"Immanuel" Sermon: Isaiah 7:10-25

“Immanuel”

[Isaiah 7:10-25]

June 10, 2018, Second Reformed Church

When we last looked at the book of Isaiah, we saw that Uzziah’s grandson, Ahaz, is on the throne of Judah, and word gets back to Ahaz that Israel and Syria are now allies and plan to attack Judah. 

Ahaz is terrified, as are the people of Judah. So God sends Isaiah and his son, “a remnant will return,” to bring the Word of God to Ahaz, and God tells Ahaz that he should not be afraid of Israel and Syria, he should have faith in God – the God Who says that they will be destroyed before they ever get the chance to attack Judah.  God tells Ahaz to have faith, or he will fall.

Ahaz does not have faith, and the historical record tells us that he forms an alliance with Assyria against Israel and Syria.

Isaiah continues to bring the Word of the Lord to Ahaz.

And we see, God gives us signs to help us have faith in God.

“Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz: ‘Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.’ But Ahaz said, ‘I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test.’ And he said, ‘Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted. The LORD will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father's house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah—the king of Assyria!’

            God commands Ahaz – the language is in the imperative – “Ahaz, ask a sign of your God – even the wildest, most far-reaching thing you can think of, so your faith will be restored in God.”

            And Ahaz proves himself to be apostate – he has no faith, “Oh, no.  I would never.  Ask a sign – that would be presumptuous.  No, I’ve got a firm understanding of what is happening and what needs to be done.  Go back to Your corner, God.”

            Your mouth should be open – and not because you’re asleep.  What arrogance!  What pride!  What foolishness!

            There is no hesitation – “Ok, you have no problem wearying men and you have no problem wearying my God (notice the change ‘your God’ to ‘my God’ – Ahaz has proven whose he is) – the Lord will give you a sign – it will be a sign to confirm that what they threaten will never happen, but it will also be a sign that the Lord keeps the covenant He made with our first parents regarding the promised Savior.”

            And then we get one of our Advent texts – who knew it was given to a wicked and stupid king of Judah?

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

And many commentators twist themselves into knots trying to explain Who this is – who is the “virgin”?  Who is “Immanuel”?

And one of the reasons they get themselves all knotted up – as we have seen before – when a prophecy is given, it may have multiple fulfillments – like looking at a mountain range, when all the mountains look close together until you look from another perspective and see that they are far apart.  And there are other reasons they fight with this passage, but if we just look at the words:  “virgin” – which you may know can also be translated “young woman” – that is, “a young woman who has never had sexual relations – and “Immanuel,” which means, “God with us.”

We can turn to the actual fulfillment of this prophecy in the Word of God:

 “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:  ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’ (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus” (Matthew 1:18-25, ESV).

Mary was a virgin when she was pregnant with Jesus, and she did not have sexual relations until after Jesus was born.

Two problems:

Jesus’ name is “Jesus,” not “Immanuel.”

This we can understand by seeing that Jesus was to be called “Immanuel.”  Jesus was called – He was recognized – to be God in the flesh, but that was not His given name.

The seemingly bigger problem is the second part of the sign – the prophecy given to Ahaz, “He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted.”

This is one of the reasons that commentators look for another – more immediate – fulfillment of the prophecy – Jesus is a little boy learning the difference between good and evil some seven hundred years after this prophecy is given – Ahaz is dead at this point – how can this apply to Ahaz?

Let’s think about newborns.  They are cute and sleepy and smiley.  You may not be thrilled if they vomit or poop, but you don’t hit them for it – they’re too young to know what they are doing and how proper people live.

Around what age are they no longer cute and need boundaries put on them?  When do they start to need a swat in loving discipline – not abuse – to get them to learn the difference between what is good and what is bad?

Probably around two or three, right?  The “terrible twos.”  “Mine!  No!  Ahhhhh!”  “No, you behave, that’s bad.  You behave.”  We expect some degree of understanding of the difference between right and wrong when a child gets to be two or three.

            So, if we take the general fact that children learn the difference between right and wrong and also eat table food somewhere between the age of two and three, we can apply this to Ahaz in this way:  within two to three years, Syria and Israel will be destroyed.  And that is exactly what happened – Israel and Syria were conquered and taken into captivity by the Assyrians between two and three years from the time of this prophecy.

            Since Ahaz chose to be obstinate, God chose to both give a sign of the promised Savior and to give Ahaz a timeframe in which Israel and Syria would be conquered.

            And God, knowing the sin that Ahaz would engage in by allying himself with the Assyrians, tells Ahaz that the King of Assyrian will turn against him.

            God gives us signs to help us have faith in God.

            We need to ask one more question before we move on:  should we ask God for signs?

            “If this is the woman You would have me marry, let her be wearing an orange dress when I meet up with her.”

            “If this is the stock You want me to buy, let it go up 3.16 % today – for John 3:16.”

            “If this is the horse You want me to bet on, let me see a halo around its head.”

            We have examples of people asking God for signs in the Bible.  We have examples of God giving people signs in the Bible.  But we don’t have a general principle given to us that we should ask God for signs.  We have the Bible.  We have the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit.  Don’t ask for signs.

            Second, God is Sovereign over kings and nations.

            “In that day the LORD will whistle for the fly that is at the end of the streams of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. And they will all come and settle in the steep ravines, and in the clefts of the rocks, and on all the thornbushes, and on all the pastures.”

            When is “in that day”?  In two to three years, as God promised and prophesied.

            God will whistle – like an animal trainer – for the fly of Egypt and the bee of Assyria.  That is, God will whistle – He will call – for the King of Egypt and his armies, and the King of Assyria and his armies, and they will come – and they will conquer Syria and Israel.  They will chase the people and hunt them out even to the steep ravines and the clefts of the rocks and in the thornbushes and the pastures – they will leave no stone unturned.  The conquest will be total.

            Do we remember what Daniel says?

“Daniel answered and said:  ‘Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding; he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him’” (Daniel 2:20-22, ESV).

            And Paul reminds us, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God” (Romans 13:1. ESV).

            In this country, we have the opportunity to vote for those who hold office.  And we ought to exercise the privilege in wisdom and after prayer.  But God chooses the woman or man who holds office and that person will be in office for our good or discipline or both.  So, we ought to be in prayer for those in authority.

            God tells Ahaz that Egypt and Assyria are His servants – in the sense that they must and will come and act as God calls them and sends them – and God will call them and send them to conquer Israel and Syria.

            We are servants of those in authority over us, and they are servants of God and us.  We all must bow in humility before the One God and follow Him – we have plenty of examples of what happens when we don’t follow God and serve Him in humility.

            So, you might be wondering – did God put President Trump in office?  Yes, just as He put President Obama in office before him.  Is it for our good or discipline?  I don’t know, but we ought to pray for the president – and all our leaders—that he would humble himself before God and believe in Jesus the Only Savior and follow Him.

            God is Sovereign over every leader of every country, and He is working through them and moving them to accomplish His purposes in the world.

            Third, God punishes and disciplines as He sees fit.

“In that day the Lord will shave with a razor that is hired beyond the River—with the king of Assyria—the head and the hair of the feet, and it will sweep away the beard also.”

In the Jewish culture of that day, women wore long hair and men had beards.  Hair was a sign of a person’s gender and was a symbol of pride.  To lose your hair by disease was a disgrace.

God says He is going to use the king of Assyria and his armies like a razor – God is going to shave all of the hair from the top of the heads to the bottoms of the feet of the Israelites and the Syrians.  God is going to totally disgrace them before the rest of the world.

Now, God did not literally shave all of the hair off of every person – this is symbolism.  God disgraced Israel, who was supposedly the nation of the One True God, by allowing them to be utterly conquered.

Being disgraced is an added thorn in the side of a person being punished.

Did you ever have to wear a “dunce cap” or stand in the corner or have your seat moved right up next to the teacher?  That was to disgrace you – to knock you down a rung before your peers.

It was to disgrace people that both men and women were sent naked into the gas chambers during the Holocaust.

When a high profile criminal is caught and paraded before the news media – that is to disgrace him.

God punishes and disciplines as He sees fit.  He saw fit not merely to conquer Israel, but to disgrace her.

 Finally, God’s devastation does not nullify His promises.

“In that day a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep, and because of the abundance of milk that they give, he will eat curds, for everyone who is left in the land will eat curds and honey.

“In that day every place where there used to be a thousand vines, worth a thousand shekels of silver, will become briers and thorns. With bow and arrows a man will come there, for all the land will be briers and thorns. And as for all the hills that used to be hoed with a hoe, you will not come there for fear of briers and thorns, but they will become a place where cattle are let loose and where sheep tread.”

 And so God describes what Israel and Syria will be like after the ravaging by the Assyrians:  there will be so few people left in the land that they will eat like the wealthy from one young cow and two sheep and one honeycomb.

It’s estimated that there were around 450,000 people in Israel in 700 BC (http://bibleissues.atspace.com/israel/finalpop.htm), which means that most of that number of people were killed or taken into exile, leaving only a remnant who would survive off of a young cow, two sheep, and a honeycomb.

The vineyards of Israel were destroyed, and thorns grew up in their place.  And the land that was cultivated for crops was destroyed, and thorns grew up in their place. The land became trampled as the cattle and sheep trod over it for food.  And the remnant left in Israel lived off of the cattle and what was available on the land.  (Initially, years later, things would change.)

You see, King Ahaz, if you had had faith, you would have stood – you would have had nothing to fear, but you didn’t believe the Word of God.  You put your nose up when God said He would give you a sign.  You made alliances with other nations when God told you not to.  And because you didn’t believe God, because you rejected God, because you disobeyed God, the promise and the sign of the coming Savior were not for you.  And the nation you trusted would come back against you and subject you and the people of God to financial slavery.

In the long run, brothers and sisters – if not in the short run – when we disobey God, our lives get worse.  As we sin against God, we ought to expect the Hand of Discipline to come down – painfully, but for our good – if we are believers.  But why do we disobey?  Why do we keep doubting?  Is it because we don’t have a sign?

We have signs, brothers and sisters.  No, we ought not to ask for signs, but the signs God has given us, we are to receive – we are to hear them and embrace them and understand what they mean.

God promised the kings of Israel and Judah that a remnant would return out of the captivity, and some seventy years later, a remnant did return – just as God promised.  And one of the sons of the remnant that returned was the father of the fulfillment of the promise that was given to our first parents in the Garden: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15, ESV).

And this is the sign that was given:  “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

And so it was:  “And the angel said to them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:10-12, ESV).

Let us pray:

Almighty God, we thank You for condescending to our weakness – for giving us signs to look for that prove Your promises to us.  We thank You for the history of Israel and Judah, and even for the wicked King Ahaz, for to him You gave the promise that the virgin would bear the Savior Who is God enfleshed as a human that through Him, You would save a remnant out of all of humanity to be Your people.  What a wonder You are.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen.