Pastor Dan Eddy

Isaiah 11:1-10

Getting Back to the Basics

12-5-10

Grace, mercy and peace be yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Please pull out your purple Advent sermon outline, and follow along this morning with God’s message.

In Christ Jesus, dear friends.

I. Introduction – Good advice

This fall I had a chance to see some of our CLC youth in action playing sports. One of the games I attended was Jake Herth’s. This year he played on the offensive and defensive lines for the Cohasset High School’s football team.

During half time I just happened to hear one of his coaches speaking to the linemen. Even though Cohasset was behind at that point, the line coach was not yelling at his players but was giving them this advice: “On offense when the ball is hiked, first play man-to-man,” he said. “Block the guy in front of you. Then if there’s no one there, go to the side where the play is and block. And if there’s no there to block, then you go for the linebacker.”

He repeated his fundamental advice at least three times.

I remember thinking, “Why didn’t I get this kind of very basic, easy to understand, advice when I played on the line thirty years ago?”

Well the advice worked. It was good the coach reviewed the fundamentals; the players saw the relevance of the advice, and the proof came when the line started knocking the defensive players off the line, and advanced the ball down the field to score. They played much better in the second half.

And that brings us to this morning’s sermon text from Isaiah 11. At first when you look at it…I know what you’re thinking…because I thought the same thing when pastors preached from the Old Testament…“Snore. You killing me pastor. What does something written 2700 years ago have to do with my life today?”

Well in order to help you appreciate Isaiah’s Spirit-inspired Word of God and apply it to your life, I would like to take a page from Jake’s coach by reviewing the fundamentals, seeing the relevance, and believing the proof.

As Luella Harlos mother, Edna, told me this week…Advent is a time for advancing….advancing in our faith as we advance toward the Day Christ comes back to the Earth in the flesh.

This text from Isaiah is critical. It is a transition passage for understanding who Christ is so that when He came, there would be doubt that people would know “That’s the Messiah.”

II. Reviewing the fundamentals

But before we explore its relevance…I want you to review for you how to interpret Scripture. Understanding the Bible is easy using these three simple guidelines:

1. All Scripture points to Christ: John 1:1 (NIV): “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

2. Let Scripture interpret itself by the power of the Holy Spirit: 2 Peter 1:21 (NIV): “For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

3. Always interpret Scripture in context.

Isaiah 11 was drawing on prophecies predicting that the Messiah would come someday as cryptically promised in Genesis 3:15 in the Garden of Eden, made more vivid in Genesis 12:3 where Abraham was told through his bloodline all people would be blessed, and more specifically explained in 2 Samuel 7 where God revealed how the Messiah, the Anointed One, would make King David’s throne last forever. Two genealogies exist to show the Messiah comes from these human bloodlines. See Matthew 1 and Luke 3.

So the idea of the Messiah coming was nothing new in Isaiah’s day. Each prophecy added to the basic understanding, completing the picture of who Christ was and who Jesus would be.

This is important to know so that you can see that Isaiah’s prophecy had relevance for his day, for Jesus’ day, and for us today.

III. Seeing the relevance for Isaiah’s day, Christ’s day, today.

At the time Isaiah wrote this prophetic book, the world dominator’s of the day, the Assyrians, had invaded and destroyed many of the cities in Israel’s Northern Kingdom.

You didn’t want the Assyrians as your next door neighbor? They were renowned for their bloody and inhumane warfare. When they took over a town in battle they would take any survivors and impale them on stakes in front of the town. After a battle, they would pile up the skulls of their enemies making pillars out of them. Their leaders would often remove the heads of their enemies and wear them around their necks.

They were like an army of lumberjacks hacking and chopping trees down in a forest. First they destroyed all the cities of the 10 Israelite tribes in the Northern Kingdom. Then, this ruthless army destroyed many of the cities in the Southern Kingdom, too, right down to the last line of defense at Jerusalem. The people were scared because they thought they were going to die like the others. So they prayed to the Lord and through Him, the Angel of Death miraculously killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers, overnight.

So when they heard this text they saw it as a prophecy of hopefulness, because of all the things that had just happened in their lives.

Little tiny Judah was the only two of the 12 remaining tribes…this little tiny stump. And out of this little tiny stump, Isaiah said, would come this tiny shoot of fruit; that shoot would be the Messiah.

Now, who’s Jesse? Jesse is King David’s father. Just as he begot David, so the Messiah will come from this blood line, these family’s roots. In Revelation 22 (NIV) Jesus describes Himself as the “Root and offspring of David.”

Just like Jesse created the royal house from a peasant family, so Jesus would build the royal kingdom of His Church from His humble beginnings in a tiny Bethlehem stable, born to a peasant family, growing up in insignificant Nazareth. And we live in the royalty of His kingdom, known as the Church today.

Our American lives, in many ways, parallel the Israelites of Isaiah’s day and of the Old Testament in general. We were a nation once faithful to God who has now turned our back away from Him. I’m not necessarily saying you have. But we are influenced by this culture. That’s why we face an uncertain future, economic instabilities, political turmoil, disease, war, and terrorism. We need assurance that in a dangerous world the Lord has us in His protection.

But He desires humility from us. I guarantee you that when the people of Jerusalem saw 185,000 enemy troops surrounding their city they were humbled. God wants us to be humbled. The Lord wants us to change directions back to Him…like John the Baptist was proclaiming in this morning’s Gospel reading.

And to offer you proof, to offer you hope….this text predicted who this future shoot from the stump of Jesse would be, how He would act, and why we should trust Him:

1. Isaiah 11:2 predicted that the Holy Spirit would be upon this Anointed One and Matthew 3:16-17 (NIV) tells of its fulfillment in Jesus. ^“As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’”
2. Isaiah 11:2 predicted this Messiah would have the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, and might. How did the Apostle Paul describe Jesus? In 1 Corinthians 1:30 (NIV), Paul described Him as the “Wisdom from God.” And Colossians 2:3 (NIV) where Christ is described as “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
3. Isaiah 11:3 said He will delight in the Lord…in other words He will be filled with the Lord God. He will be like Him and be Him in every way. This is fulfilled in John 1:14 (NIV) where Jesus is described as the glory of the One and only God “full of grace and truth.”

And why is all this relevant for you today? If these prophecies (at least 48) known for hundreds and hundreds years before they happened hadn’t been fulfilled, then all the critics who claim that Christians made up this stuff on Jesus Christ would be correct. That means Jesus would be a fraud in knowing Him as the Son of God, our Lord and Savior.

But Christ is the epitome of righteousness “judging the needy with justice” as verse 4 predicted, fulfilled when He said in verses like Matthew 11:28 (NIV): “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

But Christ is the essence and power of God’s Word “striking the earth with the rod of His mouth” as verse 4 (NIV) states, fulfilled as Revelation 19:15 (NIV) states: “Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations.”

Why this conflicting picture?

For those who are humble, Jesus is there to provide them with faith. For those who are proud and not repentant, Jesus is there to judge their lives. It’s not as though Jesus wants to do that. He wants to judge you by grace. When He judges you that way you receive His love and forgiveness. And when you receive those, you receive a life that is joyful today, but a life to come that is even more joyful.

And the Church is the fulfillment of verse 9. The Church is the mountain of the Lord where people come to worship Him. Over the past 2000 years the Earth has been filled with the knowledge of the Lord and Savior in the nation of the Church, because of Christ working through the Holy Spirit by His Word.

All people from all walks of life from the four corners of the Earth…all of this nation of people have rallied to Christ through baptism and His teachings. The Church is the nation that has outlasted the most powerful empires. This nation transcends geography and time.

All this leading to an everlasting future reality described vividly as wolves and lambs, leopards and goats, calf, loins and yearling all getting along. No fighting. That means dogs and cats will get along. The world to come is so safe from sin that little babies and children can play around cobras and vipers’ nests, and not be harmed.

That’s the relevance God’s Word written long ago, that has been fulfilled and is being fulfilled for you today through our Advent King, Jesus Christ our Lord. It has been fulfilled through His suffering, death, and resurrection. And that fulfillment will be completed when He comes back in the flesh.

But the skeptics still want the proof that all these prophecies have been fulfilled, and relate to our Lord and Savior.

IV. Believing the proof (Pull out sheet)

This chart (see graphic) shows over 40 prophecies, spoken of in the Old Testament and where they were fulfilled in the New Testament. This isn’t even all the prophecies…just the major ones.

In his book, The Case for Christ author Lee Strobel stated that in the late 60’s mathematician Peter W. Stoner computed the probability of fulfilling 48 Messianic prophecies by chance. Do you know what the probability is that all 48 prophecies would have been fulfilled by chance? It is one to one trillion to the 13^th power. It’s a number virtually incomprehensible to the human mind. It’s even incomprehensible to the federal government which is13 trillion dollars in debt. Think about it from a non-mathematical standpoint: Even if a person tried to plan his life to fulfill these prophecies, he would not have this much control over his life to have these events happen as they did. Only the Son of God could fulfill prophecy in this way.

Why is this proof important for your life today? A recent U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey conducted by the Pew Form on Religion and Public Life revealed that only 16% of Americans are aware of that salvation is through faith alone in Jesus Christ, His central message and teaching. Only 16%. Over 80% of Americans don’t know this.

Now do you see why we need to get back to the basics when it comes to learning, speaking, and living the Spirit of Christ Jesus’ wisdom, knowledge, and understanding?

God’s blessings as we see prophecies connected to Christ from the past, for today and into eternity by reviewing the fundamentals, seeing the everlasting relevance, and believing the proof of our Advent King. Amen.