Transcript

Please take your Bibles and let’s go to the old part of the book, let’s go to Isaiah. We’re in chapter 8. We’re talking about the prophecies of Isaiah that have certain application to the people of his day but the ultimate fulfillment in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Many of you know, most of you know that I am somewhat of an avid reader, a studier of church history and preceding the establishment of colonies in America, there were many centuries of very, very dark days in Europe. The professing church in Europe, whatever stripe it may have been, typically Roman Catholic, had overwhelmingly apostatized. The church was, could really be called a non-church. They had forsaken the Scriptures, corruption, immorality, wickedness was very common in the highest levels of church offices and officials and that’s one reason why there is the discovery of America. One Harvard history professor said that when early reformers began to preach the Gospel, men longed for a pure and true church and a pure and true country and that’s why you have the phrase New England. The point was: England has lost her way. England was supposed to be God-centered. England was supposed to be God’s country where God’s Gospel and God’s Bible is preached and England is lost. Now we’ve got to go to another land and get a true England established, a new England.

So our forefathers came over but all through those centuries when there was only as far as outwardly organized religion to any extent, there were only state churches. Some were Roman Catholic state churches, some were Presbyterian or Protestant state churches. And of course, when you were born in those days, you were immediately baptized, sprinkled would be their mode of baptizing, and that made you a member of the church and it made you a citizen of the state. It was kind of one package. But throughout those dark centuries of apostasy when the Scriptures were neglected and just the form of religion flourished under the title of Christianity, there was always a remnant. If you read church history, you’ll find there are these little outcast groups, little poverty-stricken castaways, if you will, who got the Bible and began to study it and preach it among themselves and by looking at the Scriptures, began to discern that conversion didn’t happen when you were sprinkled as a little baby and they would require that there would be genuine repentance and faith before they would baptize someone. And from studying the Scriptures, they began to be convicted that sprinkling someone isn’t the best mode of baptism, they ought to be immersed. So these little outcast, poor groups who were mostly ignored and thrown away, were preaching the Bible and preaching the Gospel and baptizing true believers and in derision and in disdain, the authorities of the day would give them various names and finally one name has stuck through the generations, Baptists. They called them Baptists. Do you know why? Because they baptized believers. They didn’t go with just the sprinkling of babies. That was a name of derision and disgust because they were saying, “You reject the state baptism. You reject the authorized church and you do your own thing on the side.”

God has always had a remnant and that’s what we see in Isaiah chapter 7, 8 and 9, that God’s got this tiny split off of the nation of Israel, it’s called Judah or the southern kingdom. And God, now listen to me, God by his own good pleasure and God according to his own sovereign purposes, has chosen to favor little Judah. Not based on her works, not based on any inherent merit or superiority, God just chose “Judah will be my remnant.” Now, I think it is true historically, Judah had more genuine God fearers. They were more devoted to God and God’s word. They were more willing to yield to God’s prophets than the split off northern kingdom of Israel but nevertheless, Judah herself went through times of apostasy and unbelief and wickedness.

Now when we come to chapter 8, we’ve already seen God has spoken to tiny Judah and told Judah, “I am Immanuel. I am God who is with you. Trust me in this crisis.” Well, what is the crisis tiny Judah was experiencing? Well, tiny Judah was besieged by the split off northern kingdom which is called Israel and the alliance that the northern kingdom had with the Aramaeans, who later became the Syrians. So here you have the Aramaeans and the northern kingdom, much bigger and much stronger than tiny Judah and they are besieging the city and they have already got a plan to topple Jerusalem’s walls and set up a puppet king there in Judah that would be under their dictatorship, if you will. So they are trembling. Little Judah is scared to death. What are they going to do? And God says, “Trust me. As a matter of fact, God through the prophet Isaiah gives Isaiah a son and God says to Isaiah, “Name this son Shear-jashub.” Shear-jashub means “a remnant will remain.” God’s clear message to king Ahaz, king of Judah was, “Look, don’t trust in the world. Don’t trust in your wisdom, trust me. I’m going to take care of you. I’m telling you a remnant will remain.” But king Ahaz of Judah has already decided he will look to worldly wisdom and worldly strength. He’s already made an alliance with Assyria and Assyria is by far the mightiest nation on the earth in this day. He knows, “If I make this alliance with Assyria, then we’ll be protected from the split off northern kingdom and the Aramaeans who are trying to destroy us.” And that’s basically where we are when we come to Isaiah 8 and we’ll look at verses 1-10.

1 Then the LORD said to me, [this is God speaking to Isaiah, the prophet] “Take for yourself a large tablet and write on it in ordinary letters: Swift is the plunder, speedy is the prey. 2 And I will take to Myself faithful witnesses for testimony, Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.” 3 So I approached the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. Then the LORD said to me, “Name him Maher-shalal- hash-baz.” Let me just stop right there. That’s a good name to name your child one day, Maher- shalal-hash-baz and it just simply means, “swift to the plunder, speed to the prey.” So God has already given Isaiah one son and that son’s name was Shear-jashub which means “a remnant will remain.” I don’t care what’s going to happen, God said, “I have favored Judah. You will not be completely destroyed. Trust me.” Now God gives the prophet another child, Maher-shalal-hash-baz, “swift to the plunder, speedy to the prey.” That means that God is going to swiftly plunder and bring the prey upon Judah’s enemies, that being the northern kingdom, the Aramaeans. So God is overwhelmingly clear to Ahaz, king of Judah, what he is to do. Alright, let’s continue on, verse 4,

4 “for before the boy knows how to cry out ‘My father ‘ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus [now, that’s the capital of the Aramaeans] and the spoil of Samaria [that’s the capital of the breakaway northern kingdom] will be carried away before the king of Assyria.” 5 Again the LORD spoke to me further, saying, 6 Inasmuch as these people have rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah And rejoice in Rezin and the son of Remaliah; 7 Now therefore, behold, the Lord is about to bring on them the strong and abundant waters of the Euphrates, Even the king of Assyria and all his glory; And it will rise up over all its channels and go over all its banks. 8 Then it will sweep on into Judah, it will overflow and pass through, It will reach even to the neck; And the spread of its wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.

9 “Be broken, O peoples, and be shattered; And give ear, all remote places of the earth. Gird yourselves, yet be shattered; Gird yourselves, yet be shattered. 10 Devise a plan, but it will be thwarted; State a proposal, but it will not stand, For God is with us.”

So we come from the message last week of God telling Ahaz and Judah, “I’m Immanuel, I’m God with you. Trust me in this crisis.” Well, they didn’t so now we come a step further: Immanuel, God is with us, trust God when you fail. Judah fails but she’s to still put her trust in God. Child of God, where do you go when you fail? Where do you run when you’ve dishonored the Lord? You run to trust him. Where else are you going to go? I mean, who else is going to help? If he’s God, nothing else can help you.

Now, in verses 1 through 6, I. We see the failing servant. Judah was God’s remnant, his holy remnant and they themselves have now failed. And here we see in the example of Ahaz, king of Judah, and in Judah in general, what happens when we make the choice not to trust the Lord. Remember again the context: the northern kingdom and the Aramaeans are threatening little Judah. Isaiah the prophet has prophesied and he’s told Ahaz, king of Judah, and the country of Judah, “You will not be destroyed. Put your trust in the Lord.” Isaiah even goes the extra distance under God’s edict and gives Ahaz a sign. Back in chapter 7, verse 14, he says, “Now Ahaz, a young maiden will have a child and that child will be the sign that I’m with you and you’re going to be protected.” So here we have all these signs. First of all, Isaiah’s name himself means “Jehovah is salvation.” Isaiah’s first son is Shear-jashub, “the remnant shall remain.” Isaiah’s second child, Maher-shalal-hash-baz means “swiftly God is going to plunder your enemy and the prey is going to become upon your enemies. Trust in God.” And even that second child is further named Immanuel which means “God is with you, Judah.”

Now look back at chapter 7 real quick if you will, not only do we have those images as a sign and a message to Israel, very clearly the prophet said, verse 7 of chapter 7, “Thus says the Lord GOD: ‘It shall not stand nor shall it come to pass.'” In other words, “The northern kingdom, Israel, and the Aramaeans and their alliance to destroy you, Judah, I’m telling you, it shall not come to pass.” God says, “I’m not going to let it happen.” So despite all of these warnings, all of these words, all of these signs, Ahaz, king of Judah decides that he will put his trust not in God but in Assyria to protect him and we’ll see that Judah and king Ahaz in particular, are quite proud of their decision. LEt me give you a subpoint here, subpoint A is: they knew better. They knew better. Actually, that’s a little bit misleading, that should say “Judah knew better” but the word “Israel” can apply to both the northern kingdom or the southern, but Judah knew better.

Here we have in verse 1 this statement that the Lord tells Isaiah to write on a tablet, “Swift is the plunder, speedy is the prey.” We know later this is the Maher-shalal-hash- baz. This is that Immanuel child. He’s the one that is the sign that God is among us. It’s all been written in clear letters. It’s all been spelled out before Ahaz so he and the country of Judah are without excuse. They know they should put their trust in the Lord. They cannot plead ignorance. They know what the word says.

God goes even further in verse 2 of chapter 8, “And I will take to Myself faithful witnesses for testimony, Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.” Two leading men, the leading prophet and the leading priest of the country are also party. This is what God is telling us to do: trust in him. In other words, don’t put your faith in Assyria, put your faith in God.

So little Judah is not allowed to slip into unbelief if not out-and-out apostasy without having to stumble over a large witness from God. You know, that’s the preacher’s job: you must so preach the truth to the people in your church and to the church corporate and actually the application of these truths is more for the local church than it is the individual Christian though it applies to both. The preacher’s job is to so let us know what the truth is that if you decide, church, or if you decide, individual, to dishonor the Lord, you know what you’re doing.

My wife was talking with a lady just not too long ago and the lady was talking about a man who had been involved in scandalous immorality and then a church hired him on to their ministerial staff. In the discussion, the lady just said, “Well, the man’s wife stayed with him so it’s okay with me.” And Pam said, “Well, I appreciate that gesture but here’s what the Scripture says about the character requirements of the office of pastor in the church,” and she just very humbly shared a couple of things. And the lady said, “Oh, well, I can see that.” My question was: this lady has been in church all her life. She’d never been taught it. She’d never heard it. But now, Judah can’t say that. They can’t say, “Well God, we didn’t know. We didn’t really understand. This was a dangerous time. The northern kingdom and the Aramaeans are both by themselves stronger than us and they formed an alliance to destroy us. This is serious.” But you can’t plead ignorance, Judah. God with warning after warning after message after message said, “Trust me and trust my word.”

Now look at verse 3, this is the continuing of the message. “So I,” that’s Isaiah, “approached the prophetess,” that’s his wife, “and she conceived and gave birth to a son. Then the LORD said to me, ‘Name him Maher-shalal-hash-baz.'” Now, this is a fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14 if you want to look at it again real quick where God says that, “The Lord himself will give you a sign, behold a virgin,” but you could say young maiden, “will be with child and bear a son and she will call his name Immanuel.” So this little second child, the Maher-shalal-hash-baz, is the Immanuel baby. I’m convinced of that. He’s the sign that God is with us.

Now look at verse 4, concerning that little baby, that second baby born to Isaiah, verse 4, “for before the boy knows how to cry out ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus,” that’s the Aramaean capital, “and the spoil of Samaria,” that’s the split off northern kingdom, “will be carried away before the king of Assyria.” So God says, “It’s imminent.” He didn’t give us a timetable. “This is imminent. They are both going to be destroyed. Why do you put your attention on then, I’m just about to unleash Assyria to destroy them? They’re not going to hurt you. You need to trust me.” So the bottom line is when we rebel and we fail God whether it’s as a church family or as an individual Christian, we know better. God has made his word clear. Now look, we don’t trifle and we don’t judge each other over things the Bible is not clear about. There may be dozens of ways you approach family life a little different than the dozens of ways this brother over here approaches family life and it’s all underneath the overarching principles of Scripture but there are a number of things that are clear and these things to Judah were very, very clear. They knew better. But B. in our outline, not only did Judah know better, secondly: it just seemed so right. It just seemed so right. This was an imminent danger from a mighty powerful alliance of the northern kingdom and the Aramaeans coming against tiny Judah. Of course they would look to mighty Assyria to form an alliance to help them. It just seems so right.

Notice what the Bible says in verse 6, the prophet is speaking here, “Inasmuch as these people,” that’s Judah, “have rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah And rejoice in Rezin and the son of Remaliah.” Now, Rezin is the king of Aram, the son of Remaliah is the king of Israel. Now, what does he mean that Judah is rejoicing in the kings of these two enemy kingdoms that are coming against them? What he means is that they are congratulating themselves and they’re gloating over the fact that the northern kingdom that’s against them and the Aramaeans that are against them are now trembling because Ahaz, king of Judah, was wise enough to make an alliance with mighty Assyria to protect them. So they’re congratulating themselves. “A-ha, look at ’em! Now, they are shaking in their boots. Now they are afraid. Now they’re on the run because we were smart enough to do what was obvious, to put our trust in an alliance with mighty Assyria.”

Now, there are some interesting metaphors here. When God says in verse 6 through the prophet, look at it there, hang with me now, “As much as these people have rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah.” What is that? Well, the gently flowing waters of Shiloah geographically is a little place where it was the central area of Israel during the time of the Judges. It was the place where they had the sanctuary. It was the place where the 12 tribes would camp around to hear a word from God. But physically or geographically, there is absolutely nothing impressive about it. It just doesn’t look like much. About all that’s there is a little trickling stream, it may have even dried up in the dry season and God says through the prophet, “Judah, you’ve rejected the gently flowing stream of Shiloah. You didn’t put your faith in that.” There’s a parallel here. “I sent you a message through a little baby. He was the Immanuel promise. He is the Immanuel child. He was your promise and you looked at him and said, ‘This isn’t very impressive. This doesn’t look like something we can trust in. Man, we’ve got two mighty kingdoms banging on our door about to come in and devour us and rape our women and put us in bondage and slavery and you want us to trust in a little baby?’ That doesn’t look like much. It just seems so right to ignore that God, and look at Assyria over here.” Ahaz just reasoned, Ahaz king of Judah, just reasoned, “Am I to trust this sign of a helpless baby?” Doesn’t that make us think of the Lord Jesus Christ? The whole world is clamoring around the cultural and theological center of the world, Jerusalem, but God says, “Where your attention needs to be is out here in rule insignificant Bethlehem because I have a little baby out there and that’s where your strength is and that’s where your hope is and that’s where your salvation is.” Child of God, we are to walk by a sixth sense. Humanly to the human eyes and to the human ears and to the human understanding, the mightiest nation on earth more than all the rest put together was Assyria. But we don’t live by sight. We’re to live by faith. God said, “You rejected the gently flowing streams of Shiloah.”

Well, it seemed like a good plan though. Judah under the leadership of king Ahaz in human wisdom and in human ingenuity, puts their trust in pagan and wicked Assyria, the mightiest nation on the earth to protect them from the northern kingdom and the Aramaeans and then look what happens in verse 6. See in our outline, it looks like it works at first. It looks like it’s going to really work. Look at verse 7, “Now therefore, behold, the Lord is about to bring on them the strong and abundant waters of the Euphrates.” So that’s just meaning that God is indeed by his own sovereign purposes, going to bring Assyria to destroy the enemies of little Judah. You see, he continues in verse 7, “Even the king of Assyria and all his glory; And it will rise up over all its channels and go over all its banks.” So here Judah is rejoicing in the wisdom of their plan, “We made this alliance with Assyria and it’s working out well.” They didn’t look to God, they looked to their own wisdom. They didn’t look to God’s strength, they looked to their own provision of strength and it sure looks to be working right now. The mighty Euphrates flows through the middle of Assyria and it’s a metaphor for the strength of the nation of Assyria. It was not much like the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers that flow through the center of that region of the world. I mean, they are the center of commerce.

They provided transportation. They were abundant with fish. It was just a mighty river and so they thought, “Why should we put our confidence in the trickling waters of Shiloah when right over here is the mighty Euphrates of the Assyrians to protect us?”

They failed. It looks good. It looks like it’s working. Can I just give you a parallel that I’ve given you 1,000 times before? You beware, you beware of when the church across town is mildly biblical but does a whole lot of stuff that looks to be working at first. Call me in the year 35, that’s how long I’ve been here. Brother, the only thing that lasts is the word of God. That’s the only thing that lasts. It looks to work at first. There’s a lot of stuff you can do and it looks to work at first. Let’s get off the church, let’s get on your family. You start to build your family. You look at the word of God but then you hear some liberals and some progressives and goodness, I want to be careful here but, gosh I hate that stuff. I hate the liberalism that’s dominating our country today. That prominent leader, I just saw it on Fox News and came out and talked about how we need to, this is this person’s words, “We need to respect and empathize with our enemies.” Haven’t we been trying weakness for a few years now? Listen to me, when somebody avows that they want to destroy you and your way of life, do you know what you do to those countries? You don’t respect them, you don’t empathize with them, you kill them before they kill you. That’s biblical, by the way, that’s why God gives nations armies and civil magistrates and authorities, Romans 13. But this liberal mindset comes into your family and you begin to raise your children with this mixture of Dr. Spock and whoever else and for a while it looks okay but your children may grow up to shame you and dishonor God. You’d better stay with the word of God. You stay with the gently flowing waters of Shiloah.

Well, they failed. They put their trust in Assyria. It looked like the right thing to do. They are congratulating themselves. Their enemies have been defeated by the Assyrians. They look like, “Man, we were smart,” but then notice, II. The faithful Savior. The faithful Savior. Notice what he says first of all, the faithful Savior brings discipline. He brings a chastising judgment upon Judah now. “Then, then it will sweep on into Judah,” it didn’t start there but here it comes into Judah, “it will overflow and pass through.” So here the Lord under the verbiage of Isaiah speaking it, expresses that the sovereign Lord brought the Assyrian judgment on Judah’s enemies but now Assyria flows back over Judah. Assyria was like the mighty Euphrates. The Euphrates river is a mighty river but it’s a very flat area that it flows through and when the rains come in the spring, it overflows its banks and it engulfs everything around it. If you’re going to put your trust in it and live by it and camp on it, then you’ve got to take the floods that come with it. I mean, did little Judah think that once they trusted in the torrent of the Euphrates they were going to keep it from overflowing into their boundaries? No, you put your trust in the Euphrates, you’ve got to live by it and that’s what they did.

God said so in that metaphor, “Assyria is going to march over you like the Euphrates blows over its banks in the flood season.” I mean, Assyria of this day was like the Germans of 1939 and 1940 when they seemed almost superhuman. Anywhere they struck, they could strike with speed and success. So here Ahaz has let loose this torrent and he can’t control it. It’s coming now upon him. You know, God says sin will hurt you and God says sin will destroy you. Do you think he’s going to offer that truth for you? You put your trust in Assyria and it’s going to engulf you. Listen to me: sin never stays still. It’s like the Euphrates river, it keeps flowing and overflowing and flowing and overflowing. Sin never stops where you want it to. It’s an old evangelistic saying but it’s true: sin takes you further than you want to go, keeps you longer than you want to stay and costs you more than you want to pay.

Well Judah failed. She sinned. She put her trust in Assyria and now God says, “Now I did what I promised. Those two kingdoms you were trembling over, I destroyed them and I used the Assyrians to destroy them but now I’m bringing them back on you, Judah.” Well, he brings the chastising judgment upon them, B. in our outline: he does it to fulfill his purpose in us. No remember, I told you at the beginning, Judah is the remnant of Israel. It’s the godly remnant that God chose in unmerited favor to place his favor toward so he’s not going to completely annihilate them. Notice how he says that there in verse 8, let me just read it again, “Then it will sweep on into Judah, it will overflow and pass through, It will reach even to the neck; And the spread of its wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.” So here he gives this vivid picture of a man standing in a rising flood and he says, “The Assyrians are going to come into Judah and they are going to flood everything out and right when you think it’s about to take your last breath, God’s going to stop it right there at the top of the neck.” It’s a pretty severe judgment but not completely destroying them.

Another metaphor at the end of verse 8, he says, “Assyria is going to come in like a great bird and spread its wings. It’s going to fill the breadth of the land. It’s going to cover all of it.” But notice there’s an interesting phrase there, he says, “It’s going to cover the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.” He didn’t say, “It’s going to cover your land, O Ahaz, king of Judah.” He didn’t say, “It’s going to cover your land, Judeans.” He said, “It’s going to cover your land. The Assyrians are going to come in and dominate the land and it’s your land, O Immanuel.” What we learn here is that when some worldly enemy attacks and tries to destroy God’s covenant people, in the final analysis, they are attacking God. Did you hear that? They are not just attacking Judah and they’re not just attacking the land, God has chosen an unmerited covenant with Judah and God says, “Because of my choice and my pleasures, I will not allow them to completely devour you because in the final analysis, they’re not just attacking Judah, they’re attacking me.” Perfect parallel for the child of God. Now you listen to me child of God: nothing can come against you to ultimately ruin you because God has chosen in unmerited favor to have a covenant with you through his Son, Jesus Christ, and he may bring disciplines but it will not completely devour. He will sustain his own for his own name’s sake.

But also in this phrase here, “It’s your land, O Immanuel,” we realize that that title Immanuel though it does fit Maher-shalal-hash-baz, Isaiah’s second son, we see here that it must have a much, much greater meaning because this land isn’t Maher-shalal-hash- baz’s land so the land being this Immanuel’s land means there is a lot greater fulfillment of this Immanuel than Maher-shalal-hash-baz and that’s why when God promised that there would be one born of a young maiden, he uses the Hebrew word “almah” which most likely means virgin but can mean just a young maiden. Now if God wanted to say absolutely only a virgin, he would have used bethulah. Bethulah means only a virgin, a girl who has never had sexual relations. Or if he wanted to say a woman who was married, he could use isha, that’s the Hebrew word for a married woman who knows sexual relations but he used this “almah” word, a word that most likely means virgin but could mean a married woman. Why would God use that word when he told Isaiah, “A maiden will have a child”? Because that fits Isaiah’s wife who did know sexual relations but it also ultimately fits Jesus who was born of a pure virgin. So you have both fulfilled in that wonderful word. Isn’t God wise? The wisdom of God. Scholars try to argue that this means a virgin who had a child here in historic Israel. Absolutely not. That’s why the Greek word is used that could have both meanings. It’s got to make sense to these people but be ultimately fulfilled in our Christ and it is, because this is Jesus’ land. He’s the true Immanuel child. He’s the final and full fulfillment of this prophecy.

Just real quick, Luke 1, you don’t even have to turn there. “Now in the sixth month,” this is verse 26, “the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin.” The only thing this Greek word here can mean is “one who has known no sexual relations,” “engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.” He wants to make it very clear. “And coming in, he said to her, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was very perplexed at this statement, and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was. The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.'” That doesn’t sound like Maher-shalal-hash-baz. This is the Jesus who is the final and true fulfillment of the Immanuel prophecy. Verse 34, “Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ The angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.'”

Can we trust God to be with us in any and every age? Absolutely. When you know God through Jesus Christ his Son, you can trust him in the crisis. Now listen to me, if you know Jesus, and you know God through his Son Jesus Christ, you trust God when you fail just as Judah will have to here. Look at the reassurance and I’m back in Isaiah 8 now, what reassurance is here? “Be broken, O peoples, and be shattered,” that means as Assyria marched into Judah, they were a broken people, they were shattered. Then he says, “And give ear, all remote places of the earth. Gird yourselves, yet be shattered.” Now, that’s an interesting thing. He’s saying, “Now, you know in the olden days those men who wore those flowing robes and they would tie up and gird up those robes when they’d go to battle or go to fight.” He said, “Look, you gird up yourself with all the wisdom and all the power and human might you have but listen to me, if I’m going to shatter you, you’re shattered. You can gird yourself and you’re going to be shattered.” I believe there is a direct message here for the Assyrians of the world and all the enemies of God’s people and God’s true church and that is: gird up all your strength and come against them, I’m going to tell you, you’re not going to be successful. God says, “I may bring a flood on them up to the neck to purify them from time to time but I will not let anybody ultimately destroy my remnant elect. They can trust me even after they fail.”

Verse 10, continuing in that same theme, “Devise a plan, but it will be thwarted; State a proposal, but it will not stand.” Now, why will all plans and all proposals to devour and destroy God’s church and God’s people fail? The last phrase of verse 10, “For God is with us.” Transliterated in Hebrew that is pronounced “Immanuel,” because God is with us. God may break me. God may humble me. God may correct me. God may bring me to the point to where I feel like I’m just about here but I’m God’s and God is with me and no evil force will overcome me for victory because even if they take my life, I go straight up to be translated into glory in his presence. We can’t fail and we can trust him even when we fail.

Judah may be the pawn of the nations, her sins may have plunged her into the plotting of the nation’s but when all is said and done, all plots and all plans will come to nothing, so it is with the enemies of the true church of the Lord Jesus Christ. God is with us. Do we earn it? No. Have we merited it? No. Do we deserve it? No. It’s unmerited favor through his choice for the glory of his own name. God is with us, let our enemies rage. Our destiny is not in the hands of sinful men and our destiny is not in the hands of the world and our destiny is not in the hands of Satan. Though sin may require God to bring corrective judgments and disciplines into our church and into our life, these judgments will ultimately work unto our salvation. Why? Last phrase, verse 10: they can gird themselves, they can devise a plan, they can make a proposal but in the final analysis, God is with us, Immanuel.

So when all of this narrative of God giving promises through Isaiah to tiny Judah and God telling her, “Trust me in the crisis. Trust me even when you fail,” he is projecting us forward to the true Immanuel, Jesus Christ, that we might know him, might be saved by him and might be secured by him for all eternity because he is God and when we know him, God is with us.

Let’s pray together.