The eighth of Isaiah, and we'll commence our reading there, the first verse. Here, once again, God's word. Moreover, the Lord said unto me, take thee a great rule, and write in it with a men's pen concerning Meher Shelel Hashbaz. And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah, the priest and Zechariah, the son of Jebrakiah. I went into the prophetess and she conceived a bare son. Then said the Lord unto me, call his name Meir Shelel HaShvaz. For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, my father and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria. The Lord spake also unto me again, saying, For as much as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezan and in Ramaliah's sons, now therefore behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria and all his glory. And he shall come up over all his channels and go over all his banks, and he shall pass through Judah. He shall overflow and go over. He shall reach even to the neck, and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Emmanuel. Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces. And give ear, all ye far countries, gird yourselves, ye shall be broken in pieces. Scourge yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. Take counsel together, and it shall come to naught. Speak the word, and it shall not stand. For God is with us. The word of our God. May we know his blessing under it together this evening. There are three crises in this particular moment in Judah's history. The first crisis is that which we encountered in Isaiah 7. It was the crisis that really principally concerned the house of David. It was the crisis instigated by the Sero-Ephraimite alliance. A crisis which as Ahaz feared, would lead to the removal of Ahaz and the dynasty of David, and put in a vassal king, even the king of the Baal. That was the first crisis. And Ahaz felt that crisis keenly, as we saw once again in the seventh chapter. There was a second crisis behind that, and that crisis was of Judean autonomy. The Assyrian empire far to the north and to the east was growing in power. And there was fear in Judah and also other lesser kingdoms that they would be made as it were vassal states, nothing more than provinces to the Assyrian emperor. And there was a third crisis. And that crisis we found from the sixth chapter and even well before that. That was the crisis that so few in Isaiah's day really cared to take note of. It was the crisis of national apostasy. There were three crises all at once conspiring in this moment in the text. And in our text, as we'll see, God willing in the time to come, the Lord God responds to all three. And he sets before the church what was really the crisis of the day. He sets before them what they ought most have been concerned with. And friend, there is a lesson for us in the text as well then. This is a text that ultimately reprioritizes how we think, certainly about geopolitics, but also about how you and I, how you and I rest confident in this age. As you notice from the first verse, the prophet has issued a command. And the command is to take a great rule, and he's to write upon it, as the words of our text read, with a man's hand. The role there could be translated as something that would be a block of wood or even a sheet of metal, not necessarily parchment. It was meant to be something that would withstand the element, something that would be permanent. And then he's told that what he is to write, he's to write in a man's hand. And the sense of that is he's to write in such a way that the common man could read it. In other words, the prophet is commanded to make a sign. A sign that would be durable, a sign that would be legible, and a sign that would be put in a public place for men to read. We're told here that then Isaiah takes witnesses to record. In other words, this is a sign that will be notarized. And those whom he takes as witnesses are given to us here in the text, we have Zechariah, the son of Jebrakiah and Uriah the priest. Now friend, these ones who will notarize the sign before us, we don't know much about them, but the sense is that these are men of standing, obviously men of standing in society, but perhaps you might even say that these, well, perhaps these are actually the godly, in the day. However we take it, these are really used to bear record to what God has instructed the prophet to write on the placard. And what he is to write is the name, Meir Shalal Hashbaz. Translated simply, it is that he is to write concerning he who hastens to spoil. He who hastens to make prey. That's all that's on the sign. Even the name Meir Shel El-Hashbaz actually includes just the preposition concerning or in or of this one who is to come and who is to make prey, who is to spoil. Now, before we look at the name any further, I want you to notice that this is really the second of Isaiah's sons that we encounter. You remember in chapter seven, we encountered one named Shir Yeshuv, or Shir Yeshuv. In that case, friend, you remember that Shir Yeshuv, he was given as a sign that a remnant would return, echoing what you found in chapter six and verse 13. This son represents something very different. That son would have represented a remnant graciously preserved. This son represents judgment that's impending. We'll come back to that in a moment. But I want you to notice that the purpose of the son here is to set a record to this generation that before, before this child can utter even my father or my mother, and really in the Hebrew, the sentence is, before he can even form the sounds roughly equivalent ma or pa, so will Assyria overrun Israel and even enter into Judah. What you have in this text then are two signs and two sons. In Isaiah chapter seven, as we saw, we have the one son and the one sign that is called Emmanuel. And friend, you remember that there the prophet looks through the corridors of time to something that will not in history be fulfilled in this particular moment. It's something that will take place hundreds of years from this particular episode. It's a remote sign, but you remember it was indicating salvation. The reason why Ahaz ought not to have feared for the house of David, it was established in the Lord Jesus Christ. That was the one son, the one sign of chapter seven, but in chapter eight, you and I, we encounter another son and a different sign. And this son, it indicates, he indicates imminent judgment, not something remote. He indicates imminent judgment. Friend, why? To put it in the words of our text, you could simply say, Meir Shelel Hashbaz was given to them. because they had rejected Emmanuel. They had rejected the promise of Emmanuel and had given themselves over to sinful confederacies because they had done so. Beloved, as this text holds forth before us, then we recognize what was ultimately the leading crisis of the hour. It was not ultimately the zero Ephraimite coalition. It was not ultimately the ascendancy of Assyrian power. It was as Judah forsook the salvation of God. And for that cause, she is judged. Meir Shelel HaShabaz stands against her because she had rejected the salvation of God that came through Emmanuel and Himelot. And friend, what we have then in this text put simply is, is the theme that Christ, Emmanuel, is the only refuge for God's people. And I want us to see that briefly this evening, first of all, by looking at the substitute. The substitute that's mentioned in the text. And you find that really in the fifth verse. Now, in order for us to understand the prophecy here, friend, we do need to refresh ourselves as to the context. Remember in Isaiah 7, Ahaz the king, he responded to the crisis of the Syro-Ephraimite coalition by creating a treaty with Assyria. Now friend, you remember that he did so by making himself over as a son and as a servant to Tiglath-Pileser, the Assyrian emperor. And friend, what you recognize in that moment is that he favored an Assyrian treaty rather than one with Israel and Syria. Well, in our text, we find actually the opposite. While Ahaz and the house of David made capitulations toward Assyria, we're told in the text that the people of Judah, the populace, they preferred and rejoiced in Rezin. and in Ramali's son. We notice, friend, that this is then a people who are rather discontent with Ahaz and quite discontent with his statesmanship. We find that actually in the scriptures. We find that the generation over which Ahaz ruled was very much displeased with him. In fact, we see that in the fact that in Isaiah 7.13, the prophet says that Ahaz wearies men. And we recognize even as we look at the chronicler that we're told that he is not buried with the kings. Jehoaz who was buried before Ahaz also was not buried with his fathers and we're told why? Because he was a king that was not desired. And so what do you have here? You have a king who favors an Assyrian alliance while you have a populace who favors an alliance that would ultimately dethrone Ahaz, a king in whom they had no pleasure. But friend, what I want you to notice in the text is that this pro-Syria, pro-Israel contingent, however socially conservative they might have seemed, however much they might have seemed to be friends of Judean autonomy and power, They, says the prophet, refused the waters of Shiloh. They refused the waters of Shiloh. And now Shiloh was the stream that nourished Jerusalem. Also given to us in translation as Siloam. It was the stream, the only stream that nourished the city of David. There are allusions to the stream throughout the scriptures, of course, most clearly in Psalm 46. The allusion to there being a river that cheers the city of God is certainly supposed to draw our minds to this particular stream. It was the stream that held life in Zion, upon which the people of God were nourished as they came to worship. And in Psalm 87 verse seven, that very stream, the idea is that it represents the saving the securing and the nourishing power of God in the church. It stands, as it were, as a picture of his help. What the prophet says here is that these ones who preferred a different alliance, seemingly one that was more conservative socially, one that seemed to protect Judean interests more, he says, no, you still have rejected the help of God. Beloved, what you see here is that they themselves had a penchant to use unlawful means to secure themselves because they refused the salvation of God. What this text points us to, friend, is the reality that sinful compromises are in fact a refusal of God's help. Sinful compromises are a refusal of God's help. And first of all, politically, and most immediately from the text, you see that. Ahaz was an idolater. Ahaz had made himself over as a servant to a heathen king. He engaged in gross wickedness, wickedness that had not been perpetrated by his fathers. He was a wicked, a godless man. He was a genuine apostate. And so friend, you can see the allurement to maybe making a concession to one who was less overtly wicked. Why not make an alliance with Israel? At that time, seemingly just adhering to their false worship of Jehovah. Why not make an alliance with them? Why not make an alliance that would protect us and not make us a vassal to the Assyrian Empire? The Lord God in this text says that that kind of political thinking is altogether to be rejected. Beloved God never allows his people to choose the lesser of two evils. There is never a time whenever the people of God politically are to sin in order to expect something good. Never once. That's so very crucial, and we've lost that in the past 50 years and even beyond. But we'll come back to that, God willing, in our time next Lord's Day evening. But we also see this friend in terms of the church. Here you have the visible church underage in Judah, and she's making alliances or at least craves alliances with the world. And here friend, the prophet says, you have refused then the streams of Shiloh. You have refused that river that cheers the city of God. You refuse God's help in doing so. And friend, even on an individual level, this text speaks to us. Again, as any simple compromise is a rejection of the help of God. Anytime friend, you and I, we sin either to avoid affliction, anytime we prefer sin over suffering, we are committing in substance the very same sin that's excoriated in this text, every time. It underscores for us, friend, why the scriptures, friend, hold out idolatry to us in the way that it does. Idolatry in the scriptures preeminently is not concerned with ritual, is not concerned with valuation. Principally in the Old Testament, the emphasis is on the idea that, friend, idolatry really is when one begins to trust in something other than God. I don't know if you're surprised to hear that, but friend, as you work throughout the scriptures, you'll find that preeminently, though it includes ritual, though it includes covetousness, the emphasis over and over again is on the fact that, friend, as soon as one begins to put their trust in someone or something other than the Lord, they have then and thereby become idolaters. Friend, you see that here. Maybe the population in Judah was socially conservative. They resented Ahaz's Canaanite religion. But the text before us reminds us that they are no less idolaters because they had refused the salvation of God. Friend, this is a challenge to you and to me. Every sinful compromise that we make in this world is, friend, idolatrous at its root, because we are not trusting in God alone. And friend, whenever you and I are self-reliant, we ought to remember as well that this too is idolatry. It is too refusing the streams, the nourishing streams of God's help. And so there is the substitute in our text. What of the scepter fuge? In verses seven and eight, you notice here that they are told, Judah's told that the waters of a great river will come. And at the end of the eighth verse, he says that this empire, the Assyrian empire, will stretch out his wings and shall fill the breadth of the land. And what we're told there are two things. He's saying, first of all, that the Syro-Ephraimite alliance that will be destroyed, but he also says Judah will be devastated. As we saw at the end of Isaiah 7, she will be peeled like a razor rolling over its hills, clearing it of all that was good. But the way that the prophet communicates to us this oncoming judgment is taking again the idea of a river. He says, you have refused the soft waters of Shiloh, thereby manifesting the help of God. And so I will bring upon you a great river. If you're looking for great rivers, if you're looking for something that's far more significant in the eyes of the world, I'll bring them to you. and they will ruin you." What the prophet is saying here is, his friend both to the house of David and to the general population of Judah, though both of them sought out alliances, even though those alliances were opposite one another. Prophet says, both will fail you. You who are hoping for an alliance with Syria and Israel, They will be destroyed by Assyria. And you, O house of David, who are trusting in Assyria, you'll find them the agent of your ruin. Friend, what you find here is that these false refuges that are craved are in fact simply deceivers. Through and through, all others fail. But God, every other refuge will ultimately fail. And beloved, you see that so very clearly. The Lord himself says, there is no savior beside me. When the prophet Jonah talks about idolaters, note what he says here. He says, they observe lying vanities and so forsake their own mercy. They who trust in another other than the Lord says Jonah is simply engaging in the act of forsaking that which would really save. Cursed be the man, says Jeremiah, that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and his heart departeth from the Lord. Friend, the prophet is saying that all of your alliances, all of those things that you might contrive that would be in competition with the Lord, all of it will fail you. And the scriptures hold that out, friend, not only on the political level, but on every single part of the strata of human experience. So the question this evening for us is, do you believe that it, whatever it is, will fail you? If it is not the Lord that you have placed your refuge, in which you hope for refuge and upon which you've placed your lives, friend, do you really believe that it will fail you? your ingenuity, your strength, your job, the world, your friends. Friend, if you are trusting in any of those things other than the Lord, you will find that it will fail you. And here the people in Judah are reminded of that in a poignant way. And in a very short time, they will feel it. For we who hear this text now, that is a reminder, a clarion call. We are to reject every other refuge, rest only in the Lord. But as we close this evening, I want you to notice in verses eight to 10, the prophet drives our attention now to what is the true substance of the church's security. What is the true foundation of her standing? Now you notice this at the end of the eighth verse, he says there, he refers to Emmanuel, he says that this land will be overrun is thy land, O Emmanuel. He addresses Emmanuel, he doesn't address Ahaz, he doesn't address the people of Judah, he doesn't even address Meher, Shalal, Hashpaz, he addresses Emmanuel. And friend, the sense in which you and I are to understand that is that he does so as it were by invocation. making something of a petition to him. You have a like instance of this in the Psalter. You remember the psalmist, he says, oh God, the heathen are coming to thine inheritance. Thy holy temple have they defiled. They have laid Jerusalem on heaps. And you remember, friend, in Psalm 79, the idea is because the vineyard is God's, then the psalmist says, now rise for your own cause and rise for your own interest. Secure that which is called by your own name. That's the idea. He drives our attention to the fact that this land is Emmanuel's land. And so he prays that Emmanuel would indeed intervene and secure his heritage. What is the entailment? What comes of this? Well, you notice this. in the ninth verse and following, that then the prophet leaves Emmanuel and he addresses the people and he says, associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces. Give ear all ye far countries, gird yourselves, and you shall be broken in pieces. Take counsel together, he says in the 10th verse, and it shall come to naught. Friend, what he's saying here is that take alliances as you will, conspire amongst yourselves as much as you should like, Do all your best against the cause of God, against his people. And then note what he says, speak the word and it shall not stand. Speak the word and it shall not stand. Emmanuel will arise and secure that which is his. In fact, friend, when you come to the end of the 10th verse, the prophet says that explicitly. Note what he says there. After he speaks to the nations, he gives a reason why all of this will fail. In our translation, he says, for God is with us, but you know as well as I do, that friend, that is again, the same word that we encountered in verse eight, the word Emmanuel. Why will all of these things come to naught against the church? for or because of Emmanuel. Friend, the prophet makes it explicit in this text. Why the church ought never to have sought sinful alliances with the nations, because her standing ultimately was only in and because of the Lord Jesus. She only knew security because of Him. And when she forsook the waters of Shiloah, that is the nourishing of God, she forsook Emmanuel. Friend, we saw this already in Isaiah 7. Ahaz trembles as though the house of David was to falter. The only way, friend, he could entertain such fears is if he rejects the promise of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the only way the church underage begins to make alliances with Syria or Israel, the only reason she would crave such things for preservation is if she rejects this truth. And what the prophet says is, no! When the church is secured, it is because of the Lord Jesus Christ. When she is preserved, it is not because of any sinful alliances, not her own strength, not her ingenuity, it is because of Him. This is why the house of David, this is why the church ought not to have feared, because of Emmanuel. Friend, on an individual, on a private level, this text should speak to us, shouldn't it? The psalmist takes this truth and he applies it to every circumstance of his life. He says, the Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? As we sang in Psalm 56, the Lord is for me. And so he does not fear. My friend, the Lord is only so in the Lord Jesus Christ. Only in Emmanuel are his people secured. Just as we close, friend, I suppose a question we could ask is what does that look like? There's a vignette, an episode in the New Testament that I find more and more illustrative of this truth. You remember when the Apostle John is on the Isle of Patmos, he encounters there the risen Christ, and he falls down at his feet as dead. You remember the next moment in the text, The Lord Jesus lays hands upon him, says, fear not. Fear not. A friend, he might've said after that, he might've said after that, I come not in judgment. He might've said afterwards that there was no cause for John to tremble because the Lord Jesus approached in grace, but that's not what the Lord Jesus says. He says, fear not, I am the first and the last. I am he that liveth and was dead. And behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And have the keys of hell and of death. Friend, the more you look at the response that the Lord Jesus has to John's falling at his feet, the more you see that that command to fear not pertains to that moment and every other moment of the apostle's life. Why is John not to fear? Because the Lord Jesus stands. Friend, he need not fear now in that moment as he sees Christ in glory, but he also need not fear in any context because the Lord Jesus stands still. Friend, I want you to know that this text is quite contemporary for us. You remember, beloved, how the refuge of God is named in the text. It is the waters of Shiloh that go softly. You and I know that the onlooking world says that those who hang their lives upon the Lord Jesus Christ, they say of them that they are soft people, deluded people. And folks, people have been saying that about Christians right through the running centuries. And our text says pointedly that even in Judah's day, there were those who said they hoped in God's salvation and the rest of the world saw the whole thing as being contemptible. My question to you this evening is, do you see the life of faith as being something that is soft and diluted? If so, beloved, the text urges you to see that that is deception. Friend, there is only one refuge in the text that stands, only one. And so will you take him as your only refuge this evening? Will you renounce again and again, those that would vie to be called your savior as you hold only to him? And friend, if you do, I want you to notice that that which the world found contemptible, waters that go softly, instead of mighty roaring rivers. Beloved, those waters that go softly, go softly for your nourishment. They go softly because the Lord's dealings with you are in mercy. You who have taken hold of him as your only refuge. In Ephesians 5, we're told what the Lord Jesus does to the church. He cherisheth and he nourisheth her. I want you to notice the present tense. Beloved, how softly does he deal with his own, who take him as their only refuge. Friend, may this text indeed drive us more to him, to rest in him, and to find him as he is, a stronghold for all who repose in him in faith. Amen.