The Sign of Immanuel
Notes
Transcript
Opening Illustration
Opening Illustration
In December 1917, a massive ice storm paralyzed New England.
A passenger train froze on the tracks outside Hartford, leaving hundreds stranded in subzero temperatures.
The passengers had no food, no heat, and no way home on Christmas Eve.
Then something remarkable happened.
Families living along the tracks bundled up, walked out into the storm, and climbed aboard the helpless train.
They brought hot soup, blankets, lanterns, coffee, bread, and warm clothing.
Some even invited strangers—complete strangers—into their homes for the night.
.......
A reporter later wrote:
“On that Christmas Eve, there were no empty hands and no empty hearts.”
.......
Christmas reveals a God who comes to the stranded.
A God who steps into our helplessness and a God who breaks through the ice and cold of sin and suffering with warmth, light, and rescue.
.......
Just as those families walked into that train, Christ walked into our darkness.
Just as they brought warmth, He brings salvation.
Just as they came to the stranded, He came to the lost.
This is God with us...
And that is why Jesus is called Immanuel.
.......
So, please turn your Bibles to the Book of Isaiah.
We will conduct our study in Chapter 7 and focus on verse 14.
Our message this morning is titled “The Sign of Immanuel.”
.......
As you are turning to our passage today, please keep in mind this fact:
Nearly 2,000 years ago the Son of God took on flesh...
The Creator of all things seen and unseen came into our world...
The world He created...
To be with us...
The people He created...
No save us from the sin and the wrath that we earned.
.......
So, on this Christmas Eve evening, we will cover three main points:
1) The Sign
2) The Birth
And...
3) The Name
Opening Prayer
Opening Prayer
Before we consider our text, please join me in prayer...
.......
Heavenly Father...
Thank You...
Thank You for not turning Your back on us...
Thank You for not giving us the Hell we deserve...
Thank You for providing for us a way of escape...
Thank You for sending Your precious Son into a world that would hate Him...
Into a world that would reject Him...
Into a world that would kill Him...
For if it was not for the voluntarily sacrifice of Your Son...
If it was not for the cross...
we would have no hope...
So, thank You Your Son...
Thank You for Immanuel!
.......
And it is in Jesus’ name we pray all these things...
Amen.
.......
Let’s turn to our text for today:
Reading of the Text
Reading of the Text
14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
So, let’s look at our first point...
1) The Sign
1) The Sign
Verse 14(a): Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.
Beloved, do you see the word “Therefore” in our passage?
That means we need to look at the previous verses in order to understand the context.
.......
So, look with me at Isaiah 7:11-13, which says:
11 “Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.”
12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.”
13 And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also?
So, what we see here is that God offered to provide King Ahaz (who is the unfaithful son of David who refuses to trust God’s promise) a sign to prove to the king that He was powerful enough to handle Ahaz’s enemies.
However, King Ahaz refused to choose a sign when offered.
So, the Lord would chose His own sign...
And this sign would have implications that would occur far beyond Ahaz’s lifetime.
As the Expositor’s Bible Commentary on Isaiah says:
“Once again, as in the day of the Midianite menace, a superior foe was threatening the nation.
God went even further this time in his patience with human weakness, for he actually offered Ahaz carte blanche, the unrestricted choice of a sign.
Reinforcement of such an overflowing gesture of grace hardly seems conceivable, and yet it is secured by the possessive pronoun ‘your.’
This reminds him of his special relationship to God as the chosen people’s king.
.......
Ahaz made his plans, and they did not include God or his will.
Ahaz’s reply was a monumental piece of hypocrisy.
.......
Just as Satan was later to quote and misuse Scripture in the temptation of God’s Son—to which Jesus gave reply from the very verse Ahaz must have had in mind (Matthew 4:6–7)—so here a godless king made an inappropriate and unbelieving allusion to what God had said.
It is not testing God to do as he says!”
So, King Ahaz is not really interested in trusting God...
He has already developed his own plan to put his trust in Assyria to deliver him from the forces of Syria and Israel.
Isaiah’s response is one of condemnation for the “House of David,” the royal court that was led by Ahaz.
.......
This response to King Ahaz was also a prophecy by Isaiah...
This sign was a two fold sign...
Part of it’s fulfillment would be seen in the time of King Ahaz...
And the full fulfillment of the prophecy would come about much later with the birth of the Messiah.
.......
So, the mother in this prophecy is a both a royal contemporary of the prophet, whose child’s name would symbolize the presence of God with his people and who would foreshadow the Messiah in whom God would be incarnate.
And the mother is Mary who as a virgin gave birth to the child, Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
.......
So, in regards to the fulfillment of the prophecy in King Ahaz’s time...
As the Expositor’s Bible Commentary on Isaiah again helps us and says:
“An unmarried young woman within the royal house would shortly marry and conceive.
Her son would be called Immanuel (‘God is with us’), probably in ignorance of the prophecy (which may have been given in the presence only of Ahaz) and possibly even as a presumptuous gesture to give the support of a complacent piety to the king’s pro-Assyrian policy.
Before the child is old enough to eat the characteristic food of the Land of Promise in its solid form (and so, if this is meant, well before the age of moral discretion), the Assyrians would lay waste the lands of Aram and Israel, which they did in 733–732 B.C., only a year or two after the prophecy was given.”
Then, regarding the fulfillment of the prophecy by the Messiah, consider these additional words:
“The prophecy was given to the house of David and not simply to Ahaz (‘you’ in verse 14 is plural).
In the fullness of time, the messianic Child would be born of that house.
He was to be a symbol of God’s salvation of his people, not simply from physical foes like Rezin and Pekah, but ultimately from sin.
He represents the final purpose of God in his person as well as his work.
For he is, in fullness of meaning, God with us; and his mother was a virgin at the time of her conception and not simply, as in the case of the earlier royal mother, at the time of the prophecy.”
.......
Our attention today is on the full fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy regarding the true Immanuel...
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ...
Who is the only one who can truly and fully fulfill such prophecies as Isaiah would will later declare in Isaiah 9:6–7, which says:
6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
Furthermore, Isaiah 11:1–10 sheds some more light on the identity of the Immanuel...
And that passage says:
1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
5 Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.
9 They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
10 In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.
.......
So, although Isaiah’s words to King Ahaz would see some fulfillment in their own time...
King Ahaz was not the only one Isaiah spoke to...
He also spoke regarding the House of David...
And he pointed to the coming King and Kings and Lord of Lords...
He pointed to the Son of God who would take on flesh and come into our world...
Our Lord who would live for us...
And our Savior who would dies for us...
In perfect obedience to His Father.
.......
Next, I would like to look at that wonderful event that Isaiah prophecies...
The birth of Immanuel...
And that takes us to our next point.
2) The Birth
2) The Birth
Verse 14(b): Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
Now, the most controversial point of our verse today is the original Hebrew of the word “virgin.”
I would like us to look at the word study provided by the ESV Study Bible, which says:
“Although some claim that the word translated virgin (‘almah in Hebrew) refers generally to a ‘young woman,’ it actually refers specifically to a ‘maiden’—that is, to a young woman who is unmarried and sexually chaste, and thus has virginity as one of her characteristics.
Thus when the Septuagint translators, 200 years before the birth of Christ, rendered ‘almah here with Greek parthenos (a specific term for “virgin”) they rightly perceived the meaning of the Hebrew term;
And when Matthew applied this prophecy to the virgin birth of Christ, it was in accord with this well-established understanding of parthenos (“virgin”) as used in the Septuagint and in other Greek writers.”
.......
So, Matthew was absolutely correct in how he used the reference to Isaiah is his gospel account...
Which makes sense as Matthew was no writing his own gospel on his own...
He was inspired by the Holy Spirit and that is why there is no error in Scripture...
The single author of Scripture who inspired all the human authors is God Himself!
.......
Now, at the when it was God’s perfect time...
God the Father sent His beloved Son into our world...
Or as Galatians 4:4 says:
4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,
.......
Then the angel Gabriel came to Mary....
And as Luke 1:28–35 says:
28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”
29 But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.
30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,
33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
35 And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.
.......
Now, when Joseph, the man betrothed to Mary, found that she was with child, he planned on divorcing her quietly...
But as Matthew 1:20–21 records:
20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
.......
And about nine months later...
One of the most incredible events in all of human history took place...
The the virgin birth of the Incarnated Christ...
Truly the greatest birth of all time that demanded the praise of both angels and men...
For as an angel appeared to some shepherds in a field and their encounter was recorded in Luke 2:10–12, which says:
10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”
.......
And as we have said before...
That child’s name and title meant something pretty profound...
And that takes us to our third and final point.
3) The Name
3) The Name
Verse 14(c): And shall call his name Immanuel.
As Matthew 1:22–23 says:
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).
.......
Beloved, what an incredible day we celebrate tomorrow...
God coming down to our level...
God taking on flesh...
God with us!
.......
As you celebrate with family and friends...
As you tear open your gifts...
As you enjoy your seasonal treats...
Remember what God did nearly 2,000 years ago...
And remember why...
Jesus, like a missionary...
Left His home in Heaven to dwell with us...
And He preaches a message of repent and believe...
And He sacrificed Himself for us to have a way to the Father...
So, as you remember the manger...
Remember too, the cross.
Closing Illustration
Closing Illustration
So, as this message comes to a close...
I would like you to consider this:
On Christmas Eve, 1968, the world gathered around their televisions at one of the most turbulent times in American history.
The Vietnam War raged.
Cities burned from riots. Hearts were heavy with fear and division.
But on that night, three astronauts—Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders—became the first human beings to orbit the moon.
As their camera panned the surface of that gray, lifeless world, Earth rose in the background like a fragile blue jewel.
Half a billion people watched in silence.
.......
Then came something nobody expected.
The astronauts opened their broadcast with these words, spoken into the cold emptiness of space:
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…”
Genesis… read from lunar orbit… on Christmas Eve.
.......
Anders later said,
“We came all this way to discover the moon, and the most important thing we discovered was the earth.”
But millions of believers worldwide heard something deeper:
The glory of God shining into a weary world, reminding us that the Creator’s wisdom and power hold all things together—even when the world feels like it’s unraveling.
.......
So, in this Christmas season...
Look around at the wonderful works of our Creator and give Him the glory...
Take time to personally thank God for saving you from your previous darkness...
And follow the perfect model of our Master...
Jesus Christ...
Our Immanuel!
Closing Prayer
Closing Prayer
Let’s pray...
.......
Heavenly Father...
If anyone hearing this message right now does not know You in a saving way:
Then I beg you to let them encounter our Immanuel...
And renew their minds with a saving knowledge of You.
.......
I appeal to Your Name’s sake!
.......
For those hearing this message who already know You:
Remind us of the perfect work of the cross accomplished by our Immanuel...
Who saved us from a debt we could never pay back on our own.
.......
Again, I appeal to Your Name’s sake!
.......
It is in Jesus’ name we pray all these things...
To God be all the glory.
Amen.
