In studying what the commentators have to say about this chapter, I met with a sentence that set me thinking. It was this: "In that very hour, in which Isaiah was standing before Ahaz, the fate of Jerusalem was decided for more than two thousand years" (_Delitzsch_). +I. How true is this declaration!+ Ahaz was called upon to choose between the alliance with Assyria and alliance with God. His choice was announced in these four words, "I will not ask;" then he decided against God, and all the disasters which have come upon Jerusalem since that day have been in a very real sense the result of that fatal decision. +II. How typical is this incident!+ How often men, like Ahaz, arrive at decisions which are irrevocable, and unspeakably momentous! 1. To have to make decisions that may be solemn in both these senses is one of the things that make the position of a ruler or statesman so serious. Not to be coveted are the positions in which a man's resolves and utterances become fateful for whole peoples. But Pharaoh was in such a position, and like Ahaz he made a fatal mistake (Exod. x. 28). 2. Few are called to fill positions of such responsibility, but every man is at some juncture called to make a decision the results of which to him individually will be of unspeakable importance. The Young Ruler arrived at such a juncture, and made such a decision. Every one of you will at some moment be called upon to decide for or against Christ, and the decision will be final and irreversible. The fact that it is so will probably not be suspected by you; you will decide against Christ, in the expectation of reversing the decision on some other occasion, _which will never come to you._ This decision you _may_ make now; it is the undeniable possibility which makes the preaching and hearing of the Gospel so solemn a thing. This supreme decision may be made by you in another manner. The test may come to you in another form--in the shape of a temptation appealing to some passion of the mind or lust of the flesh, and your eternal destiny may be determined by the manner in which you deal with that _one_ temptation (H. E. I. 4737, 4738, 4636). 3. Like a railway train, we are continually arriving at "points," and the manner in which we "take" them affects our whole after career. This is true in regard to many things, unspeakably inferior in importance to the questions of surrender or non-surrender to Christ, or of loyalty or disloyalty to Him, but yet of marvellous influence in determining whether our after life is to be happy or miserable: business, social and domestic relations.