Fourth Sunday in Advent 12/03/07 Text:Isaiah 7:10-17 Title: The Sign
Fourth Sunday in Advent
12/23/2007
Text: Isaiah 7:10-17
Title: The Sign
More than 700 years before the arrival of the baby in Bethlehem, the southern kingdom of Israel, known as Judah, was ruled by a king called Ahaz. It was a time of great uncertainty for Judah, with nations all around them preparing for war and aligning themselves in different combinations to try to maximize their chances of success. Two of Judah’s nearest neighbors, Syria and the northern kingdom of Israel (called Aram and Ephraim in the passage) moved together against Judah. King Ahaz was terrified of this prospect, his heart was shaken “as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind”
Rather than draw strength from its one of a kind relationship that Israel had with God, rather than putting his trust in the Lord, Ahaz sought other allegiances, with the nation of Assyria, who later turn on him, to try to defend Judah. Here we had the occupant of the throne of King David, one of God’s most faithful servants, turning from God and trying to find his strength and protection in political allegiances with ungodly nations.
Into this situation, the prophet Isaiah came to Ahaz with both a promise and an offer. The promise was that the threat from Aram and Ephraim that Ahaz feared would come to nothing. The offer was to ask God for a sign to confirm His faithfulness to His people.
God offered Ahaz the chance for any sign he wanted, he just had to ask for it. Ahaz turned God down. Oh, he dressed it up in right sounding language about not putting God to the test, but in reality he just simply did not want to trust in God.
As we see in the text God’s response was twofold. Through Isaiah, God gave His own sign, and then also gave a warning that the disobedience of Ahaz would bring disaster on him and his kingdom.
Disaster did come on Ahaz and the people, but I want to spend some time looking at the sign. “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Remember this was spoken at a time of crisis for God’s people. The Lord had long before promised to be with them and to be their God, but the very existence of the nation and of a relationship between them and God was under serious threat in 8th century BC.
It is into this context that God makes a remarkable statement. He is giving them a sign that He is faithful to His people, the sign that He will continue to act as their savior, would come in the form of a virgin giving birth to a baby boy who would be given a name that means “God is with us”.
There are some people who try to belittle this sign by saying the Hebrew word for “virgin” means nothing more than “young woman” which it can be translated that way. The problem with saying that the word means only a young woman is that in doing so they show their ignorance of the whole meaning of the Hebrew word, “Almah”. It always carried the meaning of a young woman that is unmarried and is not immoral. In short a young woman who is a virgin. Therefore, Isaiah is saying nothing less than that God will provide a miraculous child as His sign to Israel.
And that is what he did almost 800 years later in the virgin birth of Jesus. But wait, there’s more, for if you turn to Isaiah 9:6-9, you will see where Isaiah under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit gives more prophetic information about this child. Here he adds that he will come to bring light to people walking in darkness. Isaiah says that “unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and his name shall be called:
“Wonderful Counselor
Mighty God
Everlasting Father
Prince of Peace”
It might seem redundant for Isaiah to have said that “a child is born, a son is given”, but what that doubling up means is that this child will be very special. A son that is given really means a Son of David, and therefore a King. Thus, this child is the Messiah, the savior, the Christ. This is further brought out by the fourfold name of the child, which is really only one name, with four parts to it.
One of these days I’ll preach a sermon about this name in more detail, but the key thing to note is that it says that the child who will be born will be God Himself, coming to take the throne of His kingdom and rule for ever. But for right now here in a nutshell is what those descriptive terms mean.
Wonderful Counselor means that he will be a divine ruler, perfectly wise, fair and just in every aspect of his leadership.
Mighty God means that he will be a powerful ruler, a hero for his people, achieving for them what they can’t achieve for themselves.
Everlasting Father means that he will love his people totally, absolutely and forever.
And last but not least, Prince of Peace means that he established peace between God the Father and his people. This took place on the cross nearly 2000 years ago when Jesus took our punishment, which by the way we still deserve, but will not get, as well as the future promise of peace among his people, when he comes back to restore the heavens and earth to perfection.
The birth of the child that we know as Jesus Christ ushered in the fulfillment of these and all of the great promises made by God in the Old Testament. There is a lot more said of the Messiah in the Old Testament than we have looked at this morning, indeed there is a lot more said later in the book of Isaiah, which contains many more passages of prophecy that all faithful Jews would have been aware of when God came to be one of us, so that we could be with him for all eternity.
Little wonder then that the angels also told the shepherds that their news about the arrival of this child was “good news of great joy”. The birth of this child was a sign of something amazing, something absolutely wonderful starting. The kingdom of God was going to be shown on earth. God Himself had entered into human history in a miraculous way to deal with sin and to bring about perfect relationships between Himself and His people.
Good news of great joy for all people, including us who live in the 21st century, for the coming of Jesus is great news of the Wonderful Counselor who brings wisdom and justice to all who turn to Him.
In this world where so many powerful people acting all too often in their own interests, exploiting others and taking advantage of them the coming of this child is great news of a Mighty God who seeks only the good of his people;
In this world where you see and hear of people trapped in despair and loneliness; feeling they have no hope, the coming of the child is great news of perfect love and loyalty, freely available to all who will turn to the Everlasting Father.
In this world that is all too used to violence and war and that is full of fear and anger the coming of the child is great news of perfect peace for He is the Prince of Peace.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Christmas is nearly upon us once again. In the midst of our frantic partying, shopping, visiting friends and family, eating and drinking, may God give us grace to take time to consider why it is that the birth of this child is still celebrated around the world. And even more, may God give us grace to turn our lives over to this Child, who is God’s unique sign, proving that He is Lord and Savior. Amen.
12/23/2007
Text: Isaiah 7:10-17
Title: The Sign
More than 700 years before the arrival of the baby in Bethlehem, the southern kingdom of Israel, known as Judah, was ruled by a king called Ahaz. It was a time of great uncertainty for Judah, with nations all around them preparing for war and aligning themselves in different combinations to try to maximize their chances of success. Two of Judah’s nearest neighbors, Syria and the northern kingdom of Israel (called Aram and Ephraim in the passage) moved together against Judah. King Ahaz was terrified of this prospect, his heart was shaken “as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind”
Rather than draw strength from its one of a kind relationship that Israel had with God, rather than putting his trust in the Lord, Ahaz sought other allegiances, with the nation of Assyria, who later turn on him, to try to defend Judah. Here we had the occupant of the throne of King David, one of God’s most faithful servants, turning from God and trying to find his strength and protection in political allegiances with ungodly nations.
Into this situation, the prophet Isaiah came to Ahaz with both a promise and an offer. The promise was that the threat from Aram and Ephraim that Ahaz feared would come to nothing. The offer was to ask God for a sign to confirm His faithfulness to His people.
God offered Ahaz the chance for any sign he wanted, he just had to ask for it. Ahaz turned God down. Oh, he dressed it up in right sounding language about not putting God to the test, but in reality he just simply did not want to trust in God.
As we see in the text God’s response was twofold. Through Isaiah, God gave His own sign, and then also gave a warning that the disobedience of Ahaz would bring disaster on him and his kingdom.
Disaster did come on Ahaz and the people, but I want to spend some time looking at the sign. “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Remember this was spoken at a time of crisis for God’s people. The Lord had long before promised to be with them and to be their God, but the very existence of the nation and of a relationship between them and God was under serious threat in 8th century BC.
It is into this context that God makes a remarkable statement. He is giving them a sign that He is faithful to His people, the sign that He will continue to act as their savior, would come in the form of a virgin giving birth to a baby boy who would be given a name that means “God is with us”.
There are some people who try to belittle this sign by saying the Hebrew word for “virgin” means nothing more than “young woman” which it can be translated that way. The problem with saying that the word means only a young woman is that in doing so they show their ignorance of the whole meaning of the Hebrew word, “Almah”. It always carried the meaning of a young woman that is unmarried and is not immoral. In short a young woman who is a virgin. Therefore, Isaiah is saying nothing less than that God will provide a miraculous child as His sign to Israel.
And that is what he did almost 800 years later in the virgin birth of Jesus. But wait, there’s more, for if you turn to Isaiah 9:6-9, you will see where Isaiah under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit gives more prophetic information about this child. Here he adds that he will come to bring light to people walking in darkness. Isaiah says that “unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and his name shall be called:
“Wonderful Counselor
Mighty God
Everlasting Father
Prince of Peace”
It might seem redundant for Isaiah to have said that “a child is born, a son is given”, but what that doubling up means is that this child will be very special. A son that is given really means a Son of David, and therefore a King. Thus, this child is the Messiah, the savior, the Christ. This is further brought out by the fourfold name of the child, which is really only one name, with four parts to it.
One of these days I’ll preach a sermon about this name in more detail, but the key thing to note is that it says that the child who will be born will be God Himself, coming to take the throne of His kingdom and rule for ever. But for right now here in a nutshell is what those descriptive terms mean.
Wonderful Counselor means that he will be a divine ruler, perfectly wise, fair and just in every aspect of his leadership.
Mighty God means that he will be a powerful ruler, a hero for his people, achieving for them what they can’t achieve for themselves.
Everlasting Father means that he will love his people totally, absolutely and forever.
And last but not least, Prince of Peace means that he established peace between God the Father and his people. This took place on the cross nearly 2000 years ago when Jesus took our punishment, which by the way we still deserve, but will not get, as well as the future promise of peace among his people, when he comes back to restore the heavens and earth to perfection.
The birth of the child that we know as Jesus Christ ushered in the fulfillment of these and all of the great promises made by God in the Old Testament. There is a lot more said of the Messiah in the Old Testament than we have looked at this morning, indeed there is a lot more said later in the book of Isaiah, which contains many more passages of prophecy that all faithful Jews would have been aware of when God came to be one of us, so that we could be with him for all eternity.
Little wonder then that the angels also told the shepherds that their news about the arrival of this child was “good news of great joy”. The birth of this child was a sign of something amazing, something absolutely wonderful starting. The kingdom of God was going to be shown on earth. God Himself had entered into human history in a miraculous way to deal with sin and to bring about perfect relationships between Himself and His people.
Good news of great joy for all people, including us who live in the 21st century, for the coming of Jesus is great news of the Wonderful Counselor who brings wisdom and justice to all who turn to Him.
In this world where so many powerful people acting all too often in their own interests, exploiting others and taking advantage of them the coming of this child is great news of a Mighty God who seeks only the good of his people;
In this world where you see and hear of people trapped in despair and loneliness; feeling they have no hope, the coming of the child is great news of perfect love and loyalty, freely available to all who will turn to the Everlasting Father.
In this world that is all too used to violence and war and that is full of fear and anger the coming of the child is great news of perfect peace for He is the Prince of Peace.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Christmas is nearly upon us once again. In the midst of our frantic partying, shopping, visiting friends and family, eating and drinking, may God give us grace to take time to consider why it is that the birth of this child is still celebrated around the world. And even more, may God give us grace to turn our lives over to this Child, who is God’s unique sign, proving that He is Lord and Savior. Amen.
posted by Pastor Rhoads | 3:28 PM
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