God With Us

Well I read somewhere that someone had counted over 400 prophecies from the Old Testament that were fulfilled or will be fulfilled in the coming of Christ because some of those of course refer to his second coming.

And although I cannot confirm the exact number, I haven't counted them and I don't know what the number is, but it's obvious that there are many, many prophecies in the Old Testament about the coming of Christ. And one of the best known is the one in our passage for this morning in Isaiah chapter 7 and verse 14 which says, Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. This is one of the best known and best beloved prophecies about Christ in the Old Testament, but closer examination proves that it is also one of the most challenging and intriguing texts. It's straightforward enough when it is considered alone without the context, but when you start examining it in the context and what was said at that time and to whom it is said, it certainly does involve some puzzling elements that we shall try to help you with this morning. In our day, we have no difficulty understanding that this is a prophecy about the virgin birth of Christ. A virgin shall conceive and bear a son. It's a prophecy about the incarnation of God in human flesh.

You will call his name Immanuel, which means God with us. But the question is, what did this prophecy mean to King Ahaz to whom it was spoken in the day when it was spoken? And that becomes a little more intriguing. Therein lies the challenge, but I think also therein lies the fullness of the meaning of this great text.

And so if you'll join me as we explore it this morning, perhaps we will come away with a better understanding when this service is over. First of all, consider with me the context. Starting in verse one that we read a moment ago, we realize that an attack was planned against Jerusalem. This took place about 700 B.C. when the king of Judah in Jerusalem was Ahaz. Isaiah's prophecy spanned the lives of about five or six kings. You can read about that in the first verse or two of the prophecy of Isaiah. In fact, you remember that that great vision that he saw of the holiness of God in chapter six is predicated with the statement that in the year when King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up. So he prophesied during the days of Uzziah. He prophesied during the days of Uzziah's son and his grandson that's before us now, namely Ahaz. He prophesied during the reign of a number of kings, and this time he is prophesying to King Ahaz, the grandson of King Uzziah, who disappointingly was not nearly the man of God that Uzziah was. He was not a faithful follower of the Lord God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

He did not have a firm trust in the word of God, and that becomes very clear in this passage. And there was a conspiracy, I guess you would call it, there was a plan to attack Jerusalem, the southern of the two kingdoms that had been divided in the days after Solomon into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. And there was a plan now from the king of Israel, also called Ephraim in our passage, combined with the king of Syria, whose capital was in Damascus, to join their forces and to come against Jerusalem and to depose the king and place a puppet king upon the throne and make Israel a vassal state to, make Judah, rather, a vassal state to Israel and to Syria. That was reported, we're told, in a couple of times this phrase is used, to the house of David.

But the house of David, of course, another way of saying to King Ahaz, who was the king on the throne in the line of David. So this news came to the house of David, that is King Ahaz, and caused great fear in Jerusalem, as you might expect, and that caused King Ahaz to reach out to ask Syria, not to be confused with Syria, to see if he could employ their help in defeating this army that was planning to come against him. And at that time, God sent the prophet Isaiah to bring assurance and comfort to King Ahaz and to the people of Judah. Isaiah came and told Ahaz that the planned attack would not succeed. Isaiah met with Ahaz out as he was inspecting the aqueduct that fed water to Jerusalem in case there was a long siege.

And Isaiah declared to him that there was no reason to fear because Ephraim, northern kingdom Israel, and Syria, capital in Damascus, would be destroyed. That didn't even seem possible at the time that Isaiah spoke it. And furthermore, Isaiah said, God tells you to ask of him a sign to confirm that this will take place and to strengthen your faith in the word of God. Ask a sign, any sign, in the depths below, in the heavens above. In other words, there's nothing that is too big, there's nothing that is too impossible, there's no miracle that is too great, but what God will grant your request if you will simply name what sign it is that you want to receive. A sign in the Bible is an attesting event.

Often it is a miracle. John in his gospel calls the miracles that he records signs. These signs did Jesus in the presence of his disciples and others. But signs are not always miracles. I remember what the angel said to the shepherds when he told them about the birth of Christ. And he said, go into Bethlehem and this shall be a sign unto you. You will find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. That was an attesting event.

The miracle had already taken place. The virgin conception, the birth, the child is lying in a manger. But when you find a child lying in a feed trough, there aren't going to be any more than one of those.

You're not going to find a lot of children in feed troughs. So when you go to Bethlehem and find the child that is cradled in a feed trough, that will be the sign that this is the one that we are telling you about. So a sign is an attesting event. But though God told Ahaz to ask for a sign, he refuses. He will not comply. Verse 12 of Isaiah 7. But Ahaz said, I will not ask nor will I test the Lord.

Dripping with piety as he said those words. Why does Ahaz refuse the sign? Well, because he doesn't want a sign. He's already evidently made up his mind. He's going to seek help from Assyria. He doesn't want anybody interfering with his plans. He doesn't want anything given to him that will make it more difficult for him to go ahead with his plans. God's promise of deliverance is not a welcome promise to him because he doesn't trust the Lord. He doesn't worship the Lord. God's promise of deliverance even by giving a sign is not welcome to him because if a sign is given a miracle to prove that God's word is true, then that's just something else for him to have to explain away because he doesn't intend to believe.

That's clearly what is going on here. It's like in the days of Jesus how stubborn people were. Sign after sign after sign, miracle after miracle after miracle was given and many people still refuse to believe, particularly the religious leaders, even when Jesus rose from the dead. You can't imagine a greater sign, a greater miracle, a greater attesting miracle than that that should have caused all of them to say, okay, I surrender. I stopped doubting. I now believe.

It's got to be true. No, they concocted a story about the disciples of Christ coming and stealing away the body while the soldiers slept, which they knew was a lie. It doesn't matter what God's word said. They were not going to believe it.

It doesn't matter what sign was given. They were not going to heed it. And that's the attitude we see here with Ahaz. But he does so in the guise of piety, of religion. He professes piety and he makes reference to the words of God in Deuteronomy chapter 6, the words of Moses given to the people of God, who says in verse 16, you shall not tempt the Lord your God as you tempted him at Masa. In other words, you will not keep testing God to see if his word is true because he's already demonstrated that to you again and again and again. And so don't test the Lord your God. And Ahaz brings that up and says, well, I will not ask for a sign because the Bible says don't test the Lord your God. Well, now, Ahaz, if God asks you, in fact, God didn't ask him. God commanded him to ask for a sign. If God tells you to ask for a sign, then you're certainly not doing anything displeasing to God to do what he says to ask for a sign. In fact, you're displeasing God by refusing to do that. And Isaiah, speaking for God, makes it clear that what Ahaz is doing is sinful rebellion. Verse 13, Hear now, O house of David, is it a small thing for you to weary men, as evidently he'd been doing, that the godly people in Judah were sorely tested by the unbelief of their king. Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary God also? That's what you're doing.

Your refusal to do what God told you to do in asking for a sign is sinful rebellion. And thus we see the background of our text. We have considered the context. But now let's consider the text. And I'm not going to stop with verse 14 as my text for today, but I'm going to add to that verses 15, 16, and 17 because we need those to get the full picture of what's going on here.

But first of all, we see a divine selection. Verse 14. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Now, that phrase makes perfect sense when you consider the background. If you take it out of its context, you might wonder what is all that about?

But now we know what it's about. Since you, Ahaz, refuse to ask for the sign that God told you to ask, therefore, the Lord himself is going to choose a sign. The Lord himself will appoint a sign.

You will have a sign whether you want to or not, but since you didn't ask for it, it won't be the one that you requested, but it will be the one that God chooses. And it will therefore be something that will be informative to King Ahaz in his unbelief. But it turns out also to be something that God wants many other people to know besides Ahaz. It is a sign of divine selection. And what is involved in this sign? Well, it involves a chosen virgin.

Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son. The virgin. There have been thousands of pages written about this particular word and what does it mean in the Hebrew and should it be considered to be a virgin in the sense that we use that word virgin and so forth and so on.

It goes on endlessly. But the word is in the Hebrew, Alma, which means a young woman, a maiden, a young woman of marriageable age and is never referred to in the Old Testament as a married woman. And in most instances, it does refer to what we would consider to be a virgin because in Hebrew society, it was a great scandal for a woman to enter marriage as anything but a virgin. And so normally an Alma, a young woman of marriageable age would in fact be what we know to be a virgin. And yet it is rather puzzling as to why God the Holy Spirit did not inform, did not direct Isaiah to use a different Hebrew word and that word would be Bethulah, which always means virgin. There would be no doubt about it.

That leads us to scratch our head and I'm going to offer you a possible explanation for that in a moment. But we wonder why didn't God just use the word Bethulah and erase all the questions, all the doubt, all the debate, all the controversy, just said plain out it's a virgin, the word that always means a virgin and nothing but a virgin. But he didn't choose that word, an Alma. However, it is also instructive that when the Septuagint translators translated this Hebrew word Alma into Greek, they chose the Greek word parthenos, which always and only means a virgin. So we keep that in mind as well. In other words, what that indicated is to most people, the word Alma did communicate the meaning of virgin, but we're also left realizing it doesn't have to.

It almost always does, but it doesn't have to. Bethulah would have to be rendered virgin. Alma does not have to be. It can be rendered simply a young maiden. So there is a divine selection. There is a chosen virgin. There is a special son born to this virgin whose name will be Immanuel, which we know to mean God with us.

And furthermore, it goes on in verse 15 and says he will have a diet of curds and honey, which ancient manuscripts indicate was considered a royal diet. And he would have a normal childhood development. He would grow up and in time as he grew older, he would learn to be able to discern between good and evil.

And as he did that, he would choose the good and refuse the evil. That's what we're told about this special son. But we're also told this about the son. This is what makes it so important in my mind that we consider the meaning of this text in the days of Ahaz as well as in the days of Matthew and Mary in the New Testament. But we're told about this special son that he is a significant indicator of what God is going to do.

Verse 16, for before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good. In other words, while he's still very young, the land that you dread, namely the land of Israel and Syria combined, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings. So the child of which Isaiah speaks is going to serve as a I'm not sure what the right word here is.

I called it a timekeeper. It's going to be something by which King Ahaz can measure time. And if you'll pay attention to what God has said, he will have some idea of when the promised deliverance would come that he wasn't even looking for and believing in. But nevertheless, he was given this word. And in fact, history tells us that within three years, Israel and Syria both were destroyed and were no longer capable of being a threat to Judah or to anyone else. Surprise, surprise.

That's a very interesting and and rapid turn of events. And so when it says before the child shall know the difference between good and evil, it means probably something like before he's three years of age, though it could mean before he is legally considered accountable, which in that culture would be somewhere between 12 and 13 years of age. We're all familiar with the Jewish practice of bar mitzvah at age 13, even in our day, where Jewish boys and now girls, they have a bar mitzvah for a girl, except it has a slightly different name, but where they are now accounted responsible before God to keep the law of God and to know good from evil. Before that happens, before he gets to a legally accountable age, the land, the two countries, the two kings that are planning your destruction are themselves going to be destroyed and will not be able to threaten you. But and here is the surprising twist in all of this in verse 17. Even though there is a significant indicator of God's deliverance by the birth of the child and the passing of a few short years in his life, there is also a surprising danger that will arise even when the present danger is is destroyed, because verse 17 says the Lord will bring the king of Assyria upon you and your people and your father's house.

Days that have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah. That is, you're going to have a harder time, more difficult time then than any time since the division of the land of Israel into the two kingdoms. And it's going to come not by means of the northern kingdom of Israel, not by means of the neighboring country of Syria, but by a greater country a little bit further away, namely Assyria and the very country that you are trusting to deliver you from Israel and Syria. That's the country that's going to be attacking you and bringing devastation upon you.

The very source you trusted and are trusting to rescue you will in fact become your destroyer. So that's what we learn in the text. Now let's consider the fulfillment of this text. And actually, in my understanding, there are two fulfillments.

There's the primary fulfillment and then there is what we might call the secondary fulfillment or the immediate fulfillment. But the primary fulfillment or the ultimate fulfillment is, of course, speaking of Jesus Christ. And there's no question about that because the Bible itself says so.

We all are familiar with these words from Matthew Chapter one. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. After his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit.

Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to marry your wife, for that which is conceived of her in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall bring forth a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. So all this was done that it might be fulfilled. And this is the key that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet saying, what prophet?

Well, here it is. Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is translated God with us. And so without any question of a doubt, the Holy Spirit of God through Matthew tells us that these words spoken by Isaiah the prophet to Achaz the king, find their fulfillment in the birth of Jesus, the son of Mary, a virgin at the time when Jesus was conceived.

A virgin at the time when Jesus was born. And he was indeed Emmanuel, God with us. He was God come in the flesh.

He was God incarnate. That is the ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy. That is the primary fulfillment of this prophecy.

There can be no doubt about it. And it's a wonderful prophecy, a wonderful Christian text, a Christmas text that we love to consider. Also in these words of Isaiah to Achaz, we find a reference to the fact that this one that is born of Mary will be of royal lineage. Honey and curds shall he eat. That's symbolic. Doesn't mean literally that's what his diet is going to be. But that would convey to those a royal diet in that day. And he would live an impeccable life. He would choose the good and refuse the evil every time, ultimately. In other words, this is speaking of his sinlessness, not only his virgin conception, his sinless birth in not inheriting the sin nature that comes upon all of us all the way back to Adam, the first father in the Garden of Eden. But he will be born apart from that, but he will live a perfect life. He will choose good, refuse evil, choose good, refuse evil, choose good, refuse evil every time.

He is tempted to do wrong. Well, we all know that's what this text means. The Bible says so. Matthew says so.

God says so. But what did it mean to Ahaz? Did it mean anything to him in his day? That's the question that I put before you.

Now, think about these words again in light of their context. Ahaz wouldn't ask for a sign, but God said, I will give you a sign. And here it is. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. Curds and honey he shall eat that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before, and this is what makes it, I think, compelling that we've got to consider this in terms of what it meant to Ahaz in his time. For before the child, the very child we're talking about here, shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good.

The land that you dread will be forsaken by both your kings. It does have a message to Ahab. It does have reference to events that take place in Ahab's time. It does point to what's taking place in this assault or planned assault upon Jerusalem and God's promise of deliverance to Ahaz and his people.

But the question is, how can we put all that together? Behold, a virgin, an alma, an unmarried young woman, could be translated maiden, shall bear a son. We're not told who this woman is, never are told. But it's clear that it's someone that Ahaz would know.

Or otherwise, it could not be helpful to him as a sign. It's someone that Ahaz would know. We're not even told exactly what is the status and the machinations of what takes place here with this unmarried young woman, this virgin who bears a son. Does she get married immediately after this pronouncement by Isaiah and then conceive and bear a son?

That's a possible explanation, one that some people give. And yet, some scholars, I've read so many, I've forgotten in each case who said what. But I think it was Young who said the force of the Hebrew language indicates that she had already conceived at the time that Isaiah spoke this message, which has me scratching my head a bit again. If that were the case, she wouldn't be a virgin as we understand the word virgin, would she?

But she could be an unmarried woman, young woman. We're not quite sure what all this means. And furthermore, the fact that she shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us, what does that mean in the days of Ahaz? It certainly can't mean what it means in the days of Joseph and Mary, God with us, meaning this child is God with us.

But that very phrase can, of course, have a lesser meaning. We would all understand that. It can be a declaration of faith in God who has promised to be with his children. It can be a statement of saying we believe that God is with us. We believe that God is near to us. We believe that God is always present with us. We believe that God is with us, not in the sense that this child is God, but in the sense that we have faith in the God who is always present everywhere at all times and has a special regard for his children. The way the wording is given, it could convey that meaning in the days of Ahaz, as well as the fuller meaning that comes later that this child is God with us because he himself is God who has come to be with us. What I'm suggesting to you is that this prophecy was deliberately crafted to have dual fulfillment, dual meaning. And that's why I think the word Alma was chosen rather than Bethulah because it indicates a young woman of marriageable age but not necessarily a virgin. And I am going to step out on a limb here. I didn't read this in any commentary.

Nobody suggested this. But as I'm wrestling with this, and if you can come up with reasons why I'm wrong, please tell me. And I'll publicly correct myself if you can show me why this is not the case. But I'm rather inclined to believe that this virgin was a young woman close to Ahaz. The definite article is used, behold, the virgin, maybe even a daughter of Ahaz, someone in the royal palace, who's going to conceive a child out of wedlock. You see, I've always been puzzled in reading all of this as to if we're just talking about, behold, a young woman shall get married and bear a child, bear a son. Well, there could be hundreds of those in Israel.

How is Ahaz going to know which one to watch to see when he reaches a certain age and so forth? But delicately, the details are given because this would be a great scandal. But of course, if I'm right, this woman, this young girl is a young woman who became pregnant outside of marriage. That would be a great scandal. So people wouldn't want to talk about it. They would be hush-hush about it.

But if she was, in fact, a member of the royal family and was in the royal palace, that would explain why he would have a royal diet, curds and honey. And that would explain why someone close by that Ahaz could look and see, I know what God said. I don't know if I believe it or not, but let's watch and see what happens.

It would be right there where he could be watching what's taking place. And God with us, therefore, would not mean that God is in the child, but the name is a testimony to our faith in the presence of Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who is promised to always be with his people. In other words, it has a dual fulfillment. Now, let's take the last few minutes to talk about some lessons that I think will grow out of this. First of all, we learned some things about the nature of prophecy in the Bible. And one thing that we need to understand is that Bible prophecy often involves both a near and far fulfillment.

It often involves a dual fulfillment. I'm convinced that that must be so, because this is certainly not the only prophecy like that. There's so many prophecies in the Old Testament that have some immediate fulfillment, but then they have a greater long range of fulfillment. I remember reading, probably 40 years or so ago now, a book by a respected Bible scholar that I learned a great deal from and I have high regard for. He's now with the Lord in heaven, who denied that possibility. Scripture can only have one meaning.

It can never have two. And what he was combating in saying that was the idea that when we study the Bible, we sit around in a circle with our friends and we read a text and then we say, Well, what does this mean to you? Oh, that's interesting. What does that mean to you? Oh, well, that's interesting. Well, what does that mean to you? Oh, that's interesting. What does that mean to you? Well, that's interesting. All right, very good. Let's close in prayer.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I don't want to know what it means to all of you. I want to know what it means.

Right? So, yes, Scripture generally, and I have to put that in because I find exceptions when it comes to prophecy, Scripture generally has one meaning only and we work hard to try to be sure that we have arrived at the God-intended meaning. But in the case of prophecy, when we work hard to get to the God-intended meaning, so often we come up with a dual fulfillment, a near fulfillment, which sometimes is a bit shadowy, and a long-range fulfillment, which at the time the prophecy is given is even more shadowy, but later it becomes clear. And so prophecy often has a conspicuous meaning that can be understood immediately, but it often leaves lingering questions and, I'm convinced, in most cases, full clarity will not come until it is fulfilled. I know there are those who think that prophecy is given so we'll know exactly what's going to happen ahead of time. I don't subscribe to that view.

I used to, but I don't subscribe to that view. I think prophecy is given so that we will have our faith in God enlarged as we see things fulfilled. We'll look at, now I see what happened. Now I know what God said. Now I know how amazing God is and how his word is always true. But I always struggled with that statement, that prophecy, until it was fulfilled. And that's what I see with the disciples of Christ, for example. And so many in Christ's day, they just had trouble with things about the Messiah, about the necessity of his death and his resurrection and so forth, all prophesied in the Old Testament, but that really wasn't clear to them until it happened.

And then they, how many times does John say something like this happened? And then they understood the words that Jesus had said to them. They didn't understand them until it was fulfilled. The nature of prophecy. Close to that, we should learn some lessons here about the nature of Revelation.

I'm talking, of course, about divine revelation, the Bible. And that is just another reminder that God's word is given through human instruments. Isaiah 7, 7.

Thus says the Lord God. Isaiah 7, 10. Moreover, the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, God is speaking. But then we read later that when Isaiah spoke, it was God who spoke to him. I lost my verse in that one, but it's in here. The word of Isaiah is called the word of God.

What is it? Is it the word of a man or is it the word of God? Answer, yes, it is both. And that's the nature of Revelation. It's the only book in the world that that is true of. Yes, men have spoken it.

Yes, men are human. Human instruments, human messengers, sinful men who themselves can make mistakes, but not when they speak the word that God has given to them. Then it's God's word combined with human words. And it is the infallible word of the living God.

There are no mistakes in that. That's the nature of Revelation. Third, let's consider the nature of unbelief. And that is just this reminder and warning to ourselves that unbelief is often cloaked in religious garb. People who sit on church pews can oftentimes be unbelievers, sometimes very great unbelievers, sometimes more minor unbelievers, I suppose, if you can categorize it. But when we have something that we don't want to believe from the Bible, we almost, if we call ourselves Christians, we almost always come up with a Bible reason why that can't be so.

You've noticed that, haven't you? I mean, the people who come around and knock on your door and want to talk to you, want to hand out their watchtowers and their literature, who don't believe, for example, that Jesus is God. They have a pretty good biblical line of reasoning why Jesus can't be God. But, of course, it's all a distortion.

It's all taking words out of context. It's all trying to make the scripture say what it doesn't mean. But they're very religious. In fact, some of them put us to shame with their commitment to their religion and their willingness to work hard for it. Of course, they're working for their salvation.

That might explain it in part and maybe in whole. But unbelief is generally wrapped in religion. That can happen to us, to those of us who are here today. Let's be very aware of that and ask God to show us if that's true in our lives. I say something number four about the promise of deliverance, namely that God promises to deliver those who trust in Him again and again and again and again.

We can put that down as a given. Always, God promises to deliver those who trust in Him. But with that, the reality of judgment, God promises judgment for those who refuse to believe His word. Ahaz, I'm going to rescue you from Israel and Syria.

You don't deserve it, but I'm going to do it anyway. And you'll see my word come to pass, but then I'm going to bring judgment by Assyria that you trusted instead of trusting me. The reality of judgment. And finally, the danger of unbelief. Whatever you put in the place of God will undoubtedly become the primary source of your destruction.

God will have no other gods before Him. God will not allow us to put in our lives something that we honor, that we trust, that we reverence, that we worship, that we value more than God Himself. If you're trusting in your money, your money will probably become the source of your destruction. If you're trusting in pleasure, then your desire for pleasure is going to become the source of your destruction. If you find your consolation in a bottle or in a bottle of alcohol or a bottle of pills, then undoubtedly what you are putting your trust in instead of the Lord God is going to become the source of your destruction. Whatever it is that you look to more than to Almighty God who said, Thou shalt have no other gods before me, will become your source of destruction.

We see that illustrated here with Ahaz and with the destruction that Assyria, his trusted ally, he thought, his friends, he thought, became the source of his great destruction. Let's bow in prayer. Father, teach us to love Christ and to love your word. Teach us to love Christ more and to love your word more, more every day. And teach us, O Lord, to love you and the truth of your word more than we love anything else in all this world, more than our dearest loved ones, more than our family, more than our jobs, more than our possessions, more than anything. Teach us, O Lord, to love you and to learn of you and to trust you as we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.