Standing Firm in Faith Part 3

Pastor Mike will be speaking on Standing Firm in Faith Part 3. He will be reading out of Isaiah 7:10-25.

And the reason that God delays our prayers is because He is still reaching out. He is still calling people to true salvation, and He is patiently waiting for you today to come back home and to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from The Open Door Church, and I welcome you to the Hope Worth Having radio program.

We’re excited to be able to share God’s word with you today, and I want you to grab your Bible and join us as we’ve been doing an intense study of Isaiah chapter 7, and we’re learning about how to stand firm in our faith. So get your Bible and let’s get into the word. Book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 7. And while you’re turning to Isaiah 7, again, I want to help you with context.

I want to make sure that we always take the Bible within context, never take it out of context to make application that is not practical or even true in our life. The book of Isaiah is a contrast of Ahaz’s evil reign, Ahaz was the king, as well as Hezekiah’s righteous reign. So when you’re coming to the book of Isaiah, these are the two prominent kings that Isaiah ministered under.

Not that there weren’t other kings, but these were the two prominent ones. And we see over and over this contrast of how Hezekiah handled things and how Ahaz handled things. Isaiah’s condemnation of Judah reflects the state, the spiritual condition of Judah.

Remember that I taught you a few weeks ago that Israel had been divided into a northern and a southern kingdom, and that Jerusalem was part of that southern kingdom called Judah, and Israel retained the name Israel for the northern kingdom. Ahaz was reigning, and you see that Isaiah the prophet talks about this spiritual decline in the life of the people as well as Ahaz and the political leaders of that day. I want you to jump back to Isaiah chapter 1 real quickly.

I want to just bring out a few things to you. In Isaiah chapter 1, the prophet says, verse 10, I’m sorry, verse 10, hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah.

Now he was speaking in hyperbole. He is making a picture for them that just like the leaders of Sodom and Gomorrah had rejected God and refused to follow Christ and that had adopted a lifestyle that was contrary to the law of God, he is saying to the current leaders of this nation that they are like the leaders of Sodom and Gomorrah, and they had not only chosen a path that was anti-God, but they were leading the people astray, worshiping idols and depending upon alliances with other countries and their own military might instead of putting their full trust in God Almighty. Jump down to verse 23 of chapter 1 again.

Verse 23, again, he states, your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes and follows after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, nor does the cause of the widow come before them.

The people are truly turned away from God. We jump over to chapter 2 and verse 6 through 8, we see another statement from the prophet declaring the condition of the people. In verse 6, he says, you have forsaken your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with Eastern ways.

They are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they are pleased with the children of foreigners. Their land is also full of silver and gold, and there is no end in their treasures. Their land is also full of horses, and there is no end to their chariots.

Their land is also full of idols. They worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made. Sounds a lot like America, doesn’t it? We jump over to chapter 3 and verse 12.

Again, we see the prophet pointing out the condition of the people. As for my people, I’m in verse 12 of chapter 3. As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. Oh, my people, those who lead you cause you to err and destroy the way of your paths.

What is the point the prophet is making? That the people and the rulers and the leaders had all drifted from God. So, when we come to Isaiah chapter 7, Isaiah is trying to help the people and the leaders to realign with God and to put their full trust in God Almighty. And he is trying to persuade the ruler, Ahaz, to trust the Lord during a crisis.

You might recall the crisis that we shared with you last week, that there were two nations collaborating together to come in and to throw out Ahaz as a political leader, take over the country, and to put their puppet leader in charge of the country so that they could continue to dominate the region. And so, Ahaz is in this great dilemma. The prophet comes to Ahaz and he reminds him that he does not need to be shaken.

He does not need to be devastated about this. We look at verse 2, and he says, And it was told to the house of David, saying, Serious forces are deployed to Ephraim. So his heart and the heart of his people were moved, and the trees of the woods are moved with the wind.

Then the Lord said to Isaiah, Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and Sherah Jashob, your son, at the end of the aqueduct from the upper pool on the highway and the fuller’s fill, and say to him, Take heed and be quiet or be calm. Do not fear or be fainthearted for these two stubs, meaning these two nations that are threatening you, two stubs of smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezan in Syria and the son of Ramaliah, because Syria, Ephraim, all the son of Ramaliah have plotted evil against you, saying, Let us go up against Judah, trouble it, and let us make a gap in its walls for ourselves, and set a king over them, the son of Tobel. Thus says the Lord God.

Here’s his response to the crisis. It shall not stand, nor shall it come to pass. What was the key to making sure that that promise would be fulfilled? It was back in verse 9. Look at the lower part of the verse.

He says, If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established. It was that he was to stand firm, and he was to have faith. He was to turn to God Almighty and to put his full trust, standing firm in his faith, believing that in the midst of the crisis, God will take care of it.

God will handle it. God will work everything out according to his perfect will to bring the most glory to him and the most good to the heart of the people of his people. Well, we come down to verse 10.

We continue this study on standing firm in our faith. We learned last week that a crisis reveals. It reveals whether we have true faith.

This is what’s happening to Ahaz, because now his faith is totally exposed. Is it going to be little faith, a lot of faith? Is it going to be strong faith? Is he going to rely upon God Almighty, or is he going to run to the world for his answers? Is he going to rely on himself for the answer, or is he going to look to God? We also learned last week that a crisis requires us to believe and trust the promises of God. That sometimes a promise is all that we have, and we hold on to that promise, and God requires of us that we would not only believe the promises, but claim the promises, and that we would pray the promises, and that we would stand upon those promises.

So, this morning we continue this study, and we learned that a crisis requests for a sign. We pick up in verse 10, and we see again the prophet says, Moreover, the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God. Ask it either in the depth or in the height above.

So, God is saying to Ahaz, I want to give you a sign that will help you to know that my promises are true, that you can rely upon them. So unique, because we know that there are times in the scriptures that when one might ask for a sign, that they’re actually rejected. Not because God does not want to give a sign, but because God has already given a sign, and he has given the sign of his word, and he’s given the sign of his resurrection, and he has given the signs of his miracles, and all that has taken place.

And so, Christ reminds us that the signs are already self-evident, and you need to look at those signs first, and if you will not believe those signs, how will you believe other signs? You remember the rich man, he was in hell, and he cried out to Abraham, and he said, Please someone go tell my brothers, go tell my family that they don’t want to come to this awful place where they are separated from God throughout all eternity. And Abraham responds, they have Moses and the prophets. The rich man says, if they would see someone rise from the dead, they might believe, to which they did in Christ, in which Christ had already interrupted funerals and raised the dead.

He had already called out Lazarus from the grave, and yet they did not believe. And Abraham reminds them that if you will not believe what you already have, what makes you think you will believe if there’s something new and fascinating? So it is. It is very unique that God would give this great privilege to Ahaz and to reaffirm his power and his promises to Ahaz that we read about earlier, that in verse 7, that it shall not stand, and it’s not going to come to pass.

He requests, or he offers to Ahaz to ask for a sign. It doesn’t matter how high it is. It doesn’t matter how low it is.

He is giving this amazing opportunity to take advantage of a sign. But tragically, look at verse 12. Ahaz says, I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord.

Seems reasonable. I don’t want to test God, but here Ahaz is actually putting on a pretense of humility, trying to pretend that somehow he doesn’t want to test God and that he doesn’t need any kind of a sign. But the truth is that the king rejects the offer because he would have to believe the sign if the sign comes true.

For Ahaz in his heart did not want to believe what God had said. He did not want to believe in what had been promised to him because his heart was far from God. And we note this in verse 13.

Then he said, Hear now, O house of David. Remember, we’ve seen that phrase already, the house of David. And that’s like he’s talking about those who would be in the lineage of the kingship of David because God had already given a promise that he would have someone in the lineage of David to be the leader of Israel.

And so again, it’s a broad term, but still speaking specifically to Ahaz. He said, Hear now, O house of David. Verse 13.

It is a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also? Have you ever thought about how patient God is with us? Our God is a patient God who waits patiently for us to turn to him, to receive him as Lord and Savior. Sometimes people say, Pastor, why hasn’t God come back yet? Why doesn’t he just split the eastern skies and get us out of this mess right now? Well, I’d be okay with that, amen. But the Bible says that the Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

And you know, as my Christian life, as a young man, when I came to Christ, as I followed Christ, there was this heart desire to see the return of Christ many times. And I almost had this conflicted heart in that I wanted Christ to return, but at the same time, I wanted to see my mother come to Jesus Christ and to see my family come to Jesus Christ and to see my loved ones to know the Lord Jesus Christ. And I wonder, man, if the Lord had given me everything that I wanted in my heart, is it possible that my family might have missed? I’m here to report to you that my mother is in heaven today.

She trusted Jesus Christ. I’m here to report that her sisters have all trusted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. I’m here to report that my brother and sister have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior.

I’m here to tell you that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And the reason that God delays our prayers is because he is still reaching out. He is still calling people to true salvation, and he is patiently waiting for you today to come back home and to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and to love him with all your heart and to be a faithful follower of Jesus Christ.

And I know that you and I are anxious, and I know that we are so ready, and we want to see the Lord’s return. But I remind you, we also want to see our loved ones come to Christ, don’t we? So when we struggle with patience, when we struggle with waiting, anybody here like to wait? I’d like to meet you. Never met anybody, but I’d like to meet you.

Nobody likes to wait, do we? But we ask the Lord to help us be patient. One time a lady said to me, Pastor, should I pray for patience? Well, that’s a great question, isn’t it? Because you know if you ask for patience, you know what’s going to happen. You’re going to find yourself in a pickle, and you’re going to be struggling, and then all of a sudden you’re going to be like, wow, I should have never prayed for patience, right? But I don’t really think you have to pray much to find yourself in a situation where you’re going to have to be patient.

But we are patient, and we are called to be patient, and it is the fruit of the Spirit that we would be patient people, that we want to see people come to Jesus Christ. And I think about in God’s dealing with Ahaz, and dealing with Judah, and dealing with the nation, how patient he has been. And here Isaiah the prophet says, you weary men, you weary people, verse 13, but will you weary my God also? How long will you continue to refuse to believe? How long will you refuse to trust? How long will you continue to take matters in your own hands, and just handle the situation yourself, and forget about relying upon the Lord Jesus Christ? Will you weary my God also? That’s a great sermon.

I’m going to have to come up with one right there. Verse 14, the theme of this text, the theme of this chapter, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. I just want you to stop there.

Ahaz said, I don’t want a sign. I told you he didn’t want a sign, because he didn’t want to believe, and he didn’t want to have to trust, and he didn’t want to have to step out, because his heart was already driven towards doing it his way, and trusting himself. He wasn’t interested in spiritual matters.

And so again, despite all that, God patiently works with Ahaz, and says, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel. Wow.

So the sign is Emmanuel. Let’s talk a little bit about that, because there are some complex issues here that I think you and I should consider this morning, as we think about this situation, and I want to propose three questions to help us wrestle through this unique sign that has been given to us. The first question is, was there an immediate sign in Ahaz’s time, in that God gave Ahaz this sign? Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel.

I want you to understand something about prophecy, that prophecy often has a type, and then a fulfillment. It has a shadow, and then a reality. Many times the fulfillment of a prophecy can also not only be imminent, but it can be future.

And so when we look at this prophecy, this sign that has been given, I would say to you, to that very question, was there an immediate sign in Ahaz’s time? Yes. And the reason that I say that is, again, you’ll look at it, behold. It’s almost as if Isaiah is saying, look, and that’s what the word behold means, look.

Scholars believe that most likely that Isaiah was pointing out a young woman at the scene where the prophet was, where Ahaz was, and he is saying that God is going to give you a sign that this young woman is going to eventually give birth to a son, and she will call him Emmanuel. We’ll talk more about that in just a second. But I also want you to know that this has its ultimate fulfillment in the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

You say, how do you know that? Well, see, the wonderful thing that we have is that we have the completion of the word of God. We have not only the Old Testament, but the New Testament. And when you are studying the Old Testament, it’s important that you connect the dots and that you make the understanding of the Old and the New Testament.

And you see how the New Testament interprets the Old Testament. So don’t lose Isaiah. Go to Matthew chapter 1. Would you do that for me? Say, Pastor, we just wanted to sit back and scroll on our phone.

We didn’t want you to have to give us all this work to do. Well, friends, you came to the wrong church. We’re here to study the Bible, amen? Now, let’s go to verse 21.

Remember that the angel has spoken to Joseph. He is told, the angel has already told Joseph, do not be afraid. He didn’t know how Mary had become pregnant because he had not been with her intimately.

And how is it that she could have a child? Verse 20 says, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take you, Mary, your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit, a supernatural conception. Verse 21 says, she will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. We jump to verse 22.

So all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, the prophet Isaiah, saying, behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall call his name, what church? Which is translated, God with us. So I want you to know there was the immediate fulfillment. There is the eventual future fulfillment in the Messiah through Jesus Christ coming into this world.

Without a doubt, our church embraces and believes in the virgin birth of Christ, which leads me to my second question. Does this verse teach the virgin birth of the Messiah, meaning that Jesus was born of a virgin? We talked about the ultimate fulfillment of the sign pointing to the future restoration of God’s relationship with his people through the miraculous birth of God in human form. When we read Isaiah, we understand in the Hebrew language that the word virgin can be used in different ways as a young woman, or it could be referred to a virgin.

There are other words that are more specific to the fact that she would be a virgin, but I want you to understand that the reason that I embrace that this is teaching the virgin birth of the Messiah is because of its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 1 and verse 23, that Matthew, through the power of the Spirit, gives us the clarification and connection of the dots of the Old Testament to the New Testament, and I believe without a doubt that the ultimate fulfillment of this passage is found in Jesus Christ, and that it does teach the virgin birth, and yes, I know you will hear critics that will say that the Hebrew word could also be translated young woman. I think in its immediate context, yes, in its future context, it is the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. Matthew 1 teaches us that this prophecy is ultimately about Jesus, and so we understand and receive it that way, that 700 years earlier, the prophet Isaiah would make a prophecy about the virgin birth of Christ, and that we see this being perfectly fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who is called Emmanuel, God with us, that the power of the Holy Spirit brought forth Jesus into the womb of Mary, and she became pregnant with a son, having never been with a man, but the Holy Spirit overshadowed her, and the power of God came upon her, and she conceived a son.

His name is Jesus. His name is Emmanuel, and he was fully human, and he was fully divine. 100% man and 100% God.

Who can comprehend? Who can fully grasp? But my friends, though you and I cannot always fully explain everything in the Bible, doesn’t mean that it’s not true. I mean, look, some of you, you can’t even open up a chemistry book and explain everything in it, but you still believe it, and so it is I want you to know that just because Mike Sanders can’t explain everything and you can’t explain everything doesn’t mean that it’s not true. But let’s keep that in mind, that the secret things do belong to the Lord, and I’m called to live by faith, not explanations.

But I still want to know what I’m learning and what I’m reading is true, and it comes from God, and that, yes, there is this immediate part of this sign, but there is the futuristic part of this sign in which Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of it. Now, what is the significance of this word, Emmanuel? We told you that it means God with us, and the significance in Ahazdeh was that Judah’s safety would be rooted in the presence and the power of God, that he would be the one who would protect them, that he would be the one who would protect them from the enemies who wanted to overthrow the nation. If we’re going to stand firm, we’re going to have to trust in his promises.

Now, God has promises for us, and it’s our responsibility to be in the word, learning those promises, believing those promises, praying those promises, and standing upon those promises. And that’s a part that God wants us to grow in when it comes to standing firm in our faith. Sometimes we like to stand in our own plans or our own ideas or philosophies, but all that is a sham and will eventually fall apart.

But when you stand on the promises of God, then he will continue to sustain you and support you through all the circumstances of life. Now, we want to encourage you to check out our website, HopeWorthHaving.com. And I wrote a book entitled Dynamic Devotions. Maybe you’re looking for a new devotion book.

You can order your Dynamic Devotion book right off of our website, and we’ll get that right to you. And we encourage you to take advantage of this so that you can grow in your faith. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.