Isaiah 11:10-16 - The King's Assembly

Introduction

[CONTEXT] King Ahaz was facing increasingly violent pressure from the Assyrians.

That pagan nation ran through Israel to the north like a buzz-saw before marching into Judah in the south.

King Ahaz had to decide: Would he trust in himself and his alliances or would he trust in Almighty God?

God invited him to trust him; he told King Ahaz to ask for any sign no matter how big and God would grant it just so the king would know that God would certainly save him and his people.

But King Ahaz refused to trust.

Assyria would carry off God’s people to the north and would come all the way to Jerusalem’s front door in the south before God halted their attack.

Even then Judah didn’t trust; centuries later, the southern kingdom would be carried off by the Babylonian’s.

[INTER] What should God’s people do when their leaders refuse to trust God?

[PROP] Isaiah 11 answers, “Hope in Jesus the coming King who always leads his people faithfully.”

[CIT] In Isaiah 11, the prophet Isaiah saw Jesus Christ as the stem of Jesse, the promised Davidic King who would set the world right and gather his people to himself.

He can set the world right because he is the King anointed in full measure with the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah 11:1–2 NASB95

1 Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a branch from his roots will bear fruit. 2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

He can set the world right because he is the King who judges all things and everyone in perfect righteousness.

Isaiah 11:3–5 NASB95

3 And He will delight in the fear of the Lord, And He will not judge by what His eyes see, Nor make a decision by what His ears hear; 4 But with righteousness He will judge the poor, And decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth; And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked. 5 Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins, And faithfulness the belt about His waist.

And there will be an outbreak of peace all across the earth when he sets the world right.

Isaiah 11:6–9 NASB95

6 And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard will lie down with the young goat, And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little boy will lead them. 7 Also the cow and the bear will graze, Their young will lie down together, And the lion will eat straw like the ox. 8 The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. 9 They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord As the waters cover the sea.

This is Jesus Christ—the stem of Jesse, the righteous branch, the root of David—the coming King who will set the world right and gather his people to himself.

It’s the gathering of his people to himself that we focus on tonight.

Tonight in Isaiah 11:10-16, we see the King’s assembly assemble to him.

First, we see the Gentiles assemble in v. 10.

Major Ideas

THE GENTILES ASSEMBLE (Isa. 11:10)

Isaiah 11:10 NASB95

10 Then in that day The nations will resort to the root of Jesse, Who will stand as a signal for the peoples; And His resting place will be glorious.

[EXP] The phrase ‘that day’ refers to the day in which the stem of Jesse, the righteous branch, the root of David reigns on earth.

This refers to Jesus, of course, who came first to give his life as the sacrifice for our sin, but having been raised from the dead and ascended to heaven will return to fully establish his kingdom on earth.

When he comes the nations will resort to him.

‘Nations’ refers to Gentiles or non-Jews.

As the NKJV says, “the Gentiles shall seek him,” i.e., the Gentiles shall seek Jesus,

As one commentator said, “(the Gentiles will) gladly and determinedly come to where they know he is to be found.”

They will know where he is to be found because he will stand as ‘a signal for the peoples.’

Some translations use the word banner instead of signal. The KJV uses the word ensign which refers to a military or national flag. It was a standard raised on a pole set atop a mountain that called the people to assemble for important national business.

The Gentiles will assemble to Jesus who will stand as a signal, an ensign, a banner for the peoples.

Perhaps we can imagine him in his glorious return standing on the Mount of Olives, crying out to the nations…

Matthew 11:28 NASB95

28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.

Isaiah has already prophesied that the nations will throng to him, and he has told us what the result will be when they assemble. In Isaiah 2:2-4 he wrote…

Isaiah 2:2–4 NASB95

2 Now it will come about that In the last days The mountain of the house of the Lord Will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it. 3 And many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4 And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war.

Having found rest with God through Jesus, the Gentile nations will find rest with one another.

Hammering weapons of war into tools for agriculture signifies peace; it signifies rest.

Indeed, the last line of v. 10 says that ‘his resting place will be glorious.’

Every English translation I could find says ‘glorious’, but it is literally ‘glory’—his resting place will be glory.

When we think about glory, we should think of the glory of God because he is, as one writer put it, “absolutely resplendent and ultimately great” (glory in WDTTSE).

But we should also think of glory as a place—the place of God’s presence; the place of full communion with God untouched by sin; the place of eternal, unhindered praise; the place of eternal rest.

When Jesus returns, glory will fill the earth because “his resting place will be glory.”

Wherever he is is glory.

[ILLUS] Apart from Jesus, the relationship between rest and glory is troubled for us.

Sure, the resting place of Jesus will be glorious, but rebellious sinners could never rest with him if his resting place is glory—i.e., if his resting place is the very presence of God who holy, holy, holy.

No, for unredeemed sinners, glory is no resting place.

One day in the office of the church I served in Mississippi, the minister of music found a Cottonmouth snake.

I can’t remember if he found it sliding along the floor of his office or in the hallway, but because it wasn’t very big he was pretty calm about it.

He took it outside where I guess he killed it.

But the rest of the day, I couldn’t help but think, “There’s a snake in here with me… under my desk… behind the trash can… on the bookshelf… I don’t know where, but somewhere in here there’s danger.”

[APP] God is no snake, but because we have been snake-bit by sin and death, God’s holy glory is a lurking danger, or at least it would be if we were not in Christ Jesus.

We can never rest in God’s presence until we are covered in the sinless blood of Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5:21 NASB95

21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

One day when Jesus comes, we who have trusted him will gather to him who died for us and live at rest in the glory of God.

[TS] That’s the assembly of the Gentiles.

Next we see the assembly of the Jews in vv. 11-16…

The Jews Assemble (Isa. 11:11-16)

Isaiah 11:11–16 NASB95

11 Then it will happen on that day that the Lord Will again recover the second time with His hand The remnant of His people, who will remain, From Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, And from the islands of the sea. 12 And He will lift up a standard for the nations And assemble the banished ones of Israel, And will gather the dispersed of Judah From the four corners of the earth. 13 Then the jealousy of Ephraim will depart, And those who harass Judah will be cut off; Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah, And Judah will not harass Ephraim. 14 They will swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines on the west; Together they will plunder the sons of the east; They will possess Edom and Moab, And the sons of Ammon will be subject to them. 15 And the Lord will utterly destroy The tongue of the Sea of Egypt; And He will wave His hand over the River With His scorching wind; And He will strike it into seven streams And make men walk over dry-shod. 16 And there will be a highway from Assyria For the remnant of His people who will be left, Just as there was for Israel In the day that they came up out of the land of Egypt.

[EXP] When Jesus comes again, he will gather his people a second time. The first time was during the Exodus when God brought his people out of Egypt, through the wilderness, and into the Promised Land.

When Israel began their wilderness wanderings, they drank water from the rock (Ex. 17:1-7), and when Israel’s wilderness wanderings were drawing to a close, they drank water from the rock (Num. 20:2-23).

In 1 Corinthians 10:4, Paul said that physical rock was representative of a spiritual rock that followed them and provided spiritual drink for their thirst during their wanderings.

Paul said that rock was Christ.

It was Christ who brought them to the Promised Land the first time, and it is Christ who will do it a second time at his second coming.

This he will do with his hand, meaning he will accomplish this by the strength of his might alone.

But this gathering will be bigger than the Exodus, for then God’s people only came out from Egypt, but when Jesus come again, his remnant will assemble to him from…

…Assyria and Egypt, the great powers in Isaiah’s day,

…from Pathros and Cush further south,

…from Elam and Shinar (i.e., Babylon) to the east,

…from Hamath in the far north,

…and from the islands of the sea to the west.

The Jewish people will assemble from every corner of the globe as they are drawn to Jesus, the standard lifted up for the nations.

John 12:32 ESV

32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

That includes Jewish people.

When the Jewish people assemble to Christ, they will be a unified people. Ephraim won’t be jealous of Judah, and Judah won’t harass Ephraim (v. 13).

‘Ephraim’ refers to the nothern kingdom of Israel during the period of the divided kingdom.

Because King Solomon was unfaithful and because his son, Rehoboam, was unwise, the Kingdom of Israel was split into north and south with most of the Israelite tribes with Ephraim in the north but with the tribe of Judah in the south.

Ephraim and Judah were often in conflict with one another with Ephraim envious of Judah because it had Jerusalem, the temple, and the line of Davidic kings, and with Judah acting with hostility toward Ephraim because it was the apostate nation.

But when Jesus comes again and the Jewish people assemble to him, all the old conflicts will be erased.

The outbreak of peace will extend throughout the earth and reunite the divided Jewish people.

Assembled around Messiah Jesus, they will be healed of their old divisions.

Together they will swoop down on the Philistines to the west; together they will plunder the sons of the east; together they will possess Edom and Moab to the south; and together they will make the sons of Ammon to the north obey (v. 14).

Some interpret this warfare literally and see it as a prerequisite to the peace described in vv. 6-9.

It makes perfect sense that pagan nations who continue to rebel against Jesus will be met with destruction.

But others, however, interpret this warfare metaphorically and see the conquest described as the triumph of the Gospel as the Jewish people, gathered to their Messiah, then take his message to the nations.

One write said that in this view the force to which the nations fall is the Gospel.

Either way, the Messiah is coming and his people will be assembled to him (15-16).

Nothing can stop this, for the Lord will utterly destroy every obstacle to it.

The tongue of the Red Sea couldn’t stop Israel’s exodus from Egypt.

The depths of the Euphrates River wouldn’t stop Judah’s return from Babylon.

The power of Assyria that so worried King Ahaz wouldn’t be in the end for Israel in the north.

The waters will be dried up, made into easily passable streams.

God’s remnant will assemble to the Messiah from all over the world as if on a newly paved highway.

Again, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

[ILLUS] Every now and again, Cheryl and I will tell the kids about something fun coming up in a few days or a few weeks—maybe its swimming, maybe its getting together with friends or family, or maybe its VBS or some other Summer adventure.

Of course, its hard for our younger children to understand concepts like ‘a few days’ or ‘a few weeks’ so they ask us, “Is it today?”

“Is it today that we’re going swimming at Mubbie’s?”

“Is it today that we’re going to Nana’s?”

“Is it today that we have VBS?”

[APP] When we study about the return of Jesus and all the blessings that he will bring to us when he comes, I find myself wanting it to be today.

I think sometimes I even find myself asking like a hopeful child, “Is it today that you’re coming again?”

We don’t know when he is coming, but we know that he is, and passages like this one in Isaiah gives us some insight into what it will be like until he comes.

But until he comes, we looking to him, our King; we keep living as faithful citizens of the kingdom; we keep gathering others into the kingdom; and we keep hoping that this is the day.

[TS]…

Conclusion

[PRAYER]