“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
~ Isaiah 7:14
Hi James and Ellen,
Have you ever asked your teacher for help? Have you ever asked your dad and/or ma for help? Have you ever asked God for help? If you were to ask your teacher for help, what do you think that your teacher would do or say? If you were to ask your dad and/or ma for help, what do you think that your dad and/or ma would do or say? If you were to ask God for help, what do you think that God would do or say? Who do you think would help you more if you really needed help – your teacher, dad and/or ma or God? Do you know Who has the controls of your lives in His hands? God does. Your teacher probably would be willing to help you but . . . your dad and/or ma probably would be willing to help you but . . . the help that you may have asked your teacher for or the help that you may have asked your and/or ma for – which your teacher and your dad and/or ma may have been able to give you comes from God. God uses other guys or gals – like your teacher or your dad and/or ma, to train, influence and shape you so that you are able to complete the life mission that He has for you which is to use your lives to reflect His glory back to Himself. As God is reflecting His glory back to Himself through your lives, you are worshipping Him. Your grandmaa and grandpaa know that it was only through a divinely orchestrated set of circumstances – that they know unambiguously were created and put in motion by God, that they are today worshipping Him wherever He has them go to come alongside as missionaries or sent ones His specially elected guys, gals and kids.
Isaiah was a prophet spokesman who God used to pass on His messages to His specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem and in the land of Judah. Isaiah 7 begins six chapters of the second section of Isaiah’s prophecies. Ahaz – a king who was ruling over God’s specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the land of Judah, was facing a dilemma. Ahaz needed to make a decision about whether or not to join a coalition made up of two country coalition. Damascus and Israel were the two countries that were asking Ahaz to join them to fight against the Assyrian people group’s army. The land of Israel had been for some time an independent country of God’s specially chosen guys and gals. The Ephraim tribal clan was recognized as being the face of the land of Israel. Damascus and Ephraim were referred to by God as a couple of smoldering stubs of firewood. Ahaz – who was from the ancestry line of David, really did not want to join Damascus and Ephraim to go against the Assyrian army. Isaiah was tasked by God to stop Ahaz from aligning with the Assyrian nation of guys and gals. When Isaiah went looking for Ahaz, Isaiah found Ahaz at the Upper Pool aqueduct on Washerman’s Field road – where he was inspecting the city of Jerusalem’s water system. God told Isaiah to tell Ahaz do not even think about aligning with the Assyrian nation’s guys and gals. God – through Isaiah, wanted Ahaz to clearly understand that His constantly unfolding plan had the two smoldering stubs of firewood – Damascus and Ephraim, beaten up and stomped on by the Assyrian army. The Syro-Ephraimite War – which is when Damascus and Ephraim tried to get Ahaz to join them to fight against Assyria, took place in 735/734 B.C. Just a couple of years later – in 732 B.C., the two smoldering snubs of firewood – Damascus and Ephraim, were invaded and crushed by an Assyrian king – Tiglath-Pileser III. Ahaz ended up aligning the city of Jerusalem and the country of Judah with the Assyrian nation of guys and gals. Within the sixty-five year window that Isaiah told Ahaz that this would take place – which was by 670 B.C., Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal – two other Assyrian kings, settled colonists from the land of Assyria in the land that once was called Ephraim. It did not take long and the Assyrian colonist guys and gals began intermarrying with the Israelite people group’s remnant of guys and gals who had been left in the land that had been once called the land of Israel. Kids who were born between Israelite (Ephraim) guys or gals and Assyrian guys or gals were called Samaritans.
Even though he did not want God’s help, Ahaz really needed God’s help. Even though he did not want to listen to what God wanted him to hear, Ahaz really needed to listen to what God was telling him through Isaiah. God even asked Ahaz to ask Him for a sign from Him. Ahaz used the excuse to not ask God for a sign saying that he would not put God to a test. Isaiah told Ahaz that he was going to get a sign from God whether he wanted a sign from God or not. Verse 14 is the sign that God gave to Ahaz through Isaiah, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” God’s message that He sent through Isaiah to Ahaz was that He was going to have a boy born possibly in a couple of years and possibly to Isaiah that would be given the name that would mean ‘God is with us’. This same name – Immanuel, would be one of the names of an incarnate guy who would be born over 730 years later and who would be given the name Jesus. God wanted to instill hope in Ahaz that if Ahaz would just trust in Him that the very dire, hopeless situation that he saw himself being stuck in at that moment would go away. Do you usually hope that bad things or times will go away? Do you tend to make bad decisions about life choices that you have because you first do not ask for help and then secondly because you do not listen to the counsel that is given you? Your grandpaa is still learning to ask for help from other guys and from your grandmaa about how to do things differently and better. Your grandpaa is still learning to listen to what other guys and your grandmaa say to him. Your grandmaa and grandpaa pray that you will never pull an Ahaz – that you will always go to God when you find yourselves in need of help – which is always.
Isaiah 7 (444)