Two Smoldering Stubs: The Test of Faith Text: Isaiah 7:1-9
Introduction: The Politics of Fear
Every political crisis is, at bottom, a theological crisis. Men are always tempted to believe that the circumstances in front of them, the armies on the horizon, the threats on the news, are the ultimate reality. We are materialists by default. We trust what we can see, and we fear what we can measure. But the fundamental business of the Christian faith is to see the unseen, to trust the Word of God over the word of the newscaster, and to fear God more than we fear a hostile confederacy.
This is the situation we find in our text. King Ahaz and the entire kingdom of Judah are confronted with a geopolitical nightmare. Two rival kings have joined forces to come against them. And the response of the king and his people is entirely predictable, entirely modern. They were terrified. Their hearts shook "as the trees of the forest shake before the wind." This is a vivid picture of absolute panic. It is the kind of fear that paralyzes, the kind of fear that makes men do stupid things. And into this very human, very political panic, God sends His prophet with a message that is entirely otherworldly. It is a message that confronts their fear with a call to an entirely different kind of calculus, a heavenly calculus.
The choice presented to Ahaz is the same choice presented to every believer in every generation. Will you believe the intelligence reports from your senses, or will you believe the intelligence report from the throne of God? Will you be "established" by trusting in Yahweh, or will you be washed away by trusting in the arm of the flesh? This is not ancient history. This is your Tuesday. This is the choice you face when you look at your bank account, or get a bad report from the doctor, or watch the godless rage of nations on your screen. The question is, who are you going to believe?
The Text
Now it happened in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Aram and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not conquer it. When it was told to the house of David, saying, “The Arameans have camped in Ephraim,” his heart and the hearts of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind. Then Yahweh said to Isaiah, “Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, to the highway of the fuller’s field, and say to him, ‘Take care and stay quiet, have no fear and do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands, on account of the burning anger of Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah. Because Aram, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has counseled evil against you, saying, “Let us go up against Judah and terrorize it, and make for ourselves a breach in its walls and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it,” thus says Lord Yahweh: “It shall not stand, nor shall it happen. For the head of Aram is Damascus and the head of Damascus is Rezin (now within another sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered, so that it is no longer a people), and the head of Ephraim is Samaria and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you do not establish your faith in Yahweh, you surely shall not be established.” ’ ”
(Isaiah 7:1-9 LSB)
A Bad King and a Big Fear (vv. 1-2)
We begin with the historical setting and the emotional reaction.
"Now it happened in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Aram and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not conquer it. When it was told to the house of David, saying, “The Arameans have camped in Ephraim,” his heart and the hearts of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind." (Isaiah 7:1-2)
First, we need to understand that Ahaz was a profoundly wicked king. The Chronicler tells us he "did not do what was right in the sight of Yahweh," made idols, practiced child sacrifice, and generally led Judah into rank apostasy (2 Chronicles 28). This is crucial. Ahaz's fear is not the fear of a righteous man facing long odds. It is the terror of a guilty man who knows, deep down, that he has no claim on God's protection. When you abandon God, you have nowhere to turn when the political winds start to howl.
The threat is real. The northern kingdom of Israel (called Ephraim here) has allied with Aram (Syria). This is a civil war, brother against brother, made worse by a foreign entanglement. Their goal is to depose Ahaz and set up a puppet king, the "son of Tabeel." The news that these two armies have joined forces just north of his border sends a wave of panic through the capital. The image of trees shaking in the wind is one of utter helplessness. They are not just worried; they are undone. Their stability was rooted in their political circumstances, and so when the circumstances shook, they shook.
A Strange Errand and a Living Sermon (v. 3)
Into this panic, God gives his prophet a very specific, and very strange, set of instructions.
"Then Yahweh said to Isaiah, “Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, to the highway of the fuller’s field..." (Isaiah 7:3)
God does not summon the terrified king to the Temple. He sends the prophet to the king. God takes the initiative. He meets Ahaz right where he is, in the middle of his frantic, pragmatic attempts to solve the problem himself. Where is Ahaz? He's inspecting the city's water supply. This is what secular kings do in a crisis. They check the infrastructure. They prepare for a siege. He is operating entirely on a horizontal plane.
And notice who God tells Isaiah to bring with him: "your son Shear-jashub." This is not a "take your son to work day." The boy's name is a living sermon. It means "a remnant shall return." So before Isaiah even opens his mouth, God has sent a message. The prophet and his son are a walking object lesson. The name itself contains both a promise and a warning. Yes, a remnant will return, which means there will be a judgment from which only a remnant will be saved. But the emphasis here, in this moment of crisis, is on the promise. God is signaling that His covenant purpose will not be thwarted. A remnant will return. The line of David will not be extinguished by these two upstart kings.
The Divine Perspective (vv. 4-8)
God's message to Ahaz is a direct assault on his fear. It has four parts: a command, a perspective, a promise, and a prophecy.
"...'Take care and stay quiet, have no fear and do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands, on account of the burning anger of Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah.'" (Isaiah 7:4)
The command is radical: "Stay quiet." The Hebrew here means to be still, to settle down. In other words, "Stop running around like a chicken with its head cut off." God's first instruction in a crisis is to stop your frantic activity and listen. Faith begins where panic ends. And the basis for this quietness is a new perspective. Ahaz sees a raging inferno threatening to consume his kingdom. God sees "two stubs of smoldering firebrands." They are at the end of their burn. They are mostly smoke and bluster, about to go out. What looks like a forest fire to you is a couple of damp twigs to God. This is the essence of faith: seeing your problems from God's point of view.
God then reveals He knows the enemy's exact plan: to terrorize Judah and install a puppet king. But He follows this with a sovereign promise: "It shall not stand, nor shall it happen" (v. 7). This is a raw, absolute declaration of divine power. God is not offering a strategy. He is stating a fact. Their plan will fail because He has vetoed it. Why? Because God has established an order to the world. "The head of Aram is Damascus and the head of Damascus is Rezin... and the head of Ephraim is Samaria and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah." God is saying that these little kings have their little spheres of authority, but their authority ends at the border God has established. They are nobodies trying to rewrite God's map. And then comes the stunning prophecy: "within another sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered." God is not just going to stop them; He is going to erase one of them from the map. He is in complete control of the future.
The Covenantal Ultimatum (v. 9)
The sermon concludes with a sharp, memorable ultimatum. It is a rhyming couplet in the Hebrew, designed to stick in the mind.
"...If you do not establish your faith in Yahweh, you surely shall not be established." (Isaiah 7:9b)
The choice is laid bare. Your stability, your security, your very existence as a kingdom, is directly tied to your faith. The verb is the same in both clauses: if you will not aman, you will not aman. If you will not believe, you will not be stable. If you are not firm in your faith, you will not be firm at all. Your only source of establishment is to trust in the God who establishes.
This is a foundational principle of reality. You will be established on whatever you trust. If you trust in political alliances, as Ahaz was tempted to do with Assyria, you will be established on a foundation of sand, and you will be swept away when the political winds change. If you trust in your military, or your economy, or your own cleverness, you are building on a smoldering firebrand. But if you establish yourself on the unchanging character and unbreakable promises of Yahweh, you will be as firm as His throne.
This is a covenantal challenge. God is calling Ahaz back to the foundation of the Davidic covenant. The house of David was not established by political savvy, but by a divine promise. To abandon faith in that promise is to abandon the only thing holding the kingdom up.
The Gospel According to Ahaz's Fear
We know from the rest of the story that Ahaz failed this test spectacularly. He refused to trust God and instead sent tribute to the king of Assyria, saying "I am your servant and your son" (2 Kings 16:7). He chose a human king over the heavenly King. He trusted in the arm of flesh, and it ultimately brought ruin upon his nation. He refused to be established in faith, and so he was not established.
But this story is in the Bible for our sake. We are all Ahaz. We are all confronted by smoldering firebrands that look to us like raging infernos. We are all tempted to run to Assyria for help, whatever our personal Assyria might be, a political party, a financial strategy, a sinful coping mechanism. We are all tempted to inspect the water tunnels when we should be listening for the word of the prophet.
And God comes to us, just as He came to Ahaz. He comes to us not because we are righteous, but because He is gracious. And He brings with Him a greater sign than Shear-jashub. In the very next section of this chapter, God gives Ahaz the sign of Immanuel: "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:14). This means "God with us."
The ultimate answer to our political and personal fears is not a divine perspective or a naked promise, but a divine person. The answer is Jesus Christ. He is the true remnant who returned from death. He is the one who faced the ultimate confederacy of sin, death, and the devil, and made them a public spectacle, triumphing over them by the cross (Colossians 2:15). He is the king whose throne is truly established forever.
When we are shaking like trees in the wind, God does not just tell us not to fear. He points us to the one who has conquered all our fears. He tells us to establish our faith in Him. To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ is to be truly established. It means that your security is no longer tied to the political headlines or the stock market report. Your stability is rooted in the finished work of the Son of God. He is our Immanuel. He is God with us. And if God is for us, what can two smoldering stubs do to us?