Wednesday, August 20, 2025 PM

7. We'll be reading tonight from Isaiah chapter 7, looking at verses 10 through probably verse 17. Isaiah chapter 7 beginning in verse 10. Let's start with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the day.

I thank you for the opportunity to study your word together, to rejoice in your truth, to fellowship together, to spend time together, and to think about what you have to say. Lord, I pray that you would give us clarity of mind and encouragement as we hear what you have to say.

We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Isaiah chapter 7. We'll begin 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, Here now, O house of David, is it a small thing for you to weary men? But will 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 Emmanuel. Curds and honey he shall eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings.

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. So at this point, we are continuing our look at the child of hope that we are introduced to in chapters 7 -12 of Isaiah.

The child of hope is in contrast to the children of woe. Judah and all their rebellion, who have forgotten that God is their father, who have moved on to live their own way, much to their own disaster.

Any hope of salvation is going to come from the very same Lord who owes them judgment. And so even as they look to the Lord for salvation, they must also look to the Lord for his judgment. And God will be glorified in both.

Just how he's going to save through judgment is going to be the mystery unraveled throughout the book of Isaiah. This centers upon the child. It centers upon the Messiah. And we begin in chapters 7 and 8 by thinking about the sign of Emmanuel, a very Christmas theme.

Though in Isaiah, they weren't thinking much about mangers and shepherds and wise men. When they hear the name Emmanuel, there is a whole lot of connotations that we don't normally associate with Christmas, though there are some good reasons to.

There is a crisis in Judah as an invasion from Judah's enemies, a combination of the forces of Syria and Israel, the northern kingdom also called Ephraim. The soldiers of Pecah and Rezin have invaded the south.

They have killed 120 ,000 valiant men. Essentially, the entire deployable army of Judah lies dead. They have captured 200 ,000 men, women, and children and taken them north, intending to make them slaves.

Unbeknownst to Ahaz, God is already at work. He has a prophet in the north who has talked to the leaders and told them that they are not to enslave the people from Judah. They have even now clothed them, fed them, put the sick and the weak upon donkeys, and they are even now getting ready to send them all back south from Damascus, back through Ephraim, back to Judah, to Jerusalem.

Ahaz, however, and the whole house of David, the royal household there in Jerusalem, are shaking like a leaf in the wind. They are very frightened, and Ahaz has already begun to scheme about how he's going to get back at his political enemies.

But the Lord sends a word by the prophet Isaiah, who brings his little boy with him, Shear Jashub, a little boy whose name means, a remnant shall return, to tell Ahaz, sit down, be quiet, don't do anything.

In other words, stop trying to weasel your way out of problems, stop trusting in your own political acumen, and trust in the Lord. Now, Ahaz is not a man who believes in God. He has no faith in the Lord.

He very much is in person. He just personifies the entire problem of Judah, that they don't believe in God, they don't fear the Lord. But he needs to fear the Lord, he needs to believe, and God says, unless you believe, unless you trust what I'm saying to you, you will not be established.

So, he basically says through Isaiah to Ahaz, in verse 9, you need to have faith. If you're going to be established, you may think you need political allies to be established. You may think you need an army to be established.

You may think that you need to foil the conspiracy against you in order to be established. That's not what you need. You need to believe. You need to be a man of faith. And so, very graciously and in a long-suffering manner, God says to Ahaz, ask for a sign.

Let's establish you in your faith. You have trouble believing me? Well, ask for a sign. I'll give you a sign. It could be in the highest heavens or anywhere upon the earth. Just tell me what you want me to do for you.

I'll prove myself to you, and that way you'll be established in your faith. Now, that's pretty generous. The only problem is Ahaz doesn't want to believe. He doesn't want to be established by the Lord.

If he is established by the Lord, if his kingdom is going to be based on his faith in God, what will he have to give up? What are all these investments he's made into idolatry? What about all these schemes he has in play?

Is he willing to break with all the momentum that he has? Is he willing to change his mind about idols? Is he willing to bank everything on the Lord and only the Lord? Is he willing to adhere to the covenant that God has set before him?

No. He doesn't want to do that, and so he refuses. The request is made in verses 10 and 11, but we see a rejection in verse 12, and this is where we have left off in our study. Verse 12, there's the rejection, but Ahaz said, I will not ask, nor will I test the So, Ahaz rejects the mighty gift and remains loyal to his own despair.

Ahaz is one of those people, and he is not rare. He's one of those people who loves his problems. His problems make him special. To lose his problems would be to lose what makes him him. He doesn't want to give up his problems, and so he's going to remain loyal to his despair.

I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord. This is as direct a rebellion as there is. God says, ask. Ahaz says, I will not ask. It's about as direct as you can get. When a child is testing boundaries, and you see them in a state of indecision, you've told them to do something, and you watch it work across their face, how often does your command sway them toward doing the very thing you told them not to do?

Like, oh, when you put it like that, maybe I will go do that. Now, they could follow the other way as well. They could hear your command and say, oh, I will not do that. I will obey my father. I'll obey my mother.

That's very encouraging for a parent, but when you command a toddler, you do so on the edge of your seat, ready to follow up with a sprint and some discipline, because you don't know what they're going to do.

They may obey. They may disobey. Ahaz says, I'm not going to do that. He goes the opposite direction. He says, I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord. Now, Ahaz's follow-up here is his rationale for his refusal.

It's poor rationale, but it's rationale nonetheless. He demonstrates that he is fully aware of the significance of the command that God has given to him. Asking the Lord for a sign would mean submitting to God's authority, positioning himself in dependence upon God, and that is not what Ahaz wants.

He does not want to depend upon God. Like the proud man that he is, he refuses help. He refuses gifts. He refuses counsel. He refuses blessings. Anything that would make him beholden to the giver, he refuses.

Assistance diminishes the proud man. He would rather lose. He would rather be miserable. He would rather lose by scheming and demanding than gain by humbly receiving aid. And so he says, I will not test the Lord.

Alec Mottcher says, this is a veil of piety. Because testing the Lord, as we read in the scriptures, testing the Lord is a high-handed sin. It's what the devil did to Jesus in the wilderness. He tested Jesus three times over.

If you really are the Son of God, prove it by turning these stones into bread. If you truly are the Son of God, throw yourself down off the pinnacle of the temple. Angels will catch you, and then you can really prove who you are, if you really are, right?

Jesus rebukes Satan by saying, do not test the Lord your God. It's a sin to shake the fist at God and say, well, if you really are who you say you are, then you better do X, Y, or Z, because if you don't, then you're not God.

That's a high-handed sin. Testing the Lord, the sin of testing the Lord, is that of unbelief. It is a refusal to trust in and follow after the Lord until he satisfies your demands, until he proves himself to whatever capricious expectation you have in your sin and your pride.

Interestingly enough, by refusing to test the Lord, Ahaz tests the Lord. Because God actually told him to do it. He's like, hey, Ahaz, I want to prove myself to you. Why don't you ask me for a sign? I'll give you a sign.

And Ahaz says, nope, I don't want a sign. So Ahaz covers his rebellion with a thin veil of piety, but the reason really is that Ahaz does not want to believe. He doesn't want to be established by the hand of the Lord.

And remember that Isaiah, in chapter 6, humbles himself before God. Woe is me. I am ruined. I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have beheld the Lord of glory.

He humbles himself. He confesses his sins. He recognizes his situation and his need before the holiness of God. Ahaz is not interested in doing that. He's interested in obedience to other gods, ones that he deems more strong, more effective, easier, and more pleasant to deal with than the God who revealed himself at Sinai.

For example, in 2 Chronicles chapter 28, beginning in verse 22. Now, listen to this about Ahaz. Now, in the time of his distress, Ahaz, king Ahaz, became increasingly unfaithful to the Lord. This is that king Ahaz.

For he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, which had defeated him. Remember that Rezan, king of Syria, who reigned from Damascus, allied with Pekah, king of Ephraim. They marshaled their troops together.

They marched south, and they gave a horrible defeat to king Ahaz and Judah. Now, Ahaz has it in his mind. The reason why we lost is because the gods of Syria, the gods in Damascus, are stronger and more effective than the gods down here in Jerusalem.

You see his logic? We are suffering because the god down here has failed us. We need a stronger god, the one up there in Damascus. Notice how he says this in 2 Chronicles 28, verse 23. Listen to what he says.

He says this, because the gods of the kings of Syria helped them. You hear some bitterness in there? Because the gods of the kings of Syria helped them, I will sacrifice to them that they may help me.

And then back to the scribe, who says, but they were the ruin of him and all of Israel. So Ahaz is saying, well, the gods of the kings of Syria helped them. The god of Israel doesn't help us down here, so let's go get in good with the gods up in Syria, in Damascus, because they seem to be pretty effective.

And he did go up there, and he did see an altar there, and he liked that altar. He offered a blood sacrifice on it, and then he asked for the plans. And he took those plans back down to Jerusalem, and he had the priest build that exact same altar, replica, put it in the temple, move all the other furniture aside that God had commissioned originally through Moses and Solomon.

And he says, we're going to worship the gods of Syria here in the temple that was dedicated to Yahweh, the one true God. That's what Ahaz did. This is that Ahaz, the writer of 2 Chronicles, that guy. He's looking for results.

Now, I think it would be accurate to say that by commanding Ahaz to ask for a sign, when he says to Ahaz to ask for a sign, to, in other words, ask for a sign, test me, is he not testing Ahaz? Isn't the Lord sifting Ahaz in this moment, looking for proof of Ahaz, even as he tells Ahaz, look for proof of me?

By Ahaz's refusal to follow through, Ahaz proves who he is. He shows his unbelief, and thereby puts the Lord to the test. It's interesting that Psalm 81 .7 says that the Lord tested Israel at Massah. Remember when they're running out of water, they're running out of food.

Moses said to the people, God let you be hungry, right? He's testing you to see what's in your heart. He's giving you hardship to see what's going on in your life. And at the same time, Psalm 95 .9 says at Massah, Israel tested the Lord.

They're at the same moment, in the same situation, the Lord is testing Israel, and Israel is testing the Lord. And the testing of the Lord is cited in Numbers 14 as a critical reason why so many died in the wilderness and were not brought into the promised land.

They didn't trust the Lord. When they got to Canaan, they saw the size of the people, the size of the cities, and they despaired. They did not trust in God. They tested Him, and so that first generation, with the exclusion of Caleb and Joshua, all died.

Due to that disaster, Moses, before he died, as he was instructing that second generation in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 16, he tells them before they cross the Jordan, before they head over into the promised land, he says, you shall not tempt the Lord your God as you tempted Him in Massah.

You shall not test the Lord your God as you tested Him in Massah. That's the passage that Jesus quotes when he rebukes Satan, and it's the passage that Ahaz alludes to as his veil of piety. I'm not going to test the Lord, but he said that in a way that was testing the Lord.

So, we were made for the glory of our Creator. God has made man to be well pleased in Him. God has made man to say of the Lord, very good. He made us, and when creation was completed, He said, very good.

But He made us in His image, which means that He made us to look at Him and say, very good. To look around to see all the things that He has made, to see what the heavens declare about His glory, to see His traces throughout the entirety of creation and say, what an amazing Creator.

What a wonderful provider. What a good God. And to say of the Lord, we say, very good. He said it first, and we give it back as the amen. We are to rejoice in Him, and God rejoices in the devotion of faithful men.

Remember how God brought Job up to Satan? Hey, have you checked out my servant Job? You see how faithful he is? You see how loyal he is? Have you considered my servant Job? The Lord boasts in His creatures that worship Him and rejoice in Him.

This is seen most especially and fully in the God-man, Jesus Christ, who was born of a virgin, who is the last Adam. He is the Son who is well-pleasing to the Father, whose devotion is absolute, even in the most dire of testing.

How often was Christ tested from every side? But even in Christ's pleading lament, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? God remains His God. As Israel was being judged rightly for their sins, they abandoned God.

When Israel's fulfillment, Jesus Christ, is suffering for the sins He did not commit, He remains faithful to God. The Father did not fail the Son, and the Son did not fail the Father. The Father's love for the Son did not waver, nor did the Son's trust in the Father.

This is quite different than the story of the shadow that came before in Israel. Ahaz's refusal to depend on the Lord is obviously connected to his idea that God had failed him somehow, right? The gods of Syria don't fail Rezin, but the gods down here, they fail me.

It was an accusation against God. Even as he veiled his refusal to ask for a sign in piety, he was actually in the process of accusing God and thus being in opposition to Him. Adam and Eve, similarly, united with the serpent's approach.

The accusation is implied in Genesis 3 that God has failed them somehow. He has deprived them in some way, right? They're not truly, actually, fully like God. There's some level that they have not achieved yet, and God is the one who has deprived them of that.

The serpent's own elevation past its station, the fact that he's talking to would seem proof of that. So, the serpent's found a way through. Maybe he ate of the fruit. Maybe that's why he's so enlightened and higher than the rest of the snakes.

So, why don't we become enlightened as well? God is keeping something back from us. Why submit to God's authority? This is an important question for a lot of people. Why submit to God's authority one second more once some flaw has been found in it?

And once somebody thinks that they have found a flaw with God's authority, they wonder why they ought to submit to that authority one second more. Ahaz's refusal is all at once as direct and as veiled as man's original sin.

When Satan said to Adam and Eve, you will not surely die, that was in direct opposition to what God said. And so, Eve took of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband with her and he ate. That's direct rebellion to what God said.

But what was their reasoning? What was their rationale? To be like God, to be made wise. Now, who could argue with that? How often do we disciple others and say, you need to be godly. You need to be like God.

You need to be godly. You need to be wise. You need wisdom. These things are good, but it's a thin veil for rebellion. Sinners will as often accuse God as take up the veil of piety. Now, God says to Ahaz, ask.

Ahaz says, I'm not going to. What's the stated reason? I'm holy. I'm not going to test God. What's the real reason? I'm pretty disappointed with you, God. That's the real reason. He's not going to ask.

I mean, based on what just happened, Ahaz thinks he has reason to be upset with God. He doesn't have a reason to be upset with God. The judgment on Israel is just. 120 ,000 dead, 200 ,000 led away captive, everyone shaking like a leaf in Jerusalem.

That was well deserved. Isaiah chapters 1 through 6 established that. But Ahaz thinks that God has failed him. I think you've wronged me, God, so I'm not going to ask. And I'm going to give some sort of holy reason, some sort of religious reason why I'm not going to do that.

Now, we are told by our Lord that we have not because we ask not. But didn't he tell us to ask? Didn't he tell us to ask? And he told us to ask like toddlers ask, you know, incessantly for what we think we need, and then our Heavenly Father will sort it out what we actually need.

But that doesn't keep the toddler from coming back and asking for more. Do we refrain from asking because we give a reason? Well, I just don't think I measure up enough. We have a veil of piety. It's like I don't ask for these things.

I don't ask for these things. I don't really think that I'm at that level of importance that God would do anything like that for me. You know, maybe somebody else could have asked that, and God would say yes.

Paul maybe. You know, Paul could ask for big stuff. Me, you know, maybe I should ask for something more on the lines of Thaddeus, you know. I'm not as well known. I'm not at that level of sainthood. I'll ask for smaller things because that's more the level of Christian that I am.

But we're not supposed to be looking at ourselves and saying, pleading our merits before the throne of God when we come to him in need. We're supposed to look to Christ. We approach boldly Hebrews chapter 4 verses 14 through 16.

It says, we approach boldly to the throne of mercy and grace because of who Christ is, our high priest who has gone in beyond the veil, who intercedes for us and pleads his very own blood, his very own merits and righteousness.

So when we come asking, we should ask by the merits of Christ, not ours. So asking for small things and not asking for a whole lot and not praying about certain things because we think we need to limit ourselves because we just don't measure up.

We have not because we ask not. We should ask in the name of Christ. Perhaps we don't ask not because of the pious reason that we often give. Perhaps we don't ask because we have an idea that God has failed us before.

So why ask again? Maybe the reason we don't ask in the moment is because this big bad situation that we're in, that is full of pain and sorrow, we sense is somehow God's failure towards us right now. Oh God, you're the one who put me in this awful thing, so how can I ask you to undo it?

You're the one who got me into this mess, right? Psalm 42. God, why have you abandoned me like driftwood going down a series of waterfalls and rapids? You know, sometimes if we are blaming God for the situation we're in, maybe we don't ask because we say, well, how can we ask?

But James chapter 1, which would be an excellent meditation, reminds us that God does not do evil. God is not tempest to evil. God does not sin. God is good. He's always been good. He still is good. And every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

And so when we come into these various trials, we are to ask. We are to ask in faith, believing that he will provide the wisdom that we need with all manner of generosity, and that we're going to be able to see how good he is in the process of going through the difficulties that we are in.

So we ought to ask. Not like Ahaz. Ahaz was told, ask of me. I will give you what you need. Your faith is small, Ahaz. Ask me what you need, and I will strengthen you and establish you in your faith. And Ahaz says, no.

We are encouraged in the scriptures to ask, to ask in faith, to ask humbly, to look to the Lord for provision, and to do so with all manner of confidence. So we should ask. Even if we seem a little, even if we're a little bit disappointed with where, how things are going, we should remember to ask, and ask in faith, and see what the Lord will do.

All right, let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you for the time you've given us in your word. Thank you that you know our needs, that you desire us to be established in our faith, established in our belief, and I pray that you would do that for us, and turn our attention to the merits of Christ, and that in his name we would ask for what we need from you, knowing that you will sort out all the details and the nuances, knowing that sometimes you don't even know how to pray, but your Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep to be uttered.

And we know that we have your Son who intercedes at your right hand. You've already given us your Son, so we know that you will freely with him give us all things that we need as you work all things together for the good of those who love you, who are called according to your purpose.

Strengthen our faith, we pray. Lead us out of disappointment in you to faith in you, and we pray these things in Jesus' name.