INTRODUCTION
• SLIDE #1
• There have always been reasons to be fearful and to lose hope in the world.
• Life can get chaotic and stressful at times. Sometimes those stresses are magnified during the Christmas season.
• There is so much stuff swirling around us that, at times, we can lose hope and start to place our trust in places where we should know better.
• We all need something to grasp onto so that we can stay hopeful, joyful, and faithful.
• God did something for us to help us to strengthen our hope, joy, and faith!
• Jesus’s birth is a powerful display of God’s faithfulness to bring peace, hope, healing, and life to a lost and dying world.
• Today we will begin a new four-week series that explores the Christmas story by examining the relationship between the book of Isaiah and the purpose and work of Christ in the New Testament.
• Because of Jesus, we can experience the joy that comes through his finished work.
• The series ‘Unto Us’ will be a powerful tool for helping us to understand and apply the nativity story into the fabric of our lives.
• For information sake, you need to know that the book of Isaiah was written over 700 years before Jesus was born.
• When you keep that thought in the back of your mind as you read the book of Isaiah, the prophecies contained within the book are staggering. As a matter of fact, they are so staggering that a significant number of liberal scholars do not believe it is possible the book was written 740 years before Jesus.
• I want to set up the context of the part of the passage we are going to place our focus today. The main focus will be on Isaiah 7:10-17, but I want to dig into verses 1-9 before we hit that, so you have some background.
• We open Isaiah 7 to a crisis for the kingdom of Judah.
• The Hebrew people were split into two different kingdoms after the death of Solomon: Israel to the north and Judah to the South.
• Both kingdoms struggled to stay faithful to God, and eventually, both were exiled. The Northern kingdom was less successful in remaining faithful to God than the South.
• All 19 kings that reigned during the 209-year life of the Northern Kingdom were evil. In the 344 years of the Southern Kingdom, you had a mixed bag.
• Isaiah 7 shows the kingdom of Israel and Aram, trying to invade Jerusalem, the capital of Judah. This took place around 735 B.C.
• King Ahaz of Judah is nervous about the thought of invasion. Scripture says that the “hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind” (v. 2).
• It is at this point that God instructs Isaiah to go to Ahaz and tell him, “Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid” (v. 4). Speaking of the invasion, God says, “it will not take place, it will not happen” (v. 7).
• King Ahaz was so afraid that he decided to make an alliance with Assyrian King, Tiglath-Pileser (2 Kings 16:7).
• As Isaiah 7:2 says, the people were terrified, so King Ahaz thought It was best for the country as well as HIS throne to align themselves with Assyria.
• By the way, in 722 BC, the Northern Kingdom fell to Assyria.
• So, God sends Isaiah to King Ahaz to try to talk some sense to him.
• In verses 4-9, Isaiah told King Ahaz not to sweat it, that Israel and Syria would not harm them.
• In verse 4, God tells Isaiah to tell the king concerning the Kings of Israel and Syria:
• Isaiah 7:4 (CSB) — 4 Say to him: Calm down and be quiet. Don’t be afraid or cowardly because of these two smoldering sticks…
• The nation was in the midst of dark times because of a lack of faith as well as rebellion.
• However, God would bring a miraculous sign of his faithfulness through a virgin birth that would heal a dark world.
• That sets us up for what we will examine in verses 10-17.
• Let’s begin with verses 10-12.
• After all the encouragement that God offers King Ahaz, God through Isaiah makes Him a great offer!
• SLIDE #2
• Isaiah 7:10–12 (CSB) — 10 Then the LORD spoke again to Ahaz: 11 “Ask for a sign from the LORD your God—it can be as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven.” 12 But Ahaz replied, “I will not ask. I will not test the LORD.”
• SLIDE #3
SERMON
I. A plea to trust God.
• When you seem to be in dire circumstances, what do you do? King Ahaz, alone with the Southern kingdom, were scared out of their wits.
• The Northern Kingdom of Israel, as well as Syria, were going to attack.
• The reason they were going to attack was because they were afraid of the Assyrians attacking them, so they wanted the Southern kingdom to join them in an alliance against Assyria.
• King Ahaz wanted no part of that, so Syria and Israel were going to attack Judah (the Southern Kingdom) and remove Ahaz and set up a puppet King that would do what they wanted. (Isaiah 7:5-6)
• 2 Chronicles 28 and 2 Kings 16 gives a full account of what happened. I am oversimplifying the events for time's sake.
• Syria and Israel had attacked before and killed 120,000 Judeans but could not entirely take the nation, but they did a great deal of damage
• This was going to be another attack. In 2 Kings 16:1-9, Ahaz was not going to be defeated again.
• In his desperation, King Ahaz was about to make a BIG mistake. He was going to reach out to Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser for protection.
• Isaiah brings the word of the Lord to Ahaz, pleading with him to trust God.
• How many times in life have we made bad decisions when we decided not to put our trust in the Lord?
• One thing you have to remember about Ahaz is that the Bible tells us he was wicked, that he did not walk in the ways of the Lord.
• So, it is no surprise that even when a known prophet of the Lord delivered a message to him, he ignored it.
• Now here is what is even more surprising, Isaiah told Ahaz to ASK for a sign.
• 10 Then the LORD spoke again to Ahaz: 11 “Ask for a sign from the LORD your God—it can be as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven.”
• What the Lord is saying in verse 10 through Isaiah is ASK FOR ANY SIGN YOU WOULD LIKE, and I will give it to you.
• God wants Ahaz to trust Him.
• Ahaz was facing a dark situation; it was a bad as it could get, and God is offering to give him ANY sign he chooses so that Ahaz could trust God!
• How would you like to receive that offer?
• Ahaz tries to go Biblical on Isaiah to the offer.
• 12 But Ahaz replied, “I will not ask. I will not test the LORD.”
• Ahaz seems very holy sounding, but in fact, he has no relationship with the Lord.
• 2 King 16 describes Ahaz: “He did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God. He followed the ways of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire” (2 Kings 16:2–3). Ahaz was not a good king
• The truth was that Ahaz was not worried about testing the Lord, Ahaz had already made up his mind as to what he was going to do!
• We all have been in situations where God told us to trust him, and we trusted something or someone else.
• We made alliances with our own empires; we trusted ourselves to provide for our needs instead of the Lord to be our provision.
• Have you ever tried to hold four things at once while going up the stairs? Maybe someone asked if they could help, and you said, "I got this" shortly before you dropped everything because you tripped.
• When we struggle to trust God, we can tell him, “I got this” when we really don’t. That lack of trust shows our continual need to grow in our relationship with him.
• Let’s look at verses 13-14
• SLIDE #4
• Isaiah 7:13–14 (CSB) — 13 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? 14 Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: See, the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel.
• SLIDE #5
II. A sign of hope for the future.
• Isaiah is not too happy with Ahaz’s response to God’s generous offer.
• In verse 13, Isaiah says, “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?
• Ahaz has shown that he does not care about troubling his people, nor does he care about causing God to grow tired and impatient with him either.
• Isaiah tells Ahaz, ok, you want to play it that way, God is going to give you a sign anyway!
• The part of the sign is found in verse 14; therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: See, the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel.
• Isaiah is offering Ahaz a sign that will take place in the future one he would not live to see.
• There are a TON of theological issues that theologians wrestle with concerning this passage.
• Some say that this verse refers to a person during the days of Isaiah, possible a second wife of Isaiah or even a wife of Ahaz,
• The Hebrew word for VIRGIN can mean a young woman of marrying age.
• There is a Hebrew word that can ONLY mean virgin; however, the other six times the word is used in the Old Testament, it means virgin.
• When the Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew Bible to Greek (the LXX) in 285 BC, they used the Greek word, which can only mean virgin.
• When Matthew uses this passage in Matthew 1:23, he also uses the word used in the LXX, which men VIRGIN.
• Now, how would an event that would happen 700 years later be an encouragement to Ahaz?
• Ahaz wanted the House of David to rule eternally, so this would be an encouragement to him. He was worried about the perpetuity of the Davidic line.
• Such a prophecy would comfort Ahaz, for it says that Syria would be destroyed while Judah would continue for a long glorious future!
• The sign was fulfilled through the birth of Jesus!
• The name Immanuel means GOD WITH US!
• Let’s look at verse 15-17!
• SLIDE #6
• Isaiah 7:15–17 (CSB) — 15 By the time he learns to reject what is bad and choose what is good, he will be eating curds and honey. 16 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. 17 The LORD will bring on you, your people, and your father’s house such a time as has never been since Ephraim separated from Judah: He will bring the king of Assyria.”
• SLIDE #7
III. A sign of hope for today.
• Ahaz needed something to give him hope for today.
• May people place so much focus on the implications of verse 14, they miss the blessing offered to King Ahaz in verses 15-17.
• This passage tells Ahaz that by the time the child would be able to tell right from wrong, or the age of accountability, Israel (The Northern Kingdom) and Syria, would both be destroyed.
• The exchange between Isaiah and King Ahaz roughly 735 BC.
• The age a Jewish child was accountable for right and wrong was around 12-14 years of age.
• By 732, the Assyrians lead by Tiglath-Pileser more or less ended the power of Syria. In 722 BC, the Assyrians ended the Northern Kingdom, roughly 13 years after Isaiah spoke the word of God to Ahaz.
• Ahaz in 716-715 BC.
• Here is the application for us.
CONCLUSION
• Isaiah’s prophecy of hope was given in a time of hopelessness and rebellion, a time where those leading God’s people were not holy. Have you ever been in that boat?
• God would fix what was right through the incarnation (as Immanuel, God with us).
• He would physically walk with his creation and sacrifice himself to give life to those who were lost and dead in sin.
• God would bring a miraculous sign of his faithfulness through a virgin birth that would heal a dark world.
• When we face the darkness that accompanies life, we place our trust in God’s miraculous power in times of trouble and doubt.
• God gives us hope for the future (Eternal life through His Son Jesus, He also gives us hope for today, Emmanuel, God with us!
