Who was promised Emmanuel?
The Lord Himself will give you a sign:
The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
Isaiah 7:14
Do you know who the “you” is in this verse? Immanuel wasn’t born until hundreds of years after Isaiah spoke these words. Most know that Messiah is promised to every man and woman. Jesus is a gift to all of mankind. However, who was the man that Isaiah gave this promise to?
Here is the entire verse in context:
If you will not believe, you surely shall not last…Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.
– Isaiah 7:9,14-16 (emphasis mine)
That’s puts a bit of a negative spin on our beloved verse. There is obviously someone involved who doesn’t have a relationship with God and is being harassed by other nations. In fact, this person was King Ahaz of Judah. He was one of the most evil kings that the Southern Kingdom of Israel had ever experienced until that time – burning his own son to death as a sacrifice to a pagan god. Ahaz was not the first person to receive this promise, but it was the first time the promise was given so clearly and unmistakably.
God promised a son to the nation of Israel when He told Abram about his descendant – The Seed. God used this figurative language because Abram was in a close relationship with Him. Abram chose the good for which God considered him to be righteous and greatly prospered him.
Moses also knew about the coming Messiah through the tabernacle and showed his belief by building it. The tabernacle was a copy and shadow of Jesus. This was also a figurative approach that God used because Moses was His friend. Due to his belief, Moses served as king, priest, and judge over God’s people. The perfect picture of what Jesus is and what all people were and are called to be.
Maybe it was due to Ahaz’s extreme unbelief that God spoke to him in very plain language. Perhaps God made it simple so that in the face of the most vile evil, His message would not, could not be misunderstood. All must know about His precious Son.
King Ahaz did what many do today. He chose not to believe and turned elsewhere for help. The same exact words that Ahaz should’ve replied to God with, Ahaz spoke to a mere man, the Assyrian king, “I am your servant and your son; come up and deliver me…” (2 Kings 16:7). In doing this, Ahaz feared his enemies more than God. Ahaz stole precious temple items to build an altar to the Assyrian gods in order to worship them. King Ahaz thought this was good because he could actually see results of this vile worship – the King of Assyria prevailed over his enemies. However, Ahaz was blind to see the evil that would befall him instead.
In the coming years, the kingdom of Judah suffered an unprecedented attack from their own kinsmen from the north and were taken captive. Ahaz was a representation of how unbelief can bring chaos and destruction, not only to a person but to their entire extended family. God didn’t bring this onto Ahaz out of the blue – Ahaz refused God’s help and brought destruction on himself through his own free will.
God gives every person a choice between a lifestyle full of life or one full of death.
Saying no God’s help and His fully intended life for you results in anything but peace. It is a constant reminder that you are not who you are meant to be. You can always see something better than what you already have. The immediate reality of hell on earth is subtle and leads you to fully believe that the “better” is always obtainable by pressing on with sleepless nights and hard work. It is a captive lifestyle that makes the heart hard. Even in this state of mind, God is constantly before you – causing you to stumble (Isa 8:14). Stumbling that is not meant to frustrate you, but to stop you, if only for a moment, in order to put the choice of life/good and death/evil before you again.
Choosing to let God into your life means living in the full satisfaction and identity of who God made you to be. It is only then that you enjoy rest, contentment, and peacefulness because God is your sanctuary (Isa 8:14). Your home is heaven where God looks on you as a priest, a king, and a judge (1 Peter 2:9, Rev 5:10 KJV, Luk 12:57, John 7:24, 1 Cor 5:12, 6:2-3).
There is no middle ground. It is a lifestyle that is constantly changing for the better. One that is defined by “God with us.”
