When Piety Hides Pride

A king is shaking with fear, an enemy coalition is closing in, and God offers help so direct it almost feels unfair: ask for a sign. What happens when a leader refuses, not with honest doubt, but with polished religious words that protect his pride? We walk through Isaiah 7 with Pastor Carl as he unpacks King Ahaz, the house of David, and the moment where “looking godly” becomes a cover for not trusting God at all.

We also zoom out to the bigger story behind the crisis: Israel’s long line of kings, the split between the Northern Kingdom and Judah, and why alliances and power plays never deliver the security they promise. Along the way we look at the warning that still lands today: “If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.” Fear pushes us to grab control, but Isaiah calls Ahaz to be quiet, to stop scrambling, and to trust the Lord instead of his own plans.

Then the episode turns toward hope that reaches far beyond Ahaz’s lifetime: the prophecy of the virgin who will conceive and bear a son, and the name Immanuel, God with us. We talk about what this promise means for the coming Messiah, why judgment and refining fire are not empty threats, and how God preserves a remnant even when a nation chooses its own way. If you’re searching for Bible teaching on Isaiah, the Immanuel prophecy, King Ahaz, and what real trust looks like under pressure, this one is for you.

Subscribe so you don’t miss future teachings, share this with someone facing a hard decision, and leave a review to help others find the show. What part of your life most tempts you to rely on control instead of trust?

Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

The history of Ahaz was he was an evil king. He built his own kingdom. He went his own way. He had an air of piousness as well. He looked like he served God. He acknowledged he was in God's blessing, but he did not believe it. He walked in his own pride. He was a self-made man. And God is confronting him. Don't fall into the same mistakes as what's happening. It's about to happen in the Northern Kingdom.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Many of the Old Testament books of the Bible include dire endings for those who didn't follow the Lord. Today, Pastor Carl discusses King Ahaz, who was one of those leaders. He talked as if he believed in God, but his heart and actions didn't follow. His downfall was when he turned from God's protection and tried to take matters into his own hands. God doesn't take lightly those in authority going against his commands. So let this be a lesson to each of us. If you say you know God, listen to him. And now, here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

All the other nations have kings. Why can't we have a king? And so God gave them Saul, this powerful, mighty, handsome man who did not walk in the ways of the Lord. His authority was taken from him and given to somebody else who was not related to him, David, who was a man after God's own heart, the Bible declares. He wasn't the most godly guy, was he? He had some big issues that he had to deal with, the Lord had to deal with him with. But he did have a humble heart. He did want to do God's will. He did fight against his flesh, and he did suffer for the mistakes that he made. But overall, he was known as a man who was after God's own heart. And he was promised that in his line the Messiah would come, and the throne of David would be established forever. Jesus is in the line of David. And he is the king of kings that will sit on the throne of David forever and ever and ever. So after David, Solomon became king. You remember that? Solomon, the wisest guy that there ever was, he asked for wisdom so that he could govern his people well. But he became full of pride too, and he didn't exercise his wisdom, and he didn't end very well. And then we had Jeroboam and Rehoboam. Rehaboam was his son who took over the throne. And Jeroboam was another guy who wanted to become king. And there was a big division. And after that time there was a split. And there was a northern kingdom that was created called Israel, and a southern kingdom that was created called Judah. And ever since they didn't really work together very well, they were at odds with each other. And the northern kingdom was represented by a number of kings that did not do right in the sight of the Lord. In fact, they were all evil. There might have been one or two, or maybe three in a row that were related, but most of the kings became kings by conquering and killing the existing king in the northern kingdom. In the southern kingdom, all the kings were in the line of David. They were all related, except for one queen that came along, who happened to be the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, who came over and married the king of the son of the king of Israel. And when he died, she declared herself to be king or queen. When she died, their son took over, and the line continued with David. So in the northern kingdom, you have all these people that are not part of the line of Messiah, that are really forsaking God, that are creating their own gods from different areas, and there was no family line in the kings of Israel. They were defeating each other and so forth. In the southern kingdom, you had a lot of good kings, and you still had a lot of bad kings. You had a lot of good kings that became bad kings, like Uzziah. Ahaz here is a pretty bad king. So he's a bad king, and we got bad kings in the north making deals with other kings in the area, the king of Syria, which Ahaz actually was trying to make a deal with, but instead the guy in the north made a deal with him, and they wanted to bring together, come and defeat the southern kingdom and come and take over Jerusalem. Now it's interesting when we look at some of the names of these people, we get a little bit more of an idea of what he's talking about, or the perception that they're trying to put on themselves. Rezin. Rezin, the king of Syria. The word rezin means firm, stable, a prince. He sounds like a noble person. Keep that in mind. He sounds like. They acted like it, his name says it, but they didn't live up to it. Pekka, the son of Rimalia, means open-eyed. He could see everything that was happening with an implication that uh the Lord gave him vision to what was going on. But as we look at the picture, he was not seeking the Lord. He thought he could see, but in reality he was blind to what God was doing. Ahaz, the king of Judah, the southern kingdom, he's possessing, the possessor. He has grasped, and he's sitting in this position of authority. Which kind of describes who he is too. He does not acknowledge that God gave him this position, but he earned it. He fought for it. He was put in that position because of him and his strength and the things that he did. So in verse 2, it was told to the house of David, the house of David is another way of saying the southern kingdom. And he was speaking to Ahaz, not because of who Ahaz was, but because of the line that Ahaz was in. If he knew it or not, he was representing the line of David. And so God was talking to David and this line of kings. And he said to Ahaz, as the house of David, serious forces are deployed in Ephraim. Ephraim is one of the names of the tribes of Israel, which a lot of times is used just to describe the whole nation of Israel. So when we talk about Ephraim, we're talking about the northern kingdom. So his heart and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the woods are moved with the wind. God was telling the king of Jerusalem, the king of the southern kingdom, Ahaz, that they're coming to get you. And he was scared. And all the people were scared. And then the Lord said to Isaiah, Go now and meet Ahaz, you and Sherah, Jashub, your son, at the end of the aqueduct from the upper pool on the highway of the Fuller's field. He's given him a specific place to go at a specific time to talk to a specific person. Which shows us again this is historic and not just a story from the Bible. So the Lord is telling Isaiah to take one of his sons, Sheer Jazhub, which means a remnant shall return, with an implication of they will be converted. His name declares what will happen after the people will be taken captive. A remnant will come back. Take him and go talk to Ahaz. Because I need to straighten out Ahaz. But I need to tell him I'm with him if he wants me to be. Say to Ahaz, take heed and be quiet. Do not fear or be faint-hearted for those two stubs of smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of resident Syria and the son of Remalia. Don't fear these guys. They're just tales of smoking firebrands. It's what's left over. It's not a hot firebrand, it's just the smoke that's coming. He's just insulting them. They think they're something, but they're nothing. When Ahaz knew they were a whole lot stronger than he was, they had greater armies, greater power, greater influence. He knew in the worldly perspective that he was in trouble. But God said, They're nothing. Don't fear. Do you trust me? Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Ramaliah have plotted evil against you, saying, Let us go up against Judah and trouble it. Let us go make a gap in its walls to ourselves and set a king over them, the son of Table. Now who's Table? I've never seen that word before. Well, apparently it's a secret code in the Bible, and that's another thing for you to go study. Where did this come from? And it's also a play on words. This the word Table means God is good. And if you vary it a little bit, which you'll see a lot in the Hebrew, there'll be these names that mean one thing, and you change it just a little bit, it'll mean something totally different. Table, his name means God is good. But if you twist it just a little bit, it means good for nothing. We want to take over the southern kingdom, we want to get rid of Ahaz, and we want to put Table in. And apparently Table is actually Ramaliah, which is, you know, the son of Ramaliah, who is uh this other guy that we were talking about, Pekah. So what they want to do is they want to put Pekah in charge. And Pekah, because he had to make deals with Syria in order to be brought in, he really wasn't that strong anyway. Uh he's described as a puppet king, and he'd just be put in there. And God is telling him, look, they're weak. I'm strong. Do you trust me? They act like they got it all together. They even have names that glorify me. Ramalia means protected by Jehovah. But he forsook me. Like all the other kings in the north. They're full of pride, just like you, Ahaz. And the only reason I'm I'm looking to save you, Ahaz, is because you're in the line of David. And I honor my word. And ultimately in verse 7, thus says the Lord God, it shall not stand, nor shall it come to pass. They will not come and take you over. And why were you trying to make a deal with Syria anyway, Ahaz? Look, do you realize that they're gonna be taken captive by Assyria? And then Assyria is gonna be taken captive by Babylon, and Babylon's gonna come down to the southern kingdom and take you captive. Of course, you're not gonna see it, because you're gonna be gone by then. But it's going to happen. But right now, this is not gonna happen. Verse 8, for the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is resin, and within 65 years, Ephraim will be broken, so that it will not be a people. Within 65 years, it'll be over up there. They think that they found power and authority in these figures, in these dominions, but they didn't put their trust in me. The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Ramalia's son. If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established. They did not put their trust in God, they're putting their trust in these kingdoms and these people. Ahaz, do you see that? They are not going to have victory because I'm going to protect you. But if you don't believe me, you're not going to be established either. And the history of Ahaz was he was an evil king. He built his own kingdom. He went his own way. He had an air of piousness as well. He looked like he served God. He acknowledged he was in God's blessing, but he did not believe it. He walked in his own pride. He was a self-made man. And God is confronting him. Don't fall into the same mistakes as what's happening. It's about to happen in the northern kingdom. Moreover, the Lord spoke against Ahaz, saying, Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God. Ask it either in the depth or in the height above. God is saying, Listen, what do you need to believe me? I want to help you here. Ask a sign, I'll give you a sign. And in his pious pride, Ahaz said, I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord. I would never do that, Lord. The Bible says not to, to test the Lord your God. So I'm not going to test the Lord. The Bible does say to trust the Lord and do what he tells you to do. Don't twist it around, Ahaz. So his true nature was shining here. He did not trust God, he did not follow God, he did not seek after God, and he did not want to obey God. And trying to sound godly, he gave this excuse, I will not, nor will I test the Lord. Then he said, Hear now, O house of David. Again, do you recognize who you're representing? Is it a small thing for you to weary men? But will you weary my God also? Do you not get it, Ahaz? The people are worn out by your games, but you're also wearing God out, my God. This is the God that I serve, this is the God that has cleansed my lips and equipped me for service. It's not about me, it's not about my pride, it's about him. He's great, he's our Savior, He's our covering. And He's offering this to you right now, and you're not understanding it. Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign, even though you didn't ask for it. And behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel. Curds and honey he shall eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and to choose the good. It's like, whoa, where did this come from? We have these kings, we have a desire to have kings leading over us, protecting us and bringing prosperity and peace all around us, like Uzziah was, but he messed up and the hearts were broken, and his son tried to try to keep it going, and he was pretty good. But Ahaz, now he's the king, and he's really gone off the deep end. And the people are crying for a king that will do what they need him to do. The Lord through Isaiah is showing Ahaz the examples of the kings in the northern kingdom. They're not seeking after God, their names are assigned to these other kingdoms and people who rebel against God. Your name is of the king of the line of David, a man after God's own heart, a man that I promised the Messiah would come through. You want to see a sign? The sign is a king is coming. A king that will be born through the seed of woman. Your seed, God spoke to Eve, will basically save the world. Now, if you know your biology seed comes from the man, right? So study that a little bit. So a virgin shall conceive. The seed of the woman shall bear forth a child, bring forth a child, and and we will call his name Emmanuel. What does Emmanuel mean? God with us. Not just in name, but in person. Here's a king who's going to come humbly. In fact, it's God Himself. And he'll eat curds and honey. He'll be poor. And he'll learn. As every other person that grew up in this world will learn and grow and discern from the Word of God what is good and what is bad. There's the king that we're looking for, Ahaz. But let me tell you what needs to happen first. Before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings. The land that you dread. You don't love Israel. You don't love Judah. Both are going to be destroyed, flattened. The Lord will bring the king of Assyria upon you and your people and your father's house, days that have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah. It's going to be worse than the time that the kingdom split. And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord will whistle for the fly that is in the farthest parts of the river of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria, and they will come, and all of them will rest in the desolate valleys and in the clefts of the rocks, and in all the thorns, and in all the pastures. The land is going to be vacant, and these insects are going to come and enjoy what is left over. Verse 20 and in the same day the Lord will shave with a hired racer with those from beyond the river, with the king of Assyria, the head and the hair of the legs, and will also remove the beard. The Assyrians were very cruel in their conquests. They humbled the people that they took over in many different ways, and one of the ways was to shave the men clean, no hair on their body. That was such a deep insult to them at that time. And it shall be in that day that a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep. That's about all that that was left, and they'll eat off of that. And so it shall be from the abundance of milk that they give, that he will eat curds and for curds and honey, and everyone will eat who is left in the land. There won't be many left. As we saw in the last chapter, there would be a remnant of a ten percent that would be left in the land. But even they would be destroyed, except for this remnant, this stump that would be left. Again, that stump of hope. That life can come again. The stump wasn't removed. But do you see this picture of desolation? Because we have forsaken the Lord and God our own way, the Lord has destroyed us. Ahaz, do you not see this coming? And it shall happen in that day that wherever there could be a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels of silver, it'll be for briars and thorns. Weeds and thorns are all that's left. It'd been in an area that was blessed by the Lord, and it was green, it was flourishing, but it won't be any more. With arrows and with bows, men will come there, because the land will become briars and thorns. And to any hill which could be dug with a hoe, you will not uh go there for fear of briars and thorns, but it will become a range for oxen and a place for sheep to roam. It will only be a place for the wild animals to go. Desolate. This is what happens when we for forsake the Lord over and over and over again. At some point the Lord said, Enough is enough. You don't want my blessing, I will take it away. I will take you out of here. You want slavery, I'll give you slavery. But I don't want to end there. Let's go back to that picture in the throne room of God. And when we don't reject the Lord, we can stand before the throne. That won't be comfortable either, will it? Because we will be humbled just to see the presence of God. We will recognize. How far we are from His holiness. But how glorious and wonderful and beautiful it'll be. And to know because He has become one of us, identified with us. He has taken our sin and it's and it's in that altar that stands before the Lord, burning continually. And we have access to that by grace. We can't go and get our own coals and clean our own mouths up. We can't make our own fire and use that. It doesn't work. It has to be the holy coals. From the work that the Lord did on the cross for us. We can boldly go before the Lord and take that and find cleansing and healing, forgiveness, a new life, a new purpose. These seraphim are angels, ministers of fire, right? And fire in the Bible has two purposes. One is to refine and one is to judge. And it happens at the same time. Because we will go through the fire. And what is left are the precious stones. The works that God did in our lives that we allowed Him to do. The things that burn up are wood, hay, and stubble. The things that we try to do on our own to earn God's favor. It's no good, it's burned up. And we can say, well, all this stuff that I did is going to be burned up. And that's actually good news, isn't it? All that's left is the work that God did, that He's going to give us crowns for. What happened to all our sin and all our waste? It is gone, no longer to be seen. All we see is the good things and the rewards that God gives us for allowing us to work with Him.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

You're listening to Pastor Carl of the Mountain Cross as he teaches through the book of Isaiah on today's episode of Come On Up. Isaiah is an important book for us to read in the Old Testament because this is where we read many prophecies about the coming Messiah. While we now know Jesus as our one and true Messiah, the people who originally read Isaiah's prophecies did not know when the promised Savior would arrive. So while the book of Isaiah calls the nation of Israel to repentance, it also inspires its readers to have hope in the coming Messiah who will establish a new heavenly kingdom on earth. Well, if you would like to learn more about what it means to follow this Messiah we know as Jesus, we have some resources online to help get you started. Just visit us at themountaincross.com and head to our How to Know God tab. You can also find a link to our podcast feed in case you want to catch up on past teachings from Pastor Carl. If you'd like to get connected with us in person, we'd love to have you join us here at the Mountain Cross. We meet every Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Smoky Mountain Cinema in Waynesville, North Carolina. We also host a Faith Film Night on the first Monday of each month. To learn about our next film, visit us online or search for Faith Film Night on Facebook. Thanks for tuning in today. Well, that's all for today. Come on up to the mountain with us again next time as we seek to learn more from the Lord through His Word. Come On Up is sponsored by the Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.