“In the year that king Ahaz died was this burden,” Isaiah 14:28.
Today (15th May, 2026) I read this chapter 14 of Isaiah’s prophecy, rejoicing at how wonderfully the Lord shares His purpose with regards Israel and the whole world, with His people in a day of Judah’s sin and rebellion in high places.
The word “burden” is simply a reference to the Word of God which lay heavy upon the heart of the prophet. There are few sermons today that are preached from a ‘burdened’ heart!
The Internet and not the Bible
Sadly, all too often the source of sermons in today’s pulpits, even those which pass as evangelical and fundamentalist, is something ‘filched’ from the internet and which, no matter how sound in doctrine it may be, becomes just a meaningless, frivolous recitation of powerless words, for they are NOT given of the Holy Ghost!
In this case, Isaiah was a “burdened” man! It is little wonder the servant of the Lord was distressed in his soul! We are told that this message was preached “in the year that king Ahaz died.”
King Ahaz was a most wicked king. The Lord summed up his life in these words.
“Twenty years old was Ahaz when he began to reign, and reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem, and did not that which was right in the sight of the LORD his God, like David his father. But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel. And he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree,” 2 Kings 16:2-4.
Despite having witnessed the overthrow of the ten northern tribes, the kingdom of Israel, Ahaz “walked in the way of the kings of Israel.” That is how blind, stubborn and stupidly wicked men can be!
We are told in 2 Kings 17, “In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him. Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents. And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison. Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes,” Verses 1-6.
A Witness That Did Not Deter
Ahaz witnessed the consequences of Hoshea’s rebellion against the Lord. The ten tribes of Israel were taken into captivity by the king of Assyria but he learned nothing from it! Judah would have seen the sad procession of enslaved captives passing her ‘door’ as it were, on their way into Assyrian bondage.
Present Generation
In the lifetime of the present generation there has been abundant evidence of the price paid by the ecumenical churches for their rebellion against the Lord. They are riddled with the ‘leprosy’ of liberalism and the soul-damning doctrines of this Gospel-denying age!
Have we not also witnessed here in Northern Ireland the downfall of the Democratic Unionist Party, once the ‘behemoth’ of Unionism, following its shameful and reprehensible decision to cast overboard all it professed to stand for and hold dear for the ‘mess of pottage’ of entering government as the partner of Sinn Fein/IRA?
From this act of betrayal, hailed by ecumenists and republicans alike, it has descended into embracing lesbianism, sodomy and being guilty of many deceitful betrayals of all that our fathers were prepared to die in order to maintain!
Across The Water
The same picture of the terrible harvest of trampling underfoot the Laws of God has been witnessed across the Irish Sea in mainland Britain. Who can aptly describe the chaos and confusion, the downright absurdity, of British politics at this present time?
These things are but the inevitable harvest of defiance and contempt for God and His Word. We are warned of such an outcome of defiance of God in Galatians 6:7-8.
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”
Here in Ulster there is the same blind folly to be seen amongst Christians who choose to ignore the clear warning signs all around — and that includes Free Presbyterian ministers!
There is a price to be paid by those who do not heed the lessons of the Bible and the providential dealings of God with rebellious nations in our day. The lesson will be especially costly for those who profess the name of Christ and claim to be His servant.
The name ‘Ahaz’ stems from the Hebrew verb meaning to ‘take hold of’. It is believed to have the spiritual meaning of ‘Jehovah has held’. While he may have ‘professed’ that, it is very evident that this wicked king was neither held by the Lord not did he have a hold upon the Lord and the truths of His Word!
Surely it can be said that Ulster has many of a similar character!
In Just Such A Day
It was in this evil time that the Lord gave Isaiah this wonderful message to proclaim.
I. IN A DAY OF APOSTASY, THE MAN OF GOD SHALL HAVE A WORD TO PROCLAIM FROM THE LORD!
1. It will be given only to those walking with God. His was said of Enoch, who lived and preached in a day even more evil than ours, the evil times before the flood that destroyed mankind with the exception of Noah and his family.
Enoch was born about 3382 BC, according to learned James Ussher (1581–1656). He had a son, Methuselah when he was 65 years of age, 3317 BC. The name Methuselah has a special meaning, according to the notes of Dr John Gill. ‘Enoch being a prophet gave him this name under a spirit of prophecy, foretelling by it when the flood should be; for his name, according to Bochart, signifies, “when he dies there shall be an emission,” or sending forth of waters upon the earth, to destroy it.’
But he also preached of the future purpose of God! I believe we have a summary of his prophetic ministry given us in Jude, verses 14-15.
“And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
Thus we have a man who saw the judgment of God drawing nigh a rebellious world and prophetically named his son so as to give a warning testimony of that judgment. But he also preached of the ultimate visitation this wretched world would face at the second coming of Christ.
2. Isaiah was following in the steps of Enoch. He was a ‘model’ preacher in a time of evil rebellion against the Lord by those who ought to know better. Preaching the message of prophecy that is set forth most emphatically and repeatedly in the Bible, acts as a deterrent to backsliding and despair amongst God’s people. It reminds us all of the penalty of turning the back upon the Lord when He gathers His people before Him in order that they give an account of their ways. It also keeps before our hearts and minds how things will end. Glorious victory for Christ, His cause and His people is the final outcome of all things!
3. God’s ‘burden’ in days such as ours is not to encourage His people to adopt the way of the world and be conformed to its practices! I also read this morning the 2nd chapter of 1 Peter. He gives ministers the theme to be preached today.
“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul,” 1 Peter 2:9-11.
This call for separation and holiness of life is set in the context of the warning of apostasy that Peter issues in his second epistle, chapter 2.
“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction,” verse 1.
In a day of apostasy there is a need to ‘intensify’ the message of separation from worldliness from sin since the Christian is under pressure to adopt its ways and preachers are encouraged to abandon preaching the Gospel and replace it with man’s methods of ‘sweetening’ the reproach of the cross with social gatherings and events like that advertised as taking place in Oulton Broad Free Presbyterian Church!!
I never thought I would see the day when a Free Presbyterian Church would replace the preaching of the Word of God for a bunch of actors capering around, supposed proclaiming God’s message by a means nowhere sanctioned in the Word of God.
Such an event was repeatedly condemned by the late Dr Ian Paisley in the days of his prime!
PREACHING is the Lord’s ordained way of proclaiming the Gospel.
“For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe,” 1 Cors 1:17-21.
“Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you,” 1 Peter 1:22-25.
Foolish indeed is he man who dares to ignore God’s ordained means and substitute his own presumptions!
4. Expounding God’s truth in a day such as this will bring man’s displeasure and abuse! To some measure, I have experienced this. I do not frequent ‘Facebook’ and consequently I am spared from reading the fatuous comments of the inane!
However, more lasting than the Internet’s record of such comments is the Lord’s!
“But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment,”Matthew 12:36.
‘Idle’ is the ideal word to describe the comments of those who reject the ‘old paths’ and the setting forth of such.
The word means ‘empty, barren, lacking in mental effort’. A little reverent consideration of God’s Word would cause such critics to be silent!
Part 2 will follow shortly.
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
16th May 2026