The Return of the King

This morning we will begin a new series looking at Isaiah chapter 11 entitled, The King Has Come. And as we begin that series, let me read the first verse of Isaiah chapter 11. Isaiah 11 verse 1. This is what scripture says. "There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit." Brothers and sisters, this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let's ask God's blessing on our study this morning.

Father, we ask you now, would you grant us a sense of celebration and anticipation of the king that has come and will come again, our great King Jesus. Grant us joy even now as we contemplate his glorious reign over us, and one day his glorious reign over the entire earth. We pray these things in your mighty name, amen.

In 1931, a group of workers pooled their money together in order to buy a 20 foot tall Christmas tree. They were working at the Rockefeller Center and wanted something festive to help enliven everyone's spirits. Well, that first tree that they bought became a tradition, much beloved by many. The years after, the size and grandeur of the trees grew bit by bit. For 89 years, the Rockefeller Christmas tree lighting has actually been so popular that they've put it on television. This year in particular, the tree is going to be adorned with over five miles of Christmas lights. Five miles, can you imagine that. If you go to the website, the way the Rockefeller Center describes it, they say that the tree's intended to spark a little joy this Christmas season.

Well, I don't know if you've ever been to New York to see it yourself, or maybe you've gotten caught up in the hoopla through television, or maybe that sort of thing is not your bag, either way. It illustrates something very important about Christmas time, that sense of anticipation and, yes, celebration. Whether you're into all the lights in trees and all the adornments that come with Christmas, the idea of anticipation and celebration is a distinctly Christian one because as Christians, we realize that we are a people that celebrate the coming of a king and anticipate that same king coming back one day.

This morning we're going to look at a little bit of the book of Isaiah, as well as trace throughout our Bibles the coming of King Jesus. And as we do, my hope is that our hearts maybe will begin to celebrate, and yes, anticipate the coming of our king. We're going to spend three weeks in Isaiah 11:1-10. And as such, allow me to give you just a little intro to the book, intro to Isaiah. If you're the type that does a Bible reading plan each year, you might find the book of Isaiah to be a bit difficult. Or maybe on the other hand, you're one that treasures up those gems throughout scripture and in which case you might find Isaiah to be a delightful book, and to be frank it's both; it's both difficult and delightful all at once.

It's long, it repeats themes. It doesn't have an easy narrative to follow through. One scholar, Leila [Reichen 00:05:24], described it as a book filled with glorious fragments of God's dealings with his people. One way you could think of it is it's a bit like a spiritual scrapbook of the way that Isaiah went and gathered these fragments of messages that God sent to his people. Well, what are those messages made up of? Well, two main things. One would be messages of judgment. Those are the things that God's people and the nations around them have done wrong, and spoiler alert, there are many of those things, and the second one, messages of salvation. God sweet promises to his people, the mercy and grace he will show them despite their many failings.

One of the other difficulties of the book is that as those messages of judgements and messages of salvation are being talked about, Isaiah shifts time on us. He shifts from events that are happening in his time to things that'll happen sometime in the near future or a few, a hundred years later during the time of Christ many times, and even to the end of times, to that last day. And as you're reading through it, chances are your Bible doesn't color code for you to let you know which time period is being talked about. It can be a very confusing thing to try and sort it all out.

And yet, for all the difficulties of the book, let's realize it is filled with glorious gems. There's a reason why so many heart verses that people memorize and treasure in their hearts come from the book of Isaiah, because these fragments show us pictures of God's salvation and they show us little portraits of the glory of King Jesus.

One of the most glorious of all of those is what we see in Isaiah chapter 11, a portrait of King Jesus with this message, the house of David is not done. Now, it will be renewed. Verses one through 10 start and end in the same place. So if you have your Bibles, you can look with me. In verse one, it begins with a reference to a guy named Jesse. "There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, a branch from his roots shall bear fruit." In verse 10, "In that day the root of Jesse..." It begins and ends with the root or stump of Jesse.

Who is he again? Well, that's what we'll spend the remainder of this sermon unpacking. We're going to do something like a skipping stone through the Bible unpacking the Davidic monarchy, the house of David, so we can understand this beautiful portrait of the king of the line of David that is to come. We'll do that in three sections. We'll see the rise of the house of David, the ruin of the house of David, and then finally the renewal of the House David.

Let's begin in the first one, the rise of House David. Again, I'm not going to go verse by verse through a long section of scripture. We're going to be skipping through the Bible. So buckle up because we're going to move quickly. From the very beginning all the way back to God's people, there was an expectation that one day God would raise up kings. In Genesis 17 verse six, God gave a promise to Abraham. He said, "I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make you into nations and kings shall come from you." All the way back to that first patriarch wandering off in the mid East, God said kings would be a part of his plan for his people. But when and how?

Well, you have to wait hundreds and hundreds of years to find out. Fast forward from Abraham to Isaac, to Jacob, all the way to Moses leading God's people out under that evil King Pharaoh into the wilderness to worship God. And before they enter the promised land, God tips his hand. He has not forgotten about those promise of kings to come. If you have the time this afternoon, maybe you look up in Deuteronomy 17, God gives rules for the kings that will one day come for his people.

Deuteronomy 17 Laws Concerning Israel’s Kings

17:15...You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.  Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.  

V.18 And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of the law, approved by the Levitical priests.  And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the worlds of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, and he and his children in Israel.

 They're going to be very different from the kings of the world. The kings of the nations around God's people. They won't accrue for themselves lots of horses and gold and wives.

Now, instead they will pay careful attention to God's word. It's amazing, God actually makes a rule long before these kings ever show up, as we read in Deut.17:18, their first order of business after they've been put on the throne is they have to go and make a copy of the scriptures for themselves by hand, word by word copying every letter so that they treasure in their hearts the very words of God. God has not forgotten about his promise to Abraham. He gives rules to God's people, describing what these kings will be like. So as they enter the promised land, you might expect, well, surely now the kings will arrive, but that's not quite how it happened.

In fact, what we see instead is the problems from trying to live without a king. During the time of the judges, God's people wander further and further away from God. It's a downward cycle. God does intervene. He sends these temporary saviors, these judges to come and bring them back to right worship and to deliver them for a time. But God's people keep going further and further to disobedience and idolatry. And you might ask, what is the problem? What is wrong? Well, there's a repeated refrain in the book of judges.

In fact, it's the last verse of the entire book to make sure you understand the point of the whole book. Judges 21:25. "In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes." Do you see brothers and sisters the problem? When there is no king, everyone thinks they are king. And it turns out, for God's people not to have a king means they will be in the chaos of idolatry. God promised they would have a king. God's people desperately show the need for a king. So when will he made good on this promise?

Well, when we get to the books of 1st and 2nd Samuel, we finally see the age of the kings arrive. The last judge, Samuel, as he grows old is given the task of appointing the first kings of Israel. Unfortunately, right from the beginning we get a preview that things aren't going to go as well as we might've hoped. At 1st Samuel 8, the people are clamoring for a king, but they've forgotten the lesson that God gave them back in Deuteronomy. They're asking for a king that is just like the kings of the nations around them.

So God has Samuel warn them. He tells them, 1st Samuel 8:10-16 "If this is the king that you want, the type of king that you want is just like the nations around you, this is how he's going to treat you. He's going to take your sons and he's going to use them for his huge army. He's going to take your daughters and he's going to use them for the cooking and the maintenance of his kingdom. He's going to accrue large amounts of gold for himself. And at the end of the day, you are going to be his slaves."

Despite the warning, God's people won't listen. They insist, 1Sam 8:19-20  "We want a king just like the nations around us." So God gives them a king. Not the king they need, but the king that they asked for. They're given Saul, Israel's first king. And by all worldly standards, he looks impressive. He is tall and strong. He proves valiant in battle. And for the beginning part, it seems as if things might go well. He shows skill and administration, and we're even told that the kingdom was renewed under him. But Saul's reign would not end well. Saul would show a pattern of selectively listening to God, one day he would also show a tendency to look out for himself, to save his own skin at the expense of his people.

Eventually God rejects Saul and rips the kingdom from him and gives it to another, Israel's second king, the son of a guy named Jesse, King David. David is very different than Saul, but he follows the pattern God said for his kings. He doesn't come from great wealth and yet he is a true Israelite. David is not especially tall or powerful looking. And yet with God's help, he will prove to be valiant and strong. Most importantly, David loves the Lord. He is a man that treasures God's word in his heart and leads God's people in worship of him. And as David reigns, God's people prosper.

There's a summary statement that comes near the end of the book of 2nd Samuel that shows us the prosperity that David's reign brought for God's people. 2nd Samuel 23:3-4. These are some of David's last words and they describe well what his reign was like. "The God of Israel has spoken to me; the Rock of Israel has said to me: 'When one rules justly over men ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth.'"

David wasn't a perfect king, but David was a good king and under his reign God's people prosper because, and this is such an important principle in your Bibles, as goes the king so go the people. If you have a good king that leads God's people in seeing the faithfulness of God, then God's people, well, they will prosper. But when you have a bad king, well, as we'll see, the ruin he brings is extraordinary. David is a good king. And the most important part of David's reign though isn't something that David does, it's something that God promises to do.

It turns out the building of House David was God's accomplishment. Kids, I saw just a couple of weeks ago that your children's ministry lesson was from this passage, 2nd Samuel 7. It recounts David having a great desire to build God a temple. He goes to the prophet Nathan and says, "I want to build God a house fitting for him." And Nathan at first says, "Yeah, that's a great idea. Go ahead. Do what you want David. Build God the house." But then the Lord comes to Nathan 2nd Samuel 7:5, and gives him another message and he goes and corrects what he said to David. "So David, God will not let you build that house. In fact, God says this, David. You won't build my house, but I'm going to build your house."

What does God mean by that? He means that he is going to make David into a dynasty, that David's sons and his descendants will rule over Israel. And it turns out they'll do so forever. 2nd Samuel 7:16, God promises to David, "And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever." That promise from God establishes House David as the standard for the kings of God's people. From that point forward, as you read in your Bible, if you see a reference to David, chances are it is referring to the kingship of Israel. A son of David means a king. All of this building of House David is done by Israel's God. The rise of House David is a glorious, important part of your Bibles. But unfortunately, the story does not end there. What happens next is a tragic turn, and that is the ruin of House David.

The ruin of House David. That's our next point, the ruin of House David. Remember that principle, as the king goes, so goes the kingdom. We've been studying 1st Kings together for several months and we saw the golden age of Israel under King Solomon. It all went so well, for the most of Solomon's reign, virtually 40 years of peace and prosperity. God gave him supernatural wisdom. He accrued wealth and world fame. The nations themselves were coming to see the glorious king of Israel with peace on every side. And yet, for as well as he started, Solomon led the nation into ruin.

He violated God's rules for kings, pretty much every single one of them. He acquired lots of gold, lots of horses and chariots, and yes, even lots of foreign wives. And those wives turned his heart away from the Lord. He led God's people in worship of other gods. And as a result, just as God said, he brought judgment on the head of the house of David. What comes after Solomon is the splintering of that house. Solomon's sons would see the glory of Israel fade. The next era, the era is often called the Divided Kingdom. Ten of the tribes of Israel go to the North to a rival king called Jeroboam. Only two tribes remain in the line of David. That's called the kingdom of Judah under King Rehoboam, Solomon's son.

For the next 200 years, there will be conflict and decline and worse and worse idolatry. And let's be clear. The Northern kingdom of Israel is the worse of the two. Their kings are more wicked and the results are more disastrous. They burn through kings at a much faster rate than the Southern kingdom and they end up carried off into exile about 125 years earlier. Finally in 722 BC, they were carried off into exile in Assyria.

On the other hand, things are a bit better for Judah. They have some faithful kings, and some faithful kings are better than no faithful kings. And yet there is still a trajectory of decline. For every good king, there's more than one bad king. And their wickedness seems only to multiply. Isaiah was living during this season of decline. He lived to watch that Northern kingdom be carried off into Assyria. And even though he didn't live to see the fall of the Southern kingdom, Isaiah would have been able to see the writing on the wall.

God's people can't keep living under wicked kings and have God's mercy endure. One day, judgment will come. God had actually prepared Isaiah for this reality at the very beginning of his ministry. In Isaiah Chapter 6, you know that glorious vision where Isaiah is brought to the throne room of heaven. What we often don't pay as much attention to is what Isaiah's ministry is going to be according to God. It's going to be one of preaching during decline, of people hearing words but not understanding them, of having their hearts grow dull. In despair, Isaiah asked the Lord, how long is this going to go on?

Well, Isaiah 6:11-13 tells us how long. Isaiah  6:11. Then I said, "How long, O Lord?" And he said, "Until cities lie waste without inhabitant and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. And though a 10th remains in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled." The holy seed is the stump.

Isaiah, from the very beginning, was told that his ministry would be one of watching the house of David decline into ruin. That the once glorious heights of the kingdom would be chopped down and burned until there was nothing left. Even if Isaiah didn't live to see the day in 597 BC when King Nebuchadnezzar came from Babylon and conquered Jerusalem and ground down all that stood, even if he didn't live to see that day, he could see that day coming. God's people would not endure in this kingdom. The house of David would one day lie in ruins.

The book of 2nd Kings ends with that reality. Israel has been carried off long ago. Judah now has found the same fate. And the last king, Jehoiakin, he, is in, far off Babylon under the thumb of the king of Babylon. Under the thumb of a foreign power is exactly where God's people will remain. For 600 years they will have one oppressor after another. It doesn't matter whether it's the Assyrians or the Babylonians or the Greeks or the Romans, God's people are not in charge and there is no glorious king on the throne of Israel.

So you might be thinking, did God forget about those promises to David? Well, there's one more act to the story, an upward turn to fill our hearts with hope, even this Christmas, the restoration of House David. The restoration of House David, our final point. Returning to Isaiah 11:1, remember the images that were in that verse. "There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse." Think of a dry dead stump. What once used to be a great oak tree has been lifeless for a long time, and yet something strange happens. From that dry dead hunk of wood, out comes a sign of new life.

Our kids like to talk about the day when the guys came and cut down our ash tree. When we bought our house, there was a tree that had caught some disease and died. So we had to have it cut down. It was tall enough, they had to climb up it and use chainsaws to cut it down in sections. It was quite a sight to see. But these days, all that's left of it in our backyard is a pretty sizable stump, a good place for my kids to stand up and pretend to preach or to jump off of a tall mountain. Just a stump of dead wood.

You don't expect much from stumps. And yet every once in a while, some form of growth finds its way out of that dry dead wood. A new tree, a new plant can actually spring forth in the midst of the dead old one and even grow to great heights itself. That's the image that Isaiah sees. He sees the dead ruined house of David like a dry stump. But he sees that it turns out David's house isn't done yet. In a better day, a day to come, the house of David is going to have life again. It is going to be restored.

It takes 600 years of waiting, of loss, of longing, of lament. But 2,000 years ago, the house of David sprouts forth again. The very beginning of the first book, the way that most of our Bibles are arranged anyway, Matthew 1:1, it reads this. "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David." Jesus Christ is the son of David that Isaiah was looking forward to. He is the king that would spring forth and bring life back to the kingdom of God. And in turn, bring back peace and prosperity to God's people.

The whole New Testament, one of the great things that is given to us to do is to establish this fact that Jesus is the son of David long promised. I wish that we had time to go through all of it together, but let me just point out that Jesus, he fulfills all the qualifications for a king that God said God's people would need over them. He doesn't come to accumulate large amounts of gold or large amounts of horses or large amounts of wives. No, he's content with just one wife, the church. He comes not to make slaves of everyone like the pagan kings would. No, he comes not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.

And he ushers in a kingdom. A kingdom unlike any kingdom this world has ever seen. As he says, a kingdom that's not of this world, a kingdom from heaven itself. This King Jesus will begin a reign that will go on and on. It will bear fruit and branch out and grow and grow and grow. And it has been doing so for 2,000 years and it will keep doing so for all eternity. Jesus is the promised king that Isaiah looked forward to. He is the shoot that came forth from the dead stump of the house of David. And he brings all of the promises to God's people through that house.

I was struck by this. The New Testament, at least the way most of our Bibles are ordered, it begins with this reference to Jesus as a Davidic son. But did you know that your Bible also ends in the same place? Revelation 22:16, one of the last things Jesus says in the last chapter of the last book that he inspired. 22:16, Jesus says, "I am the root and the descendant of David." Do you catch that? That's actually referencing Isaiah 11:1, the stump or the root, Jesus is claiming, "That's me." You can say rightly that your whole New Testament testifies to the reality that the king has come, that we are to celebrate the fact that he has come and anticipate the day when he comes back.

So, what does that all have to do with you? Living 2,000 years since the man, Jesus Christ, walked the dusty streets of Jerusalem, what does it have to do to us? This Christmas in 2020, I want to give you two lines of application. First, friend, would you realize that you need a good king over your heart? You need a good king over your heart to have the type of peace and prosperity that you need. We live in a day and age when people like to think of themselves as a law unto themselves. Maybe you've been living your life with the mistaken notion that as long as you chase after your dreams and do what see or feels right to you, then life will go well for you.

Friend, I don't know how that's been going. Maybe so far it's seemed okay. But my guess is that already that promise is not working out the way you thought it would. The Bible tells us that when we live according to our own understanding, that things will not go well for us because it turns out we are not the king of our own hearts or even of the world around us. There is a king that made us, and the only way to find true peace and prosperity is to live under his rule.

Friends, if you've been trying to live life on your own terms, you've been missing out on the greatest joy that you can find in this life. And more importantly, the only source of joy in the life to come, that is living with Jesus as your king. If you put your trust in Jesus, you'll find him to be the good king that you need. Friend, he'll never lead you astray. The things he tells you to do and teaches you to do will always lead to your eternal flourishing. But friend, if you reject King Jesus, then that period that we spoke about earlier, the kingdom of the time of the judges will be the thing that you find in your life. Your life will go from one form of chaos to another. I don't want that for you, friend.

Would you learn the lesson this morning? It's not possible to be a rule unto ourselves. No, we were made to be under the rule of a good king. Now, if you don't know King Jesus or how to become a subject of King Jesus, the wonderful thing is that even those who are foreign to his kingdom are welcome. If you'll but stop trusting yourself. If you will admit that your quest to live as king over your own heart has been folly. If you will throw yourself at his mercy, you will find that he is a wise and merciful king.

Jesus invites all those who have rebelled against his rule to come and find mercy, to find the forgiveness of their sins because he paid for them himself when he died on the cross. Friend, this Christmas you can see for yourself the goodness of this king if you'll but trust Jesus to forgive you of your sins and grant you eternal life in his kingdom forever.

Now, for all of us that are Christians, let's remember how good it is to have a good king over us. As the description that David gave as his life came to an end, don't we know it to be true that when we have a good king over us, that we prosper and find unending peace. Think of the joys that you have experienced in worship, the promises you have seen God make good on, the hope of faith that you find in your heart even at moments where it seems impossible to have hope. And yes, even that part of you that knows it's true that your best days are always ahead of you because your king is coming back.

Brothers and sisters, this Christmas whether you like all the decorations and Christmas cheer or not, would you let your heart celebrate and anticipate your good King Jesus again. Also, if you're a Christian this morning, realize that you are actually proof that this King Jesus did exactly what Isaiah saw he would do 2,700 years ago. Isaiah sees a shoot that comes out, a branch that comes from roots that grows. And as Jesus ushers in the kingdom of God, we see that he does indeed grow in his reign and that growth continues and continues and will continue forever more.

Maybe this Christmas you find yourself discouraged, either the circumstances of 2020 have you down or maybe you've just had another hard week spiritually. God has felt far away from you, and you don't feel like you lived up to your calling as a subject of King Jesus. Would you remember that your life as a Christian is actually a fulfillment of a promise 2,700 years old. That as you grow a little bit more in Christ's likeness, as feeble as that growth may seem, as you welcome someone else in the kingdom of God through your witness, you are actually furthering the reign of Jesus. You are showing that he is the king of David that will bear fruit forever and ever.

Brothers and sisters, remember the fact that you are even a Christian at all, means that our king has in fact come, that God's promises to his people are true. And that means that we can bank that all the rest of his promises will one day come true. We need only look forward in faith. The House David looked dead. It was ruined by the faithlessness of so many kings, and yet it has been restored because a new Son of David has come. Great David's greater Son now reigns, and that means God's people, well, our future is secure forever.

In the weeks ahead, you'll learn lots more about his reign. It will be a sweet study. I know that your heart will be filled both with anticipation and with celebration of your good King Jesus, the great King that has come. Now, you'll forgive me for making a Lord of the Rings reference here, but you can't name a series The King Has Come and not reference J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King. So, forgive the weakness of your pastor in this moment.

One of my favorite passages of that book comes after the forces of Sauron has been vanquished. The people of Gondor have waited a long time for the return of the Kingship to their land. They have suffered much. There has been long waiting and lament. But now a better time is here because Aragorn has risen to the throne and he will bring with him an era of peace and prosperity. It is a time of celebration, and yes, anticipation. Listen to this passage from it. "But when Aragorn arose, all that beheld him gazed in silence for it seemed to them that he was revealed now for the first time. Tall as the sea-kings of old, he stood above them all that were near. Ancient of days he seemed and yet in the flower of his manhood, and wisdom sat upon his brow, and strength and healing were in his hands, and a light was about him. And then Faramir cried, 'Behold the King!'"

Brothers and sisters, this Christmas would your heart anticipate and celebrate the king that has come, the house of David that has been restored. Jesus is King, and that is good news indeed. Let's pray.

Jesus, you are worthy of our worship as the king that has come and brought life back into the dead dry house of David. Thank you for the life that has sprouted forth from your reign, the kingdom that has come from heaven to earth, the kingdom that will endure and bring peace and prosperity to your people forever. Would you help our hearts to be enlarged this Christmas. Grant us eyes of faith to see you, our glorious King, to celebrate and anticipate the day when we will live under your rule in a remade earth forever. We pray all these things in your mighty name, amen.