Today we look at the conclusion of a section that began in Chapter 7 – which is about this moment of decision that Ahaz had to make. Would he trust the LORD or not? We know the answer. And it was fatal. He did not trust God and plunged the Davidic dynasty and the people into darkness, and distress.
Because of their unbelief– the people would be overcome and overrun by the Assyrians. It seems hopeless and dark, and the crisis is real by the end of chapter 8. And it is in this crisis that the true people of God are discovered. There is a difference between the so-called professing worldly, political Christian and those within that covenant community who have true faith. True faith is what sets the true people of God apart. The wheat from the chaff. And this remnants faith never shakes, even if the rest of the covenant people are shaking like tree in the win.
Listen to the absolute confidence of 9 and 10, “Be broken you peoples, and be shattered; give ear, all you far off countries; strap on your armor and be shattered; strap on your armor and be shattered. Take counsel together, but it will come to nothing; speak a word, but it will not stand, for God is with us.” Do you hear the absolute confidence in these verses! There is no word, no armor, not counsel that can stand against Gods people – the remnant!
why? Because as 8:10, “God is with us!” Emmanuel. God would preserve a remnant. NOTHING and NO ONE that sets themselves up against the people of God can succeed. It’s like a mosquito trying to topple a castle. It’s laughable. They will fail. The church will prevail. The remnant will be! The remnant remains because they live by faith.
IS GOD REAL?
The question between confidence and fear is, how real is your God. Is he the one that is the God of the universe. Creator of all things, sustainer of all things, in whose hands is every atom. And he is the one who loves you with everlasting love. Who promised to be with you. To avert all evil or turn it to your good? I am not asking if you believe it, but asking do you life that way. Do you react to crisis with that rock solid faith in God?
There are two basic ways of dealing with the crisis. Ahaz’s way or Isaiah’s way. And the only difference is faith. Faith makes a massive difference in everyday life. where you can say no matter what happens, no matter how these looks. Grace and mercy will triumph of judgement. God will save his own. We can be at peace.
1.When God is not real: the way of the unbelief!
But where faith is not firm, there is no peace. Judah was living in fear, we read in Chapter 7:2, “The heart of Ahaz and the heart of the people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.” And that was before the judgment of God. But their fear did not turn them back to the Lord, rather they redoubled their efforts to save themselves. Where does confidence come? It comes from the Hand of God who calls out a people for himself. Who lays his strong hand upon them and tells them to be different (9:11)
God warns Isaiah “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear. 9:12)”. In other words, don’t believe all the popular opinions. What do you do in the crisis? The first thing we want to do is look for a million and one reason why this or that happened. What is behind it. What is the root cause, and who we should really WATCH out for. People start to be afraid of things that may or may not exist. If only I had done this or that. They begin to share their theories with others, inboxes filled and WhatsApp’s are shared and fear grows, and the conspiracy theories becomes bigger. The fear grows. We look to government to fix it, or to business, or technology. But do we look to the Lord. God people are called to set themselves apart form the popular noise of the supposed safety of political alliance, and worldly strength
And what do the people of Judah do? V 19. They call on dead people to help the living when they have the promises of the living GOD! They think its seems naive to go to our bibles, and seek God in a crisis! But these words are living! Verse 20, “To the teaching and to the testimony!” This is the word of God to the church throughout the ages! Go to the word of God!
The world has no end of prophets online that will tell you what will happen, when it will happen and why it happens. And it does not matter how wrong they are, they seem to have millions of followers. And so easy the church can go to the world for help rather than God. The bible is an old book, we live in modern times with modern problems. But dear church experience tells me your problem is as old as time.
The covenant people treated the word of God and God himsself as a weak, incapable, and helpless when it came to the everyday things of life. T
These people will call Christians silly and naïve when the first thing that they do is pray. Is wait. Is trust in God – and not panic – knowing the one who holds the universe in the palm of his hands.
And depending on how you treat God in your crisis, he is either a refuge, or a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling (v14). This is about Christ. 1 Peter 2 says, “To you who believe, then, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and, “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.”
Do you trust him to save you from the ravages of sin, and Satan, and this world. From the utter destruction and from the mess you have made. He alone can save. But refuse him, and that same God will be a stone of offense and rock of stumbling. Jesus is savior who justifies and the judge who condemns! May Gods people be set apart as apeople who fear not what the world fears, and does not shake when the world shakes! But fears God, and shake at his judgement (v. 13)
What if everything literally everything is meant to point us to him. Show him. Glorify him. Then we stop being afraid, stop calling conspiracy what others call conspiracy – but instead we fear the one who is in control, we honor him as holy as verse thirteen tells us to do. This what the covenant people – this was the covenant God!
2.When God is real: The way of Faith
Look Isaiahs says after the strong hand of the LORD came upon him. V17-18“I will wait for the LORD who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him. Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the LORD of Hosts, who dwells on Mt. Zion.” In Isaiahs children the words of Isaiah were enfleshed. “Shearjashub - A remnant will return”, and “Maher-shalal-hash-baz - the spoil speeds, and the prey hastens.” Judgement was coming, but the true and faithful remnant would be saved.
The world as they knew it was crumbling. Ahaz was living in fear. Isaiah stands firm and he waits in trust and confidence. Why? It takes us back to 7, “if you are not firm in faith you are not firm at all.”
It was not what they knew. It was not a difference in people’s history. It was not what they confessed with their lips. The difference is found back in Isaiah 6. Isaiah had seen the Lord – he has seen the reality of the holy one of Israel – he had been undone – he had called a curse down on himself only to have God come to him, cleanse him, purify him, and send him. For Isaiah God was REAL.
His faith had prepared him for a dark day. Eys because of Ahaz, the LORD was hiding his face, and the faithful remant felt he affects, but within the gathering darkness they had a sustaining, expectent and sure hope! O church is your faith made for the dark day?
The living God was no longer some fairy tell, or some words on a paper – this was the living God he was dealing with – a God holy, holy, holy; but also his Savior. He knew what he preached when he said, “But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor and holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.” If you fear God, you will fear nothing or no one else. Every other fear will melt away – when you see that you ultimately must do Him.
Isaiah saw this, and he saw what God had done for him. If God had not been gracious, he would have been consumed. And this is the danger for Isreal, that they would be consumed by the wrath of God! That there will be no hope! We read about it at the end of chapter 8, “They will pass through the land greatly distressed and hungry, and when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against their king and their God, and turn their faces upward. And they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness. It does not seem like the faith of the remnant is going to pay off… at least if you stop there. But at the end of the three hours of darkness came the cry, “IT IS FINISHED! And the light of the world conquered forever.
3.Faith turns to reality
9:1 BUT! No night is too dark for the light of God. God is not done! Notice here, ALL the activity is on Gods side. He does all! We make no contribution, in fact the opposite, we bring the rebellion that the zeal of the LORD almighty must overcome!
God will triumph. God will keep his promises! Grace will be the last word.
“BUT!” what surprising grace! Notice also these words in 9:1 ff, are written in the past tense. The future is written about as something that has already happened. That’s how sure it is! Only God can do that! Your future in Christ is so sure its as sure as the facts of yesterday! Do you believe it!?
After all the failure God visits his people with a triumph they had never seem before, in the spot where his people suffered the most. When conquering armies came to attack Judah, or wanted to go to Egypt they would always go through Galilea. They were the first under attack. They knew the despair of oppression, and slavery. This is the place where knowledge was fading, were darkness seem inevitable – where hope seemed lost – that the power of God would be revealed.
Light appears, and the darkness could not overpower it! What happens when the light comes?
The remnant is multiplied (v 3) as a people walk into the light (. 2)! The Lord increases their joy and they respond joy! with joy unspeakable. They rejoice like a farmer at a rich harvest, like a conquering army! This is joy in it completeness. The joy that nature gives, and the joy of enjoying plunder which they did not fight for! Their joy is not meager. God is reversing the whole experience of life with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
And why all this joy, why all this gladness. Well verse four explains – that is why we have the “for” there in the beginning of the verse.
A freedom fighter has broken the power of the oppressor. He has forever broken the chains of slavery! The exodus imagery is strong here as well as Gideons defeat of Midian also in the same area, conquering through a small army of light. The chains that held their own people, and every nation in darkness! The Assyrian army was nothing. The Babylonians were nothing. All the powers of darkness, and oppression, and slavery would be defeated. He did it by himself entering the world, to win the battle we could not, and so as V. 5 says he has put an end to war itself.
Yes, it is not a spreading of the kingdom through war, but through peace! Through a message of Goodnews! Through evangelism would he conquer! Miltary gear will be laid down. There will be an end to war.
Who is this new figure?! V. 6 – for to us a child is born……. Gods answer to all that has terrorized us is a child. In this world of imperialist arrogance, he comes in as a child. His power is so superior that he can defeat them all by becoming a child. All of Assyria, Babylon - but it was not them. It was ultimately the slavery to sin and Satan from which he would set us free! Gods answer to the bullies of this world, to those that would enslave his people, is not to become bigger bully – but a child. Foolishness outfoxes wisdom, and weakness overpowering power.
Ahaz thought he was wise – checking out the water ways running into Jerusalem, the disciples thought they were wise when they wanted Jesus to become a worldly king! But it was foolishness in the eyes of God! For Christ crucified is the true and triumphant king. It was through his trust in the Father that he persisted through the darkest day this world has ever seen, only seeing the light burst forth unquenchable on the third day!
As the counselor he has the best ideas, the best strategies, the greatest advice, let’s follow him. As Almighty God he is invincible in power, and protect the weakest, lets hide behind him. As the everlasting Father, he loves us with an infinite fatherly love, lets enjoy him. As the prince of peace, he reconciles us to God our Maker, and restores us to fellowship with God and each other, let us come under his dominion.
This child is the king to end all kings. The ideal son of David, to lift us out of failure to fulfillment, by justice and righteousness. The triumph of Jesus has only begun. The empire of grace will only expand. The finite will experience ever more wonderfully the infinite. The zeal of the Lord of host will do this.
God is zealous God – God is zealous for his glory – this is the motivation for all history! This is what accomplishes his purpose! The world, and the church don’t bring about Gods Glory – no he brings it despite man’s effort! He will do it, and nothing – absolutely nothing - can stop him from accomplishing his purposes. It is His jealous love for his people that makes their cause his own cause. This jealous determination is that of Yahweh, the exodus-God, whose nature it is to save his people and overthrow his foes.
He is real. He reigns! And he will reign until this verse is fulfilled. Believe it.
Amen.