Sunday, October 19, 2025 PM

Okay, well let's open our Bibles and turn to Isaiah chapter 7. We're going to be reading from Isaiah chapter 7, verses 10 through 13.

That's where we're going to begin tonight, and let's begin with a word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this time that you have set aside for us. We thank you for the blessing of a

Christian family, of a church family, and the reading of your word. Thank you for the many blessings that you have poured out into our lives by your

Holy Spirit because of your Son, Jesus Christ. And I pray that you would give us a clear view of him here in this word, and that you would continue to conform us to his likeness in this world.

And we pray these things in his name. Amen. All right,

Isaiah chapter 7, beginning in verse 10.

Moreover, the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying,

Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God. Ask it either in the depth or in the height above.

But Ahaz said, I will not ask, nor will

I test the Lord. Then he said, Hear now,

O house of David! Is it a small thing for you to weary men? But will you weary my

God also? Now, here at this junction in Isaiah's prophecy,

Isaiah has been sent to King Ahaz to confront him. Ahaz is a man who does not fear

God. He fears man, and he fears death. He fears man, so he's in a snare, and he flops back and forth like a bird caught by the leg.

He fears death, and so he is enslaved to always thinking about how to get himself out of these situations.

And so he's already shown his affinity for foreign gods and for making illegitimate alliances with foreign nations.

He is most concerned about Rezan and Pekah, king of Syria, king of Israel, and their armies that have laid waste to his kingdom and taken away 200 ,000 captives after destroying his army of 120 ,000 men.

He is now confronted by the Lord's prophet. As he is preparing for a siege, Ahaz is out checking the cisterns, the water stores, just in case they need to dip into them when the siege comes that he expects.

He has heard of a conspiracy that the enemy is going to come with their armies, make a breach in the wall, and send their agents in and have him killed and install a new king, one that is friendly to Israel and to Syria.

And thus, they would achieve their end of a three -nation alliance against the great boogeyman of the day,

Assyria, whose capital was all the way up in Nineveh. And so, as Ahaz has been considering all of these things,

God sends Isaiah with his little boy, Shear Jashub, out to meet

Ahaz, to confront him and say that the Lord needs his attention.

He needs Ahaz to understand that Rezan and Pekah are not going to last long.

They're going to fall, and therefore Ahaz should not be fearing them.

Ahaz should be fearing God rather than the kings of Syria and Israel.

And as I see Isaiah with his toddler son, he's holding him, here's

Shear Jashub, whose name means a remnant shall return. Even at this moment, as Isaiah is confronting

Ahaz, at this very moment, a prophet in the north is confronting the king of Israel and the rulers there and the elders there.

And he is saying to them, you are not to keep these 200 ,000 of your countrymen as captives.

You are not to sell them as slaves. You must send them back. And they begin to put the sick and the weak upon animals, and they feed them and they clothe them.

And even now, the 200 ,000 captives are heading home from Damascus. Ahaz does not know this.

Ahaz is still fearing man. Ahaz is still fearing death. But even as he fears all these things, if he would only humble himself and see the little one in front of him,

Shear Jashub, a remnant, shall return. He would receive the sign. And teasingly, the

Lord through Isaiah says to Ahaz, ask a sign, Ahaz. Ask for a sign.

You need to have faith. You need to be established. He says in verse 9, if you will not believe, surely you will not be established.

Ahaz, you need to be a man of faith. You need to believe in the promises of God. So ask a sign for yourself.

Make it really big. Whatever you need to be convinced that God is in charge of this world and these situations.

And Ahaz hides behind a veil of piety. He doesn't like the Lord. The Lord has let him down.

He is already, as we saw from other passages in Chronicles and Kings, he has set his heart upon foreign gods.

He sees the gods of Syria that are located in Damascus. They are very effective.

Those gods didn't let down the Syrians. They gave great victory to the

Syrians. So Ahaz is interested in those gods. He sees Yahweh as a God who has let him and his people down.

He's not interested in dealing with him or his prophet anymore. And so he hides behind a veil of piety.

He says, I'm not going to ask. I will not test the Lord. Now we come to the rebuke, verse 13.

Then he said, so here's Isaiah rebuking the king in the name of the Lord. Hear now,

O house of David, is it a small thing for you to weary men? But will you weary my

God also? And at this point, Isaiah has got his finger all the way in the face of Ahaz.

Here is the needful rebuke of the prophet to the king. He's about to give him a sign whether he wants one or not.

It's the sign of Emmanuel. But first, the rebuke.

Now, the issue is stated very bluntly.

If Ahaz is indeed concerned about being established, and that's why he's out there checking the water in the cisterns.

He's worried about this conspiracy that's going to replace him. There's going to be a coup in the capital there in Jerusalem.

If he really is all concerned about being established, retaining his throne, should he give some thought to the fact that he's treated his own people so badly?

Right? Is it a small thing for you to weary men? How bad a king

Ahaz has already been? How poor of a king he's been? How much his people have suffered? Is it a small thing,

Ahaz, that you would weary men? But how much more foolish is it to apostatize from God?

How much more foolish it is to weary God himself? This is broken down into three parts, this rebuke.

The first is the address. He addresses the king. Hear now, O house of David. Now, Ahaz, of course, is not a house, but he stands in for the house.

He's the royal head of the house. Remember that David had it in his mind at a certain point, he wanted to build

God a house. He said, I want to build God a temple. I don't think it's right for the Ark of the

Covenant to be hanging out in tents. I want to build a temple, a house for the

Lord. And at first, Nathan said, well, sounds like a good idea. Go for it.

But then God sends Nathan back and says, you will not build me a house. God says,

I will build you a house. A royal house. And the house of David, it includes

David and then Solomon and then Rehoboam. And then all the way down, we have this house of David that carries with it this promise of one from David's lineage who is going to reign and reign forever.

And this house of David has already been addressed in verse two.

It was told to the house of David, saying, serious forces are deployed in Ephraim.

So his heart and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the woods are moved with the wind. So you hear how the house of David thinks, how the royal household sees things.

So also the rest of the people. I remember when the word came to Herod, that the king of the

Jews had been born in Bethlehem, that he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him.

Right. The old phrase is, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. If the king ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

Right. How it goes with the king goes with the rest of the people. And so the house of David is addressed,

Ahaz being the head of that house. They are consumed by the reports of their enemies, but they are unconcerned with God's point of view regarding them.

Nowhere in the story do we hear from Chronicles or Kings or Isaiah that Ahaz and his house was concerned about how

God saw things. They were concerned about their political enemies. They were concerned about potential political allies.

They were concerned about military strength. But they were not concerned about God's point of view.

And so Ahaz's royal household is rebuked. And in a sense, as Isaiah says, oh, house of David, he's really bringing up the entire track record of the house of David.

And it's not all that great. There are some real stinkers in the lineage of the house of David, folks like Rehoboam.

Abijah, Jehoram, Ahaziah, and wicked queen Athaliah. They haunt the last 300 years of the household of David.

And of course, we have the late and great iniquities of Solomon and Uzziah, where they started well and ended poorly.

And all of these things are brought to mind as the house of David is being addressed here. And so Ahaz now is his turn to be confronted with the word of the

Lord. And here's the antagony. Is it a small thing for you to weary men?

Ahaz would have said no, it's not a small thing. That's his main concern. Ahaz's main concern in life is what is going on in the minds of other men about him.

It's not a small thing for him. He thinks that's the most important thing. What are others thinking?

What are others planning? What are others plotting? He is very concerned about perception and what other men may do, what other men may think.

Indeed, he has a high regard for men because they represent to his mind the greatest threat against his throne.

The fear of man and the fear of death go together, don't they? He has failed his people, 120 ,000 dead, 200 ,000 captive.

He is ruinous to his kingdom. Peck and Rezin don't like him. They're coming after him.

So he would not have said that wearying men is a small thing. He thinks it's the biggest thing in life.

He does very poorly at it, but still he thinks it's a very bad thing to weary men. Isaiah rebukes him and says, is it a small thing for you to weary men?

But will you weary my God also? All right. What's worse than antagonizing others? It's apostatizing from God.

Wearying men is one thing. Wearying God, the maker of men, is a whole other thing. This is the most important relationship.

This is the primary relationship. We are made in the image of God, not the image of one another.

We are made in the image of God. We are to love God supremely, not love others supremely.

And Ahaz's attention has been misguided. Now it is to be brought back to where it is supposed to be.

So Isaiah, notice Isaiah's position here as a prophet. He's not the kind of prophet who is counseling

Ahaz on, you know, Ahaz, what are your desires? What are you really going after?

I'm here to help you achieve that with best practices, you know, to really achieve your own dream.

No, Isaiah rebukes. He disrupts. Isaiah, notice, jealously insists that the

Lord be preeminent in all of Ahaz's considerations. And again, why is that?

Because Ahaz is in the line of David. He's in the house of David. And in 2

Samuel chapter 7, verse 14, we have what God says to the prophet

Nathan to David concerning David's heir, his lineage. And God says,

I will be his father and he shall be my son. If he commits iniquity,

I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. So, this is the moment where God says, we're going to consolidate everything down to the man.

He said of Israel, this is my son. In Exodus 4, he tells

Pharaoh, let my people go. Israel is my son, my firstborn son. And up out of Egypt, he brought his son.

And he disciplined Israel as his son. He chastised Israel as his son in the wilderness and in the land.

If they disobeyed him, he chastised them. And he was calling them time and again as his son, treating

Israel as his son with great care. And now he says,

I will be the king of the lineage of David. I will be his father.

He shall be my son. Meaning that all of the ways in which God was dealing with Israel broadly could be consolidated down to the one man.

How it goes with the king is how it goes with the nation. The king stands in for the nation, the one man for the many.

Very important moment in the course of redemptive history for us to be reminded that one stands in for the whole group, right?

As Adam does for all humanity or as Christ does for all the redeemed. So Ahaz is in this position of covenantal responsibility, and he needs to know the most important thing is his relationship with God.

Now God says to Ahaz, the house of David, and by extension all of Judah, as we've seen in Isaiah, that you're wearying me.

You're wearing me out. You're frustrating me. I'm tired of dealing with you.

This is not the only place in scripture where God declares that his people are wearying to him.

So, for example, in Isaiah 43 verses 22 through 24, we hear that it goes both ways.

The relationship's kind of gone sour. Isaiah 43 verses 22 through 24, God says, well, verse 21, he says,

This people I have formed for myself. They shall declare my praise. Right? Isn't that what the name of Judah means?

Right? Praise to the Lord. Because I made them to praise me. Kind of like how he made

Adam and Eve in his image for his glory. It's analogous.

But even though he made them for praising him, what's the problem? Verse 22. But you have not called upon me,

O Jacob, and you have been weary of me, O Israel. Israel is weary of God.

You have not brought me the sheep for your burnt offerings, nor have you honored me with your sacrifices. I have not caused you to serve with grain offerings, nor wearied you with incense.

You have bought me no sweet cane with money, nor have you satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices.

But you have burdened me with your sins. You have wearied me with your iniquities.

So they're weary of God, and God is weary of them. The feeling's mutual.

Not only do we see this situation, but we also should look over in Micah.

In Micah chapter 2, if you find

Nahum, go backwards. If you find Nahum, congratulations. That's hard to find.

In Micah chapter 2, verse 17, we read that they test and they taunt

God. Micah chapter 2, and actually it's not, can't be verse 17.

Yeah, hard. I think I've got the wrong book. Uh, well, let's go on to Micah chapter 6.

We'll find it. Go on to Micah chapter 6, verses 1 through 3.

Okay, so God says, hear now what the Lord says. Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.

Hear, O you mountains, the Lord's complaint, and you strong foundations of the earth.

For the Lord has a complaint against his people, and he will contend with Israel. O my people, what have

I done to you? And how have I wearied you? Testify against me.

So God contends with his people. He does so by mountains and hills and foundations of the earth.

He is wearied of their complaints against him. And by calling to attention the mountains and the hills and the foundations of the earth, there is something in the way he's saying it that their complaints against him is on the same level as if they would complain about mountains.

Like, the idea of somebody being frustrated with a mountain, like, this stupid mountain's in my way,

I have to go around it or go over it, is about the level of their complaint against God.

God is shaping the entire landscape of their life. Who would they be without him?

So why do they complain against him? Now, this testing,

Israel's complaining is a testing of their covenant Lord, and it follows their failure to remember and thus appreciate his many mercies toward them.

The great sin in Isaiah is that they have forgotten their Lord, they have forgotten his blessings, so they are weary of him.

And therefore, they do not follow him. Now, it's true when

Isaiah puts this question to Ahaz, is it a small thing for you to weary men? Will you weary my God also?

It is true that wearying the creator is a far different thing than wearying other creatures, wearying men.

Those are not equally weighted, those sins are not on the same level. However, they are deeply related.

How can we love others rightly unless we love God supremely?

Those two are connected. One is more important and primary, but they are connected.

We are made in the image of God, thus we were made to manifest the glory of God. Show how good

God is, that with every aspect of our lives, that we're saying of the creator who made all things, we're saying of him, very good, that we live as the amen of what

God has declared. But our manifestation of God's glory necessitates our mediation of God's goodness.

Well, it's not my own authority, it's not my own idea of what holiness is, it's not my own truth.

I'm not saying what those things are, they're not relative to me. I'm here to mediate

God's truth. I'm here to say what God says is true. I'm here to mediate God's authority.

I have no inherent authority of my own. I'm here to show you that God's in charge, and he's the one who brings these relationships of hierarchy to pass.

And I'm not saying what is sacred and what is profane. God says that, and I'm following through on that.

I'm mediating God's holiness, not my own. But it is the manifestation of God's glory as we mediate his goodness.

So, what happens if we do not weary?

What happens if we weary God? Then we will definitely be wearying men. We're going to fail man if we fail to adhere to God and fear

God. If we love God supremely by his grace, if we abide with God and know

God and rejoice in God and love him, then what will our relationships be to everybody else and everything else?

That will come into proper order. How much more concerned are we about failing men or receiving criticism from men, keeping men happy than we are about God's own point of view?

It's a diagnostic question. We are to put our attention upon the true son of David, where the house of David culminates, where the house of David is pointing, and he does not weary God.

He does not weary men. He is the perfect faithful son, and he is the good shepherd.

Following him brings us into that proper relationship with God and with others and with the created order.

He always leads us in godliness. As Christians, we should be concerned with how we treat others, and that's not a bad thing to be concerned about whether or not we're in good relations with others.

There's an appropriate level of concern there. We want to love our fellow believers, which is a whole different thing than trying to love our enemies and knowing how to do that in wisdom, but that is not our primary concern.

Our primary concern is ordering our affections to love and fear the

Lord. Well, this rebuke of the Lord through Isaiah to Ahaz comes at a moment when

Ahaz's greatest need is to fear the Lord, to get his attention off people, get his attention off of enemies and threats.

And to get his attention upon the Lord who is willing to give him a sign, who wants to give him a proof that God is faithful.

And we're going to learn more about that sign on our next opportunity, but it will come in the form of a child, a little child, and a strange name, something that emphasizes

God's sovereignty and God's presence in our world for us and for our good.