Out of curiosity she decided to buy a home pregnancy test and was completely shocked when the result was positive.
Several months later Fran gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
"I've never delivered a baby where the mother has had a tubal ligation and the father has had a vasectomy." said Fran's physician, James Goodwin, M.D. "The odds of both procedures failing must be astronomical." He added. "All I can say is that this baby was destined to be here."
The Castros felt that way too. In fact, they named him Destin. [1]
That is the way that Mary must have felt. I’m a virgin, it’s not possible but the angel said it was possible and had happened.
Joseph was just as confused. Mary was pregnant and he knew it was not his. He believed the angel.
Immanuel for us means God with us. For Ahaz it was a sign of judgement. It signaled for Ahaz that certain doom would come on Him.
A sign was given to Ahaz in the form of a baby named Immanuel. In the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, we are given the same sign. "This shall be a sign for you," announced the Lord's angel in Luke's Christmas story. "There will be a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths lying in a manger." And in Matthew's account, an angel tells Joseph in a dream to name that child Emmanuel (Matthew 1:23-24). As a result, Jesus Christ comes to us not as a helpless infant with no power to save, but as the mighty sign and Son of God who will establish and save our lives if we trust in him. "You shall be established if you believe."
A pastor describes a large Christmas meal at one of his denomination's children's homes. While the dinner was being prepared and the presents under the tree were being unwrapped, one of the youngest boys hid under his bed and refused to come out.
Rev. Henry Carter approached Tommy, who was hiding under the bed, and told him about the lights on the Christmas tree and the gifts that were waiting for him. There was no response. Rev. Carter knelt beside the bed and drew the spread back. Two large wet crying eyes were staring at him. Tommy was eight years old but appeared to be five due to malnourishment. Tommy could have easily been pulled out from under the bed, but what he needed was trust and a sense of belonging, not pulling.
Rev. Carter got down on his stomach and squeezed under the bed beside Tommy because he couldn't think of anything else to do. He lay there with his cheek to the floor, talking about the big wreath above the roaring fireplace and the filled stocking with Tommy's name on it. He mentioned the carols they would sing and the turkey that was almost ready to be served. And he mentioned the baby Jesus, who was born in a stable and laid in a manger because there was no room in the inn.
When he ran out of things to say, he simply lay down beside Tommy. After a few moments, a small child's hand slipped into Rev. Carter's. "You know Tommy, it's kind of close quarters under here, let's you and I crawl out where we can stand up," Rev. Carter said. As they slid out from under the bed, he realized he had caught a glimpse of the Christmas miracle.
Hadn't God come down to where we are to get close? Wasn't it the Holy Spirit who drew us out of our lonely hiding place and into a world of light, life, and belonging? (5)
This is the true meaning of Christmas. God comes into our world, crawls under the bed, comforts us, and draws us out into the light. [1 paraphrased]
I love that picture. Immanual, God is with us! Do you grasp what God did for us? Do you have that hope? Are you sharing that hope with others?
[1] Duncan, K. (n.d.). Sermon and Worship Resources. Sermons.Com. Retrieved December 17, 2022, from https://sermons.com/sermon/god-will-be-with-us/1444176
[2] Wikipedia contributors. (2022, December 17). Ahaz. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ahaz&oldid=1127974798
[3] McKenna, D., & Ogilvie, L. J. (1993). Isaiah 1–39 (Vol. 17, p. 127). Thomas Nelson Inc.
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