This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) Welcome back for day five, our last day of week two of our Look
Through the Book of Isaiah. We're going to skip over to focus on Isaiah chapter
seven. Isaiah seven talks about what to do when your heart is shaken.

In California, where I live, we know what to do when the building shakes, but
what about when your heart is shaken? Isaiah seven, it's all about a people with
shaken hearts. Isaiah seven two says, now the house of David was told, Aram has
allied itself with Ephraim.

So the hearts of Ahaz and his people, Ahaz who was the king at the time and his
people, were shaken as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind. Their
hearts are shaken by the political military situation of the day. A new alliance
was made.

And when that alliance is made of two enemies, Ahaz, all the country looks at
this and say, they're overwhelmingly powerful now. We can't possibly have
victory. How do you handle a shaken heart?

Shaken hearts occur when the circumstances that you're facing, they seem
insurmountable, they're undefeatable, they're unconquerable. And so the shaken
heart wants to give up, to lie down, to bail out, it just wants to quit. This
chapter talks to us as Isaiah gives a prophecy to Ahaz this day, talks to us
about what to do when our heart is shaken.

Tells us that you need God's command, you need God's perspective, and you need
God's promise. First you need God's command. When you're shaken, when I'm
shaken, what we want to do is what our emotions tell us to do.

But we all know where that gets us. I mean, our emotions make things fall apart
even more. But we just want to do something and do something quick, so we rely on
what we're feeling.

And we often do the wrong thing when we're shaken. Instead, take the time to
look and see, what does God say to do in the midst of this circumstance? Find a
friend who'll tell you.

And then do what God tells you to do. So in verse three of chapter seven, "Then
the Lord said to Isaiah, "Go out, you and your son," shared Jesheb, "to meet
Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the upper pool "on the road to the
launderer's field, "and say to him, 'Be careful, keep calm, and don't be afraid.
"Do not lose heart because of the two smoldering stubs "of firewood, because of
the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram "and of the son of Remaliah.

So he talks to the king very clearly, Isaiah does this day. His son goes along
with him. The Bible even is very clear.

It says this is where the conversation happened. And he says here's the commands
of God, very simple commands. They're commands for you and I when we're shaken.

First, be careful. Be careful. When our heart is shaken, along with shaken
hearts often come stupid actions.

We do the first thing we think of doing. So be careful. Our fears control us and
we can do the dumbest things.

Be careful. When your heart is shaken, that's not a time to make quick
decisions. That's a time to be careful with your decisions 'cause you want to just
decide anything so it's not shaken anymore and then we often end up making it
worse.

So be careful. Take your time to hear what God has to say. And then keep calm is
the command that Isaiah gives that day.

Don't you love it when people say just calm down? It makes you want to hype up
even more. But this is more than a consolation.

He's not just patting them on the back here. This is a command. God not only
wants us to calm down.

Hey, you should calm down. God has the power to calm our spirits. Calm down.

So you can pray this prayer. Lord, calm my soul right now. I don't have the
power to calm my soul.

Calm my soul right now. Be careful. Keep calm when your heart is shaken.

Next command. There's four commands he gives us in here very quickly is don't be
afraid. Don't be afraid.

Do you know how many times God had to say this to people? Almost every time an
angel appeared, fear not, don't be afraid. God can calm our fears.

When he calms us, he's most often calming our fears. His command here is to
allow us to do so. Don't be afraid.

It's not a suggestion. It's not like a counseling session. It's a command.

Don't be afraid. So how do I connect myself to God's command here? You ask him
to calm your fears.

And the Bible tells us how he calms our fears. He calms our fears with his love.
That's how he does it.

Because his love is always greater than your fear. Your fear may seem to be
greater than anything else in your life. His love trumps that all.

His love is greater than your fear. There's no fear in love, but perfect love
casts out fear. Don't be afraid.

And then do not lose heart. It's so easy for the circumstances of life to make
you want to lose heart. We want to give up or we want to give in because we feel
all alone and we feel like we don't have what it takes to get us through this
tragedy.

We don't have what it takes to get us through this shaken heart. I've always
loved, I know it's very sentimental, but I've always loved that fictional story
of a little boy who sneaks his way on stage before a great concert pianist is
supposed to come out and play. Somehow he sees the piano and he goes to it
without anybody stopping him.

That's why you know it's a fictional story. But he goes to the piano and he sits
down and the little boy in front of the whole crowd starts to play Twinkle
Twinkle Little Star on the piano. This embarrassing moment, like get the kid off
the stage moment.

And then the story is, you probably know the story, the concert pianist comes up
behind him and he reaches his hands around him and he starts to improvise this
beautiful counter melody. And all the time he's saying to the little boy, keep
going, don't quit, don't stop. And he brings beauty out of the simplicity of
what that little boy is playing.

Now, the reason I love that story is because that's what the master does. He
takes the simple prayers that I pray. He takes the simple actions of faith that
I take, the simple seeds of faith that I plant.

And the master comes along and he brings beauty out of it that we just can't
imagine. So don't lose heart. God is working.

The master is there. Those are God's commands when we have a shaken heart. When
your heart is shaken, you listen to God's commands.

When your heart is shaken, you look at God's perspective. And specifically, he
gives his perspective about the enemy. When our heart is shaken, it's shaken by
something.

There is an enemy out there. There's something that seems like it's going to attack
us. So he walks through it that day with Ahaz very clearly.

He says, look, let me just tell you, let's look at God's perspective on this
enemy that you're so afraid of. First, they're just two smoldering stubs of
firewood. Chapter four, last half of verse four.

Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood because of
the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah. Stubs of
firewood. Well, if you've ever seen a stub of a firewood smoldering, that means
the fire's burning out.

That's the picture. They're burning out. God's perspective is you're worried
about something that's burning out.

It's probably not going to come to pass. And for you and I, when we're facing
something, our heart is shaken. God's perspective is often the same thing.

You're worried about something that's possibly never going to come to pass. But
certainly, even if it comes to pass, it's not going to last. Not into eternity, not
into God's promise for your life.

So two smoldering stubs of firewood. That's a picture of the enemies that come
against us. And then another picture is they say, but God says, they say this is
going to happen, but God says it will not happen.

Verses five to seven. Aram, Ephraim, and Remaliah's son have plotted your ruin,
saying, let us invade Judah. Let us tear it apart and divide it amongst
ourselves and make the son of Tabeel king over it.

Yet this is what the sovereign Lord says. It will not take place. It will not
happen.

Don't ever let what they say make you disbelieve what God says. So you look at
what God says. And then he says, here's another perspective on this enemy.

That the head of Samaria, it's only Remaliah's son. Verse nine says the head of
Ephraim is Samaria and the head of Samaria is only Remaliah's son. They're just
people, he's saying.

They're as frail as you are. Remaliah's son, you know him. He's not bigger than
life.

He's just a person. But then he ends these verses about having God's perspective
with these words. Verse nine, last half of verse nine.

If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all. Wow, right in
the middle of this talk about Remaliah and Ephraim and Samaria. If you don't
stand firm in your faith, you won't stand at all.

That's the perspective you and I need when our heart is shaken. I gotta stand in
my faith 'cause it's the only thing worth standing on. And sometimes actually
God allows our circumstances to be shaken.

He allows our hearts to be shaken. So we come to this place of realizing the
only thing I have to stand on is my faith. But whether God allowed it or Satan
afflicted it, or however it happened, the lesson I can learn is that what I have
to stand on is my faith.

God puts things in perspective. What are you standing on when you're shaken? And
then there's a third thing in this chapter that's given to us when our heart is
shaken and that is God's promise.

That's the sign of Immanuel that's in this chapter. In verse 10, again, the Lord
spoke to Ahaz. Ask the Lord your God for a sign.

Whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights. But Ahaz said, I will
not ask. I will not put the Lord to the test.

Then Isaiah said, here now, you house of David, is it not enough to try the
patience of humans? Will you try the patience of God also? It's an interesting
conversation here.

Isaiah, the Lord speaks through Isaiah to Ahaz. Ask me for a sign. Ahaz acts
super spiritual.

He says, oh, I'm not going to even ask or put the Lord to the test. And Isaiah
says, you're trying the patience of God. Ahaz thinks it's somehow spiritual not
to ask.

Not to ask God who's the one who wants to give to us. He doesn't understand
faith. He doesn't understand the love of God.

Maybe the reason he doesn't want to ask is he doesn't want to hear the answer. But
God gives him a sign. God gives him the promise anyway.

And it's a sign of the promise of God's presence. 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 Emmanuel. You
might recognize that verse. We see it again in the New Testament.

Emmanuel, God with us. This is the promise of God's presence. Now for Ahaz,
God's presence is actually going to bring judgment.

Isaiah's telling him here that the nations he's worried about, they're going to be
replaced by an even greater enemy, Assyria, who you might think is his friend at
this point. As you and I, though, we read this verse today, we see that there's
a double application of prophecy. This wasn't just for Ahaz in that day.

In fact, Isaiah used a word here for young woman that most often meant virgin.
But of course, as people read it in Old Testament times, they thought, that just
can't be. This had to just be about Ahaz in that time.

I don't know why Isaiah used this word, why God prompted him and led him through
prophetic power, caused him to choose this word, but God did. And when Jesus was
born, it all became clear. That's why he used that word, because the Virgin Mary
did conceive and did give birth to a son, and we do call him Emmanuel.

God is with us. This isn't just about Christmas. This is about what God wants to
do in your life and my life today.

Matthew 1, 22 and 23, all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said
through the prophet. The Virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they
will call him Emmanuel, which means God is with us. That's the promise.

When your heart is shaken, that's the promise that you hang on to. God is with
us. And that promise is made real and powerful and certain in Jesus Christ.

The one who was born of a virgin, the one who died on a cross, and the one who
rose from the dead. So is your heart shaking? What do you do?

You let God strengthen you with his commands. You let God secure you with his
perspective. You let God satisfy you with his promise.

Let's pray together. Our Father, thank you for the promise of Jesus. God is with
us.

Of all that we talked about, the calm that you want to bring into our lives, the
chasing of the fears in our lives, of all that we talked about, our hearts go to
that. God is with us. When our heart is shaken, when our circumstances are
shaken, when our life is shaken, God, you are with us.

And you'll be with us every moment of every day. And so we come to you right now
with our shaken heart. And we ask God that you bring your comfort, your care,
your calm, your power, your strength, your hope, your future.

We look forward. We look forward in hope because you are with us. In your name
we pray, amen.

Well, next week we're going to see Isaiah turn to the positive as he talks about
change, as he talks about hope and transformation and joy as a part of God's
vision for change in your life.