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Good Friday morning to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends. This is day #5 of our Christmas Advent journey.
We’re walking through the Old Testament, stopping for meditation at significant historical moments, which point forward to Christmas. Today and tomorrow let’s look at Isaiah 6-9.
Isaiah 6 begins in the year 740bc, “In the year that king Uzziah died…” King Uzziah came to the throne of Israel in the year 792bc, a turbulent and ugly time in the history of God’s people, Israel. Uzziah was a gifted and God honoring man, and he reigned as king in Jerusalem 52 years. Did you hear that, 52 years!? 2 Chronicles 26 gives us the story of all the social, economic and spiritual development which took place under his leadership. It was a great time to be alive in Jerusalem!
Sadly, king Uzziah became prideful toward the end of his life. God struck him with leprosy, and he lived in seclusion the last few years of his life, while his son Jotham governed in his place. As you see in Isaiah 6:1-8, it was while Isaiah the prophet was grieving the death of king Uzziah, and praying about what God had in store for the future of Jerusalem, and God’s people, that Isaiah received his calling to be a spokesman for God. He continued in that role of prophet, advising the kings of Israel, for almost 60 years!
King Jotham followed in his father Uzziah’s footsteps. He was a good king and Isaiah the prophet advised him often, with guidance from God. Jotham reigned 16 years, and 2 Chronicles. 27:6 says “Jotham grew powerful because he walked steadfastly before the LORD his God.”
As sometimes happens in families, sons do not always follow in the ways of their God honoring Dads. Sadly, king Jotham was followed by his son Ahaz, who became a very wicked man and turned totally against all the good his father and his grandfather had done, and against any advice the prophet Isaiah sought to give him. His heartbreaking story is found in 2 Chronicles 28.
These verses have always struck me as I try to imagine living in Jerusalem in the days of king Ahaz; “In his time of trouble, king Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the LORD. He offered sacrifices to the gods of Damascus, who had defeated him… they were his downfall and the downfall of Israel. Ahaz gathered together the furnishings from the Temple of God and took them away. He shut the doors of the LORD’s Temple and set up altars on every street corner in Jerusalem.… and provoked the LORD, the God of his fathers, to anger.” (2 Chronicles 28:22-25)
2 Kings 16 gives us even more despicable detail with this verse… “Ahaz even sacrificed his son in the fire, following the detestable ways of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.” Can you imagine that my friends!?! God could not stand by idle… He had to respond. God sent Isaiah the prophet to confront Ahaz and Isaiah chapter 7 & 8 are some of the things Isaiah told wicked king Ahaz,
Take note of Isaiah 7:9 “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.” Isaiah was calling Ahaz to see the importance of the faith his father and grandfather had in Jehovah God, and turn from his wicked ways and follow their path, …but he rejected Isaiah’s call, and failed miserably.
So Isaiah then said “The LORD will bring on you and your people…a time unlike any since Ephriam broke away from Judah – He will bring the king of Assyria.” (Isaiah. 7:17) And so it happened, that the vicious, huge army of Assyria swept across what we know today as the middle east, and conquered every nation including Syria, and finally the northern kingdom of Israel in 722bc.
Isaiah had said to Ahaz “Therefore, the LORD Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14) Do you recognize that statement? God was re-affirming His Sovereign control over all things and His timeless perspective, when accomplishing His purposes. Can you link it with Matthew 1:22&23?
700 years after Isaiah spoke that, Joseph was visited by an angel in his dream, as he contemplated divorcing Mary, his fiance, when he found out she was pregnant. The angel explained Mary’s pregnancy was a Holy miracle and Joseph was instructed to respect her pregnancy and take her to be his wife, because God was working His long before predicted miracle. “All this took place to fulfill what the LORD had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him ‘Immanuel” which means, “God with us’.” (Matthew 1:22,23) It was one of many statements which would help people recognize the God sent Messiah when He finally arrived!
Toward the end of Isaiah 8, the prophet describes how dark things would become in Jerusalem spiritually, over the next centuries. Look at vs. 11-22, do you see God’s warning to His people? “The LORD Almighty is the One you are to regard as holy, He is the One you are to fear…” (Isaiah 8:13) “When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light… Distressed and hungry they will roam through the land… they will become enraged and looking upward will curse their king and their God. They will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.”(Is. 8:19-22)
Oh my, what a dreadful picture!
My friends, if you trace Israel’s history forward, from the days of the prophet Isaiah, all the way to the coming of Jesus, 650 years later, while there were some wonderful years of exception to this horrible prediction…, as during the kingship of Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 29-32) and king Josiah (2 Chronicles 34), and even the time of Nehemiah & Ezra,… for the most part, the very dark description of Isaiah 8:19-22 was what life was like in the land of Israel. My friends, history shows us…when any society turns away from God, pushes God out, the resulting darkness leads that society into a downward spiral to self-destruction.
That’s why I close today with a hopeful word. As Isaiah continued his prophecy of doom, he brought this wonderful word of hope which pointed forward to Christmas...“Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past He (God) humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future He will honor Galilee of the Gentiles by way of the Sea, along the Jordan…” (Isaiah 9:1)
Let me stop for a few seconds and explain this. Remember, Joshua divided up the “promised land” for the Hebrew slaves who came out of Egypt with Moses, and then, with Joshua crossed the Jordan river and conquered the land. The area up in the extreme north of Israel, was given to three tribes. Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali. Asher was the far north west, along the Mediteranean Sea. Naphtali was around the Sea of Galilee & north to Dan. and Zebulun was south and west of Naphtali. So that means Nazareth where Jesus was raised was in the land of Zebulun. The area Jesus spent most of His ministry, around the Sea of Galilee, was in the land of Naphtali. Do you see the significance of this very hopeful prophecy? Jesus, their long awaited Messiah, would live most of His earthly life, in this place which had been so dark for so long. Jesus, the light of the world, would penetrate the darkness!
Now look at one final, hopeful, powerful, verse of prophecy as Isaiah continued… “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”(Isaiah 9:2) Let’s remember what Zechariah, John the Baptist’s miraculous father said, when he received back his ability to speak,. As he spoke a blessing over his newborn son John he said “And you my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for Him, to give His people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in the darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.” (Luke 1:76-79)
Oh my!! What a wonderful study we’ve had today as we looked at how the Holy Spirit led Isaiah the prophet to speak 700 years before John and Jesus were born, and then how those words were fulfilled in the Christmas story we love so much. I hope it draws your heart to worship our great and Sovereign God who can foresee and predict the future with such clarity!
Click to read today’s chapter: Isaiah 7; Isaiah 8. (At the top you can choose a different translation.)
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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