Like Assyria, Babylon’s pride would lead to its demise.  But we must admit, the seed of pride is in all our hearts.

The aim of Christ's question was to shift Martha's attention away from the general resurrection of the dead to Himself as the resurrection and the life, and it worked.  

The section of Isaiah's prophecy that began with being confronted with God's holiness and his own sinfulness, fittingly concludes with a glorious doxology.

We can be content and confident in the midst of our circumstances as we see them between the bookends of the past reality and the future hope of the covenant God has made with us in Christ. 

"While Assyria’s remnant was as a few scattered trees of the forest, and there was no hope; Jacob’s remnant had hope as broad as the promises of the God of truth." - E. J. Young

In Christ, we are no longer under the Lord's hand of judgment, we are in the Lord's outstretched arms of mercy, and He will never let us go.  There is no other way to flee from the Lord than to flee to the Lord.  

The point in redemptive history upon which everything would turn was the birth of a boy.  The glimmer of hope in the midst of the pronouncement of judgment was that a son would be given and the darkness of sin and death would give way to the brightness of God’s glory. 

Ahaz wouldn't ask for a sign, but the Lord gave him one anyway; a son born of a virgin whose name would be Immanuel, God with us.

God's revelation of his holiness led to Isaiah's realization of his own sin which God responded to with mercy.

Chapter 5 is a folk song that told a very real story about an ordinary people who were doing very disappointing and destructive things in the midst of an extraordinary relationship.