Ahaz began to reign in Judah after the death of Jotham. This young man of twenty was bent on doing evil; he ‘did not that which was right in the sight of the Lord’, 2 Kings 16. 2. His idolatrous deeds included filling the city with graven images, and reviving the worship of Molech in the Valley of Hinnom. At one of the most critical times in the history of Judah, wicked Ahaz sat on the throne of the kingdom. Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the king of Samaria resolved to remove Ahaz, and to set up a puppet-king on the throne of Judah amenable to their will. To escape this situation Ahaz made up his mind to summon the aid of Tiglath-pileser, the Assyrian.
God sent Isaiah at the time of the political intrigue to Ahaz. Isaiah was accompanied by his son Shear-jashub, whose name means ‘a remnant shall return’. Isaiah appealed to the King to put his trust in Jehovah; the confederacy that he feared would not succeed. To prove it the impious king was invited to ask a sign of the Lord his God; ‘ask it either in the depth or in the height above’. Ahaz said, ‘I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord’. The king had secretly sent an ambassador to the king of Assyria saying, ‘I am your slave’; he had no intention of putting his trust in the Lord. Isaiah’s reply to the pious statement of Ahaz reached forward to a future day in the purposes of God; ‘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’s word was intended as a message of hope to a people in a very dark day, yet he found the ears of both king and people heavy and their hearts hardened, so they would not believe. Matthew’s gospel confirms that after 700 years God fulfilled His word. The sign announced by Isaiah to the impious Ahaz concerning the virgin’s son came to pass.
Man’s unbelief, whether yesterday or today, never alters the purposes of divine grace. In the darkness of today’s unbelief like Isaiah we need to tell out boldly a message of grace; it is that ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’. Only by turning to God is salvation to be found.
