Let us give our attention to God's own word, Isaiah 11, verses 1 through 10. There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. His delight is in the fear of the Lord, and he shall not judge by the sight of his eyes, nor decide by the hearing of his ears. But with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his loins, and faithfulness the belt of his waist. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb. The leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze. Their young one shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobra's hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And in that day, there shall be a root of Jesse who shall stand as a banner to the people. For the Gentiles shall seek him and his resting place shall be glorious. So far the reading of God's own word, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Beloved congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the previous chapters, Isaiah has presented us with a picture of a scorched earth. Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts, the land has been burned up. The forest has been cut down, and not a tree remains. Israel, you recall, has been compared to a forest, a forest burned down to the ground. Chapter 9, verse 18. Her land is scorched and desolate indeed. Assyria also has been compared to a forest, a forest now cut down to the ground, chapter 10, verses 33 and 34. Her land is humbled and desolate indeed. Both the Jews and the Gentiles have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And so as we come to the end of Isaiah chapter 10 and the beginning of Isaiah chapter 11, we find that every mouth, Jew and Gentile alike, has been stopped and shut up. And all the world is guilty before God. And yet there is hope. Hope in the branch of Jesse's stem. And that's where Isaiah begins here in chapter 11. There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots. Thus, Isaiah presents us here with the most powerful image You can picture it in your mind's eye. All the world is nothing but a burnt and fallen forest of trees. Israel and Assyria are both fallen. Jew and Gentile alike are cut down. There is no life. There is no vitality. All is hopeless as far as man is concerned. No trees are left standing. But then, Prophet sees amidst all those burnt and fallen trees a stump. The stump of Jesse. Notice he doesn't call it the stump of David. For all the glory of David and his kingdom are gone. He calls it the stump of Jesse, for it appears most lowly and insignificant. And yet, from this lowly and insignificant stump of Jesse, a rod comes forth, a branch begins to grow. Boys and girls, you can understand something of this image, can you not? You've no doubt seen a stump of a tree somewhere along the road, one that's been burned down, perhaps charred and blackened, or one that has been cut down, and there's nothing left but this dead stump. But when you look carefully, you begin to see that there's a small green branch beginning to grow out of that stump, a little shoot, a little rod. Well, that's what Isaiah is setting before us here. And that rod, that branch, that little, tiny, lowly, insignificant shoot is a picture of Jesus Christ. We know that on the basis of verse 2. where we read that the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. Here is the anointing of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Again, boys and girls, picture the scene at Jesus' baptism. Do you remember what came down from heaven? The spirit in the form of a dove came down and alighted upon Jesus, landed upon him there. He was anointed for his work, anointed for his task. You can read about that in Matthew and Mark and in Luke. In fact, Luke will press us even a bit further. For Luke tells us how Jesus began his earthly ministry. You may recall those words from Luke chapter 4, where we read that he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. And he was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me. to preach the gospel to the poor. He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Then he closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, today, This scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. The Spirit anoints Jesus to do His work, and what is His work? To heal. To proclaim liberty. To open prison doors. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. to bring good news to the nations. That activity is further demonstrated for us in verses three to five of our text. Notice the way verse three begins. His delight is in the fear of the Lord. Jesus has come to do the will of his Father. And His delight is in the will of the Father. And here we see a most glorious truth, one that I'm afraid we don't give enough consideration to. The will of the Father and the will of the Son is one. And what is that will? To proclaim good news. to the nations. To proclaim that God is favorably disposed toward mankind and desires that his gospel go forth to the ends of the earth, summoning men and women unto repentance and faith. We just read a moment ago from Luke chapter 4 where Jesus quotes from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He quotes directly from Isaiah chapter 61, the first verse or two. Let me read the first three verses to give you a fuller context of that which is in Jesus' mind as he makes this declaration of what he has come to do. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified." The beautiful picture begins to unfold, doesn't it? Here at the end of Isaiah 10, no tree is left standing. All the world has become guilty before God. Jew and Gentile alike, every mouth stopped. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There's not a tree living anywhere. But then, out of this stump comes this little shoot. And through the work of this little shoot, our Lord Jesus Christ, what happens? The Gospel goes forth. And as the Gospel goes forth, God plants a new forest. And He calls these trees, trees of righteousness. In other words, what He has burned, He will heal. What He has cut down, He will raise up. And how does He do this? Well, He does it by His Word, His Word and Spirit. You see that in verses 3 through 5, He shall not judge by the sight of his eyes, nor decide by the hearing of his ears, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. Here is a king who judges, who judges not by what he sees with the eyes, not by what he hears with the ears. He judges not by what he sees in the outward appearance, but he judges with equity and with righteousness. How does he do this? Look at verse four, the end of it. He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked. Here is a picture of the King, our Lord Jesus Christ, striking the earth with His word, slaying the wicked with the breath of His mouth. What is in view here, dear friends, is this. Our King sends forth His Word to all mankind, Jew and Gentile alike, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And what does His Word do? Well, it kills. And it makes alive. With the law, he kills. With the gospel, he gives life. In the law, he proclaims his just condemnation upon us. We're guilty as charged, deserving of death, Jew and Gentile alike. But in the gospel, he proclaims mercy and grace to all those who look to that little shoot that rises up out of the stump of Jesse. as He offers to us salvation full and free in Him. By His Word, Jesus Christ, our King, is riding forth, conquering and to conquer. Verse 5. Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins and faithfulness the belt of His waist. Here is battle imagery. Here is the imagery of warfare and military pictures, the belt of His loins is righteousness, the belt of His waist is faithfulness, the Son of God is going forth to war. Dear friends, there's a battle going on right now. He means to slay us in our sin and self-righteousness in order that He might make us alive. in His Son. Of course, the decisive battle has already been won at the cross, but there are still battles to fight as Christ continues to this very day and very moment to rescue men and women out of the kingdom of darkness and bring them into the marvelous kingdom of light. And He does it by means of His Word and Spirit. That's why in the time of the Reformation, the Reformers recovered the centrality of God's Word and the centrality of the preaching of that Word and the administration of the sacraments. They had confidence that as that Word went forth, as the sacraments were administered, the Son of God was going to war and that He was active. translating men and women out of darkness into His marvelous light. This wasn't some idea that the Reformers came up with. They were standing on the shoulders of the apostles. You read the book of Acts. The Word is preached, the sacraments administered, and God adds to His church those who are being saved. Perhaps Perhaps the reason we sometimes find the preaching of the word in the sacraments boring and even irrelevant is because we fail to see them for what they really are. The preaching of the gospel in the sacraments are an assault upon the kingdom of darkness. It's by these means that the living Christ plunders the house of the strong man whom He has already bound. As He delivers sinners out of the pit of hell, as it were, and seats them in heavenly places. Oh, that we would have greater confidence in the power of God's Word. I think of the Apostle Paul writing to Rome. The great city! And what does he say? I'm not ashamed of the gospel, of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it's the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. Paul expected the going forth of God's word to be the means by which he would gather and protect and preserve for himself his church. Oh, that we would have such confidence. And oh, that we would pray that God would use the preaching of his word to save sinners. I'm so very thankful for the fact that many of you, and many of you have communicated this to me, pray on a regular basis for me in my work as a minister of the gospel, but all that we would pray that God would use his gospel for the salvation of souls, that sinners would be saved, and that saints would be strengthened. Both the unrepentant sinner and the repentant saint need this gospel. We all need it. We need God to be active, wielding that sword of the Spirit, perhaps for our conversion for the very first time, but certainly also for our sanctification and our growth in holiness and in righteousness. Christ, our King, you see, is active to save sinners, to strengthen saints, as He meets with us through the Spirit and the Word, ushering us into His marvelous kingdom. And Isaiah directs our attention to that kingdom. He's spoken of the King in verses 1 through 5, And now he directs our attention to his kingdom, verses 6 through 9. And in verses 6 through 9, we read something of the character of his kingdom. His kingdom is clearly a kingdom of peace. If you look back a moment at verse 1, the literal reading of verse 1 is this. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. A branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And here is the fruit that Jesus Christ brings. He brings peace. He brings what no other can bring. He brings peace. And notice how that peace is described in terms reminiscent of Eden in these verses, in terms reminiscent of creation and paradise. There's no enmity between beast and beast. The wolf dwells with the lamb. The leopard lies down with the goat. The calf and young lion and the fatling together, a little child leads them. The cow and the bear graze. Their young ones lie down together. The lion eats straw like the ox. Gone is all enmity between beasts. And gone also is all enmity between man and beast. In fact, even that enmity between a child and a serpent, verse eight, the nursing child shall play by the cobra's hole, the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper's den. Here is the removal of the curse, verse nine, they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain. What king can do this? What king can bring such peace? Jesus alone. His kingdom is the kingdom of peace. And how wonderful that we read also here of the expansion of that kingdom, the end of verse nine, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. You remember in the context of this passage what Assyria wanted? Judah's great enemy? Assyria wanted one thing, world domination. One king, one kingdom. All the world brought under the rule of one man. Assyria, you see, was afflicted with the spirit of Babel. And the result? Well, it wasn't peace. War. Destruction. Death. And, of course, the spirit of Babel didn't die with Assyria. Alexander the Great and the Greeks, Caesar Augustus and the Romans, more recently Hitler and the Third Reich. What is the result? Peace? Of course not. War. Destruction. Death. Man cannot bring peace. Only Jesus does. And how does he do it? Well, he does it not by weapons, not by cannons, not by machine guns or nuclear warfare, not by crusades, not by holy war. He does it by his cross. You see that in verse 10. In that day there shall be a root of Jesse who shall stand as a banner to the people. Notice that. The root of Jesse stands as a banner to the people. Isaiah pictures our great king here not, basked in all of his glory and might and power, But he pictures him here as that lowly and insignificant root of Jesse. He's pointing us to the suffering of Christ. It's the same imagery he'll use in Isaiah 53. He shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and there is no beauty in him that we should desire him, nothing in him that would attract us to him. He's talking of his suffering. And what is Isaiah saying here? He's saying that it's by His cross that Jesus stands as a banner to the people. Here again is the image of battle and warfare, military image. The banner is that around which the troops rally. You think of those images from the Civil War as men marched into battle carrying the flag before them, and that flag became a rallying point. Well, here is the great rallying point. Here is the great banner, the cross of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Isaiah is fixing our attention upon that because it is by the cross that Jesus draws all peoples unto himself, men and women from every tribe, tongue, and nation. We can go about fighting all our wars to end all wars. We can hold our peace summits. We can gather together at our United Nations. None of these things will bring peace. Not lasting peace. Why not? Because none of these things can deal with the root problem. The root problem is sin. And Jesus alone can deal with that. And He does deal with it at the cross. Men and women who long for peace, peace with God and peace with man, peace that transcends nations and ethnicities and histories and boundaries can find it in one place only. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. You might read Ephesians chapter 2. His kingdom transcends Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female. In Christ there is no east or west. In Him, no south or north. This is what His gospel is doing as it goes forth. It unites men and women from every tribe, tongue, nation, and people. And you see that at the end of verse 10, the Gentiles shall seek Him, and His resting place shall be glorious. It's quite striking that the Apostle Paul quotes from this very text in Isaiah near the end of his letter to the Romans, Romans chapter 15. We're not going to take the time to read it this morning. I encourage you to read that chapter. Let me draw your attention just to a couple of verses there in Romans chapter 15, where Paul says that Jesus Christ, in verse 8, has become a servant to the circumcision, to the Jews, for the truth of God to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy. And then he quotes from Isaiah 1, verse 10. In Romans 15, 12, he says, Isaiah says, there shall be a root of Jesse. Now listen to this. There shall be a root of Jesse who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles. And in him, the Gentiles shall hope. Paul has done something here most remarkable. What Isaiah calls His resting place, his resting place shall be glorious, Isaiah 11 verse 10. Paul translates and understands in terms of Jesus' resurrection from the dead. He who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles. What is Paul saying? He's saying that Jesus lives. He's no dead Savior. He's a reigning and living King. And by His resurrection from the dead, He reigns over the Gentiles. He's conquered sin and death and hell and the grave. He's alive and He lives forevermore. It's the most wonderful thing, the most glorious thing. It's what gripped the apostles. You read the book of Acts. It's what gripped the apostle Paul. There he is on the road to Damascus when suddenly he's brought face to face with the risen Christ and his attention to the letter of the law is replaced by a living Savior. And it propels him to go forth as a great missionary to the Gentiles. What does Paul go on to say in Romans 15? My plan is to go to Rome and from Rome to Spain to proclaim this living Christ to those who have never heard. Why would he do this? Because he was not ashamed of the gospel. Oh, my friends, that we would have such a passion for missions and evangelism that it would fuel our hearts. Do we really believe this gospel? Do we really have confidence that it's the power of God unto salvation? Do we really believe that he wants it sent forth to the ends of the earth? And are we willing to bring it? When his gospel is preached, when Jesus Christ and him crucified is proclaimed, as his cross is placarded before the nations, Jesus is active. And he's active to heal the brokenhearted. He's active to liberate the captive. to open the prison of those who are bound, to comfort the mourning, to give beauty in the place of ashes, oil of joy in the place of mourning, to give the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, he is yet proclaiming the acceptable year of the Lord. And for all who believe on him, His promise is this, you shall be counted among the trees of righteousness. You'll never be cut down. You've been planted by the Lord himself. You'll never be cursed as that unfruitful fig tree in the Gospels, for you'll ever be bearing fruit. This is the power of the Gospel. The Gospel is not changed lives, but the Gospel has the power to change lives. And it doesn't merely bring us back to paradise or creation. It proclaims to us that heaven has been secured. When you're washed by the blood of Christ and clothed in His righteousness, you stand forever accepted before the Lord and you cannot lose this standing. And my friends, that's what frees you to serve Him. You don't bear fruit in order to be accepted. You bear fruit because you've already been accepted. No longer are we fruitless trees, unable to bear fruit and worthy to be cut down. Now in Christ, we bear fruit in season. Our leaves never wither. Whatever we do prospers. As we meditate upon the law of the Lord, written on our hearts by the Spirit, and it's all for his glory. This is the great kindness of his reign. We deserve to be cut down and destroyed, but instead he gives us his gospel, offering to us salvation full and free, calling us to seek him, to come to his cross where he pardons us and gives us life that we may bear fruit to him. May the image and the picture here be indelibly impressed upon your mind and heart. The scorched earth of chapters 9 and 10 replaced now in chapter 11 with a little shoot growing up from the stump of Jesse, but ending as a mighty tree covering the earth, bearing fruit in abundance. Let me ask you, my friend, as you consider that image, are you counted among those trees of righteousness? is your hope in the branch of Jesse's stem. My prayer is that of the Apostle Paul that the God of hope would fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Let us pray. O Lord, our God, we give thanks to you for this wonderful and most poignant picture that you've given us in the prophet Isaiah. We thank you for the apostles' understanding of this passage and of the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ ever lives and that he remains active. And we pray, O Lord, that you would do the great battle for our souls and our hearts and our lives. that you would draw us to the Lord Jesus Christ, that we may be planted by you, that we may be trees of righteousness bearing fruit unto you, knowing that we shall stand before you for all eternity because of the branch of Jesse's stem, because of our dear Savior Jesus Christ, and may we rejoice in his reign now and forevermore. For we ask it in his name, amen.