Return to Nate & Paula Wilson's HomepageSermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, 20 August 2006
When was the last time you were afraid? Really afraid. Sweaty-palmed, white-as-a-sheet, brain-spinningly, fight-or-flight panicked? I had an experience like that this past Monday. I was asleep in bed; it was the middle of the night, and I was suddenly jolted awake by a blinding flash of lightening that slammed into the house with a boom accompanied by an extremely loud vibrating sound like the sound of a burglar alarm. With my heart in my throat, I couldn’t go back to sleep; I had to walk around the house to assess the situation. Sure enough there were some appliances fried, but the house was o.k. The vastness of the power swirling around me in that thunderstorm was frightening – given the right directional forces, it could have blown my entire house away or burned a hole right through my body. I felt very small and weak in the presence of something that powerful. And that’s what fear is about, isn’t it? It is realizing that there is something very powerful out there that looks like it is going to hurt us in some way, and we are not strong enough to protect ourselves. Things are out of control and we’re going to get hurt.
Ahaz, king of Judah, had an experience like this, as we saw Isaiah chapter 7, when he found out that Syria had allied its army with the northern kingdom of Israel and was planning to overthrow Jerusalem. Through Isaiah, God had offered to allay his fear by doing a miracle for him, but Ahaz refused to obey God and place his trust in God. Instead, he placed his hope in man. He paid off the king of Assyria in hopes of an alliance that would neutralize the military threat he was facing. But two more nations joined in attacking his country, the Edomites and the Philistines. In desperation he went so far as to copy the altars and idols used in Syria, replacing the altar in God’s temple with another, and eventually closing down the temple altogether and offering sacrifices to foreign idols – even sacrificing one of his own sons.
Since Ahaz didn’t respond the first time, God gave Isaiah a second and very similar message shortly afterward, which is recorded in chapter 8. Remember that the prophecy in chapter seven stated that in a short time, the northern kingdom of Israel and the country of Syria would no longer pose a threat. The time is getting shorter before the fulfillment of that prophecy, in fact, some people might get the news of Isaiah’s prophecy AFTER the fulfillment had happened. (They didn’t have newswires and internet and telephones back then, so news traveled more slowly.) So, just to insure that people would know that the prophecy happened before the fulfillment, God had Isaiah write it down and get notary publics to witness it. Now, if anyone had any question as to whether Isaiah delivered the prophecy before the fulfillment or not, they could go to the library, check out the slate where he wrote the prophecy down, and see the date that it was notarized. They had libraries with slates like this in Assyria during Isaiah’s time, so I’m assuming they had something like that in Jerusalem too. Isaiah was to write with a common man’s pen so that the common man could read it, and not just the university professors and academic elite.
And he was to write “lemaher shallal hash baz.” Whooo. What’s that mean? That’s Hebrew for “Belonging to: Swift booty; speedy prey.” Kinda like those sweatshirts that say “Property of Kansas State University,” only this was the name of Isaiah’s second child. He was named this strange name because God wanted to speak through his very existence that wealth should not be idolized; what is captured and hoarded by one conqueror this year will be conquered and prized by another conqueror in another year. The money that Rezin and the son of Remalaiah had plundered from Ahaz’s country would soon be sitting in the treasury of Tiglath-Pileazar, king of Assyria. By the time Maher-Shallal was born, it would only be a year before his name was fulfilled as a prophecy.
Now, although some of the words are the same as the sign of the virgin birth of Immanuel prophesied in the previous chapter, this is not the fulfillment of that sign, rather it is short-term fulfillment of a short-term prophecy intended to reassure God’s people that in the long term, God would certainly fulfill His long-term prophecy of a Messiah-Immanuel. But for the short-term, this is just Isaiah and his wife, the prophetess having their second child.
But these cataclysmic events swirling around Ahaz and Isaiah were fearsome, and God lets the drama play out a bit in verses 6-8. He is describing the very things Ahaz was afraid of. It starts in the northern Kingdom which rejected the line of David from which the Messiah would come when they chose to follow Jereboam. I believe that this is what it means by the “waters of Shiloah” – although this is the first mention of Shiloah chronologically in the Bible, there was a stream that flowed from under the Temple mountain which gave water to the royal household named Shiloah. To carry on the metaphor, God speaks of the army of Assyria overrunning Israel as though it is the Euphrates river overflowing and drowning Israel. The Euphrates River was the edge of the Assyrian empire for some time, but in the coming years they would send their armies well past that boundary to sweep into Syria and Northern Israel, and even into Judah – southern Israel! Like a lake spreads in the shape of a wing as the river valley floods, so it would get neck-deep in water, as it were, in Ahaz’s country.
But no, it’s not Ahaz’s country, it is Immanuel’s land. And Isaiah cries out Immanuel’s name, as if to say, “Oh God, you’re getting dangerously close to destroying the people You formed for your Name!” But, he continues in faith, believing that Assuria would ultimately fall because God is with us and He will be with us. Notice what Isaiah does here in verse 10 and how dramatically it changes the tone of his message from one of despair to one of defiant hope! What is it that can change fear to triumph like this? Is it another political alliance? Is it a new business plan? Is it a new computer game? A new friend, a new doll? No! It is hope in Immanuel/God with us. Jesus is our source of hope and consolation. Do your worst, Satan, make your plans to overthrow Jerusalem, Rezin and Pekah, do your worst, wicked world; you will be shattered in the end, and my God – my God and I - will have the last laugh together!
This is faith. Taking God at His word and acting on it. Not fearing what everybody else fears, because God has commanded us not to be afraid of those things. Ahaz was afraid of Israel and Syria; Isaiah is not afraid of them anymore, he is rejoicing in God! “Do not fear what they fear.” I count 100 times that this command “fear not/do not be afraid” occurs in the Bible.
1. v. 12 “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy”
a. Conspiracy is a plan to commit a crime. We believe that God decides what is right or wrong, but there are others who believe that they can decide what is right and wrong. This makes us look different from the rest of the world, because we call different things treason.
b. A little earlier in Judah’s history, we see this same Hebrew word for “conspiracy” yelled by the evil queen Athaliah at the Godly priest Jehoidah who had placed little Joash on the throne. “Treason” she cried. But it is a matter of perspective what treason is. If you believe God is the one who should be in control and you are doing what He wants, then you would have to say that the queen was the one committing treason to undermine God’s control of His people.
c. Ahaz was going to do the same thing. He was going to accuse Isaiah of a treasonous conspiracy to undermine his kingly authority to form an alliance with the king of Assyria. Ahaz didn’t want Isaiah criticizing him for trusting in the Assyrian army instead of trusting in God, so he would call Isaiah’s prophecy treason. However, it is a matter of perspective: God considered the alliance with Assyria to be an act of treason against the faith that Ahaz should have exercised in his God.
d. Throughout history, God’s people have been falsely accused of treason, for instance, in Nazi Germany, when Christians like Dietrich Bonhoffer and the Ten Boom family stood up for Biblical truth and were put in prison for it. Christians today are still being beaten and imprisoned in China, Southeast Asia, India, Central Asia, and Arabia because their obedience to God is a threat to the power of their government which believes it is treason to follow the Bible.
e. You will find that if you live according to the Bible, some people will be threatened by you because they want to make the rules for you to live by and they don’t want you upholding a standard that makes them uncomfortable. They may exclude you from their friendship because their conscience is pricked when you talk with them and they don’t like that. They may make fun of you for your old-fashioned faith, but it is because your faith is a threat to their man-centered religion.
f. The apostle Peter quotes from Isaiah 8 when he talks about this very issue of persecution in his first letter (1 Peter 3:12-16) “For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, And His ears unto their supplication: But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. (13) And who is he that will harm you, if you are zealous of that which is good? (14) But even if y’all should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed, for “Fear not their fear, neither be troubled; (15) but sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord,” being ready always to give answer to every man that asks of you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, yet with meekness and fear: (16) having a good conscience; that, in whatever you are spoken against, they may be put to shame who revile your good manner of life in Christ.
2. “Do not fear what they fear”
a. Difference in what you fear: God instead of man
b. Matthew 10:28, Jesus said, “…do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” When we are more afraid of disobeying God than we are of people being upset with us, our life will look very different from the rest of the world.
c. In Hebrews 11:23ff, God tells us that the life of Moses was one of fearing God instead of man. It says, “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king's edict. (24) By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, (25) choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. (26) He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. (27) By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.
d. I remember one time my daughter Grace went to the park with me. It was a short drive, and after a couple of hours of playing at the park, she decided she wanted to walk home. I had to take the car home from the park, so I drove along the street beside her as she walked up the sidewalk. Tell me, how would she have felt if a mean boy came down that sidewalk? What if he started saying threatening words to her? Would she be afraid? Not very, because she knows her Papa would jump out of the car and teach that boy a lesson if he did anything to threaten her. Our fear evaporates when we know that our God is with us and is big enough to handle any threat that comes our way.
3. Difference in How God treats you
a. He is a Sanctuary for those who fear Him
i. Isaiah 4:5-6 And Jehovah will create over the whole habitation of mount Zion, and over her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory shall be spread a covering. (6) And there shall be a pavilion for a shade in the day-time from the heat, and for a refuge and for a covert from storm and from rain.
ii. Psalm 31: In You, Jehovah, I take refuge; Let me never be put to shame: Deliver me in Your righteousness. (2) Bow down Your ear unto me; deliver me speedily: Be to me a strong rock, A house of defense to save me. (3) For You are my rock and my fortress; Therefore for Your name's sake lead me and guide me… (19) Oh how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear You, which You have made for those who take refuge in You before the sons of men! (20) In the cover of Your presence You will hide them from the plottings of man: Thou wilt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.
iii. Psalms 27:5-6 For in the day of trouble He will keep me secretly in his pavilion: In the cover of His tabernacle will He hide me; He will lift me up upon a rock. (6) And now shall my head be lifted up above my enemies round about me. And I will offer in His tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises unto Jehovah.
b. Stumbling block, snare, trap
i. Matthew 21:43-46 Jesus said, “Therefore I say unto you that the kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. (44) And he that falls on this stone shall be broken to pieces: but on whoever it shall fall, it will scatter him as dust.” (45) And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they perceived that He spoke of them. (46) And when they sought to lay hold on Him, they feared the multitudes... (The Pharisees feared men, so the kingdom of God was taken away from them.)
ii. Romans 9:29-33 And, as Isaiah hath said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, We had become as Sodom, and had been made like unto Gomorrah. (30) What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who followed not after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith: (31) but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. (32) Why? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by works. They stumbled at the stone of stumbling; (33) even as it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence: And he that believeth on him shall not be put to shame. (By focusing on human works instead of faith in God, the Jews by and large tripped and stumbled over Jesus, but the Gentiles who did believe in Jesus were saved.)
iii. 1 Peter 2:6-9 …it is contained in scripture, “Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: And he that believes on Him shall not be put to shame. (7) For you therefore that believe He is preciousness: but for such as disbelieve, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, The same was made the head of the corner;’ (8) and, ‘A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence;’ for they stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. (9) But y’all are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light:
I have often heard it said that one of the greatest fears people have today is of public speaking. I still find the thought of showing up in the pulpit on Sunday morning frightening. But Jesus taught us in Luke 12:11-12 “…when they bring you before the synagogues, and the rulers, and the authorities, be not anxious how or what you shall answer, or what you shall say: (12) for the Holy Spirit shall teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”
What are you afraid of?
Death, financial loss, evil spirits, injustice, evil men, poverty, sickness, war, future, slander, calamity?
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (36) Even as it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter. (37) Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. (38) For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, (39) nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:35-39
“Do not fear what they fear; don’t be terrified, Jehovah of hosts: Him hallow, He your fear, Him dread.” (Isa. 8:12b)
“Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32)