About this sermon
Threatened by Syria and Israel, King Ahaz shakes like trees in the wind. Isaiah tells him not to fear and invites him to ask any sign, as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven, but Ahaz refuses under a pretense of piety. The Lord gives a sign anyway: the virgin will conceive and bear a son and call him Immanuel. The promise reaches beyond Ahaz to the child born of Mary, the great light for the people walking in darkness, God with us, who saves his people from their sins.
Sermon transcript
This time, it is an honor to bring George Cipioni, unknown to many of us. Let us hear Jesus from the lips of our servant tonight. I’ll be reading from the ESV. And the scripture is Isaiah chapter 7. Isaiah chapter 7. verses 1 through 17. I suggest very strongly, before you go to bed tonight, that you read chapter 7, 8, and chapter 9 together up to verse 7 of chapter 9. It all goes together in terms of this prophecy. Here then, God recording for you his truth.
In the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, Rezan, the king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Ramaliah, the king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not yet mount an attack against it. When the house of David was told Syria is in league with Ephraim. The heart of Ahaz and the heart of the people shook as trees in the forest shake before the wind. And Jehovah said to Isaiah, go out to meet Ahaz. you and your son just at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the washer’s field. Say to him, be careful, be quiet, do not fear. and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands at the fierce anger of Rezan and Syria and the son of Ramaliah because Syria with Ephraim and the son of Ramaliah has devised evil against you saying let us go up against Judah and terrify it let us split it open and take it for ourselves and set up the son of Tabal as the king in the midst of it.
Thus says the Lord, your God, it shall not stand and it shall not come to pass for the head of Syria is Damascus and the head of Damascus is resin. Parenthetically, within 65 years, Ephraim will be broken to pieces so that it will no longer be a people. And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you all are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.
Again, Jehovah spoke to Ahaz. Ask a sign of Jehovah your God. Let it be as deep as Sheol or high as heaven. But Ahaz said, I will not ask and will not put the Lord to the test. And Isaiah said, hear then, O house of David, is it too little for you to weary men that you weary my God as well?
Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel. He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse evil and choose the good. For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted. Jehovah will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father’s house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah. the king of Assyria.
Let’s pray before we look at this passage in detail. Father in heaven, we come to you. And Lord, it is a privilege, as our brothers prayed, to be in your house twice. But Lord, we are weary. Lord, we have a long week past. You are refreshing us today. We have a week before us.
Would you please, by your spirit, Lord, make us attentive, help us to be able to focus, and above all, help me to preach, Lord, this accurately. And Holy Spirit, would you walk in our midst and apply this to our hearts so that, Lord, we might understand how you work in time and space history. For we pray this in your son’s name. Amen.
You may know people, I do, I won’t make true confessions at this point, but you know people who when they want to know God’s will, they ask for a sign. And it’s understandable because they know God is a living God, and I won’t try to go off on a rabbit’s trail, but I believe that’s why a lot of people are involved in the charismatic movement. And I think it’s a proper desire. They want to see the hand of God. I think they misunderstand things, but it’s clear that if God is God, and he is, that God is alive. He’s in control of the whole universe. And he can do things that are beyond our imagination.
So people want to ask for signs. That’s not the way to see God’s will today. Again, as I say, that’s a sermon for another time. But at least once, at least once in history, we have a case where God said, you ask for a sign. And God picks something that no one would have picked.
We’ve read Isaiah 7. Open, if you will, and keep there. And look at this. Now, I want to give you some background, because if you don’t understand, I mean, Ahaz, I mean, some of you know Ahaz. You’ve read the Bible. You’ve looked it up. Write this down as well.
You can skip this, but if you want to read this as well as, what are the three chapters? Isaiah 7, 8, and 9, up to verse 7. Okay, I want you to read that tonight, because it all goes together. I won’t take the time to do it, because I want to get you out of here in time for your week. But 2 Kings, look that up. 2 Kings chapter 16, verses 1 through 20. Not now, but write it down. That and 2 Chronicles 28, verses 1 through 27. So I’m going to give you the shortened version of it, summary.
Ahaz. Do you know anything about Ahaz? Was he a good king or a bad king? I should make you vote to see how you know your history, okay? Our elder had a little bit of history. This was way before 1560, okay? He was a bad king. You know, how bad was he? I mean, he is so bad. Let me give you a summary of how bad he was. I should build up to it.
He was so bad that when he died, they would not bury him with the kings of Judah. Now, they buried him in Jerusalem. They didn’t throw him in a garbage heap, but they did not put him in the tombs. That’s significant. They wouldn’t put him with the kings. That’s how bad he was.
Now here’s a few sample things. We have a baby. The baby’s gone. I don’t know how to preach now. The baby’s not here, but you know. He took his infant children and sacrificed them. I’m not talking about dedication. Killed them. Killed them and now he’s sacrificing. If you can believe that. Yeah, we have people that do that today for their own convenience. They kill their children in the womb after they come out of the womb. But this was deliberate. Here’s a baby sacrificed. He did that. That’s pretty bad. And God did not like that. And God punished Judah and Ahaz. How did he do that? Syria came and beat up on them militarily. Many times took many prisoners and carried away much plunder. He also had the Northern Kingdom. Remember, it’s split now. The Northern Kingdom, Israel comes down. And one day, one day, think of this.
They killed 120,000 troops of Judah. That’s a phenomenal amount of people in one day. And they captured 200,000 civilians. took them up to Samaria, and then there was a prophet up there and said, look, God’s angry enough as it is, you better send these people back. Don’t make them slaves. So they did. But God kept punishing them.
Now, that’s the north, right? Syria, Israel coming down, beating them from the north. On the east, they have what? Edom. Edom was making raids, picking at them, taking people and stuff. On the west, there was the Philistines. Do you get the picture? And in the south, they didn’t come up yet, but there was Egypt.
So Judah is getting squeezed like a bad lemon. God is squeezing them because of this man being an evil, evil king. And this guy is spiritually brain dead. Or we would say, really, he’s heart dead. He gets defeated by Syria, so what does he do? As he goes up for diplomatic relations up to the capital, Damascus of Syria, he sees what he thinks is a really neat altar. He goes, here’s his reasoning.
They beat us, so there must be something to their gods. I like that altar. So he makes a sketch, sends it back down to Jerusalem and says to the high priest, make an altar according to these specs. and put it where the altar of sacrifice is and move that over, and I’ll use that for inquiring of God in an occult way. Certainly not the regular principle of worship. And this guy is really, really, really bad. And so you can see why when he dies. At how old? How many of you are 35 or older? He didn’t get there. At 35, God took him out. They wouldn’t bury him with the kings. So you get a little bit of a picture?
Ahaz, evil king. So in our text, what’s happening is, once again, Syria’s coming down. Oh no, here it goes again. Syria and Israel, now they’re teaming up together to beat up on us. What are we going to do? And he gets, this is probably one of the, if not the worst thing he did, at least politically.
He says, I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to get the big boy on the block, Assyria. I’m going to hire Assyria. I’m going to send them some gold from the temple and everything else. I’m going to take this stuff, send it up to Syria and say, will you do me a favor?
Go beat up on Syria and Israel. And that’s why our verse 17 ends with this, God saying, you haven’t seen anything yet. When you pull the dike, And the tsunami of Assyria starts going. It’s not going to stop at Syria. It’s not going to stop at Israel. It’s going to come what? It’s going to come sweeping down over Judah.
So everything he did turned bitter. Now, in the midst of all of this, we have this, I think, this intriguing passage. Now, every bit of it’s true. And I know I don’t have to convince you all here that this is historically true and it happened as it’s recorded.
In the midst of all of this, God says, you go out, Isaiah, you take your son, whose name is a really long one in Hebrew and it means the prey is swift and the booty is coming. And he says, you go stand there and you say to Ahaz, this wicked king. Now, this is the whole point of the sermon.
You do not need to be afraid as God’s people. Why? You do not need to be afraid. You never need to doubt God’s word. You need to trust and obey. It’s that simple. No matter how bad the circumstances are, God tells you, stand your ground. Do not become afraid. Trust me and obey. And that’s what he says. Now, he goes out and says, look, you just don’t get it.
You, and God’s really sarcastic here if you don’t get it. And as I’ve said before from this pulpit, God has a sense of humor, but it’s usually sarcastic. And when God’s being sarcastic, you better duck, okay? Psalm 2, he who sits in the heaven, he goes, he laughs.
He says, really, you and what army? You and what army is going to defeat my purposes and try to take Messiah off the throne? It can’t be done. And here he’s saying, look, you don’t get it. Ahaz, in 65 years, Israel’s not even going to be a nation. And you remember, God kept his word, right? They went into Assyria, took them, and they were gone and never reconstituted.
And everybody wonders where they are. My best guess is they’re the Koreans. I tease my Koreans. I believe in Korean-Israelism. They’re the lost tribes. It used to be British-Israelism. I have no idea where the 10 tribes go, but they’re dispersed and never to be seen again.
That’s going to happen in 65 years. And he’s going, they’re smoking fire. What are you worrying about? I’m telling you, it won’t happen. Ehaz still doesn’t believe. And it could be possible that someone’s here tonight that doesn’t believe the gospel. And God says, OK, ask for a sign. And look at the text. What’s the response of Ahab? It’s kind of really intriguing, isn’t it? He goes pious on us. He does.
He goes, I will not put the Lord to the test, which is theologically correct, right? I mean, you’re not supposed to be asking God for signs and wonders. But when God tells you to ask, guess what? It’s very impolite for you to say, excuse me, I won’t ask.
And that’s Ahaz. This occult-seeking guy, God says, you make it tough. Make it as tough as you can. Make it as deep as hell or Sheol, and you make it as high as heaven. You just make it as tough as it can, and I’ll show you that I am going to keep my word.
I don’t know who’s coming out, but that’s OK. And he says, I won’t ask. And then Isaiah, as God spoke and says, that’s it. Look, it’s enough for you to weary, you know, to, to provoke. It’s enough to provoke people, but are you going to provoke God? God says, ask for a sign and you won’t ask. So guess what? He is going to give you a sign. And that’s why I’ve entitled this the impossible sign. And the point is you never need another sign except Jesus. Jesus is God’s guarantee, because look what he says.
The virgin shall conceive. Okay. Without getting into details, we know that virgins don’t conceive, right? They don’t give birth. Now, I won’t take time to read it, but go back into Luke, remember? The angel comes and says, Mary, you’re favored by God. And she goes, uh-oh, what does this mean? It’s not every day in my life that angels come and talk to me. And he says, you are going to have a child. And she goes, I don’t get it. Obviously, her parents had taught her about where children can come from, and she understood. I haven’t known a man. I haven’t had sexual relations. I’m engaged to Joseph, but we haven’t come together. How can this be?
And he says, the Holy Spirit will overshadow you, and this will be the Son of God born in you. That’s the promise. Now again, I’ll say as an aside, you can read this also later. There’s a lot of arguments in liberal scholars and Muslims as well that this is not predicting a virgin birth, that Alma in Hebrew simply means a young girl. Well, you can get E.J. Young’s commentary. It’s probably the best commentary on this. He argues it through and shows that Alma really is, does mean, a virgin.
And if it didn’t even, if it did mean just a mere young girl, the Holy Spirit didn’t go brain dead when he inspired Luke and Matthew to record that Mary and Joseph had no sexual relations. And you remember the Matthew passage, right? Matt, Matt, Matt. Joseph is a righteous man.
And he goes, well, it’s obvious that, it’s obvious that, it’s okay, I don’t preach well if they don’t cry, so let her cry. Look, I don’t want to put Mary up to public shame, but obviously she’s done something because she’s pregnant. And it wasn’t me. And so God had to convince him through a dream.
He says, Joseph, This is miraculous, this is from the Holy Spirit. And just in case anybody comes from a Roman Catholic background, you can understand Mary doesn’t stay a perpetual virgin because it says, you know, he didn’t have relations until after Jesus was born. There’s no way, shape, or form that that could be Joseph’s child. So the Holy Spirit.
So even if it was just Alma meant young girl, it’s pretty clear from the New Testament that those guys are saying this is a virgin birth, but young nails it here. So isn’t that amazing? God says, ask for something. OK, I’m going to tell you what. This is better than Sarah and Abraham. You remember that?
Can you imagine Sarah, 90 years old, pregnant? That’s very hard for us to imagine. I’m sure it was hard for her to imagine. She’s pregnant at 90. Now, they probably were a lot healthier and lived longer than now, but 90’s still up there. And that’s amazing. No one can do that. Medical science can’t do that today. Can’t take a barren woman who’s never had kids and at 90. It’s better than Elizabeth and Zacharias.
Remember that? That’s right before the passage of time. The only difference, I always wondered about this, the difference between Zachariah and Mary. Both of them go, how can this be? So they must have known Zachariah’s heart, because he gets, you know, he can’t speak until John’s born. And Mary’s okay, because she concludes, let it be done to your servant, as the Lord said.
So we know that this is the historical reality. Now isn’t that intriguing? God says the virgin will conceive, but that’s, friends, that’s not even scratching the surface. Because who comes in the womb of Mary? Emmanuel, God with us. Now, I don’t know about you, perhaps we’ve been Christians too long not to kind of go, how can that be? God with us. It offends Jews, we know that. It offends Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, communists, seculary. Who doesn’t it offend? I know people who were born and raised in the covenant who it offends today.
They just, how could God become a man? And in a sense, I wish we could stop. Take our shoes off our feet. This is incredible. This is bigger than the burning bush because it’s the God in the burning bush who what? Comes in the womb of Mary. That’s the sign, don’t you see? God said, you won’t ask for one? I’ll give it to you. God will be born of a virgin and he will take care of my people’s sins.
That’s amazing. And I think we forget it. We’re sort of getting so upset with all the tinsel and all the commercialism and everything else that we forget that there’s a bigger battle going on. People go to hell if it’s not for the incarnation of the Son of God.
No cross, right? No fulfilling the law. I haven’t come to abrogate the law. I’ve come to fulfill it. Everything in the law and prophets I fulfill so that you who couldn’t fulfill it, it’ll be fulfilled for you. And I will go to the cross and take your punishment that you deserve because you could not bear your own sins.
And as it were, if I can say it respectfully, Philippians 2, right? He who was the eternal Son of God, as it were, dives into the womb of Mary, not forced by the Father, voluntarily, out of what? Love. Read John 17. I’ll give you so many passages to read, you won’t be able to go to bed tonight. Read John 17, the high priestly pair of Jesus. Everyone you gave me, I’ve not lost one. And I present them to you. He came to die for his people. So that’s the application of this as well. How do you respond to this? How do you respond to this great sign? Are you kind of piddling along?
I often think we’re reformed, and we love the reformed faith, and we don’t like the way people have twisted the Bible and made it man-centered instead of God-centered. And that’s really the whole issue of Calvinism versus other things. But brothers and sisters, I really believe in my own heart, and I don’t want to be accusatory to you, but in all of our hearts, there’s the same tendency, isn’t it? We really like God when he blesses us.
But if he gives us a Jobian day, it’s a little harder, isn’t it? And, you know, are we really satisfied when we come up to a difficult situation and we don’t know which way to turn to simply say, guide me, O thou great Jehovah. and believe that God who loves you and gave his own son for you will never leave you nor forsake you. You see, or do you piously push away? See, that impulse to ask a sign isn’t wrong, but you gotta ask for the sign that God gives you, which is what? Paul says it this way. If he would slay his own son in your place, how could he possibly keep from giving you everything you need.
How will we raise the kids? Will they turn out well? Will they turn against the Lord? Will my husband stay faithful to me? Or you’ve been single for a long time. Will someone ever ask me? Or will I ever find someone? Or will this hard heart ever continue to melt before the grace of God? Or will I always just sort of struggle along in my Christian walk?
Emmanuel, God, with us. And you know what he said when he was here? I will never leave you, nor forsake you. And some of you, especially maybe you young people, say, well, I never saw Jesus. He says, it’s better that I go, because then the Holy Spirit will come. And the Holy Spirit, if I can say it, is not bound in tents of The incarnation, he’s everywhere, so he can minister the grace of Christ to each one of you. Here, in your home, our brothers and sisters in Eritrea, when they’re being persecuted, people in Vietnam, across the world, the Holy Spirit ministers Emmanuel, the presence of God, with you. He says, when I go, I’ll ask the Father to send another what?
Paracletos, comforter, counselor, however you want to translate that. And he will continue the work, the work of convicting the world of sin and of righteousness and judgment, and of one of the most wonderful things, assuring us who still continue to sin, even after we’ve been adopted, I still love you. If you confess your sins, faith will adjust to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. You see, we can’t be offended at this.
And this is really, you know, we say these little sayings, Jesus is the reason for the season, isn’t he? He is the season. I never could understand how people get gifts on somebody else’s birthday, but you can always explain that to me. He’s given the gift of the Holy Spirit. He’s given you The gift that I hear, I almost wept when I heard that you all stood up and applauded when Dan came in last week. He gives you pastors. He gives you evangelists. He gives you the Bible.
You guys are rich. You understand that? Now, I’m not talking about — Jim can tell you that, right? We’re incredibly rich here, as opposed to the villages. But that’s material. But we are more incredibly rich than the people in Uganda. You know why? I’ll just say it bluntly. You have the whole Bible in your language. You have Calvin’s Institutes. You have a commentary on any book of the Bible you can pick up. You can get multiple translations. You have people that teach you. Van Til, we have a rich tradition.
J. Gretchen Machen, our forefather, I almost say patron saint, but you know what I mean. Almost, if there’s anything close to that, it’s close on Machen.
But he writes the book, not only Christianity and liberalism, he writes the book, what, The Virgin Birth. to show that this virgin birth is actually historically accurate. And that’s the way to understand it. And anybody that rips the virgin birth out of Christianity, I’ll just blunt and say it, that’s not Christianity anymore. And though it offends your Jewish friends, and your Muslim friends, and your Hindu friends, and Buddhist friends, and everybody else under the sun, OK? And yes, all our commercial friends, too.
This is a story that C.J. Williams just told me. He’s the Old Testament professor, and he took his Hebrew, he did his PhD, he’s finished it up, he’s waiting for the degree to be granted. Finished up, and they used to tell him, jokingly, you know, down there at Baltimore Hebrew University, which is now part of Towson University, they used to say, yeah, our favorite song around Christmas, he says, is we all stand around the crash registers and say, what a friend we have in Jesus. It’s their joking way of saying, thank you, Jesus, for the season. But you see, commercial people don’t understand. Christ is the gift. He doesn’t enrich you with money. He enriches you with the fruit of the spirit and salvation. Now, let me tie this up. Do you bow before this king? Do you love this king? Now, real quickly, go back to Isaiah and look at just a few verses in chapter eight.
This is why I wanted you to read it. I won’t read the whole thing. After this happens, he says to Isaiah, Isaiah, I want you to be real careful. Don’t you get afraid of what these people are afraid of. But make me, Jehovah, your sanctuary. Listen to chapter 8. And I want to read this, not only because of the context here, but how it’s picked up in the New Testament. Listen to this. for Jehovah spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me and warned me not to walk in the way of the people saying do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy and do not fear what they fear nor be in dread but Jehovah of hosts Him you shall regard as holy. Let him be your fear. Let him be your dread.
And he will become a sanctuary on the one hand, and a stone of offense in Iraq when stumbling to both houses of Israel on the other hand, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken. They shall be snared and taken. Maybe you listen to too many conservative talk show hosts. And you become fearful of what’s going to happen politically. And it is serious. It is no doubt serious.
But listen to what the Apostle Peter, the Holy Spirit, picks this up and tells Peter to write this. And you hear echoes of this in 1 Peter, chapter 2. Remember, Peter is saying, how do you live under persecution and come out looking like Jesus? Which I think is sweet irony. Here’s the guy lopping off ears in the garden, and God uses him to write the book on persecution and how to handle it like Jesus Christ. That’s grace. Chapter 2, verse 80 says this. But you are a, okay, well, let me back up to verse six.
For it stands in scripture, quote, behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. Now, you know that that’s Jesus, and he quotes that of himself to the Pharisees. So he goes on and says, so the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, quote, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Again, Jesus quotes that to the Pharisees.
And finally, one, he says, and quote, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. That’s the Isaiah passage. See, God says, don’t let Jesus be an offense to you, but what? Run in and hide. And Isaiah, you make Jehovah God your sanctuary. Obviously indirect proof that Peter thought Jesus was God. Quoting of Jehovah to Jesus Christ. Sanctify the Lord in your heart. So he goes on in chapter three with the same theme in verses 13 through 15.
Listen to this. Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them. There’s the theme again. Nor be troubled. But in your hearts regard what? Christ the Lord as holy. Jesus Christ, Jehovah God.
As holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. It’s better for you to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil. You see how Peter takes that up?
Who do you run into and hide? Jesus Christ. He’s your sanctuary. There is a cleft in the rock. You run in to hide into him for justification, sanctification, for adoption. That’s your hiding place. But everyone else what? Stumbles over what is your sanctuary. Don’t you be afraid of what all the people are being afraid. Why? And we end up with this. Listen to the words of Isaiah 9.
Remember, it ends up in the end of this chapter, he says, look, to the law and the testimony. Why should people go to occult wizards and stuff? Go to the law and the testimony. And if they don’t go to the law and testimony, what is going to happen? Under pressure, even people who claim to be God’s people are going to look up and curse God. Sounds like the book of Revelation, doesn’t it? They’re going to become angry at God. Why are you doing this? How could you do this? and darkness and gloom, and then it goes into chapter nine, very well known, picked up again in Matthew chapter four.
But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish in the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. But in the latter time, he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walked in darkness have seen what? a great light. Jesus is the light of the world. Those who dwell on a land of deep darkness, on them has light shine. You have multiplied the nation. You have increased its joy. They rejoice before you as with joy of the harvest or glad when they divide the spoil.
For the yoke of his burden is broken and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken it as on the day of Midian. Looking back to that time when he defeated the Midianites through Barak and through Jael. For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.
Now why? Why in the midst of literal war can you have peace? For to us a child is born. And I hope for you, you hear that song in the Messiah. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. The government shall be upon his shoulder. His name shall be called what? Wonderful Counselor. The awe-provoking Counselor. The mighty God. Everlasting Father. Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. On the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. Daniel, the rock not cut out by human hands does what? A rolling stone gathers no moss, but it sure busts up the kingdoms when the rock is Jesus Christ.
Babylon goes. Medo-Persian go. Greece goes. Roman Empire goes. Holy Roman Empire that killed so many people in Europe, where’s that now? It’s all gone. And our nation will be gone as well if it doesn’t repent. The shame of what our Senate just did last night, saying the gays could serve in the military openly because there’s no shame to it. Woe to them who call evil good and good evil. There may be the day when this young man who’s coming here to minister may be in jail if he ever preaches through Romans to the wrong crowd. But the government of King Jesus, we’re told in Ephesians 1, he sits on the throne, he rules over the nation, not with a sword, but the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
You see? Yes, Jesus is the reason for the season. He’s the reason you’re alive tonight. Not only for Pastor Dan, carrying him through that, carrying Jim through the surgery, us through the week on the roads, we’re flying. Our times are pointed in his hands, and we don’t need to be afraid.
I’ll remember this. Howell Jones, many of you don’t know Howell, but he was an editor for Banner of Truth. He’s a Welshman, one of the most godly men I know, a wonderful preacher. He taught at Westminster, California when I was there. Privilege of serving with him. His son was in Pakistan as a missionary.
You might remember, I forget, 10 years ago or so, there was an incident where some Muslims came in and threw grenades and shot people up and killed people in a church service. He was preaching that day. And his wife and daughters were up front because he was preaching. And they weren’t in back where they normally sit, where they possibly would have been killed. And the shrapnel hit the pulpit. I’ll never forget what Howell said over the destiny. George, we’re invincible till God calls us home. We’re invincible till God calls us home.
Why? He who was rich became poor so that we who are poor might become rich. Jesus Christ has come. And we all have partaken of his grace. I trust tonight that that’s your joy. And through the rest of your life, whatever small or large, you won’t be running around looking for signs because you go, God has given me the most impossible sign that could possibly ever be asked for. A virgin gave birth to the eternal son of God. And what does that mean? God has given you this impossible sign.
Therefore, beloved, never worry or fear. Call a conspiracy what they do. Make Christ your sanctuary. Trust him and obey, and knowing you are invincible until God calls you home. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your mercy and grace I don’t, Lord, understand why you would give a human being the privilege of preaching this good news, but you have. And good news it is. Lord, whether it’s ancient Judah or the United States or just our personal lives, we have a choice of whether we are going to submit and live, whether we’re going to listen to you speaking to Isaiah, you challenging Ahaz, and we’re going to put our confidence in your sign. Lord, forgive me, forgive us who have been Christians for a while, who have sort of become a little jaded and so used to this idea of the incarnation that, Lord, its wonder and its awe just seems to miss us. But, Lord God, we thank you for it, and we put all our trust in Him for our justification, for our adoption, for our sanctification, and for our being caught up to you in the intermediate state, and eventually our resurrection body in the new heavens and new earth. Lord, we’re rich indeed.
Thank you, Jesus, that though you were rich, became poor, that through your poverty we might become rich. Help us to really believe that we are invincible till you call us home, and thereby, in the words of Peter, always to be ready to have a reason for the hope that is in us.
Help us not to be mute and dumb during this season. Lord, we know that this is probably not the time of year that Jesus was born. But Lord, since the culture thinks that, help us to use it, Lord, whether it’s on the plane or buses, in a truck stop, whatever place, to reflect the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And especially, Lord, as we’ll have the opportunity to speak with Relatives that don’t believe or relatives who have rebelled against the covenant, help us once again to simply say, the Virgin has conceived and given birth to Emmanuel, whose name is Yeshua, Joshua, Jehovah’s salvation, because he will save his people from their sins. Oh, how glad we are tonight. Lord, we are glad that Jim is not just bringing medicine to Karamoja, but the good news that Jesus Christ saves. For we ask it in his name. Amen.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.