I really wanted to discuss Isaiah 8:19-20. But felt the chapter’s first 4 verses (yesterday’s lesson) were paramount. So, as has become my “pattern” in this journey through Isaiah … here are some “things I didn’t say” about the spiritual condition prevalent among God’s people during King Ahaz’s tenure.

“And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isaiah 8:19-20, I am going to get to talk about this little Paragraph today!

“Familiar spirits” and “peeping wizards” are demons of various kinds! Fallen angels, emissaries of the Devil! Literally, “conjured spirits trapped inside bottles” and “knowers of demons,” wicked spirits that chatter and mutter, making eerie “sounds!” (This practice may involve trying to contact the spirits of the departed dead, as well. Think of Saul and the “witch of Endor!)

Wow!

Spirituality had fallen so low, so perverted … that the people (at large) wanted to get their counsel from demons! And they seem (here) to be urging Isaiah to do the same! The verb “seek” is “darash,” expressed as a command and often suggesting “prayer!” (The word is translated “to enquire” 43 times in the King James Version of Scripture.)

But God here has an Opinion! Or at least a Question.

“Should not a people seek unto their God?” Heartbroken, sounds like, the Almighty Creator! WHY seek the advice of a (dead) chunk of rock or (senseless) block of wood” That is essentially what comprises an idol! Why this, when Israel had such a rich heritage of spiritual Truth!

God continues His Query: ” … for the living to the dead?” In other words, as I understand it, “Why are you living folks consulting dead folks?” (By the way, our great God is not dead, but eternally alive! (Remember, He is … “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” Hebrews 13:8)

Then God gives us the RIGHT SOURCE for spiritual guidance! Where we should go for “light.” Verse 20 …  “To the law and to the testimony.” That is, to God’s infallible Word!

“Law” is “torah,” meaning “teaching, instruction.”

And “testimony” is “teudah,” meaning “repetition,” essentially pointing to the things God has said “over and over and over again!” (Even the Book of “Deuteronomy” proves the point. It being a word which means a “second” giving of the “Law” of God!) I am glad God says things over and over again!

GOD’S WORD USURPS ANYTHING ANY DEMON HAS EVER SAID!

But it appears that the people of Isaiah’s day, early in his ministry anyway (prior to the Revival under King Hezekiah), were NOT interested in the Word of God!

The rest of today’s Text … “if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isaiah 5:20b

The verb “speak” used here (“amar” in Hebrew) means to talk conversationally! In everyday banter! As a normal course of life. Nobody is any longer “meditating” on God’s Word! Talking it day and night!

Then look at God’s Assessment! “NO WORD … NO LIGHT!”

Reminds me of Psalm 119:130 … “The entrance of thy words (Lord) giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.” So true!

Without paying close attention to God’s Word … a people will drift, devolve into “darkness.” Now think of Psalm 119:105 … “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” 

Wow!

I don’t always do this, but today let me reprint our whole Text … for emphasis. Re-read it now and see if the meanings I’ve given you will “fit” (will help you better “understand”) what God (through Isaiah) is saying.

“And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isaiah 8:19-20

I fear America today is just about where Israel was in those Isianic days long ago … just prior to her national judgment!

Sad indeed.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

It was Isaiah the Prophet who proclaimed, invited attention to … “Behold, I and the CHILDREN whom the LORD hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion.” Isaiah 8:18

Yes, he used his two sons (especially their “names”) in his preaching! As bidden by the Lord!

“Shearjashub” was mentioned in back Isaiah 7:3. Translated from Hebrew: “A Remnant shall Return!” Hope, even for sinning (and suffering) Israel! As in: “God will spare ‘some’ of you, a ‘few’ anyway!”

But today we study the Prophet’s other boy, “Mahershalalhashbaz!” (Best I can tell, this is the longest name in all the Bible!)

Here’s our Text this morning: “Moreover the LORD said unto me, Take thee a great roll, and write in it with a man’s pen concerning Mahershalalhashbaz. And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the LORD to me, Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz. 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.” From Isaiah 8, verses 1-4.

Wow!

A SERMON in a SON!

(God has a Son too, His Only Begotten! And “JESUS” has been the Essence of many a Sermon too! Countless Messages, in fact!)

Verse 1 of our Text indicates an “official” document is being created. God Himself to Isaiah … “Take thee a great roll, and write in it with a man’s pen concerning Mahershalalhashbaz. And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record …”

The verb ( a command) “write” (in Hebrew “kathab”) can mean “to engrave” as well. This is written, we would say today, in “permanent ink!”

(Of course, all the Bible is eternally inscribed! “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” Psalm 119:89 says this, King James Version.)

So apparently, based on verse 1, this lad was named prior to his conception! (So were Ishmael, Isaac, Solomon, John the Baptist and Jesus, among others!)

Wow!

The Text again, but now verse 2: “And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the LORD to me, Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz.” 

The “prophetess” is (I think) Isaiah’s “nick-name” or “pet-name” (clearly a term of endearment) for his Wife! Old Dr. Frank W. Boreham (one of my favorite preachers and writers) often called his Wife “the  Mistress of the Manse!” (A “manse” simply being the home in which a Pastor lived.) I do not think “prophetess” means that Isaiah’s Wife was a preacher.

God sure does seem  to be able to “control the womb” of any given woman! And certainly so in the Book of Isaiah, so far anyway. God in the Old Testament is said to “open” and “close” wombs at will.

Prophet and “prophetess” had a son! 

Named (as already noted) before he ever saw the light of day!

“Mahershalalhashbaz” means “Haste ye, haste ye to the spoil!” (An open invitation to come “take the wealth” of a completely conquered nation!)

“Maher” is Hebrew for “speed” or “swiftness.”

“Shalal” means the “booty, plunder, spoil” of war!

And “baz” is a further word for “prey,” legalized “robbery!” (The old saying “All is fair in love and war” comes to mind!)

God is inviting the warring nations of the world (particularly Assyria) to “come and get ’em,” particularly as far as Israel (also called Ephraim or Samaria) and her wicked ally Syria (also called Damascus) are concerned!

“Haste ye, haste ye to the spoil!”

And this “fall” (this astounding “defeat”) was to occur sooner rather than later. “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.” Isaiah 8:4

Before the little boy can “talk!”

And history says…  IT HAPPENED!

Within this prescribed frame of time, too!

That quickly! (In haste!)

God keeps His Word!

And judgment against sin is sure.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

God offered him a personal word of encouragement!

A “sign” from Heaven!

And he scoffed.

Refused.

Belittled the Creator of the universe!

KING AHAZ OF JUDAH did such a senseless thing.

“Ahaz, your enemies (Syria and Israel, specifically) will be defeated,” I promise (God was talking!) 

“Here, let Me prove it!” (God condescending to man!) 

“Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.” You name it, from the depths of the oceans to the heights of the stars! (Isaiah 7:11, our Text today.) The noun for “sign” is spelled “oth” in Hebrew, meaning “a signal, a token” or even “a miracle!”

Wow!

But King Ahaz disobeyed! (Yes, I just checked. That verb “ask” is an imperative, a mandate from God, an absolute command!)

“But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD.” Isaiah 7:12

Almost sound pious, doesn’t it?

“I’ll not trouble the Almighty!”

But in reality there was a deeper reason why Ahaz did not want a “sign” from God, or anything else from the Lord for that matter!

And it had nothing to do with “tempting” God!

The King had already decided how HE was going to solve the problem at hand!

How he would defeat his enemies, that perilous coalition of Syria (King Rezin) and Israel (King Pekah) … without God’s help at all!

He needed no advice!

Because … Ahaz had already entered into a peace treaty (paid a bribe, really) to a much more wicked King than either Rezin or Pekah! To the ultra-heathen King of Assyria! Specifically, Tiglathpileser, King of Assyria.

2 Kings 16:7 … “So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglathpileser king of Assyria, saying, I am thy servant and thy son: come up, and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, which rise up against me.”

Capitulation!

The reason I used the word “bribe” is found in the very next verse: “And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD, and in the treasures of the king’s house, and sent it for a present to the king of Assyria.” He paid “protection” money to an ungodly Monarch! (2 Kings 16:8)

God’s money!

What foolishness!

Leaning on a mere man … and spurning the freely offered Help of the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob! 

Ahaz did not want God’s “sign!”

He had already decided to “go another direction.”

Oh, how the King needed Proverbs 3:5 that fateful day: “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”

In retrospect: the Assyrians did NOT protect Judah in the long run. Rather, they ultimately tried to decimate the Kingdom! And, had God not miraculously intervened in the days of Ahaz’s Son (King Hezekiah) … Judah would have fallen to those fierce Assyrians!

What a lesson for us today!

Let me close with one more Passage … “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.” Proverbs 3:5-7

Had Ahaz only heeded.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

It’s called grace!

The very fact that God wanted to encourage wicked King Ahaz!

How wicked? “Ahaz (father of good King Hezekiah) was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem: but he did not that which was right in the sight of the LORD, like David his father: for he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and made also molten images for Baalim. Moreover he burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel. He sacrificed also and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree.” 2 Chronicles 28:1-4, terrible!

But still, when Ahaz’s Kingdom (Judah) was under dire threat from two warring (attacking) neighbors (namely Syria and the Northern Kingdom of Israel) … God wanted to show Ahaz that He (the Lord) could protect both his family and his country!

So the Lord dispatches Isaiah the Prophet to the scene!

“Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz,  thou, and Shearjashub thy son …” Isaiah 7:3 (Isaiah’s children were often “object lessons” in his preaching, his sermons!)

The name “Ahaz” means “he has grasped.” But this King did not live up to the meaning his name! He did not “comprehend” the real impact of the sermon Isaiah was commissioned to preach to him that glorious day long ago! He either did not “get it,” or he “rejected” it once he did see the light!

The name “Shearjashub” (Isaiah’s oldest son) means “a remnant shall return!” God already trying to tell this wayward King that though the nation may face perilous times, she would not be totally destroyed! God would always preserve a believing “remnant,” a godly “few,” to stand true to the nation’s heritage. To its godly moorings!

Now to the matter at hand. Here is what Isiah was to preach to King Ahaz: “Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted (too soft) for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin (the first enemy king) with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah (the second enemy, Pekah, King Of Israel). Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel (plotted) against thee (Ahaz), saying, Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king (thus killing Ahaz and placing their king on the throne) in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal (a “puppet” king): thus saith the Lord GOD, IT SHALL NOT STAND. NEITHER SHALL IT COME TO PASS.” Isaiah 7:4-7

God says that feeble (rebellious) effort was doomed!

Judah would survive!

King Ahaz should have been shouting with joy!

Then, displaying even more grace, God Almighty wants to provide Ahaz a “sign” that this two-nation confederacy (again, consisting of Syria and Israel … King Rezin and King Pekah) is to be short lived! 

Read this! “For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim (Israel, thus called this because of her largest tribe) be broken, that it be not a people.” God is clearly talking, here in Isaiah 7:5. Within 65 years, both nations would be GONE! And history says this happened! In less than 65 years really! (How’s this for specific Bible Prophecy?)

Wow!

But there is more, not just the promise … but the “sign!”

“Ask thee (King Ahaz) a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt (he was living a sinful life, and could not honestly interact with God) the LORD. And he (Isaiah) said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also? (Wearying God by not taking Him at His Word, by not obeying Him.) Therefore (anyway) the Lord himself shall give you a SIGN; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (meaning ‘God with us’). Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest (Syria and Israel) shall be forsaken of both her kings.” Isaiah 7:11-16

God is going to decimate Syria and Israel … soon! Within the time frame that it takes for a little boy to grow from infancy to adulthood (by ancient Near East standards) … about 12 years!

And that too (much sooner than 65 years) did occur! The giant nation Assyria attacked and conquered Syria and Israel within a few years of Isaiah’s prophecy here! 

Wow!

But wait a minute!

What was that about a “virgin” conceiving?

Matthew, in his groundbreaking Gospel, boldly revels to us that this “virgin” is none other than the young lady we now know as “Mary,” the mother of the humanity of Jesus.

Watch … “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Isaiah 7:14

Watch again … “Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet (Isaiah), saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” Matthew 1:22-23

Thus Isaiah’s prophecy has both a local and a long range emphasis. (As does a lot of Bible Prophecy!) Something that happened soon. Then Something that happened a few hundred years later, the miraculous Virgin Birth of Jesus!

Locally … a little boy would be born and before he reached the age of accountability (“for before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good”) … Syria and Israel would be gone!

Long range … God would send His Son Jesus into the world through the womb of a Virgin! 

History … with a spiritual perspective!

History … with a prophetic perspective!

History … as really HIS STORY! (The Story of Jesus and the Gospel!) 

Wow!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Yes, Mary was a virgin, literally so.

What a chapter, Isaiah 7. It is chock full of history, with a major sliver of prophecy embedded therein, as well as being loaded with a cast of interesting characters!

There is “wicked” King Ahaz of Judah, sort of the chapter’s protagonist or main character. This man is in the Davidic line, Grandson to great King Uzziah. (Uzziah, who just died at the beginning of Isaiah 6, proving the Book is not slavishly in chronological order.)

There is also a coalition (confederacy) of two more wicked Kings; Rezin King of Syria and Pekah the King of Israel. This pair hates Ahaz, largely because he is not anti-Assyrian enough!

Oops, I just introduced the fourth royal character! The sitting (and by far most powerful) King of Assyria, whose proper name is not given in the chapter.

Our Text today (Isaiah 7) opens with a recording/detailing of the prevailing spirit in Judah, soon as this perilous threat was made know. “And it came to pass in the days of AHAZ the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that REZIN the king of Syria, and PEKAH the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem TO WAR against it, but could not prevail against it. And it was told the house of David (AHAZ), saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.” Verses 1-2 only are given here. See the “panic?” (The King of Assyria not being mentioned until verse 17, actually.)

Next, in a thrilling “Sermon,” God (through Isaiah the Prophet) predicts (foretells) His future Plans for these men! The Lord scoffs at the two (most wicked) Kings in the Syro-Ephraim block (Rezin and Pekah), calling them “smoking firebrands!” In English, “has-beens!” Literally, “torches” that have nearly expended themselves, on the verge of being completely “burned-out!” 

Wow!

Then God suggests that if King Ahaz (again a very wicked monarch but legitimately in the ling of King David) would repent and obey … blessings (nationally) would ensue. But should he disobey (by trusting in the mighty King of Assyria for “help,” rather than leaning on the Lord God for protection) … quick judgment would result, and harshly so!

Then God informs all who will listen that the King of Assyria will be used to nearly decimate both Syria and Israel (Rezin and Pekah) in an impending future invasion! (Which was prophecy when Isaiah penned these words, but is history now, ancient history!)

The aforementioned coalition (Rezin and Pekah) had planned to violently assassinate Ahaz, and place a “puppet” king in his place, one they could control at will! Verses 5-6: “Because Syria (Rezin), Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah (Pekah), have taken evil counsel against thee (Ahaz), saying, Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach (by killing the king) therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal (meaning ‘God is good,’ but they didn’t mean the God of Israel, rather some false deity, some idol): THUS SAITH THE LORD GOD, IT SHALL NOT STAND, NEITHER SHALL IT COME TO PASS.”  

“Not going to happen,” vows our God!

Wow!

And so far, we have just begin to relate the data in Isaiah chapter 7!

But this much I am clearly seeing, already! “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.” (Proverbs 21:1, but here a cadre of Kings!)

Never have I seen this verse illustrated any more fully!

God’s mighty HAND, directing in the affairs of mankind! To the point of setting up one king … and deposing another!

Psalm 75:6-7 … “For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.”

Wow again!

I am amazed at the Power of God today!

By the way, let’s pray for our President this morning. Many hate him for his policies. Yet God has placed him in power. (Romans 13:1 … “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.”)

— Dr. Mike Bagwell