Isaiah 7:12

MAN’S IMAGINED INDEPENDENCE OF GOD

Isaiah 7:12. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.

We are commanded to ask for all we need and desire (Matthew 7:7; Philippians 4:6). But many say, “I will not ask.”

I. Men are apt to act thus when possessed of earthly resources. How hard is it for a man of wealth to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread!” He has much goods laid up for many years. How natural for a man in health and prosperity thus to forget his dependence on God (H. E. I. 4000, 4001). Even in trouble a man is apt to look elsewhere for aid: e.g., in sickness to the physician; even when convinced of sin, to his own efforts, or to a human priest.

II. Men often act thus on the pretence of not tempting God. On the ground that their affairs are beneath His notice (H. E. I. 4015–4025, 2245–2248, 2325, 3226, 3403). On the ground that God has already established the laws by which all things are regulated (H. E. I. 3179–3182, 3751, 3752, 3757).

III. But the real reasons why men act thus are because they trust in themselves, and have no real faith in God. The real reason why Ahaz did not ask was because he was bent on forming an alliance with Assyria. Let it be ours gratefully to accept the privilege so graciously offered, seeing that God has given us far more than was given to Ahaz: we have all the great and precious promises contained in the Scriptures, the knowledge of the unspeakable gift of God’s dear Son, the accumulated experience of all generations of His faithfulness as the hearer of prayer. We may have our own experience of it; if we will but ask, we shall receive. How much greater our sin than that of Ahaz, if in these circumstances we say, “I will not ask!”—John Johnston.

MOMENTOUS DECISIONS

Isaiah 7:12. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, &c.

In studying what the commentators have to say about this chapter, I met with a sentence that set me thinking. It was this: “In that very hour, in which Isaiah was standing before Ahaz, the fate of Jerusalem was decided for more than two thousand years” (Delitzsch).

I. How true is this declaration! Ahaz was called upon to choose between the alliance with Assyria and alliance with God. His choice was announced in these four words, “I will not ask;” then he decided against God, and all the disasters which have come upon Jerusalem since that day have been in a very real sense the result of that fatal decision.

II. How typical is this incident! How often men, like Ahaz, arrive at decisions which are irrevocable and unspeakably momentous!

1. To have to make decisions that may be solemn in both these senses is one of the things that make the position of a ruler or statesman so serious. Not to be coveted are the positions in which a man’s resolves and utterances become fateful for whole peoples. But Pharaoh was in such a position, and like Ahaz he made a fatal mistake (Exodus 10:28).

2. Few are called to fill positions of such responsibility, but every man is at some juncture called to make a decision the results of which to him individually will be of unspeakable importance. The Young Ruler arrived at such a juncture, and made such a decision. Every one of you will at some moment be called upon to decide for or against Christ, and the decision will be final and irreversible. The fact that it is so will probably not be suspected by you; you will decide against Christ, in the expectation of reversing the decision on some other occasion, which will never come to you. This decision you may make now; it is the undeniable possibility which makes the preaching and hearing of the Gospel so solemn a thing. This supreme decision may be made by you in another manner. The test may come to you in another form—in the shape of a temptation appealing to some passion of the mind or lust of the flesh, and your eternal destiny may be determined by the manner in which you deal with that one temptation (H. E. I. 4737, 4738, 4636).

3. Like a railway train, we are continually arriving at “points,” and the manner in which we “take” them affects our whole after career. This is true in regard to many things, unspeakably inferior in importance to the questions of surrender or non-surrender to Christ, or of loyalty or disloyalty to Him, but yet of marvellous influence in determining whether our after life is to be happy or miserable: business, social and domestic relations.

In view of these facts—that so much may depend upon any decision we make, and that it is absolutely concealed from us which decisions are final and irrevocable—what is it that, as wise men, it becomes us to do?

1. Let us settle each question that is put before us in the spirit of righteousness. Always let us ask only, What is right?

(1.) This is the only path of safety.

(2.) By this path heroism is reached, and world-wide influence may be reached. We think of Moses (Hebrews 11:24), of the Apostles (Acts 4:19), and of Luther before the Diet of Worms, as heroes; but they had no such thought—their only thought was that of fidelity to duty; and it is thus only that true heroism can be reached (P. D. 1189).

2. Let us day by day commit ourselves to the guidance of God, praying Him to strengthen our understanding, to quicken our conscience, to sanctify our desires, and so to “work in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”

IRRELIGIOUS PIETY

Isaiah 7:12. “But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.”

Ahaz here poses as a better man than the prophet. He refuses to follow the direction which Isaiah has given him, and refuses, because, he alleges, to do so would be wrong. His disregard of what he knows to be a Divine direction, he covers by an appeal to a general principle which God has been pleased to give for our guidance (Deuteronomy 6:16). Thus he sought to silence the reproaches of conscience within, and of good men without. We may take him as the representative of that large class of persons who for their actions assign reasons that really are not their governing motives, and cover wrong actions by what appear to be cloaks of righteousness, but really are cloaks of hypocrisy.

How numerous these people are! We find them in all ranks of life; there is this skilful use of pretexts in all realms of human activity.

1. Social life,—e.g., A man rejects a suitor for his daughter’s hand, the suitor being forty-five years of age and the daughter twenty-two, professedly for the excellent reason that too great a disparity in age between man and wife is not desirable, but really because the suitor is not sufficiently wealthy.

2. Business,—e.g., A man refuses to become security for another, because, he says, he has entered into an undertaking with his partners not to incur any such responsibility, and because it is important that deeds of partnership should be honourably observed; really because he has no wish to oblige the man who asks his aid.

3. Politics.—Why, this is a form of activity which has to a large extent ceased to be care for the welfare of the city or of the community, and has to the same extent become a game of pretexts, in which broad and great principles are used to cover petty and personal ends.

4. Religion.—Alas! into this realm also men carry the same spirit and practices. Let us look at some of the prevalent forms of irreligious piety.

(1.) There is the man who will not make any confession of Christ, because “religion is a thing between a man’s own soul and God.”
(2.) There is the man who will not join the church, because the members of the church are so inconsistent, and inconsistent Christians are among the greatest of all hindrances to the progress of Christianity.
(3.) There is the man who never attends a week-evening service, because “there is no real religion in neglecting one’s daily duties, and we are expressly told that we are to be diligent in business.” The same man, however, finds it neither impossible nor inconsistent with his duties to attend political meetings and popular concerts.
(4.) There is the man who never subscribes to any foreign missionary society, because “religion, like charity, should begin at home, and even in this so-called Christian land there are millions of practical heathen who need to have the Gospel preached to them.” How much does this man contribute towards home missions?

(5.) There is the man who will not contribute to any church-building fund, because he does not “believe in bricks and mortar,” and because “true religion before God and the Father is—not to build costly sanctuaries—but to help the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world” (cf. John 12:4).

(6.) There is the man who has no hesitation in joining in a Sunday excursion, because “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath,” and because—the two pleas almost always go together—“it is possible to worship God as truly in the great temple of nature as in any temple built by man.” Picture the man as he actually “worships God in the great temple of nature;” and inquire how he feels on Monday after what he calls “a little relaxation on the Sunday.”
(7.) There is the man who indulges freely in what many people consider worldly amusements, because “it is not well to be too strait-laced; Solomon, indeed, warns us against being righteous overmuch; and there is nothing so likely as Pharisaism to disgust young people with religion” (H. E. I. 5038–5043).

So we might go on with this miserable catalogue. Satan, we are told, appears sometimes in the guise of an angel of light, and in this respect his children are wonderfully like him; they are marvellously ingenious in using holy principles to cover unholy purposes. But what does all this ingenuity amount to? Whom do they succeed in deceiving? Not men for any length of time. The wolf never succeeds in long completely covering itself with the sheep’s clothing. The mask of the hypocrite will slip aside. And when it does so, men despise him for wearing it. Did he show himself as he is, men might, would, condemn him; but they would not despise him so much. And God—He is never deceived. He loathes the false pretenders to righteousness; and ere long He will strip them bare, and expose them to the execration of the universe (H. E. I., 3017–3032; P. D., 1923, 1924, 1930).
What is the practical lesson to be learned from the whole? To pray that God will help us in all things to be sincere; to live “as seeing Him who is invisible,” remembering that He sees what is invisible—the motives underlying the actions that are seen of men. Nothing else can win for us from Christ the priceless commendation, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!”