“I will wait on the Lord, who hides his face from the house of Jacob; and I will hope in him”. Isaiah 8:17

At a burning building in New York City's Harlem, a blind girl was perched on a fourth-floor window. The firemen had become desperate. They could not fit the ladder truck between the buildings, and they couldn't get her to jump into a net, which she, of course, couldn't see.

Finally, her father arrived and shouted through the bull horn that there was a net and that she was to jump on his command.

The girl jumped and was so completely relaxed that she did not break a bone or even strain a muscle in the four-story fall. Because she trusted her father completely, when she heard her father's voice she did what he said was best.

In the same way, God provided powerful evidence that he wanted the best for his children, but they rejected the gentle flowing way he first presented to them; thus, he had to speak to them with a roar and a flood instead.

Invitation upon invitation was sent to erring Israel to return their allegiance to Jehovah. Tender were the pleadings of the prophets; and they stood before the people, earnestly exhorting to repentance and reformation, their words bore fruit to the glory of God.

Thus, for Ahaz, the man of fear rather than faith, the good news from God was that Syria and Israel would be wiped out. The bad news was that Assyria, the ally and friend he had chosen to help him, would turn out to be a far more dangerous for than Syria and Israel had been.

By turning down God’s freely offered deliverance, Ahaz was guaranteed defeat. If Ahaz thought his world was falling apart now, things were only going to get worse!

‘It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to put confidence in princes’ Psalm 118:9.

In his first inaugural address, on March 4th, 1933, American President Franklin D. Roosevelt told a nation disheartened by the Great Depression, ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself'. Isaiah’s message to depressed people is: we have nothing to fear when we fear God himself.

God warned Isaiah not to fear what his people feared, but to fear him (Isa.8:12,13). In Revelation 14:6- 12, three angels proclaim a worldwide message: fear God and give him glory rather than fearing and giving glory to the earthly best power described in Revelation 13.