Amen. What a treat that was this morning. And for those of us who have been around here long enough to remember the time when there was no kids, what a real big blessing that is this morning to get to see what the Lord is doing in our church. And so we are now coming to our time of the message and we are coming to Isaiah chapter 7 as we have been moving through this great book of prophecy, this book of the prophet Isaiah. And we mentioned last Sunday, I think correctly, that we were covering one of the most important and famous texts in all the Bible last week in Isaiah 6. But I think we see the same thing again this week, that we are covering one of the most famous and important texts of all of Scripture in Isaiah chapter 7. And so we want to think here today about the promise of the miraculous and messianic King who comes in in this miraculous way that we'll be speaking about today. We often do it as a one-off sermon at Christmastime. We'll preach from Isaiah 7 and we miss in some sense the fullness of the way that the book of Isaiah is laying out the case for how important this is. I think we've had the privilege this year of kind of walking up to this and seeing exactly how God is working and what the message of Isaiah is and how this plays such a heavy part in that story. We've been seeing God speaking to His covenant people saying that they have not kept the covenant and therefore judgment is coming. And we've seen that heavily through the first five and even the first six chapters of this book. And then as we see that, there's still ribbons of grace. There's still, as we would come to the end of chapter five, for instance, I try to make this point the last two weeks, we might even see that there's hopelessness. He says, as you look at the land there, it seems to be darkness. And where you'd see maybe the idea of promise, there are clouds. It seems that nothing is good, nothing to look forward to, nothing to hold out for. And yet God says, no, my promise will stand. My word shall stand. My promise is good. We saw that in those ribbons of grace throughout the first five chapters of this letter where God would talk about a day past the coming judgment in which we would see the nations come to Jerusalem and come to worship Israel's God and that all the nations would come. And the promise of a remnant that would be preserved. And over and over again God ties His promise to what He will do. that there will be a remnant preserved. In fact, chapter 1, as we want to go back to again and again, sets the theme of this by saying unless God had preserved a remnant, we would have been like Sodom and Gomorrah. If it had not been for God's preserving work, we too would have been like all the other nations. In fact, despite what all God did on our behalf, we kind of look in some ways like the other nations. And so therefore we must give praise that we still exist and that there is still a remnant, a faithful remnant, and that all of this is in keeping with God's Word and His promise. The 6th chapter really brings all this together as Isaiah is called into the throne room, if you will, or into the midst of this heavenly tabernacle and he beholds the Lord upon his throne. And he's given a mission, a message and a mission, which is to declare the same message, right? The judgment that is coming. That He will go out preaching and none will listen, none will perceive though they can see. They'll experience the message going out, but they won't respond to it. They won't have ears to hear. And so again, Isaiah's response would be our response. How long, O Lord? And he says, until the end comes. And in some sense, as we looked at that last week, we realized that some of these events go past the days of Isaiah. But it's a prophetic way of speaking, of saying, it shall all come utterly to pass. One day destruction will come. Keep preaching that coming day. And remember, there is hope on the other side. Keep preaching this message. And Isaiah is not the only prophet to preach this message. And so we see in the totality of the message, this is what's being said. But there's still hope in Isaiah 6. Because the message is, yeah, the tree of Judah will be cut down. There's no question of that. This tree that God has planted and God has nurtured and He has done all this work in, it's going to be cut down. And there'll be just a stump remaining. But remember this, hope and life will remain in that stump. There will be a tender shoot that will come out of that stump, and that itself is a reminder that God will keep His promise. God's Word will stand. Though all men be liars, God is true. And that is the message we want to see again and again in Isaiah. So as we come to the seventh chapter, kind of piggybacking all those things we've been talking about before, we want to read this text. And in the bulletin, I think we have the whole chapter. We're going to be a little more conservative today and just go the first 17. Now, it came to pass in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, the king of Judah, that Rezan, king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Ramalia, the king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to make war against it, but could not prevail against it. And it was told to the house of David, saying, Syria's forces are deployed in Ephraim. And so his heart and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the woods are moved with the wind. Then the Lord said to Isaiah, Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and Shearijah Shub, your son, at the end of the aqueduct from the upper pool on the highway to the fuller's field. and say to him, Take heed and be quiet. Do not fear or be fainthearted, for these two stubs of smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezan, and Syria, and the son of Ramalia. Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Ramalia have plotted evil against you, saying, Let us go up against Judah and trouble it, and let us make a gap in its wall for ourselves, and set a king over them, the son of Tobel. Thus saith the Lord God, It shall not stand, nor shall it come to pass. For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezan. Within sixty-five years Ephraim shall be broken, so that it will not be a people. The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and that of Samaria is Remalia's son. If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established. Moreover, the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God. Ask it either in the depth or in the height above. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord. Then he said, Hear now, O house of David! Is it a small thing for you to weary men? But will you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Curds and honey he shall eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. Before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings. The Lord will bring the king of Assyria upon you and your people, and your Father's house. Days that have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah. Amen. As we look at this text today, we want to look at three points. First of all, a national moment of crisis. Second of all, a prophetic word of revelation. And lastly, a glorious sign of God's deliverance. Beginning first with this national moment of crisis, we are jumping ahead in Judah's history, if you will, two generations of kings. And you see that in the very first verse. We're talking about Ahaz, the son of Jotham. But Jotham himself is the son of Uzziah. And Uzziah is who we're looking at in the 6th chapter, right? In the days that King Uzziah died, I beheld the Lord. And so we're jumping ahead a time frame of some extent to this moment in which we have a new king. In fact, a king after the new king, King Ahaz. And this is a man who is not a faithful man. He is not a godly man and we'll see that in today's text. But you may remember in the days of King Uzziah there was peace and prosperity in the land and the reason for that was Assyria was occupied with other things. Assyria was kind of the bully of the block and they were occupied with things on their own borders and difficulties that they were facing an internal strife and they just weren't able to project power during the days of King Uzziah like they had been able to before and they will be after. And so Uzziah reigned in a time of peace and prosperity. It begins to change in the next generation and by the time we come to Ahaz, Assyria has rebounded and is strong and is kind of pushing the frontiers and expanding their borders and kings begin to take note. They begin to note that this is a dangerous time to be alive as Assyria is a bloodthirsty nation. You may remember that Assyria was noted for how bloodthirsty it was, what it did to its enemies when it conquered them. And so nobody wants to be conquered by Assyria. This is not a nation like later Rome that you could submit to and agree to join their army and you'd be fine. Assyria would almost always make examples of the people they vanquish. And so again, the idea here is that the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and we want to remember here that we're speaking of the King of Judah, the Southern Kingdom. This is after the kingdom is divided, the Northern Kingdom of Israel, a nation with many ungodly kings. In fact, you can't even find hardly a godly king in the North. But again, the point that we're wanting to look at here is Israel begins to shake. They begin to say, what are we going to do if Assyria attacks us? We're toast. And they say, well, Syria's in the same boat. If anybody is hated by Assyria more than us, it's Syria. So what if we talk with Syria and make an alliance and join together? It's harder to kill two of us than one of us. And that makes sense. But then they say, well, wait a minute. We'd be even stronger if we had Judah on our side. Judah would make three nations standing together. Maybe together all three of us can stand against one Assyria. and its new risen leader and powerful general, Tagilith Pileser. Maybe together we can unite against them. And besides, they also realize there's a danger, as they're trying to put all their defense on the direction of Assyria, that if Judah turns against them, they're vulnerable from that side. And so they say, we've got to do something about our flank here. We've got to get it shored up. And the best way to do that is to get Judah to join us. That strengthens us and means we'll have to face one direction and defend against one direction. So they go to Judah, they go to King Ahaz, and they say, make an alliance with us. And he's at least somewhat clever in this. He says, no way. He says, why would I preemptively join you guys when you're angering Assyria? the most powerful nation we're going to deal with. Why would I join with you when I have no beef with them? I have no difficulty with them right now. Why would I join your alliance and put myself with a big target on my back?" And it's just a sensible choice, really. But it's not sufficient for Syria and Israel. Their kings, as we read about in this text, Pekah and, of course, Rezan, they say, this will not stand. We've got to have Judah with us. And if it means that we go in and conquer Judah and take the Davidic king off the throne and place our own man on the throne, then that's what we'll do. In fact, you'll notice in verse 6, that's their plot. Let us go up against Judah and trouble it, and let us make a gap in its walls for ourselves and set a king over them, even the son of Tobel. This is a yes man. This is somebody that they can control, a puppet they can put on the throne, get Ahaz out of the way and get what they want. Tabel's son will join us. He'll stand with us. We'll have a united front against Assyria. That is the plan. And so, as we come to the beginning of this chapter, you'll see the people have heard about this alliance. In verse 2 it says, it was told to the house of David, and this means the Davidic king, it was told to Ahaz, Syria's forces are deployed in Ephraim. In other words, Syria has gone into the northern kingdom of Israel and has joined with them there and they're uniting to come against us. Now if Ahaz is a man of faith, as David was, he would say, let him try. Let him come. Our God will defend us. Our God will guard our city. God has made promises to the Davidic line. I don't have to worry they're going to be able to remove me from the throne because God has said it's through this throne that he will establish this everlasting kingdom. But the problem is Ahaz is not a man of faith. In fact, he's the opposite. He's a man of human reason. And if you want to see the problem that's identified about Ahaz, it's that though he knows Israel has a God, he doesn't trust Him. He trusts what he can see and what he can calculate. And he says, I know God has made promises, but wouldn't it be better to shore up our defenses through alliances? We're going to see this pattern over and again in Isaiah's book of prophecy. King saying, why would I trust God's promise when I can make a human alliance? And over and over again we see the folly of that. But don't miss the fact as you look at verse 2 that this is a fearful, chaotic moment of crisis for the people of Judah. It says, as the house of David hears this message, what is the case with Ahaz's heart? His heart, but not just Ahaz, the household of David. And in fact, the people of Jerusalem and Judah, it says this of them, so his heart and the heart of the people were moved as the trees of the woods are moved with the wind. We've had some storms this year. You've probably seen some trees moving back and forth, shaking and quaking. This is biblical imagery for not standing firm. This is biblical imagery for getting tossed to and fro by the storms of this world, of being overly concerned, of quaking in your boots at what is happening around you instead of standing steadfast in the promises of God. So we see in this moment there is great fear and trepidation, there is great concern. What is our hope? Have you not heard the message that is coming against us? These united forces are coming and we would have trouble standing against maybe either one of them with our army. But together, what chance do we have? They're going to quickly destroy us and then they're going to put their own puppet on the throne and we are going to be led by Israel and Syria. And then who knows if we'll be able to survive the destruction that Assyria will bring after that. You see, all the promises that we've been told to hope in, they seem like they're about to fade away. Our land, our king, our throne, a Davidic king upon the throne, all of it is in danger at this moment. Now we'd all agree in some sense that's theoretically true. But if you trust God, then you know He will save His people. Now what's interesting is, as we come to our text for today and continue in it, we see that Isaiah is sinned in this very moment. We come to our second point, a prophetic word of revelation. All these promises we're speaking about seem to be on the verge of expiring, on the verge of being reneged. Has God given us over as He basically said He won't keep His promises to us? What is going on in this moment? And we're reminded of what the Bible says over and again, God will not allow his promises to fall. His word must stand. And so as we come to this, in this moment of faithlessness amongst the covenant people and amongst this generation of faithlessness and a king who himself is faithless, God calls his faithful prophet Isaiah and says, go to the king. He even tells us where he goes. And it's an interesting place that you'll want to keep in mind because later on Isaiah will go to Hezekiah in the same location and at a crossroads it's exactly the same. Who will you trust, God or Egypt in that case? Who will you trust? And so it's interesting. But he tells him something very important that we need to recognize as we walk through this text. He tells him not to go alone. Not to go alone. Look at what he says. He says, go to him, and when you go out to meet with him, take your son. Shear Jeshub. An interesting name in the Hebrew that means, a remnant shall return. It's kind of interesting, isn't it, that this son of Isaiah is an object, word of prophetic promise. He is a physical reminder of what God has said. I'm sure Isaiah was told to name him that. And he's reminded, even in the presence of his son being there, that God has decreed and promised on the other side of this judgment that will come to pass, there will be a remnant who will remain. And God's promise will continue. I think this also tells us, if we didn't know it theologically, that God already knows how this whole thing is going to end up. He's going to Ahaz and giving him the opportunity to be faithful, knowing that Ahaz is not a faithful man. And in a sense, Ahaz is signing his own judgment here in this moment we've read about. So as we come to this, he basically tells him something very important. You're in this moment that seems so dangerous. These enemies that face you seem so powerful. Syria and Israel seem so mighty in this moment and yet, hear me, they are not mighty at all. Notice what he compares them to. He compares them to smoking firebrands. You know, you imagine as a fire's going out, it really begins to smolder and smoke. Now, we think, and rightly so, where there's smoke, there's fire. That's true. But where there's a lot of smoke, there's a very little fire, and it's going out. Right? That's the nature of it. It's not able to consume the fuel well anymore, and so it begins to smolder and go out. But great smoke is coming forth. And what God is telling them in this message is, you see great smoke and you fear a great fire, but there is no great fire. These two nations that you fear will soon be gone from the stage. Israel and Syria are here today, but they are gone tomorrow. And if you make an alliance with an evil nation like Assyria and with an evil man like Tiglath-Pilesar in order to avoid these two foes that are no threat to you anyway, you will have shown folly." I don't even think we can put that in words. We talked about super superlatives last week. Folly, folly, or folly, folly, folly. You will have shown such folly if you do this when you don't need such an alliance. God will preserve you. He will defend you. These enemies will perish on their own. In fact, Assyria will come in short time and deal with both of them. That's what you're called to do. Trust in the Lord God. In fact, as they have made all this promise of what they're going to do in verse 6, that they're going to go up against Judah and trouble it, make a gap in its wall, and set a king over Judah that they can control, what does the Lord God say in verse 7? It shall not stand, nor shall it come to pass. These things will not happen. They cannot happen, because they are diametrically opposed to what God has decreed now before you. So what will you do? Where will you stand in this moment? How will you act in this moment Ahaz? Because in this moment it's going to say a lot about you. I want to turn to II Kings chapter 16. I want to read the first nine verses. You can turn there or you can kind of mark it down and maybe return to it later and really consider this passage. It says, In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Ramalia, Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign. Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord his God, as his father David had done. But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. Indeed, he made his son pastor the fire. according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out from before the children of Israel." Park there just for a second. This man is so wickedly involved in idolatrous worship and what the neighbors are doing. He burnt his son as an offering to the gods of his neighbors, made him pass through the fire. That's what it's speaking about here. And not just that, He was doing all the abominations that God had cast the people before Israel got there, right? The Canaanites. He'd cast them out. He was doing all these things in the land. And He sacrificed and burned incense on high places, on the hills, and under every green tree, violating the covenant that God had made with His people. Then Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Ramalia, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to make war, and they besieged Ahaz, but they could not overcome him. At that time Rezin, the king of Syria, captured Eloth for Syria and drove the men of Judah from Eloth. And the Edomites went to Eloth and to dwell there to this day. So Ahaz sent messengers to Tigelath-Pileser, king of Assyria, saying, I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me from the hand of the king of Assyria and from the hand of the king of Israel who rise up against me. And Ahaz took the silver and the gold that he found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king's house and sent it as a present to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria heeded him, for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and took it, carried its people captive to Ker and killed Rezin. Now if you were to continue reading from here, there is a price outlined there in 2 Kings. of what this will mean for Judah and what this will mean for the king, Ahaz himself. He becomes an idolatrous king. He institutes all the worship of Assyria in his own land. He does abominations and wickedness before the Lord God. But as we're coming to chapter 7, this is yet in the future for Ahaz. He has not yet done this. He's on the precipice of this decision. God sends Isaiah to him knowing what he will choose. but sends Isaiah to make him understand the cost of doing this. And he comes to him and he says, Who will you trust? Will you trust the Lord your God, or will you trust an earthly king? Will you trust the God who's made covenant with you, or will you trust an earthly general? Will you trust the God who promised he would preserve the throne of David and put a descendant of David on its throne forevermore, or will you trust Assyria? What will you do? Well, this moment is such an important moment of decision for not only King Ahaz, but for Judah. What is our future to be? Are we to be a people who trust God or a people who trust walking by sight and trust in military power, trust in chariots and horses rather than in the Lord our God? Whom will we trust in? And God does something astounding. Oftentimes God gives a sign that accompanies his promises as a reminder of those promises, something that we can say, look what God did. He's confirmed his promise to us. He does that again here. But what's even more amazing in offering a sign to King Ahaz, he gives him a privilege that is never given to anyone else. He says, Ahaz, I know you have trouble trusting my word and my promise. So here's what I'm going to do for you. Ask any sign, any sign you want, anything, no restraints put on it. Listen to how he says this, either in the depth or in the height above. The ESV says basically as low as Sheol to the heavens. Ask anything, no matter how small, no matter how great, no matter what it is, ask it and I will do it to show you that I will keep my promise to you. Now you might ask for a second what you would ask for in that moment. God is giving you authorization to ask any sign that would confirm to you His Word. So what does Ahaz ask for? Look at this answer in verse 12. You talk about somebody being full of hot air, somebody being full of deception, somebody being full of false piety. This is a man that God knows in this moment says, I can't trust God. I've got to turn to Tigeleth-Pileser to deliver me and shore up my nation and my city and my throne. But now he's so pious, he says, oh no, God, I would never ask for a sign. What, God's word is enough without the sign? Is that what he's saying? Because clearly it's not and God knows that because in the very next verse God responds to this and says a sign will be given whether you ask for it or not. Think about this for a moment. We've been talking a lot in Isaiah of the danger in formal or outward worship. That's been a recurrent theme in Isaiah, that I can say something with my lips, my heart be far away, and God must honor it. And what does Isaiah say over and over? Nonsense. God cares only about those words that come from a heart that is faithful and true. I can go through the outward motions and God is pleased. Chapter 1 says wrong. Over and over again, we see this. And yet this is the very thing even the king of Judah is doing. He says, no, I'm so faithful to God, I won't even allow him to show me a sign. And in that moment, does the absolute least faithful thing possible. Says, no, God, I won't trouble you for a sign. That's what somebody without faith would do. No, instead, I'm going to scurry over to your enemy and seek help with him. Well, that brings us to our third point this morning. And by the way, it's interesting what the Chronicles say about Ahaz as well. In chapter 28, 23, you might write that down and look it up later, it says that his idolatry becomes the ruin of him and of the entire nation of Judah. The entire ruin of the nation of Judah. This is the kind of man we're talking about. But this brings us to our third and final point this morning, a glorious sign of deliverance. Why do we love this text? I think it's not just the sign that God gives, but I think it's also the way He gives it. Here is a man of faithlessness saying, no, I reject any idea of a sign. I don't want a sign. And look at what happens here. God in verse 13 turns His attention away from Ahaz. I think this is important to recognize. He's speaking, of course, to Ahaz, but notice now He no longer addresses Ahaz, but He addresses him as the head of a household. the people to whom the promise has been made. Hear now, O house of David, is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you also weary my God? Think about that for a moment. Isn't it enough to just talk and weary the ears of men? You ever been in a situation like that where somebody just keeps talking? Maybe some Sundays I'm up here doing that, but just keeps talking and talking and talking. You're like, please shut up. But you know what? He says here, You'll weary men, that's one thing, but will you weary the ears of God? Personification offered here. Will you weary God with your nonsense? I think this is like saying, do you have no shame that you run through the motions and speak and speak and speak as if God cares about your pious words when you know all along they come from an impious heart? They come from a heart of rebellion. Will you weary God with your nonsense? And then listen to this. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. I offered you a sign. You refused it. So the Lord says, I'm going to give a sign anyway. Not to you, Ahaz, in a sense. I mean, Ahaz also hears it. But it's a sign to that remnant that will be preserved throughout time. A message of hope on that side of the promise. but will be fulfilled in time, ultimately through the birth of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Now, there's a lot said about this verse, and understanding how some of the language could be saying that by the time the child is of a certain age, that these nations will already be destroyed. And some people wonder, is that Isaiah's son born in the next chapter, or is that Shear-Jeshub, as he is saying, as this very child here grows up, by the time he's able to discern right from wrong, already these nations will be revealed to be on the way out. That'd be like a double fulfillment prophecy. Doesn't mean it's not true of Jesus as well. He's the ultimate fulfillment. He is the anti-type to that type. It'd be very much like we heard in our play this morning. It said this was to fulfill what was said by the prophet out of Egypt, I have called my son. And yet it's clear in the Old Testament context, he's speaking of Israel. He called Israel out of Egypt. Israel is his son. But that's not the end of that, is it? Because Israel points to Christ. He is the fulfillment of all the promises there. He is, as it were, the one true Israelite. He is the Son of God. He is in the position that Israel was in. And so we recognize here, just as it can be said of Egypt, out of Egypt, excuse me, Israel, out of Egypt I've called my son. So Jesus fulfills that, in fact. You may remember we went through Matthew's Gospel. We talked about how Matthew retells the story of Israel a time and again through Jesus' early years, but Jesus is faithful where Israel was unfaithful. He is called out of Egypt. Not only that, the nation shall come to him. Not only that, represented by the way in our kings, who came even in the play this morning. Not only that, he goes into the wilderness. But where Israel was unfaithful in the wilderness, Christ is utterly faithful to God. Israel's brought to a mountain to hear the revelation of God. Jesus brings them to the Sermon on the Mount and reveals all these glorious truths. So this is not unusual in the Word of God, if that's what it is. But we don't have time to unpack all that today. We know that this is also, whatever else it is, a promise of the Messianic King, of Christ. And by the way, that is no small thing to say because that's very much under attack today. I've said this, if you want to turn on the History Channel or all these various channels that have their Christmas specials on, they'll bring out their panel of experts who will tell you Isaiah 714 is not a messianic promise because it says a young woman shall conceive and bring forth a son and shall call his name Emmanuel. It does not say virgin. And this has been dealt with for centuries. For centuries. Calvin, back in the days of the Reformation, said this is utter nonsense. Utter nonsense. Everyone knows that ulma, the word that is used here, is never used in scripture except for a woman who is a virgin. Sometimes the male form is used also of men who are of marrying age yet not yet married. Now is the other word that is often identified a technical term for virgin? Yes. And he doesn't use that one and I think there are important reasons. If this is a dual prophetic word to the days of Ahaz and to the days of the Messiah, then virgin doesn't apply to both of those things. But Alma does. Alma does in both cases. And I believe that is why the prophet uses that word inspired by the Holy Spirit. But regardless, we know for a fact, and again we've had an entire sermon before on this very subject, understanding this word and why it was used. But I want to say in just shorthand here this morning, we don't have to wonder if the narrative is true that no one ever thought this was a promise of virgin birth and then the Christians hijacked it. Well, first of all, as I mentioned earlier, the word is used for virgins throughout the scriptures. Second of all, another defense that we have is that when it's used in the New Testament, this exact text is used, polemically they saw no problem with that. They didn't fear people are going to see right through this nonsense. Well, why is that? Well, the third point that I want us to remember, and when you see these talking heads on television telling you these things that this can't mean virgin, remember this. Long before Christians were on the scene, long before the incarnation of Christ, Israel was scattered throughout the nations. And many of them no longer spoke Hebrew. And they said, we need a Bible for people throughout the Greek world. And so they brought 70 scholars together to translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek, which is called the Septuagint. This is a couple of hundred years before Christ is even born. And guess what those 70 Hebrew scholars translated Alma into in Greek? Parthenos. Parthenos, which is the Greek word for virgin. So long before, long before there was ever a Christ on the scene, long before there was ever a Christian church that's supposed to be manipulating these texts, Jews translated this as a virgin birth because they recognized there was a messianic aspect to this promise in Isaiah 7, 14. That it wasn't just about some child that might have been born in the days of Ahaz. But it was saying God will verify his promise to David in this. That one day a virgin will conceive and bring forth a child and he shall be called Immanuel, which means God with us. If you're not convinced, and I do think you should be, hold on for chapter 8 and chapter 9. Because when we speak about this child that is being promised, he's going to be called everlasting God. How is that going to be about some temporal child in the days of Ahaz? This is clearly the very things that led those people throughout time, even before Christ came to say, this is a messianic promise of a son who will be born to David of a virgin. How? I don't know. But it will happen because God has promised it. God has decreed it and it will come to pass. Now those Christians, or I should say that faithful remnant before Christ came, looking forward to Christ, so I think we can call them Christians in a sense, they had a faith that Ahaz doesn't have. They hear the word of God and say it's impossible, yet it must come to pass. Because what is impossible with man is possible with God. Ahaz looks at things that are difficult, not even impossible, and says, nope, too difficult. God can't do it. I better turn to a human king, a human Lord for help and deliverance. So my friends, I want us to see that this text does assume a great miracle and it unpacks it over the next couple of chapters as we will see and really, honestly, throughout the rest of this book. as we get into the latter chapters as well and see this suffering servant, this true Israel who will come as the servant, kind of the entire nation, if you will, personified in one man, one servant, one faithful Israelite. But what we must recognize is the importance of this here. We just have heard all the doom and gloom of the first five chapters and really carried over into the sixth chapter. Yes, the tree's going to be cut down, but the promise will remain. And what's our question going to be? How? How, God, will you keep this promise? How will you do it? Especially now if what you're telling us is you're going to destroy the nation, you're going to destroy the city, we're going to be carried off ultimately into captivity. How will you do it? And he's told us in chapter 6 and 7 how he's going to do it. He's given us the road map, hasn't he? I will preserve a remnant through all of that and I will bring them back. And of that remnant, one day a virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son and shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us. So you wonder, how is God going to keep the promises to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob? How's he going to keep the promises to David? And what he's saying is, this is how I'm going to keep it. You may not fully understand it now, just like we're on the side of a second advent of Jesus Christ, and we argue and debate how he's going to do that, don't we? With our different positions. But we don't doubt he's going to do it. He's going to come back. And so what's told here is, there is going to be the coming of a great king, born of a virgin. It will happen in God's timing. Do you trust God? Or will you be like Ahaz? Where will you stand on this? God has brought all these promises to bear and all of them are going to ultimately point to this and ultimately will bring through this. In fact, all the promises we've seen so far have been what? A day where the nations will stream to Israel's God? The nations shall fully be brought into the tent. As Isaiah will say later, extend the tent posts and the pegs, make room, more are coming in than left. What's being talked about here? God is bringing the nations. That's the gospel. A day in which the nations will stream and be made righteous before a holy and righteous God. And it will be done through this one we're talking about. this virgin-born Messiah, this King of Israel, this King of Judah, this heir to David's throne.