Isaiah 11 - The Root of Jesse

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. 2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. 3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, 4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. 5 Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. 6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. 7 The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. 9 They shall not hurt or destroy

in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. 10In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious. 11In that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that remains of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea. 12 He will raise a signal for the nations and will assemble the banished of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. 13 The jealousy of Ephraim shall depart,

and those who harass Judah shall be cut off; Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah,

and Judah shall not harass Ephraim. 14 But they shall swoop down on the shoulder of the Philistines in the west, and together they shall plunder the people of the east. They shall put out their hand against Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites shall obey them. 15 And the Lord will utterly destroy the tongue of the Sea of Egypt, and will wave his hand over the River with his scorching breath, and strike it into seven channels, and he will lead people across in sandals. 16 And there will be a highway from Assyria for the remnant that remains of his people, as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt.

Target Date: Sunday, 31 March 2024

Sermon Text:

Last week we began looking at this eleventh chapter of the book of Isaiah, beginning with the two verses leading into this chapter.

You may remember I mentioned then we should be prepared for the surprising twists Isaiah has for his hearers in this chapter.

Before we dive in, though, let’s all remember that this entire chapter, beginning to end, is a direct prophecy of the Messiah, the anointed One of God – Jesus Christ, and none other.

So we must all know from the outset that everything here will be describing the Messiah and His work.

And while we are preparing to understand this beautiful chapter, it is important to know that this is a very poetic passage, so many of the specific things talked about are not literal, but descriptive of the Messiah’s life and work.

Isaiah describes in pictures and analogies what the Holy Spirit reveals in living detail in the gospels and the rest of the New Testament.

We will see examples of these this morning as we look at this chapter.

The first surprise is this: the Messiah is the “root of Jesse”, not the “root of David”.

Why would Isaiah go back to a nobody like David’s father rather than calling the Messiah “the stump of David?” Why “the stump of Jesse?”

I would suggest just a few reasons:

1. The promise of the Messiah was not for merely a reigning king, but also a shepherd for God’s people.

Jesse and his sons were shepherds, lowly people.

And when Jesus came, He was the son of a carpenter.

2. Jesse was a man of Bethlehem, but David was a man of Jerusalem.

1 Samuel 16:1 - I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.

This word of God to the judge Samuel can apply to both David and to Jesus.

In fact, I find so many parallels between this chapter and 1 Samuel 16, it might be suspected Isaiah is interpreting that chapter in this one.

Sure, David was born in Bethlehem, but when he left, he seems to have not looked back.

Particularly when he was building his palace in Jerusalem and populating it with his harem.

But the Messiah was to be a man from Bethlehem, not from Jerusalem.

More acquainted with a manger than a palace.

3. The Messiah would be a man after God’s own heart like the early David, not one born to royalty.

It was in Bethlehem that David was anointed king;

It was in Bethlehem that The nursing child … play[ed] over the hole of the cobra (v. 8);

Meaning, it was in Bethlehem that the serpent tried to destroy the promised seed of the woman first through Herod’s evil decree.

The second surprise I mentioned briefly last week:

That is: almost every word of this book so far has been dedicated to the holiness of God, the failure of His people to follow Him, and the judgment that is coming on them.

So when, in verse 2, God promises that His Spirit will dwell in this man, the people listening would have had one big question:

What will this Messiah do?

After all, if God is angry with His people, filled with wrath over their idolatry and sin;

If God has promised they will be subdued by ungodly nations and many of those of Israel and Judah will be killed;

And if everyone knows they are not going to give up their sins until they are forced to, most often by death,

What kind of man will the Messiah be?

It would be entirely natural to think that this Messiah would come swinging a sword in the name of the Lord,

Dispensing God’s justice and vengeance brutally and violently.

We see Isaiah mention that possibility in verse 4:

and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

No surprise there: the Messiah will come carrying out God’s justice.

The reason He will do it?

his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, 4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth

Because God’s all-knowing Spirit is on Him, He will see all the way down into the hearts of people, knowing each motive and every lust they have.

He cannot be fooled by people who LOOK like they are doing the right things;

He sees all the way to their deepest thoughts, their most selfish motives.

Many are the people who think they can fool or deceive God.

Who think that the sinful and evil things they do will be forgotten in just a little while.

Who think that God has bigger things to deal with than their petty sins.

Who think they can buy some favor with Him – maybe by doing some good things to offset the bad things they have done.

Or who think they can come to church once in a while.

Or reject a sin on occasion.

Or give money to good causes or to the church.

They may even fool themselves to think in the day they stand before God –

And YOU CAN BE CERTAIN we will all give an account before God for our lives –

They think they can make some argument, some plea, some deal that will get them around God’s most basic command – Be HOLY like I am holy.

I hear people practicing those arguments today:

But God, I was really a good person.

But God, I attended church regularly.

But God, I was bullied and victimized in my life.

But God, I did my best. Surely You didn’t command me to do something I am not capable of doing.

Make no mistake: that is EXACTLY what God commands.

He commands complete holiness, and pours out His wrath on all who fail to do it.

That is why He describes His Messiah in verse 5 this way:

5 Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins

The Messiah, Jesus Christ, from the point of view of Isaiah’s time, WILL BE perfect.

And we know, from our point of view, that He IS perfect.

He HAS DONE everything God commanded, and has rejected everything God forbade.

What you and I find impossible, Jesus Christ has done.

It is not UNFAIR of God to require of you something you cannot provide for yourself – that IS the POINT!

God’s salvation, His redemption of His people, was NEVER about your ability to do good things.

It has ALWAYS been about you knowing that you can do nothing good for yourself, and you MUST rely on the goodness and righteousness of Jesus Christ to save you.

God’s commands, God’s law, God’s judgments are meant to drive you to God’s Savior – Jesus Christ.

He is the one who saves.

He is the one who was perfect in His obedience.

It is only in being joined with Him through faith that ANYONE can be saved.

This doesn’t represent a failure in God’s character – It is a failure in OURS!

God knows the evil of sin.

He knows the destruction it causes.

If we are willfully oblivious, it doesn’t make Him wrong.

Most people don’t realize how much God hates sin.

We look at His anger at sin;

We look at His judgment of sin;

We see the testimony of His wrath and true violence against sin;

And then, in the face of all that, we try to tell ourselves or others that our own sin is small, tiny, hardly worth notice.

God hates sin.

God judges sin.

God punishes sin VIOLENTLY.

For those who do not accept His terms for salvation – they will be punished for ETERNITY for their sin.

Not a thousand years; not a million.

Forever punished for those sins they, in this life, thought were trivial.

Only too late will they recognize how deadly serious sin is, and how serious God is about it.

It doesn’t matter what kind of salvation or argument you have worked out for yourself – God has made one and only one offer – take it or leave it.

It doesn’t matter if you scream out “Not Fair!” at God;

It all comes down to this: He is holy, and you are not.

And there is only ONE WAY anyone can be saved:

Turn from your sin and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

That is what Isaiah is telling us when he says: 10In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.

This Root of Jesse, Jesus Christ, will draw all kinds of people to Himself –

Not just Jews, but Gentiles from every nation and people.

That last phrase: His resting place shall be glorious – it may need a little explanation.

For us, a “resting place” is a euphemism for a grave, like in the cemetery commercials “a final resting place”.

But here, “resting place” means a quiet home, a peaceful dwelling.

So what Isaiah is telling us is that in the midst and in the aftermath of God’s judgment of His people here on earth, the Messiah will bring a supernatural calm and quiet to people.

If you are asking “how?” – that is a great question.

God still hates sin.

And God is still violently punishing sin.

But for the sake of those who will be saved, He poured that violence and wrath out on a Substitute, a Savior – Jesus Christ.

If you are one of His, this is exactly what He did:

He saw your sin and declared you GUILTY and condemned to eternal punishment.

But then He took your guilt and placed it on Jesus Christ;

And He took Jesus’s goodness and wrapped you in it.

And He violently punished your sin, emptying His wrath on Jesus Christ for your sin.

We beheld the tip of the iceberg of God’s wrath in the cruelty of the crucifixion of Jesus.

And when He had died and paid for our sins in full, God raised Him from the dead, our eternal Lord who lives eternally to keep us safely in His peace.

So where we deserved God’s wrath, received His mercy and favor.

Where we deserved God’s justice, we received His grace.

That is, I believe, what Isaiah is describing in verses 6-7:

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. 7 The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

Remember, I told you this is poetic, but look at what he is saying here.

In each of these animal comparisons, you have a predator, a fearsome hunter:

Wolf, leopard, lion, and bear.

And in each of these, we have docile herbivores:

Lamb, goat, calf, fattened calf, cow, and ox.

In each of these “animals” that coexist in the Messiah, we see two things:

The violent animal,

And the animal that was meant for a sacrifice.

In the Messiah, we have joined in a single man:

From verse 2, a righteous man who has the very Spirit of God.

And the violent strength of the Holy God joined with the Sacrifice that atones for sin.

The justice of God and the grace of God existing in a single man, Jesus Christ.

The judgment of God and the redemption of God in the single body of flesh and blood.

John 1:14 - And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father

He became flesh and brought His peaceful dwelling to us.

And that blood – that is the blood that was shed to take away the sins of all who would trust in Him.

Hebrews 9:22 - without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

That is the mission and work of the Messiah of God, accomplished once for all time by Jesus Christ through His life, His death, and His resurrection.

Hebrews 9:26-28 - But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.