God with us

Heavenly Father, thank you that you have spoken through your prophets. Thank you that in these last days you have spoken in your Son. We know that we are deaf to your word unless you open our ears by your Spirit. So heavenly Father, please give us ears to hear, and hearts to obey. And we pray in the precious name of Jesus, your Son, our Lord and saviour. Amen.

Sometimes things can look really bad for us, the pressures can begin to pile up. It can look to us as if we’re surrounded by enemies. Maybe hostile people, a hostile culture, our own sinful nature that’s hostile to our faith in Christ. Hostile spiritual forces that we can’t see but we sense their sinister power on the march against us. Maybe bad things are happening over which we have no control and that threaten to wreck our lives. Sometimes, life can look really dark. We can find ourselves, in the words of the carol, in the bleak midwinter. When things look really bad for us, what does God do? Where is God in the darkness? And how should we react? What are we going to do when the darkness begins to close in? Isaiah 7 tells us God’s answers to these questions.

This evening we’re beginning a short series on Old Testament prophecies that point to the birth of Christ. One of the most famous is right here in Isaiah 7.14. We know it points to the birth of Jesus, because the New Testament tells us so, in Matthew 1. An angel appears to Joseph and tells him not to be afraid to marry Mary (to whom he’s engaged) despite the fact that he’s discovered she’s pregnant and it can’t have been anything to do with him, because they’d never slept together. That must have looked pretty dark to Joseph. But God says to him, through the angel (Matthew 1.20-21):

…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.

And then Matthew adds an explanation of what’s going on. (Matthew 1.22-23):

All this took place to fulfil 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).

Immanuel is a Hebrew phrase. ‘Imma’ means ‘with’. ‘Nu’ means ‘us’. ‘El’ means ‘God’. Imma-nu-El. With. Us. God. Jesus is Immanuel. Jesus is God with us. That is the good news of Christmas. Hence the carol O come, O come, Emmanuel. But what lies behind that prophecy? It’s all too easy for us to hear these familiar Christmas readings and to skate over them. So it’s good to stop and dig deeper. It helps us to wonder afresh at this astonishing thing that happened in Bethlehem 2000 years ago, and to grasp the staggering significance of it for our lives today. Please have Isaiah 7 open in front of you. It’s on page 571 in the church Bibles. So what’s going on in Isaiah 7? Well:

1. GOD’S PEOPLE ARE AFRAID BECAUSE THEY ARE UNDER ATTACK

We’re back about 750 years before the birth of Jesus. God’s people have long been split into two kingdoms – Israel in the north, otherwise known as Ephraim, and Judah in the south. Like siblings who hate each other, there is great hostility between them. And they’re as bad as each other.

Ahaz is the King of Judah in the line of David, in the South. Ahaz gets bad news. He hears that Israel has got together with Syria to go to war against him. Two nations against one. They’ve mobilised and are waiting for the moment when they can attack. As Ahaz sees it, he and Judah, his nation, are in danger of being wiped off the map. That’s all there at the beginning of Isaiah 7. You can read about it in 2 Kings 16 as well. So what happens when Ahaz and Judah hear of this existential threat? Take a look at Isaiah 7.2:

When the house of David was told, “Syria is in league with Ephraim,” the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.

Their hearts begin to shake. Why? Because they’re scared. Why? Because there is a real and present danger facing them, which is too strong for them to overcome. We’ve been watching a fascinating series called Secret Life of the Forest, about Kielder. Each episode covers a season. Kielder is packed full of conifers that are vulnerable to storms, like the recent Storm Arwen. The Forestry Commission said:

Sadly Kielder Forest was hit very badly during Storm Arwen. All visitors are being asked to stay away for their own safety. The site is closed. Unfortunately many trees have fallen…

Ahaz and Judah were like Kielder Forest hit by storm Arwen:

…the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.

What about us? Do we feel as if we’re in a threatening storm? Do we feel surrounded by enemies? Thankfully our nation is not at war, but there is a very real spiritual war going on. Satan and all his forces of evil are on the rampage as ever, but threats can come at us from many different directions, can’t they? Maybe the icy blast of life-threatening illness has struck you or your family, or you’re dealing with a conflictual relationship and you can’t see how it’s going to be resolved and it’s taking its toll. Or you hear of the Omicron variant sweeping the world and you feel as if you can’t take much more news of thousands dying. Or there are issues at work that are requiring you to stand out from the crowd for Christ’s sake. Maybe the wind is blowing through your life, and you know that feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach. You wake up in the morning, remember again what you have to deal with that day, and your heart shakes within you.

God’s people are afraid because they’re under attack. That’s the first thing here. It’s not hard to identify with that. So what happens next?

2. GOD SPEAKS A POWERFUL WORD OF COMFORT AND HOPE

And he does that through his prophet Isaiah. First God gives Isaiah delightfully precise instructions about where he should go and meet with Ahaz. It’s as if God pinpoints a spot on Google Maps for Isaiah 7.3:

And the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-jashub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer's Field…”

So he’s told to take his son with him. And that’s more significant than it might look. This is not just a bit of father and son bonding time. In fact there are three boys in this story – and each one of them is a sign from God. That’s clear from what Isaiah says in Isaiah 8.18:

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 Mount Zion.

Three boys are signs and portents from the Lord. Two of them are Isaiah’s sons. One is not. Shear-jashub is the first of them. His name means, ‘A remnant will return’. In other words, whatever happens, God will never finally abandon his people. He will rescue them from exile and bring them back to himself. Not that Ahaz understood any of that. We’ll come back to the three boys and their names. What does the Lord have to say through Isaiah to Ahaz about the invasion by Israel and Syria that’s got him quaking in his boots, and shaking like a shallow-rooted fir tree in a storm? Well, for one thing, the Lord calls Israel and Syria two smouldering stumps of firebrands (Isaiah 7.4). And he says about their threatened invasion (this is Isaiah 7.7):

It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass.

There will be no invasion. And then the Lord tells Ahaz to ask him for a far-reaching sign and Ahaz refuses. Not a good move that but sadly typical of Ahaz - direct and brazen disobedience of God’s word. So what does the Lord say next? It’s there in Isaiah 7.13-14:

And he said, “Hear then, O house of David [that is, Ahaz]! 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.”

So here’s the second boy, and the biggest sign. Immanuel, as we know, means God With Us. So this is an unimaginably great and comforting promise. But who is this young woman, this virgin, who will conceive and bear this son who is God With Us? And when will he be born? The answers are not yet given. The time is not yet right for that to be revealed. What Isaiah does make clear is that before Immanuel is born and reaches boyhood (Isaiah 7.16):

…the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted.

So if only Ahaz had listened to the Lord, here was a powerful word of comfort and encouragement. The invasion he dreaded was not going to materialise, and it didn’t. The ruthless regional superpower Assyria saw to that. But not only would there be no invasion – God With Us would come. Ahaz could have looked forward in faith to that day, but he wasn’t interested in listening to the living God.

So first, God’s people are afraid because they are under attack. Secondly, God speaks a powerful word of comfort and hope. Now here’s a question for us all.

3. HOW THEN SHOULD GOD’S PEOPLE REACT?

How did Ahaz react? And how should we react now? Well, we should do the exact opposite of what Ahaz did. Ahaz had always been deaf to God’s word, and he didn’t change the habit of a lifetime at this crucial moment. That’s the trouble with making a habit of ignoring God. We can be arrogant enough to think that when the time is right, and we decide we need him, we’ll stop ignoring him – so we can have our cake now and eat it later. But habits that we think we control have a nasty habit of taking control of us.

Ahaz was a faithless, idolatrous and immoral king. A disaster for himself and for his people. 2 Kings 16.2-3:

Ahaz…did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God, as his father David had done…He even burned his son as an offering, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.

So he rejected the comfort and the hope of the coming Immanuel. And Isaiah makes clear that as a result, before Immanuel came it wouldn’t just be Israel and Syria that would be laid waste, but Judah, the kingdom of Ahaz, as well. It would become fly-ridden. Shaved bare with a razor. It would become just a land of briers and thorns. A picture, in other words, of judgement. And the third boy became a sign of that judgement that would fall on Ahaz. Because Isaiah had another son. To see him, we need to look ahead to Isaiah 8.3, where Isaiah says:

And I went to the prophetess [his wife], and she conceived and bore a son. Then the Lord said to me, “Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz…”

Now one of the regrets of my life is that we didn’t call our son Maher-shalal-hash-baz. ‘Ben’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. But as will be clear by now, the names of these three boys were signs. So what does Maher-shalal-hash-baz mean? It means ‘quick to the plunder, swift to the spoil’. In other words, judgement is coming. You needed a thick skin to be a son of Isaiah.

So what’s the obvious lesson for us? Don’t ignore the voice of God, like Ahaz did. Don’t shut your ears to the good news of the coming of Immanuel, God With Us. We mustn’t be among those who weary God with their obstinate disobedience. As Isaiah said of Ahaz (in Isaiah 7.13, just before the Immanuel prophecy):

…Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also?

By God’s grace, may that not be said of us. So how should we react? In three ways:

First, we should not fear our enemies – whoever or whatever it may be that causes us to shake like trees in a storm, or that causes that dread in the pit of the stomach. Unlike Ahaz, we should listen to what the Lord said to him (this is in Isaiah 7.4):

Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint…

That, you remember is just what the angel said to Joseph. Do not fear. And that is what the Lord says to us as we face the future. Do not fear. Do not let your heart be faint.

Secondly, we should trust God. Whatever enemies we face now, whatever the darkness around us, we need to know that the future is in his powerful and loving hands. Melvin Tinker, the Bible teacher and writer, who died recently, said as he faced the last great enemy, death itself:

The future is safe in [God’s] hands.

That is so clear from Isaiah 7, in which the great and wonderful events of that first Christmas were foretold. Over 700 years needed to go by, but the Lord was on the throne. Immanuel was coming. God With Us was born among us, and he has promised always to be with us by his Spirit, until the day when he comes back to us again. So we should trust God. Isaiah 7.9:

If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.

And thirdly, wait for the Lord. Whatever you face now, don’t be afraid. Trust God. The future is safe in his hands. And so are you. So wait for him. That is what Isaiah did, waiting for the coming of the boy to born of a virgin, Immanuel, God With Us. Waiting for the fulfilment of the word of comfort and hope that the Lord had given him. In Isaiah 8.16-17 he says:

Bind up the testimony; seal the teaching among my disciples. I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him.

The Lord has now shown his face, in the face of Jesus, who is Immanuel. We have seen him by faith. And we wait for the day when we will see him face to face. We are to bind up the testimony. Seal it in our hearts. And wait for the Lord, knowing that our hope is in him. Let’s pray:

Heavenly Father, you know easily we fall into fear of our enemies. Teach us we pray, as we look to Jesus, not to be afraid; but to trust you; rejoicing in the presence of Immanuel with us by your Holy Spirit; and waiting for that day when will see him face to face. In his precious name we pray. Amen.
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