Transcript
Isaiah: A Child Is Born
First Baptist, Richmond, November 16, 2025
Isaiah 9:1-7
For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders, and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
It’s kind of a sad story.
Near the end of his life, King David couldn’t seem to get warm. He would shiver under a huge pile of blankets. Nothing seemed to work. So, his advisers said, “Let a young virgin be sought for my lord the king, and let her wait on the king and be his attendant; let her lie in your bosom, so that my lord the king may be warm.”
I’m not even going to comment on that.
But the plan must have met with the king’s approval because his advisers went out and searched throughout the territory of Israel for a beautiful young woman. They found Abishag the Shunammite and brought her to the king. “The young woman was very beautiful,” the author of 1 Kings admits. “She became the king’s attendant and served him.” But then he is very careful to add, “The king did not know her sexually,” because even in those days, that would have been wrong. But it’s still a sad story, and part of what makes it sad is the idea that David—who had been so young and strong and vigorous—had now gotten old.
What we remember about David is that once, when he was still just a shepherd boy, he had volunteered to fight a giant. When they told him he couldn’t win he said, “The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the bear will rescue me from this Philistine!” That’s the kind of courage that comes from faith! And after his coronation, when he brought the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem, he was so filled with joy that he danced before the Lord with all his might; he didn’t care who was watching. That’s passion! But he also knew how to show compassion. When he had a chance to kill his old nemesis, King Saul, who had been trying to hunt him down for years, he spared him out of reverence for God’s anointed.
That was David in his prime—a fearless warrior, an ideal king, a man after God’s own heart. But in 1 Kings 1 he’s an old man shivering under the blankets, snuggling up to a young virgin in the hope that she can keep him warm. It’s almost a parable of what had happened to kingdom: the warmth was gone. The light and fire that were in David burned low and eventually burned out. When David died his passion was replaced with politics.
His son Adonijah tried to become king. Even before David died he was campaigning for the job, riding through the streets of Jerusalem in a chariot with 50 men running before him—the same strategy that had been used by his older brother Absalom. Adonijah was young, he was strong, he was good-looking: he was so many of the things David used to be. But Bathsheba heard what he was up to, and before David died she reminded him that he had promised their son Solomon would be his successor. David remembered, and agreed, but after he was crowned king Solomon sent an assassin to deal with Adonijah.
He wasn’t taking any chances.
As one commentator puts it: “Solomon inherited the throne and began strong—wise, prosperous, admired—but his love for God was diluted by treaties, concubines, and the glitter of empire. He built the Temple, yes, but he also built a tax system and a standing army. He loved the Lord and the power of Pharaoh’s daughter—his heart was divided.”[i]
Solomon reigned for forty years and after him came his son Rehoboam, who scorned the counsel of the elders and bragged that his little finger was thicker than his father’s waist. He told the people, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.” The people were shocked. They were outraged. Some of them said, “What share do we have in David? To your tents, O Israel!” They followed a rebel named Jeroboam, who led them north, toward Samaria, and became their king.
From there, the dynasty spiraled, with the descendants of David taking their place one by one on the throne in Judah while the successors of Jeroboam sat on the throne in Israel. There were 19 kings in the north, but none of them considered “good” by biblical standards. There were 20 kings in the south, and a few of them tried to keep God’s covenant. But that old fire—the passion for God that had been in David—had burned out, with “one king after another chasing alliances, idols, and self-preservation. Each generation trusted politics over prayer, tactics over trust.”[ii] By the time Ahaz came along the people knew just what to expect.
I can almost hear them talking about the good old days, when Israel and Judah were one, when they had rest from their enemies all around and a king on the throne who loved God and loved them. Maybe that’s when they first began to dream about a Messiah—a Son of David—who would sit on his father’s throne and rule as his father had ruled, with passion and compassion. Their memory of David became the yardstick against which all other kings were measured, and against which all other kings came up short.
And that’s where the prophets came in. Remember them? Over the past few weeks we’ve talked about Elijah, who confronted King Ahab of Israel, proposed a contest with the prophets of Baal, and called down fire from heaven to prove to the people once and for all that Yahweh alone was God. And then there was Amos, who left his flocks and herds in Tekoa and traveled north to confront the political corruption he found in Israel. Speaking for God he said, “Let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream!” (Amos 5:24). Today we turn our attention to Isaiah, one of the Major Prophets, who lived in Jerusalem and who heard God’s call in the year that King Uzziah died.
Remember that story?
Isaiah was in the temple, minding his own business, when he saw the Lord, high and lifted up; the hem of his robe filling the temple. Seraphs were whizzing around the room like hummingbirds calling out, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts! The whole earth is full of his glory!” Isaiah was terrified. He said, “Woe is me! I’m a filthy sinner living among a whole lot of other filthy sinners and yet I’ve seen the Lord!” But one of the seraphs flew to him with a hot coal from the altar and touched his lips and said, “Now that this has touched your lips your sin is blotted out and your guilt is forgiven.” And that’s when the Lord said, “Whom shall I send and who shall go for us?” And Isiah said, “Here am I; send me.”
God sent him to people who wouldn’t listen and told him to preach repentance to people who wouldn’t repent. Every preacher knows how that feels. Eventually God sent him to King Ahaz, who was trembling with fear because the armies of Israel and Syria were marching toward Jerusalem. They were under attack from Assyria, to the north, and their two kings—Pekah and Rezin—had hoped to form an alliance with Ahaz so that, together, they could repel the Assyrian army. But Ahaz had refused to join them and now they had ganged up against him. In the history books it’s known as the Syro-Ephraimite War, and one writer has imagined it like this:
The year is 735 B.C. The walls of Jerusalem rise against a cold sky.
At first it’s just rumors: travelers arriving from the north, breathless, saying that Rezin of Aram and Pekah of Israel have joined forces. Towns in the hill country are already burning.
People stop talking about harvests and weddings. They talk about armies.
Mothers pull their children inside when they hear such talk. Merchants keep one eye on the gate while weighing grain. Priests look toward the palace, wondering what the king will do.
Isaiah 7:2 captures it perfectly:
“The hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind.” It’s not just fear—it’s the shaking that happens when hope starts to slip.[iii]
God sends Isaiah to talk to King Ahaz. He finds him checking on the water supply of Jerusalem, in case there is a siege. Isaiah says, “Don’t worry about these smoldering stumps of firebrands who have come against you, Rezin and Pekah. The Lord is not going to let them take Jerusalem and you’d better believe it. If you don’t stand on faith you won’t stand at all.” Did you hear that? “If you don’t stand on faith, you won’t stand at all.” Isaiah is giving Ahaz a chance to be like David, who always seemed to remember that the battle belonged to the Lord. Often, before he would attack an enemy, David would ask the Lord, “Shall I go up?” And when the Lord said yes David would win.
“Do that,” Isaiah seemed to be telling Ahaz. “Stand on faith.” And then he encouraged Ahaz to ask for a sign from the Lord just to prove it, but Ahaz wouldn’t do it. He said he didn’t want to put the Lord to the test, but the truth is that he had already opted for a political solution. Unbeknownst to Isaiah he had reached out to Tiglath-Pileser III, the emperor of Assyria, offering him gold in exchange for his help.
And this is when Isaiah said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him Immanuel (meaning “God with us”).He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.”
I know we always hear this as a prediction of Jesus’s birth, but hear it for a moment in its original context. Isaiah was saying that if a young woman had a child right then and there and named him Immanuel—“God with us”—by the time that child was old enough to choose the good and refuse the evil he would be eating curds and honey, that is, the war would be over, prosperity would return. In the meantime that child would be a living reminder that God was with his people. Every time his mother called his name in the street, saying, “Immanuel! Time for supper!” they would say, “Oh, that’s right! God is with us!” Maybe we could claim that same promise today. Maybe when we find ourselves living in frightening times we could remember that God is with us, like that little boy growing up in Jerusalem, and find that it makes a difference. It certainly makes a difference to me; I hope it makes a difference to you.
Because Isaiah’s prophecy came true. Within a few years of their attack the kingdoms of Israel and Syria had been laid waste by the Assyrian Empire, and Pekah and Rezin had fallen like autumn leaves. Maybe you can remember a time when some threat was looming over you, and you were trembling with fear like King Ahaz, like a tree in the wind. And now, as you look back, you realize that threat is behind you. It didn’t materialize in the way you thought it would. Those kings who had been threatening Judah were a dim memory. The territories where they had ruled had fallen dark and silent. But that’s when the Word of the Lord came to Isaiah once more. In today’s reading, he says, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who lived in a land of deep darkness, on them has the light shined…For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”
And I know what you’re thinking: you’re thinking that this is a Christmas reading. What’s it doing here in the middle of November? Well, Isaiah is looking forward, even as we are. In that time of deep darkness he is looking forward to the birth of an ideal king, one who embodies David’s passionate and compassionate spirit, one who will be a man after God’s own heart. His words capture the longing of God’s people in that age and in the ages that followed. They looked back and remembered David. They looked forward and dreamed of a Messiah.
And here’s the incredible thing: those first Christians found what they were looking for in Jesus. I don’t know when it happened, maybe at his baptism, or when he taught in the synagogue, or when he first began to heal the sick, but at some point someone said, “There it is! There’s the fire we’ve been missing! It’s been rekindled in this carpenter’s kid!” But as they continued to follow him they saw him for who he truly was: not just a man after God’s own heart, but a man in whom the heart of God himself was beating. When he rode into Jerusalem they hailed him as the Son of David but when he breathed his last a Roman centurion said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”
And here’s something that is equally incredible: we still see him that way. Every year at Christmas, when someone stands in the pulpit and begins to read the words of Isaiah 7, about a child whose name will be “Immanuel, God with us,” we know: “He’s talking about Jesus!” And when the next reader turns the page and says, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given,” we know: “She’s talking about Jesus!” We begin to feel that fire kindled in our own hearts, we feel its warmth and brightness spreading to those around us. If we feed that fire with faith and prayer eventually the whole city will be lit up.
Friends, I know it’s not Christmas, not yet, but there are those among us:
- Who need to hear the good news that God is with us,
- Who need to remember that the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light,
- Who need to believe that in the person of Jesus our king has come, and his name is Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.
It’s kind of a great story!
—Jim Somerville © 2025
