God wearied, virgin birth sent, Jesus lived in poverty, the devastation of Israel.

Isaiah 7:10-17

Click for a description of the mark of the beast.
Click for a description of the image of the beast.

“Moreover the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, “Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God; ask it either in the depth or in the height above.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord!” Then he said, “Hear now, O house of David! Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also?” Isaiah 7:10-13

The Lord spoke through Isaiah to have Ahaz, the king of Judah, to ask for a sign from Him, no matter how large or small the requested sign would be. The Lord was eager to boost the faith of Ahaz, to boost his belief in the promise made to him in Isaiah 7:7-9. That promise was to remove from him the threat of the confederacy formed between the king of Syria and the king of Israel, if he believed the word of God. Ahaz refused to ask for a sign.

The sign that the Lord offers to the Jewish people of today is the resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ, which they refuse to accept, “…no sign will be given…except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Matthew 12:39-40 Click here for posts on the book of Jonah.

Ahaz, the king of Judah, did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as described in the post on Isaiah 7:1-9, from the very first paragraph. In just a sentence, he sacrificed his son to a false god and closed the temple doors. The population under his rule turned from the word of God and was spiritually corrupt. That is why Isaiah said, “Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also?” The house of David was the kingdom of Judah because David was of the tribe of Judah. Not only did the Israelites of Judah make life difficult for one another but they were wearing thin the patience of the Lord.

Today, it’s obvious how the “kings” of the State of Israel are wearying people due to the 19 wars they have been involved in since they were established in 1948. Just as obvious is how they weary the Lord by not acknowledging Jesus as the Christ and Son of God.

“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will conceive and bear a Son, and will call His name Immanuel.” Isaiah 7:14

That verse enables us to put a date to the fulfillment of the coming of Christ. “Immanuel” means “God is with us”, which is how the birth of our Lord Jesus is described. The virgin birth is also used to describe the birth of Jesus. Mary was a virgin who was with child before she had sexual relations with any man, “After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit” Matthew 1:18. Isaiah is quoted in the book of Matthew to describe the birth of Jesus, “Behold, the virgin will be with child, and bear a Son, and they will call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.” Matthew 1:23

In that light, the date of the fulfillment of that prophecy is 2026 years ago. That’s important because from Isaiah 7:14 through the end of the chapter, the verses are referring to after the birth of Jesus Christ. The Jewish people being referred are those during the time of Jesus, those of today, those of the future, and pointedly to those of the State of Israel.

Also, that verse was a “heads-up” to the Jewish people of how God would send them their Messiah, Jesus Christ. That was their sign, and now the sign they are given is His resurrection, after they conspired to have Him crucified on the Cross.

 “Curds and honey He will eat, that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good.”  Isaiah 7:15

Our Lord Jesus Christ ate “curds and honey” from the beginning of His childhood. We do not need to try to interpret what “curds and honey” refers to because it is plainly said, “It will be in that day that a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep; So it will be, from the abundance of milk they give, that he will eat curds; For curds and honey everyone will eat who is left in the land. Isaiah 7:21-22 Eating “curds and honey” was due to scarcity of the crops of the land. Keeping only one young cow and two sheep is living in poverty, with no oxen to plow and farm the land. Curds was like yogurt or cheese, but not like the neatly packaged, attractive looking, and flavored yogurt and cheese of today.

We know Jesus was raised in poverty because Mary and Joseph could not afford to offer the standard sacrifice of a lamb [Leviticus 12:8] when Jesus was presented at the temple as a newborn babe. Instead they made the offering of the poor which included two turtledoves [Luke 2:22-24]. Also, Jesus was taught as a boy to do the work of a carpenter [Mark 6:3], which was manual labor and far from being a lawyer, public official, etc. Also, Jesus was from Nazareth, far from the luxuries and wealth of the “upper” class [John 1:46].

Our Lord Jesus lived in poverty and worked as a carpenter until He began His ministry at about the age of thirty. He learned first-hand about the hardships of the people He came to die on the Cross for, to atone for their sin. He learned first-hand the difficulties of the poor, what it meant to be broken-hearted, and what it was to be in captivity to the Roman occupation. He learned first-hand of the many infirmities around Him and the spiritual oppression by the Pharisees. He learned what God had sent Him to this earth for, to proclaim the Kingdom of God. During that time of eating “curds and honey”, He learned to refuse the evil and choose the good, and said this, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” Luke 4:18-19

The people were offended because Jesus was a mere carpenter doing mighty works, “Where did this Man get these things? And what wisdom is this which is given to Him, that such mighty works are performed by His hands! Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary… So they were offended at Him.” Mark 6:2-3

“…in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” Hebrews 2:17

“Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.” Proverbs 16:19

“For before the Child will know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings.“ Isaiah 7:16

When Isaiah speaks of “both her kings”, he is speaking of when the Israelites were divided between the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah [as seen on the map to the right]. Each of those kingdoms had their own king. Before the Christ child was born, before He even began to learn to refuse evil and choose good, the land of Israel was no longer divided into two kingdoms. Before the birth of Jesus, and when he was a very young child, the region of Judaea is about all that remained for the Jewish people under the Roman Empire. Today, there is only the State of Israel [as seen on the map to the left], and the two kingdoms have long been forsaken. Isaiah’s words, spoken through the Spirt of God, are extremely accurate prophecies, as are all of the prophecies of the Bible.

“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.”  Isaiah 7:17

The king of Assyria represents the global government, which eventually defeated the confederacy between the king of Syria and the kingdom of Israel, and came against the kingdom of Judah as well. Jerusalem managed to survive, but as a subordinate nation that operated under the authority of a more powerful state, lacking full sovereignty.

The Holy Spirit is letting us know that a hostile force will come against Israel, days that have not ever been seen before. That hostile force is the global government of the beast operating through the United Nations. The global government brings the Battle of Armageddon, which totally devastates the territory of Israel, as described in Ezekiel 39. A remnant survives and turns to God through Jesus Christ.

As described in the post on Isaiah 7:1-9, Ephraim is a place where the king of Syria built up forces to come against the king of Judah, in a confederacy with the king of Israel. Ephraim was located where the northern part of the West Bank is today. Ephraim was just north of Jerusalem, and encompassed the territory of Beit El and Shechem, etc. [as seen on the map above to the right]. Today, ISIS operates from Syria and are known to have forces operating inside the West Bank to create resistance and to destabilize the government of Israel.

The Holy Spirit is saying that the hostile forces coming against the State of Israel happens after the resistance in the West Bank have “departed”. In other words, after their is peace in the Middle East region, under the global government of the beast [international law], then hostile forces will come against Israel like never seen before. That is something far beyond the 18 wars the Israelis have been in since 1948, far beyond the threats from Iran today, far beyond any of the hostilities ever seen coming against Israel to this date. That will be the day of the Battle of Armageddon, which is global.

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“….to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets,“
‘I will not impose any other burden on you, except to hold on to what you have until I come.’”
“I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.”
Revelation 2:24-25, 3:11