A Sign for the Present and the Future (12-3-23)

As Judah faced an onslaught from the combined forces of Israel and Syria, the Lord offered to give Ahaz a sign to authenticate His promise to deliver them. When Ahaz refused to ask for a sign, the Lord gave him a sign, telling him that a virgin would conceive and bear a son, and she would call him "Immanuel." The people of Judah were, in fact, delivered within four years, but there was a greater and more glorious fulfillment of this promise in the Person of Jesus, as Matthew tells us in the first chapter of his gospel.