So we're in Isaiah chapter 7
and we'll read from verse 1. And it came to pass in the days
of Ahaz the son of Jotham the son of Uzziah king of Judah that
Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remalia king of Israel
went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail
against it. And it was told the house of
David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was
moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are
moved with the wind. Then said the Lord unto Isaiah,
Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou and Shear-Jashub thy son, at
the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of
the fooler's field. and say unto him, Take heed,
and be quiet, fear not, neither be faint-hearted. For the two
tales of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezan
with Syria, and of the son of Remalia, because Syria, Ephraim,
and the son of Remalia have taken evil counsel against thee same. Let us go up against Judah, and
vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king
in the midst of it, even the son of Tabial. Thus saith the Lord God, It shall
not stand, neither shall it come to pass, For the head of Syria
is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Reza. And within
threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be
not a people. And the head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is Remalia's son. If ye will not believe,
surely ye shall not be established. Moreover the Lord spake again
unto Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God. Ask it either
in the depth or in the height above. But Ahaz said, I will
not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. And he said, Hear ye
now, O house of David. Is it a small thing for you to
weary men? But will ye weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself shall
give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive
and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel. Butter and
honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose
the good. For before the child shall know
to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that thou
abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings. the Lord shall
bring upon thee and upon thy people and upon thy father's
house days that have not come from the day that Ephraim departed
from Judah even the king of Assyria and it shall come to pass in
that day that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the
uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt and for the bee that
is in the land of Assyria and they shall come and shall rest
all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks,
and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes. In the same day shall
the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, namely, by them beyond
the river, by the king of Assyria, the head and the hair of the
feet, and it shall also consume the beard. And it shall come
to pass in that day that a man shall nourish a young cow and
two sheep. And it shall come to pass for
the abundance of milk that they shall give, he shall eat butter.
For butter and honey shall everyone eat that is left in the land.
And it shall come to pass in that day that every place shall
be where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings. It shall even be for briars and
thorns. With arrows and with bows shall
men come thither, because all the land shall become briars
and thorns. And on all hills that shall be
digged with the mattock, there shall not come thither the fear
of briars and thorns, but it shall be for the sending forth
of oxen and for the treading of lesser cattle. Amen. May the Lord bless to us this
reading from his word. Well, when we come to our scripture
passages and when we read them together, it is always good for
us to remember that our principal purpose is to consider the Lord
Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is rightly
and properly the centre and focus of our attention in worship. So that whenever we come together,
it ought to be with the desire that we might see Jesus, that
we might discover Him afresh, not only in the reading of the
passage, but with our understanding, in our hearts, with the eye of
faith, spiritually, so that in seeing Christ, and discerning
Christ, and knowing Christ, and knowing about Christ, we might
be equipped for the trials and the troubles, for the challenges,
for the difficulties that we encounter in our lives. The trials of this world beset
the Lord's people just as much as anyone else. The weaknesses
of our flesh are felt by the Lord's people more than anybody
else. The temptations of the devil
are directed towards the Lord's people, to the exclusion of everybody
else. And for us to be ready to face
the challenges of our day, we must know Christ. And for us
to be ready and prepared for the world that is to come, we
must rest in Christ and in his righteousness, which is alone
acceptable to God. Therefore let Christ be the focus
of our attention once again today. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
has always been the evidence of acceptance with God. Abraham believed God and Christ's
righteousness was imputed to Abraham in order to justify him
before God and bring him into a new relationship with God. Indeed, James in the New Testament,
in the little book of James, calls Abraham the friend of God. Abraham was the friend of God
because he had been reconciled to God, because he had been justified
by God, because he had faith in God, in the person of Jesus
Christ. And James' title, a friend of
God, is an extraordinary title, describing an extraordinary relationship that Abraham had with God and
God with Abraham. And yet all believers are possessors
of that same saving faith and are all loved by God with an
everlasting love and are all called by his grace and blessed
with spiritual helps and distinguished or set apart in this world by
the gracious marks of God's goodness. So it is not just Abraham that
is a friend of God, but you and I today. And this is how God deals with
his friends. He blesses us and he draws near
to us and he gives us sense and awareness of his presence. And in return, believers love
their God. Believers love the Lord. We desire
to honour Him. We seek to serve Him, though
we confess readily that it is always imperfectly. And we hold
fast the hope of eternal life, even when the doubts and fears
of this life afflict us. We know that it's not our strength,
it's not the strength of our faith that keeps us, because
we have learned that it is our friend and the faithfulness of
our God that keeps us close to Christ. Isaiah 2 was a friend
of God. And when the Lord directed his
faithful prophet to convey this provocative message to the cruel
and wicked Ahaz, it was faith in the Lord that emboldened Isaiah
to obey. and in accordance with God's
word, also to take his young son with him to confront this
evil king. So today what I want to do is
draw some lessons and applications from Isaiah's words to Ahaz. In order that we might see Christ
in them, to strengthen our faith, amid the trials and the troubles
that we endure also. In order to do that I want to
take just a few points and the first one is to think a little
bit about Ehaz's sin. So Ahaz was king of Judah. Remember, after the time of David
and Solomon, the kingdom of Israel separated. There was a division,
Judah on one side and Israel, the 10 tribes on the other. And there was often animosity
over the years as several kings came and went. rival kings in
these different kingdoms and this is the context of this chapter
today. Israel of the ten tribes had
gone into an agreement with Syria to attack the Kingdom of Judah. And Judah and the city of Jerusalem,
which was its capital, were now being threatened by this combined
force of Syrian and Israeli armies. It appears from reading the backstory
of this incident, which you can find in 2 Kings 15-16 and 2 Chronicles
28, that this had been a long struggle. It wasn't just a single pitched
battle that was going on here. But there had been a long time
of aggression and there had been much loss on the part of Judah
as far as wealth and as far as military ability was concerned.
So that Ahaz was becoming desperate. He knew that the nation could
not withstand another assault. And now that these two kings
were combining their forces, he and the people of Judah were
afraid. And so he has devised a plan
to seek the help of the king of Assyria, that was a much stronger
power than Syria and Israel together, in order to defend Judah and
destroy the two enemy kingdoms. But despite being of the house
of David, as Ahaz was, Ahaz had no time for the God of David. Ahaz was a weak man who sought
his solace and help in idols and in idolaters' practices. He was a wicked man. And we'll
see in coming days that he consulted people with evil spirits and
tried to communicate with the dead for advice as to how to
live his life and rule his kingdom. I doubt that we could and I am
sure that we should not try to uncover all the extensive wickedness
of this man, of whom it is said he made his son to pass through
the fire according to the abominations of the heathen. If this means
what many think it means, that is that he was sacrificing his
own children to Moloch, to these fire god idols, then what was
Ahaz, king of Judah, not capable of doing? And I think there's
a lesson for us in this. We look around in our own day,
we look around in our own time, we get anxious about the terrible
things that we see happening around us. Crime and immorality,
false religion, deceitfulness. But let us remember that there
is nothing new under the sun. And when a person or people turn
away from God, they open themselves to everything else and God permits
men and women to do all manner of wickedness in order that they
might bring down on their own heads his judgment and righteous
indignation for he is going to punish their sin. So whatever the latest moral
abomination might be that we see in this world. Whatever the
most fashionable activity that men and women embark upon and
think up and express or invent to express their rejection of
God. Let us not become overly anxious
about it, and let us not become depressed under it. I'm sure
that if I were in charge, I'd ban it, or I'd stop it, or I'd
make it illegal, or something else. Well, God is in charge,
and he hasn't done that. And nor should we imagine that
our righteous indignation is any more than the Lord's. In truth I fear that we oft times
don't rightly discern what sin is. For all the gross idolatry
and immorality in the life of this man he has, It was despising
the gospel that wearied the Lord and that proved Ahaz to be a
reprobate. Ahaz despised God's goodness
and he despised it in three ways. He failed to ask for a sign when
he was instructed to do so. He pretended humility and he solicited the help of
Assyria. And it's the spiritual arrogance
and self-righteous pride of men and women that God hates. And it is those things that will
take many more people to hell. than does the fashionable, sensual,
self-indulgent sins of our day that so often stir our outrage. Yes, let us be offended at the
sins of men and women, but let us realise that some of the most
morally upright, good living people will also find their end
in exactly the same place as the grossest abominations because
it is the repudiation of the gospel that takes men and women
to hell. told Ahaz that God would not
let Syria and Israel destroy Judah. Now that was good news
and indeed God fulfilled that prophecy because Syria and Israel
did not destroy Judah but were themselves curtailed and ultimately
destroyed. Now the Jews knew God's promise
concerning the Messiah. They knew that God had promised
from the very beginning of the world. Remember how we thought
about that, how that proto-evangel, that a son that would be born
would bruise the serpent's head and yet his heel would be bruised. The Jews knew that from the time
of Adam in the garden. They knew it from Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob. They knew of Christ from Moses. David spoke of Christ. They knew
that the nation must be preserved because, as the Lord told the
Samaritan woman at the well, salvation is of the Jews. The promises of salvation, the
promises of life, the promises of spiritual and eternal prosperity,
the promise of a saviour were made to the Jews and the Messiah
came of the Jews and he came to the Jews and the line of election
and the line of grace and the line of glory, at least insofar
as it is known, ran predominantly through the Jews. It was the
Jews who went out into all the world and preached the gospel. So that acting as he did, Ahaz
was not simply being pragmatic in the sense that, I need help,
who can help me? Assyria to him was not an insurance
policy. It was an alternative. He was
denying that God was able to deliver. He was saying, God's
not needed in my life. God's not needed to deliver. Ahaz was anti-Christ. He despised David's God and he
clung to his idol gods. who could neither deliver nor
save him. Now we might ask the question,
why would a man do that? Ahaz's gods needed Ahaz's help. And those are the kind of gods
that men like. Ahaz devised a human plan to
save himself by his own means. and failure to ask for a sign
was simply saying, I don't want God's way. His sham reasoning
that he did not wish to tempt God wrapped his self-righteousness
and his self-reliance in religious garb and terms. but effectively
he was telling Isaiah, I don't need your God. I'll save myself
and the nation without any help from your God. And Isaiah responded to that
show of insolence by declaring, nevertheless, a sign would be
given. And I want us to realise that
When Isaiah went to meet with Ahaz by the conduit of the upper
pool and the highway of the fuller's field, he already had this revelation
at his disposal to deliver to the king. he surely knew what
Ahaz's response would be. Ahaz demonstrated himself to
be in this moment, regardless of all of the idolatry and the
immorality and the wickedness that this man had perpetrated
throughout his years, he showed himself to be unstable and without
any establishment by his rejection of the good news that Isaiah
brought and Isaiah knew that that would be his reaction. God
ordered this meeting and he sent his servant and he gave him the
message and he gave him the vision that he did in order to confront
Ahaz in his wickedness and God recorded Through Isaiah, the
Holy Spirit has preserved this conversation, this declaration
of His promise, His promise of grace, His promise of Emmanuel,
so that God used evil Ahaz in order to bless his elect people
for thousands of years. Such was the importance of this
conversation in this place on this day and the circumstances
surrounding it. What was then this sign that
God gave Isaiah and Isaiah relayed to Ahaz? Well, it was the sign
of Emmanuel. He says in verse 14, Behold, in Scripture, when you see the
word behold, it's like it's grabbing your attention. It's like italics
in the text or bold when we come to do our computer. It's a behold to grab our attention
and to show us that something unusual and amazing is about
to be said. and this birth of which Isaiah
spoke and which he foretold was truly of immense importance. A virgin shall conceive and her
son will be as the presence of God with fallen men to deliver
and bless them. That was the message that Isaiah
gave to Ahaz and to the house of Judah that day. He was giving
it publicly. This meeting had taken place
outside the city, outside the court, outside a room where the
king might have been encountered. This was a public statement that
Isaiah was making here. And it was done so in such a
way that this message would be seen and heard by many people. That Ehaz would not personally
see this child nor indeed any of those living at that time
was not important. Ehaz's unbelief had already determined
his failure. Isaiah beheld this sign by faith. The Lord's elect of Isaiah's
day beheld that sign by faith. Men and women of faith in ages
to come would lay hold on this prophecy of Isaiah and trust
God's promise of grace and mercy. that God would dwell with men,
establish his kingdom and gather his people. That was the understanding
that the Lord was giving through the prophets. And we know that
by the time the Lord Jesus Christ came, there was this messianic
anticipation whether it was there with Anna in the temple, or whether
it was to do with the disciples, or whether it was in the general
population. These were the verses that were
equipping the men and women of faith to understand the consequences
and implications of the coming Messiah. Ehaz, this reprobate
son of David, would not ask a sign But the true house of David,
people of faith, would have a sign to comfort and encourage them
in their troubles. And as the judgment that Isaiah
was about to declare unfolded. So that here again in this verse
is Eden's tree of life is Noah's ark or Melchizedek's priesthood
or Abraham's ram caught in the thicket. Here was Job's redeemer
who would stand on the earth in the last day. Here was Moses'
prophet who would come of his brethren and be heard of his
people. Here was David's shepherd. Here
was the lion of the tribe of Judah. Here was true Israel's
true king, personified in a child, wonderfully and miraculously
brought into the world. Here is Emmanuel, God with us,
for the forgiveness of sin, for the bringing in of salvation,
for redemption by the shedding of his own precious blood and
the fulfilment of all of God's promises of covenant grace. And here we see the care and
kindness and the fatherly love of the Lord Jesus Christ for
his people. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ
told his disciples, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.
But the Lord Jesus Christ treats all his children the same. All
his brethren are blessed with the same blessings. Some more,
some less, perhaps. but he never left his Old Testament
people comfortless either. Not then, not now. He will not leave us comfortless. He brings unexpected sweetness
out of bitter experiences. He brings times of ease on the
hardest pathways of this life. He gives reasons for gratitude
and praise, even in the midst of our pain and our loss and
our loneliness and our trials. And yet we see the opposite too,
because here was Isaiah, a faithful prophet of God, presenting good
news, presenting gospel to this king, presenting comforting promises
about the well-being of the nation. But in rejecting that good news,
that good news became a curse to Ahaz and Judah. It is true
that Syria and Israel would not prevail against Judah, but God
would bring Ahaz's would-be Assyrian saviours down on Judah with greater
ferocity and destruction than was ever heard of. How dreadful. It is to have God
for an enemy. How blessed it is to have God
for a friend. How dreadful it is to have God
for an enemy. And here we see particular grace. We all were at enmity with God. That was our place. We were separated. We were rebellious. We were opposed. And what makes us different from
anyone else? What causes us to differ? But
that He saved us and passed by Ahaz. That He called us with
a holy calling and He left others uncalled. not according to our
works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was
given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Here is our
sovereign God demonstrating His particular, distinctive, distinguishing
grace to His people. showering us with his love, bestowing
us with his blessings, gathering us to himself, comforting his
people. Oh, to be the friend of God. God converts blessings into curses
and curses into blessings. What does God's elect good? is an occasion of failing and
falling for the reprobate. We deal with a living God. And this brings us to our closing
point. People of faith believe God's
assurances. As Isaiah spoke with Ahaz, The
destinies of thousands of people over hundreds of years was being
laid out in the words of these prophecies, settled in the promises
of the judgments that Isaiah was setting forth. He has sneered
at God's promise to deny Syria and Israel victory. So Isaiah
told him how Egypt and Assyria would be called for. Hissed at. It would just be the case of
God hissing. these nations would obey his
will and fall upon Judah and fall upon the house of Ahaz. He would bring judgment upon
this nation and he would carry it away into captivity and as
the confrontation between Ahaz and Isaiah unfolded
we're told in the early part of the chapter that a little
boy with a strange name stood witness to all that was being
said and done. This little boy was not the Emmanuel
who would be born in a day to come from the Virgin, but this
little boy was Isaiah's own son called Shir Jashub. And the significance
of his presence there that day is found in the child's name. It literally means, a remnant
shall return. As this story of Ahaz's encounter
with Isaiah was told and retold throughout the ages of the Old
Testament Church, having been recorded by Isaiah in his prophecy
and preserved by the Holy Spirit, it described what God's people
experienced. They went through the war with
Syria and Israel. They encountered and felt the
domination by Egypt and Assyria. They endured the fall of Jerusalem
and the Babylonian captivity. But through it all, the Lord's
people could only acknowledge the truthfulness of all that
Isaiah had prophesied. And they remembered the little
boy whose presence that day at the fuller's field, at the end
of the conduit, at the upper pool, attested and confirmed
that despite all the dark days and the fearful years and the
lost generations, a remnant would remain. The Lord's people would
return. The promise of the Messiah would
be brought to effect. the Virgin's child would be realised
and people of faith held to that assurance for hundreds of years
through terrible judgements. It was their hope and it was
their ticket home. Maybe it would not be them who
returned. Perhaps it would be their children
or their children's children or their children's children's
children. But soon God's people would go
home and soon God's promise would be realised. And people of faith
still believe God's assurances. And sure it is, we get down and
we get discouraged when we see sin abounding. We feel weak in
our bodies, we feel weak in our flesh, we become aware increasingly
of our feebleness, and we fear for the well-being of the church,
and we wonder where it is all going to end. But we, the Lord's people, point
to the truth of all that has been prophesied, and we place
our hope in the faithfulness of our God who cannot lie. He said Emmanuel would come born
of a virgin, and he did. He said he would save his people
from their sins, and he did. He promises salvation by the
blood of Jesus Christ, and He has been faithful. So that whatever
this world holds for us, whatever it throws at us, and the wars,
and the rumours of wars, and the earthquakes, and the instability,
and the diseases, and the cancer, and the poverty, and the loneliness,
and the wasting of our bodies, or the wasting of our minds, The Lord's elect believe God's
promises and we rest assured in those promises. Faith in Christ
brought righteousness to Abraham, comfort to Job and peace to David
and it shall bring glory to all who believe. Amen.