Peace in His Dominion

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. 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. 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, 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. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. 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. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. 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. In 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. In 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. 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.

Introduction:

For many centuries Christians have used the season of advent to remember the first coming of Jesus into the world and also to look forward to His second coming. We celebrate the first coming of Christ because without it, we would still be lost in our sins with no hope. But today we celebrate that He did come and dwell among us and we do have PEACE.

The celebration of Advent has happened for many years of Christian tradition. Why did I decide we needed to bring it to Hope?

In modern church over the last twenty years or more, there has been a move away from tradition. IN the course of that time we have lost many of the deep and meaningful traditions that connect us with thousands of years of Christianity. Some traditions are good to be moved away from but some, particularly those that teach us I believe we need to hang onto. Advent is one of those that we are recovering at Hope.

Have you every heard someone referred to as a “messianic figure?” Maybe it was a politician, someone in history, or a character in a film or book. At the time of Jesus’ birth, for many years, the people of Israel had been waiting for their Messiah to come.

Millard J. Erickson explains the term Messiah in the Bible describes:“the anointed one, the leader appointed by God to carry out the special mission of redemption and liberation.”

When the chips are down and you’re in deep turmoil, you look for help wherever you can. That’s what people do. When a nation is in stress or troubled they look for the leader who will relieve that stress.

I’m indebted to Ligon Duncan and his work on this passage in preparing this sermon.

Because we are picking up in the midst of a story here, let me bring you up to speed with what is going on.

Invasion (failed invasion)

Back in Chapter 7…

- King of Judah - Ahaz - a wicked dude

- Being attacked by a couple of kings to the north

- Decides to send for Assyria for help

- God sends Isaiah to tell him not to do this.

- Tells him to pick a sign.

- Ahaz refuses to listen to the Word of the Lord.

- God gives a sign anyway. The sign of a virgin.

INSERT Passage here…

3 Questions to Answer:

1. Where do God’s people get help?

2. What is the coming King like?

3. What will a world look like when the King comes?

I. Where does help for God’s people come from?

So, Israel is tempted to look to Assyria for their help, in fact King Ahaz decides to send emissaries to Assyria to get some help in defending his kingdom. If you’ll recall, this was in direct defiance of the command of the LordGod.

Now, for some context of what Isaiah is trying to show us here, take a look back at Chapter 10 verses 33-34.

Assyria pictured as these big trees... LD called them the 800 pound gorilla of the area and time.

Lord of the Rings - Fanhorn Forest

God’s axe is going to take them down. Understand this - God is going to use Assyria as a tool of judgement against Judah and then He’s going to exercise judgement on that tool of His judgement. God can use anyone He wants.

Remember, the people were primarily looking to a political hero coming in to rescue them... that is who they understood to be who would help them...

When you fast forward to the beginning of the gospels, you have the Jewish people assuming that the Messiah would be this kind of political or military savior. But:

Help comes from unexpected places and unexpected times and in unexpected ways. For Judah, the help would come eventually, not in the short term but from:

A. A shoot growing from the stump of Jesse.

- Ahaz’s help was now a forest of stumps, cut down...

* That famous theologian: Johnny Cash song, God’s Gonna Cut You Down.

You can run on for a long time

Run on for a long time

Sooner or later God'll cut you down

Go tell that long tongue liar

Go and tell that midnight rider

Tell the rambler

The gambler

The back biter

Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down

- The “shoot” was a symbol of hope and was a clear contrast too the hopelessness of Ahaz’s leadership.

- Ahaz’s leadership nearly destroyed the the nation and it’s Davidic

line or rulers.

- In the middle of this vast forest of stumps there was this little shoot of hope springing up... there’s your hope!

- God is going to send a faithful servant, a ruler from the line of David who will be the hope of His people.

- Again, let me emphasize that this plan of God’s, this hope was not immediate. It was assured but it wasn’t a quick fix. As I was studying this passage it reminded me of so much of what I have learned over

the last years about church revitalization and just ministry in general.

Sometimes there isn’t a quick fix but that doesn’t mean God has

abandoned you. The Jews had to wait hundreds of years but God

kept His promise and sent the help.

- This would not be a quick fix. It’s not short-term. It gets worse for

the Jews before it gets better.

- Not too long after this prophecy was given, it looked like the Davidic line was cut oﬀ. The last ruler over Judah watches the enemies of the people of God kill his children and then put out his eyes and take him oﬀ into captivity. All that so that the thing he remembers for the rest of his days is that his line is being cut oﬀ.

- And so help for Israel comes into this dark and bleak situation. But not right that moment.

- One of my favorite phrases in the Bible is, “at the right time.” Some of your translations may say “at just the right time.” I love this phrase because it shows the sovereign rule and reign and plan of God to enact his rescue at just the right time.

Now, obviously, this phrase is used in conjunction with diﬀerent topics in these verses. I want to specifically point out Romans 5:6:

“For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ

died for the ungodly.”

Not too early and not too late but right on time. God’s rescue is right on time. We may question that but it doesn’t change the fact that He keeps His promise on His timeline.

II. What will the coming king be like?

Isaiah makes it clear in verse 2 that this new coming King won’t be anything like Ahaz. He will be:

A. A king after God’s own heart.

His heart will delight in the Lord. He will delight in the fear of the Lord.

Whereas Ahaz thought he was wise on his own and refused to listen to the word of the Lord, this coming King would be like his ancestor David and be a man after God’s own heart. That’s how David is referred. Not only would this king listen to the word of the Lord in contrast to Ahaz but this Messiah would be the Word of God in the flesh. John 1 speaks of this.

He will have the character of a Godly man.

B. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him.

- The spirit of wisdom and understanding

- The spirit of counsel and strength

- The sprit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord

Ligon Duncan points out that:

One of the things that we learn is that when we AS

BELIEVERS in the Lord God put our hope in anything

else other than God, you may expect God to deal

ruthlessly with that which you put your trust in and hope

in and find your satisfaction in, if it is not in Him, because

HE loves you. ... you see how ruthlessly He’s ready to

deal with Assyria. He is ready to cut it to the ground for

the sake of His people.

Notice he said “as believers”. I’m not speaking of unbelievers right now but to you Christian. If you follow Jesus and you begin to hope in something else, don’t be surprised when God comes after that thing. It’s because He loves you. He knows that as His child that other thing won’t fulfill you and He will come for it. He pursues you.

Another thing we can learn here is that God often uses things that are unimpressive to the world to point to hope. He routinely uses things and people that world would disregard as unimportant to point to the ultimate hope we have in Jesus.

Not Assyria but this shoot, that branch, little twig that is growing out of Jesse. God delights in using things the world sees as foolish.

III. What is this world going to look like?

- This passage is really about Jesus’s dominion, His rule.

A. He will rule righteously and faithfully over a diﬀerent kind of kingdom.

B. He will regather Israel.

God had promised to take care of His people. Yet they refused to trust Him and take Him at His word.

On this Sunday, Peace Sunday of Advent, we might be tempted to not believe that God will bring peace to our hearts. We look around at the world and it doesn’t seem very peaceful. Maybe you come to this Christmas season with a war raging in your heart. Maybe you’re dealing with tragedy or unrealized hopes. Maybe you’re suffering and maybe you are rejoicing.

Let me tell you the story of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

ILLUSTRATION: Longfellow’s “I Heard the Bells...”

From the Gospel Coalition:

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the famous poet was

familiar with tragedy. His wife, Fannie, died after her

dress caught on fire. He woke from a nap and tried to

extinguish her but she died the next morning. This was

1861.

They had six children, one who died as an infant. On

November 27, 1863 his oldest son, Charlie had been

shot in a skirmish as part of the Mine Run Campaign. He

was nearly paralyzed.

On Christmas day,1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow—

a 57-year-old widowed father of six children, the oldest of

which had been nearly paralyzed as his country fought a

war against itself—wrote a poem seeking to capture the

dynamic and dissonance in his own heart and the world

he observed around him”

15(Justin Taylor, “The True Story of Pain and Hope Behind ‘I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,’” The Gospel Coalition blog, December 21, 2014,

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

and wild and sweet

The words repeat