No matter how hard we try, we will never be able to untangle some knots or devise our way out of certain problems. But these are the very areas where God is able to work. In a moment he is able to do what we could never do if we had a million years. He calls us to give up our frantic efforts to solve problems that are too big for us and to turn to him instead. Help comes where we need it most, and help comes not from our own efforts but through divine initiative. 

Two months ago, a tropical wave originated in west Africa and moved to the Caribbean Sea. As it moved to the central Caribbean, it slowed down and became Tropical Storm Melissa. For days it moved slowly and erratically. It didn’t really go anywhere. Gradually, though, it became a Category 5 hurricane before making landfall in Jamaica at its peak intensity on October 28. It was the most intense hurricane at landfall in the Atlantic basin. It caused torrential rains, landslides, and widespread flooding. It caused loss of life, severe destruction of homes and infrastructure, massive power and water outages, and deep economic damage, especially in coastal and farming communities.

But I want you to think of those days when the storm was strengthening. They knew the storm was coming and there was little they could do. As Melissa strengthened into a Category 5 and turned toward Jamaica, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said publicly, “I have been on my knees in prayer.” He knew a tragedy was coming, and that the island that simply did not have infrastructure built for that level of force.

A hotel owner fled to Kingston as he watched the sea and read the latest forecasts. He said:

Jamaicans are very deep in their faith… we tend to think that we can pray something away. And for the most part, we have been spared… At some point, the luck is going to run out, the blessings are going to run out. And I hope and pray this is not that day. But it is looking like it is that day.

What do you do when you know disaster is coming, and you can’t do anything about it? That is the problem people in Jamaica faced a couple of months ago, and it’s the problem people in Isaiah’s day faced too.

Disaster Coming

The date was some 2,700 years ago. King Ahaz was on the throne in Jerusalem reigning over Judah. But a storm was brewing. A new superpower called Assyria was on the move, and it was expanding westward with ruthless efficiency.

People were terrified. They would have heard the stories: whole cities in the north flattened; fields torched, orchards cut down; people impaled on stakes outside captured towns; leaders flayed or beheaded; survivors led away in chains with hooks through their lips or noses. They had already seen what Assyria could do in the northern regions of Israel, devastating the area and deporting its people. Now they knew they were next. And they knew what it meant. It was only a matter of time before they saw well-armed infantry, archers with composite bows, shield-bearers, heavy spearmen; chariots plus masses of soldiers from conquered nations. Even worse, siege equipment: battering rams on wheels with protective coverings, siege towers, ramps being built near your walls.

In Isaiah 8, the prophet Isaiah prophesied that Assyria was coming, and compared Assyria to waters that would “sweep on into Judah, it will overflow and pass on, reaching even to the neck, and its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land” (Isaiah 8:8). It was going to be bad. And the reason wasn’t just because Assyria was on the rise. The reason was because Judah had rebelled against God. They were in a desperate situation: under a covenant curse, sitting in a deep gloom of their own making, and facing a foreign threat that was going to devastate them.

What would you do? You would probably do what Judah and King Ahaz did back then. You would have tried to come up with your own solution. 2 Kings 16:8 records what Ahaz did: “Ahaz also took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasures of the king’s house and sent a present to the king of Assyria.” Ahaz stripped the temple and tried to bribe the king of Assyria, but it changed nothing. They continued their sinful ways. They rejected God’s word. They continued to seek help from mediums and necromancers. Assyria was still coming, and Ahaz could do nothing about it. For a moment, think about what it would have meant to hear Isaiah say these words: “And they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness” (Isaiah 8:22).

Judah was about to face distress, hunger, rage, and spiritual darkness. It was a desperate situation with very little reason for hope.

Earlier I asked a question: What do you do when you know disaster is coming, and you can’t do anything about it? Let me add to that question. What do you do when you know disaster is coming, and you can’t do anything about it, and your attempted solutions make things even worse?

That is the problem that Isaiah 9 is designed to address.

God’s Solution to our Greatest Problem

Read 8:22 along with the first verse of chapter 9:

And they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness. But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish.

In a moment, everything changes from distress and thick darkness to no gloom or anguish. What changed? In chapter 9, God intervenes. God responds to our need by doing what we couldn’t do in solving our greatest problem.

Read More