Isaiah 7:10-25
10 Moreover the LORD spoke again to Ahaz, saying, 11 "Ask a sign for yourself from the LORD your God; ask it either in the depth or in the height above."
12 But Ahaz said, "I will not ask, nor will I test the LORD!"
13 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? 14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. 15 Curds and honey He shall eat, that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16 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. 17 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."
18 And it shall come to pass in that day
That the LORD will whistle for the fly
That is in the farthest part of the rivers of Egypt,
And for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.
19 They will come, and all of them will rest
In the desolate valleys and in the clefts of the rocks,
And on all thorns and in all pastures.
20 In the same day the Lord will shave with a hired razor,
With those from beyond the River, with the king of Assyria,
The head and the hair of the legs,
And will also remove the beard.
21 It shall be in that day
That a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep;
22 So it shall be, from the abundance of milk they give,
That he will eat curds;
For curds and honey everyone will eat who is left in the land.
23 It shall happen in that day,
That wherever there could be a thousand vines
Worth a thousand shekels of silver,
It will be for briers and thorns.
24 With arrows and bows men will come there,
Because all the land will become briers and thorns.
25 And to any hill which could be dug with the hoe,
You will not go there for fear of briers and thorns;
But it will become a range for oxen
And a place for sheep to roam.
This is the Immanuel Prophecy telling in advance of our Messiah the Christ planned to come to us in the fullness of God’s time. God tested the king by telling him to ask for a sign from the LORD God from heaven or earth, but he refused in a way that on the surface appears to have been the right response to not test God by demanding anything from Him to do as an Arabian Jinn out of a magic bottle. He actually was hiding the fact that he did not trust in God, but himself. It does however teach us that we should only ask for a sign from God after He first offers it, not as Ahaz who did not trust in God but in worldly strength for deliverance. May we not pay such lip service in false humility when God offers to do something and cover it with scriptures out of context and misapplication to appear righteous and hide from faith and reliance on our Lord to do as He wills. Of course, we are still not to demand signs and miracles from God as if He is a mere genie to meet our wants and desires of how things should be and leave out His sovereign grace of divine predetermined plans worked for our good and His glory (Romans 8:28) in all types of situations, pleasant or unpleasant to us. God’s eternal plan since Genesis 3:15 after our fall from God’s good pleasure was to provide a Redeemer who is Christ our Lord, the Branch and Anointed One, the Messiah. He would come and take on flesh as you and I to walk among us (John 1:1, 14). This is Emmanuel, God who is with us, just as planned and told to us here! He is God’s sign given by Him to us and not demanded by us, whose entrance came seemingly impossibly through the virgin birth. Only God can create life just as He breathed His Spirit into Adam at creation (Genesis 2:7), and that same Spirit created life in the virgin Mary as a sign that it was He, the I Am (John 8:58, 10:30) doing the miracle and as the baby made inside, to make a union of the divine and flesh of His creation. That was the sign Isaiah told Ahaz who refused to ask for it to believe in. We also try to work our way to God and seek signs and wonders for proof when He has already given the greatest sign by rising from death to life on His own power (Matthew 16:4, Luke 11:29-30, 24:46-47, John 2:19, 21-22). He teaches us he knowledge of good and evil which we took it on ourselves to futilely attempt at Eden in disbelief and disobedience; instead we are to be taught by God by Him (Hebrews 5:14) as foretold here by example (Isaiah 7:15). He alone can deliver a nation or an individual just as the prophecies against God’s rebellious people under Ahaz were pronounced in the rest of this chapter. There is only deliverance in and through the Anointed Messiah, Jesus the Christ. Trust the sign given by God and do not demand another to prove or test Him. God has come among us and is still with us. Amen.
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