Doug McMasters: Amen, sacred Bible.
Doug McMasters: We'll go to the book of Isaiah.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah, chapter 11, isaiah, chapter 11.
Doug McMasters: The end of September we started our study of Isaiah and as we've gone through these first 10 chapters, we've understood Isaiah painting a rather dark description of Judah and Israel and Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: Throughout the first 10 chapters of this book, we've come across tragic descriptions of a people who have abandoned their God, who have plunged into all manner of corruption and debauchery.
Doug McMasters: These people have blinded themselves to the future, they've closed their ears to God's warnings and they run to their ruin and with deep sadness.
Doug McMasters: The prophet Isaiah was tasked with the responsibility of proclaiming the just disaster that would come upon them.
Doug McMasters: The judgment would be so devastating as we noticed last week at the end of chapter 10, that only a remnant would remain chapter 10, that only a remnant would remain, just a smattering of people out of the mass of humanity that was part of Judah and Israel.
Doug McMasters: And that judgment would come suddenly, through the powerful instrumentality of the Assyrian empire and in 735 BC, king Ahaz of Judah made an alliance with the king of Assyria and Judah became a subservient vassal of the empire of Assyria.
Doug McMasters: And as the emperor of Assyria marched his troops down, he utterly crushed and took into captivity the people of Israel.
Doug McMasters: These are dark chapters.
Doug McMasters: These things that dominate the opening of Isaiah, however, are sometimes punctured by expressions of hope that we realize are completely undeserved.
Doug McMasters: They're surprising and intriguing to us that a God who speaks about the unrighteousness and the absolute apostasy of these people would ever speak to them in any way other than judgment.
Doug McMasters: And yet he does.
Doug McMasters: We've seen Isaiah move rapidly from an expression of judgment to a wondrous promise of life and hope, and once again we're going to go there in chapter 11.
Doug McMasters: We ended on a dark and sad note of judgment last week and we enter now into an expression of hope and life and reconciliation that sends us into the outer reaches of our imagination and into a description of life that is something we've never yet been able to experience, something we've never yet been able to experience.
Doug McMasters: We find ourselves filled with a description of a new ruler who arises out of the ashes, a righteous ruler from Jesse's Davidic line.
Doug McMasters: And this king will not only rule with justice and he will return to the world, to its Edenic paradise.
Doug McMasters: He will gather his people from the very ends of the earth and they will be there filled with hope and deliverance from evil and sin's consequences, and this promise we've already begun to enter into, and this promise causes us to look forward yet into the fulfillment of these things that have already been inaugurated.
Doug McMasters: And so this morning let's look with joy and delight as God turns from darkness to light the people of God.
Doug McMasters: Let's take a look at verse 1 and we'll notice.
Doug McMasters: Here, first of all, a new king will arise.
Doug McMasters: A new king will arise.
Doug McMasters: The prophecy of Isaiah begins with poetry and it turns to the language of the bard to evoke strong images in our mind that are going to elicit some strong responses to us of joy and hope and delight and motions as we rejoice before the Lord.
Doug McMasters: But in order to get us there, it begins with an image that is continuing the theme of darkness.
Doug McMasters: In verse 1,.
Doug McMasters: The first thing that we see here is a shoot growing from a stump of Jesse is a shoot growing from a stump of Jesse.
Doug McMasters: Nothing can be more bleak than to come across a fire-burned region.
Doug McMasters: I've lived in California for 12 years.
Doug McMasters: We saw a lot of burnt-out areas and during the pandemic I was sitting at my table preparing for one of our times together and I found out that there was a fire close to the house that we had bought in Grass Valley and I watched with worry as the hills that I had walked and the roads that I had driven on and the places where my sons and I had fished were on fire, and I was curious to know whether or not the home that we had owned survived.
Doug McMasters: And I was able to find a news channel that had a news helicopter surveying the fire and as it swooped over different places, it brushed closely by our house.
Doug McMasters: We didn't actually see our house, but we saw the area and we wept over the people who were once our neighbors losing their homes and we wondered if the one that we had called home was still there.
Doug McMasters: Two years ago we took Matt and Vianne through a trip to California.
Doug McMasters: He wanted to show Vianne all the places where he had lived and grew up, and so we went from place to place to place and we approached Grass Valley and we saw the devastation.
Doug McMasters: These mountains that were thickly wooded were now barren, scarred, empty, lifeless.
Doug McMasters: And we went up a road and turned up another road and we pulled onto Poche's circle and right in front of us was nothing.
Doug McMasters: Our house was gone, it had burned up and it was the most shocking, depressing, empty feeling that I had had for a long time.
Doug McMasters: It was as if the memories and the life and the enjoyment of those four years had just been burnt away and they were gone.
Doug McMasters: Nothing is more bleak than that, and here we have that.
Doug McMasters: We've got Isaiah pulling into chapter 11 some imagery from two previous chapters.
Doug McMasters: At the end of chapter six he says that God is going to use Assyria to chop down Israel, which was once a mighty tree, and he's going to burn it.
Doug McMasters: And so it's nothing but a dead stump that's left.
Doug McMasters: And then, at the end of chapter 10, the instrument of Assyria is going to be burnt and chopped down itself.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at the end of here, verse 33.
Doug McMasters: The Lord, god of armies, will chop off the branches with terrifying power and the tall trees will be cut down.
Doug McMasters: The high trees felled.
Doug McMasters: He's clearing the thickets of the forest with an axe and Lebanon with its majesty will fall.
Doug McMasters: When Assyria was finally cut down in 609 BC by the combined forces of Babylon and Media and Persia, there never again arose anything out of the dead stump of Assyria.
Doug McMasters: It was gone.
Doug McMasters: But Israel look at verse 1 again.
Doug McMasters: They too were rightly judged by God.
Doug McMasters: They too were cut down like the Assyrians.
Doug McMasters: They too were burnt to a dead stump.
Doug McMasters: But God's not finished with them.
Doug McMasters: There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and Jesse's a reference to David.
Doug McMasters: The reference to David is of a Davidic figure, and the Davidic figure gives us an understanding of an anointed one, the Messiah.
Doug McMasters: The Messiah, and as we've been going through Isaiah, there have been little whispers of statements that have helped us to understand who this is In chapter 4, the branch of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: In chapter 9, a child born who would sit on the throne of his father, david.
Doug McMasters: And here, in chapter 11, a little shoot from the stump of Jesse and a branch from a dead root.
Doug McMasters: This is the Messiah that's being talked about, and when you get to the very end of the scriptures in the book of Revelation and the very last chapter, chapter 22, there's a comment made by Jesus himself.
Doug McMasters: And how does he identify himself?
Doug McMasters: The very culmination of the very revelation of God.
Doug McMasters: He could pull from any image that he wanted to, and he says I, jesus, have sent my angel to attest these things to you, for the churches, I am the root and descendant of David.
Doug McMasters: The king would not come like most kings do.
Doug McMasters: He would not come with the worldwide fanfare, wouldn't come born into a glorious palace.
Doug McMasters: He wouldn't come with all the attention of the realm, with all the celebrations that might occur A child is born, a new prince has come into the family.
Doug McMasters: No, this would be a small, insignificant, imperceptible, little shoot of life.
Doug McMasters: He would come from obscure and humble origins.
Doug McMasters: No one would probably even notice, and if they did notice they probably wouldn't be impressed.
Doug McMasters: This is our King, this is our Savior.
Doug McMasters: And when we get into the New Testament, it doesn't bring us into the glorious palaces of Jerusalem, the mighty, mighty, vast areas of Rome's power as the empire took over that land.
Doug McMasters: It brings us into a small little village called Bethlehem, with a little gathering of just a mother and a father and a few shepherds in that backwater area.
Doug McMasters: And then, when this child is born, he settles again, not in places of notice, not in arenas of accolade, but in the backwaters of Galilee, in a village so obscure that people in his adulthood would say can any good thing come out of Nazareth?
Doug McMasters: And the answer, obviously, is no to everyone else, this little sprout of life, it shoots out of a dead stump.
Doug McMasters: The kings of Judah and Israel.
Doug McMasters: There are no more first kings and second kings and third king books, because there's no more kings to talk about.
Doug McMasters: There's no more chronicles of the kings to write.
Doug McMasters: They're dead, they're gone.
Doug McMasters: Judah has no king.
Doug McMasters: Israel has no king.
Doug McMasters: They're a defeated people in a backwater place with the Roman empire standing over them, ruling them as subjects.
Doug McMasters: But the root of Jesse will appear and this little blush of life will not only live, it will grow.
Doug McMasters: And it will not only grow, it will empower it in such a way that it will literally take over the world.
Doug McMasters: Listen to what the Gentiles.
Doug McMasters: The Gentiles will hope in him.
Doug McMasters: Yes, there's a new king coming and yes, he will come in obscurity, but his life and his ministry and his influence and effect will cover the globe.
Doug McMasters: This new king, this promise to a dead stump of Judah, this hope to a cut down, mowed down people of Israel.
Doug McMasters: But it's not just any king, he's a better king that will arise.
Doug McMasters: And look at verses two and five, because we're given a description of this new and better king.
Doug McMasters: We're told here that his life and his ministry are going to be marked by an empowering of the Spirit.
Doug McMasters: His identity is going to be with the Lord, and his relationship is going to be one that reflects the Lord and, as we know, he actually is the Lord.
Doug McMasters: This future king will align himself with the Lord's vision for what a Davidic king ought to be.
Doug McMasters: And there's never been a king on the throne of Judah or Israel who's ever, ever been like this one.
Doug McMasters: Not even David, not even Solomon, and certainly not Ahaz, or even the blush of hope in Hezekiah to come after him.
Doug McMasters: He's going to embody the insight of rule, in stark contrast to the foolishness of those other kings.
Doug McMasters: His wisdom and his strength and his empowerment will come from God and not from the strength of his own arms, like the emperor of Assyria.
Doug McMasters: This king is going to express and live in the abundance and fullness of life and understanding.
Doug McMasters: And it tells us, because the spirit of the Lord will rest on him, the writers of the gospels picked up this spirit of the Lord resting on this anointed one and spoke about the ministry of Jesus with those words, quoted from other places, in Isaiah, isaiah 42.
Doug McMasters: This is my servant, this is my chosen one, I will delight on him, I will put my spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations.
Doug McMasters: Who is this one?
Doug McMasters: He will not cry out nor shout or make his voice heard in the streets.
Doug McMasters: He will not break a bruised reed, he will not put out a smoldering wick, but he will faithfully bring justice.
Doug McMasters: This is our Jesus, isaiah 61,.
Doug McMasters: At the very outset of his public ministry, jesus, in a synagogue, takes the scroll of Isaiah and opens it up and lays it out in order to speak and to identify himself to the people.
Doug McMasters: And what does he read?
Doug McMasters: He reads this the spirit of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: God is on me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
Doug McMasters: He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
Doug McMasters: And Jesus rolled up the scroll and said this has been fulfilled today in the ministry of Christ.
Doug McMasters: So who is this new king?
Doug McMasters: Who is this better king?
Doug McMasters: This is King Jesus, and he reigns like no other kings ever reigned before.
Doug McMasters: The spirit is fully upon him and gives him all of the equipment to be able to reign in righteousness and justice.
Doug McMasters: And we have three little couplets here in the next little section.
Doug McMasters: He's given a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and strength, a spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: And then it's summed up in saying that his delight will be in the fear of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: This first couplet speaks about his ability to fulfill his role and it speaks about the faculties of his mind wisdom and understanding.
Doug McMasters: But it's more than just that.
Doug McMasters: Jesus will be a smart person.
Doug McMasters: He will be a smart person, he will be a wise person.
Doug McMasters: He will be able to understand how to deal with the problems of life.
Doug McMasters: He will be able to see beyond the details and the particulars of situations and he'll be able, in making an appropriate assessment, apply the right medicine and truth to the need.
Doug McMasters: How wonderful it is to have a king who can do that for us, who knows our every need and knows every possible solution that could be bought and chooses exactly the right one for us.
Doug McMasters: This is why the apostle Paul could say I know all things work together for the good of God's people.
Doug McMasters: This king will not only be able to have that wisdom and understanding, but he will also be given a spirit of counsel and of strength.
Doug McMasters: Whatever his determinations and plans will be, they will be the right determinations and the right plans, because he has the perfect counsel to carry out his ministry and his life and he will be given all the strength he needs to fulfill it.
Doug McMasters: How different it is to all of us.
Doug McMasters: A lot of times we fumble around trying to figure out what to do with ourselves and oftentimes we end down a road and say I need to backtrack quick because I'm going the wrong way.
Doug McMasters: Or we might find ourselves actually on a very good path, and even the right path, and we fail and falter and fall because we don't have the strength to complete it.
Doug McMasters: But here's our Savior who does it all, and he will be given the spirit of the knowledge of God and of the fear of God.
Doug McMasters: He will know God and his life will be marked with the highest regard for what God's glory should be.
Doug McMasters: This is the king.
Doug McMasters: This is a king who's been given the source of direction that will allow him to be just and righteous in all of his activities.
Doug McMasters: And the descriptor here is in verse 3, he will not judge by what he sees with his eyes.
Doug McMasters: He will not execute justice by what he hears with his ears.
Doug McMasters: The things that he's going to decide and do aren't decided and done in the way that we are.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't base his perspectives upon the outward appearance or even the information presented to him, because he knows the heart of all things.
Doug McMasters: He judges the earth fairly.
Doug McMasters: If you walk into a courtroom, the judge sits there and he listens to testimony and he receives the things that are presented to him and told him.
Doug McMasters: He observes as much as he can in all the things that are occurring, but he's limited by all of that.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't know everything.
Doug McMasters: He only can deal and judge based upon what he hears and what he sees.
Doug McMasters: But this king, he doesn't have those limitations.
Doug McMasters: He knows our very hearts.
Doug McMasters: He's not dependent upon his eyes or his ears and he's not going to be pulled aside by the way other kings are when they are called to execute a judgment.
Doug McMasters: He's not going to be clutching for status or being given some side money.
Doug McMasters: He's not going to be sort of using his office for a purpose of getting greater political influence.
Doug McMasters: He's not going to be tricked by clever lawyers.
Doug McMasters: He's not going to be fooled by idle boast or excuses or deceptive lies or half truths or false information.
Doug McMasters: None of those things will will pull him away from what is right and true and because he understands it all.
Doug McMasters: And how will he execute his office?
Doug McMasters: Will he do it like we do, by protecting the powerful and pouncing on the weak?
Doug McMasters: No, the scriptures tell us that he's something different than that.
Doug McMasters: In verse four.
Doug McMasters: He will.
Doug McMasters: Were in a covenant relationship with God and they were meant to fulfill the terms of the covenant, which meant the king was to be the representative carer of those who were powerless and weak, the protector of the weak and the care of the needy.
Doug McMasters: But what do kings do?
Doug McMasters: Well, kings do what kings do, don't they?
Doug McMasters: They amass wealth, they live luxuriously, they put their friends in other places of power, they find others to protect them, they secure their reign, they want to build their legacy.
Doug McMasters: This king, he doesn't see his role as a place of privilege.
Doug McMasters: He sees his kingship as a place of service.
Doug McMasters: And he serves not the powerful first to characterize his reign, but the weakest first.
Doug McMasters: And when our Lord Jesus came into this world, he said that he did what he came to seek and to save the lost.
Doug McMasters: He came to give his life as a ransom for many.
Doug McMasters: He would say to people come, all of you who are weak and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.
Doug McMasters: Peter said by his wounds we're healed.
Doug McMasters: He was our very medicine and our vigor of life.
Doug McMasters: We were like sheep going astray and he didn't just say well, count them off, I've got a million others.
Doug McMasters: He went to catch the wayward and bring them back.
Doug McMasters: And then, in verse four, it says he will slay the wicked.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't slay the weak, he doesn't slay with the way we would think he does.
Doug McMasters: It says that he will accomplish his work by his words.
Doug McMasters: I was told a lie when I was a little boy.
Doug McMasters: You probably were too, and you could say it with me.
Doug McMasters: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
Doug McMasters: Yeah, thanks, mom, thanks.
Doug McMasters: Dad Took two seconds on the playground to find out my parents had lied to me.
Doug McMasters: Words can hurt, words are painful.
Doug McMasters: Proverbs 12 says reckless words pierce like a sword.
Doug McMasters: But the tongue of the wise brings healing.
Doug McMasters: And here our lord reigns by the expression of his mouth, not by the strength of his arm, and he brings justice to the weak and he mows down the wicked, the ones who actually deserve the judgment.
Doug McMasters: So here is this king with divine origin, marked by the Spirit, dispensing justice, taking care of the needy, taking care of the oppressed.
Doug McMasters: Taking care of the oppressed, cutting down the wicked, marked by righteousness and faithfulness.
Doug McMasters: And when we get to the book of Revelation, there's an image of this king flowing out of the heavenlies riding a white horse.
Doug McMasters: And listen to the echoes of this passage when you hear what it says.
Doug McMasters: I saw the heaven opened and there was a white horse and its rider was called Faithful and True and with justice he judges.
Doug McMasters: His eyes were like a fiery flame and many crowns were on his head and he had a name written that no one knows except himself.
Doug McMasters: He wore a robe dipped in blood and his name is called the Word of God.
Doug McMasters: The armies that were in heaven followed him on white horses wearing white, pure white linen, and a sharp sword came from his mouth so that he might strike down the nations.
Doug McMasters: This is our king.
Doug McMasters: He comes onto the scene as just a blush of life out of a burnt stump, but he's no longer that.
Doug McMasters: He's this better king who rules with righteousness.
Doug McMasters: And look at the effect of his rule in verses 6 to 9.
Doug McMasters: As we go here, the wolf will dwell with the lamb and the leopard will lie down with the goat and the calf and the young lion and the fatted calf will be together and a child will lead them.
Doug McMasters: The cow and the bear will graze, the young ones will lie down together and the lion will eat straw like cattle.
Doug McMasters: An infant will play beside the cobra's pit and a toddler will put his hand into a snake's den.
Doug McMasters: They will not harm or destroy each other.
Doug McMasters: Yesterday I watched a little video David Attenborough they do nature films in the UK like we've never done in the USA and it followed this little triplet of tiger cubs, beautiful and orange and cream, with black stripes, and they were growing toward maturity and getting older.
Doug McMasters: And watching the three of these siblings playing together and sort of jumping on each other and rollicking through all of the area that they lived in was delightful.
Doug McMasters: And then it's scoped over to their mother who was hunting for them and as she was hunting she's stalking and she gazes her eyes upon a deer with a fawn and that too, isolated on its own, was a beautiful scene of life and affection and relationship, until Mrs Tiger took down baby fawn and dragged it off to be eaten by the three tiger cubs.
Doug McMasters: And you realize that nature is truly red in tooth and claw, that nature is truly red in tooth and claw, that even these beautiful scenes get abruptly ended by the necessity of death and the reality of death.
Doug McMasters: The vigor of those tigers had to come from somewhere and it came from other flesh.
Doug McMasters: But when you read these descriptions of the rule of this new king, this better king, it's like you're back in Eden.
Doug McMasters: You're back where there's no more death.
Doug McMasters: You're back where there's no more enmity, back when there are things that are naturally predator and prey, live in harmony with each other, where there's no harm, where a child could play with one of the most poisonous snakes and not worry about it ever, because nothing will touch the life that's there.
Doug McMasters: This is a paradise of peace and security, with a removal of the original curse, where harmony is returned between man and man and men and animals and animals, with animals Living together, feeding together, playing together, and all of the fear and all the danger and all the death are gone.
Doug McMasters: This idyllic picture points to a day where things will be far different than what we know today.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 65,.
Doug McMasters: The wolf and the lamb will feed together, the lion will eat straw like cattle and the serpent's food will be dust.
Doug McMasters: They will not do what is evil or destroy in my entire holy mountain.
Doug McMasters: Ezekiel 34, I'll make a covenant of peace with them and eliminate dangerous creatures from the land so that they may live securely in the wilderness and sleep in the forest.
Doug McMasters: Ezekiel 36, the land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden.
Doug McMasters: This is God's transforming work.
Doug McMasters: Through this new king, this better king, he's going to bring a glorious kingdom in which all the things that are normal to us will be gone.
Doug McMasters: All the pain and agony, all the tears, all the enmity, all the trouble, all the heartache.
Doug McMasters: It's gone.
Doug McMasters: No terror, no fear, no striking down, no destruction, no death.
Doug McMasters: And this is not just figurative language here.
Doug McMasters: This is pointing us to a day of reality when this very plot of ground that we call earth and home will be something different than what we experience.
Doug McMasters: This is the hope.
Doug McMasters: We can conjure up in our mind, the wondrous ideals, but imagine your brain taking you to places, to the outer extremities of the most glorious scene and kingdom, and then you walk away and say, well, that was a beautiful story, wasn't it Once upon a time?
Doug McMasters: But it's real, but it's real, but it's real.
Doug McMasters: You see, all of those once upon in the time stories find their root in the realities of God's kingdom.
Doug McMasters: Then, when he brings paradise regained, because God will be victorious and his Messiah will reign and nothing will step outside the establishment of that kingdom.
Doug McMasters: And nothing will step outside the establishment of that kingdom, and verse 9 tells us exactly why and what the greatest effect is, for the land will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is filled with water.
Doug McMasters: In our day that could hardly be said of any town.
Doug McMasters: There might be in some places in the Bible Belt a much larger and sizable population of people who have the knowledge of God than they do here in the New York City area, but even there you couldn't say that that town was filled with the knowledge of the God as much as the seas fill the expanse of their borders.
Doug McMasters: But the day will come when the whole earth, not just little pockets of places, will know God and act on that knowledge in a way filled with love and obedience and devotion.
Doug McMasters: The rest of the chapter verses 10 through 16, talk about the reach of this king's rule.
Doug McMasters: He's not only a new king coming out of a dead stump, he's a better king, who reigns like no other king has done, and he brings a perfect kingdom into reality.
Doug McMasters: What are the reaches and the boundaries and the borders of this king?
Doug McMasters: Well, in verses 10 to 16, we find that it reaches the whole earth.
Doug McMasters: On that day, the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples.
Doug McMasters: What I thought he was, the root of Jesse.
Doug McMasters: I thought this was the Davidic king.
Doug McMasters: I thought this was Israel's hope.
Doug McMasters: He is.
Doug McMasters: But Isaiah doesn't start there.
Doug McMasters: He starts with the Gentiles.
Doug McMasters: The nations will look to him for guidance and his resting place will be glorious.
Doug McMasters: This king, amazingly, is spoken of as the king for the peoples before he's mentioned to be the king of the Israelites.
Doug McMasters: His rule and his reign will be so impressive that the world will flock to him and will seek his blessing and seek his guidance.
Doug McMasters: And this very passage of scripture is a passage of scripture that Paul quotes in Romans 15, when he talks about the glorious outflowing of the gospel as is proclaimed around the world.
Doug McMasters: He says I say Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of God's truth, to confirm the promises to the Father so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy.
Doug McMasters: And then he gives this list of quotes as it is written Therefore, I will praise you among the Gentiles.
Doug McMasters: I'll sing your praises to your name Again.
Doug McMasters: Rejoice you, gentiles, with his people.
Doug McMasters: Again, praise the Lord, all you, gentiles, let all the peoples praise him.
Doug McMasters: And again, isaiah says the root of Jesse will appear, the one who rises to rule the Gentiles.
Doug McMasters: The Gentiles will hope in him.
Doug McMasters: You see this perfect kingdom that we talked about coming just a moment ago, where lion and lamb could lie together.
Doug McMasters: The king's already showed up and the king's already working his work.
Doug McMasters: And the reason we're here in this room this morning singing the things that we sang together and filling our heart with joy, in rejoicing over our Lord Jesus who saved us, is because this King is already beginning and extending his rule over the Gentiles.
Doug McMasters: And we're here.
Doug McMasters: Arnie, you get a moment in just a second, okay, but the rest of us want to rejoice right now.
Doug McMasters: The promises made to the fathers?
Doug McMasters: Arnie's saying that's me, but we're all standing here saying what promises made to our forefathers?
Doug McMasters: None.
Doug McMasters: But this king is merciful not just to his promises to be faithful to them, but to people he had never given a promise to.
Doug McMasters: He now gives himself to, and the nations will rally to him.
Doug McMasters: And it's talking about that standard or that rallying point.
Doug McMasters: If you were ever in the Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts or in the military or did anything where you'd put up a standard and you would sort of make a way toward it, you know what that is.
Doug McMasters: And this image comes from Exodus 17, when the people of God were attacked by the Amalekites and Joshua took an army and went down in to meet the Amalekites in battle.
Doug McMasters: And Moses went up on a hillside and he stood there and he lifted up his arms with this God's staff in his hands, and as long as he kept his arms up, the people prevailed, and when his strength weakened, the people would begin to be taken down in battle.
Doug McMasters: And so Aaron and Hur stood on either side of him and held Moses' arms up, and at the end of the battle that was full of victory, moses in song says the Lord is our banner, the Lord is our standard, the Lord is our rallying point.
Doug McMasters: It marked the place of victory because God was doing the fighting on their behalf After the tree of Israel was cut down and after there was nothing but a dead root remaining.
Doug McMasters: A new life would come, a new king, a better king, and he would arise as just but a little shoot.
Doug McMasters: But the day would come when he too would go up on a hill and he too would lift up his arms.
Doug McMasters: But his arms were fastened to the cross and never failed, never faltered.
Doug McMasters: And as his arms were held there, the victory of God happened.
Doug McMasters: As his arms were extended.
Doug McMasters: And Jesus himself said if I be lifted up, I will draw all men to me.
Doug McMasters: If I be lifted up, I will draw all men to me.
Doug McMasters: Here is our king.
Doug McMasters: He is the very standard and rallying point of the nations.
Doug McMasters: But he's also the answer to the people of Israel and Judah and in the last few verses we see him acting with power that this is a redemption that only God will bring, that he is redeeming the people, he's gathering them, but he's also redeeming them with a purchase.
Doug McMasters: And then he's gathering them from all corners of the earth.
Doug McMasters: We find north and south and east and west mentioned as these people are drawn to this king.
Doug McMasters: But he not only populates his kingdom with them, he transforms them.
Doug McMasters: Israel and Judah are now reconciled, when they were once enemies.
Doug McMasters: This is the king, the king.
Doug McMasters: This king like no other, this king from David's line, this king that fears the Lord, this king that practices justice, this king that establishes peace, this king that stands against the wicked, this king that restores the oppressed people of Judah and Israel, this king that causes the earth to be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, this king who rules justly and establishes peace and prosperity and delivers the oppressed.
Doug McMasters: This king.
Doug McMasters: Now let's go, last of all, to Revelation, chapter 5, and see the culmination of this promise in chapter five.
Doug McMasters: And see the culmination of this promise Last book of the Bible, in chapter five, and we're brought into a vision.
Doug McMasters: John sees, in a throne room of God, in a scroll with writing, on both sides sealed with seven seals, and he sees an angel proclaiming with words a question to the peoples who was worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?
Doug McMasters: As John contemplates the question and as he looks around for someone who might rise, he realizes there's nobody who can do it and he begins to weep because there was no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth able to open the scroll or even to look at it.
Doug McMasters: And he says in verse 4, at it.
Doug McMasters: And he says in verse 4, I wept.
Doug McMasters: And I wept because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or even to look at it.
Doug McMasters: And as he's sitting there contemplating the utter devastation and humiliation of humanity, of no one able to take the very will of God and to inaugurate and execute it, he weeps.
Doug McMasters: We're all ruined, he says, until one of the elders touches him and says to him you don't have to weep, look, the lion from the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered.
Doug McMasters: You don't have to weep because there is someone who can take God's will and inaugurate it, and execute it and bring it to full completion.
Doug McMasters: And as the elder is bending over John, as he's beginning to realize that there's some better news than what he thought was the actual situation, and as he's told, open your eyes and look and see a lion, the root of David.
Doug McMasters: What does he do?
Doug McMasters: He opens up his heart with a desire to see this lion that's going to be this reigning king.
Doug McMasters: And as he opens his eyes and he looks, he sees this.
Doug McMasters: I saw one like a slaughtered lamb standing in the midst of the throne.
Doug McMasters: This is not the lion I was expecting to see.
Doug McMasters: This is not the courageous, powerful, potent lion.
Doug McMasters: It was a slaughtered lamb.
Doug McMasters: This isn't a figure of royalty and dignity and reign, powerful, mighty.
Doug McMasters: It's a lamb Small, humble, weak, quiet, submissive and dead.
Doug McMasters: This is the lion.
Doug McMasters: This is the only thing that can inaugurate and execute and fulfill God's will.
Doug McMasters: This is the greatest paradox in the world.
Doug McMasters: The Almighty King, because he is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of Jesse.
Doug McMasters: How does he win?
Doug McMasters: By seemingly letting his enemies overcome him.
Doug McMasters: And Satan surely thought he had one.
Doug McMasters: He had tricked devious people into murdering their own Messiah and Jesus was dead.
Doug McMasters: And for three days, if anybody had thought Jesus was the hope of the world, they felt like they were looking at a dead stump again.
Doug McMasters: We thought he was the one who would deliver Israel, the disciples said on the road to Emmaus.
Doug McMasters: But we don't think that anymore.
Doug McMasters: He's dead and hope has failed and deliverance is once again burnt down.
Doug McMasters: But out of the ashes arises the stump, the life again Three days.
Doug McMasters: Three days later, the angels say to those who are there why are you here?
Doug McMasters: He is not among the dead, he's alive.
Doug McMasters: This valiant king has won through his death.
Doug McMasters: You've heard the story, perhaps, of St George and the dragon right Whack the head right off of that dragon.
Doug McMasters: What a powerful story that is.
Doug McMasters: We love movies like that.
Doug McMasters: Get to the climax and the tension.
Doug McMasters: And the hero he may be shot 17 times but he can still run like he's never been touched.
Doug McMasters: And he gets in there and he takes out the enemy and you're like what a great movie, this movie.
Doug McMasters: He's dead, he's slaughtered.
Doug McMasters: A slaughtered lamb, a slaughtered lamb because he was a sacrificed lamb.
Doug McMasters: He was a slaughtered lamb who gave up his own life.
Doug McMasters: Lamb.
Doug McMasters: He was a slaughtered lamb who gave up his own life.
Doug McMasters: You see, god is redefining for the human race what victory actually looks like.
Doug McMasters: When Jesus was nailed on the cross of Cal and darkness and he won by becoming dead himself, the scriptures say in Colossians 2, he has disarmed the powers and authorities, making a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by his cross, triumphing over them by his cross.
Doug McMasters: Hebrews, chapter 2.
Doug McMasters: Jesus shared in flesh and blood so that, through death, he might destroy the one holding the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their life, have been held in slavery by the fear of death.
Doug McMasters: Here is our Lord who takes us through every conceivable trouble, through every area of enemy territory, through and over or around every obstacle, and can take us through the greatest enemy we have death itself and bring us on the other side of that in victory.
Doug McMasters: This is that little, little blush of life.
Doug McMasters: Jesus, how do you define victory?
Doug McMasters: How do you define victory in this life?
Doug McMasters: How do you define victory in eternity?
Doug McMasters: And where is your victory found?
Doug McMasters: Is your victory found in eternity in the?
Doug McMasters: I hope God will be merciful to me, or I think I've done enough to get there, or I'm not as bad as other people are, or well, at least I was sincere, or I was baptized when I was a baby.
Doug McMasters: Where does your victory lie?
Doug McMasters: Where does your hope anchor itself?
Doug McMasters: Are you willing to anchor your hope in the death of a slaughtered lamb?
Doug McMasters: That's where the victory actually is, because he's the lion of the tribe of Judah, he's the root of David and in his death he destroys death and he now gives life and immortality that he's brought to light to all who believe on him.
Doug McMasters: This is the king.
Doug McMasters: This is the king from the dead stump, this is the new king who rules in justice.
Doug McMasters: This is the king who brings a glorious, peaceful return to Eden to all of us.
Doug McMasters: This is the king who gathers the nations.
Doug McMasters: This is the King who keeps his promises.
Doug McMasters: This is the King who defeats all enemies.
Doug McMasters: This is the King.
Doug McMasters: Amen.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray, father, thank you.
Doug McMasters: Thank you for being our King, thank you for being who you are, thank you for giving us this glorious picture of who our savior is and what he will inaugurate and enact as the fullness of his kingdom flourishes and becomes fully known.
Doug McMasters: And, lord, we wait and hope for that coming day when all these things will be the former things that have passed away and his glorious reign will be seen and felt and enjoyed by all who believe.
Doug McMasters: Father, I pray for any in our midst this morning who are bowing to a different king, who are bowing to the king of self or self-righteousness, or to their pleasures, or to their intellectual capacities of doubt and skepticism.
Doug McMasters: I pray, father, that you might move them to bow to King Jesus and Lord, we pray that all of us may do so with gladness and joy and submission and in the delight of your mercies, and we pray this in Christ's name, amen.