Born of a Virgin, The Good King We Need.

Open your Bibles with me, if you will, to Isaiah chapter 7

While you are finding your place, let me just say that it is so good to finally be past election season. I don’t know about you, but I get tired of listening to politicians making empty promises. Whether you are happy with the election results or not, there are a few things all of us can agree on:

1) It is hard to vote when there is no winning option

2) Unless the world ends, it is likely in 4 years we will be facing problems: some better, some worse, and some the same as our current problems.

3) Politicians and Government always leave me wishing for something better than what we have

4) As we celebrate Thanksgiving and move into the Christmas season, we are reminded that there is something better and we have reason to hope.

The next few weeks, as we prepare for the celebration of the birth of Jesus, we are going to be taking a look at some prophecies.

These prophecies were written hundreds of years before that first Christmas.

They were written in times of political and social turmoil and uncertainty.

Things were bleak, the world was broken, and the men in power were corrupt. Yet, in the middle of these uncertain times, God was still at work and His message for His people in that day still rings with hope for us today.

Let’s dive in this morning, in Isaiah 7, starting in verse 1, and as we do so, I invite you to stand with me to honor God’s Word.

Isaiah 7:1–16 CSB

This took place during the reign of Ahaz, son of Jotham, son of Uzziah king of Judah: Aram’s King Rezin and Israel’s King Pekah son of Remaliah went to fight against Jerusalem, but they were not able to conquer it. When it became known to the house of David that Aram had occupied Ephraim, the heart of Ahaz and the hearts of his people trembled like trees of a forest shaking in the wind. The Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out with your son Shear-jashub to meet Ahaz at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, by the road to the Launderer’s Field. Say to him: Calm down and be quiet. Don’t be afraid or cowardly because of these two smoldering sticks, the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram, and the son of Remaliah. For Aram, along with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has plotted harm against you. They say, ‘Let’s go up against Judah, terrorize it, and conquer it for ourselves. Then we can install Tabeel’s son as king in it.’ ” This is what the Lord God says: It will not happen; it will not occur. The chief city of Aram is Damascus, the chief of Damascus is Rezin (within sixty-five years Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people), the chief city of Ephraim is Samaria, and the chief of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you do not stand firm in your faith, then you will not stand at all. Then the Lord spoke again to Ahaz: “Ask for a sign from the Lord your God—it can be as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven.” But Ahaz replied, “I will not ask. I will not test the Lord.” Isaiah said, “Listen, house of David! Is it not enough for you to try the patience of men? Will you also try the patience of my God? Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: See, the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel. By the time he learns to reject what is bad and choose what is good, he will be eating curds and honey. For before the boy knows to reject what is bad and choose what is good, the land of the two kings you dread will be abandoned.

Let’s pray together:

Thank you, you may be seated

This passage was written a little more than 700 years before the birth of Jesus, and it is full of prophecies that all came true (we can rely on God’s Word!).

These prophecies come to an evil, wicked king, king Ahaz.

Ahaz was the king of Judah, during the time of the divided kingdom

Judah was facing threats from foreign enemies both small and great

Despite the warnings of Isaiah, the prophet who wrote today’s passage, Ahaz turned away from God

Rather than seeking God’s face, Ahaz used extispicy, so he used animal entrails to try and predict the future and deliver himself

Ahaz closed down the worship of the one true God. He even replaced the altar in God’s Temple with an Altar to the god of Assyria.

On top of this, he constructed altars and pagan houses of worship all over Jerusalem and led the people to worship these false Gods

The day was not unlike the day we live in

Our culture is full of false gods, promoted by our leaders and our culture, and even many who claim to follow Jesus are wrapped up in their worship.

We don’t build temples and altars to these gods. We worship them on screens of all sizes, in shopping malls, in banks, and in our own self-indulgences.

As a nation, we look anywhere but towards God to find solutions to our problems and help against our enemies

It is easy to look at the parallels between our nation and that nation and to despair.

But, I would point you to our passage this morning and during this season of Thanksgiving and Advent, the preparation for Christmas, and tell you that those who follow Jesus have every reason to be filled with hope!

Let’s look together at four reasons that we can have hope and how to find it ourselves:

First,

God knows your paths and your problems

Look at verse 1 with me again:

Isaiah 7:1–6 NASB95

Now it came about in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Aram and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not conquer it. When it was reported to the house of David, saying, “The Arameans have camped in Ephraim,” his heart and the hearts of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake with the wind. Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway to the fuller’s field, and say to him, ‘Take care and be calm, have no fear and do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands, on account of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah. ‘Because Aram, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has planned evil against you, saying, “Let us go up against Judah and terrorize it, and make for ourselves a breach in its walls and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it,”

GOD REALLY DOES KNOW EVERYTHING

God knew the attacks Ahaz had faced already and the movements of his enemies (V. 1)

God knew how Ahaz and his people were feeling about the situation (V. 2)

God knew where to send Isaiah to meet with Ahaz (V. 3-4)

God knew the plans their enemies were making and had already accounted for them (v. 4-6)

God knew all of these things and sent Isaiah to bring comfort and warning to Ahaz, even though Ahaz was living in rebellion against Him.

God’s knowledge of you and your problems includes your sin and rebellion, but it goes so far beyond that.

Nothing that you have done or are going to do is going to catch God by surprise

He knows where you are, and He is ready to meet with you right here this morning, if you are willing to receive Him. What that means for us is that

The only right response to a God who knows everything is to turn to Him in repentance

If He already knows everything, why continue to run to things that cannot deliver you from your sin or your problems

If He already knows, He also already has a solution

God knows your paths and your problems, and secondly,

God’s faithfulness does not depend on yours

Let’s look at verse 7:

Isaiah 7:7–9 NASB95

thus says the Lord God: “It shall not stand nor shall it come to pass. “For the head of Aram is Damascus and the head of Damascus is Rezin (now within another 65 years Ephraim will be shattered, so that it is no longer a people), and the head of Ephraim is Samaria and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you will not believe, you surely shall not last.” ’ ”

Ahaz was not faithful to God, but God was faithful to him and to Judah

God promised to deliver Ahaz and Juda from the hands of their enemies, which he does.

by the way were made up of a Pagan nation in Damascus, and Israel, the other part of the divided kingdom

God’s deliverance stretched far beyond just a short term victory to the demise of those attacking them, which happens as well at the hands of the Assyrians in 2 Kings 17:3-6

2 Kings 17:3–6 NASB95

Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him, and Hoshea became his servant and paid him tribute. But the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea, who had sent messengers to So king of Egypt and had offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year; so the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison. Then the king of Assyria invaded the whole land and went up to Samaria and besieged it three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried Israel away into exile to Assyria, and settled them in Halah and Habor, on the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

God is FAITHFUL. He is going to do what He says He is going to do, not matter what!

What a gracious God we serve!

His love for you is not contingent on your obedience, though He requires you obey

His mercy and grace are not earned.

He will meet you where you are, though He loves you too much to leave you there

His goodness is not contingent on ours.

This doesn’t mean that YOUR faithfulness is not important, we’ll get to that in a moment

What it does mean is that we can depend on Him to do what He says He will do.

Romans 8:28 NASB95

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

God is working to bring about His purposes, and for His children that will mean good things because He is faithful no matter what.

For those who do not know the Lord and do not walk in His ways, God is still working to bring about His purposes and He is still faithful to do what He says no matter what, and what that should point you to is this:

The only right response to a God who is always faithful is to turn to Him in Faith

If we know that we can trust God to do what He has promised, then we must act on that trust

EX: If you didn’t trust a bank would give you your money, you wouldn’t put it in the bank

While trust in a bank may be misplaced, trust in God is not

We must learn to rely on the promises of God and begin to live our lives on that reliance because how God’s faithfulness affects you is determined by your reliance on Him.

When God says that He is faithful no matter what, that means

He is faithful in His actions towards the righteous

He is also faithful in His actions towards the unrighteous

THIS DOES NOT MEAN that the righteous will prosper and the unrighteous will suffer

Both kings in our passage were unrighteous, yet God uses one to judge the other for a time

God often uses prosperity in the unrighteous to fill up the cup of judgment against them

God also uses struggles in the life of the righteous to bring about their maturity in Christ

We have to remember that God is never focused just on this moment. Rather, this moment is very intentionally a part of what brings about His will in the end.

You see, God knows your path and your problems, and while His faithfulness does not depend on yours, the third point I want you to see is that,

Your deliverance or judgment is determined by your faith

Look at the end of verse 9 and following:

Isaiah 7:9b–13 (NASB95)

“‘“…If you will not believe, you surely shall not last.”’”

Then the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying,

“Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God; make it deep as Sheol or high as heaven.”

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

Then he said, “Listen now, O house of David! Is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well?”

Stay with me here. God is speaking to Ahaz here. God is talking to Ahaz who

shut down worship of Him and replaced God’s altar in the temple to worship a false god

set up shrines, high places, and altars to false gods all over Jerusalem

Ahaz, who has been seeking help from the gods of Damascus and Assyria instead of God

God is is talking to an unrighteous, unfaithful king that he sent a prophet to because of His love for him and His people.

And this is God’s message to that king that didn’t seek His help:

I’m going to rescue you from these enemies, so don’t be afraid

Your enemies aren’t just going to fail, their kingdoms will be shattered

If you are going to make it, you are going to have to start trusting ME!

And, just to show you once more that you I’m worth trusting, ask me for a sign

it can be anything you what it to be in all of creation. Just ask and I’ll do it, small or big

And Ahaz answers “I won’t ask for a sign, I won’t test the Lord!”

Now, it might seem like that is a good answer. Like maybe Ahaz is saying, “I believe You, I don’t need a sign.”

But look at how God, who knows our hearts and minds, responds to that.

God says “now you’re testing MY patience.”

You see, Ahaz was still responding in fear.

It wasn’t that He didn’t want to test God, it was that Ahaz didn’t believe God

He didn’t trust God

And everything in his life pointed to that

1 John 5:5 NASB95

Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Romans 10:9 (NASB95)

if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;

John 3:14–15 NASB95

“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.

Ephesians 2:8–10 NASB95

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Are we seeing it, church?

God is faithful no matter what. He is faithful to bring life to those receiving it and He is faithful to bring death and judgment to those that are receiving it

And the only difference between those two fates is your faith!

Faith that God can save you from your sins

Faith that the way that Christ has called you to live will bring abundant life

Faith that it is Christ alone that can give us peace with God

Faith that Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead and to usher in His eternal Kingdom

When I say that I have faith in something, what that means is that I live my life staking my actions on that truth.

I have faith that I need to eat to survive. If I didn’t truly believe that, I might choose not to eat and it would kill me.

I have fasted, and I have to tell you I struggle with doing that. When I fast, my body attests to the truth that I need food, and I faithfully return to eating.

I don’t just say that I believe it, I act on that belief.

Ahaz didn’t do that, but you can!

Truly trusting Jesus will change the way you live

This whole passage in Isaiah is prophecy. Some of it happened in the near time. Some of it was years from happening, and still some of it was centuries later.

But when Ahaz refuses a sign from God, God still gives one. Let’s look at it, starting in verse 14:

Isaiah 7:14–16 NASB95

“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. “He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. “For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.

God gives Ahaz a sign, and the sign He gives him is Jesus!

God doesn’t just give Ahaz a sign, He gives him THE sign,

it just comes in the form of another prophecy

that prophecy is also a clear indictment.

God says:

A young virgin girl is going to bear a son

that’s miracle number one!

The boy’s name will be Immanuel, that is “God with us”

Miracle number two! God is coming to live amongst His people to be the King they need

By the time the boy eats solid food, He will already be a better ruler than you!

Every single one of the kings sinned against God, but this coming King will not

These kings you fear will be long gone by the time of Immanuel’s coming

In other words, the sign I am giving you will come after what I promised you

It seems somewhat ironic, doesn’t it? That the sign given to confirm the first prophecy is another prophecy that would come long after the first prophecy had come to pass?

This fact points us to a couple things

First, it points us back to our need for faith as we’ve talked about all morning.

If Ahaz didn’t have the faith to believe God could deliver him, how would he trust that a virgin would give birth or that God would live among us?

Secondly, the sign isn’t for Ahaz, but for us.

It points us past the kings that the nation of Israel clamored for.

Kings that all failed to follow God

Kings that failed to lead them to God

Kings of earthly kingdoms doomed to destruction

This coming King, Immanuel would be the King we needed: God with us

Jesus, God With Us, is the only answer. He does what only God can do!

I don’t know what you have put your faith in this morning and I don’t know what problems have your heart trembling…

Maybe you’ve put your faith in our newly elected officials thinking that somehow in four years these mere men are going to solve the issues in front of you and facing our nation.

I hate to tell you that regardless of what they do accomplish, you will be dissappointed

Maybe you’re like Ahaz. Your problems are too big for you and you act like they are too big for God

Maybe you’ve been putting your faith in everything and anything but Him, but this morning He has met you right where you are, and He is calling you to trust Him in faith.

Or maybe you say you believe that Jesus, God with us, is the only answer;

but your life doesn’t reflect that you really believe that and this morning God is calling you to start building your life on Him in faith

Wherever you are this morning, God is ready to meet with you.

The worship team is going to come, and lead us in a song of reflection

We’re going to pray together, and then I’m going to invite you to sing or to spend some time alone with Jesus, talking with Him about His call on you towards faith

And if God is calling you this morning, there are two ways I’d invite you to respond to that call:

First, I will be at the welcome table out front right after the service. Come grab me, and let’s talk. I would love to hear how God is moving and to pray with you this morning

OR, you can scan that same QR code we mentioned earlier this morning and click the button that says meet with Pastor Matthew. That will take you to an email form to send me so that we can get together for lunch or coffee and talk about what God is doing

But if God is calling you this morning, don’t put it off. Today is the day of salvation! Let us turn to the Lord in faith.

PRAY