Isaiah 11:1-9 | “A Perfect King Brings Us to a Perfect Place”

Joy and Pain at Christmas

This season of the year brings with it a full range of emotions.  It’s a season of great joy and anticipation.  Perhaps more than other times of the year, we feel optimistic about the future, excitement about life, and a contentedness and peace about how things are.  We experience joy and pleasure because we get time off from work and time with family and time to rest and think and play and worship.  Christmas is the “most wonderful time of the year” for many of us.

But something else happens during this season.  The joy of the season is accompanied with pain and sadness.  Perhaps more than other times of the year, we feel scared about the future, pessimistic about life, and a deep sense of loss because things aren’t the way they’ve always been.  Christmas reminds us that loved ones are gone or aging or fighting or not around.  Christmas brings pain because it reminds us that this world is very broken.  It can be the “most painful time of year” for many of us.

Hope and joy and pain and sadness fill our hearts during this season.  But the truth of Christmas tells us that God has entered into our world in order to give us a hope and a future and to take away our pain and our sadness.  Christmas tells us that God sent Jesus to give us a new kind of life headed toward a new kind of place.  As Sally Lloyd-Jones says in The Jesus Storybook Bible, Christmas is about the coming of the promised One who’ll make all the “sad things come untrue.” 

The Identity of the Baby

At Christmas time, it’s easy to focus on the event of the birth of Jesus.  We’ve been considering what the prophet Isaiah says about the identity of the One God would send to “make all the sad things come untrue.”  We saw in 7:14 that he would be born of a virgin and would be called Immanuel, “God with us.”  We saw in 9:1-7 that the child would bring light and victory to God’s people.  He’d be called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  He’d be a divine king who’d rule with justice and righteousness and establish a government of everlasting peace.

Context of Isaiah 11

In Isaiah 11, the prophet continues to unfold for us who this child is and what he’ll do.  Let’s first consider the context of Isaiah 11.  We learned from chapter seven that God sent Isaiah to King Ahaz to tell him not to trust in help from Assyria, but to rather trust in the Lord.  The Lord offered to confirm his promise with a sign, but Ahaz rejected it.  He looked to Assyria for help instead of the Lord.  The Lord gave Ahaz a sign anyway (7:14).

Chapter 8 tells us that, because Ahaz and Israel followed their own way instead of God’s, God would lead them into darkness (vv. 21-22).  They’ll become the prey of the nation they trusted in.  Chapter 9 tells us that judgment won’t have the last word.  God doesn’t leave his people in darkness.  He promises to send light and victory through a child who’ll sit on David’s throne.   

The rest of chapter nine and chapter ten tell us that God will nevertheless bring judgment on Israel because of their pride.  His judgment will come through the nation of Assyria.  In mercy, God will preserve a remnant from Israel and bring them back to their land (10:20-21).  When God is done with Assyria, he’ll bring judgment on them as well (10:24-25).  The Lord will cut them down like trees (vv. 33-34).

A Field Full of Stumps

Lebanon was a heavily forested area, but all of its trees have been cut down.  God used Assyria to cut down the forest of Israel’s pride.  In its place grew the mighty forest of Assyria.  But now that forest too has been cut down.  The grandeur of the forest is gone.  All that remains is a field full of stumps.

The imagery here is important as we move into chapter 11 (vv. 1-2a).  Isaiah tells us that one of these stumps will produce a branch that’ll bear fruit.  The branch will be a man full of the Spirit and righteousness.  Isaiah is returning to the theme of Immanuel.  He’s continuing his description of the divine figure who’ll usher in a reign of righteousness and peace. 

This “branch” will be a perfect king and will create a perfect place for his people.  These are our two points this morning: a perfect king (vv. 1-5) and a perfect place (vv. 6-9).  The main point of this text is that Jesus came as a perfect king in order to bring us to a perfect place.

A Perfect King

In verses 1-5, Isaiah describes the perfect King who’ll come.  Verse 1 says that, though the tree of the Davidic dynasty has been felled, it’s not finished.  Jesse was David’s father.  Isaiah mentions Jesse here instead of David directly to show us that the new David will spring up out of nowhere just like the first one did, and to point us beyond the royal palace of Jerusalem to David’s humble origins in Bethlehem watching his father Jesse’s sheep.  The One who is coming will “shoot” up from the very roots of the dynasty, from the “stump of Jesse.”

Verse 2 then says that “the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him.”  This means that the presence of the Holy Spirit, and not just his royal lineage, is what fits him for office.  This descendant of Jesse will rule with a different Spirit, literally, than previous kings.  The Messiah won’t rule with selfish ambition and a lust for power.  Rather, he’ll rule with “wisdom and understanding,” “counsel and might,” and “knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” 

The gospels tell us that the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jesus when he was baptized.  Matthew 4:16, “And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him.”  Jesus was a descendant of David and the Spirit of the Lord rested on him, meaning that he is the clear fulfillment of this prophecy.  But there’s more.

Verses 3-5 tell us more ways that he’ll be different from other kings.  He’ll delight in the “fear of the Lord.”  He’ll love the Father and delight in knowing him and walk humbly before him.  He won’t judge based on appearances.  His judgment will be based on what he sees inside, not outside, a person.  He won’t decide cases based on human understanding.  The “Spirit of wisdom and understanding” will allow him to know what’s truly going on in people’s lives and hearts.  They’ll be no one who can hide from him behind a curtain of religious activity.  He’ll delight in those who, like him, “delight in the fear of the Lord.”

His judgment won’t be slanted toward the rich and powerful.  He won’t play favorites.  As one commentator says, “He will concern himself with what is right according to the unchanging standards of the One who is Right.”  The poor and needy won’t be at a disadvantage in his courtroom.  The powerful won’t escape if they’re among the “wicked.”  He’ll reign with fairness and equity, or justice.  He’ll only give people what they deserve.

The “meek of the earth” will gain his favor, while the prideful will receive his judgment.  His words will be more powerful than the strongest “rod” of any other king.  The “breath of his lips” will not only pronounce the sentence of the “wicked.”  It will actually kill them. 

The book of Revelation tells us that this is what Jesus will do when he comes again (Rev. 19:11-16).  This branch from the stump of Jesse is not to be trifled with.  He’s no mere human king or religious teacher or prophet or self-help guru.  He is God in the flesh.  He came first to die for the salvation of this people.  When he comes again, he’ll come to destroy all who’ve rejected him. 

Paul says that “when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire,” he’ll “inflict vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.  They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thess. 1:7-9).

Our Main Problem at Christmas

Why such devastating consequences for those who deny Jesus?  Because God is holy and cannot be in the presence of sin or sinners.  His good character demands that he do something about those who’ve broken his good law.  It would be unjust if he let all lawbreakers go free.  He’d have to deny himself in order to not punish people who’ve sinned against him.  His righteousness demands a payment for sin. 

Because God is holy, he is separated from sinners like us.  This is our main problem at Christmas.  Not family drama or credit card debt or busy schedules or uncertainty about the future.  Our main problem is, “How shall we get right with the holy and just God who made us?”

God is just, but he’s also merciful.  He promised hundreds of years before Jesus came that he’d do something spectacular to save people walking in the darkness of sin.  In Isaiah 53, he promises to do something about the huge obstacle of our sin.  “He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed” (v. 5). 

Jesus died on the cross for our sins.  God put our sins on Jesus while he hung on the cross.  He judged our sins there so that he could put them out of his mind and give us mercy while remaining just and holy at the same time.  Christ carried our sins on the cross.  He took our punishment.  He took our guilt.  That means that our sins are gone.  God “forgets them” in the sense of putting them out of his mind as a basis for condemnation.  Our sins are consumed in the death of Christ. 

God is therefore free to lavish his grace and mercy on us.  He’s free to clothe us with his own righteousness.  We get to enter his presence freely and forever.  All those who trust in Christ and turn from their sins are given Christ to enjoy forever.  All who don’t obey the gospel of Jesus will carry their sins into God’s courtroom and have to deal with them before God all by themselves. 

The “stump of Jesse” will produce a “branch” that “bears fruit,” a man who “the Spirit of the Lord rests upon,” a man who loves the fear of the Lord, a man who governs with fairness and righteousness, and a man who’ll judge the wicked.  This “branch” will be a perfect king. 

This “branch” is Jesus Christ, the righteous and faithful One who died to give his righteousness to those “poor in spirit” and “the meek of the earth” (Matt. 5:3, 5).  The One who’ll come to judge the earth and destroy all who’ve spurned his kindness and rejected him.

A Perfect Place

But he’ll also create a perfect place for his people (vv. 6-9).  The result of the judgment of the Lord is peace.  Peace springs from righteousness.  In other words, God’s final and ultimate peace comes as a result of his holy judgment of all that is wrong and sinful in the world.    

These verses paint a picture of what life will look like under the rule of the “Prince of Peace” (9:6).  These verses have been interpreted in different ways.  Some think that these verses refer to the millennial reign of Christ – his thousand year reign on the earth after he returns (Rev. 20:1-6).  Others say that this imagery is meant to tell us how human nature can drastically change under the Messiah’s rule. 

It seems most likely, however, that Isaiah is talking about life on the new earth that God will create after the millennium.  Isaiah’s been telling us about a divine figure who’ll rule forever, someone who’ll set up God’s eternal kingdom on earth (9:7).  So this seems to be a picture of life in the eternal kingdom of God. 

Isaiah uses the same language 65:25, “The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox…They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain.”  This verse is bookended by references to God’s creation of a “new heavens and a new earth” (65:17, 66:22).  God will remake the world so that there’s no more sin, death, or suffering (Rev. 21:1, 4-5a).  This scene of animals peacefully inhabiting the earth is a picture of life on the New Earth, life in God’s eternal kingdom. 

The New Earth will be “full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (v. 9).  The extent to which water covers the oceans will be the extent that the intimate knowledge of the Lord will fill his new creation.  Water totally covers the sea, so an intimate knowledge of the Lord will totally consume the new world. 

The depth of our relationship with Jesus will never stop growing in his everlasting kingdom.  This is the reward for all those who walk in relationship with him now.  Jesus is a perfect King who came to bring us to a perfect place, a place where pain will be no more and joy will never end.  A place that is the fulfillment of all our longings at Christmas time.  A place where “all the sad things come untrue.”