Pious Unbelief and the Unstoppable Sign Text: Isaiah 7:10-17
Introduction: The Politics of Unbelief
We live in a world that is drowning in politics. Every decision, every relationship, every news cycle is filtered through the grimy lens of political calculation. Who has the power? Who is forming the right alliance? Who will be the strong man that can deliver us? This is not a new phenomenon. It is the oldest idolatry. It is the native tongue of fallen man. And in our text today, we find King Ahaz, a man fluent in that very language.
The historical situation is straightforward. Ahaz, king of Judah, is caught in a geopolitical vise. The northern kingdom of Israel has formed an alliance with Syria, and they are marching on Jerusalem to depose Ahaz and install their own puppet king. Their goal is to force Judah into their anti-Assyrian coalition. Ahaz is, to put it mildly, terrified. His heart and the hearts of his people were shaken "as the trees of the forest are shaken with the wind" (Is. 7:2). In this moment of crisis, he has two options. He can trust the covenant promises of Yahweh, who swore to preserve the line of David forever. Or, he can play the game. He can look for a bigger, meaner dog to protect him, and his eyes are on Tiglath-Pileser, the king of Assyria.
God, in His mercy, sends the prophet Isaiah to head him off at the pass. God's message is simple: "Be careful, and be quiet; do not fear" (Is. 7:4). Trust me. These two kings you fear are nothing but smoldering stumps of firebrands. But Ahaz is a politician. He understands armies and tribute money, not promises and faith. And so when God offers him a sign to bolster his weak-kneed faith, Ahaz responds with a masterstroke of pious fraud. He puts on his religious face and effectively tells God to leave him alone so he can get on with the real business of saving his kingdom through human strength and political maneuvering. What we are about to witness is the anatomy of unbelief, and how God's sovereign purposes are not in the least bit hindered by it.
The Text
Then Yahweh spoke again to Ahaz, saying, "Ask a sign for yourself from Yahweh your God; make it deep as Sheol or high as heaven." But Ahaz said, "I will not ask, and I will not test Yahweh!" Then he said, "Listen now, O house of David! Is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well? Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. He will eat curds and honey in order that He will know to refuse evil and choose good. For before the boy will know to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken. Yahweh will bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house days which have never come since the day that Ephraim separated from Judah, the king of Assyria!"
(Isaiah 7:10-17 LSB)
The Blank Check of Grace (vv. 10-11)
We begin with God's gracious, almost startling, offer to a faithless king.
"Then Yahweh spoke again to Ahaz, saying, 'Ask a sign for yourself from Yahweh your God; make it deep as Sheol or high as heaven.'" (Isaiah 7:10-11)
We must not miss the sheer grace in this. God knows Ahaz's heart is wobbling. He knows that Ahaz is already mentally composing his letter to the king of Assyria. And yet, God condescends. He offers to underwrite Ahaz's faith. He essentially hands him a blank check and says, "Name your miracle. Anything. Ask for something impossible. Raise the dead or stop the sun. I will do it, right now, to prove to you that My word is trustworthy."
This is not God tempting man, which He does not do. This is God accommodating Himself to our weakness. It is like a father holding out his hand to a toddler who is afraid to take the next step. God is saying, "Ahaz, I know you are scared. I know My bare promise is not enough for your shriveled imagination. So let me give you something tangible. Let me give you a rock to stand on." This is a staggering offer. God is willing to put His own credibility on the line in a public, undeniable way, all to win the trust of one faithless man.
The Sanctimonious Sidestep (v. 12)
Ahaz's reply is a textbook example of using religious language to disobey God.
"But Ahaz said, 'I will not ask, and I will not test Yahweh!'" (Isaiah 7:12)
On the surface, this sounds wonderful. It sounds like a man who has memorized his catechism. He is quoting Deuteronomy 6:16. What piety! What reverence! What utter nonsense. This is not faith; it is a pious smokescreen for a heart that has already made its decision. When God commands you to ask for a sign, it is not "testing God" to obey Him. It is testing God to refuse.
Ahaz does not want a sign from God because he does not want to be obligated to trust God. He has already sent his ambassadors to Assyria, or at least the runners are stretching in the courtyard. A sign from God would ruin all his plans. It would force him to abandon his savvy political strategy and rely on the invisible God of his fathers. He would rather have the tangible might of the Assyrian army than a promise from the God who made heaven and earth. So he wraps his unbelief in a Bible verse and hopes God won't notice. This is the sin of faux humility. It is using the language of submission to maintain your own autonomy. It is telling God, "I respect you too much to do what you just told me to do." It is a damnable lie.
The Prophetic Rebuke (v. 13)
Isaiah, filled with the Spirit of God, sees right through the charade and unleashes a blistering rebuke.
"Then he said, 'Listen now, O house of David! Is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well?'" (Isaiah 7:13)
The address shifts. It is no longer just to Ahaz, but to the entire "house of David." This is a dynastic issue. The covenant is at stake. Isaiah tells them that their little games are not just wearying him, a mere man, but they are wearying God Almighty. Think of the audacity. The Creator of the cosmos, who holds all things together by the word of His power, is being "tried," being exhausted, by the mulish unbelief of His covenant people.
And notice the subtle but sharp shift in pronouns. In verse 11, God is "Yahweh your God." Ahaz is still being addressed as a covenant king. But here in verse 13, Isaiah says, "my God." The prophet is drawing a line. He is saying, "If you are going to act like this, you are on one side, and I am on the other with my God, the God you are treating with such contempt." Ahaz's pious refusal has revealed his true allegiance, and it is not with the God of David.
The Unstoppable Sign (vv. 14-16)
Because Ahaz refused to ask, God simply gives him a sign unilaterally. God's purposes are not subject to a royal veto.
"Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. He will eat curds and honey in order that He will know to refuse evil and choose good. For before the boy will know to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken." (Isaiah 7:14-16)
This is one of the most glorious prophecies in all of Scripture, and it operates on two levels simultaneously, like a mountain range where you see the foothill in front of you and the towering peak behind it. This is how Hebrew prophecy often works, with a near fulfillment that serves as a type and a down payment for the ultimate fulfillment.
The near fulfillment, the foothill, was for Ahaz. The sign was not the miraculous nature of the conception. The Hebrew word here is almah, which means a young woman of marriageable age. It can mean virgin, but it does not have to. The sign for Ahaz was all about the timetable. A specific young woman, likely known to both Isaiah and Ahaz, would conceive and bear a son. And before that little boy was old enough to know the difference between right and wrong, say, two or three years old, the kingdoms of Syria and Israel would be wiped off the map. This was a direct, verifiable, short-term promise. God was putting a deadline on His deliverance. The name Immanuel, "God with us," was a promise that God was still with the house of David, despite its feckless king.
But the Holy Spirit who authored this word was aiming at something far grander. Seven centuries later, the apostle Matthew, writing under the inspiration of that same Spirit, quotes this very verse. And when he does, he uses the Greek word parthenos, which can only mean virgin. He tells us that this prophecy was ultimately and perfectly fulfilled in the birth of Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:23). The ultimate Immanuel is not just a sign that God is with us politically, but that God has become one of us personally. The ultimate sign is the Incarnation. The ultimate deliverance is not from two tin-pot kings, but from sin, death, and the devil. The foothill was for Ahaz. The mountain peak is for the world.
The Harvest of Unbelief (v. 17)
The prophecy concludes with a terrible and ironic twist. Ahaz gets what he wanted, and it will destroy him.
"Yahweh will bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house days which have never come since the day that Ephraim separated from Judah, the king of Assyria!" (Isaiah 7:17)
Ahaz refused to trust God's sign and chose instead to trust in the might of Assyria. And God says, in effect, "You want Assyria? You can have Assyria." The very nation Ahaz paid to be his savior would become the instrument of God's wrath upon Judah. The hired bodyguard becomes the executioner. This is a fixed principle in the moral universe God has made. Your idols will always turn on you. The thing you trust in place of God will become the rod of your own back. Ahaz thought he was being a clever pragmatist, but he was a fool. He rejected the free gift of God's deliverance and in its place purchased his own destruction.
Conclusion: God With Us
The choice that was set before Ahaz is the choice that is set before every one of us. We are all threatened by enemies, whether they be foreign armies, a rebellious culture, our own sin, or the fear of death. And we have a choice. We can be like Ahaz and try to cut a deal with a worldly power. We can trust in our political savvy, our bank accounts, our intellect, or our own righteousness. We can put on a pious face and tell God we don't want to bother Him, while we frantically work the levers of worldly power.
Or we can look to the sign that God Himself has given. God has given a sign that is both deep as Sheol and high as heaven. He has given His only Son, born of a virgin. This was necessary. In order to save us, our representative had to be one of us, a true man. But in order to be a perfect sacrifice, He could not be tainted by Adam's original sin, which is passed down through the line of the father. The virgin birth solves this. It provides a true man who is also a holy man, a second Adam to start a new humanity.
His name is Immanuel. God is with us. This is not an abstract doctrine. It is the central claim of history. God is with us in Jesus Christ. Therefore, you are not autonomous. You do not get to choose your own savior. God has provided one. To trust in this Immanuel is to have God with you as your Father, your defender, and your salvation. To reject this sign, like Ahaz, is not to be left alone. It is to find that God is against you as your Judge, and the very thing you chose as your savior will be the instrument of your ruin. Do not be an Ahaz. Do not hide your unbelief behind pious chatter. Look to the sign. Look to the virgin-born Son. Look to Immanuel, and live.