Scroll down to see and play Audio.
Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Today begins ‘Thanksgiving week’, but I have no doubt this Thanksgiving will be quite different from recent Thanksgivings, especially in parts of our world experiencing severe lockdown restrictions due to COVID-19. While we celebrate news from some pharmaceutical companies that they believe an effective COVID vaccine may be soon available, many more people will yet die, and the holiday season of 2020 will be profoundly impacted. May I ask… do you feel vulnerable? What is your level of anxiety regarding the uncertainty of life where you live this November 2020? Where are you turning for peace of mind and heart, comfort and confidence, to face the challenges of your life right now?
Do you remember this name of Jesus. . . “Immanuel”? Do you remember this name means “God with us”? This truth is one of the greatest sources of HOPE in times of despair for people who put their trust in God, do you agree? In our day it means the reality of the Holy Spirit of God alive in everyone who has trusted in Jesus Christ for their salvation! All around the world today, hundreds of millions of us have the opportunity to decide… will I live in the reality of “Immanuel” or is that just a Christmas song and I will succumb to the anxiety all around me?
Join me today as we continue looking at a time in Biblical history so similar to our day. We’re in Isaiah 7 and look at verse 14, it’s the first appearance of “Immanuel”. People then, especially in Jerusalem, were feeling very vulnerable, just as in our time in many parts of our world. It wasn’t a health care pandemic then, it was the rattling sabers of neighboring nations and the political talk of aggression which caused fear that war was lurking in the near future… and it was!
Remember, in our study we’ve seen that a new leader was on the throne in Jerusalem, king Ahaz. He was prideful, arrogant and he rejected the wonderful legacy he had inherited from his father and grandfather. Furthermore, Ahaz totally rejected any involvement of God in his life or his leadership. Now THAT is a very dangerous path for the leadership of any business or organization or nation or especially religious group or church!
God had raised up the prophet Isaiah as His messenger, remember we saw that in Isaiah 6? God sent Isaiah to confront king Ahaz with a challenge to turn to God for help, but Ahaz refused. Isaiah then gave Ahaz a stern warning… “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…before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. The LORD will bring on you and your people a time unlike any since Israel broke away from Judah – He will bring the king of Assyria.” (Is. 7:14-17)
Perhaps you recognize that 14th verse as one you’ve heard at Christmas time? Here we need to learn a powerful lesson about God and His TRUTH being TIMELESS! While the prophet Isaiah was speaking to a specific person, king Ahaz, at a specific moment in history, about 725bc, concerning the frightening situation the nations of Judah and Israel were facing right THEN, God being timeless and omniscient, was also speaking through Isaiah about a specific event He would bring about more than 700 years in the future… the coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to be born in a Bethlehem stable and called “Immanuel” (Matt. 1:23; Luke 2). And God was also speaking through Isaiah about an even further future time… our time right now, when God’s people can face the frightening COVID-19 pandemic, and the unsettling American election turmoil, with this “Immanuel” living within us, in the person of the Holy Spirit. Did you get that my friends? God’s prophetic statements often have multiple applications down through time…that’s an important Biblical principle when reading sections of the Bible like Isaiah!
Now as you read the rest of Isaiah 7 and chapter 8, you’ll see Isaiah giving a very specific explanation to king Ahaz, albeit in colorful prophetic language, of what was going to happen as the armies of Assyria would sweep over the region in the very near future because the kings and God’s people had been rejecting God. But exactly when, was a fair question! In the early verses of Isaiah 8 you’ll see Isaiah’s explanation that he and his wife (the prophetess) conceived and had a child, at God’s direction, for the purpose of establishing a recognizable short window of time in which this invasion of Assyria would take place ravaging the northern kingdom Israel and also threatening Jerusalem. 2 Kings 17 & 2 Chronicles 28:1-21 is the record of Assyria’s invasion in fulfillment of this prophecy of Isaiah for the people of both Israel and Judah.
Here’s how I understand what may be a bit confusing here… while there is no indication anyone referred to that son of Isaiah and his wife as “Immanuel”, Isaiah and the people of Jerusalem were able to hear news of the Assyrian army ravaging their Jewish cousins to the north in Israel, claiming the confidence that while their king Ahaz had turned his back on God, many of the people still trusted in God, were worshiping His faithfully and calling upon Him to protect them. Thus they claimed their confidence that God was with them (“Immanuel”) as He had promised, and His Presence and Power would protect them from the Assyrian invasion, even if their king rejected God! Do you especially see that in Is. 8:10? “Prepare for battle…Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted; prepare your plan, but it will not stand, for God is with us.” Could it be you live in such a situation my friends, wherever you live in the world today? Are you calling on “Immanuel” and counting on His truth that “God is with us” in these times?
Finally today, may I urge us to look at the last 1/2 of Isaiah 8? Here Isaiah is calling us to see the ignorance of turning aside to mediums or spiritists or the occult, or idols or theories or ANYTHING that would draw us away from trusting fully in the only true, Almighty God, when times get frightening for us and our families. And yet look around you my friends, what do you see? Where are people frantically turning in the fear of COVID, or the frustration of a confusing political system, or huge storms ravaging our world, or out of control violence or just plain despair? “Distressed and hungry they will roam through the land…they will become enraged and looking upward will curse their king and their God. Then they will look around and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.” (Is. 8:21,22)
Oh my such despair! But it’s an accurate picture of so many millions of people then and today, in so many parts of our world. And that’s why I can’t close today like this, I just have to give you HOPE my friends, so please continue reading as Isaiah continued in his chapter 9:1-7 and there you will find some wonderful, familiar words you have heard at Christmas time! Isaiah is describing something he could not have imagined, but it did happen about 750 years later as Jesus lived in Nazareth, and walked the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, the Galilee area, teaching God’s hope giving truth, doing the powerful miracles which changed lives and proved His identity as Immanuel “God with us”, and calling the people back to God! Tomorrow we’ll look more closely at this. For today, I have a simple closing question… do you know “Immanuel”? Is Jesus your Savior and your Lord and do you live each day with a strong sense of “God with us” as the Holy Spirit of God is alive and vibrant in your life?
Oh how I’d love to help you if you don’t yet know Jesus. Write to me if I can be of more help to you my friends, and here’s a powerful song to help us end our day in worship. You’ll recognize this song, and I found a version which reflects the reality of our times. . . be sure you turn up your volume and go full screen for: “Immanuel, our God is with us…and if God is with us, who can be against us?”
Click to read today’s chapter: Isaiah 7; Isaiah 8, Isaiah 9:1-7. (At the top you can choose a different translation.)
 |  |
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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)
Archived back issues of “Walking with Jesus” and other resources are available by clicking here to open our ‘home page’ (or go to HOME at upper right of this page).
Share with friends. Subscribe below for daily “Walking with Jesus”.