DAY 273

ENCOURAGED OR DISCOURAGED

Isaiah 7 & 8 and Ephesians 3

I have not had the chance to provide you the historical setting, but we have to push into it a bit as we deal with chapter 7. You know some of this as we have read the history portion of the Old Testament. The prophets that we are now reading were speaking, speaking prophetically, during that history. The part that we are in is after King David and King Solomon. What was one nation are now two. The two parts are often referred to as the Northern Kingdom (Israel (and to make it even more confusing sometimes it is called Ephraim)) and the Southern Kingdom (Judah). While divided, when they were threatened by outside invasion, they would at times work together…when not threatened with invasion they would at times fight with each other (typical of family dynamics). Yet things have gotten worse.

King Ahaz is king of Judah in the south and it contains the city of Jerusalem. Ahaz is the eleventh king since Solomon. There is a bit of debate about the exact years of his reign (people wrestle over a decade or so) but here is the perspective to have…we are getting really close to Israel, and then Judah being conquered, carried off to exile, and no longer existing as a sovereign nation…a big deal.

In chapter 7 of Isaiah Ahaz faces two dilemmas. Assyria is on the rise and pushing south and west. The kings of Syria and Israel have formed an anti-Assyrian pact and they want, will even try and force, Judah (king Ahaz) to join them – even if that means deposing him and installing a puppet – we think it is 734 bc. Ahaz is panicked. He fears Syria and Israel invading, but he fears even more joining them to fight Assyria.

The prophet of God comes to him: do you think he will encouraged or discouraged?

When Isaiah confronts Ahaz he apparently has thought he would hold out and submit to Assyria. Isaiah has a radical idea. Don’t form any alliances and don’t submit to Assyria, but trust in the Lord God and He will deliver Ahaz and Judah (vv.7-9). Ahaz refuses (v. 12) and Isaiah prophesizes two things: first that Immanuel will be born, and second that Judah will be destroyed by the Assyria that Ahaz has foolishly turned to for help (vv. 17-20). The second prophecy will come to pass long before the birth of the Immanuel, the Christ.

Chapter 8 continues the dilemma. Two points: first is that this is a public prophecy. Whereas in chapter 7 Ahaz was privately told, here Isaiah is told to get witnesses and to write it out on a tablet in common character with witnesses…the point is to make sure everyone is given the chance to trust in the Lord. The second point is that a prophetess is to bear a son named “Quick to plunder-swift to spoil.” This is a prophecy that says that the two countries to the north, that want Judah to join them, will be destroyed. It is a prophecy made in public so that when it happens everyone will know it is a word from the Lord – that Isaiah speaks for the Lord.

Chapter 8 verse 11 ends with the phrase “God with us” which is the translation of Immanuel that we read in chapter 7. These two are connected and chapter 8 goes onto to describe how people we react to Immanuel. It is a chapter that is pronouncing dark judgment upon those who have abandoned the Lord…so dark that they will be thrust into thick darkness.

Are you encouraged or discouraged by this text. Is this a text that is a text of a God of judgment or mercy? Some would say judgment, but I think it is one of mercy. Here are God’s people and God’s king. They have not trusted him for generations…many generations. And yet God says, “Trust me!” They say “No, we are too scared.” Notice that God does not utterly abandon them. He says that they will be thrown into darkness, a darkness they have in essence thrown themselves into. Yet God say, don’t worry, I will send Immanuel…that is mercy…this is the mystery of the ages that Paul speaks of in Ephesians…re-read that bit in Ephesians with this idea of Immanuel in mind.

Encouraged or discouraged is something I need to be thinking of more often…God is well justified to abandon us, and yet He is with us…