Walk By Faith And Not By Sight | Isaiah 7:10-17

Transcript is automatically produced. Errors may be present.

Good morning. Morning.

I am not kidding now. I don’t know if we need a sermon after the choir sang today. Do you agree?

That was amazing. I’m so moved by these things and it triggered, one of my worst memories, actually, my most embarrassing moment in my life was happened just about seven years ago. We were in Vienna, where we were living. We went to handle’s Messiah. It’s such a moving. Piece of work for me that I started singing in the audience and people turned around and I was so embarrassed.

I, but I could not sing and I shouldn’t be singing for two reasons. One, you don’t do that and one I shouldn’t be singing. So they don’t care for joyful noises apparently. Thank you choir. Thank you. Thank you Aaron for all the work you put into to this season. It’s just been beautiful. I love the gospel.

I love south. I love shepherding God’s calling My life has been to shepherd those in my sphere of influence towards heart transformation. I’ve been able to do that both here in the States and for most of my life in Austria. Every morning I have the spiritual practice. It’s a physical thing of yielding the day, surrendering the day to the Lord.

I tell him I’m all in. With his plan for the day, it helps me be more flexible when I’ve committed to do that. At the beginning of the day, at the beginning of the week, I had no idea I’d be standing up here beginning of Saturday. I didn’t have any idea I’d be standing up here, but it’s all good. God prepared me.

Don’t be nervous for me. I’m nervous for all of us.

So all of those things can come together now. It’s the Lord has led to this moment and allow me to gently shepherd you this morning towards heart transformation, towards walking by faith and not by sight.

When I got to do this a few months ago for the same reason just like then now the Lord helped me through my journal entries. I’m a journaler. It’s not pretty. I sometimes I can’t even read it afterwards. It’s, I just write and I just. Dump stuff there. But about seven years ago I was spending quite a bit of time in Isaiah, so I went back to the journal and looked.

This area here I had done some work there already on the passage for today, and then in June I, on my journey through the Bible this year I was in Isaiah and I went and looked at those journal entries and both sets of entries helped me. They did the work for me in advance this year through the.

Through the Bible and in life have been, has been quite a ride for Celeste and me, my wife and myself. We’ve had a rough year on the health front. We’ve seen some very dark days and many times many times. The Lord met me just where I needed him to meet me through the Bible reading that day.

And in fact, on the day that I read Isaiah five to eight. Today’s section is chapter seven. On that day I wrote at the end of my journal entry after writing about a huge takeaway from my reading that I needed on that day. I wrote in my journal, thank you, Lord. What if I hadn’t been in the word today?

What if I hadn’t been in the word today, I wouldn’t have received that word from him.

So this passage, this section of scripture is very meaningful to me. Jessica, pastor Jessica preached a couple weeks ago and she gave a brief overview setting us up for her texts that day. And I don’t wanna assume that everyone was here or if everyone remembered everything she said. So I’d like to give a background insight into Ahaz and how we get to this situation.

In Isaiah seven, back at the beginning of the Bible, chapter 12, there’s this guy named Abraham. He’s a man of faith. Skipping ahead. He has a grandson named Jacob, who later gets his name changed to Israel. Jacob or Israel has 12 sons and one daughter, and those 12 sons are the heads of 12 tribes. So the children of Israel are divided up into 12 tribes each having as their head as their founder.

One of Jacob’s sons. Jacob and his 12 sons end up in Egypt initially as welcomed guests there due to a famine in Palestine where they were living. But then a new Pharaoh comes and they are, they become slaves. You know the story of the Exodus in that portion of scripture? All total, they were there about 400 years in Egypt.

Then the Lord rescued them from slavery. In Egypt brought them through the Red Sea, and after 40 years spent in the wilderness because of disobedience, God led them through the Red Sea that was initially there and then in the 40 years in the wilderness because of disobedience. And then through the Jordan River.

And the first town they conquered was Jericho. They entered Canaan. This was a land where the people sacrificed their children in fire to Gods and God said, we need to put an end to that. I’m gonna put my people, plant my people there. They eventually took control of the land and the 12 tribes divided up the land among themselves.

But after centuries of disobeying God. They ended up being divided into two countries with 12 tribes in the north called Israel. Most of the time, I’ll read later, EUM, that’s also Israel, these 10 northern tribes. And then there were two Southern tribes and that’s called Judah. Sometimes they were friends, sometimes they were enemies.

Just to confuse you, these two countries have different names and I’ll try to clear them up as we go along. When we come to the writings of the prophet Isaiah. We’re about 700 years into living in the land and about 700 years from Christ’s coming the first advent. But there’s trouble. Trouble in River City,

there’s a country called Syria. Or Aram at that time. Aramaic, that language comes from Aram was attacking Judah at that time along with Israel. So Aram and the 10 Northern tribes were attacking Judah or wanted to attack them. And the king at this time of Judah, the Southern Kingdom is Ahaz a really bad king.

Yeah, that’s the background to today. Let me give you a little bit of context, a little more detail. In out of second Chronicles 28, starting at the beginning of the chapter, Ahaz was 20 years old when he became King, and he reigned in Jerusalem 16 years. Unlike David, his father, he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

He followed the ways the kings of Israel and also made idols for worshiping the Baals, these gods that were there. He burned sacrifices in the valley of Ben Ham and sacrificed his children in the fire engaging in the detestable practices of the nations. The Lord had driven out before the Israelites. So Lord used the Israelites to drive out those people who were doing that.

And what did his people do once they got there? Exactly the practices for which they were driven outta the land. That’s God’s people doing that. He offered sacrifices and burn incense at the high places on the hilltops and under every spreading tree, wherever he could, he worship idols. This king of God’s people.

Therefore, the Lord, his God delivered him into the hands of the King of a Abraham. The Arab Romanians defeated him and took many of his people as prisoners and brought them to Damascus. We know Damascus as the city in Syria today. He also was given into the hands of the King of Israel, who inflicted heavy casualties on him.

In one day, Peka son of Ramia killed 120,000 soldiers in Judah. Because Judah had forsaken the Lord, the God of their ancestors. So that’s the background to this prophecy in Isaiah seven and Isaiah seven starts out when Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Siah, the king of Judah. Was king of Judah. King resin of Aram and Peco, son of Alia, king of Israel, marched up to fight against Jerusalem, but they could not overpower it.

Now the house of David was told Aram has a light itself with Aum, with Israel, 10 northern tribes. So the hearts of ha, Ahaz and his people were shaken as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind. So this is a dark time for Ahaz. The spiritual climate is at the bottom. It can’t get any worse.

Then the Lord said to Isaiah, this is Isaiah seven, verse three. Go out you, you and your son to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the upper pool on the road to the Laers field. Say to him, be careful, keep calm, and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood, the king of Aer, of AAM and the King of Israel.

Because of the fierce anger of resident Aram and the son of Alia, Aram Efrim and alia’s son have plotted your ruin saying, let us invade Judah, let us tear it apart and divided it among ourselves and make the son of TBI King over it. Yet this is what the sovereign Lord says. It will not take place. It will not happen.

For the head of Aam is Damascus and the head of Damascus is only raisin within 65 years. Atrium or Israel. Will two be shattered to be a people? And then what Jessica read last couple weeks ago, nine B is a really important verse for today. If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all a ahaz.

You have to trust God. You have to trust me. God says, ’cause if you don’t stand in your faith. You won’t stand at all. You have to walk by faith and not by sight.

So the actual text that Alex had for today is, starts at verse 10, is Isaiah seven again, the Lord spoke to Ahaz, isaiah has already spoken to Ahaz one time and now he’s speaking to him a second time. This is his second message that has three parts and the first is an attempt to move Ahaz to faith verses 10 to 12, and I’ll read them in a minute.

When that doesn’t succeed, then Isaiah is forced to denounce Ahaz and he ends up calling him a traitor to his people’s treasured hopes. This is verses 13 to 15. And then finally in verse 16 and 17, Isaiah forecasts a greater calamity than the king of Abraham and Israel being against him. Namely the king of Assyria.

This world power will come the king with whom he supposedly has an agreement. They’ve worked out a treaty. We, Judah will serve you Assyria if you protect us.

And God says that contract, that treaty isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. I’m sending asy to attack you.

Dark dark days. In other words. The connection to Advent as Alex formulated it is Advent is the absence of God. So I’m gonna fi have you fill in some of the blanks on those outlines, but not all of them, and if you’re filling them in, that was the first one. Advent is the absence of God. The world is in need of light much like Ahaz was in need of light, but he looked for it in the wrong place.

Namely in a contract with a godless heathen king, instead of looking up to the king of kings, he chose to walk by sight and not by faith. But as I said, Isaiah wants to move ahaz toward light, toward faith with an offer. So in verse 11, ask the Lord. Your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights, ahaz, God is willing to move heaven and earth for you.

Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it for you as a sign to confirm what I’ve said.

I’ve read through the Bible quite a few times and I’m getting older so I can forget, but I don’t remember God making that offer to anyone. You name a sign and I’ll do it for you. Gideon asked for signs.

God offered David. One of three punishments when he did something wrong. But I’ve ne I don’t recall any other place in scripture where God says, name something and I’ll do it so that you obey me.

The opportunity remains open for him to act like a believer. The Lord is ready to stop at nothing to help him. If he would only ask. Yeah, one scholar says the magnitude of the offer highlights the seriousness of the crisis and also the importance of the Lord attaches to the exercise of faith.

Instead, Ahaz wants to appear super pious and says, I will not ask. I will not put the Lord to attest. And that actually is a principle in the Pentateuch in the first part of the Bible. To test, the Lord would be like to go to a, the edge of a cliff and then start leaning forward and say, God, if you’re there, catch me.

That’s testing God. He, God never promised to catch you.

And he says I don’t want to test God, that just blah, blah. That’s not what he’s, that’s not his real intent. He wants to come across as super spiritual. When what he is really doing is by refusing an amazing offer as proving that he does not want to believe he’s willfully an unbelieving man.

This was the moment of decision for him. Nine B was really the first crisis of faith. You have to choose faith oversight. And here he confirms that he’s choosing sight and Isaiah responds in anguish and with a justified accusation here now you house of David. So the whole tribe, the whole Southern Kingdom, Judah House of David, Judah.

Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? So the failure is wider than Ahaz. It’s his whole country. All two tribes, Benjamin and Judah, they’re walking by sight instead of by faith. The whole southern kingdom has failed to live up to its calling as children of the living God.

Every king since David, for about 300 years, was supposed to rain like David. David had a heart for God. David followed God like no other king. He was to serve their people with integrity of heart and skillful hands like David. Every king was to do that, but almost the whole lot was rotten in the north.

All of the kings were, there were some good kings in the south. To claim that God is their God, and then not to trust him, but instead to put faith in an alliance with a heathen king and to sacrifice children to that king’s gods is the lowest you can go. And to prove what that, what Isaiah had just said to Ahaz and to all Judah was true.

We read this wonderful promise in verse 14. It just doesn’t seem to fit the context. This beautiful prophecy was really the seal of a temporary verdict of death for the nation. As such, God was done with his people for a while, but not completely. He is a covenant keeping God, so he was not done permanently with his people, but stuff was gonna happen.

As a consequence. We know he’s not done because he’s about to give a promise. But as far as a has, Ahaz is concerned. We could say last rites over him.

So God says you don’t want to ask for anything. I’ll give you something. Anyway, that was on the screen earlier. I love that. Yeah. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign you didn’t ask for one, but you’re gonna get one. The Virgin will conceive and give birth to his son and will call him Emmanuel.

Now, Matthew gives us a lot more depth to that than Ahaz would’ve understood Matthew one. In the context of after the genealogies an angel appears to Joseph and Mary that Joseph. But after he had considered this, Joseph has just heard your fiance’s gonna get pregnant by the Holy Spirit after he, he considered this an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said to the prophet. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. This is the ultimate meaning of Isaiah seven 14, but Ahaz would not understand it in that depth yet.

This is a prophecy over 700 years before Christ’s birth. But Old Testament scholars, new Testament scholars try to fi have tried to figure out what would ahaz have understood with this prophecy. A virgin will conceive really, how does all that work out if he was to under understand anything?

And this is my understanding right now. If he was to understand anything from Isaiah’s words, then he probably understood that a gal who was a virgin at the time of this prophecy would marry and have a child, and she would name that child Emmanuel, probably a gal from the royal court so that the king would know about it.

And when he hears that someone has had a baby, it’s a boy and his name is Emmanuel, that would be the confirmation. That what God promised that those two kings are not gonna attack you, then he would know that was from God and the fact that they didn’t attack that was God who did that.

But what it, what this is meant in the broader context speaks of a future day. As Matthew helps us understand it’s a future confirmation of a prophecy, he’ll be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right the land of the two kings.

You dread those two, Aram and Israel. Will be laid waste. And that came in 65 years. The Lord will bring on you and your people and on the house of your father. A time unlike any sense, Efrim or Israel broke away from Judah. He will bring the king of Assyria. That’s the real Trump card. This world power is coming to attack Jerusalem, to attack your city because of Ahaz and all sub, almost all subsequent kings of Judas.

Of Kings of Judah, their failure to believe God that Messiah would be born into poverty, heir to a meaningless throne in a conquered land. After Assyria came, then came Babylon, took Judah to Babylon, then came the Persians, then the Greeks, and then the Romans. Always occupied, and the blame for all of this Ahaz.

And the subsequent, most of the subsequent kings. Do You now see why Ahaz says, Isaiah says to, said to Ahaz, if you do not stand in for in faith, you will not stand at all. Everything crumbled. If you walk by sight, you will fail. So maybe you’re thinking. Peter, this is pretty gloomy, I understand that.

What’s the point here? I do not need to tell you how dark things can be in life, right? We, elders are entrusted with Prairie Quest from people who only want us to pray for them, and we also get the prayer requests from others that everybody gets. There are heavy things that happen in our body. In our community every week here, there’s so much pain and darkness right in our sphere, in our circles.

Some of us started praying last night for Cambodia and Thailand. Thailand wants to bomb Cambodia out of existence, and we, some of us are connected with the man who runs the orphanage there, and he’s pleading for help. One time a gal came up to me after church service in Vienna where I was pastoring.

She had just started coming and she said she feel, felt so unworthy of being here. Everyone else has their act together. Just I don’t, and I said, I’m the pastor here. I stand up in front of my people every week and I know a lot of what’s going on in their lives. They tell me about. You’re among your own people here, your own kind.

Everyone has something. Everyone has had a crisis, is having a crisis or is about to have one, right? That’s just life. It can get really dark at times.

No, you’re not alone. The world can be very dark at times, and this is where the Hebrew language is so interesting. They use a form that we really don’t use in our culture in the Bible because God says things that are gonna happen in the future. They’re really certain. And so prophets will talk about those things that are yet to come in the past tense as if they’ve already happened.

That’s how certain they are, and we don’t normally talk like that, although Celeste and I have had that conversation this year for reasons you don’t need to know. We told each other what we wanted for Christmas. So we both know the day the Amazon driver brought the other’s gift. She reminded me yesterday, you haven’t packed the gift yet, so I could legitimately say for Christmas this year I got, I don’t have it yet, but I’ve been thinking about it.

It’s this, if I have it right, it’s that kind of certainty. It’s in our house.

That’s what happens here at the beginning of chapter nine. Chapter eight ends with a lot of darkness. And then let me read parts of verses two to seven. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. This is this accomplished, but it’s in the future. Still language have seen a great light on those.

On those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned you have enlarged the nation and increased their joy. They,

1, 2, 3. Okay, so now I get to mess with the cord.

You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy. They rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest. As warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder skipping down to six for unto us a child is born to us as son is given at this point, that hasn’t happened yet, but it’s written in the past tense because it’s so certain.

The government will be on his shoulders and he will be called wonderful counselor. Mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace, of the greatness of his government and peace. There will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness.

From that time on and forever, the zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. All that hasn’t happened yet. It is so certain, so rock solid that it’s written in the past tense. The ultimate fulfillment is yet to come. But those walking in faith back then could see the light, could see the coming of the Messiah.

In the Christmas story, we have the brief reports about a man named Simeon and a woman named Anna. They could see the light. They prayed for it to come. They saw it clearly and were hoping that it would happen in their lifetime. That child hadn’t been born yet. His arrival wouldn’t take place for around 700 years, but those who walk in faith could see his light already there.

It was so certain Ahaz house of David. That child has been born, that son has been given. He will be called wonderful counselor. Mighty God, everlasting Father, prince of peace, he will reign over David’s throne forever. The zeal of the Lord will accomplish this for what He starts. He finishes what He promises.

He fulfills what he says he does. Do you see how Jesus changes everything? With Christ’s first advent, with his first coming, Emmanuel was living among us. The beginning of the fulfillment of dozens of prophecies began. Emmanuel came. His spirit lives in his followers. Now, Christmas is the present presence of God.

Looking at your outlines, as advent concludes, the darkness passes and the true light shines. What will be celebrated? Christmas Eve. Here Isaiah says, live as though the sun has risen. SUN In the darkness, Ahaz is called to trust God, but alas, he didn’t. He didn’t live in light of God’s sovereign plan. He didn’t rest in God’s good and purposeful plan for his life and that of his nation.

He chose to believe what he could see, which was a contract with a heathen. Pagan king and on the scales paper had more weight than the unseen God

paper had more weight than God.

This, he chose to live by sight and not by faith. As I said, Celeste and I’ve had a fairly dark year, actually around 20 months. God has sustained us through some tough times due to health issues during the time before we had any hope of relief from her pain. I took a couple of days away for a silent retreat.

I went there fairly open-handed, asking the Lord, what do you wanna tell me? I fasted and prayed, asking to hear his voice. I kept asking that I, and telling him I wanted to hear from him. In my journal on March 25th of this year, I wrote partial entry while praying. I came up with the following statement to God.

Lord, I affirm that what you start, you finish and what you promise you fulfill. You are forming us into your image through hardship and sustaining us while doing it. Lord, you are sovereign, all powerful and faithful. And so you’ll bring heart transformation about in our lives. And so I want us. Me to live in light of these truths that flame flickered every once in a while.

And, but he is transforming us through this and God did sustain us and he in fact did bring relief through a surgery. And so we praise him for that. There are however pains that don’t go away, we know them too, but God has the final word. All wrongs will be righted in the day when the wonderful counselor is reigning. When the mighty God is showing all who he is in that future day, then all lying mouths will be stopped. All evil banished. When the eternal father is walking among us, our souls will be at rest.

Finally, at rest,

when the Prince of Peace has the eternal scepter in his hand, there will be no more war or in or estrangement. Swords will be transformed into plows. The lion and the lamb will live together in harmony. We know this. We know this to be true because a child was born, we know this to be true because his son was given.

Do you believe that? That is the hope of the gospel. Jesus is the truth. And so all of this is not false hope. Jesus will write things. Isaiah wants us to live as though the son has risen over your darkness. Have you seen that great light yet? God is in control. He hasn’t forgotten you. The Psalms teach us that or show us, demonstrate to us that adversity feels like abandonment, doesn’t it?

God’s silence feels like abandonment, but the Psalmists show us, no, he’s here and they lean into him instead of away from him. We lose if we lean away from God in a crisis in those dark days. Can you trust him for your deepest burdens, your toughest trials, your unimaginable pain? Before Aaron sings a brand new song that came from his pen recently.

I want to quote from an old hymn that has meant a lot to me. Listen to this of oftentimes, this day seems long. Our trial’s hard to bear. We’re tempted to complain. To murmur and despair, but Christ will soon appear to catch his bride away all tears forever. Over in God’s eternal day, it will be worth it all.

When we see Jesus life’s trials will seem so small when we see Christ. One glimpse of his dear face, all sorrow will he race? So bravely run the race till we see Christ. Sometimes the day looks dark and not a ray of light. We’re tossed and driven on no human help in sight, but there is one in heaven who knows our deepest care.

Let Jesus solve your problem. Just go to him in prayer. It will be worth it all. When we see Jesus life’s trials will seem so small when we see Christ. One glimpse of his dear face, all sorrow will erase. So bravely run the race till we see Christ. Life’s day will soon be, or all storms forever pass. We’ll cross the great divide to glory safe.

At last, we’ll share the joys of heaven, the harp, a home, a crown. The tempter will be banished. We’ll lay our burden down. It will be worth it all. Brothers and sisters, when we see Jesus one. Life’s trials will seem so small when we see Christ. One glimpse of his dear face. All sorrow will erase. So bravely run the race till we see Christ.

We all yearn for God’s power to be demonstrated in the trials we’re going through, but his presence in the midst of them is his greatest gift to us. Will you walk?