The Sign of Immanuel - Isaiah 7:1-17
INTRODUCTION:
Thanksgiving is past, December has come, and our thoughts turn to Christmas, so for the month of December we are going to take a break from the book of Revelation which focuses on the second advent of Jesus Christ, and we are going to spend some time focusing on the first advent of Jesus Christ, often in the Old Testament these two advents are blended together and we must distinguish the first advent from the second. One of the ways that we do this is by distinguishing how Jesus Christ is described as coming. In the first advent He came supernaturally, but in the natural way that all humans come into the world, He was born as a baby and grew up just like you and I grow up. At the age of 30 He began His ministry which led to His death for the sins of the world three years later.
This morning I want to take you back in time about 2750 years, this was during the time of the divided kingdom, nearing the time when the northern kingdom of Israel would be conquered by Assyria and carried into exile. During the lifetime of the prophet Isaiah. For the next two Sundays we are going to be in the book of Isaiah, looking at two prophecies made by Him concerning the Advent of Jesus Christ. The first prophecy that we will look at this morning is in a passage of Scripture that has caused debate among biblical scholars for years. This morning we are not going to focus so much on that debate, but what Isaiah prophesied concerning the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s pray and then get into our passage.
--PRAY--
SCRIPTURE:
Turn in your Bibles this morning to Isaiah 7:1-17, our passage of Scripture for this morning. We are going to read through it and then look at what Isaiah is saying to us. Please stand, if you are able, in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
Isaiah 7:1-17,
“Now it came about in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Aram and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not conquer it. When it was reported to the house of David, saying, ‘The Arameans have camped in Ephraim,’ his heart and the hearts of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake with the wind. Then the Lord said to Isaiah, ‘Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway to the fuller’s field, and say to him, “Take care and be calm, have no fear and do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands, on account of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah. Because Aram, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has planned evil against you, saying, ‘Let us go up against Judah and terrorize it, and make for ourselves a breach in its walls and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it,’ thus says the Lord God: “It shall not stand nor shall it come to pass. For the head of Aram is Damascus and the head of Damascus is Rezin (now within another 65 years Ephraim will be shattered, so that it is no longer a people), and the head of Ephraim is Samaria and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you will not believe, you surely shall not last.’”’ Then the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, ‘Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God; make it deep as Sheol or high as heaven.’ But Ahaz said, ‘I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord!’ Then he said, ‘Listen now, O house of David! Is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well? Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken. The Lord will bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house such days as have never come since the day that Ephraim separated from Judah, the king of Assyria.’” (Isaiah 7:1–17, NASB95)[1]
THREE EARTHLY KINGS (Isaiah 7:1-2)
This chapter opens by giving us the names of three kings, the first king listed is the king of the southern kingdom of Judah, this king is Ahaz whose father was Jotham and whose grandfather was Uzziah. Ahaz assumed the throne about 735 B.C. Ahaz was from the line of David whom God had promised would always have a man to sit on the throne.
The second king mentioned in this passage is Rezin the king of Aram or Syria the country north and east of the northern kingdom of Israel, or Ephraim as Isaiah calls Israel in this passage because Ephraim had become the largest of the tribes in the northern kingdom.
The third king mentioned is Pekah, the son of Remaliah, the king of Israel. This king had murdered the former king and became king in his place. He reigned in Israel twenty years until he also was murdered, and the murderer became king in his place.
During the reign of these three kings, Tiglath-pileser, the king of Assyria began to grow in might and power and began to conquer the nations around him ever moving closer to Israel, Aram, and Judah. Israel and Aram made an alliance that they might be a stronger force to stand against the forces of Assyria, they wanted Ahaz to join their alliance to make an even stronger force. Ahaz refused because secretly he was corresponding with Assyria and asking them to conquer Aram and Israel. Because Ahaz refused to join the alliance of Rezin and Pekah they marched against Jerusalem as we read in Isaiah 7:1. They hoped to force Judah to join their alliance by capturing Jerusalem and setting up their own king on Judah’s throne. Though they besieged Jerusalem for some time they were not able to break through the walls and conquer the city.
So, they withdrew and amassed their troops in Ephraim to regroup and decide what their next move would be. Ahaz, of the house of David, was told that the Arameans had not withdrawn and returned home, but that they were encamped in Ephraim (Israel). When Ahaz heard this he knew that they would come against him again and verse two says that his heart and the hearts of his people shook like trees of the forest shake with the wind. In other words, the king and the people of Judah were afraid. Afraid that the Israelites and Arameans would attack them again, and they did not know if they could withstand them a second time. We know from 2 Chronicles that the second attack was more successful than the first and a city was taken by Rezin and the Arameans and many from the land of Judah were slain that day.
ONE GODLY PROPHET (Isaiah 7:3-9)
In verse three the LORD speaks to the prophet Isaiah and commands him to go and encourage Ahaz. The LORD tells Isaiah where he is to find the king, he would be at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway to the fuller’s field. A fuller is a person who washes clothes and linens, the fuller’s field was most likely a place where this wash was done and then spread out to dry in the field. Ahaz was probably inspecting the water system that brought water into the city of Jerusalem, this was very important to the welfare of the city and had to be protected and kept safe should the city be besieged again. This was before the time of Hezekiah who carved out the tunnel in which to bring the water of the Gihon Spring into Jerusalem. The upper pool and the conduit were subject to sabotage by the enemy troops if not defended.
Isaiah was told to take his son Shear-jashub with him when he went to see the king. Isaiah’s son’s name was to be an encouragement and promise to the people of Judah, his name means “a remnant shall return.” His name was a promise that God would preserve a remnant from that land of Judah who would one day return from the exile that they would experience because of their idolatry.
Isaiah went and met Ahaz, the king where God had said he would be and told him to be calm and to take care and to not fear or be faint-hearted, God had a promise for Judah that their enemies would not succeed in their trying to force Judah into an alliance with them. God through the prophet calls Rezin and Pekah two stubs of smoldering firebrands, in other words, two smoking pieces of firewood, they were not worth worrying about because the fire they had was about to go out. Their anger over Judah not making an alliance with them will result in them making plans to terrorize and defeat Judah, but the LORD says their plans will not stand, nor come to pass. Isaiah was telling Ahaz how he could find inner peace, by believing God’s promises that these to kings and their armies would be defeated. Isaiah warns Ahaz that if he will not believe God’s Word and His promises, then he surely will not last, or be established. Isaiah was telling Ahaz to put his trust in God, not in the alliance he was seeking to make with the king of Assyria, because if he does not trust in God, his alliance will become his defeat.
ONE MESSIANIC SIGN (Isaiah 7:10-17)
Up to this point everything has been straight-forward as we compare what Isaiah says here with the same account in 2 Kings 15:27-16:18. Now we come to the part that has caused debate among biblical scholars for years. The LORD speaking through the prophet Isaiah tells the king to ask for a sign from the LORD God to confirm the words that the LORD had spoken concerning Rezin and Pekah. Isaiah told him that he could ask for as difficult a sign as he wanted, one that reached into the depths of Sheol, or one that reached into the heights of heaven. Ask and God will confirm His Word with whatever sign you request. Ahaz refuses to do this, and his words sound very reverent, “I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord!” (Isaiah 7:12b, NASB95)[2] Ahaz does not want the Lord to confirm His Word, he instead wants to trust man and the alliance he is making with the king of Assyria.
Isaiah then declared, speaking for the LORD that if Ahaz would not ask for a sign, then the LORD would give him one of His own choosing. In this sign that God gives to Ahaz that reaches far into the future, 730 years into the future, God confirms the gospel message that was first declared in the Garden of Eden, there God had declared that the Seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head. The “Seed of the woman” is a most significant expression and refers to the virgin birth of the Messiah. Look through the Bible and you will find that all others born into the world are from the seed of man, but the great Deliverer was to come only through the woman. God would give a sign and the sign would be one in which men would believe it impossible to come to pass. The LORD speaks to the house of David who had long forsaken the LORD and had not followed Him as their ancestor David had. God says that it is enough to try the patience of men, God had sent His prophets and they had been ignored and ridiculed by the royal house, but now you try the patience of God by acting humble and righteous and saying you will not tempt God, when God Himself asked you to request a sign.
The LORD Himself will give you a sign, “Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14, NASB95)[3] We know from the New Testament that this name “Immanuel” means “God with us.” The virgin’s son was to be God manifested in the flesh. This passage no matter what the liberal scholars say gives a prophecy that clearly and definitively declares that an unmarried virgin should become a mother and the child she bore would be named “God with us.” This is not to say that the virgin Mary is herself the mother of God, because God has existed from eternity past, she became the mother of the humanity of our Lord Jesus, but He who was born of her was God manifest in the flesh.
Isaiah goes onto say that this child will eat curds and honey at a time when He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. But before the boy knows enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land of the two kings whom you dread will be forsaken. God promises the defeat of Israel and Aram. Earlier in this passage God had said that within 65 years Ephraim would be shattered, so that it is no longer a people. In 670 B.C. was the final deportation and the final settling of foreigners in the land of Israel by Assyria, 65 years after these prophecies were made. Ephraim was no longer a people and will not be again until the millennium. Remember in Revelation when the angel sealed the 144,000 Israelites, what tribe’s name was replaced by another? Ephraim was replaced by his father’s name Joseph.
Because Ahaz refused to believe God’s Word and refused to ask for a sign the LORD said that He would bring on the people of Judah, and on the royal house such days as have never come since the day that Ephraim (Israel) separated from Judah, those days will be brought on you by the king of Assyria. Let the name of my son, Shear-jashub be your hope for the future, a remnant shall return.
So how is this a sign to Ahaz of the promises made to him about the king of Aram and the king of Israel. This is where the debate among scholars falls. They want the virgin to be a maiden or young woman who was a virgin and then married and had a son in fulfillment of this prophecy as a sign to Ahaz. But did Ahaz have to see the sign? I do not believe he had to, it was an easy calculation of when a child is conceived and when the infant will be born. So why did the LORD through Isaiah make this prophecy as a sign, I believe it was to point us to the One who would be the rightful king of the house of David, who would choose to refuse the evil and choose the good, to become for us a Savior, to make a way for us to escape the sinful state we are in and have peace with God being justified through the death of Jesus Christ.
Our Scripture reading this morning was from Matthew 1:18-25, this passage confirms that Isaiah was speaking of the coming Messiah, that he was promising us that a great Deliverer would be born. Matthew quotes from Isaiah and I believe he is quoting what the angel said to Joseph in his dream. Matthew writes, “Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,’ which translated means, ‘God with us.’” (Matthew 1:22–23, NASB95)[4] Notice what Matthew writes, “Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet.” The birth of Jesus Christ by the virgin was to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through Isaiah. Matthew says that this is the fulfillment of that sign. This is the virgin that God spoke of. This is the Son that she would bear, and they shall call His name Immanuel. “God with us” this child, this Son is God manifest in the flesh, God chose to dwell among us so that He might become sin for us so that we could become the righteousness of God in Him. God chose to leave the beauty and the glory and the perfectness of heaven, to take on human flesh and dwell in this stinky, sin-filled world so that our sins could be forgiven, so that we could be reconciled to God, so that we could be justified by faith and have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Was Jesus born on December 25th? Most likely not, but is His birth something to celebrate and remember? Certainly it is, because without Immanuel, without God with us, there is no forgiveness of sin, there is no reconciliation with God, there is no justification by faith and peace with God. Why do I choose to celebrate Christmas? To remember that God my Savior became flesh and dwelt among us and died as the sinless sacrifice required to pay the penalty for my sin.
CONCLUSION:
Everyone loves a great love story, right here (hold up Bible) is the greatest love story ever written. It is the love story between God, the Creator of all and His fallen, sinful creation which chose to rebel against Him and turn their back on Him and try to go their own way. But God loved His creation and this book contains the history of God drawing His sinful, rebellious creation back to Himself, paying the price for their sin, and adopting them as His children. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, NASB95)[5] That is the essence of Christmas, God sent His only begotten Son to give life, eternal life, to a sinful, rebellious world that He loved so much.
Have you experienced the love of God in your life? God desires you to be reconciled to Him, to be forgiven of your sins and to be His child. God loved you so much that He sent His Son to die for you, pay the penalty for your sin. We have all sinned, we have all done things that have broken God’s law, but if you agree with God that you are a sinner, and believe that Jesus, God’s Son, came and died for your sins and was buried and rose from the dead, then your sins are forgiven, you are reconciled to God, you become a son or daughter of God, you have eternal life. This is the greatest love story ever told, nothing compares to it.
At Christmas we have a unique opportunity to share this love story with others. Don’t keep it to yourself share it with those around you.
[1]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[2]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[3]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[4]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[5]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995