God’s Salvation Hopes – Isaiah 11 & 12 — A Christian Growth Message

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Transcript

Let’s pray that the Lord would help us on this cool and plenty opportune morning.

Let’s bow heads.

Thank you, gracious God, for giving to us again, a portion of your word to be light to our path, food for our soul. We pray that you would help me to speak faithfully. And that you’d help us all to hear profitably, that this word would do us good, and bring you honour, we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

We’re taking this morning our 4th look into the book of Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah, as I’ve mentioned before, was a messenger in the 8th century, and he had a very difficult message which kind of began like this, you’re going to be removed from the promised land.

And then he had a very wonderful message, you’re going to be returned to the promised land, and not only to the promised land, but one day to God’s presence.

And so Isaiah’s message was things are terrible, but they’re going to be fixed and it’s always a wonderful thing, isn’t it, when you meet somebody who can fix a mess. I mean it’s a great thing, isn’t it, when you go take your car to the mechanic and the mechanic says there are serious problems but leave it with me, we can fix it.

Or the person looks at the appliance that’s broken down and says, yes, it’s not working, but I have a part, which I’ll put in for you, or the dentist says yes, you’ve broken a tooth, but I will put a cap on it and all will be well, or you’re at the airport and the lady says to you, I’m sorry to tell you your flight has been cancelled. Let’s see what we can do. Yes, we’ve got a place, would you be happy with an upgrade to business class? And you say yes, that would be fine. It’s a great thing, isn’t it, when somebody is able to fix the mess.

Now nobody, normally says that they will fix the world, and when they do talk like that, of course, they’re quickly exposed, but God Himself says that he will fix the world. Not immediately, but ultimately. The wonderful thing about God is that he has the power and the love to do it, and he also has put in place certain signposts so that we’ll be confident that he will do it, and therefore Isaiah is a prophet with hope.

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Very wonderful book, no wonder the prophet Isaiah has been loved by believers for the last 3000 years.

I was talking with some men at a men’s retreat recently about whether we should really have confidence in the future that God will do what he says he’ll do. And we thought together that actually God does have the power to fix the world. I mean if he can, if he can make the galaxies, he can fix the world.

And he’s got the love to fix the world because he’s already given his son, and therefore we know he’s committed. And he’s also given his promise.

Now why should we believe the promise of God?

Well I’ve always liked the story of David Livingstone, the pioneer African missionary. Who endured dreadful, dreadful circumstances, as he basically paved the way for the missionary work of Africa.

And faced terrible ordeals and somebody said to him when he’d come back for a quick visit to the UK they said to him, why do you do this, why do you go back to Africa, why do you walk those terrible paths? And quoting Matthew chapter 28 where Jesus said, make disciples, I’m with you always, he said these beautiful words, he said, they’re the words of a perfect gentleman. And therefore I will put them into practise.

And the words of Isaiah, we might say, are the words of a perfect gentleman, the perfect God.

And so we’ve seen in our few visits to Isaiah so far that uh first of all, Isaiah begins by challenging the people of God because their faith, their religion, their ritual is empty. Their hearts are far from God. And then we saw how God fitted Isaiah to be the messenger, giving him a vision of the holiness of God, and then commissioning him to go and do the work of the Word.

Now we’re going to see today in chapter 11 and 12 of Isaiah, as the telescope goes out, that God is going to use a saviour, a leader, a deliverer, just as he used Moses for an exodus, after which they sang.

And you’ll see in Isaiah chapter 11 and 12 that Isaiah predicts that there’ll be a new leader, with a new rescue and a new song, that’s what Isaiah 11 and 12 is about. So it’s on page 1035 if you have your Bibles in front of you, page 1035, and we’re going to think about those three things quickly together.

First of all, a new leader and then a new rescue and a new song.

A new leader

In chapter 11, verses 1 to 9, which were not read for us this morning but they’re often read at Christmas, we see in chapter 11 verse 1, that there is going to be a shoot coming from a stump. Now you may have seen this if you’ve ever travelled in the outback, and you’ve seen a stump of a tree and coming up in the middle is a sapling, and that’s the picture here. The stump here is the family of David, the family of David is now dead and gone.

But there is going to be a shoot that’s going to come from the stump and the shoot we discover is a person, a descendant, and he’s going to appear, says Isaiah, and the spirit of God will be on him so he’ll be well fitted for the job. And we’re told in verse two that this person, this deliverer, this shoot from the stump is going to have the wisdom to do the job.

And he’s going to have verse 2, the strength, and he’s going to have the fear of God, which means he’ll be committed to the work of God.

Now none of the kings of the past were like this. None of them really had the wisdom, none of them really had the strength, none of them really had the fear of God, but this new leader will have all of them, and you’ll see as you look at verses 3 and 4, what his behaviour will be like. He’s gonna make decisions that will be perfect. He won’t be biassed, he won’t be bribed, he won’t be prejudiced.

And we see in these verses that his compassion is going to be perfect, he will know the saddest, frailest, neediest person. And deal justly.

And his word we discover in verses 3 and 4, which is gonna come out of his mouth, will strike evil down.

So somebody’s coming, says Isaiah, who can be trusted to fix the world.

And if you want a portrait, if you want a famous picture of what this new world will be like, just look at verses 6 to 9. We read in verses 6 to 9 that all the creatures in this new world, which cannot get on in this world, we’ll get on in the next world and live together, you see the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the goat, the calf and the lion, the child and the snake, and this beautiful summary in verse 9, they will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. You see, it’s not just plans for Israel, this is plans for the earth.

This is not just knowing about God, this is knowing God intimately.

And the whole place, says Isaiah, is going to be saturated with the peace of God.

So my friends, Isaiah is not talking about we’re going to go back one day to the Garden of Eden. No, no, he says we’re going to go forward one day to the new creation. And there is a portrait here of this person, this deliverer, this leader, this shoot from the stump that is very, very wonderful.

When Winston Churchill had been Prime Minister, of course, during World War II, but when he turned 80, the Houses of Parliament decided that they would present him with a new portrait. And they got a man called Graham Sutherland, who was a very great artist to do the portrait of Winston Churchill, but Graham Sutherland was torn in half over this commission because he didn’t know whether he was to paint a portrait of the man Churchill who was idealised by his country, you know, making him look impressive and young and virile and great, or whether he was to paint the man who was in front of him, who was now old, and getting sort of plump and he said quite pink, and he just didn’t know whether he was to paint the man or he was to paint the ideal, and in the end, Graham Sutherland went ahead and he did a very fine portrait and you can see photographs of the portrait that he painted. But Churchill hated it, and even though the portrait was eventually given to Churchill as a gift, it was later destroyed.

But this picture of the new leader in chapter 11 of this Deliverer is an unfading portrait. This is a leader who will never get old and frail. This is a leader who’s always going to be capable. And his conduct always perfect and wonderful, and so this section of chapter 11, 1 to 9 is a picture of this new leader to come, and the leader is undoubtedly the Lord Jesus Christ.

Second, there’s going to be a new rescue.

You’ll see this in verses 10 to 16. Moses, remember, had a rescue, a victory on a small scale, he took the Israelites out of Egypt across the Red Sea, but now we’re going to see in these verses a rescue on a huge scale – what we might call a new exodus, because now this is going to be, look at chapter 11 verse 10, for the nations, it’s going to be for the world.

Now the servant in chapter 11 verse 10 is now described as the root of Jesse. Do you remember a minute ago in verse one, it said, he’s the shoot of Jesse.

And of course, Jesus is going to be the root and the shoot because he’s the creator of the family of David and he’s also the descendant of the family of David. He’s behind David and he’s ahead of David.

You may remember Jesus said to his critics on one occasion, well, answer me this question, how come King David spoke of the Messiah as his lord, already, and his son to come.

And the answer of course is because Jesus spans eternity. He’s the root and he’s the shoot, he’s the creator and he’s the descendant. And we’re told in verse 10 that this person, this Jesus to come is going to be a banner or a flag for the nations, not just for Israel, but for the nations.

Now it’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it, when the nations come together. We see a little glimpse of this, for example, in the Olympics, it’s always quite a happy time.

Last week I was uh a fill in grandfather for a little girl, whose grandparents live overseas, and I found myself, before we all got together with the children sitting at a morning tea and I was put on a table and I said to the lady beside me, where are you from? and she said, I’m from Malaysia. And the next lady said, I’m from Indonesia, and the next guy said I’m from Fiji, and the next lady said I’m from Lebanon, and the next lady said, I’m from South Africa, and I said, I’m Australian, welcome to my country, and they said, we’re Australians, don’t talk to us in a patronising way, but other than that, it was quite a lovely time around the table.

It is a great thing, isn’t it, when the nations come together, we might say physically or geographically but imagine what it’ll be like when the nations of the world come together spiritually.

And have the same God.

And the same spirit.

And the same heart.

And are going to the same destination, only God can arrange that.

And that’s what this king of kings is going to do, he’s going to bring a family, a global family of believers together. And this process has begun.

I dropped as I stepped up here, but it’s sitting on the chair there and I don’t need it, the report of one of the mission societies called Local Leaders. They sent me to me their little mission report this week, and of course this report goes to many, many people, and I opened it up and there are these beautiful testimonies of leaders around the world, reporting on the progress, not just of the churches, but of the theological education that’s going on in the different countries of the world, and I made a little list here of the some of the countries that are in this report, the church in Taiwan, the church in the Middle East, the church in North Africa, in India, the Caribbean, the Philippines, Egypt, Uganda.

Here are these reports from these leaders, some of them are lecturers, some of them are professors, talking about how God is at work, not just in the gathering of a few people in the churches, but the training of young people for ministry and mission. God is building his church, we see this has begun, but one day, of course, we’re told here in Isaiah that it’s going to be completed.

Here’s another picture of the peace process which God can produce, look at verses 12 to 13, he says there’s gonna come a time where the north and the south of Israel are together.

The north is described as Ephraim, and the South, of course, Judah. Well, in Isaiah’s day, the North had been defeated, decimated. And the South was about to be deported, so it looks an absolutely pathetic scene.

There’s the promised land, half top half defeated, the bottom half about to be deported, and Isaiah says there’s going to come a time where both North and South will be healthy and harmonious together. I mean what a message for the Middle East today. Through Christ.

The only tension we see in verse 14 is that those who turn their back on God, will have no peace, and there’ll be no harmony.

So there’s going to be a new rescue, verse 15, a new Exodus. He says in chapter 11 verse 15, the sea is once again going to be turned to dry ground. Do you remember when Moses led the Israelites across the dry ground? And now we read in chapter 11 verse 15 that the sea is going to be turned to dry ground, but this time anyone, anyone, you see that in verse 15, anybody can cross. Because there will be a highway.

You can understand that when Jesus came and said to people, I’m the way. He might easily have said, I’m the highway. I’m the high highway for anyone.

And dear friends, if you’re listening to me this morning and you have never crossed over the highway, you must cross over the highway. Somebody said to me this week, you know, I’m not yet a Christian because I’m kind of waiting for God to act on me. And I said to him, God has acted. He’s put a highway in place, you must cross over. You must take yourself to him.

I mean don’t sit, please don’t sit in a church building and say to yourself, well, one day God will come and get me. God has come in the person of Christ, he’s laid a highway in place and he calls on you today to cross over in prayer and to say to him, please forgive my sins, please give me a brand new life in my soul, become my Lord and my saviour, not just somebody else’s Lord and saviour, but my Lord and saviour. That’s what we read in scripture.

And so back to verse 10, the nations are going to rally to Christ and you need to rally to Christ. You need to take yourself to Him. You need to go to Him in prayer and admit your lostness if you’re still lost and ask him for mercy and new life which he will give you, because anybody says scripture here can cross and everybody must cross.

That’s the new rescue.

God has raised up a new leader, we discover here in Isaiah, he’s going to give a new rescue for his world, it’s going to be a new exodus, not from Egypt this time, but from death. And it’s going to be the receiving of a new life, not just a promised land in a local part of the world, but a new life and one day a new eternity.

Now you may remember that when Moses crossed the Red Sea with the Israelites, the high point of the crossing of the Red Sea, was that they sang. You might think reading Exodus that the high point is getting across the sea, and I guess that is a very great rescue, but the real high point is that their rescue turned to praise. They sang.

The real high point is that their rescue turned to praise. They sang.

Glory went back to God, that’s how things should move, and here in chapter 12, these last verses that we read this morning, we see a new song, a new leader, a new rescue, verses chapter 12, verses 1 to 6, a new song.

A new song

Now friends, when you come to church here at All Saints and you’re given a big white sheet, you know that you’re given words to say, and you’re given words to sing. And so what do we do when we come, we say the words and we sing the words, and sometimes we mean them and sometimes we don’t much mean them.

But here in chapter 12 we’re told that on that day when God’s people arrive in their heavenly home, they will really, we will really praise Him. You see chapter 12 verse 1, we will praise Him, it will burst out of us.

And verse 1 of chapter 12 has a very interesting insight on what we will say when we praise him. Just look at chapter 12, verse 1.

I praise you, Lord, for you were angry. But your anger has turned away, and you have comforted me.

I wonder if you’ve ever thought of saying that to God.

I thank you God, because there was a time where you were angry, but your anger turned away and you have comforted me.

I wonder if you realise, friends, and it’s not easy to grasp this, that the greatest danger that is facing the people of this world is not a nuclear strike, it’s not a new global virus, it’s not that there would be a rise in world temperature. Serious as those things are, the greatest danger that is facing the people of the world is to come face to face with God in his anger.

And remember the anger of God is is a just anger, it’s a good anger, it’s a healthy anger, it’s a fitting anger.

And the place to escape the anger of God is by finding refuge in the mercy of God. In other words, you have to run from the danger of God to the security of God. I wonder if you’ve ever realised this, the greatest problem that we’ll ever face is the possibility of facing the anger of God and we must run to the mercy of God.

Moses got this, you remember when he was leading the people through the wilderness, went up Mount Sinai, received the 10 Commandments, and while he’s at the top of the mountain, the people at the bottom of the mountain have already turned away from God and have built a golden calf, an idol, and are beginning to worship. And they’re beginning to dance around it, and Moses comes down the mountain and he realises that the people of God have absolutely shot themselves in the foot.

And he basically says something to God like this, he basically says, Lord, we’re finished. We can now only receive your anger, we’re finished. We’ve committed adultery. On our honeymoon, the very time God when you were collecting us. And we’ve turned away to an idol, we’re finished, we’re finished. And then Moses says a very interesting thing, he says, Lord, What can you do? Is there a solution

And back comes these words, the Lord, the Lord, gracious, merciful, abounding in steadfast love, who will by no means acquit the guilty, but is able to forgive the sinner. And we read that Moses at that point fell down before God and he worshipped because he realised that the solution to the anger of God was the mercy of God.

And you see in verse 12, chapter 12, verse 1, that this anger of God has been strangely turned away. Isaiah predicts the turning away of the anger of God, how could the anger of God be turned away when it fits us?

And the answer is the anger of God was turned away at Calvary to his son, who willingly absorbed the anger into himself. So that we might be spared and freed.

And when you know this, and it really hits home, you find yourself deeply grateful. And you say to God, I’m so thankful for this.

A man was telling me through the week that they’re planning the funeral for his father, his father’s a very old man, and we were talking about whether this old man had a real faith in Christ, and he said uh he did have a real faith in Christ and he said I’ll tell you something interesting. We as a family don’t have a faith in Christ, but he did. And he’s chosen for his funeral, his first hymn is the Wesley hymn And Can It Be?

And I thought to myself, you don’t choose that hymn unless you’re deeply grateful for the mercy of God. It’s the hymn of Wesley where he says, can it be, could it be possible that I would have an interest, a stake, a claim, a part in the mercy of Christ. Died he for me who caused his pain, is it possible that I could be forgiven? And then it finishes, you remember those words, bold I approach the eternal throne and claim the crown of Christ, my own.

There is a guy you see who wants to begin his funeral, he wants the people who gather for his funeral to be told of the greatness of the mercy of Christ. And that’s what Isaiah tells us we’ll be singing. And we who belong to Christ on that day will see very clearly what we’ve been rescued from and we’ll see very clearly what we’ve been rescued to.

Rescued from the anger, drawn to the comfort of God.

And if you’ve never written out for yourself, Isaiah 12:1-3, they’d be great verses to write out and read every now and again to yourself because they’re very, very precious. And then Isaiah says in chapter 12 verse 3, you’re going to draw water from the wells of salvation on and on and on, yes you will. You’ll keep looking back to this salvation and there’ll be more water, more joy to draw from the wells.

And then in verse 4, he says the whole community is going to sing together that God is to be praised and God is to be made known because when you do know the mercy of God, you really do want other people to know the mercy of God. You can’t take the mercy of God and then say, well that’s great for me. There is a part of you that says, I long for other people to know the mercy of God, and most people, dear friends in our community have no idea what God is like.

Their telescope is completely inverted, they have tiny views of God, they have bad views, negative views of God. And he’s completely misrepresented and misunderstood by the people of our community.

And we have a small part to help them to see something or to hear something of what he’s really like, and so you can see that this praise is also a desire to publish. Now friends, I live in the same world as you. I feel the disinterest of this suburb in Christ, I feel the pressure to say absolutely nothing and not be a nuisance, but when I see people in my best moments and think they’re not, belonging to Christ, I remind myself that they are in the sunset of their life. It’s just going to get darker.

And when I see a person who’s come to Christ, I remind myself that they have come into the sunrise. That things are going to get brighter and brighter and brighter.

And so I attempt in my own crazy way, to try and say something when appropriate and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t work, but I hope you have some desire, not only to praise God for what he’s done for you, but some desire to pass on what he’s done for you, because I want people on the last day to be there with God, with joy.

And the goal you see in verse 6 is that the Holy One is going to be in the midst of his people, and I want people to be there with him in the midst.

So just as Jesus came into the midst of this world, to collect his people, one day his people are going to be in the midst of God Himself, and God in the midst of his people. So here’s the new leader, the Lord Jesus that Isaiah was speaking about, bringing a new rescue which is going to be global and eternal, and there’s going to be a song that will be sung on that day, a very, very great song. So I finish by saying this friends, if you’re weary of watching the news week, day by day, week by week, if you watch the news, and you see in the news that there’s been another stabbing and there’s somebody’s set fire to another building and another car has crashed into a house and you see strikes going on internationally and you see that a plane has crashed and a huge number of people tragically killed, just say to yourself as you turn off the news, there’ll come a day where all of that will be gone.

And God will fix the world which he has made, because he’s got the power and the love to do it through Christ, a new rescue and a new song.

Let’s Pray

Our loving Father, thank you for the plan not only to make the world but fix the world.

We thank you for giving a new leader in the Lord Jesus who’s able to do it.

We thank you for the new rescue which he’s made possible through his own death.

And we thank you that there will be a great song sung to your praise. We look forward to it and pray you would keep us faithful and hopeful for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

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