Isaiah 7:1  In the days of Ahaz son of Jotham son of Uzziah, king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah son of Remaliah of Israel went up to attack Jerusalem, but could not mount an attack against it.  When the house of David heard that Aram had allied itself with Ephraim, the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake with the wind.

Go back in time with me, to the mid 730s BCE.  For citizens of the kingdom of Judah, these were dire times.  The Assyrian Empire was the local superpower, lurking in the East in present-day Northern Iraq.  Led by King Tiglath-Pileser III, the previously-declining empire had been revitalized and had aggressively subjugated the surrounding nations.  These nations, including Judah, had to submit to Assyria lest they be invaded and destroyed, often in gruesome and painful fashion.

Around this time, however, some people decided that enough was enough.  In the northern kingdom of Israel, also known as Ephraim, pro-Assyrian and anti-Assyrian parties had formed.  There is even evidence that two kings may have reigned at the same time in Israel, with Menahem in Samaria pursuing a policy of appeasement and Pekah in Gilead looking to revolt against the Assyrians.  Around 736 BCE, Pekah’s forces in Israel formed an alliance with King Rezin of Aram in a local coalition against Assyria.  These two nations tried to get Judah to join them, but King Ahaz of Judah refused.  The armies of Aram and Ephraim invaded Judah in an effort to effect “regime change” and force Judah to join their coalition.  This conflict became known as the “Syro-Ephraimite War,” with the forces of Syria (Aram) and Israel (Ephraim) fighting against Judah.

Predictably, the war did not go well for Judah.  In 2 Chronicles 28, it says that 120,000 veteran soldiers of Judah were killed in a single day.  Aramean and Ephraimite forces also killed Maaseiah, the king’s son; Azikram, commander of the palace guard; and Elkanah, 2^nd in command to King Ahaz himself.  2 Kings 16 says that because of the invasion, Judah was also vulnerable to small-scale raids from Edom, the small kingdom south of Judah.  The invading armies gobbled up vast swaths of Judean territory, but their offensive stalled at Jerusalem with the Arameans and Ephraimites unable to take it.

This is the situation in which the nation of Judah found itself at the time of Isaiah chapter 7.  With this in mind, does it make sense why “the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake with the wind?”  To me, it makes perfect sense.  They were stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place:  Choose an alliance with Israel and Aram now and provoke the wrath of mighty Assyria, or resist the alliance and enter into an immediate war in which you are badly outmanned.  It should be no surprise that King Ahaz sought counsel from Isaiah, the prophet of God.

Isaiah 7:3  Then the LORD said to Isaiah, Go out to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller’s Field, and say to him, Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah.

Isaiah goes on to assure King Ahaz that if he waits on God for help, God will answer, and that the alliance against him will fail.  Within sixty-five years the northern kingdom of Israel will be completely shattered.  The prophecy concludes with these words:  “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.”

The reaction from Ahaz was not exactly enthusiastic.  He rejects the words of the prophet and the counsel from God.  And in a sense, I don’t blame him.  He is caught in what looks like an impossible situation.  Isaiah, look around you!  We cannot hold out against two armies. The treasury is depleted from the tribute we have to send in order to pacify Assyria, we have two kings marching against our very gates.  Edom is nibbling at our borders, all of our elite commanders are dead.  God, I don’t need a motivational speech, I need men, I need soldiers!  120,000 of our best men killed in a single day, for a sign, why don’t you raise those men from the dead so they can fight again?  Would that even be enough to hold Jerusalem?

Ahaz saw the circumstances in the world and he was terrified.  And anyone who saw the situation as Ahaz saw it would have felt the same fear.  Things were very bad in Judah.  Fear was a reasonable and rational reaction.

Isaiah, however, saw things differently.  Isaiah’s view of the world was not primarily informed by the geopolitical situation of the time, the activities of Tiglath-Pileser or Pekah or Rezin.  Isaiah’s vision was a prophetic vision, founded upon and informed by his vision of God at the time of  his calling to be a prophet. That vision is detailed in Isaiah chapter 6.  “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his rove filled the temple.  Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”  The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Isaiah’s life, his ministry, were powered by this vision.  This was the lens through which he viewed his world, this war, these so-called powers and kings of the earth.  Isaiah could not be afraid of wars and death, because he had heard heavenly attendants sing “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”  Isaiah was not impressed by the plotting and conspiracies of kings, because he stood in the presence of the King with a capital K, Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts.  Isaiah had felt the sheer terror of knowing that he was a mortal, a sinful interloper in the presence of pure, ultimate holiness and yet he lived. Compared with that fear, no fear on earth could ever gain admission into Isaiah’s heart and soul.

King Ahaz did not have access to that prophetic insight.  The Bible describes Ahaz as one of the worst, one of the most corrupt and evil kings of Judah.  His father Jotham and his grandfather Uzziah had done what was right and followed God, but Ahaz took everything they did right and flipped the script.  Young and impressionable when he became king, Ahaz seemingly accepted every practice of every political or religious group in his kingdom and beyond.  He did worship the God of Israel, but he also made sacrifices to the gods of the Canaanites. He even offered one of his sons as a sacrifice, one of the most serious sins possible for a king.  He may have given lip service to God, but his allegiance was divided, his focus elsewhere.  When crisis overtook his kingdom, with two armies routing his forces and gathering outside his capital city, Ahaz’s faith crumbled.  Reverent words were no longer enough.  The faith of his father and grandfather were not enough.  His fear proved to be stronger than his faith. 

Ahaz rejected God’s word and turned instead to Assyria.  He sent a message to King Tiglath-Pileser, desperately pleading for assistance against his enemies.  And Assyria answered the call, sending armies against both Samaria and Damascus.  In 732 BCE, Damascus fell to the Assyrians, who looted the city, scattered the people and executed King Rezin.  Israel’s armies withdrew from Judah, but a few years later they attempted to form another alliance against Assyria.  The Assyrians marched on Samaria, and it fell in 722. 

So Judah was the only one left standing, but Ahaz’s decision did not come without consequence.  Assyria bailed Judah out of its crisis, but from that time on Judah became a vassal state, paying enormous tribute to Assyria.  In fact, by appealing to Assyria for aid, Ahaz set in motion events which would lead directly to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE and the exile of God’s people to Babylon.

As I look at our world today, I think we can learn something important from the story of Isaiah and Ahaz.  The world is full of bad news and dire circumstances.  We may not be experiencing the fear of invasion and war, but it certainly seems like every week the media explodes with breaking news of a new menace.  Just in the past few months we’ve been bombarded with stories and images of war between Russia and Ukraine, racial tension erupting into violence in the Midwest, terror groups like ISIS active in the Middle East, the first Ebola infections on American soil, and this week more stories of terrorists and shootings.  While all of this is happening, confidence in our own leaders is at a lower point than ever.  Cynicism reigns supreme.  I saw an image posted to my Facebook feed last week that read: “Diapers and politicians should be changed often—both for the same reason.”  Now with the Internet in just about every home and accessible on mobile devices, it’s possible to have scary stories and bad news streaming into one’s consciousness 24 hours a day.

Fear was a problem in the days of Ahaz and Isaiah, and it is a problem now.  It’s a danger to our physical health, our mental health, especially our spiritual health.  And we as SDAs are vulnerable in ways that are specific to us.  Our beliefs about the end times have led us to focus on some scary things, like Satanic activity, deception and persecution.  There is within our community a tendency to gravitate towards conspiracy theories, of vast and all-powerful secret societies leading the world to ruin. 

I used to think that the greatest danger of fear running wild was the tendency of terrified people to do desperate and irrational things.  However, the story in Isaiah and other Bible passages have changed my mind.  I now believe that the greatest danger of unchecked fear is its unparalleled ability to pull us away from God.

Just as in the time of Ahaz, it is perfectly reasonable and rational to look out in the world, surrounded by bad news and frightening situations, and be shaken like trees in a wind.  Evil seems so strong. Death, pain, and disease surround us on all sides.  Tragedy has touched our church repeatedly in very real and painful ways in recent times.  It makes sense to be afraid! And the temptation that comes with fear is always to look within ourselves, to find a way out with our strength, our smarts, our knowledge.  If I can know when disaster will happen I can avoid it.  If I arm myself against the bad guys I can fight them.  If I can figure out what Satan is doing, I won’t be deceived.  Problem is, God gets left behind.  God’s counsel is forgotten.  King Ahaz looked at his situation, he figured out a political solution to his crisis—but God was not in his solution, and it cost his nation dearly in the end.

The Bible testifies to a different way of dealing with fearful times and crisis situations.  It is possible for us to have the prophetic vision that held Isaiah.  Isaiah saw God on his throne, and that vision caused him to stand firm in the very same circumstances that caused Ahaz to fall.  This same prophetic view of the world and history is repeated throughout the Bible.  In 2 Timothy 1, Paul is a prisoner because of his work for the gospel.  His situation is desperate and would ultimately lead to his execution, but in the midst of this dire predicament he tells Timothy in 1:7 that “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-discipline.”  Those who are connected to God, who are powered by his Spirit, who actively choose to focus on God rather than the tyrants and terrors of the world, these will overcome their fears and make sound decisions based on God’s counsel. 

In Revelation 1, John sees a vision of Jesus moving among seven lampstands.  His appearance is majestic and fearsome, blazing with holy fire, and John falls down as if he was dead, overcome with fear.  But in 1:17 Christ speaks to John, even placing his hand on him.  Jesus’ first words? “Do not be afraid.”  We believe that Revelation concerns the time of the end, and many things in Revelation are intense, spooky and downright terrifying.  Yet Christ’s first words to John are, “Do not be afraid.”  Jesus, how is that possible?  This very book describes deceptions and plagues and persecution.  Environmental disasters on a global scale.  Satan animating fearsome beasts, making war against God’s people and prevailing against them!  Jesus, how can you possibly say “Do not be afraid?”

If we focus on the scary and the spooky, it is nigh-impossible not to be afraid.  The prophetic vision, however, invites us to focus on something else, the words and person of Christ.  “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.” 

It is this vision that will allow us to live courageously in the midst of chaos, to choose God’s voice and God’s counsel even when things are desperate and we are most tempted to go our own ways.  1 John 4:18 says that “Perfect love casts out fear,” and the more we dwell in God’s perfect love and focus on his infinite goodness the less vulnerable we will be to the voices preaching calamity.  Yes, the world is driven by forces beyond our control.  We are surrounded by danger, disease and death.  But Christ is here with us, his Spirit speaks to us, and if we listen to his voice we will know that there is no need to be afraid.  It is Jesus who is in control of history, Jesus who is the first and the last, Jesus who has the last say, Jesus who sits enthroned in heaven and laughs while the nations rage.  This same Jesus is the one who engraved your name on the palms of his hands, the one who knit you together in your mother’s womb, the one who was there when you took your first breath and will be there when you take your last. Jesus conquered death, Jesus is alive forever and ever, Jesus has the keys of Death and hell, and nothing can tear you out of his hand.  Do we believe this testimony of Jesus and his prophets, can we catch the prophetic vision today, and how will our lives be different if we do?  Will we choose to see the world as Ahaz saw it, or as Isaiah did?

Romans 8:35-39

³⁵ Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all day long;
    we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.