Josh Benner

Tag: advent

  • Joseph, Mary, and a huge test of faith

    Joseph, Mary, and a huge test of faith

    In the Gospel of Matthew, a young couple named Mary and Joseph receive some truly shocking news. Mary is expecting! Despite the fact that they have never consummate their relationship and that Mary is a virgin. 

    Joseph faced a dilemma.What does he do? They lived in a small village. Inevitably Mary was going to start to show. With the cultural sensibilities of their day, this pregnancy in an unmarried couple would have been scandalous. 

    Mary would make it appear as though either Mary had been unfaithful to Joseph, or that Mary and Joseph together had violated the betrothal custom and conceived a child together. 

    Jewish teaching at the time essentially forbade marrying someone to whom you were betrothed who had been unfaithful. 

    In Matthew 1:19, Joseph initially does not see it as an option to marry Mary. But he doesn’t want to shame her either, so he just wants to try to make the breaking of the betrothal as painless as possible for both of them. 

    There appears to be a sensible course of action until Joseph is greeted with the most unexpected news. 

    An angelic messenger appears to Joseph in a dream. 

    Matthew 1:20:
    But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

    Sometimes the Lord can quickly change our plans. Joseph is told not to fear taking Mary as his wife. 

    The reason he needs to be told not to fear is that the religious and social expectation would be that Joseph would not take Mary as his wife, due to her apparent adultery. 

    For the town gossips in Nazareth, the explanation that Mary is pregnant with a child that has been conceived via divine conception is not exactly the easiest story to believe. 

    It would have been just as hard for someone in the first century to believe this was possible as it is for us in modern times. They knew where babies came from! 

    So to marry Mary is to also have to deal with the social ostracism of marrying an apparent adulteress. 

    But Joseph is told not to fear. 

    Now just because he’s told not to fear taking Mary as his wife, that does not mean that it’s going to be easy. 

    We don’t know a ton about the life of Joseph after Jesus was born. But the gospels give us a few snapshots, and it was hard. 

    In Luke’s narrative, when Jesus was born, there was no room for them. 

    A story that I plan to preach in a couple weeks, but when Jesus was just a baby, the King, a man named Herod hears about this King of Israel who was born and in his jealousy, seeks out to try to have Jesus killed off.  

    The family was forced to leave Judea and go into hiding in Egypt. 

    So we see an inhospitable world, danger, exile. Hardships. Church tradition holds that Joseph was already deceased by the time that Jesus began his public ministry. 

    Joseph is told to fear not. Why? Because he was following the will of God. But again, that doesn’t mean that following the Lord will be easy. 

    The disciples followed the Lord. But they had lives of difficulty and persecution, ultimately leading to the martyrdom of all but one of them. 

    We celebrated Thanksgiving last week. 

    I always think about the Pilgrims who came to this country in the 17th century. They came here in order to live out their faith. And they probably never could have imagined it at the time but they set forth a legacy which has extended into America to this day. The rich religious history that we have in this nation. 

    Was it wrong of them to come? Was it a bad idea to come? No. 

    But half of them died by that next winter. They had lives of hardship. 

    I think of the great missionaries over the centuries. 

    People who were serving a purpose greater than themselves. But the centuries of missionaries who have faced persecution and death for that calling. The work they did, the challenges and hardships they faced. 

    Father Damien was a priest who served a leper colony in modern day Hawaii. He served people who were the outcasts of society. He contracted leprosy himself in 1885. But he continued to serve until he died of the disease four years later. 

    Maria Taylor was the wife of Hudson Taylor, perhaps the most well known missionary of the 19th century. He ministered in China. Maria herself had been the daughter of missionaries. Born in Asia, her parents both died when she was ten years old. She was sent to England to be taken care of by family but married Hudson Taylor when she was 16. 

    In China, they faced opposition, persecution, and financial hardships. Of the nine children she birthed, only four reached adulthood. She died of cholera when she was just 33. 

    That’s so often not what today picture as the Christian life. We want to believe in a prosperity gospel that sells on the lie of just be good and everything in your life will be good. The problem is that it’s not true to reality and it’s not true to what the Bible teaches. 

    Sacrifice, difficulty, hardship.

    Why would anyone want that? 

    Because of the great God we serve. Because of the great savior we have in Christ. Because of the great cost that he paid for our forgiveness. 

    God gives grace. His power is perfected in our weakness. God sanctifies us through our difficulty. As we serve the Lord through challenges, and walk with him, it is also an opportunity to grow with him. 

    The Bible doesn’t teach that just have faith and it’ll always be easy. The Bible teaches to trust in God even when things are difficult. 

    It makes no sense in the eyes of the world. But God is the only thing that truly matters. And if all we have is God, that is all we need. Again in the eyes of the world, that is laughable. It’s worthy of mockery. 

    Why would a good God allow his most sincere followers to suffer so greatly? 

    But it’s a byproduct of doing ministry in a world that is fallen. We have a savior who can identify. Jesus went to the cross. He suffered. He was betrayed. He was mocked. 

    In life, everything that’s truly worthwhile and worth doing involves hardship and suffering and challenges. 

    Marriage is a great blessing. Marriage has its difficulties. It’s difficult seasons. Difficult conflicts. 

    But its’s worth it. 

    Having kids is a great blessing. But it’s hard. You’re trying to civilize a sinful person. Now no one forces you to get married. No one forces you to raise kids. You choose those things, even though they’re difficult. 

    I think of those great missionaries. They had difficult lives. But still they chose that life. They could have walked away. They could have left the mission field. At the first sign of danger or death, they could have given it all up. 

    But things that are worth doing are hard. 

    In life, all of those challenges bring their own blessings, in spite of the hardship. And truly living for God, in spite of the difficulties brings the blessings of knowing God and growing with God and living to the glory of God. 

    It’s not always easy. But it is always worth it. 

    In the gospels, there’s a story of Jesus and the disciples when they got caught up in a tremendous storm. Why were they on that boat? Because Jesus had led them to it. 

    In the Book of Exodus, the Israelites cross the Red Sea. Why were they at the banks of the sea between the water and the Egyptian army? Because that’s where the Lord had led them. 

    God is not always leading us to what’s easy. But he is always leading us to what’s right. 

    Our world has bought into this unbiblical lie that, in this life, you’re always being led to something really great. 

    Not always. Sometimes you’re being led into something really hard. Sometimes people suffer, sometimes people die. 

    It is in eternity and in the presence of God, when everything is ultimately made right and perfected. But in life, there are trials and challenges. The good news is that we have a savior who will be with us through it all. 

    And so Joseph is told to fear not. Not because it’s easy. But to fear not because of who God is. 

  • People missed the significance of the first Christmas – but how do you respond to Jesus this Christmas?

    People missed the significance of the first Christmas – but how do you respond to Jesus this Christmas?

    There are the important days that we know are important at the time. And there are the important days when we only know of their significance with hindsight. 

    A couple weeks ago, we had the anniversary of an important day in American history when we remembered the 80th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attacks on December 7, 1941. 

    Other important days in American history. 

    November 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy died. 

    September 11, 2001.

    You knew those were historic days at the time. 

    And that’s also true in our personal lives. 

    There are some days that you know are monumental days at the time. 

    The day you get married. The day kids are born. 

    But as we begin in our passage this morning, I want to talk for a moment about the days that matter but that we don’t know matter until after the fact. 

    On June 28, 1914, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary was killed. It was a story at the time, but to observers, it seemed like a regional matter that wouldn’t extend much past Eastern Europe. In reality that event was the spark that led to the outbreak of World War I, the most destructive war the world had ever seen at that time.

    The days that matter that you don’t know matter. 

    The first time you ever heard of Covid-19 in China, you probably never imagined that it was going to turn our world upside down. 

    Think about the day the lightbulb was invented. The world was going to change but most people had no idea.

    It’s always a fascinating thought to me. That such significant days can be days when you don’t know it at the time. 

    I think of one of the most significant days in my life. February 20, 2017. It was on that day that I talked to a girl on eharmony.com who I thought looked cute. I had no idea at the time, but that was the first day I ever talked to my wife. 

    Think about the day a famous person was born. No one knows it at the time. A future president, or leading actor, or star athlete could be in the process of being born this very morning and we wouldn’t know it. 

    And I think of that with the events surrounding the first Christmas Eve. 

    Human history was about to forever change. 

    For people who lived in Bethlehem on that first Christmas Eve, their little town was about to be center stage to events that we’d be talking about 2,000 years later, events that were so significant that time itself is calculated by its proximity to them. 

    And for the average person living in Bethlehem on that first Christmas Eve, they would have had no idea. 

    Think about that. 

    SONG – WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

    One of my favorite newer Christmas songs of the last several years comes from the Christian band Casting Crowns. The song is titled “While you were sleeping.” 

    And the song considers this world-changing event. Christ coming into the world, and how it happened on – for many people – just any other ordinary night. 

    The song says: 

    O Bethlehem, what you have missed while you were sleeping

    For God became a man

    And stepped into your world today

    O Bethlehem, you will go down in history

    As a city with no room for its King

    While you were sleeping

    While you were sleeping

    The world kept turning. On that first Christmas and over the coming weeks and months, people continued to live their lives. 

    For the average person living at the time, that seems to be the most likely response at the advent of Christ. Unawareness. Obliviousness. 

    But there were some who had heard about the birth of Jesus. You have wise men who sought this newborn baby out. You have King Herod who heard the news but who was not overjoyed at the prospect of another king living in his territory. And you have Herod’s priests and scribes, those who were most learned in the Old Testament, yet who would miss the significance of the moment.  

    The first Christmas, many didn’t realize what had happened. But since that first Christmas, the rest of history has been turned upside down. 

    It was easy to be blissfully unaware of Jesus as a baby. But what do you do with him as a man? What do you do with him as a teacher? What do you do with him as a prophet? What do you do with him as a savior? What do you do with him as Lod? 

    Some will continue to ignore him, some will continue to miss the significance of who he is, some will continue to actively oppose him. 

    But will you come to him and worship him?

    It might have been easy to dismiss a baby, but that baby grew and became the savior of the world. That baby went to the cross. That tomb was empty on the third day. 

    What do you do with all of that? 

    Will you continue to overlook the significance of Jesus and who he is? 

    Or will you come to him and worship him as Lord? 

    People ignored and overlooked the significance on the first Christmas but what are you doing with Jesus this Christmas? 

    He invites you to come to him, to know him. 

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  • Christ as a title. Studying Matthew 1:1

    Christ as a title. Studying Matthew 1:1

    The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. 
    -Matthew 1:1 

     At first glance, it might not catch our attention that Matthew says Jesus Christ. After all, those are both very common words we see in the Bible. 

    Jesus is his name. We’ll actually see him given that name at the end of this chapter in connection to his birth. Verse 21, the angel tells Joseph to name the child Jesus. It’s a name that means savior, or the Lord’s salvation. 

    Jesus is his name. 

    CHRIST – A TITLE

    And Christ is his…

    Officially, Christ is a title. 

    Jesus is the Christ. Christ comes from the Greek Christos which means anointed. 

    Now in our day, Jesus and Christ are often said together, almost like a first and last name. 

    But something that’s interesting is the names Jesus and Christ together are actually very rare in the gospels. The gospel writers use Jesus. They use Christ. 

    But Jesus Christ? 

    For his entire gospel, Matthew does it only twice. This first verse and again in 1:18. We see Jesus Christ twice in John. Once in Mark, and never in Luke. 

    But then it becomes common in Acts – written by Luke, and we see it throughout Paul’s letters. Part of this seems to be a simple evolution that happened in the early years of the church where Jesus Christ increasingly became used of as the full name for Jesus. 

    And I point this out because one of the potential consequences of this is to lose sight of the significance of Christ as a title for Jesus. 

    As I said, Christ comes from the Greek word Christos which means anointed. The Latin word for anointed is where we get our word “Messiah.” So Christ and Messiah are saying the same thing. 

    And anointing refers to when people would be anointed with oil in the Old Testament. We would see this treatment for kings and priests, and sometimes prophets. Sometimes objects were even anointed with oil. The anointing was meant to symbolize purity, consecration to God, and the Holy Spirit. 

    So when Jesus is called the Christ, at heart, that’s pointing to his status as the anointed one. 

    And we see times in the gospels where Christ is clearly being used with as a title. 

    EXAMPLES OF JESUS CALLED THE CHRIST

    To briefly give a couple of texts which illustrate this idea. 

    In Luke 2, when Jesus is brought to the temple as a baby and a man name Simeon sees him. He’s an old man who’s waited years for this moment. 

    Luke 2:26: And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.

    Matthew 16:16, Peter confesses his belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. 

    And the idea of a Christ coming into the world was something that the Israelites were anticipating in the first century. 

    There had been others who had claimed to even be the Christ. 

    Before Jesus came into the world, there were various expectations of an anointed one and what he would be like. There were views of an anointed one, of a Christ who would come from the Davidic line to save the Jews. 

    MESSIANIC EXPECTATIONS

    To give a present day illustration. 

    It’s kind of like different views of end times theology today. There are all sorts of differing views for the second coming of Christ and what that will be like, when that will happen. 

    Well in the first century, there were lots of different ideas for what the first coming of the Christ would look like. 

    Some thought that the Christ would be a great king, others thought he would be a great general who would lead Israel in a military victory over Rome. Some thought of the Christ as a great moral figure of keeping and interpreting the law of Moses. 

    There’s some truth to all of those, but perhaps not in the ways people expected. 

    Some thought that there would actually be two anointed ones, that is to say, two Christs. Texts from Qumran, which is where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found indicate a belief in a Davidc Christ who would be a king of the Jews and a Priestly Christ from the line of Aaron. 

    And given the long-awaited for, long hoped for, Christ who was to come, Matthew opens his gospel by saying that this man Jesus is the Christ. 

    He’s the Messiah, he’s the anointed one. 

    And we’ll see in his ministry that Jesus will embody all of the offices who were anointed in the Old Testament. Prophet, priest, and king. 

    And so it’s fitting that Matthew begins his gospel by pointing to Jesus as the Christ. He is the long-awaited Messiah for whom Israel had hoped. 

    Jesus is a prophet in that he speaks the word of God. 

    He’s also a priest. Priests in the Old Testament were the ones who performed the sacrifices and served as the intermediaries between man and God. They had extensive moral requirements and religious rituals to be able to do this. 

    But Jesus is the perfect high priest, he’s the greater priest because by the nature of his moral righteousness and divine nature, he is able to serve as the true intermediary between us and God. 

    Jesus is a prophet, a priest, and as we’ll see in another post, he’s also a king.

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  • Sermon: The first gospel – Genesis 2:8-3:15

    It’s a passage that gives us a glimpse of a perfect world before the fall. After the fall, it’s a passage that points us to a glimmer of hope in a newly fallen world as the good news of the gospel is proclaimed for the first time in scripture in Genesis 3:15. It sets forth a trajectory which will run throughout the rest of the Old Testament in the lead up to the Christ coming into the world.

    Sermon manuscript

  • Immanuel Prophecy in Isaiah. Part 2: A sign given

    Immanuel Prophecy in Isaiah. Part 2: A sign given

    BACKGROUND 

    Isaiah 7:10-25.

    We’re around the year 735 B.C. The Kingdom of Judah is home to the chosen people of God and the promises of God. It’s the home to Jerusalem and the family line which leads to Christ. 

    A man named Ahaz is the King of Judah. Though they’re God’s chosen people, he’s a sinful king in a sinful kingdom. They have regularly disobeyed and dishonored the Lord. The first several chapters of the book of Isaiah largely revolve around the judgment which will befall Judah. 

    There are also a lot of military tensions in the region. The Assyrians are the super power in the Middle East at the time. They pose a threat to the various local kingdoms. 

    And so you have two other nations: Israel and Syria who have formed an alliance against Assyria. Israel and Syria try to pressure Judah into the alliance but Judah will instead opt to pay off the Assyrians for protection. As a result, Israel and Syria go to war with Judah. Through the prophet Isaiah, King Ahaz is told that the destruction of their oppressors: Israel and Syria is imminent. 

    We find out from other passages like 2 Kings 16 that Judah actually paid off the Assyrians for protection. Ahaz is told to ask the Lord for a sign, and where we concluded our last post in this series, Ahaz refuses the sign. 

    A SIGN REJECTED 

    Isaiah 7:10-11: 10 Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz: 11 “Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” 

    Ahaz has been sinful and faithless. But he’s given an incredible offer from the Lord. He can basically ask any sign he wants from the Lord. He can ask the Lord to reveal himself to him in a spectacular way. 

    I can’t think of another time in the Old Testament where this offer is given to someone. 

    If you were given that offer, what sign would you ask for? Whatever you want? Maybe you’d ask to see heaven, ask to be healed from a health issue, ask to see a loved one who’s passed away brought back to life? 

    Ahaz instead responds in verse 12: I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.” 

    Now at first glance, that can appear as a good thing. I will not put the Lord to the test. In the temptation story of Jesus, he talks of not putting the Lord to the test. 

    Matthew 4:5-7: the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple 6 and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ” 

    7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”

    Jesus was asked to basically prove his identity by challenging God. He doesn’t. He points to the scriptures when he says “it is written” and then adds a command from the Old Testament “you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

    That’s a quote from Deuteronomy 6:16. You shall not put the your God to the test.

    So it can appear as though Ahaz is just being faithful to the commands of scripture. What’s the problem? It’s not a violation of the command when the Lord tells you to ask him for a sign. 

    Ahaz says he won’t test God but it’s God who tested Ahaz and Ahaz failed. Ahaz makes a mistake that has existed since the first sin which is misapplying the Word of God. 

    God tells him to ask for a sign and Ahaz balks at it. It’s because Ahaz doesn’t want a sign. He doesn’t care about seeing what God can do. Ahaz has already put his faith in his own industry in paying off the Assyrians for protection. 

    So when he says he won’t put God to the test, he’s just giving the appearance of faith. In Jesus’ day, it was a problem for the pharisees. They had attached all sorts of laws onto laws and outwardly appeared to be very religious and moral. 

    You can’t fool the Lord. 

    It’s easy to say the right things, it’s easy to talk the talk. But the Lord looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). The Lord sees through Ahaz’s attempt at outward piety. 

    Verse 13, he’s given a response: And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also?

    A SIGN GIVEN

    Ahaz doesn’t ask for a sign but God gives him a sign anyway. The Immanuel prophecy in this passage is the same prophecy which is quoted at the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew. 

    Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

    The gospel adds a note that the name Immanuel means “God with us.” (Matthew 1:23)

    It’s a difficult verse in Isaiah. It’s cryptic. Its meaning is controversial and disputed. Numerous questions arise. 

    We will examine three of them. 

    1. WHY IS THAT THE SIGN WHEN JESUS ISN’T BORN UNTIL MORE THAN 700 YEARS LATER? 

    I don’t take this Isaiah passage as only referring to Jesus. Don’t misunderstand. The sign ultimately refers to Jesus, but I believe that the sign had a double-fulfillment. 

    The prophecy is given as a sign to Ahaz. Therefore I think it matters that the sign means something in the Day of Ahaz, and as we will see momentarily, I believe the context of this passage demands that it mean something in Ahaz’s time. As a general rule, I think we should be weary of Biblical interpretations where a verse has no significance to its original audience. 

    This is an important note about studying the Bible and studying prophetic literature in the Bible. Especially when you consider what else our present passage says. Let’s look at the Immanuel prophecy and the immediate context. 

    Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. 15 He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16 For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted.

    What’s the meaning of those verses? There’s no apparent relationship between those verses and Jesus. 

    They have to mean something. We’ll examine them more closely in a few moments but I think that verses 15-16 refer to events in the lifetime of the first Immanuel. 

    A second issue to consider.

    WHAT DOES VIRGIN MEAN? 

    What does the word virgin mean? 

    In English, our word “virgin” has a pretty straightforward meaning. Someone who has never had sexual relations. And virginity is certainly an important aspect of the birth of Jesus. 

    Gospel of Luke. 1:31, Mary is told she’s going to have a baby.  behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

    The angel goes on to say what will happen during this ministry but Mary responds in Luke 1:34: 

    And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

    The virginity of Mary matters in the birth story of Christ because it demonstrates a miracle of God. That the birth of Christ is an entirely divine activity. So when people were reading the Old Testament hundreds of years before Christ, did they read this verse from Isaiah and take it to refer to a virgin having a baby? 

    Not necessarily. 

    If you’ve ever heard a sermon on this passage or the Matthew passage before, or if you’ve ever looked up these verses in a Study Bible, you might have seen a note that talked about how the word for virgin can also mean “young woman.”

    That’s true. The closest example we have in English is probably a word like “maiden.” The word “maiden” isn’t used in English today as much as it was about 100 years ago, but a maiden refers to a young unmarried woman. 

    Now, in this Jewish culture in the 8th century BC, for a young, unmarried woman, it would have been assumed that she was a virgin. So that’s certainly part of what was meant, but my point is that Isaiah’s audience didn’t necessarily understand this passage referring to a virgin conception. 

    I think they would have taken the Hebrew word that’s used here to refer more to the woman’s I think it’s more likely that they understood this Immanuel sign as being the child of a young woman. 

    But here’s something that’s interesting.

    While the word probably meant something more like young woman or maiden to its original Hebrew audience, by the time the text was translated from Hebrew into Greek, which was still prior to the birth of Christ, the Greek word that was used actually does more specifically mean virgin. So it is possible that a Greek reader, would have had an understanding in his time of a virgin birth. 

    WHO ARE IMMANUEL AND THE WOMAN? 

    There are several theories about who Immanuel is. Some think that the woman is King Ahaz’s wife and Immanuel is his son Hezekiah. Others think it’s the prophet Isaiah’s son. Some think that the name Immanuel became popular in Judah at this time and a lot of baby boys were named Immaneul and that that was the sign. Or perhaps it was the child of an official in the royal court who was named Immanuel. 

    And there are several other theories. I just point that out to again show that this is a difficult passage with several possible interpretations. But just because a passage in the Bible is hard, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t study it. 

    As far as the identity of the original Immanuel, we’ll cover that in another post. But the point that I want to make for right now is that there was a first Immanuel before Jesus, the ultimate and greater Immanuel. As this prophecy continues, Isaiah will elaborate on the circumstances of the world into which the first Immanuel will be born. 

    And he starts to talk about the immediate future within the region in its connection to this sign of Immanuel. There will be a time of difficulty in the region. The first subject to be dealt with are Judah’s oppressors: Israel and Syria. 

    This passage is talking about the early years of the first Immanuel. And there will be judgment for Israel and Syria, and later for Judah. 

    Verse 15: He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16 For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted. 

    When Immanuel is just a child, he will eat curds and honey.  Now, when the Israelites are on their journey to the Promised Land, it’s often referred to as a land flowing with milk and honey and that’s seen as a good thing. 

    But in this passage, the curds and honey seems to be a negative for the young Immanuel. The region will be so desolate, war will make the kingdom such a wasteland, that he will be eating a nomadic diet. 

     He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16 For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good

    Twice the prophet talks of a time associated with when this boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. The point of that is Immanuel will be very young when all of this happens. It’s before he will have reached an age of accountability. Historically, we know that this is correct because these events happen around 735 B.C. and the kingdom of Israel was conquered in 722 B.C. 

    The things the Lord says will happen in this passage do come to pass and they come to pass in the very near future. 

    End of verse 16, Isaiah throws down the gauntlet: the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted.

    Ahaz is specifically being told of the desertion which will befall Syria and Israel. And that is desertion because they will be conquered and taken from their land. It is a blessing that Syria and Israel will both be conquered for their sin. 

    JUDGED JUDAH 

    But Judah has also been sinful. Ahaz the king has been sinful. And there will also be consequences for them. 

    I said this in the beginning, but many of the early chapters of Isaiah have actually focused on the sins of Judah. They’re God’s chosen people but they’re sinful, and Ahaz is sinful. And Ahaz placed his trust in a pagan nation in Assyria for his hope and protection rather than God. There are consequences for that as well. 

    And so the rest of this passage ends by talking about judgment which would befall Judah. We will be fairly brief with these verses. 

    Verse 17: The Lord will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father’s house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah—the king of Assyria!”

    Where it says “upon you and upon your father’s house,” it’s a reference to the House of David who rules in Judah. It’s the monarchy. Then the text talks about days which have not come since Ephrairim departed from Judah. 

    I touched on this in a previous post, but it’s referring to to the split between Judah and Israel, Israel is here being referred to as Ephraim after its largest tribe. 

    What this verse is saying is that: while there is judgment for Israel and Syria, Judah will also experience a time of difficulty and upheaval. The challenge they will face will be the King of Assyria, as the verse ends. 

    The Assyrians, the nation in whom Ahaz had placed his hope will become their oppressor. So often the things we look to for freedom can enslave us. 

    The passage begins to talk about what will happen to Judah. Now with Syria and Israel, annihilation is the fate which awaits their kingdoms. By the grace of God, it won’t be quite as severe here for Judah. But they will still suffer. 

    18 In that day the Lord will whistle for the fly that is at the end of the streams of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. 19 And they will all come and settle in the steep ravines, and in the clefts of the rocks, and on all the thornbushes, and on all the pastures. 

    The verse is talking about military oppression which Judah will face. It talks of troops as if they’re swarms of bees and flies. Numerous soldiers will converge upon them. All of the hiding places will be overcome by enemy forces.

    Verse 20: In that day the Lord will shave with a razor that is hired beyond the River—with the king of Assyria—the head and the hair of the feet, and it will sweep away the beard also. 

    Another picture of what will happen. It talks of the people being shaved. The point this is making is he humiliation that the Judeans will face at the hands of the Assyrians. Removing a person’s hair is often a symbol of stripping away their identity. 

    We see a third picture of the future for Judah.

    Verses 21-22: In that day a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep, 22 and because of the abundance of milk that they give, he will eat curds, for everyone who is left in the land will eat curds and honey. 

    That verse might not seem so bad because it does talk about people having livestock and an abundance of milk. 

    But given that everything else in the passage is a picture of judgment, I think the point is more that there will be an abundance of food and people will have livestock because there will be so much devastation about the population. 

    A FINAL PICTURE

    23 In that day every place where there used to be a thousand vines, worth a thousand shekels of silver, will become briers and thorns. 24 With bow and arrows a man will come there, for all the land will be briers and thorns. 25 And as for all the hills that used to be hoed with a hoe, you will not come there for fear of briers and thorns, but they will become a place where cattle are let loose and where sheep tread. 

    This is a picture of the devastation which will befall the land. The fertile ground will become briers and thorns. In the Old Testament, God talks of drought and of waste coming upon the farmland as divine judgment for Israel’s disloyalty to the covenant. 

    Give another example. Isaiah 5:5-6 says: I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. 6 I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. 

    Around the year 701 B.C., the Assyrians did lay siege to Jerusalem. They did not ultimately conquer the city, that would happen at the hands of another empire a century and a half later. But for their sin, there was judgment upon Judah. 

    CONCLUSION 

    I understand that these are difficult passages. There’s a lot of history, a lot of context. It can be confusing that Judah’s enemies are judged by God but then so is Judah. One of the things that this passage again shows us is the weight of sin. 

    God does not take sin lightly. Anytime we act like sin doesn’t matter or isn’t a big deal, we are communicating a profound theological falsehood. God is deathly serious about sin. 

    Judah is God’s chosen people in his chosen land. It can be tempting to wonder if they suffered too much. But the real question is always why God gives grace to anyone when no one deserves it. Something else that we see in this passage is God’s sovereignty over the nations. 

    Both in our lives and in the dealings of the world, nothing happens outside of the sovereignty of God. There are many evil empires today. North Korea, China, dictatorial leaders in places like Venezuela. Countries that are torn apart by civil war and religious fanaticism. 

    God sees it all. That’s true throughout the world and in the lives of individuals. 

    All sin will be accounted for. Either it was nailed to the cross and you believe in what Jesus did. Or you will spend eternity separated from God because of your own sin. But there is nothing that is unnoticed to an all-knowing God. 

    As I close, I want to return to the Immanuel prophecy in verse 14. 

    Isaiah gives the sign of Immanuel. Again we often know it in connection with the Gospel of Matthew and Christmas time. Basically everything going on in Isaiah 7 revolves around war. Judah being attacked, Judah’s oppressors judged, but Judah also suffering at the end of the passage. 

    This is not a quaint, yuletide passage. It’s a passage about war and you’re given this one glimmer of light, the sign of Immanuel, which means “God with us.” In spite of all that is going on in the world, God is still with his people. There will be difficulties for the nations, but God is still faithful to his promise and his people. 

    There will be judgment on Judah, but God is still with them. This is a passage about war and the one hopeful message is a sign given to a king who didn’t even want it. We live in a world that is so often at war. War between nations, war within ourselves, conflict within our families, struggles against our sinfulness. 

    In the face of war and turmoil, Ahaz was offered a sign. He turned it down. The message that we need is not always the message that we want. In our sinful lives, we are given the message of the gospel. That you are separated and alienated from God due to sin, but you can have forgiveness when you turn your hope away from yourself and place it in Jesus and what he did on the cross. 

    There are difficulties in life. God with us. Is he the Lord in whom you place your trust? 

    Even as Christians we are not insulated from the sin that is in the world and our own lives. There are times of difficulty. But God is faithful. God never unjustly brings judgment. 

    My point with all of this is not to destroy a favorite Christmas verse from Matthew. 

    But I do think there’s value in knowing the original story. Because life is not the quaint, Norman Rockwell painting that we so desperately want the Christmas season to be. Life is hard. There is sin, disease, death. There’s hurt and betrayal. There’s war between nations and threats that we face. 

    Yet in spite of that, to an undeserving king, God gave the sign of Immanuel. And to an undeserving humanity, God gave the gift of the greater Immanuel, his son, God who came into the world, God with us. 

    Originally published December 25, 2020

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