Isaiah 7.13-16

Then Isaiah said, “Listen well, you royal family of David! Isn’t it enough to exhaust human patience? Must you exhaust the patience of my God as well? All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’). By the time this child is old enough to choose what is right and reject what is wrong, he will be eating yogurt and honey. For before the child is that old, the lands of the two kings you fear so much will both be deserted. [Isaiah 7.13-16]

One of the most well-known prophecies about Jesus was really just a side note in a conversation between the prophet Isaiah and Judah's wicked king Ahaz.

Isaiah had told Ahaz to ask for a sign that God would deliver Judah from the attacks of Syria and Israel. I can imagine that Ahaz, in his rebellion, refused to comply with anything any prophet of the Lord said, so, he did not ask for a sign. So, instead, Isaiah declared that the Lord Himself would give the sign.

The thing is, every event in the Bible means something. There is nothing recorded in the Bible that is really insignificant. In fact, if we are willing to see it, everything in the Bible is for our edification and growth as believers in, and followers of, God.

As the world has become increasingly secular and godless, it becomes proportionately more important that people recognize and understand what the Bible says. We must realize that everything taking place today in the world has all been predicted by the Bible.  In overall accuracy, the Bible has consistently been right over and again. If I were an unbeliever, I would have to at least pause to consider how these "coincidences" could have such consistency!

One could argue that the Bible was written such that coincidences make it look accurate. That's all well and good - many will continue to think it is just a big scam... But, wouldn't prudence cause us to at least wonder, "What if the Bible is right?"

Can any human being afford to be wrong on the matter of eternity? Of everything man is educated in and authoritative on, would it not make sense to focus above all else on the one thing that addresses eternity? And, if one is going to err about something like eternity, would it not make sense to err on the side of caution - that if eternity is actually real, one should prepare for it according to the instruction of the book that directly addresses the subject (the Bible)?

Consider this, the prophecy about Jesus in Isaiah 7 seems just an odd statement in a conversation having nothing to do with eternity. And yet, even in that seemingly unrelated conversation, the Savior of the World was announced!

For me, I think this is intriguing! In a contemporary world that makes no sense whatsoever and appears to be imploding upon itself in its subjective political correctness, The Bible, sometimes difficult to comprehend, still offers reason. And, as the scripture above prophesies, the Bible offers a Messiah - a Savior - hope and stability in a world gone quite literally mad.

Father, thank You for the Bible. Thank You for the prophecies about Jesus. Thank You for making the Bible so interesting - even difficult to understand at times - so that we might find an anchor of constant engagement in spiritual understanding in a world of senseless humanistic reason.