Isaiah 7:1-7 - Homiletics

The designs of the wicked, however well laid, easily brought to naught by God.

It would be difficult to find a scheme, humanly speaking, more prudent and promising than that now formed by Rezin and Pekah. They had each measured their strength against that of Ahaz singly, and had come off decided victors from the encounter. What doubt could there be of success when their arms were united? And success would be a matter of the greatest importance to them. It would enable them to form a compact alliance of three considerable warlike nations against the aggressive power which was threatening all Western Asia with subjugation. It would put an end to the perpetual little wars in which they had been for centuries wasting their strength, and weakening themselves for resistance against an alien conqueror. But God speaks the word: "It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass;" and the promising scheme drops through, ends in disaster. Rezin, its framer, instead of triumphing over Ahaz, is himself attacked by Tiglath-Pileser; his territories are invaded, his capital besieged and taken, his people carried away captive, and himself slain ( 2 Kings 16:9 ). Pekah, Rezin's aider and abettor, is then exposed to the full brunt of Assyrian invasion, is attacked, defeated, loses cities and provinces, and, though not slain by the Assyrians, is left so weak and so disgraced, that he is shortly dethroned by a new usurper, Hoshea, who murders him for his own security ( 2 Kings 15:29 , 2 Kings 15:30 ). The "house of David," threatened with removal by the confederates, escapes the crisis unhurt, and continues to occupy the throne of Judah for another century and a half, while the kingdoms of Syria and Israel fall within a few years, and their inhabitants are deported to far-distant regions ( 2 Kings 16:9 ; 2 Kings 17:6 ; 1 Chronicles 15:26 ). We may learn from this—

I. THE MADNESS OF OPPOSING GOD . Syria and Ephraim were confederate against Judah. They knew that Judah was in an especial way God's people. They designed to set aside the house of David. They knew, or at any rate Ephraim knew, that the throne belonged to the descendants of David by God's promise. Thus they set themselves against God knowingly. They thought their wisdom would be greater or their strength superior to his. But thus to think is utter madness. The "foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men" ( 1 Corinthians 1:24 ). In vain do "the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision" ( Psalms 2:2-4 ). God had only to put it into the heart of the King of Assyria to make an immediate expedition, and all the fine schemes of the confederates, which needed time for their execution, came at once to naught, and were confounded. The would-be allies were crushed separately; their victim escaped them; and "the house of David" outlasted both their own.

II. THE WISDOM OF FULL TRUST IN GOD . When once God had sent him the message, "It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass," Ahaz might have rested securely on the promise, and have been content simply to "stand still and see the salvation of God." But he can only have had a weak and imperfect trust in Isaiah's words. He must bethink himself how he may escape his foes; he must bring in another to help him besides God. Accordingly, he "goes to Assyria." He takes the silver and gold out of the royal palace and out of the temple treasury, and sends them to Tiglath-Pileser, with the offer of becoming his servant ( 2 Kings 16:7 , 2 Kings 16:8 ), and he probably flatters himself that he has done well, and owes his escape from Rezin and Pekah to himself. But he has really taken a step on the downward path which will conduct the house of David and the people of Judah to ruin. He has placed himself under an idolater, and paved the way for new idolatries ( 2 Kings 16:10-16 ). He has helped to sweep away two states, which, while they continued, served as a breakwater to keep the waves of invasion off his own kingdom. He has called in one, who, from the true point of view, has really "distressed him, and strengthened him not" ( 2 Chronicles 28:20 ). How much wiser would he have been to have accepted God's promise in full faith, and not supplemented it by his own "inventions" ( Ecclesiastes 7:29 ) God would have found a way to help him and save him, which would have involved no such evil consequences as those which flowed from his own self-willed action.