Well good evening everyone and welcome to my forty sixth episode. Tonight, I want to take a look at Isaiah chapter 7. As we go through this study, I’d like you to keep the following three questions in your mind:
- How do you act when the odds are against you?
- Is it wise to never worry? Why?
- What excuses do people use to avoid prayer?
Now I’m going to read the chapter to you in its entirety. Please enjoy.
Isaiah 7
A Message for Ahaz
When Ahaz, son of Jotham and grandson of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, set out to attack Jerusalem. However, they were unable to carry out their plan. The news had come to the royal court of Judah: “Syria is allied with Israel against us!” So the hearts of the king and his people trembled with fear, like trees shaking in a storm. Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Take your son Shear-jashub and go out to meet King Ahaz. You will find him at the end of the aqueduct that feeds water into the upper pool, near the road leading to the field where cloth is washed. Tell him to stop worrying. Tell him he doesn’t need to fear the fierce anger of those two burned-out embers, King Rezin of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah. Yes, the kings of Syria and Israel are plotting against him, saying, ‘We will attack Judah and capture it for ourselves. Then we will install the son of Tabeel as Judah’s king.’ But this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “This invasion will never happen; it will never take place; for Syria is no stronger than its capital, Damascus, and Damascus is no stronger than its king, Rezin. As for Israel, within sixty-five years it will be crushed and completely destroyed. Israel is no stronger than its capital, Samaria, and Samaria is no stronger than its king, Pekah son of Remaliah. Unless your faith is firm, I cannot make you stand firm.”
The Sign of Immanuel
Later, the Lord sent this message to King Ahaz: “Ask the Lord your God for a sign of confirmation, Ahaz. Make it as difficult as you want—as high as heaven or as deep as the place of the dead. ” But the king refused. “No,” he said, “I will not test the Lord like that.” Then Isaiah said, “Listen well, you royal family of David! Isn’t it enough to exhaust human patience? Must you exhaust the patience of my God as well? All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’). By the time this child is old enough to choose what is right and reject what is wrong, he will be eating yogurt and honey. For before the child is that old, the lands of the two kings you fear so much will both be deserted. “Then the Lord will bring things on you, your nation, and your family unlike anything since Israel broke away from Judah. He will bring the king of Assyria upon you!” In that day the Lord will whistle for the army of southern Egypt and for the army of Assyria. They will swarm around you like flies and bees. They will come in vast hordes and settle in the fertile areas and also in the desolate valleys, caves, and thorny places. In that day the Lord will hire a “razor” from beyond the Euphrates River —the king of Assyria—and use it to shave off everything: your land, your crops, and your people. In that day a farmer will be fortunate to have a cow and two sheep or goats left. Nevertheless, there will be enough milk for everyone because so few people will be left in the land. They will eat their fill of yogurt and honey. In that day the lush vineyards, now worth 1,000 pieces of silver, will become patches of briers and thorns. The entire land will become a vast expanse of briers and thorns, a hunting ground overrun by wildlife. No one will go to the fertile hillsides where the gardens once grew, for briers and thorns will cover them. Cattle, sheep, and goats will graze there.
So let me give you a little bit of background as to what is going on in this chapter. The year is 734 B.C. and Judah in Jerusalem is being ruled by king Ahaz. News is brought to him that the northern kingdom of Israel has made an alliance with Assyria, also known as Aram. Ahaz was very afraid of this alliance because he thought it meant his kingdom would be invaded. But as Isaiah predicted, the kingdom of Judah would not come to an end at this time.
Notice in verse three the name Shear-jashub. This name actually means “a remnant will return”, and the name was given to Isaiah’s son as a reminder of God’s plan for mercy. God planned to judge the kingdom of Judah, but grace was built into his plan from the beginning because he intended to restore a remnant of his people.
The aqueduct that feeds into the upper pool mentioned here in verse three may have carried water from the Gihon Spring located east of Jerusalem. The Gihon Spring would have been the major water source for the holy city and was also the spring that fed into the famous water tunnel of Hezekiah. The field where cloth is washed was a well known place where clothes or newly woven cloth were laid in the sun to dry and whiten.
So Isaiah predicted that the alliance between the northern kingdom in Israel and Syria would not hold and would break apart. He tried to tell Ahaz about this prediction, but Ahaz would not listen. His worry and his fear had clouded his mind and his ability to think rationally. And that leads us into our first question: How do you act when the odds are against you? I use the word “act” very intentionally here. It’s easy to think the right things and say the right things, but often it’s much more difficult to do the right things when under duress. For myself, I tend to entertain a raft of negative emotions when I’m in a situation that doesn’t look good. I also tend to try and exhaust every option possible on my own power before going to God to ask for his help. I don’t think this is the right mode of being for these situations, and I continue to practice to improve it. I think the right way of acting when the odds are stacked against you is to shorten your time frame and focus on what’s immediately in front of you. It’s a lot easier to imagine getting through the next ten minutes than getting through the next ten years. When you focus on what is immediately in front of you, you begin to notice two different things. The first thing is that there are many opportunities within your arm’s reach to make improvements to your situation. Maybe you decide to clean up the mess on the counter or the coffee table that’s been nagging at you for the past week. Things like that. The other important piece you notice when you focus on what is right in front of you is the little acts of redemption that God works in your life. These are things like someone telling you just what you needed to hear when you needed to hear it. These are things like a person being there for you right when you need them. These are things like rainbows in the midst of storms. If you’ve never read Marie Monville’s story, she was the wife of the gunman in the Amish schoolhouse shooting in Pennsylvania, I suggest you look into it. Her behavior in the aftermath of that tragedy is a good example of someone paying close attention to the little things around her and looking for the redemptive acts of God popping up in her life. This close attention was instrumental in her proper recovery. If you seek God in the small things, you will find him.
Back to Isaiah, we are looking at verse eight now. Ahaz was one of Judah’s worst kings. Instead of looking to God for help, he decided to pay Assyria for their aid. This didn’t work out and in 722 B.C. Assyria conquered Samaria and the northern capital of Israel. In verse twelve God tells Ahaz to ask for a sign, any sign, so that he might believe. Ahaz responds by saying he will not test the Lord. Ahaz is trying to cover up his own unbelief with piety here. Truthfully, Ahaz just doesn’t want to know what God has to say. It’s not uncommon for people to do this when it comes to prayer. And that leads us into our second and third questions. Let’s take on the second question: Is it wise to never worry? Why? To answer this question appropriately we need to be careful with how we define worry. I would define it this way: worrying is the mental activity that takes place after a person has done everything he or she can to prepare for something. So imagine it this way: the house you live in has a short circuit causing it to burn down and you lose everything. When you go to build a new house, you are very careful about the electrical work. You hire an excellent electrician who presides over everything, making sure all the t’s are crossed and all the i’s are dotted. Then you move into your new house. To worry would be to sit up at night concerned with the possibility that your house might burn down again because of a short circuit. Despite the fact that you know the electrician has done everything he can to make it safe. It’s the safest house in the county, but you are still concerned to the point of feeling anxiety. That’s worrying. I would say that it is never wise to worry. Take an inventory of all the things that you can do to maximize your well being in any given situation, then do these things. Once you’ve taken action and you are prepared, let go of any extra worrying. Never let your worrying cause you to sin, like king Ahaz did.
Now remember, Ahaz has just passed up God’s offer to show him a sign. Ahaz felt more secure with his money and power as king than he did with God on his side. His doubts and his worry has caused him to defy God and refuse to pray. Our final question is this: What are some excuses people use to avoid prayer? For myself, I tend to avoid praying about the things that are most near and dear to my heart. The things I really, really want. I’m nervous about praying for these things because I’m nervous God’s answer will not be what I want to hear. So I tend to skip it all together. I think this is partially motivated by my wanting to protect my relationship with God. If God denies me that which my heart desires most, how will I feel about God? I’ve certainly encountered people who could not get over this rejection. But I want to tell you guys, that is not the right way to think about this. We should be praying about everything, including our most intimate problems and desires. We need to trust the fact that God’s will is perfect and that he promised that all things will work out for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. So if our hearts are broken or our dreams are crushed, that’s how we know it is time to open our eyes and start paying close attention to what God might do. You can trust that he will act to bring out the good in any situation. But it’s entirely possible for us to miss it if we aren’t seeking him. Just think of it this way: the Gospel tells us that God was able to take the darkest moment in history (the moment when Christ was crucified) and turn that moment into the best news the world has ever heard. That by his death and resurrection we might be reconciled to himself by grace through faith in Jesus. God wants us to come home to him. So out of the darkest darkness he produced the greatest light by which he might guide our paths back to him.
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