Isaiah 7:10-14
Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, “Ask the LORD your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.”
But Ahaz said, “I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test.”
Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also? 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.
Dear Fellow Seers of Jesus Christ,
This past Thursday I went to my son’s Christmas program at Wanamaker. I had to cringe as I walked down the hall past all of the letters posted to Santa Clause. Almost every letter said, “I have been pretty good, and I would like . . . .” All they seemed to be worried about was whether they were good enough to get the gifts that they wanted on Christmas. Talk about a work righteous bunch of selfish garbage! They should have written, “Santa, I want you to keep your gifts this Christmas and stay at the North Pole.” Call me Ebenezer Scrooge - “bah, humbug!” - but if you think Christmas is all about whether you get the gifts you asked for - you’re not celebrating Christmas in the right way.
I wonder what Mary or Joseph would think of our version of Christmas. Here they were on the night Jesus was born - without a heater or a bed, only concerned about having a safe and healthy birth, and here we are asking for DVD players, video games and the latest massaging gadgets. All these kids seem to be concerned about is whether Santa will give them all of the things they want - not realizing that most of it will be sitting in a closet five months from now or in the garbage - either that or it will be returned to the store the next day because they didn’t really want that one or it didn’t work.
Even if you get nothing but a lump of coal this Christmas, you can’t say that you got nothing for Christmas. For two thousand years ago, God gave us a baby through Mary - and named Him Jesus. We didn’t ask for this child to be given to us, but God gave Him anyway. Ironically, the best gifts we get are never the ones we ask for. The Holy Spirit gave us faith without our asking. (Ephesians 1:4, 2:1) God sent Christ long before we were even gleams in our mother’s eye. This gift of Christmas is illustrated wonderfully for us in the story of Ahaz and Isaiah. As we look at this, we’ll see the prediction of -
Immanuel: The Greatest Gift We Never Asked For!
I. Not asking is a sign of arrogance
God doesn’t base his gifts on the Santa Clause method. He doesn’t check who’s naughty or nice. If he did, we wouldn’t get anything! Paul says in Romans 3:10-12 “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Imagine if God held to the Santa Clause method! God would come in crimson red fire this Christmas and say, “Merry Christmas! I’ll give you a gift alright! You want me to consider your life? Here’s a DVD for you - it’s a movie I’ve made of all of your sins - but just wait - I’ll take a good look at it in front of everyone on Judgment Day! You want a new coat? I’ve seen how selfish you’ve been with my possessions! So how about I take all of your clothes instead! You want a stocking filler? How about I put my boot in it and kick your rear for good measure!”
Thankfully, God doesn’t use that method. It’s very clear he DOESN’T use it from looking at WHO Isaiah speaks to with this prophecy. Ahaz was the 11th king of Judah. 2 Kings 16 says, Unlike David his father, he did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God. 3 He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire, following the detestable ways of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites. 4 He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places, on the hilltops and under every spreading tree. It just so happened that the kings of Aram and Damascus were attacking his kingdom and ready to get the upper hand on him and all of his kingdom. Ahaz was worried. He should have been.
Yet God wanted to assure him that he would supply a victory for Ahaz - EVEN THOUGH he was doing these things! All he wanted him to do was stand firm in the TRUE faith! So in today’s text, God came to him and said, “Ask the LORD your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.” Imagine such an offer! If you were Ahaz, imagine that - you could ask for anything in the world to happen. This was much broader than the offer to Solomon - which only would be given to him personally. Ahaz could have anything in the heights or the depths happen - he could have asked to see a flock of flying pigs fly by, a walking and talking tree, the earth crack in half, God offered him ANYTHING he wanted! In the Old Testament God had put a rainbow in the sky, had the shadow go ten steps backwards, had the earth swallow up Korah, had fire come from heaven and consume Elijah’s offering - if Ahaz knew any of this history - he knew that he could have asked for ANYTHING. What more could he ask for! God was giving him an offer he absolutely couldn’t refuse!
But Ahaz said, “I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test.” What?!? What kind of pious sounding garbage is that? Testing God is when you demand a sign of God in order for you to believe him - like when the devil put Jesus up on the temple and told him to jump - to prove that God would save him. But if GOD offers the sign to help CONFIRM His promise to you, why wouldn’t you take it? He was more or less saying to Ahaz, “I want to show you how powerful I am - that I can save you from Aram and Rezin.” Why on earth would Ahaz deny such a wonderful thing? Especially if it involved relief from his enemies? There can be only one explanation. Ahaz didn’t WANT to believe in the LORD. If he had accepted that sign, then he would have to admit that his lifestyle was evil, that he needed to repent, and that he was not in charge. He didn’t want to have to feel “obligated” to give thanks to the LORD. He didn’t want to be involved in the worship of the LORD like Isaiah was. That was too much of a commitment to him, even if it involved deliverance from his enemies.
You wonder how anyone could be so hard headed to deny such an offer? I mean, if God came to you and I with such an offer, we wouldn’t blink twice at it, right? But before you get to angry with Ahaz and hang him out to dry, consider what Jesus says to each and every one of us in Matthew 7:7, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Here we have a clear command from Jesus to ask, seek and knock. We have a promise that the door will be opened to us. There are no “strings” attached. God loves to GIVE things - all of His gifts are - in fact - gifts of grace.
Yet how many of us don’t take the time to simply pray for something. It’s amazing how we’ll save up for Christmas presents, take time to write Santa a wish list, search for the best bargains, but never think of simply PRAYING for it - ASKING for it. Why is that? Could it be because we - like Ahaz - are too arrogant to ask God for help? Because we don’t LIKE getting gifts - that we’d rather WORK for it? Could it be because we realize that if we pray for it, then we’ll have to thank God for it - or actually recognize where it came from? Could it be that we don’t really believe this promise of God - that it is an empty promise? You can’t excuse such behavior on pious excuses like God gives us what we need anyway, or that God doesn’t need to bother with such “small things.” God commands us to pray in every and any occasion. To not do so - is a slap in his face. The ultimate sign of arrogance is to say to God - “I don’t want your handouts!” It’s like having all kinds of gifts under the Christmas tree this Christmas and saying to your parents, “I don’t feel like opening them. Take them back to the store.”
II. God doesn’t allow our arrogance to stop his generosity
Ahaz didn’t want to “test” God, but his very answer betrayed his “worst fears.” Even Isaiah seemed to be astounded at the hard heart of Ahaz. He said, Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also? God is a very patient Person - just ask Noah, Saul, or Joshua. But he does have a limit to his patience. Ahaz was testing that patience - which isn’t an easy thing to do nor a good thing to do. Yet the LORD wouldn’t be deterred quite yet. Within this little struggle with an arrogant king, God ironically landed one of the most beautiful and specific gospel promises of the Old Testament. It kind of reminds me of when the Pharisees and teachers of the law demanded a miraculous sign from Jesus - instead he gave them the “sign of Jonah,” predicting his own death and resurrection. It was a somewhat veiled promise to these hardened sinners - and yet a beautiful promise to God’s children in hindsight. The same goes with this one. Isaiah said, 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.
There are some who actually take the time to argue over the word for “virgin.” It’s the Hebrew word “almah.” They say that it actually means young maiden, and not virgin. They say, “bethulah” refers to virgin, while “almah” means a young maiden. Martin Luther actually agreed with that and translated the word “jungfrau,” which means young maiden. But Martin Luther also defied anyone to show him where in the Scriptures that “almah” didn’t also refer to a young lady who had never had sexual relations - in other words - a YOUNG virgin is how it is used through Scriptures. Wouldn’t it be a rather strange prediction for Isaiah to say, “a young maiden will be with child,” if he were just referring to the young of the gal? I mean, there are thousands of young maidens who have children every day! (Many more than should, I might add!) This kind of a prediction would be no more unique than saying to a farmer, “a cow will have a calf,” or “dog will have a litter.” Big deal? This word translated virgin in the NIV has to refer to her virginity, for the New Testament clearly says that the “parthenon” will be with child. This is the Greek Word which clearly means “virgin.” Actually, “almah” then, is a more specific revelation, because we know that this would be a YOUNG virgin who would have a child - someone around the age of ENGAGEMENT in New Testament times!
Aside from the semantics of the Word, think about the wonder of the revelation! A virgin will be with child! What kind of a miracle is this! When a young lady’s stomach starts sticking out, and she’s not married, most of us realize that she didn’t catch this “baby fever” in the water. That kid didn’t start growing from a pumpkin seed she ate or from a pelican dropping it out of the sky. You can’t lie your way out of that situation and say, “daddy, I don’t know how it happened.” It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the gal must have been doing the wrong kind of tango with a young man who doesn’t know how to respect a woman or keep his privates under control. 99.9 % we don’t call it a miracle. We call it a sin. Yet somehow, in some way, this young maiden would have a child without the sin involved. Her baby would not come from having sex outside of marriage or even within marriage. It would have nothing to do with sex at all.
Then where would the baby come from? The answer is found in the name that the boy would be called by. The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. Immanuel literally means “God with us.” After Jesus raised the widow’s son Luke 7:16 says, They were all filled with awe and praised God. "A great prophet has appeared among us," they said. "God has come to help his people." They realized that God was WORKING through Jesus - but I don’t know if they realized the true prophecy of Isaiah. He wasn’t just predicted that God would be WITH his people - like God is WITH us now. This is much more than that. Matthew 1:18 says, This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. This baby came from the Holy Spirit. John 1:1 also states that, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Even Isaiah clearly stated in 9:6 that he would be called MIGHTY GOD. The awesome part of this prediction is that not only would God grant a virgin a child - but that God Himself would actually CLIMB INTO THE WOMB of a woman and dwell in her as a baby!
Imagine the concept of this promise - this sign! It’s greater than flying pigs! It’s more awesome than shifting shadows! Instead of showing his power over nature by destroying something or cracking rocks or thunder - as He had in the past - God displayed His power by LIMITING Himself - the eternal and almighty God - to the womb of a woman! If that wouldn’t be amazing enough - He then suffered Himself to be born in a cattle stall and live in a stinking and rotten and condemned world for thirty three years. The HOLY GOD actually touched dead people and ate their food and drank their drink, talked with them and walked with them! And if that weren’t enough, He even took it one step further. Not only did He live among us, He actually BECAME us. The sin of the world no longer just surrounded Him on the cross, it entered His body and soul as the wrath of God came crashing down on Him! Miracle of miracles! When God became man - He not only took on our flesh - He took on our sin! This wasn’t just a gift for a lonely woman named Mary. This is the greatest gift of all and for all - that continues from the manger - as God says in John 3:16 - “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Who could have imagined such a thing? Surely not Ahaz. Surely not us! Who would dream of God becoming man to live and die for this sins of the world - that wanted NOTHING to do with him? What an insanely loving thing to do? Who could ask for something like this? Even if we could dream of such a solution - who of us would have the gall to ASK for it? You? Me? Never.
Ahaz didn’t want this sign. Didn’t want to hear it. Even though he did hear it, he didn’t listen to it. What happened as a result? 2 Chronicles 28 also adds that when the kings of Aram and Damascus attacked him, Ahaz took some of the things from the temple of the LORD and from the royal palace and from the princes and presented them to the king of Assyria, but that did not help him. 22 In his time of trouble King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the LORD. 23 He offered sacrifices to the gods of Damascus, who had defeated him; for he thought, “Since the gods of the kings of Aram have helped them, I will sacrifice to them so they will help me.” But they were his downfall and the downfall of all Israel. 24 Ahaz gathered together the furnishings from the temple of God and took them away. He shut the doors of the LORD’s temple and set up altars at every street corner in Jerusalem. 25 In every town in Judah he built high places to burn sacrifices to other gods and provoked the LORD, the God of his fathers, to anger. When Ahaz rejected this offer, he went from bad to worse. He ended up in hell.
There are basically two different presentations of Christmas at Christmas time. Some present Jesus. Some present Santa. Some try to present both. Whatever you do - remember the difference. There is Santa - who wants to find out if you’ve been “naughty or nice,” to determine whether you will receive gifts that will not last for very long. Then there is God’s Christmas, who offers you a gift that keeps on giving - the gift of eternal life by becoming a man. He doesn’t give this to you only if you’re nice. He doesn’t give it to you if you ask for it. He gave it to you 2,000 years ago without your asking. He gives it to you free of charge, especially to those who have not been nice. This is the true meaning of Christmas. As Isaiah presents this gift to you this Christmas - don’t be like Ahaz and say, “no thanks.” Immanuel is the Greatest Gift We Never Asked For! We may not have asked for it, but God is still giving it to us free of charge! Hold onto this gift this Christmas, and remember that Immanuel is the greatest gift we can have, even if Santa gives us nothing but a lump of coal! Amen.
