That last song, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, also ties in with our message this morning, the scriptures that we're going to be reading from the book of Isaiah during these weeks leading up to Christmas. I wanted us to take a look at some of the messianic lights pointing to Christmas. I'm going to light my light here. messianic light from Isaiah, we're going to be looking actually, at Isaiah chapter seven, seven, eight, and nine, this morning at some of the prophecies that Isaiah gave there, that was giving hope for the hopeless. And we so often we read these little bits and pieces out of these prophecies. And we know that they connect to Christ and they speak of who he is and what the people were to expect of him. But one of the things that I think we sometimes don't think about is when those prophecies were given. I mean, Isaiah lived 750 years before Christ. And so he was delivering this message to a people who needed hope for the present time. And how did a prophecy that was 750 years in the future going to give them hope for today? And sometimes, even as we talk about, you know, in the modern era, we talk about the hope of Christmas and people are like, it's just depressing for me. Doesn't give me hope. It just it's hard. Because it's a reminder of what I've lost or what I'm facing or what I don't have or whatever. But Christmas is supposed to be a time of hope. It's a time that we focus on God's best gift, sending his own son, his Messiah, to save us from our sins. And so we're going to look at these prophecies from Isaiah, some of our favorite verses out of the book of Isaiah. But I want us to look at the context of them. to find out how did these things that we cherish and we look back and we sing songs based on them and say, wow, yeah, this is wonderful. This is hope. But how did they give hope for the hopeless in Isaiah's day? What was this about? Because these were certainly people who needed hope. They were facing a time of intense darkness. as we think about the historical context of Isaiah, he was writing at the tail end of the northern kingdom of Israel, shortly before they were taken into captivity by the Assyrians. And like 150 years after that, then the southern kingdom of Judah fell to the Babylonians. And so the people were living at a time when they could, they knew this sense of foreboding of these rising powers off, you know, out of their borders, and they were receiving messages of judgment from God's prophets. They knew that God was not happy with them. And things were not going so well for them. They needed hope. They were facing the darkness and they needed light. And so we start off in Isaiah chapter 7. And this takes place in the days as verse one tells us in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah. Reason, the king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Ramaliah, the king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it. I want to stop right there. So there's the setting. in the days of Ahaz. So who is Ahaz? Well, he was of David's royal line. So he was a great, great, great, great, great grandson of King David. But he was one of the kings of Judah who was known for his apostasy. He had gone away from the God of his fathers, gone after other gods. 2 Kings 16 tells us he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God, as his father David had done, but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even burned his son as an offering according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. He practiced child sacrifice. This is a son of David. But because of his sin, and because of him leading his people into sin, God brought enemies against them. And in this case, the northern tribes of Israel, along with the army of Syria. That's what we read here in verse 1. reason the king of Syria and Pekah, the son of Ramaliah, the king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it. That's what they were facing. Their own flesh and blood was coming to war against them, along with the Syrians. They were fearful that they were going to be overrun. If you think back through What this means, the northern kingdom of Israel versus the southern kingdom of Israel. When the kingdoms split after the time of Solomon, how many tribes of Israel were the confederacy, if you will, who left and formed their own nation? How many tribes in that northern kingdom? 10. How many in the southern kingdom of Judah? Two. Numerically speaking, who is likely to be stronger? The 10, right? The northern kingdom. And then you add to that the army of Syria. They were outnumbered. They were about to be overrun. They were completely fearful. And in fact, to maybe put it in perspective of how King Ahaz and the people of Judah may have felt. Think about what just happened this fall in Israel with Hamas invading southern Israel. And you've got Hezbollah in the north threatening to invade. You've got Syria, once again, supporting and threatening to invade. You've got Iran supporting and threatening to invade. That's the sort of thing these guys were facing. Like, everywhere we look, we've got, you know, today we add in the Houthis of Yemen and, you know, how many others are at their borders ready to come in and attack? And so Ahaz and the people of Judah were utterly fearful they were going to be overrun because they were outnumbered. That is where they found themselves. But God, right? I mean, here, here is this people who calls themselves after God, but they have turned away from God. They've fallen into apostasy, they're worshiping these false gods worshiping idols, and yet God is faithful. That's one of the great things that we see throughout all of this is with all of the sin and rebellion of the people of Israel and Judah, God still loved them. God was still faithful to his promises. And so God sends a message to King Ahaz. He sent the prophet Isaiah to meet King Ahaz. And this is the message that it gave him, starting in verse 4. He said, be careful. Be quiet. Do not fear and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands. That was how God perceived these enemies. Smoldering stumps of firebrands. They are nothing. I'm going to just go squash them out. You don't have to worry about them. So here God gives this message to the king, the invasion will not succeed, your enemies will soon be crushed because I am here and I am working. But here's the key thing that we find as we go through this passage, God was not simply interested in the political or the social deliverance of his people from these enemies. God wanted them to turn back to him in faith. God wanted his people to see that he was still there, that he was still powerful, that he still cared for them, that they would leave their wickedness and turn back to him in faith. That is what God was wanting and what we find After God describes, here's what I'm going to do, Syria and Israel will fall, I will bring defeat to them, but look down in verse 9, after declaring this downfall of Syria and Samaria, God says, if you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all. King James says, if ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established. The New Living Translations puts it, unless your faith is firm, I cannot make you stand firm. What is God telling them? You've got to believe in me. If you want me to deliver you, you've got to put your trust in me. You've got to believe me. Ahaz and the people had turned away from trusting God. And God was now giving them a very clear message that unless they returned to the faith, they would also be destroyed along with Israel and Syria. God was willing to deliver them. But he said, you need to exercise faith in me in order to receive my deliverance. So then God, in his amazing mercy, said, Ahaz, I know you have not been in the practice of believing me, trusting me, listening to me, and I've told you this message, I've given you this message of hope, this light in the darkness, and Help you believe. I want you to ask me for some sign of confirmation Just ask whatever you want as big as wide as deep as you want it to be Ask and I will show you this for confirmation. I mean how how amazing is God? That he would do that ask whatever you want and I will do it to prove my point and what it a has to No, I won't do that. In fact, he even used this kind of pseudo-religious thing of, you know, the Bible tells me, do not put the Lord your God to the test. I'm not going to do that, God. Hypocrite. Right? So you're quoting this verse. You don't even believe it in the first place. I'm the one that said that, and I'm the one that told you, ask me. Yeah, I don't want it. Right. So since Ahaz was unwilling to ask God for this sign of confirmation, down in verse 14, and here we get into one of our quote, favorite passages, right? In verse 14, God says, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the 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. The Lord 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. Now we're familiar with verse 14 and its messianic application to the birth of Jesus, but how was this a sign and a message of hope to Ahaz and his people in the face of an imminent major invasion? Well, the prophecy has two fulfillments. a near-fulfillment in Ahaz's day, and a far-fulfillment at the birth of Christ. The near-fulfillment in Ahaz's day was a message of hope for his people, something they could look at right now and see, oh, this is what God said, therefore we can have hope that he will protect us, just as he said. The far one is a message of hope for all people, as we look at Christ and what he did for us in his coming. So in that near aspect of this prophecy, the Virgin is not identified. But what we get from the context is she was a young woman of marriageable age who was familiar to the king. Maybe she was a family member of King Ahaz. We don't know who she was. But God said that that young woman would then give birth to a son. And that before that boy was old enough to discern good and evil, within three years of the prophecy, Ahaz would see the fall of Syria and Samaria to the king of Assyria. This child Moreover, was to be named Emmanuel, which means God is with us. A reminder, a visual, visceral reminder. Oh, God is with us. That's what your name means. And look, before you're three years old, this happened just exactly the way God said it would happen. God is with us. He does care about us. So God was reminding the people who they could trust. who they could rely on, who was their only true protector. And we'll come back to the far fulfillment in a little bit. Chapter 8 goes on to describe the horrors that even Judah would face in this coming invasion by Assyria. So to try and keep it straight, because names are kind of similar, initially the threat was Syria, not Assyria. So Syria is the modern nation of Syria. Damascus is the capital. Along with the threat from Syria was the threat from Samaria, northern Israel, right? They were in league together. God said those two nations would be invaded by us, Syria, which is today it would be the area of northern Syria and Eastern and Southern Turkey Going into northern Iraq. So that that region would be a Syria That nation a Syria was going to invade Syria and Israel and They would come right down to the border of Judah That was what God said was going to happen. And he said, when Assyria invades, it will be horrible for everybody. So that's what a lot of chapter eight deals with is this devastation. that Assyria will bring, but then in verses 8 through 10 of Isaiah chapter 8, this child, Emmanuel, who had been prophesied, is himself given a prophecy, a message to this child, Emmanuel, and God says here, it will come to nothing, it will not stand, for God is with us. There you have the words again, Emmanuel, but now In the message, Emmanuel, you child who was born in answer to the prophecy, I am still with you, all of you people. So God had given them a sign of hope in their day. Judah would be protected by God himself. The Assyrians would not be able to come into Judah. God was imploring the people once again, put your trust in me. Believe my word, turn from your sin. See my salvation, physical as well as spiritual. As we continue on through this prophecy in Isaiah chapter eight, though God was offering them this light of hope through Emmanuel and the message regarding what God was going to do, God said many of the people would stumble at his words. Look at verses 13 through 15 of chapter eight. but the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear and let him be your dread, and he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, 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. This was also a prophecy of Christ. Because many stumbled at his claims to being God in the flesh, being God, the son, the religious leaders scoffed and rejected his claims. But even in Ahaz's day, God said, many of the people are going to scoff and reject my message of hope. And as a result of them rejecting my message of hope, they're going to fall. Remember what he had said before, if you will not believe, you will also fall. So here God was saying, I'm offering you two ways of life. You can trust me and live, or you can not believe me and suffer the consequences. two ways of living. Isn't that what we find all the way through the Bible? God is constantly saying, you've got two options. Believe or suffer the consequences. So in Ahaz's day, God was telling them, those who believe the words of the prophet would be spared in the Assyrian invasion. But those who refuse to believe would suffer under the Assyrians. What did Isaiah do? We see down in verse 17, Isaiah said, I will wait for the Lord who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob and I will hope in him. For those who refuse to believe in God's promise of deliverance, he then said, and they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish, and they will be thrust into thick darkness. You follow the way of light, or will you turn to the darkness? That's what he's laying out. The Messiah is the way of light, the way of hope. you that this kind of points us back to remember what we saw in our as we walked through the life of Solomon and, and particularly his message that he gave in the book of Ecclesiastes, where he says vanity of vanities, all is vanity. And there was there was a phrase that he used several times throughout that book to describe the life of vanity was under the sun. As long as you refuse to look up beyond the heavens, look up to God. It was vanity and darkness, you know, they look to the earth, they look, we're looking down instead of up. And so here, this is what Isaiah presented to the people this, they truly did have an option. But for those who rejected him, they would be cast into darkness. They would be left in, you know, their very lives were in doubt. Will we survive? What is going to happen? And chapter 8 finishes with that phrase, and they will be thrust into thick darkness. Imagine if the prophecy ended right there. And you're just left in the dark without hope. But what did God do? Look at the very next verse, but, but there will be no gloom for who was in anguish. So here's his message of hope, light in the darkness. He had given this declaration, they will be thrust into darkness, but there will be no gloom for who 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 nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shown." So I want to pause and take a look at this part. Because again, it's, we're very familiar with some of this, because we read it at Christmas time, we read it in the context of the coming of Christ. But let's go back to Isaiah's day. Does anyone know where the land of Zebulun, the land of Naphtali happens to be in the land of Israel? Way up north. All right? If you look at a map that has the distribution of the land according to the tribes, this would be, well, as it tells us down here, Galilee of the nations. All right? The land of Galilee. All right? That is where Zebulun and Naphtali were at. And when we look at the history of that northern kingdom of Israel, The land of Zebulun and Naphtali is where idolatry was the most rampant in ancient Israel. That is where it really took a broad foothold. And I mean, it was everywhere, but that was particularly a place that God, there, there are many of the messages of the prophets that point to those areas as being in darkness because of turning to idolatry. And it was, I mean, in fact, the, uh, the tribe of Dan was all also up there in the city of Dan, which was a, a hub of idolatry. And in fact, we, we have, uh, the, The modern day site of Banias, which is the spring that comes out for the source of the Jordan River, flows into the Sea of Galilee and down. But there's the Temple of Pan there. You know, also known as Paneas, because it is the temple of Pan. That's all in this northern region that God said, these are the ones that have been brought into contempt. These are the ones that are dwelling in deep darkness because of their idolatry, because of their sin. And yet, notice what he says, there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. He's giving a promise to even these northern areas. He had talked about this Assyrian invasion. They're coming in from the north. This is the first area that is going to be overrun by the Assyrians. They're going to bear the brunt of that invasion. They're going to be in total despair and under utter destruction. But God says, but I'm even giving hope to those people. those who were the first to feel the wrath of the Assyrians, he says, but they will also see the light of Messiah. Where did Jesus spend the majority of his ministry time? Right in those areas in Galilee. The light of Messiah was promised to these people who for generations had rejected God and his word and God said, I am so faithful, I'm going to send Messiah to you. And he's going to focus his ministry on you. So here is this promise to these very people. That they would see the light of the Messiah. Continuing on in this passage, he then says, you have multiplied the nation. You have increased its joy. They rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil. For the yoke of his burden and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. Anyone recall the connection there with Midian? How far back does that go? That's the time of the judges. The Midianites were one of the oppressors that came on Israel because of their sin in the time of the judges. And God says, this is going to be something that will remind you of how great I was in your deliverance in the day of Midian. God says, I'm going to do it. For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. This speaks of the deliverance for Judah as they trust in God's protection. And finally, we get to our favorite section of this prophecy. For to us, a child is born. To us, a son is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, 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. So Ahaz and his people had been given the sign of Immanuel. This child that was to be born and before he's three years old. Northern Kingdom of Israel and Syria will be decimated by Assyria and Judah will be spared. And then this same child, Emmanuel, was a picture for them of the coming Messiah. And that's the far element of this prophecy. This child called Emmanuel, God with us, pointed to Jesus. In the near portion, That virgin who would conceive, it was not a miraculous conception in her case. But Jesus was born of a virgin, a miraculous virgin birth. He was God in the flesh, fulfilling that name, God with us. He was decreed to be a stumbling block for many, and Jesus was rejected by many of his own people. who denied his deity, refused to believe his claims, refused to believe his miracles. Even today, people scoff at the virgin birth. They scoff at the claims of Jesus. But just as the prophecy said, but for those who believe, he becomes a sanctuary, he becomes a protector, he becomes hope. In fact, then the last portion where he's called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, that's what he becomes for those who believe in him. He gives light in the darkness. He provides deliverance from sin. He came to give us peace, true peace, not just, you know, we talk about world peace, And that's great, but what about peace between us and God? What about that internal peace? That's what Jesus truly came to give, deliverance from the curse of sin. He is the light in the darkness. He is the best hope for the hopeless. And he has been given to us just exactly as God had said. He fulfilled his promises back in Ahaz's day. He fulfilled his promises at the time of the birth of Christ, and he is still fulfilling his promises today. And we can look back through history and see the reality of it. God with us. He's still here. He's still active. We can still trust in him. And that's the message of Christmas. It's not giving gifts and family gatherings. Those are wonderful things. But why do we do it? It's because this. It's a remembrance that Jesus is God's great gift to mankind for salvation. Let's pray. Father, we want to thank you so much for your faithfulness. That even when we are unfaithful, you remain faithful. that even with the people of Israel, when they violated your covenant, you remained true to your covenant. You provided the deliverance that they needed. You called them to repent. Lord, we thank you for opening that call of repentance, that call of salvation to all people. That through Christ, the true and only Messiah, the Son of God, Emmanuel, God with us, that we can have hope, forgiveness, light in the darkness. Lord, help us to demonstrate that to others, that we could be lights in this dark world, that others would come to faith in Christ because we are demonstrating that faith, because we tell them of Your promises, of Your faithfulness, of Your love and mercy. Lord, help us to keep our focus on You throughout this Christmas season, that You would be glorified, and that we could continue to rejoice in Your goodness and Your faithfulness in our lives. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.