O Holy Spirit, come. Come to us in this hour and open the pages you have inspired and show us the virgin born, the risen and the exalted Savior, Christ the King. All that is written in scripture is of Him. And He is the door to heaven for us. Show us Christ, O God. And so show us yourself. Amen. Turn with me, if you will, to Isaiah chapter 11, verses 1 through 10. Isaiah chapter 11, verse 1, then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. The spirit of the Lord will rest on him and the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And he will delight in the fear of the Lord and he will not judge by what his eyes see nor make a decision by what his ears hear but with righteousness he will judge the poor and decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth. And he will strike the earth with a rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Also righteousness will be the belt of his loins, and faithfulness the belt about his waist. And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down, and the young goat and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little boy will lead them. Also the cow and the bear will graze, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper's den. They will not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Then in that day, the nations will resort to the root of Jesse. who will stand as a signal for the peoples and his resting place will be glorious. You may be seated. We're at a time of year when we speak about the birth of Christ, the birth of Jesus. Not gonna go into all of the problems with this season, you know them as well as I do. Not going to go into things like what is Christmas and where did it come from and what are its pagan roots and all of those kinds of things. You've heard that. There's plenty of books about it nowadays. Plenty of messages done. All I really wanna do is to show you that this branch that sprang forth out of the stump of Jesse in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago. All I want to do is to show you what his incarnation meant. And we have a very, very good passage of scripture here in Isaiah 11, 1 through 10, which gives in very clear terms the career of the baby born in Bethlehem. What would he be? What did he mean? Why did he come? In verses one through two, we see this branch springing forth out of a stump. In three through five, we see this branch going forth And in six through 10, we see the power, the strength, and the effectualness of the branch, even to this very day. Verse one says, then a shoot, a mere twig, Nothing to be accounted of as it seems a shoot a twig will spring from the stump. All that is left of the great royal house of David, nothing but a stump that has been cut down. It was once a mighty tree. It, it wants over shadowed the land. The beast of the field found their shade underneath it. The birds of the air were able to land in it. It was a fruitful tree, the theocracy of Israel under David and under Solomon. But now it's nothing but a stump. And he doesn't even say that it is the stump of David. He said it is the stump of Jesse. Referring not back to the glory of the kingdom, referring back to the humility of the house of David, the humble house. They will spring from the stump of Jesse and a branch from its roots. Here we see that the tree is all but dead, but there's still a little bit of life left in it. A branch from its roots will bear fruit. In other words, it is alive. This branch is alive. This is all that was left of the house of David when Messiah would come. And Messiah is that branch. He is that sprig that comes forth out of an all but dead stump. This speaks very, very much of the humility of Christ coming into the world. And this passage here is set against the judgment of God against Assyria in Isaiah 10, the previous chapter, in which Assyria is likened to a mighty forest coming down upon Israel. It is at the height of its power when God strikes it. And he, the Lord, will destroy the glory of his Assyria's forest and his fruitful garden, both soul and body. And it will be as when a sick man wastes away and the rest of the trees of his forest will be so small a number that a child could write them down. This is all that will be left of Assyria after God has used them to punish his people and then broken them over his knees like a rod that's finished. Not enough trees left in the forest, but that a child could write them down. And now we see before us a stump, an all but dead stump. And out of that comes forth a branch, a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch, a wenetzer, from his roots will bear fruit. If that word for branch is relative to the word Nazareth, as it probably is, then we see in Matthew 2, 22 through 23, so Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, Jesus, who is the branch, and came into the land of Israel and came and lived in a city called Nazareth. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets, not a single prophet, but throughout the prophets, Jeremiah 23, 5, 33, 15, Zechariah 3, 8, 6, 12. He shall be called a Nazarene. How humble is it to have come from Nazareth? Well, Nathanael says in John 14, 46, to his brother who came to tell him about Jesus, he says to his brother Philip, he says, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? And you know, that reads an awful lot like a proverb. It reads almost like he just tripped that right off of his tongue. But as dead as this stump is, The fact that this sprig can come forth in it, this branch can grow up in it and bear fruit gives hope. Assyria is a faint old man dying away, as it says in chapter 10. Sick, going to his grave. And Assyria did. Assyria died all together, all together as a kingdom. God smote it at the height of its power. But now here's that stump that's been languishing for a long time. And it is pictured to us in the city called Bethlehem. No smaller, no more humble place. This is the place where Jesse lived. And it's here that Jesus is to be born. It is here that the sprig comes forth. It is here that the branch comes out to bear fruit. Verse two, the spirit of the Lord will rest on him. Him is the branch. Speaking of the Messiah here, the spirit of the Lord will rest on him. Jesus laid claim to this in Nazareth when he was in the synagogue and he quoted from Isaiah saying the spirit of the Lord is on me. So unlike Assyria upon whom the judgment of the Lord rested, the spirit of the Lord would rest upon Jesus. This is pictured at his baptism when the spirit in the form of the dove rested on him. Now, what is the manifestation of the spirit on Christ? What does it look like for the spirit to rest upon Christ throughout his entire life? And that should be very important to you. Because if we are the servants of the master, then we are not greater than the master. We are to follow in the master's path. If he, the son of God, who has the son of man, depended completely upon the Holy Spirit for everything that he did in life, which by the way is what we call the Christian life, then so should we. So should we, all of our dependence is to be upon his spirit, all of our dependence. You have your whole life before you to work this out, to improve in depending upon and having complete and whole and constant trust in the Holy Spirit in everything you do. Now there may be because of sin and because of your flesh gaps in this, but you keep coming back to it and you keep asking forgiveness and you keep asking the Lord to remind you that you must depend on him or you cannot please him at all. And everything that you do, you must depend upon him. Why? Because Jesus did. Jesus did. The spirit of the Lord rested upon him. And it manifested itself in him as the spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Doesn't that sound a lot like that? Wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, Prince of peace. Now we see them in attributes here, spirit of wisdom and understanding spirit of counsel and strength spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. How is this manifested? It's manifested in the spirit of wisdom and understanding. Jesus was that wisdom of Proverbs 8, particularly in Proverbs 8, 14, where it says, counsel is mine, sound wisdom, I am understanding, power is mine. It belongs to me, says wisdom. And who is wisdom? Jesus is wisdom. Jesus, the eternal wisdom of God. He is truth himself, not itself. He is truth himself. Because truth is a person, not a thing. He is truth. Proverbs 8, 27 through 31. When He, that is God, established the heavens, I was there. When He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep, when He made firm the skies above, when the springs of the deep became fixed, when He set for the sea its boundaries so that the water would not transgress His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside Him as a master workman, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in the world, His earth, and having my delight in the sons of men. Or as John would put it in John 1, in the beginning, he was with the Word. And the Word was God, and the Word was with God. And the Word became flesh. Verse 14. Became flesh and dwelt among men. Jesus is the incarnate Word. the incarnate Word. He is Himself wisdom. He is understanding. He is the discerner of righteousness. He is the spirit of counsel and strength. He is the wonderful counselor. He is the way Himself. He is the way. It is he who says to us in Psalm 32, eight, I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you. He is our strength. He is the one who takes this council that he gives to us and applies it to us by his spirit. He applies it to us and makes us able to live according to the council. The counsel and the life, the strength, the power of the counsel. Is Jesus teaching you? Is Jesus teaching you? You know, sometimes in life, you have to stop and say, who's teaching me? Who's influencing me? Who am I getting my counsel from? Who am I looking to for wisdom and understanding? Is it Jesus? Is it Jesus? Or is it man? Or is it the patterns of the world? Or is it my, what I call, common sense? Where do I get my knowledge from? And the Bible says they will all be taught of God. They will all be taught of God. The difference between the Christian and anybody else in the world is that the Christian is taught by the living God. Taught by him. You know, you need to, we all need to dive into that. Just don't hold back, you know, like at Webster's Overlook when we used to go over there in Lake Altoona. It was about, what, 40 feet up or 50 feet up or something like that. And you come up to it, and you're supposed to jump. You're supposed to jump, and what do you do? No, don't jump. Jump. Leap into the teaching of God. Leap into Christ, your counselor. Don't hold back. Do that with men, not with God. Leap into his knowledge. Leap into his word. You will not regret it. It will be safe. The water is good. It's good. He's the spirit of counsel and strength. He is the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. All knowledge comes from Jesus. All knowledge comes from the word of God, which proceeds from the fear of the Lord. Any knowledge that's knowledge comes from him. Any knowledge that's knowledge comes from him. Psalm 111 10 says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A good understanding have all those who do his commandments. His praise endures forever. He is the teacher. He is the counselor. He is the one who knows it all. He is himself life to us. He is himself life to us. In verses three, three, five, we see the going forth of the branch. It says, and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. The word there is riach in the Hebrew. And it means, and his smelling is the fear of the Lord. His smelling is the fear of the Lord. Now get this. It says, and he will not judge by what his eyes see. And he will not make a decision by what his ears hear. Who does that? Who makes judgments according to what his eyes see? Man says, if it's there before my eyes, I believe, which is the biggest lie man says. If it's right there before my eyes, I'll believe. I'll do according to my eyes. I'll do according to my hearing. What does man hear? He always hears the first thing. The first thing that comes to him is always truth. The first thing that comes to him is the thing that has to be disproved. It has to be broken down. Because he always believes the first thing. Things are not always what they look like. Things are not always what they sound like, but they're always what they smell like. They're always what they smell like. Just ask any dog, he'll tell you. It does not matter what it looks like to the dog. It does not matter what it sounds like to the dog. It only matters how it smells. It is the discerning sense. With his nose, the smell of a delightful aroma. He will know where the fear of the Lord is. Genesis 8, 21 says, the Lord smelled, raoket, is there again, the soothing aroma that Noah lifted up in the sacrifice. And the Lord said to himself, I will never again curse the ground on account of man. In other words, when he smelled the aroma of the sacrifice, he had pleasure in it. It was favorable to him. It was good. It was righteous. It was discerned well before him. Interestingly enough, the word for spirit, ruach, is also this word. And what are we looking at? The manifestation of the spirit on Christ. The spirit of Christ, the spirit of the Lord rests upon Christ and what does he do? He smells the aroma. Of the fear of the Lord. We see the satisfaction is pleasure of the Lord in the sacrifice of Messiah and Isaiah 53, 10 through 11, but the Lord was pleased to crush him. What an outstanding statement. That is the Lord was pleased to crush Messiah, putting him to grief. If he would render himself as a guilt offering, he will see his offspring, he will prolong his day, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand. As a result of the anguish of his soul, he, that is God, will be satisfied when he sees it. By his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant, will justify many, as he will bear their iniquities. This is your atonement. It is a sweet-smelling savor in the nostrils of God. Jesus' death on the cross for you and for me. It gives him pleasure. What was his attitude before us while we were in our sins? Anger, wrath, coming judgment, condemnation. What is his attitude towards us now that Christ has taken that condemnation upon himself, has borne that wrath upon himself? It is favor. It is zeal to do us good. It is loving kindness, tender mercies, pity, and care. He is now our father. He is no longer our enemy. Verse four, but with righteousness, he will judge the poor and decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth. Having obtained the favor of God on behalf of sinners, he will impute his righteousness and will not impute sin. In righteousness, he will judge righteousness of the poor and will be the justice of the afflicted. And he will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips, he will slay the wicked. Those haughty ones who have oppressed his people who keep his people in bondage will be stricken in his judgment as he delivers his people from their oppression. The pronouncement of judgment will be the condemnation of the wicked of the earth as he clears the earth away to make it a fit inheritance for the meek. In verse five also, Righteousness will be the belt about his loins and faithfulness, the belt about his waist. Righteousness and faithfulness are the upholders. Righteousness because man is not able to be righteous of his own. Righteousness because he gives his righteousness to those whom he has atoned. Faithfulness because man is not faithful. Faithfulness because God is faithful. because only God is faithful to fulfill his promise of salvation to his people. Jesus is the righteousness of God, the fulfiller, the upholder of righteousness for man who has no righteousness of his own. Jesus is the faithfulness of God, the upholder of faithfulness, the fulfiller of his promise of redemption. And then in verses six through 10, we see the effectualness of the branch. What is the effect of the branch? The branch has sprung up. The branch has branched out. It has grown slowly. The kingdom, you remember what Jesus says about the growth of the kingdom, the gradual growth of the kingdom starts out small as a mustard seed grows into the greatest of the herbs. It starts out as just a little bit of leaven that completely takes over the whole lump of dough. And so as Jesus, the branch spreads more and more on the earth and is more and more fruitful in the earth, because as he grows, there's more fruit, as he grows more and more. And we will see the effects of the branch upon the world, not all at once, but it's growing that way. And it manifests itself in a reconciliation, a very special reconciliation in the earth. God first making reconciliation between himself and his elect people. Now his reconciliation begins to spread all over the world because he reclaims the earth. It does not belong to Satan. It does not belong to sin. It does not belong to corruption. It does not belong to death. It does not belong to violence. It does not belong to the wicked. It belongs to God, essentially. It belongs to Christ, mediatorially. It belongs to Him, and He claims it back as His own. And as He claims it back, it is going to be more and more. His being has been and will be more transformed. The earth will be transformed more and more. What's the end result of it? Verse 6. and the wolf will dwell with the lamb." That's an outstanding statement, isn't it? The lamb usually dwells within the wolf, but here the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together. No predation, no hungry beast rushing upon another, no terrorized beast running away. This isn't natural. It may be normal. I know you can watch your documentaries and you can see it all the time. About the only thing the photographers in the African documentaries want to do is to see some lion kill some little defenseless animal. And, you know, I mean, that's just all there is. Let's catch them at actually making the kill right here. Says something about us, right? But it shows us there's something, and we have a tendency to look upon it and say, well, that's natural. It's totally natural that there's death in the world. The long day creationists within Christianity who believe that death is normal, that death is a part of life, which is a complete contradiction in terms and thoughts and everything else I can possibly think of. That death is normal. Death is not normal. Death is a punishment. It is a punishment against sin. It is a punishment against corruption and violence. And these will be taken away. And when they are taken away, the nature of the creature changes. The nature of the creature changes. Notice that he says the bear and the cow will graze. They will eat the same food. The young will lie down together. The lion will eat straw like the ox. Their behavior changes. You know, these pictures are here before us to show us the transformative effect of the coming of the branch. This branch does not come into the world to leave it, the desert place that it is full of violence and corruption as has been seen ever since the beginning pages of scripture. But a little boy will lead them. Look at the children that are in this passage. A little boy, a weaned child, a nursing child. What does Jesus say about his kingdom? Only the children come in. And you must be children in order to come into this kingdom. You must be children. He will put his command of his sons and his daughters, his children, he will put in command the most ferocious animals that the world has ever seen. That is to say, that is to say that his poor, weak Christians Generation after generation will face the predators and will lead them, and will lead them. This has been going on for a long time. I'd love to just spend some time talking about the last 2,000 years of church history and show you where the little boy has been leading the ferocious animals throughout the last 2,000 years. And it will become more and more evident as time goes along. The little child will lead. There will be no more hurt, no more harm. A weaned child will be able to put his hand on the viper's den. A nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra. And they will not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain. For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. This isn't something that happens overnight. This is something that grows in this world more and more. Sin and corruption and violence grew gradually in this world. The reversing of sin, corruption, and violence is a gradual thing. Jesus rules in the midst of his enemies. He brings his people to be willing in the day of his power until the whole earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. What kind of an earth would that be? Think about that. Anywhere you go, people are talking about God. and talking about him with knowledge and wisdom all over the earth. It's unimaginable. You know, we have to straighten out some terms. Natural and normal, they're not the same thing. Natural and normal. Death is normal. but death is not natural. God makes life to last everlastingly. Death is the condemnation tragedy that brings life to end. And death is an enemy. It is not natural. It is an enemy. It is Jesus's enemy. He calls death out for battle. And he will defeat death. And he will defeat death in your resurrection from the dead and your everlasting life. He will defeat death forever. Verse 10 says, then in that day, the nations will resort to the root of Jesse. That is a pregnant statement right there. All the nations, all the nations will resort to the root of Jesse. It doesn't say here, all the nations will come to the glorious kingdom It says they will go to the root of Jesse because that's where you go first. He's basically saying, all the nations are gonna be my disciples. All the nations will do what I did. I came up out of the root of Jesse. Therefore, all nations must go to the root. They must go to Bethlehem. They must go to the lowest place of my humiliation. They will not meet me in the air. They have to meet me in the lowest place that I went because the disciples are not greater than the master. If he lived in humiliation, we must go to humiliation to find him. We must abandon all pride. We must abandon all reliance upon self. We must go to him to be taught of him. In that day, the nations will resort to the root of Jesse, who, once again, he's a man, he is Messiah, who will stand as a signal for the peoples. And that could mean anything, any picture you want to put in your mind of a lighthouse, of a tower up on top of a mountain, of somebody with a signal flag, whatever it is that gets the attention, a whole brass band going off at the same time, whatever gets the attention. He will stand as a signal to the peoples. His message will not be missed and his resting place will be glorious. His resting place will be glorious. Look where we go here. Same place the writer of Hebrews goes. Where? To the land of rest. Will you enter in or will you not? Will you enter in or will you not? What does it mean to be at rest? What does it mean to be at rest? Jesus says in Matthew 11, 28 through 30, and I can't help but think that he has this verse in Isaiah in mind when he says this. Maybe he didn't, but he could have. He says, come, come. There is the one who stands as a signal before his people. Come, come, come here. This is the place to come. Come to the stump of Jesse. Come to the place where the branch came forth out of that stump. Come to the place where hope first came up over the horizon in the world of darkness, of deep darkness. Come. Come to me, he says. Says the branch. Come to me. Only to me. Come to me. All you who are weary and heavy laden. Who's that? It's all of us. It's all of us. We're all weary and heavy laden until we come to Him. And I will give you rest. Are you at rest? Do you find rest in Him? Is your life characterized by resting in Him? If not, He bids you to come to Him. He is the signal who is there on the mountain saying to you, come, come, come to me. If you're weary and heavy laden, take my yoke, my yoke. Isn't that weird? My yoke? What's that got to do with rest? You know anything about yoke? We know this is about labor. This is about going out in the field and plowing. I thought you said this was gonna be rest. But think of the ox. The ox who is in the yoke, who knows exactly how to plod that field. And Jesus invites us, young oxen, to come and get in that side of the yoke. And we are wayward. We're trying to pull here and there. We're trying to stop and eat some grass. We see something nice, we go after it. And he is just plotting on, plotting on, plotting on. And we'll weary ourselves to try to keep from doing the labor. To try to bring ourselves into our laziness and our lethargy, we will work so hard. Yeah. We will sow multitask to do it. We will work ourselves inside and outside to do so because the greatest burden that we have that brings us the greatest weariness is ourselves, ourselves. And so he says to us, take my yoke upon you. You know, eventually the young oxen learns that the fun way to do yokes is to get in line with the old ox. And so he teaches us his way by coming alongside us. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart. You be gentle and humble in heart too. And you will find rest for your souls. Are you gentle? Are you humble in heart? What did Jesus come to do? He came into this world to see to it that the wolf and the lion and the leopard and the bear and any other proud and arrogant animal or creature that you can think of is put down to the level of the humble. so that they eat the same food, so that they have the same attitude, so that they are the same creature, the new creatures that have been transformed by belief in Him. Humble, gentle, all violence must go away. All violence, the violence within, the violence without, it must all go away. The corruption and the violence, He came to transform the world. And how? By discipling you. Get in his yoke. Plot along beside him. Learn from him. See what kind of person he is. See how he loves his brethren. See how he is gentle. See how he does not break a bruised reed. See how he does not quench the smoking flack. And you will find rest for your souls. That's a promise. You will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. What is it that brings us the rest? It is when the yoke becomes easy and light. How does it become easy and light? Think about this for a minute. God is going to do with you and with me whatever He made us to do. He is going to do it. You are going to be used by Him as He sees fit for you to be used. Everybody in this world today is going to do exactly what God made them to do. Everybody who has ever been created in all of history has done exactly what God has created them to do. what he has purpose for them to do. We can do that one of two ways. We can do it by kicking against him all our lives long, unwilling, fighting against him. And the very fighting that we do, the very wearying we do, the very laden that we are is the way. He will use you and me and everybody else to do His will. It is a hard road. And He invites His people. It doesn't have to be that way. You can do my will and be at rest. All you have to do is submit to my will. Submit to my will. Psalm 110 says, he will make them volunteer in the day of his power. Volunteer. Now he can use his power. But you, manifesting the Holy Spirit, can say, thy will be done. And it's rest, it's rest. You're still pulling the same cart. But it's now easy and the burden is light because you're not fighting against God. And I think that everybody who fights against God, the cart that they're pulling is against God's will. And you can't pull that cart. You can't pull that cart. It's not pullable. And so he invites us to come to him and to rest in him. This is what Jesus came into this world to do. He came into this world to take a weary, heavy laden, sick, weak, violent, corrupt world and to bring it to rest, to bring it to rest. And we can either work against that or we can work for it. And he gives us all the equipment to do that with. Walk after the spirit and you will not obey the lust of the flesh. Psalm 46 says, 46 says, a body you have prepared for me, a body you have prepared for me. This is Messiah talking to his father. And he is saying to his father, you have prepared a body for me. What was that body prepared for? And this is what we really need to think about as we think of the incarnation of Christ. Incarnation means Christ in the flesh. Why did God give him a body? Jesus was born physically with a body and the purpose of that body was so that it should be put to death as a sacrifice for your sins and my sins. Your body and my body are not worthy to be a sacrifice. We cannot be a sacrifice for our own sins, we're not worthy. No offering that could make would wash away our sins. There's nothing that we can do. Jesus was born to die the death that was due to his people. Now we partake of that sacrifice and are invited into his suffering in order that we may not in this world suffer our own suffering which we cannot bear. So I wanna encourage you as we come to this meal, To lay your suffering down as you come to this supper, the supper of the cross, the supper of the body of Christ. Take up his yoke as a good disciple and go in strength in his mighty salvation.