Stand Firm in Faith, or You Won’t Stand at All

Isaiah 7

Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: See, the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel. (Isa 7:14)

Main Idea: God uses the crises of life to expose our true faith: if we do not stand firm in our faith in Christ, the virgin-born Savior of the world, we will not stand at all.

1. Crisis Reveals True Faith (7:1-2).
   1. The crisis: a scary alliance
   2. Fluttering like a leaf
2. The Sovereign Lord Intervenes, Promises, and Warns (7:3-9).
   1. God’s command: Don’t be afraid, only believe.
   2. God’s promise: The plans of man will fail.
   3. God’s warning: There is grave danger for unbelief.
3. The Sovereign Lord Gives a Sign: Immanuel (7:10-17).
   1. Stooping to our weakness: the Lord gives a sign.
   2. Three issues with the sign “Immanuel”
4. False Faith Proves Ruinous: Assyria Is Coming (7:17-25)!
   1. Both God and Ahaz summon Assyria.
   2. Faithless Ahaz turns from God to Assyria for help.
5. The Immanuel Sign Fulfilled: Christ Is Born.
   1. The virgin birth
   2. “God with us”
   3. The true deliverance
   4. The final fulfillment: eternally with God
6. Central Lesson: In What Are You Trusting?

This is one of the biggest questions in life: What are you trusting in? What is your truest source of confidence for the dark future? On most days, this question never really comes up. We live day to day in a comfortable bubble, able to handle whatever comes our way because we’ve done it many times before. We don’t ask, “What am I trusting in?” as we pour milk on cereal, as we answer a ringing cellphone, as we sit on the couch in our living room, or as we lie down to go to sleep at night. All those activities and countless others are so completely ordinary we assume we can do them ourselves, so we feel we don’t need anything to trust.

But this is a grave misunderstanding! The fact is, at every single moment of our lives, we are trusting in something: if we feel confident we can handle that situation ourselves, we are trusting in ourselves. This is the most devastating state we can be in spiritually. People can trust in all kinds of things, depending on the circumstances: high IQ, diligent preparation, skill in martial arts, athletic training, musical talent, a hall-of-fame coach, a balanced retirement portfolio, a nation’s military power. What you’re trusting in is most clearly revealed during a crisis. To prove this to us, God brings trials and circumstances that will jar us from our comfort zones. And sometimes he will bring extreme suffering to cause us to lose all other sources of trust than God himself. So it is in this chapter; the lesson of Isaiah 7 is, “Stop trusting in yourself, and stop trusting in your shrewd alliances; throw yourself on God alone.”

Crisis Reveals True Faith

Isaiah 7:1-2

In the Old Testament, God often taught vital spiritual lessons to his people through political and military events. The historical context of Isaiah 7 is such a time. After the death of Solomon, Israel had been split into two—the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. At the time of Isaiah 7, Judah was ruled by a wicked king named Ahaz. The two Jewish kingdoms were often at war with each other, and so it was in Ahaz’s day. These two tiny kingdoms were among several small nations of the region—like Edom, Aram, Syria, and Philistia—bit players on the stage of geopolitics. They were often dominated by larger empires, such as the Assyrians, who threatened the entire region with their military power. Assyria was the big monster swimming in the small pool of the ancient Near East: its people were violent and ruthless, the Nazis of the ancient world. Their emperor, Tiglath-pileser III, was an expansionist who wanted Egypt, the breadbasket of the world. Palestine stood in the way, composed of all these small nations. This monster, Assyria, was poised to gobble up all these minor nations like a lion devouring scraps of meat.^[2]

Beyond that looming threat, sometimes these smaller kingdoms allied together and threatened other small kingdoms with conquest. This is just what King Ahaz and Judah were facing: Israel (under Pekah) and Aram (under Rezin) allied together and sought to conquer Judah, and specifically Jerusalem, its capital city. The news of the alliance between Aram and Israel resulted in the hearts of Ahaz and his people trembling like trees of a forest shaken by a strong wind (v. 2). Their fear was faithless; they never seemed to think of turning to the sovereign Lord for protection. The people were as weak in faithlessness as their leader. God brought this crisis on Ahaz to show him how empty his soul was and how great was his need to trust in the Lord. The plans of the scary alliance of Israel and Aram were plain: to put an end to the Davidic dynasty and install their own puppet king, “Tabeel’s son,” over Judah (v. 6). Judah’s trembling hearts show the weakness of their faith.

The Sovereign Lord Intervenes, Promises, and Warns

Isaiah 7:3-9

God is not an idler, standing passively by on the sidelines of human history. God is not merely rooting for the proper outcome; he brings it about! He is sovereign in deciding what will occur on the stage of history; he moves his little finger, and the nations convulse. But God’s real desire is that his people would trust in him. In order for them to trust, he must speak to them, make promises to them. This he does through Isaiah the prophet. God sends Isaiah to speak to Ahaz and to the nation of Judah: “Calm down and be quiet” (v. 4). This is also what the Lord Jesus said to the menacing waves on the sea of Galilee (Mark 4:39), then he rebuked his terrified disciples for their lack of faith. Isaiah speaks directly to Ahaz about the two allied kings, Pekah and Rezin, telling him not to fear them at all. God knows about the plot those kings have made to conquer Judah for themselves and put an end to David’s lineage.

But God speaks a simple and sovereign answer: “It will not happen; it will not occur.” And that’s the end of that! All the nations are as “a speck of dust on the scales” (Isa 40:15), but God is like a million-pound weight on the scales. Whatever side he lands on, the scale tips absolutely to his will. When God decrees, “It will not happen,” then it will not happen. “Many plans are in a person’s heart, but the Lord’s decree will prevail” (Prov 19:21). God has planned to bring a Savior to the world through the lineage of David, and these two small kings will not stop it. God goes beyond that and predicts plainly that, within a short sixty-five years (that’s nothing to God, for whom “a thousand years [are] like one day”; 2 Pet 3:8), Ephraim (Israel) will be so decimated it will no longer be a nation. These two small nations are led by two small men—Rezin and Pekah—and what are they to God?

But at the end of this assurance of the nation’s survival, God speaks a word of warning to the man, Ahaz: “If you do not stand firm in your faith, then you will not stand at all.” In other words, my plans are for the whole nation to survive, but your individual survival depends entirely on your faith. This is the clear teaching of the Bible: “The righteous one will live by his faith” (Hab 2:4; Rom 1:17). Faithless Ahaz must repent and believe, or he too, like Pekah and Rezin, will be swept away by God’s judgments. The warning has to do with Ahaz’s scheme for self-salvation. If he refuses to trust this good news from the Lord through Isaiah, he will act on a scheme of his own: a fatal alliance with Assyria to deliver his small nation from these other two small nations. This is the very thing that would end up destroying him and Judah almost entirely.

The Sovereign Lord Gives a Sign: Immanuel

Isaiah 7:10-17

In this amazing interchange the holy God stoops to Ahaz’s weakness and offers his weak faith the advantage of a sign, anything as deep or high as he could possibly think of. Isn’t it amazing how patient God is in dealing with sinners like us? In effect, he was handing Ahaz a blank check, asking him to fill in the amount! Even more striking are the words of the invitation: “Ask for a sign from the Lord your God” (emphasis added). Ahaz has not lived out any faith toward the true God, but God is not ashamed to offer to be his God now.

Tragically, Ahaz refuses! He puts on the air of a humble man by saying, “I will not test the Lord” (v. 12). But God had commanded Ahaz to ask for a sign, and Ahaz refused. So Isaiah, exasperated in this man’s rebellion, rebuked him for testing the patience of God and man alike. And notice the shift from “your God” in the invitation of verse 11 to the “my God” in the rebuke of verse 13. Then the prophet spoke one of the most famous prophecies in the book of Isaiah: “Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: See, the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel” (v. 14). The sign is given to the whole nation: the word “you” is plural.

This sign of Immanuel carries with it three difficult interpretive issues:

1. Was there an immediate sign in Ahaz’s time?

2. Does this verse teach the virgin birth?

3. What is the significance of the word “Immanuel”?

Let’s look at each issue.

First, was there an immediate sign in Ahaz’s time? Answer: yes. Christian prophecy often has a type and a fulfillment, a shadow and the reality. Something was acted out imperfectly in space and time illustrating some aspect of Christ’s future coming. Christ then perfectly fulfills that shadow with the bright light of his life and ministry. In Ahaz’s day an actual child was born and given this mysterious name “Immanuel.” Immanuel was a normal child, growing up in the normal way. His development was like a timepiece for the total erasure of the military threat to Judah from Ephraim and Aram: he will grow up to the point where he can learn to reject bad and choose good and eat butter and honey. Before all that occurs (perhaps a five- or six-year-old boy would have enough moral training to discern between good and bad), the land of the two kings they were dreading would be abandoned.

Second, does this verse teach the virgin birth? Again, yes. Matthew 1:22-23 directly ascribes this prophecy to Jesus, settling for Christians whether Isaiah 7:14 taught the virgin birth. The challenge with this prophecy is that the virgin conception and birth of Jesus Christ were unique in all of history. So the Hebrew word “virgin” is almah, a word that can refer to a virgin but that doesn’t emphasize her virginity.^[3] The imperfect, shadowy prophetical type of Isaiah’s day was that an ordinary young woman would conceive Immanuel in the ordinary way. But the perfect fulfillment was of a true virgin, Mary, who conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. More in a moment.

Third, what is the significance of the name Immanuel? This word means “God with us,” and the significance in Ahaz’s day was that the true source of Judah’s safety was the fact that Almighty God was protecting it. As Isaiah 8:9-10 will make plain, any nation can prepare for war against little Judah, and they can make lavish plans, but all such preparations will fail, for “God is with us.” As Paul would later write, “If God is for us, who is against us?” (Rom 8:31).

False Faith Proves Ruinous: Assyria Is Coming!

Isaiah 7:17-25

Sadly, Ahaz will not listen to any of these marvelous words. He will not stand firm in faith, so he will not stand at all (v. 9). He will trust in his scheme to make an alliance with the evil king of Assyria to deliver him from these two small kings. So in verses 17-25 God makes it plain that Assyria will most certainly come, having been summoned by both God and Ahaz, but for very different purposes. The tragic story of Ahaz’s faithless alliance with Assyria is told fully in 2 Kings 16:7-12. Turning away from these sweet promises of God through Isaiah, Ahaz invites the monster to save him from these two small kings. He pledges allegiance to Tiglath-pileser III, king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son! March up and save me!” Ahaz’s faithlessness led him directly into idolatrous worship of pagan deities. He eventually shut the doors of the Lord’s temple entirely, set up altars at every street corner in Jerusalem, and worshiped false gods after the pagan pattern of Assyria and the other nations. All of this came from the turn in Ahaz’s heart: I will not ask the Lord; I will save myself!

So the Lord would bring Assyria into Judah—“He will bring the king of Assyria” (Isa 7:17). Isn’t it amazing that both a wicked king and a holy God can bring about the same thing for radically different reasons? Ahaz wanted the king of Assyria to come and save him from Israel and Aram; God wanted the king of Assyria to come and judge his faithless people. So the Assyrian troops will swarm into the land like flies and bees, summoned by God’s whistling for them (vv. 18-19). The king of Assyria will be like a razor coming to shave the hair from the bodies of this faithless people—a sign of total humiliation (see 2 Sam 10:4). The final result of verses 23-25 is a land totally destroyed by the Assyrian invasion, symbolized by “thorns and briers” mentioned in all three verses. Bottom line: what you trust in other than the Lord will totally destroy you in the end.

The Immanuel Sign Fulfilled: Christ Is Born

Seven centuries later God remembered the sign he had given to Ahaz, and he fulfilled the words perfectly—virgin and Immanuel. By the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary, a virgin, became pregnant with a son. The Holy Spirit overshadowed her and the power of God came upon her, and she conceived a son, fully human and fully divine—Jesus Christ our Lord (Luke 1:34-35). The word Immanuel was fulfilled by the incarnation of Jesus Christ; “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). “Since the children have flesh and blood in common, Jesus also shared in these” (Heb 2:14). He was God with us and God for us (Rom 8:31), and he became the focus of all saving faith. In him alone is fulfilled the words, “If you do not stand firm in your faith, then you will not stand at all” (Isa 7:9). He is with us in companionship through all our trials, for he has said, “I will never leave you or abandon you” (Heb 13:5). But by far the greatest deliverance Jesus will work for us is on judgment day, when he will claim us as his own; he will not abandon us on that day but will say, “I know you; you are mine. Enter into the joy of your salvation!” He will deliver us from death and hell and bring us safely into his eternal kingdom. All other deliverances are as nothing compared to that one.

Central Lesson: In What Are You Trusting?

The central lesson of this chapter is this one question: In what are you trusting? The various trials and crises of your life will reveal the true answer to this question, and it’s not always flattering. As you face lesser trials of financial struggles, health problems, or relationship issues with family members or friends, does your heart flutter and are you shaken like trees in a strong wind, as Ahaz was, or do you have a growing stability in faith in Christ? The ultimate trial we all will face is judgment day. What we rely on now for lesser trials is related directly to what we will be trusting in for the salvation of our souls. Romans 1:17 says, “The righteous will live by faith,” and that faith must be in Jesus Christ. He is Immanuel, God with us, our only Savior.

Reflect and Discuss

1. How do our reactions to lesser trials reveal what we’re really trusting in?
2. How does the image of a tree shaken by the wind capture well the life of someone who has no faith in Christ? How does it also capture at times the immaturity of some believers during some trials they face?
3. How can we learn to be more stable in our faith in Christ? (See the context of Eph 4:14 and Jas 1:6 to help answer this question.)
4. How does God show amazing grace and patience with a wicked man like Ahaz? How does Ahaz, in effect, throw it back in God’s face?
5. What is the significance of the statement, “If you do not stand firm in your faith, then you will not stand at all” (v. 9)?
6. What is the significance of the display of God’s sovereignty in this chapter, especially in verses 6-7?
7. Discuss the three issues related to the Isaiah 7:14 prophecy discussed above. How do you resolve these three questions?
8. How is the word and concept of Immanuel (God with us) comforting to you?
9. How is Christ the perfect fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14?
10. How did the ultimate invasion of Judah by Assyria show the terrible end of Ahaz’s failure to trust in the Lord?