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Isa 7:1-9 If You Do Not Believe, Surely You Shall Not Be Established

Isa 7:1  And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.
Isa 7:2  And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.
Isa 7:3  Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field;
Isa 7:4  And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.
Isa 7:5  Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying,
Isa 7:6  Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal:
Isa 7:7  Thus saith the Lord GOD, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.
Isa 7:8  For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.
Isa 7:9  And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.

This chapter seems to be a stark contrast from the heavenly scene of Isaiah's vision of the Lord's throne, Isaiah's cleansing through the fire of a live coal from the altar, and his commission to tell "a people of unclean lips" of their impending judgment in the previous chapter. The truth is that this chapter is the account of Isaiah beginning to be obedient to his heavenly commission:

Isa 6:8  Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
Isa 6:9  And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.
Isa 6:10  Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

A later great man of God, the Son of God, lived his life by these words of Isa 6:8-10 which have proceeded out of the mouth of God:

Mat 13:10  And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
Mat 13:11  He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
Mat 13:12  For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
Mat 13:13  Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
Mat 13:14  And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: 
Mat 13:15  For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
Mat 13:16  But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.
Mat 13:17  For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.

Christ took this commission to Isaiah as a personal commission, given to Him by His Father, and this is how Christ tells us we are to understand that commission given to Isaiah which Christ took upon Himself:

Joh 20:21  Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Christ was not "a man of unclean lips", but His Father did send Him to witness against His own people and to judge those who claim Him as their God but disobey His commandments:

Joh 9:39  And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.
Joh 9:40  And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?
Joh 9:41  Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.

Isaiah knew he was blind. He knew and confessed:

Isa 6:5  Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.

This verse expresses the utter despair to which we all must be brought via the pouring out of the seven last plagues upon the kingdom of Babylon within us (Rev 15:8 and Rev 16:19). We think we have experienced this "great earthquake" long before we are truly brought to "[our] wits' end" (Psa 107:27), and that is what Job and all the prophets tell us.

Job thought that after the Lord had taken away everything he had that His anger would surely be assuaged:

Job 1:20  Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,
Job 1:21  And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.
Job 1:22  In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.

"In [losing all his earthly possessions, including all ten of his children] Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly." But what Job did not realize, as this book of Isaiah will also demonstrate, is that the loss of all his possessions was merely "the beginning of sorrows" for Job. In chapter two he is stricken with boils from head to foot because God wants us to come to see just what the depths of sins of the flesh are, and Job is yet to be put through the mental torment of having to acknowledge that even his closest friends consider him to be a secret sinner whose sins exceed the sins of all others.

Here is the assessment of Job by Eliphaz the eldest of his three friends who had come to comfort him in his distress:

Job 4:1  Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,
Job 4:2  If we assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved? but who can withhold himself from speaking?
Job 4:3  Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands.
Job 4:4  Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees.
Job 4:5  But now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest; it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled.
Job 4:6  Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?
Job 4:7  Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?

Such uncaring words provokes one to ask if Eliphaz thought of himself as an immortal who would never perish. But Eliphaz is not finished tormenting the man who typifies God's elect while they are being tried. When he responds to Job's defense of himself, Eliphaz continues to torment Job with these words:

Job 15:20  The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor.
Job 15:21  A dreadful sound is in his ears: in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him.
Job 15:22  He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for of the sword.
Job 15:23  He wandereth abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? he knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.

As heartless as this entire scene may seem, if we fail to remember that Eliphaz, Zophar and Bildad are just as much the Lord's hand, as is Satan, we will be tempted to think of Job and his accusing comforters as an outward, historical story about an innocent, persecuted man who was tormented by three men whom he considered to be his closest friends. The same is true of this prophecy of Isaiah and all the other prophecies of scripture.  All men are just instruments in the Lord's hand, and are all "made to err from His ways" (Isa 63:17).

We must remember that all scripture is given to us by inspiration of God and that all men can do only what our heavenly Father's "hand and [His] foreknowledge, determined before to be done":

Act 4:25  Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things?
Act 4:26  The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.
Act 4:27  For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together,
Act 4:28  For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

2Ti 3:16  All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 

"Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel", represents all men of all time. We are all guilty of the death of our own Savior, but we are not responsible for that death because we can only do "whatsoever [His] hand and [His] counsel determined before to be done." Being 'guilty' does not make us responsible for that guilt as Joseph explained to his brothers and as Paul explains to us:

Gen 45:4  And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. 
Gen 45:5  Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6  For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.
Gen 45:7  And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8  So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

Rom 7:17  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

Knowing this is the Truth we still must pray this prayer found in the very next verse of Acts 4:

Act 4:29  And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word,

If we "with all boldness... speak [these] word[s], then we will not hate the lump of clay which is in the Potter's hand, and which 'lump' is merely a tool  "in the Potter's hand", just as Satan, in Job one and two, is revealed to be "Thy hand", the Lord's own hand:

Job 1:11  But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
Job 1:12  And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.

Job 2:5  But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.
Job 2:6  And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.  

If we are granted to accept this truth, then we will accept and rejoice in the sovereignty of God and the salvation which He is in the process of bringing to all men of all time (1Co 15:22; 1Ti 2:4; 1Ti 4:10; 1Pe 3:9; and 1Jo 2:2).

When we are granted to believe that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and that it is all profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, then these words here in Isaiah must have a spiritual application to and for each of us. That is, of course, exactly what the spirit tells us that this book, and all of the Old Testament prophets, in their spiritual application are not even addressed to the prophet who wrote it or to the people of his day. Yet how few even know these words are in the scriptures:

1Pe 1:9  Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
1Pe 1:10  Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: 
1Pe 1:11  Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.
1Pe 1:12  Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.

The degree to which we are benefited from these words is the degree to which we are granted to apply the words of the prophets to ourselves. We have already seen that Jerusalem is addressed as a harlot, likened to Sodom and Gomarrah.

Isa 1:10  Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. 

Isa 1:21  How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.

Isa 3:9  The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.

How true are those words both within and without! Until we see this fallen Jerusalem as the capital of the kingdom of God within us, we will never see ourselves as those who have been deprived of the whole stay of bread and the whole stay of water. Until we are granted to understand that "Unto us [Isaiah is] ministering", we will never see ourselves as the seven women who want Christ's name but who do not want to eat His bread. Bread and water are both  the very symbols of His doctrine (Joh 6:35). If we fail to understand that Isaiah is prophesying to us, we will never understand that it is we who do not want to wear His "apparel", the biblical symbol for "the righteousness of the saints."

Isa 3:1  For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,

Isa 4:1  And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.

It is only if we are granted to acknowledge that Isaiah's prophecy against the Lord's vineyard which brought forth wild grapes refers to us, that we can acknowledge that Isaiah prophesied of the chastening "grace that should come to us":

Isa 5:3  And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, [us] judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard [us].
Isa 5:4  What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?
Isa 5:5  And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down: 

1Pe 1:10  Of which salvation the prophets [including Isaiah] have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the [chastening] grace (Tit 2:11-12) that should come unto you:

Only if we know that Isaiah was prophesying of this chastening grace coming to us will we understand that it is really our lips which must be touched with "a live coal... from off the altar" to take away our iniquity and purge us of our sin:

Isa 6:5  Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.
Isa 6:6  Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
Isa 6:7  And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.

Without the information given us in 1Pe 1:9-12 we would never understand that we are the messengers being sent to the Lord's people to tell them of the fiery process of judgment through which we are all brought to God:

Isa 6:8  Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.

But we do understand that we are the man to whom God has sent His messenger, and if we have endured the fire from off the altar, we can now be sent to show others what is their own blinded spiritual condition, and how they too must be judged with the same fiery coal from off the altar, and we must through much tribulation, and through the seven last plagues, enter into the kingdom of God in heaven.

Act 14:22  Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. 

1Pe 4:12  Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:

Rev 15:7  And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
Rev 15:8  And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled. 

It is after our Lord asks "Whom shall I send" and after we are led to say "Here am I; send me", that we are now sent to the king over our own land, and we begin to see just how thorough the process of judgment is which we must endure before we can enter into the kingdom of God.

This is what we are told to do immediately after saying "Here am I; send me":

Isa 7:1  And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.
Isa 7:2  And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.
Isa 7:3  Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field;
Isa 7:4  And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.
Isa 7:5  Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying,
Isa 7:6  Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal:
Isa 7:7  Thus saith the Lord GOD, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.
Isa 7:8  For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.
Isa 7:9  And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.

We are King Ahaz long before we become Isaiah who is sent to tell us of our impending judgment. But we must understand that we are also Rezin the king of Syria, and we are Pekah the king of Israel, because these countries are our own flesh. We have long lived in service of our 'flesh', serving our families and our friends ahead of serving our Lord, and this message to Ahaz comes to him while his own flesh is conflicted and is conspiring against him.

Israel was once united with Judah and Rehoboam, the son of Solomon reigned over both Israel and Judah as one nation.  But even then Israel's archenemy was their own flesh; Syria, Maoab, Ammon, and Edom. Edom was the twin brother of Jacob, the Old Testament type of God's  elect. Moab and Ammon are the sons of Abraham's nephew, Lot, who was the son of Haran, Abraham's brother, who died before Abraham left Ur of the Chaldeans. That is why Abraham's entire family are call 'Syrians':

 Gen 25:20  And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah to wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padanaram, the sister to Laban the Syrian.

Edom, of course, is Esau, Jacob's twin brother. These were the countries with whom Israel fought all through her physical history.  They are one and all Israel's own family.

So the countries who are conspiring against Judah are Judah's own family and his own flesh. We are Judah and Jerusalem, but these other kingdoms are also within us, fighting against us and bringing us to our wits' end and to the eventual destruction of the kingdom of our old man. Even Jerusalem itself is "in bondage with her children" and must be "taken and destroyed" to be replaced with a new man with a new "heavenly Jerusalem" within himself.

Joh 12:23  And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.
Joh 12:24  Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. 
Joh 12:25  He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. 

Isa 64:10  Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.
Isa 64:11  Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste.
Isa 64:12  Wilt thou refrain thyself for these things, O LORD? wilt thou hold thy peace, and afflict us very sore? 

Jerusalem which is in bondage with her children is "spiritually called Sodom and Egypt" ( Rev 11:18). She, too, must be cleansed and purged of her iniquities and sins, and endure the fullness of the Lord's wrath against her sins:

Jer 25:15  For thus saith the LORD God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it.
Jer 25:16  And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them.
Jer 25:17  Then took I the cup at the LORD'S hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom the LORD had sent me:
Jer 25:18  To wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, an hissing, and a curse; as it is this day; 

Gal 4:25  For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.

We do not want to die, and the destruction of our Jerusalem within is as offensive to us as dying so we can bring forth much fruit. Nevertheless, as we will learn in this prophecy of Isaiah, Judah and Jerusalem must also be made to drink of the wine of the Lord's wrath against them because they are spiritual Babylon. God's wrath will not spare Jerusalem. She must drink of the wine of His wrath along with every other nation on earth. It is a long and tedious process from the perspective of our rebellious old man:

Isa 6:11  Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate,
Isa 6:12  And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.
Isa 6:13  But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.

Isaiah's words to Ahaz are the beginning of that judgment which we must all endure to the end. But these words to King Ahaz are just the beginning of sorrows for Jerusalem which is in bondage with her children within us. 

Isa 7:1  And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.
Isa 7:2  And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.
Isa 7:3  Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field;
Isa 7:4  And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.
Isa 7:5  Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying,
Isa 7:6  Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal:
Isa 7:7  Thus saith the Lord GOD, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.
Isa 7:8  For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.
Isa 7:9  And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established. 

All of this is being worked by God (Eph 1:11), and Ahaz and Jerusalem within us, in reality have no choice in this matter. Jerusalem which is in bondage with her children cannot believe and will not be established, because she has been given no faith. But spiritual New Jerusalem will be established, simply because she has been granted the free gift of faith:

Isa 24:23  Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously. 

Gal 4:26  But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.