May 25 - 60 - Isaiah 7:14

Therefore the Lord himself

will give you a sign:

The virgin will conceive

and give birth to a son,

and will call him Immanuel

Isaiah 7:14

Bible Rank: 60

 

Isaiah 7:14 is clearly a messianic prophecy. In Matthew 1:23, the angel used these exact words to announce the birth of Jesus the Messiah. And what powerful and comforting words they were! Have you ever felt that God was distant? Well, Immanuel means, "God IS with us!"

So ... knowing that familiar message, let me give you a further glimpse into how prophecy works. And let me start by asking this question: Do you know what your name means? 

We've heard names like Edward for so long that we basically forget what they mean. But what if I started asking people to call me by the meaning of my name: "Call me 'the King'!" You'd laugh at me, but that's what my name means. My son Paul would say, "Call me tall." ("Okay. You're not short, but 5'10" is hardly tall.") And Mary Louise would have to scowl perpetually as she asked people to call her "Bitter" (the meaning of Mary).

 

Imagine the laughs that Abraham got when God asked this childless 90-year-old to start telling his neighbors to call him, "Father of Many Nations." That's what Abraham means ... and that's often how God speaks a new and prophetic truth. 

 

I appreciate my parents naming me "King," but I would have hated to be the child of a prophet. Isaiah kept introducing his son like this:

 

·         Friend: "Isaiah, how are things?"

·         Isaiah: "Not good. In fact, meet my son. His name is "Things are Rotting and an Enemy is about to Pounce.'" (That's more or less what the name of Isaiah's son, Mahershalhaljashbaz, means.) 

 

But when Isaiah wanted to proclaim what was going to happen to Israel, all he had to do was point to the children around him and say ...

 

·         Meet my son, "Things are rotting and an Enemy is about to Pounce."

·         All is bad ... but all is not hopeless. Meet my other son, "(After the judgment) A Remnant Shall Return." (That's what Shearjashub means.)

·         And if you need further proof of God's love and concern, meet the King's son, Immanuel. His name is an assurance that "God is with us."

 

Often with prophecies, we rightly focus on the future and ultimate fulfillment of these proclamations -- like the future Messiah being born to a virgin and fully being "God with us." But we must not forget that God works on many levels simultaneously including the immediate fulfillments during the days of the prophet -- which gave their word the validity it needed to be preserved for future generations. For example, in the days of Isaiah, the enemy -- Assyria -- was indeed about to pounce on this rotting nation; nevertheless, God was always with his people and remnant continually remained in tact ... even until the 20th Century A.D. when Israel was rebuilt into a nation. (Could that be the far-future, even end-times fulfillment?!)

In Christ's Love

the King

(or in spite of my kingly name,

"a child of the king")