By Rev Charles Seet

Preached at / Published Life BPC Weekly, 2019-09-01

Text: Isaiah 11:1-10

Sermons about Bible prophecy tend to make people sit up and listen. Well, one reason for this is everyone has an insatiable desire to know about the future. People are naturally curious to find out what is in store for them. That is why fortunetellers make such good business. As for us, we should study Bible Prophecy not merely to satisfy our own curiosity about the future. Such a study should affect the way we live. It is meant to motivate us to live for the Lord and serve Him well. If it does not have this impact in your life, that only means you are not learning it for the right reasons.

There are a number of key passages in the Bible that contain prophecies about the future. They tell us that Jesus will certainly return, and they provide us with some clues of what will happen before His Return, during His Return and after His Return. This morning our focus is only on what will happen after our Lord’s return. We will look at two passages of Scripture. The first one is Revelation 20:4-6. This passage comes just after the chapter which describes how the Lord Jesus returns to save Israel and defeat the end-time Antichrist, which is referred to as ‘the Beast’. “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.”

During this thousand years Christ will rule on earth together with all believers who had been raptured or resurrected from the dead (v.4). The Latin word for a thousand years is millennium. Hence this future reign of Christ is often referred to as the Millennium of Christ’s rule on earth. This world-wide kingdom of Christ will result in the most perfect peace, order and harmony that this world has ever known. The peace and harmony will even extend to nature. This is described in our other key passage of Scripture, Isaiah 11:1-10 which will be our main text for this sermon. “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: 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 of the fear of the Lord; 3 And shall make Him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His ears: 4 But with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and He shall smite the earth: with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall he slay the wicked. 5 And righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins. 6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. 7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. 9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. 10 And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and His rest shall be glorious.”

This wonderful prophecy came at a time when Israel was about to face God’s judgment for all their sins and especially of the sin of idol worship. Many were already terrified by the increasing power and cruelty of the Assyrian Empire. They were the terrorists of the ancient world. As the Assyrians pushed their boundaries westward and southward relentlessly along the Fertile Crescent, they left a horrible trail of carnage, destruction, death, and misery in their wake. This was a very dark period for Israel. What hope did they have to survive in such a bleak situation as this? Was Israel going to come to an untimely end? Were all the covenant promises that God had made to their forefathers 13 centuries earlier never going to be fulfilled?

In the midst of this desperate period of gloom and darkness God used Isaiah’s prophecies to bring forth the most glorious hopes to His people. He reveals that He is a gracious and merciful God; He proclaims that though there is impending doom because of their sin, a remnant will be preserved (10:20-22). But most of all He assures them that a good eternal king will arise from the line of David (7:14; 9:6,7) and He will bring salvation to them. Who is this good eternal king? Isaiah begins by revealing that His name shall be called, “Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” (9:6) And then, as the rest of the prophecy unfolds we see more and more details of this eternal king revealed. He is none other than God’s Anointed One, the glorious Messiah! In the New Testament we see that every messianic prophecy of Isaiah points to Jesus Christ.

What Isaiah did was to hold Christ up as the only hope for the Jews. This was the blessed hope they must cling to by faith in order to be saved from their sins and all its awful consequences. The rest of the Scriptures also hold Christ up as the only hope not for the Jews alone, but for all people who live under the cloud of God’s eternal judgment that is coming upon the whole world because of sin. In the 11^th chapter of Isaiah, God reveals that our hope consists of at least three great promises. The first is…

1. The Promise of a Righteous King (vv.1-5)

This promise begins at the first verse of our text which reads, “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.” The name ‘Jesse’ here refers to the father of King David, out of whom came all the kings of Judah. But this dynasty of kings lasted for only 500 years. Not all the kings were good like their ancestor, David. In fact, some of them led the people of Judah deeper into sin and idolatry. This brought an end to the line of Davidic kings, and the last king was Zedekiah. He was taken into Captivity in 586 BC and he died in Babylon. After that, there were no more kings from the line of David.

But how can this be? Had God not promised David that his throne would last forever? Yes, He said in 2 Samuel 7:16, “And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.” This unconditional promise is known as the Davidic Covenant. It guaranteed that David’s descendants would have the right to rule over Israel forever. But how would this promise to David be fulfilled now that his dynasty had come to an end? It was fulfilled through two of his descendants who lived about 600 years later. They were Mary and Joseph. Both of them were from the line of David, and through them, Jesus Christ was born.

You will notice that in v.1 He is the ‘Branch’ that grows out of the roots of Jesse. The imagery that Isaiah used here is that of a dead tree stump sprouting forth a new green shoot, indicating that the tree has come back to life. The line of kings from David was revived when Jesus was born, and Isaiah’s prophecy of the Branch is all about this.

There is an interesting connection of this prophecy to Jesus. The Hebrew word that is used for the word ‘Branch’ is netser. This sounds a lot like ‘Nazareth,’ the place where Jesus grew up. And this is why it is written in Matthew 2:23 that Jesus “…dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.” The Jews loved such a play on similar sounding words. They would immediately see the connection between Nazareth and netser.

Therefore Jesus is none other than the netser, the Branch of the root of Jesse, the revived line of Davidic kings, whose throne God had promised to establish for ever! And what an excellent King He would be – far surpassing all the rest! Verses 2-5 describe all the characteristics which would make Him the best king that Israel could ever have. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, and He would be specially endowed with wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

There were kings of Israel who displayed some of these virtues. For instance, King Solomon was known for his great wisdom, and King Josiah was known to be a very god-fearing king. But although Solomon was wise, he committed idolatry towards the end of his life. And though Josiah feared the Lord, he was foolish to interfere in the affairs of Egypt and that cost him his life. You see, no king of Israel ever had all these virtues that are needed in a good king. And the only One who will ever possess all of them at all times is Jesus Christ. As a king, our Lord Jesus will far outshine any earthly ruler this world has ever seen.

But this will happen only when Jesus returns from Heaven to make the entire world His kingdom and rule over it for a thousand years. When Jesus takes over the helm of world leadership, justice and truth will always prevail, the poor will never be oppressed, and all the wicked will get exactly what they deserve. There will be no partiality, no corruption, and no political intrigues and scandals within His righteous administration. Verse 3 reveals that Christ does not have one severe handicap that is found in all human rulers – they can only judge or decide according to what they see or hear outwardly. This often causes them to be out of touch with their people and to make poor assessments of each situation. It also means that they can be easily deceived by those who appear to be good outwardly.

Such things will never happen when Christ sits on the throne of this world. The thoughts and intents of every heart are fully open to Him, and so no judgment He makes will ever need to be debated, appealed, modified, mitigated or revisited. There will be no unsolved cases or miscarriages of justice. And every judgment that is made under His efficient administration will have immediate implementation without any bureaucratic delays. These are the things we can all look forward to only when Jesus Christ is king. His rule and administration will truly be the most righteous one that this world has ever seen, and will ever see.

This brings up a question which we all must consider: Since no one can ever rule the world better than Christ, can anyone rule your life better than Christ? This is the personal application of what we have just learned. It is no use believing that Christ alone should rule the whole world, unless you fully believe that He should also rule your life.

Dearly beloved, your life is just like a kingdom. It must be ruled by a good king in order to bring out the very best in it. This cannot happen if you choose to remain as the king of your life. Why? It is because of sin. Sin has damaged your ability to rule your life with wisdom, understanding, counsel and courage. Sin has marred your ability to judge all matters righteously. As a result of this, your life is enslaved and under the constant oppression of sin. If you know all this, why do you still want to remain on the throne of your life? Why not let the One who deserves to rule your life be your Lord and King? After all, Jesus has won the right to be the King of your life by redeeming it from sin and misery. I therefore urge you to make sure that Jesus is the One who rules your life. Give Him full rights to everything you have. Trust Him to deal with every problem in your life. And submit yourself willingly to do all that He tells you to do.

When you do that, you will experience His wonderful transforming power working in your life. How great is His transforming power? One indication of this is found in the next part of our text where we see that our hope consists of…

2. The Promise of a Restored Creation (vv.6-9)

Verses 6-9 describe how nature will be gloriously transformed when Christ rules overs the world in His millennial kingdom. But some people cannot accept a literal interpretation of this passage. They suggest that there is a hidden spiritual meaning behind it. And they claim that this enables them to derive its real teaching. So for example, when they read v.6 which says, “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together.” They would say that the wolf, the lamb, leopard, kid, calf and the young lion represent people with different kinds of personalities and temperaments. The wolf, leopard and young lion represent those who are wild, fierce and aggressive and who would normally oppress those who have a weak and meek personality – those who are represented by the lamb, the kid and the calf. But when they are all converted through the Gospel of Christ, they are able to get along well with each another.

So they regard this passage merely as a description of life among fellow Christians in our present age. Is that the real intended meaning of this passage? The answer is No. This passage is meant to be taken literally, because it describes a future time when Christ will reign not only in the lives of His people, but over the whole world. It cannot be speaking about the present time, since v.4 says that Jesus will smite the earth with the rod of His mouth and slay the wicked with the breath of His lips. These things clearly have not happened as yet.

Why is it that some cannot accept a literal interpretation of this passage? It is because they can’t imagine how meat-eating animals like wolves, leopards and lions can refrain from attacking sheep, calves and goats especially when they are hungry. It’s all part of the built-in instinct of carnivorous animals. And they simply can’t imagine what the end of verse 7 describes – a lion eating straw like an ox. “How can lions do that? They are ferocious meat-eaters. Lions have never eaten anything but meat, haven’t they?”

Well, in fact they actually have! It is mentioned in Genesis 1:30 – “And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.” This means that every animal in the world, including lions, originally ate green herbs or plants. No meat was eaten until after the Fall, when all nature came under the curse of man’s sin. It was only after sin infected the world that death and decay started to exist, thorns and thistles started to grow, and suffering and pain started became a part of life. And that’s also when the predatory instincts of lions, leopards and wolves started to turn them into meat-eaters. This change has made it very difficult for man to exercise dominion as God had originally intended him to, because lions, wolves and leopards may now attack, hurt and kill any man who tries to lead them.

When you understand this, you will see that what Isaiah describes in vv.6-9 is actually a restoration of nature to what it was before the Fall. The paradise that was lost when man sinned will finally be regained when Christ reigns on this earth! He who turned water into wine and controlled the winds and waves has the power to effect the most basic changes in all creatures to restore Creation back to its original state. Snakes and scorpions will revert back to being harmless creatures. That is why v.8 says that little children will be able to play with the asp and the cockatrice. No responsible parent in our present time would ever allow their child to play with such venomous snakes.

But during Christ’s millennial reign, parents can let their kids play with these snakes without any fear at all. In fact all creatures will become the natural playmates of little children – even wolves, leopards and lions. Verse 6 tells us that ‘a little child shall lead them.’  If even a little child can lead such creatures, just think of how easy it will be for full grown adults like us to exercise the dominion we were originally meant to have over all living things on earth!

The restored Creation that is foretold here in this passage should fill our hearts with hope and wonder. And it should also moderate our response to the Green movement which has gained so much momentum today because of climate change. Promoters of this movement would have us believe that we urgently need to save our planet from a cataclysmic destruction by implementing costly initiatives. But if their agenda is followed through, tight controls will be imposed on everything we do – how we live, cook, eat and travel – just to protect the earth from all human interference. No one can travel by air anymore because of the carbon emission from jet engines. As Christians our priorities are different: We should adopt a biblical understanding of responsible stewardship of our environment. Yes, we definitely ought to minimise wastage and pollution. But saving our planet is not our job, and we have more important things to do.

Please understand this carefully: It is not our planet that needs salvation, but the people who live on it. The root cause of all the diseases and disasters, decay and destruction that we see in nature is sin. Environmentalism does not address the problem of sin at all, but evangelism does. Therefore, while it is good for us to keep our environment clean and green, our greatest priority as Christians is to save people from sin through evangelism. Nature does not need man’s efforts to preserve it; it only needs Christ’s power to restore it. And Christ will fully restore nature to its original state when He reigns on earth in His glorious millennial kingdom.

Dearly beloved, I trust that you realise by now that the answer to every problem in life and to every need in the world is found in Jesus Christ! Christ is the only One who can bring life, health and everlasting peace to this world. He alone can bring an end to all the wars and woes of man. He alone can abolish all the disunity and distrust that dominate human life today. This leads us now to consider the next promise of God that will be fulfilled during Christ’s millennial reign on earth:

3. The Promise of a Glorious Rest

This promise of rest is found in v.10, “And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.” We had already seen from v.1 that the ‘root of Jesse’ refers to the line of Davidic kings which culminates in Jesus Christ. Now, in this verse we learn that this ultimate King will stand as an ensign of the people. What is an ensign? It is a flag or banner that is raised up high so that everyone can see it and can rally around it. It was used especially in ancient warfare. When a military officer wanted to rally his forces together on the battle field he would raise up a banner as a visible signal. Then all his troops would head toward that banner.

Here in v.10, the ensign of the people is not a banner but a king who will rally people from all Gentile nations to Himself and give them rest. I believe that this prophecy will be fulfilled by Christ at the Rapture of all believers. When Jesus Christ comes in the clouds of heaven, He will become the central rallying point for all believers both living and dead from every nation. They will all be caught up to meet Him in the air from all directions in glorified bodies, and then they will be ushered by Him into their eternal rest. What a glorious rest that will be, when the Church, the entire body of Christ, will be united with Him, and will reign with Him for a thousand years!

And that’s not all. When Jesus reigns during the millennium, Jerusalem will become His headquarters, and people from all Gentile nations of the world will come and pay homage to their King. This is described in detail in Isaiah 2:2-4 – “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.  And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.  And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

The last part of this prophecy reveals something really wonderful. When Jesus rules over the whole world, peace will finally prevail. This peace is part of the glorious rest which He brings. This world has never had such peace. But one day, after centuries of racial disharmony, after centuries of wars and conflicts between nations, centuries of violent protests and terrorist attacks, the world will finally be able to enjoy a thousand years of unprecedented peace. This peace can only come about through the reign of the Prince of Peace, our Lord Jesus Christ.

And the good news is that you can begin to experience this wonderful peace in your life right now if Jesus reigns in your heart. Listen now to what the Lord said in John 14:27 – “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

This morning we have seen three glorious promises which make up our hope when we put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ: The promise of a righteous king, the promise of a restored creation and the promise of a glorious rest. This hope should now excite our hearts every day as Christ’s return draws nearer. It should make us live our lives differently from others. But it must be emphasised that this hope is only meant for those who belong to Christ. If you have not turned to Christ yet and made Him the king of your life, you have no hope of seeing any of these promises fulfilled. Let me therefore urge you not to delay any more.

Listen now to the call which the Lord gives to sinners in another part of Isaiah – “Seek ye the LORD while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” (Isaiah 55:6-7) Will you turn from your sins right now and turn to Jesus Christ alone for salvation?

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