The Coming Messiah I: What will You do with the Descriptions of Christ?

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Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast, I'm Jon Snyder, and for the next month, month and a couple of weeks, we're going to be looking at a theme linked with Christmas.

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We're going to look at some Incarnation passages. These will be passages that are quite well known to you.

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This time we're not going to go to the New Testament passages which describe the birth of Christ. Instead, we're going to go six plus centuries back to the prophet

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Isaiah. Now Isaiah has a number of passages which are so clear in their descriptions of Jesus that he often gets nicknamed the fifth evangelist,

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Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Isaiah. And really, his book is so full of Christ, you can see why people would think of him in that way.

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But centuries prior to the birth of Jesus, we have these pencil sketches, these black and white portraits of the coming

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King. And while we do not have all the fullness and the vibrant color and the

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HD perspective of the New Testament, the things that we see here in Isaiah are sufficient to fill

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God's people with hope and to warn us not to abuse these truths.

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Because this time, we're going to look at these passages in light of their historical context.

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And I think that when we look at what was going on when God said these things, then we understand something of how we ought to apply them.

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What do these descriptions of Jesus do for a life? You know, how were we to live in light of Emmanuel, God with us?

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But we also have some negative examples in King Ahaz and Judah, who hear these things and remain unaffected.

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And we will see that judgment comes on those who, in a sense, nod their head to the

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Christmas story, you know, kind of tip their hat to the incarnation, but then go on fixing their lives with plan

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B, living on everything but the descriptions of Christ, because they feel that while the descriptions of Jesus are wonderful, you know, they're a nice sentiment, they're not really enough for real life.

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They're not substantial enough. They're not something you could risk your life on and change the way you live.

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So we're going to see what happens when nice church people tip their hat to Christ, but continue along their pre -chosen path.

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Well, in Isaiah, we find in chapter 7 and verse 14, that wonderful statement that God will send a son and he will be called

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Emmanuel. And we see this referred to later, of course, in the New Testament, when the angel tells

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Mary about the coming of the Messiah through her. Then in chapter 9 of Isaiah, we find a fuller description of this child, who he is and what he will do.

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And then again in chapter 11, an ever fuller description. And finally in chapter 12, this wonderful song of praise to the

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God who has given such hope to those who deserve no hope. Now I think that if we look at the description of the context of these passages,

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Isaiah 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, we will find it does add such weight to it.

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But because we're doing podcast, we're going to have to really fly through that material. So I'm going to have to summarize quite a lot.

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Well first, let's look at the background of the Emmanuel promise that shows up for the first time in Isaiah chapter 7 and verse 14.

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And this is how the New American Standard translates it. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign.

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Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son. She will call his name

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Emmanuel. Well it's a passage that anyone who goes to church or anyone who shows up at church once a year for Christmas or anyone who even watched the

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Peanuts Christmas special is probably familiar with this passage. But why was it said at that particular moment?

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Well it is a wonderful prophecy, but it is so much more wonderful, so much more weighty when you see it in its context.

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And the context is basically there's a crisis, there's a national crisis. The empire that is growing at this time is the

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Assyrian Empire, and it is a particularly cruel empire. And as Assyria spreads across the land and moves its way toward Israel to the north and Judah to the south, the small countries that are facing the inevitable defeat by Assyria decide that they should band together, and that's their hope of safety.

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So Israel and the Arameans meet up and they say, let's form an alliance and we will add

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Judah to the south. And the three of us together can at least put up a front of power, and maybe

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Assyria will pass us by and go to weaker nations. And so they go and they present that plan to King Ahaz in Judah, and Ahaz is not a godly man, but he is at least politically astute enough to know that this alliance has no hope.

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So he refuses to join Israel and the Arameans, and Israel and the Arameans then decide that the right thing to do would be to march their armies on Judah first, and Judah is quite a bit weaker, and they will go there for the very clear purpose of killing

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King Ahaz and all of his offspring, and then planting their man on the throne, and they've done this before in other nations, and so they hope that this will work, and their plant would then of course be favorable to whatever

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Israel and the Arameans plan. Well Ahaz is terrified by this.

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He knows that he doesn't have the political clout or the military power to protect himself and his children, and so he, in the midst of this crisis, is sent an amazingly merciful message by God through the prophet

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Isaiah, and that's Isaiah chapter 7. And the message is pretty simple, and there are two visits here in this chapter.

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You have to look close to notice that. The first visit, the message is this. Do not worry about the

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Israelites or the Arameans to the north and east of you. They are like smoldering sticks at the edge of a fire.

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They're nothing. You don't need to worry about them. God will take care of them. What you need to do is trust

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God enough to just sit and watch the rescue. Now, that's a wonderful message, but there's a couple of things

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I want to say. First, it does speak to the nature of faith.

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Faith is not always sitting still and letting go and letting

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God do what God will do. Faith is believing what

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God says enough to really respond, to obey in whatever way

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God requires. So in chapter 7 of Isaiah, obedience is for Ahaz to wait, which of course is a very active thing.

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It's not easy to wait. Wait and see God deliver. In other passages, waiting would be disobedience.

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When we think of the life of faith, it's not a life of positive thoughts that somehow it's all going to work out.

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It's not a life where we say, well, I'm just trusting God, and you have kind of a fatalistic inactivity.

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Faith is very active, but it is always a response to what God initiates by speaking to us in his word.

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What the scripture says, I believe, and by the grace of God, I will adjust my life to the scripture.

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And in that way, we have a living faith. Well, Isaiah gives the message, and then he comes back a little later with his second message, and he tells

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King Ahaz basically this, it might be difficult for you to believe that this

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God, which by the way, Ahaz is not so keen on worshiping the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

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This God of our fathers has made this great promise of mercy to you. And I'm sure as a king, you know, you might find that a preacher's sermon may not feel like it's enough to base your entire national policy on.

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What if the preacher's not right? So God has offered to give a sign, and in this situation, he does something that I am not aware of God ever doing before or after, and that is, he says to a man, you may pick the sign.

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Not only may you request a sign, I'm commanding you to request a sign. And you can make it as high as heaven or as low as hell.

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In other words, anything that you can imagine, and God will, by his own word, he will give you the sign.

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Ahaz's response is as shocking as the offer. His response is, no, thank you, but I don't need a sign from God.

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And that response, which might at first look like it is a response of faith, no,

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I trust God so much. I don't need signs. I just know that God will do what he says. Actually, that response offends both

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God and the prophet Isaiah. And the reason is because underneath the surface,

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Ahaz is not a man who is so full of faith that he doesn't need a sign. Ahaz is a man who has two great problems.

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First of all, Ahaz has no faith. Ahaz does not believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob or the

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God of Isaiah. Ahaz is an idolater, and Ahaz has spread idolatry.

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Ahaz is impressed with the gods of the Arameans, for example. He even builds an altar to the exact specification of the

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Aramean altar, which he sees in Damascus later in the story. He's impressed with the

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God of the Assyrians. He's impressed with the Baal and the Asherah around him.

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But with the living God, Ahaz, he has no interest in him. He is indifferent. And so when you come to a person who doesn't believe in your

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God, and you make these great boasts in your God, and you promise that this God will do a miraculous thing, if that person doesn't believe you at all, they're likely to just say, well, thank you, but no thank you.

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I don't need a sign. Ahaz does not believe that this

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God of Isaiah is worth even asking a sign from. So there's a complete lack of faith.

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Sometimes asking for signs offends God. We can think of people who in the scripture demand a sign, like the people in the days of Christ.

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Well, show us a sign and then we'll believe you. And that kind of an approach always offends God. Think about it.

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If God says something and you say, well, I'm not sure I'll believe you, but if you'll jump through these hoops, then maybe

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I'll do what you say. Well, that kind of response offends the God who never lies. But men like Gideon ask for a sign and God was gracious and gave it to them because Gideon wasn't asking for a sign because he didn't believe

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God, but because he didn't trust himself and he wanted to make sure that he understood what

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God had commanded and he was doing the right thing. He was on the right track. So God, would you give me a confirming sign?

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Ahaz rejects God's offers assigned because of unbelief. So that's problem number one.

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Problem number two is Ahaz already has a plan in place. In other words, he already thinks he knows how to fix the national crisis.

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He thinks he knows how to fix his own personal crisis. And when we have a plan

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B in place and we show up at church and we hear words about Jesus, we are likely to act just like Ahaz.

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We say, thank you, preacher. That was an interesting sermon about Jesus. I always love those texts around Christmas time.

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But in any practical way, we're not going to risk anything based on what we heard about Christ from scripture that day because we don't feel we need him.

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We have plan B. Plan B for Ahaz is simple. He is going to take the gold from the temple and the palace, and he's going to send it to the king of Assyria.

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And he's going to say to the king of Assyria, these two guys are forming an alliance against you.

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They want me to join them. I don't want to do that. I would rather be on your side, the winning side. So here's my bribe.

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And with this expression of friendship, I hope that you will then march your armies over and deal with my enemies,

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Israel and the Arameans. And we'll be friends. And to give you the end of the story, it partially works.

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The Assyrian king accepts the money. He goes and he conquers Israel and Aram. But we're going to find in our next episode that it doesn't work quite as well as Ahaz had hoped.

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His plan B backfires. And we're going to see how God uses Assyria to judge

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Judah. Well, the crisis comes and the king completely fails because he thinks that he has plan

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B already. Now, I want to mention one thing here. There is an extraordinary mercy in this passage, not only in the fact that God offered to give any sign that a man requested, which is quite an offer, but also that God gave that to the most wicked king in Judah's history.

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To this point, Ahaz has removed the altar of God, which

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Solomon built in obedience to God, and he's taken it out from in front of the temple and moved around back.

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And he puts idol altars in that place. He shuts down the worship of the temple.

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He funds the spread of idols throughout Jerusalem, the capital city, throughout the entire nation of Judah.

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As I mentioned, Ahaz has removed all restraint. Anyone who was a little embarrassed to worship idolatry under Jotham or Uzziah is wide open now, and the nation just turns headlong toward the emptiness of the false gods.

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And God sends Isaiah to this pagan. I want to make it clear,

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Ahaz is no more a God -believing, God -fearing king than the king of Israel at this point, or the king of the

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Arameans, or the Assyrian king. And yet of all those four ungodly idol -worshipping kings, only one is given the message from the prophet

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Isaiah of mercy and rescue, and it's Ahaz, and Ahaz rejects it.

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Now as astonishing as that is, that's not the most astonishing thing in the passage. What's the most astonishing thing is that the

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Emmanuel promise is God's response to Ahaz's indifference.

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He says in verse 13, it says, Then Isaiah said, Listen now, O house of David, so King Ahaz.

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Is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men that you also try the patience of my

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God as well? So you've offended me, the preacher. Is that too small of a matter? So you want to offend the living

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God as well? The very next words, Therefore, therefore, because of what you've said, because of your indifference, because you will not apply the hope that God gives you, therefore the

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Lord himself will give you a sign. So God will choose the sign. Here's the sign.

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Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name

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Emmanuel. So the first promise that we have in the book of Isaiah, that the

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Messiah is coming and the Messiah will be God himself with us. And that, of course, is going to be filled out in later chapters.

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That comes as God's response to the most wicked king in Judah to that point, who wickedly disregards every offer of mercy and help from the

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God that he has offended. So mercy upon mercy, boundless mercy, immeasurable mercy, and the shocking indifference of Ahaz.

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And then the more shocking response of God on top of that, that he tells him,

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I will give you a sign. I will send a rescuer. It will be

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God with us, Emmanuel. And we will learn more about that child in chapter nine.

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Well, let's apply that to ourselves. As we approach the Christmas season, we hear many things about Jesus Christ, whether you've been a

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Christian for decades or whether you're not a Christian at all. And you go to church and you hear

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Christmassy things, you know, because that's a time that you would show up at church to be with family, parents or grandparents.

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The question is, what are you going to do with the great realities of Emmanuel?

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Are you indifferent to the words in this book that describe the person of Christ and the work of Christ for people like you?

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People who deserve no hope from God and have no hope in this world apart from God.

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And yet God has sent you hope and you will hear about it again. What will you do with those words?

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Will you be like Ahaz? Not an atheist, not a man that says, I have no use for religion.

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No, I like religion and I'm glad for God to be one of those gods that I worship.

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One of the things that I hope in. But really, my marriage, my children, my work, my nation.

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We are in a crisis and I need more than Jesus talk. I need more than Christ.

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I need Jesus plus. And so we tip our hats again, politely to the words about Christ, because after all, we're not.

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Maybe we say, well, I'm not a Muslim. I'm not an atheist. So I'm kind of a Christian -ish person.

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But then these words make no difference to the way you live. When Isaiah left after the second meeting in chapter seven, if you go back to the account in Kings and Chronicles, you'll find that Ahaz goes basically from the face of Isaiah to bribing the king of Assyria.

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Even the sign of Emmanuel makes no dent in Ahaz's indifference to God.

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Does it do anything for us? And if it doesn't, what might we expect as God's response to our astonishing indifference to the hope that is in Christ alone?