Our brother is typing in some words to a song called “Emmanuel’s Land.” Some of you might know the song. Is Ben and June here? Oh, good.
I have sort of rewritten the version a little bit. Ben and June Stickler are on the original version. So anyway, let’s turn in our Bibles. We want to read some verses here. It will actually make the song a little more sensible to have seen the verses.
We begin in Isaiah 7, just to catch the background. We will read a few verses in Isaiah 7, and then all of Isaiah 8.
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.
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.
In other words, he was afraid to death.
Moreover the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.
But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.
And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David: Is it a small thing for you to weary men, that ye will weary my God also?
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel.
Moreover the Lord said unto me, Take thee a great tablet, and write upon it with the pen of a man, For Maher-shalal-hash-baz;
and I will take unto Me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.
And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the Lord unto me, Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz.
For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and, My mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be carried away before the king of Assyria.
And the Lord spake unto me yet again, saying, Forasmuch as this people hath refused the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son;
now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the River, strong and many, even the king of Assyria and all his glory: and it shall come up over all its channels, and go over all its banks;
and it shall sweep onward into Judah; it shall overflow and pass through; it shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of its wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.
Make an uproar, O ye peoples, and be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and be broken in pieces.
Take counsel together, and it shall be brought to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.
For the Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me not to walk in the way of this people, saying, Say ye not, A conspiracy, concerning all whereof this people shall say, A conspiracy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be in dread thereof.
The Lord of hosts, Him shall ye sanctify; and let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread.
And He shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
And many shall stumble thereon, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.
Bind thou up the testimony, seal the law among My disciples.
And I will wait for the Lord, that hideth His face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for Him.
Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts, Who dwelleth in mount Zion.
And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto the wizards, that chirp and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? on behalf of the living should they seek unto the dead?
To the law and to the testimony! if they speak not according to this word, surely there is no morning for them.
And they shall pass through it, sore distressed and hungry; and it shall come to pass that, when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse by their king and by their God, and turn their faces upward:
and they shall look unto the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and into thick darkness they shall be driven away.
That is some chapter, isn’t it?
There is a song, “Emmanuel’s Land,” that has many verses. I have just taken out a few verses. We studied this on Monday night, and I actually adapted two verses to make them more like the context of Scripture.
“Emmanuel’s Land,” by Anne Ross Cousin, who wrote this wonderful hymn, is mainly about Emmanuel’s land being heaven, which is also a blessed hope and perfectly all right. But Emmanuel’s land means something more. I will try to sing the first verse, and then perhaps you can join me. We will sing four verses; there are thirteen altogether.
O Christ, He is the fountain,
The deep, sweet well of love;
The streams on earth I’ve tasted,
More deep I’ll drink above.
There to an ocean fullness
His mercy doth expand,
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Emmanuel’s land.
The bride eyes not her garment,
But her dear Bridegroom’s face;
I will not gaze at glory,
But on my King of grace.
Not at the crown He giveth,
But on His pierced hand;
The Lamb is all the glory
Of Emmanuel’s land.
O I am my Beloved’s,
And my Beloved is mine;
He brings a poor vile sinner
Into His house of wine.
I stand upon His merit;
I know no other stand,
Not e’en where glory dwelleth
In Emmanuel’s land.
Now these are the verses that are Isaiah 8:
Deep waters cross life’s pathway,
A hedge of thorns has torn;
With mercy and with judgment
My web of time is worn.
I’ll bless the hand that guides me,
I’ll bless the heart that planned;
I’ll trust Him through the darkness
In Emmanuel’s land.
I’ve borne the scorn and hatred,
I’ve borne the wrong and shame;
Earth’s proud ones have reproached me
For Christ’s thrice-blessed name.
Where God His seal set fairest,
They’ve stamped their foulest brand;
But judgment shines like noonday
In Emmanuel’s land.
In Emmanuel’s land.
Oh, Lord, we thank You. You are a very present help in time of need. We come to Your precious Word this morning and want to glean from it that which can help us in this present hour.
Thank You for the Holy Spirit, Who was not only with Isaiah but with ourselves as well as we trod through this sojourn of life. Lord, we pray that You will encourage us and inspire us with the very vision of Your presence as we are here before You today.
We give You this time. We are so thankful for Your mercies to us in Emmanuel’s land. We pray in the precious name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Isaiah 7 through 12 is what is called the Immanuel prophecies. This is because, in Isaiah 7:14, we have that familiar Christmas refrain:
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel.
As the prophecies of judgment surround, like a nutshell, these precious nuggets of encouragement regarding Immanuel, not only is Immanuel found there in Isaiah 7, but we find Him again in Isaiah 9, where it talks about the coming King:
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and of peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon His kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
Then again, thrown in with much judgment regarding the future of Israel and Judah, we come to Isaiah 11:
And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots shall bear fruit.
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
And His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord; and He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither decide after the hearing of His ears;
but with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth: and He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth; and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked.
So this whole section, Isaiah 7 through 12, is called the Immanuel prophecies because of those central, beautiful pictures of this Immanuel.
In fact, it has been approximately fifteen years since Isaiah saw his vision of the Lord, high and lifted up. Even though the Lord commissioned him to go, it seems that for fifteen years he was basically in obscurity, somehow in hiding, turned aside with the Lord.
You know, real vision from the Lord is a devastating, traumatic experience that necessitates a vital reconstitution of our whole lives.
Now, we tend to talk about vision and the presence of the Lord like they are two sisters who are with us in the meeting. We use the words so often. Many praise songs talk about His presence: “Oh, we want to see Him in His presence.” Oh, no, you do not—not standing up, you do not. Not easily, you do not.
We have learned to say these things. Even this matter of vision—I’m just being honest with you, brothers and sisters—not many people have vision. Not this reconstituting, coalescing, cohering vision.
This vision is only found at the top of the volcano, where the life of the Lord flows over one like lava, does them in, and undoes them. Of course, Isaiah was undone:
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.
Vision is a very traumatic experience.
We as Christians all have the inherited right to see a vision of the Lord in fullness. But here again, like many aspects of this gospel of our salvation, few have climbed the mountain and laid into the good of such a vision. Most people stay in the shallows.
We love all of God’s children, but there is a certain threshold in the experience of those who have really seen something that profoundly changed their lives. There is a threshold of exigency; there is a threshold of necessity. Something presses a person’s soul up above the clouds of the mountain where people fear to go.
Something of hunger, or something of a sense of self-failure, drives them. As was the case with Isaiah, after the death of Uzziah something drove him with desperation into the place before the temple of the Lord. Then the Lord lifted up a vision above the temple altogether—a heavenly vision of the reality that exists in God.
For some fifteen years, whatever Isaiah was doing, he was not prophesying publicly. But whatever he was doing, he was having sorted out for him the progressive unveiling of that vision which he saw in a flash.
In Isaiah 6:1, it says, “I saw the Lord high and lifted up.” That is not the capital-L, capital-O, capital-R, capital-D “Lord,” which is our English code word for the divine name. It is Adonai, the smaller “lord,” indicative of a master who is human.
Yet when he says, “I have seen the King,” he identifies Him as the Lord of hosts. So he has seen something divine. He saw the throne, and He saw the King. But He was human; He was Adonai, yet He was the Lord. He was God.
Sorting out that mystery with his own family and with those disciples of his took him a long time. But we can see that his vision was real. Why? Because it had three practical outworkings in his life, which we can see being worked out in these Immanuel prophecies.
First of all, this vision he saw in a flash affected his whole life, undoing him, as it were. He began to see progressive unveilings of what he had seen in heaven.
In Isaiah 7:14, he saw this miraculous birth of Immanuel, and when He came, God would be with us. Then in Isaiah 9 he saw, “Oh, wait a minute—He is a King. He is a King: Wonderful Counsellor, Eternal Father.” Then in Isaiah 11, He comes from the root of Jesse. His is a spiritual kingship, with such wisdom and such power.
That is one way you can know if you have seen vision: God will unveil that thing that He showed you in a moment down here on this earth, where it affects us and makes a difference. This King from the throne had to come down in glory.
The second thing Isaiah began to see with ever-increasing clarity was who the remnant is. At the time Isaiah was a prophet, for the most part the Jews felt that Judah was the remnant. The ten tribes had basically gone astray, and Judah saw itself as the remnant.
But Isaiah already, by the first five chapters, began to see that Judah itself was not the remnant. By the way, John 12:41 says Isaiah saw Jesus. There is no doubt: Isaiah saw Jesus.
At first Isaiah thought, “The remnant is Judah. I am on the right side. I am in the right tribe.” But when Uzziah came down with leprosy, something shook Isaiah. He began to prophesy, “Hey, Judah, Judah—you think you are the remnant. Oh no, you are not the remnant.”
The land was being laid waste by their sins, and only Jerusalem was standing up like a watchtower in the middle of a wasted field. Ah, now Jerusalem—or Zion—is the remnant. But, as we see played out in these Immanuel prophecies, the remnant is smaller than Jerusalem. It is a small remnant.
“If the Lord had not left us a few survivors,” says Isaiah, then Israel and Judah would have become like Sodom and Gomorrah. If God had not left Himself a remnant, that would have been it.
As Isaiah saw the clarity of what was worked out in that heavenly vision, the remnant got smaller and smaller. But that is the reality.
In those fifteen years of hiatus, the Lord was changing Isaiah’s life. In the first five chapters, he is a young man in his twenties. He is gifted, articulate, literate, and satirical. He badgers the saints and tells them of their unrighteousness. He loves the law; he is clear on the law.
But when he saw that vision and saw his own lips unclean, something of his youthful zest was undone.
When we see him appearing here fifteen years later, he is a man who has been humbled. He no longer is a young man with the gift of prophecy; he is now a prophet who has become a sign by his very life.
When we come to the beginning of this series of prophecies called the Immanuel prophecies, we have come to a situation where there are three very pregnant years that are going to change everything.
Because these three years are right upon them, God brings Isaiah out of retirement, whatever you want to say, and says, “Now I want you to fulfill your commission. I want you to go to somebody you will speak to, but they will not listen. I am picking Ahaz. I want you to go and give him a sign.”
This is an incredible thing.
Syria and northern Israel had come and attacked Judah, the southern kingdom. They killed 120,000 of their best soldiers. They took away 200,000 women and children as hostages. Then they came back around and said, “Now we are going to take Jerusalem.”
Ahaz, in typical faith, is shaking in his boots like trees in the wind—he and the house of David. “Oh no, oh no, here they come: Syria, Israel; they are going to get us. They are going to get Jerusalem.”
Of course, Syria is like a little shark, but behind them is Assyria, like a huge killer whale that is going to come and eat the shark. Here comes the shark to get you, and here is a whale behind that can eat the shark.
In three years, Syria and Israel will be no more. Zebulun, Naphtali, and half the tribe of Manasseh will be taken away by the Assyrians. Then they will come back and get the rest about twenty years later.
To God, this is a tragic event. It is the end of God’s testimony: divided, weakened tribes fighting with one another—“This is right; that is wrong. We are the best. We are the best.”
They will all be gone in twenty years, and Judah will stick around for another 150 before they end up in Babylon. These are crucial times.
Ahaz was the king, and 2 Chronicles says it was because of Ahaz’s unfaithfulness that the country fell into such weakness and became vulnerable to all kinds of attacks.
This Ahaz was so evil. He was the most wicked in Judah. Now hold on—you say Manasseh was more wicked. But Manasseh repented at the end; Ahaz never did.
First of all, he filled Jerusalem and Judah with idols—idols everywhere. Even in the temple he set idols up. Then he made his own children pass through the fires of Molech, just to show that he believed in Molech too.
Then he saw a wonderful altar to Dagon, the sea god, in Damascus. He had a copy made and put in front of the temple, moving the brazen altar over to the side.
He went into the temple, took all the treasure out, closed the door to the temple because you do not need the inside anymore, and gave all of that to Assyria to become an Assyrian vassal and get protection from Syria and Israel.
This is our wonderful king, Ahaz. He is the worst of the worst. He is a quisling. He is a hypocrite. He does not believe in the Lord.
One day Ahaz was out checking the water supply because of the imminent attack that was going to come. The Lord sent Isaiah out and said, “Go meet him at the water and say, ‘I have a sign for you.’”
Now Ahaz had never called Isaiah for anything—not even to come over for lunch. He wanted nothing to do with the Lord’s prophets.
When Isaiah came and said, “God has a sign for you. You name it. You can name some heavenly thing that will happen—change the moon into the sun, anything. God will do it. Or do something on earth, something really super-miraculous. Go ahead, name it. God will do it, because He wants to show you something.”
Why would God show a sign to somebody who does not even care?
Because if God showed Himself in a miraculous way, then the issue would come up before Ahaz and he would have to choose. The issue was this: Do you trust Immanuel—being interpreted, “God is with us”—or do you trust Assyria? What is your choice?
God knew Ahaz was thinking about making this deal. In fact, Ahaz had already made the deal in his heart. So he wanted nothing to do with the sign, but he was very religious: “No, no, no, I will not ask for a sign. I would never tempt the Lord.”
No, he just did not want to hear the truth and really be held accountable. He was hiding from the Lord, from having to make some kind of decision.
God, in His mercy, never judges a people until they make a decision. Sometimes people are indecisive. God wants a person to decide: Is it Immanuel, or is it Assyria? “I will give you the sign; then you have to make the choice.”
That is God’s mercy. Before He sends judgment, He wants to give you one last choice.
Ahaz said, “I do not want a sign.” So Isaiah said, “Well, okay, God is going to give you a sign anyway.” There is no getting around it. Ahaz is going to get a sign.
When Ahaz heard the sign, he thought, “That is the most ridiculous sign I have ever heard. First of all, how could a virgin be pregnant?” The Hebrew says, “A virgin pregnant shall bear a son, calling His name Immanuel.”
To others in the house of David, perhaps they sensed this was a Messianic promise. But not Ahaz. He wanted nothing to do with Immanuel—God with us.
The rest of Isaiah 7 is basically summed up in Isaiah 7:17:
The Lord will bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father’s house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria.
There has not been such a shaking since the northern and southern tribes divided. This is going to be some kind of calamity.
In Isaiah 8, Isaiah gives a sign to the people as well. It is not only a sign to Ahaz, but now a sign to the people. What is the sign? Write a big sign up on the wall: Maher-shalal-hash-baz, which means in Hebrew, “Swift to the prey, swift to the spoil.”
The key word is swift.
The prophecy is this: You think you have fifty years before there could be any possible judgment, so you are not worried in your lifetime. Here is the key word: swift, swift. You are not going to believe how swiftly the judgment is going to come.
“I am going to have a kid, and I am going to call him Swifty—Maher-shalal-hash-baz.” You might as well call him Swifty, because I am sure he hated the name.
Before he could even say “Mommy” and “Daddy,” a river was going to come rushing on top of them.
Why? “I gave you Jerusalem, the pool of Siloam, but you would rather have the Euphrates River. So you are going to get it.”
The Euphrates River is going to come over its banks and swell down across the desert. First it will snatch away Israel, the northern country, which happened within three years. Then the flood is not going to stop. It will go right into Judah and rise right up to the neck, which is Jerusalem.
This is judgment swift. It is coming, and it is coming swiftly.
Here we notice, for the first time, this small band of people. They have taken up this prophecy about Immanuel’s coming, and they are standing somehow in this prophecy.
And it shall sweep onward into Judah; it shall overflow and pass through; it shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of its wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.
That is very strange. Who is He talking to there? What is going on?
Then Isaiah 8:9–10 says:
Make an uproar, O ye peoples, and be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and be broken in pieces.
Take counsel together, and it shall be brought to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.
Your translation may say, “God is with us,” but it is Immanuel, exactly the same word. There is no difference between Isaiah 8:8 and Isaiah 8:10.
In the midst of these rivers of judgment, in the midst of this flood, we see a most amazing thing: a remnant of people standing with the name Immanuel, using the name Immanuel. It is a very unusual thing.
This is a very sobering word, but I share it with you in the love of Jesus.
When God judges something, He looks upon that entity in the fullness of His thought. God was bringing judgment, but notice: He did not bring it merely to Israel. He brought it to Israel, Judah, Jerusalem, and the remnant. Nobody was immune from the shakeup of this judgment.
For 200 years, Judah and Israel had lived separately, and frankly they thought of themselves as separately dwelling. They did not even consider themselves one. But God’s thought never left the fact that they were one.
When God brought judgment, He brought judgment on the whole thing: Israel, Judah, Jerusalem, and the remnant—just to include everybody in the thing.
This is still God’s principle today. There are a lot of superficial things going on in the Christian world today, but the fact of the matter is that God’s judgment has begun on the house of God.
It includes the Israel of the church, the Judah of the church, the Jerusalem of the church, and the remnant of the church. However you want to apportion those various groups—Israel, perhaps the most unfaithful; Judah, perhaps born-again or Bible-believing Christians; Jerusalem, perhaps those who have seen something of the Lord and of the house of God; and the remnant—they all think they are better than the other group.
God says, “I judge you all as one.”
The church is under judgment today, and anybody who is in the church is going to be shaken. The remnant is not immune. They will suffer.
We have no idea how much we suffer because of division in the church. I am convinced that gifts such as prophecy, healing, and miracles would be readily available to us were the body one.
We live in such division. Oh, that we had eldership on a higher level in New York City. Oh, how I wish there were elders there. There are elders there—but there is one over there, and one over there, and one over there, and one over there. We suffer because of it.
Because we are together in the body of Christ, we bear the consequences of the unfaithfulness of some. You can call yourself Judah and say, “I have nothing to do with Israel,” but God says, “You are the body.”
Around the corner from my little apartment in New York City, there is a beautiful Episcopalian church, St. Luke’s in the Fields. Their specialty is ministry to gay people. Every once in a while, they post a sign for Bible study, and I look at it. It is always 2 Esdras or Bel and the Dragon—books in the Apocrypha. They do not take up the Old Testament. Come on, give me Esther. No, they do not do that.
It is a very progressive church, but because that church is a byword, when I talk to people seriously about Christ, either they say, “Well, you guys do not accept homosexuals, so I am not going to go there, because look at this church,” or else they say, “How do you expect me to believe God is serious about holiness when this is your church?”
The world sees the church as one. We are facing more judgment than we realize, more dealing than we realize. The river rises swiftly. No one is immune today.
But there is this remnant. My question is simply this, answered by this passage: If you feel you are one who has really seen something, if you feel you are one who really loves the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and if you are willing to go on with the Lord, then this little chapter—as raw as it is with judgment—has some precious truths for us to understand who the remnant really is.
In a day of prosperity, like Uzziah’s day, actually it was a fool’s paradise. Everybody did what they thought was right. But when the crunch came, Isaiah discovered the remnant.
He did not have to search them out. They just came together, hiding under a table as the river was rising. “We are so small. We are so small.”
We like to pick and divide. We like to pick small issues. But unless it comes out of a volcano, it just all divides like twelve tribes. “What tribe are you?” “I am the tribe of Dan because I am Dana.” “Well, my tribe is better than yours because Dans are good judges.”
We can carry on and argue all we want. But when the floods come from Assyria—meaning the world—and they come up to the neck, you will discover people who are together because they are together, because they are holding on to something.
What are they holding on to? The name Immanuel.
They have let everything else go. Even Isaiah, in his early first five chapters, probably felt that he, being of the tribe of Judah and being a prophet, was somehow better than the priests, who were quite corrupt. “We prophets are good, but those priests in Jerusalem are corrupt.”
But when the river rose and he was up in the top of the turret seeing the water come up to the neck, he was so glad that the priest was standing next to him in the name of Immanuel.
What do I mean when I say these men, women, and children held on to the name of Immanuel? It is really very simple.
First of all, they believed there was going to come One. This Boy was going to be born miraculously, and when He came, God would be with us through this Man. Oh, what a Messianic promise this is. What a blessed hope to hold on to in the darkest times.
Do not dismiss or diminish the impact of the blessed hope upon our lives in times of trouble. They believed.
Isaiah 53:1 asks:
Who hath believed our message? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?
The answer is: to these people.
When they heard Isaiah 7:14, they believed. Believing in the Word is such a precious and important thing. They held to that promise; they pressed it into their chest.
Ever since that time, there has been a remnant of Jews waiting for the consolation of Israel. When Jesus came on the scene, there were people just waiting, holding on to that promise, that blessed hope.
But when you believe the Word—“A virgin shall conceive, and shall bear a Son, and His name shall be called Immanuel”—it also has a present effect.
Even though the Son had not come yet, they somehow looked through that promise and believed: Immanuel. In other words, God is with us now.
As the water rose up to the neck, it did not in the end overflow Jerusalem. Historically, Tiglath-pileser came to Jerusalem, but he had to leave. They did not overwhelm Jerusalem.
I am fully convinced, brothers and sisters, that it was because some brothers and sisters stood on the wall and said, “This is Emmanuel’s land. God is with us.”
The waters were rising, and Tiglath-pileser—whom in our Bible study back home we call “Tickle Me Please”—heard these people yelling from the wall, “This is Emmanuel’s land.”
“Tickle Me Please” said, “I have taken over every place in the name of every god. What do you call this Emmanuel’s land?” But these people stood as the water came up to their necks and said, “I stand on Emmanuel ground.” And in the end, the waters receded.
That is the first lesson we learn, is it not? When we believe God is with us and stand in that place, then the Lord has mercy upon us.
These precious people stood in a place Ahaz would not stand. Who knows where he was running? He was probably hiding in the bathroom, just in case “Tickle Me Please” stormed the walls.
But here are these faithful people who believed, “This is Emmanuel’s land.” Even though Assyria was swarming the land, this was Emmanuel’s land. God was with them, and the waters receded.
Isaiah 43 comes to mind: though you go through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. Or Isaiah 59:19: when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord lifts up a standard against him.
These precious people believed the Word of God, and it stopped that rush.
This is the way it is in the world today. Up in New York, I meet with a bunch of people, most of them under thirty. They are working in the workplace. They come around on Thursday night for prayer, and the water is up to their neck.
If we do not pray on Thursday night, “This is Emmanuel’s land,” they will get flooded off. The businesses they have aligned with in order to fulfill their vocations have said, “I want your soul.”
Those kids are working more than sixty hours a week—investment banking, doctoring, whatever they are doing. Today the jobs want your soul. They come in bruised and beaten, yelled at by some boss because they did something right. It seems like the water is right up to here.
People ask me all the time, “Why are you in New York City anyway?” Well, I am not sure. I need another ten years to figure that out; I have only been there four. But I know one thing: I get down on my knees and say, “Jesus, You are the Lord of New York City. If I am the only one saying it, I am standing right here.”
Somebody needs to get up on the watchtower and say, “This is Emmanuel’s land,” and claim the place before it just gets flooded over because of unbelief.
Oh, what a time we live in. It is a desperate time. But you only find certain people who realize the desperation of it, get on the wall, and have this wonderful faith to stand their ground because it is Emmanuel’s land.
In the United States, the times are so uncertain now. It is amazing what has happened just since 1965. There has been an undercurrent that has just about swallowed everything up here, and the rivers are filling the land right up to the neck.
I know President Bush feels every day that water right here. I hope there are praying saints, or he will go under.
I read in the news this morning that the president of Iraq says the compromising commission has issued a damaging statement that can hurt the whole future of Iraq. These foolish compromises they come up with. But our people, especially our wonderful mass media, say, “Oh, this is the cat’s pajamas. This is it. Now we have our word, and we can beat these guys up with it.”
I am not trying to get political. Bush will go out in a couple of years and somebody else will get in there. But I am telling you, it is up to the president’s neck.
Our country is going up and down, up and down, depending on whether we have a Uzziah or an Ahaz—going up and down like a yo-yo.
God says, “Listen to My sign: swift is the spoil; swift is the prey. Do not live in a fool’s paradise and think there is another generation of goofing off before the thing gets real.”
Isaiah 8:9–10 presents this gathered people, collected together somehow by the will of God:
Make an uproar, O ye peoples, and be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and be broken in pieces.
Take counsel together, and it shall be brought to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.
What a word of faith to say in the midst of a situation where everybody is giving in to all kinds of things—all kinds of alliances, all kinds of preparations, and the whole thing.
These faithful ones are standing and saying, “It will come to nought.” In other words, the plans against Judah in the end will come to nought because of Immanuel—standing in the name of “God with us.”
Do you know the reality of God with us? Oh, I hope you do.
We often live in safe places, unaware of how much angel protection we are getting. The other day, Julie and I were up in Union Square, there on Fourteenth Street, and fifteen feet away from us I saw a man fall down. He had been stabbed eight times and died right there. There was a gang of fifty people running through the park; there was a little gang brawl going on.
If the blood of Jesus does not cover us, and if we cannot stand in Emmanuel’s land, there is not a hope we are going to make it.
Yet these people had an amazing simplicity of faith. What a contrast to Ahaz. Ahaz was shaking in his boots, and here was this little bunch of remnant.
Isaiah had two kids. Isaiah and his two kids were becoming a sign to Israel. On one hand he had Shear-jashub: “A remnant shall return.” On the other hand he had Maher-shalal-hash-baz: “You will be carried away.”
This is the testimony of God: the remnant shall return; you will be carried away.
How do you stand still and see the salvation of God? Somebody prayed that prayer today: “Stand still and see the salvation of God.” How do you do that?
It is not a question of saying, “In the name of Jesus.” It is a question of knowing He is with you. There is a knowing He is with you, and that is what causes all those plans not to come to pass.
Let us look at the third little phase in Isaiah 8, verses 11 through 15:
For the Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me not to walk in the way of this people, saying, Say ye not, A conspiracy, concerning all whereof this people shall say, A conspiracy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be in dread thereof.
The Lord of hosts, Him shall ye sanctify; and let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread.
And He shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel.
Is that not amazing? In times of dire straits and great trial, the Lord’s hand of encouragement is stronger than the trials.
Is that true to you? When you go through a difficult time, are the Lord’s comforts greater than the trials?
Isaiah said, “The Lord’s hand was heavy upon me, encouraging me, warning me: ‘Do not walk like the rest of the people.’”
“Say not a conspiracy”—that is probably the better translation. The enemy does not merely unleash a flood; the enemy unleashes a flood of threats, rumors, and conspiracies.
“Conspiracy, conspiracy. Oh, I have heard something is going to happen. I have heard something is going to happen over there.” We have a nation frenzied with a whole litany of rumors and things going on.
The enemy loves to throw out these kinds of threats and warnings. People are grasping with fear and running for hiding. The media is telling us all kinds of things. Oh, man, we are so thrown off.
But God says, “Stand your ground, Isaiah. Just stand your ground right there.”
Rather than fearing the future, fearing what is going to happen in our country, fearing what is going to happen in the next election, fearing what is going to happen in the church—do not fear it.
Fear God, the Lord of hosts. He is the One we should fear. He is the One we should dread. If we fear the Lord, we will fear nothing else.
The Lord says, “If you will fear Me and nothing else—forget the rumors flying, forget all the things people are saying about you, forget all of the misunderstandings, forget all that stuff—you fear God and rely on Him, and He will be for you a sanctuary.”
Imagine this: in the midst of floods, in the midst of the Assyrians, in the midst of the whole thing, in the midst of the collapse of the kingdom of God on earth, as it were, He will be for you a sanctuary.
But for those who do not believe, and those who panic, He will be a rock of stumbling and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel—Israel and Judah. Nobody is immune.
If you do not believe, every place you try to run, you are going to trip over Jesus. You cannot get away. You will try to get away from judgment, but you cannot. Just when you crawl over this boulder, there is a big one behind it.
It is a stumbling and a snare to Jerusalem. If you do not believe Me, you will not survive. That is how desperate this is.
Who do you trust: Immanuel or the world? Who are you trusting?
This is the issue before these dear saints, the remnant. God will be for them a sanctuary, a holy place.
Somehow, you may have to hide under a table. But you will find you are there with some others, and you can pray. God will keep you through this time of shaking, when everything is getting shaken, and the king is shaking, and all the people are shaking. There you are in a sanctuary because you fear the Lord of hosts.
The Lord of hosts is God’s militant name. He is the warrior we need to fear. Hold on to Him. Do not fear anything else. He will be a sanctuary.
The New Testament says that He became a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to the Jews because they did not receive Jesus. Everywhere they try to go, they stumble. There is an offense, a problem, a difficulty. Then there is another difficulty.
In days of judgment, there is another problem waiting every day. But if you fear the Lord, you live in this wonderful sanctuary: Immanuel.
The reason some stumble and some find sanctuary is simply this: this is one of the clearer pictures in the Old Testament of what the cross really entails.
When judgment comes, when accusations come, when fearmongering comes, what are you going to hold on to? Are you holding on to anything but the Lord?
If you hold on to the Lord and His cross in your life, these dealings are going to shake everything that can be shaken. But if we hold on to the Lord, He will be a sanctuary to us.
If we do not hold on to the Lord, we are going to be crushed, ground, beat up, twisted, and bent out of shape.
Dear brother, dear sister, do not be bent out of shape. That comes out of the smallness of unbelief. Take the higher ground.
If you have seen the Lord high and lifted up, stand right there and say, “I trust Immanuel. God is with us.” Rest in that. Let that be your sanctuary.
Then we come to Isaiah 8:16–18:
Bind thou up the testimony, seal the law among My disciples.
And I will wait for the Lord, that hideth His face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for Him.
Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts, Who dwelleth in mount Zion.
Here is the fourth thing we see going on among the remnant.
“Seal up the testimony.” Believe the Word—that is what it means. Believe the Word. Believe Immanuel. Seal that thing in your heart. Live in that kind of thing.
These people are waiting for the Lord, and they know He is hiding. The Lord is in a time of hiding.
Again, I say to you that I think we need to be more sober about these things that are so easy to say: “We see the Lord. His presence.” There is a hiding right now.
The remnant says, “Okay, Lord, You are hiding. We are waiting.” In the Hebrew, it actually says, “We are looking eagerly.” We are looking eagerly. We know You are here. We know You are in hiding, but we know You are here. We are waiting.
What do we find in that process? We look around and say, “I and the children the Lord has given me.” Why, there are others around here too. It is not just me.
“I am waiting here.” “Why are you here?” “Because I am trusting in the Lord. I cannot see what He is doing right now. He is hiding, but I am waiting. I am waiting. I am trusting in His Word. I have sealed that thing up in my life.”
Oh, precious.
These people have become a sign. “I and the children whom the Lord hath given me have become signs and wonders to Israel.”
How did these people survive? Immanuel. Living testimony. That is what it means. They are a sign. They are a living testimony in the midst of judgment, in the midst of the hiding of God. Somehow they are trusting, believing, waiting, looking.
This is the place of the remnant. It is a precious company. They have the blessed hope. They also believe somehow, “God is with us.”
What is Emmanuel’s land? Anne Cousin basically shaped it up as, “When I get to heaven, I will see all the glory.” But actually, Emmanuel’s land in Isaiah 8 is talking about living in a land that is not geographical. It is talking about trusting in something that is not political.
Dwelling in Emmanuel’s land is the closest thing the Old Testament can come to what it means to abide under the shadow of the Almighty. It is as close as it can be to what it means to abide in Christ—to hide right there in turbulent times.
You find remnants. You find God’s other dear, precious children waiting when you find the hiding place. You just see the remnant.
In the difficulty of the times, you do not fight over things; you are glad to see the remnant. Part of that remnant was Shear-jashub and Maher-shalal-hash-baz—two brothers who probably would like to fight each other. But when you are hiding under a table, there is no time to fight, because you are waiting for the Lord. You are waiting to see His face. You are standing together.
I tell you, brothers and sisters, the remnant is smaller than you think. There are a lot of people who want a fair-day Christianity, where everything is cool, everything is nice, and God is blessing our socks off. Even if we have that on a temporary basis, it is a fool’s paradise.
The fact of the matter is, there is a judgment, because the Lord looks at the church. The Lord wants the bride, and the bride is a complete thing. It is not just a partial thing; it is complete.
He is looking at the church. He does not say, “Forget Israel; I will just take Judah.” No, God can never do that. That is not His thought.
He is going to throw this whole thing up on the wheel and reshape it until there is a bride prepared for His Son. You and I are going to be slung around in the process. Believe me, you and I will be slung around.
What do you think has been going on in your life? Is this just a one-time, haphazard problem? What do you think?
I do not know if the days are ever going to lighten up again. I do not know if we are not already on the threshold of tribulation right now. But all I know is, I sure love to be together with my dear brothers and sisters who own the name of Immanuel, understanding and standing on that ground.
This Emmanuel’s land is not a place, not a location, not a building, not a Jerusalem. This land of Immanuel is with all of those who say, “God is with us. God is with us.”
Vision of the Lord comes to somebody at a time of great need—not always a time of obvious need, but a time when a person has come to the end of themselves. That is when the Lord unveils Himself to us.
How hard it is for the Lord to get us to the end of ourselves. How hard it is for Him to strip away those things and keep us under the cloud. He wants to reveal Himself.
Who is the remnant? In this passage, did they all see that vision of the Lord high and lifted up? No. Isaiah did. He tried to explain it, I suppose, to the others, who maybe caught a little glimpse. We cannot say.
What about his sons? They were not even alive at the time of the vision. Certainly Swifty was not.
But they believed the Word. They stood in the Word. They lived in the reality of it. They looked and waited. Surely the Lord would reveal Himself to such ones as these.
You and I have been around. We have seen a lot of things, a lot of people saying, “Praise God, everything is great, no problem.” Well, I have problems.
But I am glad I can fellowship with brothers and sisters who are under the table when the river is rising, standing on the ground that this is Emmanuel’s land.
It is amazing what kind of mercy the Lord shows in the midst of judgment. Those who know the secret of this thing realize that mercy triumphs over judgment. But we have to stand in that when everything crashes down around us.
Are you in that place? Is it not strange? Under the table is higher ground. It is a place of great humiliation.
Through this whole tragic din of what is going on now, I do not even want to start talking about churches that I see disintegrating and all kinds of things going on today. It is enough to disappoint and discourage the most buoyant and optimistic of people.
But all I know is, when it all clears out, the remnant stands in Emmanuel’s land.
I hope you will be in that number. I hope I will be in that number. Oh, God, give us true vision of all these things we talk about so glibly.
There are deep times ahead, and the word is: swift, swift. Let us get it right. Do not hold on to yourself and your little things. If we just hold on to little things, we will never get under the table.
It is time to realize that in this time of judgment, there is Emmanuel’s land—the blessed hope for us. What a consolation. There is also the present reality of this God Who is with us in mercy.
I remember in my early days as a Christian, I felt I was full of grace. Now, as an old geezer, I feel like I am full of mercy.
I know God’s grace because He has forgiven me so many times, and I know I have many things I do not deserve. But I feel like I am full of mercy these days, because there are so many things that should have befallen me, and they have not, by the mercy of God.
May God have mercy on you. I love to fellowship with you, brothers and sisters, and I hope we can stand on ground together when the water is rising.
May the Lord help us. Let us pray.
The Lamb is all the glory
In Emmanuel’s land.
Oh, Lord, we thank You for the blessings and the problems, the triumphs and the tragedies that happen in our lives. We thank You for the fight and the strains, the problems at work, the problems with health, the problems with finances, the problems with our car, and the problems with all kinds of little things and big things.
We thank You for the problems of a world closing in, and Assyria as a killer whale about to swallow the whole thing.
Lord, we see these things coming, and Your word to us is: swift, swift is the prey, and swift is the spoil. So, Lord, we come right now to You to do serious business in all sobriety.
Oh, Immanuel, blessed Immanuel, our blessed hope, we thank You that we live on the other side of that promise, and we saw that our Lord Jesus came.
Wherever He went and wherever He lived, God was with us. Now, even though You are in heaven, You have sent Your Spirit down so that we can say, “God is with us.” But give us the present reality of these things, and not just glib words to say.
Lord, we know things are closing down again in preparation for Your second coming, when You will truly set Your Immanuel kingdom into play. There, enthroned in Jerusalem, You will rule with a righteous rule as Wonderful Counsellor, Eternal Father, Mighty God.
Oh, Lord, we wait for that day. It is our blessed hope. But meanwhile, we take hold of Immanuel now.
We say, “Lord, let our little family be Emmanuel’s ground. Help the father stand on that truth when the floods come in. We, as a fellowship together, help us stand on Emmanuel’s ground and no other ground.”
Oh, God, help us stand there, Lord, as Your mercy-granted people. Lord, we should be beat up; we should be beat down; we should be allowed to feel the full wrath of that strong hand of judgment that You are laying upon us in a great shaking going on.
But no—Your mercy triumphs over judgment. You look for people who just believe, who hide together, who wait for You. Even when You are in hiding, we wait.
We do not make brash statements, but we make faith statements: “Our God is with us.”
Oh, Lord, have mercy upon us. Oh, Lord, have mercy upon us.
Lord, we know when the rivers rise, they shall not overwhelm us. When the enemy comes in like a flood, You will raise up by Your Spirit a standard.
Oh, thank You, Lord, that we find two or three gathered around that precious standard. Oh, precious God, we bless the name of Immanuel.
Immanuel.