- There’s a movie that stars Patrick Dempsey called “Can’t Buy Me Love” that came out in 1987
- It picks up the title from the old Beatles’ song of the same name
- In the movie, Patrick Dempsey’s character, Ronald Miller, plays a kind of nerdy guy in high school who spends his summers mowing peoples’ lawns and earns a lot of money
- He was saving up his money to buy a telescope
- It’s just at the end of summer and school is about to start, Ronald Miller is in the mall picking out his telescope when he spots the most popular girl in school, Cindy Mancini, who doesn’t know he exists but he has a total crush on her
- She had thrown a party the night before at her parent’s house while they were away. She was eyeing one of her mom’s outfits before she left. It was a suede ensemble that someone spills wine on, obviously staining the outfit. She goes to the mall to try to replace it but she doesn’t have the money to purchase it.
- Ronald offers her the money but on one condition, that she pose as his girlfriend for a month.
- She is in a bind so she agrees. On the first day of school, he follows her around. When the so called cool kids begin to pick on him, she tells them that he is her new boyfriend.
- During that month, he actually makes the most of the situation. He makes lots of contacts with the coolest kids in school so when their month long deal ends, he becomes the new eligible young bachelor who all the girls want to date.
- His perfect plan comes to a screeching halt at a New Year’s Eve party when Cindy’s real boyfriend, the big football star who was away at college returns to find out that his girlfriend had “cheated” on him with Ronald. As they have it out before numerous onlookers, Cindy admits that Ronald paid her to be his girlfriend.
- That obviously made him lower on the social ladder than he was before. And since he burned his bridges with his geeky friends when he became the rising star, even they ignored him when his star crashed and burned.
- The movie has a happy ending though. What Ronald didn’t know was that Cindy was actually falling in love with him near the end of their month long deal. She sees a side of him that she never really took the time to explore. She ends up having a crush on him and was hoping that he would ask her to continue the relationship but the thought of being popular was too much for him. So, in the end, she actually feels bad for hurting him so much, realizes how much she does care for him and they ride off into the sunset on his riding lawnmower. {PAUSE}
- The movie has a lot of the themes that our text for today does..
- There is love and romance. There is betrayal and finally redemption.
- We’ve been taking quite a few looks this fall at the great Eight century prophets, especially Isaiah and Hosea.
- Isaiah’s prophetic ministry occurred during some particularly rough periods in Judah’s history.
- Isaiah was probably a member of the upper echelons of society. He appears to have fairly easy access to the Kings of Judah, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, who reigned during his ministry.
- His ministry covers a rather substantial period from about 742 – 687 B. C.
- There were many awful kings of Judah but Ahaz was one of the worst. He brought about and continued many of the idolatrous practices of the people. He even sacrificed one of his own sons to a false god.
- However, his worst mistake was that he presided over one of the worst decisions in Judah’s history that would lead to the final nail in Judah’s coffin about a hundred years later
- When Rezin, king of Aram and Pekah, prince of Israel, the ten northern tribes, threatened to take Jerusalem, Isaiah told him to trust in God and that He would deliver his kingdom.
- Instead, Ahaz turned to Tiglath- Pilezer III, king of Assyria, for help.
- He as all to willing to help but would be the undoing of Israel in 722 B. C. when Samaria fell and the majority of the ten northern tribes were carted off to Assyria never to be heard from again.
- This made Judah even more susceptible to foreign invasion since Israel had been their northern bugger for centuries.
- The kings of Judah turned to Egypt and later Babylon to balance the power in the region and when the later kings got tired of paying off Babylon for their ongoing protection the Babylonians defeated Judah and carted many of the nobles off to Babylon in 597 B. C. and then finally destroyed Jerusalem in 587 B. C. {PAUSE}
- All of the prophets but Isaiah maybe more than others is extremely anachronistic.
- This is one of the things that made the prophets so unpopular
- While the people were enjoying the high life, the prophets were predicting doom and gloom
- How much do we enjoy it when someone is predicting a storm headed our way when we are outside enjoying a nice sunny day?
- When there are no dark clouds or gusty winds, we think they are crazy
- We have a tendency to blow them off
- When people tell us that eating or drinking something is bad for us, we blow them off because the consequences are too far down the line
- That’s why the people ignored what the prophets said, they couldn’t see the repercussions of their actions from around the corner
- Just like Ronald, in the movie, couldn’t see how the situation could end badly for him since he was having so much fun
- Isn’t that they way it is for us sometimes too
- We don’t necessarily see how things will end up
- I was talking to someone the other day about how elementary aged kids’ minds work so fast that they run into problems. They don’t think about repercussions before they act.
- We, as adults do the same thing though. We might be able to see a little bit farther out and predict how some of it might play out but we can’t totally predict the actions of others.
- For example, the day after my uncle passed away, I took my car into the shop to have some work done on it.
- The day before I took off to go to his funeral, my aunt called and wanted to know if I wanted to buy her car
- I didn’t see that coming
- Had I know she was going to do that, I could have saved myself $500.
- We can’t always predict the impact of our words and actions on our lives and the lives of others. That is why we need to trust God’s word to tell us what to do and what not to do.
- However, when some of the consequences were beginning to occur, the prophets started proclaiming that God was still in charge and still loved and cared for them. {PAUSE}
- That is where our text picks up
- Isaiah is saying to them, “Okay, I know the future looks really dim right now but just wait.”
- They felt betrayed by God. Kind of like Ronald felt when Cindy dropped the bomb on him.
- He is saying to them, “I know that the land has been plundered, your houses demolished and the temple destroyed and you think the place is desolate but God is going to rebuild it like it was before.”
- To that feeling of despair, God has Isaiah write that instead of being desolate, you will be called Hephzibah and Beulah.
- That doesn’t sound like much of a compliment
- Well, Hephzibah means “My delight is in her” and Beulah means “married”
- In verse 5, God expands on this.
- Isaiah writes, “As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.”
- I haven’t been to a wedding yet where the groom isn’t filled with awe over the stunning beauty of his bride.
- Just like they say that every baby is beautiful, every bride is beautiful to her husband
- We might even say that God has a crush on us or is infatuated with us
- The dictionary.com definition of infatuate is helpful. It says, “to inspire or possess with a foolish or unreasoning passion.”
- God is possessed with blessedly foolish and unreasoning passion for us
- His love for us makes no earthly sense at all
- We spurn His love and devotion all the time like Ronald rejected Cindy’s feelings for him
- Why would God love us so much when we disobey Him so much, so ardently and so consistently?
- If we loved other people the way we love God, we wouldn’t have any friends, no one would lift a finger to ever help us
- But fortunately for us, God doesn’t love like we do {PAUSE}
- Jumping back for a moment to King Ahaz, God had Isaiah offer Ahaz the choice to ask for any sign to let him know that God was with him. He refused to choose so God chose for him. Isaiah writes in chapter 7, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
- Before a young woman, apparently unmarried, gives birth to a son and he is old enough to make his own decisions, the two countries that opposed Ahaz, would be destroyed. And that is exactly what happened.
- However, what is important for us today is that God fulfilled the prophecy a second time.
- Similar to Cindy’s compassion for Ronald, God has compassion on us. The difference is God didn’t do anything wrong of which to repent.
- Because of His compassion, He sent His only son, Jesus, the Christ to be born of Mary so that He could love God the way that we should
- He lived that perfect life of faith, always following His father’s commands because He knew we couldn’t do it.
- He suffered and died to pay for our sins of faithlessness and lack of love. For our attempts to try to earn His favor by buying it with our good deeds like Ronald did in the movie.
- Now, by faith we receive from Jesus all of His good deeds are a gift that makes us acceptable to God.
- He also gives us the ability to love and believe more strongly
- He now gives us the Holy Spirit to trust in Him above all things.
- Now, our ability to trust in Him, even when the world around us is in turmoil and our lives might be turned upside down, we don’t worry like Ahaz did or get depressed like Ronald did. Instead, we thank God for His infatuation with us and live lives of thanksgiving.
