+I. "Take heed."+ This is just what Ahaz fancied he was doing. He was taking heed to the alliance which had been formed for his overthrow, and he was at that very moment doing his best to frustrate it--by strengthening the fortifications of Jerusalem, and by summoning the king of Assyria to his help. This seemed to him and his court supremely wise: it was eminently foolish. He was taking heed exclusively to the danger, and had no attention left for the Divinely-provided defence against it. That defence lay in God's promise made to David (2 Sam. vii. 12-16). From one point of view, it may be said that in allying themselves for the destruction of the royal house of David, Rezin, Pekah, and the son of Tabeal embarked on an enterprise foredoomed to failure; they might as well have conspired to prevent the sun from rising any more in the east. That the descendants of David should reign in Jerusalem and that the sun should rise in the east, were both guaranteed by the same thing--the will and appointment of God. Resistance was as vain in the one case as in the other--that is, while the conditions attached to the promise made to David were observed. For there were conditions attached to it (1 Chron. xxviii. 9; 2 Chron. xv. 2). It was to this great promise and to its essential conditions that God would have Ahaz "take heed." _"Take heed"_ is good counsel to give to every man standing in covenant relations with God. Many of us stand in such relations to Him, both as the result of the relations in which our parents stood to Him (Ex. xx. 6; Deut. vii. 9, &c.), and as the result of our personal acts; "the seed of the righteous," we have ourselves voluntarily taken the Lord to be our God, and have solemnly sworn to walk before Him in righteousness all the days of our life. Let us then evermore "take heed" to this covenant which God has condescended to make with us. It lays upon us great responsibilities, but it secures to us glorious privileges. Conspicuous among them is this that we need not fear the might of any of our adversaries, whether they be those of the body or of the soul (ch. liv. 17).