Series: Isaiah
Title: Ask of Him!
Scripture: Isaiah 7: 1-15
Date: 11-28-2010
Place: SGBC, New Jersey
Isaiah 7: 1: And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah,…
Ahaz is the king of Judah. He and the people in Judah got some news--a great trial.
Isaiah 7: 1: [that] Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it. 2 And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.
Two kings--king of Syria and king of Israel--in confederacy against God and his people. God sent the trial. God turns the kings heart whichever way he wills. God sent the trial to declare their need of God.
How will we be delivered from this trial?
We will be delivered by the Word of the LORD delivered by the preaching of the Gospel, by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts whereby he shall make his people willing in the day of his power. We see in Ahaz what the gospel does without God's power working in the heart! It hardens!
Isaiah 7: 3: Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz,
The LORD uses the means that pleases him.
· Isaiah is the prophet of the LORD.
· The LORD sends Isaiah to a king.
· But he does not send Isaiah alone.
Isaiah 7: 3: Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son,
Here is father and son come forth to meet king Ahaz.
· This son's name means: the remnant shall return.
When the LORD sends forth his messenger--God the Father and his Son are present. God the Father and his Son--Shearjashub---
- The elect Son of God the Father,
- The Son by whom the elect remnant shall be saved.
- Shall return.
B. The place is significant:
Isaiah 7: 3:…at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field;
This is the pool of Shiloah--pool of Siloam. It is a picture of the Word in the Word--Christ in the Gospel preached.
Christ commanded the blind man in John 9 to go wash in the pool of Siloam, which is by interpretation Sent.
It was a clay pool wherein cleansing Water was delivered--a picture of the gospel of Christ in earthen vessels--that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us (2 Corinthians 4: 7). "How shall they preach except they be "sent" (Romans 10: 15). We can not believe any other way unless God send his Word into our hearts through the Truth.
This pool was in the Fuller's field--the pool they washed in and came away clean.
Mal 3:2 But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap:
Ephesians 5: 25:…Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
Titus 3:5: Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
The means the Lord uses are both foolish and distasteful to the natural mind. They have no virtue or healing power in themselves. Without the Power of the Holy Spirit, they will only cause Ahaz to harden his heart. We see here the need for the Spirit of God to purge us with the blood of Christ in the inward man.
Isaiah 7: 4 And say unto him,…
Isaiah is speaking. But this is the Word of the LORD to Ahaz.
Isaiah 7: 4 And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet;
· Take heed--hear the Voice of the LORD, apply your heart to Wisdom--hear and hear again, listen and listen again.
· And be quiet--be settled, be still, wait on the LORD.
Isaiah 7: 4:… fear not, neither be fainthearted…
The cure for fear, the strength of the fainthearted, is in turning from ourselves and trusting all into the hands of Christ.
Next, the LORD declares he has already determined the end from the beginning. The LORD tells him exactly what shall be.
Isaiah 7: 4: And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted, for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah. 5: Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying, 6: Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, [even] the son of Tabeal: 7: Thus saith the Lord GOD, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.
Who will you believe Ahaz? Will you believe those men or the LORD God?
· These men say they are on fire--God says they are already "smoking"--their fire is already extinguished.
· They appear "fierce men"--God says, "I AM!"
· They have taken "evil counsel against thee"--the triune God of everlasting covenant says, "My counsel shall stand, I will do all MY PLEASURE!"
· They purpose to make a breach in Judah and set their king in the midst of it--God says, "I will set MY KING, Christ the King, in the midst of my Holy Hill!"
Isaiah 7: 8: For the head of Syria [is] Damascus, and the head of Damascus [is] Rezin;
Their head is men--the Head of God's kingdom and church is God himself, the Son of God, Christ Jesus our Head.
The LORD even tells him how long.
Isaiah 7: 8:…and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people. 9: And the head of Ephraim [is] Samaria, and the head of Samaria [is] Remaliah’s son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.
The marginal reading: Do ye not believe? It is because ye are not established. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established. God said it. It is coming to pass whether Ahaz believes God or not. But the only way that Ahaz will be settled in his heart, fear not, be not fainthearted, is by faith in the LORD God who is speaking.
Isaiah 7: Moreover the LORD spake again unto Ahaz, saying, 11: Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.
The Spirit of God tells us how it is. The LORD God is speaking to Ahaz. The LORD says, "Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God."
The woman at the well
John 4:10: Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked OF HIM, and he would have given thee living water.
· The Gift of God is Christ Jesus the Son of God.
· Eternal life and this life is in his Son.
But all Ahaz sees is Isaiah speaking. He hears Isaiah but he sees Rezin and Remaliah in a confederacy. All the woman at the well saw AT FIRST was a man. Remember how the woman at the well got religious all of sudden--watch Ahaz.
Isaiah 7:12: But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD.
Ahaz pretends he believes the word of the LORD--that, the word of the LORD is all he needs--but here the LORD says, "Ask of me." This is what the LORD God says in his gospel, this hour, "ASK OF ME!" But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD.
Ahaz knows the letter of the word the LORD said before:
Deuteronomy 6:16: Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God, as ye tempted [him] in Massah.
But Ahaz' knows not the spirit of the Word. When they were thirsty and said, "is the LORD with us or not? Can he furnish a table in the wilderness"--it was unbelief in God. He declared his salvation in the Water out of the Rock--that Rock is Christ.
Next, Isaiah is still speaking but the Lord himself is speaking.
Isaiah 7: 13: And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; [Is it] a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also? 14: Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. 15 Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.
The Sign--the Covenant of God--is the Lord Jesus Christ himself, Immanuel, God with us.
The Sign is the same whether in the heaven above or when he walked this earth beneath--"Immanuel is the Covenant" When Christ walked this earth, they asked a sign, "No other sign shall be given."
Christ Jesus, God with us, is the ONE who choose the good and refused the evil.
Ahaz thought he was king over Judah. But Immanuel is the King of Righteousness. He chose the good and refused the evil. Ahaz had already looked to the earth, given and taken a bribe from the king of Assyira.
Satan came to Immanuel and promised him all the kingdoms in all the earth throughout all the ages, and the King of Righteousness refused.
· He chose rather to suffer the affliction,
· The stripes that were the just deserts of his people,
· That his people might be made the righteousness of God in him,
Ahaz did what every unregenerate sinner will do. He choose the evil and refused the good.
- Is 8: 5-6--Ahaz own choosing destroyed him.
Get these things: Ahaz' rejection in no way excuses Ahaz.
1. The Covenant, the Word, the Gospel, Christ and his means of grace will be totally rejected until Christ gives himself into the heart.
2. The Lord himself receives the glory for not only making his children perfect by his one offering, but through the Spirit, his blood purges the conscious from dead works to serve the true and living God. Until His divine revelation, we will take to ourselves the Wisdom and Power that is his alone! We will choose the evil and refuse the good.
3. We need Christ, Immaunel, to enter in by the Spirit of God and reveal in us salvation is sure by Him! Then shall Christ stablish our hearts through faith in him, then, shall we choose Christ and trust him to deliver us! He receives all the glory! Ask of HIM!