Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Series: Isaiah’s Christmas Children

The Peaceable Kingdom

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Isaiah’s Christmas Children” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 17, 1999.

About this sermon

The prophets use time in a way that looks anachronistic to modern readers, and 10:28-32 and 36:2 show the difficulty. Isaiah 11:1-10 describes the kingdom of the Branch, where the wolf dwells with the lamb. Many stumble over Jesus’s own prophecies about Jerusalem and the end of the world for the same reason.

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Sermon transcript

Tonight we are reading from Isaiah 10. We are beginning our reading at verse 28. This is the word of God. Isaiah 10, verse 28. He has passed through Migron, at Michmash. He deposited his baggage. They have gone through the pass, saying, Giba will be our lodging place. Rema is terrified, and Gibeah of Saul has fled away. Cry aloud with your voice, O daughter of Galim. Pay attention, Laisha, and Richard, Amethyst. Mabnena has fled. The inhabitants of Gabin have sought refuge, yet today he will halt at Nab. He shakes his fist at the mountain of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem. Behold, the Lord, the God of hosts, will lop off the bowels with a terrible crash.

Those also who are tall in stature will be cut down, and those who are lofty will be He will cut down the thickets of the forest with an iron axe, and Lebanon will fall by the mighty one. 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, 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 the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he will sway the wicked. Also, righteousness will be the belt about his loins, and faithfulness the belt about his waist.

And 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, 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. and they will not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountains, 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 Ruth of Jephthah, who will stand as a signal for the peoples, and his resting place will be glory.”

Let’s pray together. So there is much, O God, in your prophets that would seem to confuse us. We ask, O God, that we might have Father, may we be granted understanding, even in keeping with the promise of your kingdom, even though confusion continues to reign for the world. Father, may the light of your word then be a grace to us as we make our way through this wilderness, that with that light, O God, We would be confident of your leaving, and that we shall arrive at the desired destination. This we pray through Jesus Christ, who has gone before us. Amen.

My messages on Isaiah’s Christmas children had ended, but I realized that those messages demanded a post-lude. And after that, not so much to extend my comments about the children themselves, but in order to provide something of a wrap for the prophetic perspective about which I have had much to say over the course of the previous six messages.

You may recall, in the last couple of messages at least, I made much of the inherent difficulties in hearing and reading the prophets. So formidable are these difficulties that some simply, as a general rule and with the exception of a few golden passages, avoid the prophets altogether. You’re not long into any of the prophets before you are face-to-face with complexities, problematic constructions of language and images. that seemingly defy penetration.

Obscure names oblique historical and geographical references. But even more perplexing than these can be the inexplicable, breathtaking changes in mood and emotional direction. One moment the Prophet is declaring disaster, and the next, without as much as a bat of And in some cases, within the same sentence, he is announcing the startling intrusion of divine grace. Not that the note of grace isn’t welcomed.

Its startling appearance, however, often leaves us somewhat baffled. We also commented at length on another prophetic feature what seems to be the most disconcerting shifts in audience where we can’t make out who the Prophet’s talking about. For instance, we’re rolling along comfortably talking about the judgment that’s sure to come upon the Assyrians, and without any indication or warning whatsoever in the text, we suddenly find ourselves in the middle of the verse talking about Judah’s demise. Now, we have found examples of all these unsettling features in Isaiah 7-12, the so-called Book of Emmanuel, in Isaiah’s prophecy, that section in which the figure of the child figures so prominently. We have endeavored to explain these disturbing features in our previous messages. We didn’t spend much time explaining the first feature, the meaning of the obscure and oblique references.

But the meaning for these obscure and oblique references may be found in the deliberately hidden character of the Prophet’s message, a sort of ministerial extension of what the Lord says to Isaiah. in directing him to tell the people of Judah, keep on listening, but do not perceive. Keep on looking, but do not understand. Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull and their eyes dim. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed.” speak in parables. The prophets deliberately speak in obscurities, and that’s by design. We spent much more time on the other features that we’ve mentioned this evening.

The meaning of the inexplicable changes in mood from wrath to grace. we locate it in the inexplicable and totally disarming nature of grace itself. God’s grace comes unexpectedly and undeservedly into this world and upon his chosen vessels, and that’s how it intrudes into the Prophet’s message. The meaning of the disconcerting shifts in audience where a word about Israel’s enemies suddenly slips into a word about Israel herself, we locate it in the settled but profound message that not just the Gentiles, the Jews’ enemies, but the Jews themselves are gathered under condemnation in order, finally, that the gospel of salvation through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ might come to Jew and Gentile alike. This, in keeping with the message that we finally hear in passages like Romans 3, where Paul makes it clear that all the world, Jew and Gentile together, is guilty before God, verse 19, and that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, verse 23.

All of these things, all of these devices, all of these features, then, conspiring to to prepare us for the presentation of the gospel, the gospel itself laid within the features themselves. So far, this message has been a summary and a review, and it hardly seems fair for me to get you out on a cold winter’s night merely to tell you what you’ve already heard. Actually, there is another prophetic feature, abundantly evident in Isaiah 7-12, about which we have said nothing thus far.

I have in mind the Prophet’s presentation of time, the Prophet’s presentation of history. and the apparent anachronistic character of the Prophet’s message. You know what anachronism is. Anachronism means to be out of place historically, time-wise. As if someone were to say, Julius Caesar lived in the seventeenth century in the Battle of Waterloo, Appendix today. Their treatment of time and their apparent anachronisms can be as startling and befuddling as their unexpected mood swings and their sudden shifts in audience.

In fact, it is this feature in the Prophet’s message, the whole matter of their treatment of time and history, that invariably causes so much excitement. about the prophets for so many. While their treatment of time may seem perplexing to us, it is all too clear to a great many people. But for the prophets, you see, events, if we read them properly, events appear to have the ability to reach out far beyond their historical setting, touching even the distant reaches of human history and the furthest extent of the plan of God. As the prophets speak, as they preach, as they declare their message, The events about which they speak seem to have the ability to reach far beyond their historical setting, touching even the distant reaches of human history and the far reaches of the plan of God.

We have a sweeping example of this in Isaiah 10 and 11, picking up at verse 28, where we began our reading in that tenth chapter. We find a passage that has not only thrown commentators, but in actual fact does the service of opening up for us the prophetic line as far as the historical development of the prophetic vision is concerned.

Verses 28 through 32 of that tenth chapter, as we have seen before, belong to a section speaking about the Assyrian threat. speaking about the Assyrian threat, a yet future threat for Judah. Assyria is mentioned explicitly in this chapter previously in verses 5, 12, and 24. You can check that out. When we come to verses 28-32, we would think that we have before us the incremental itinerary of the invading Assyrian army, the listing of all of the sites to which the army comes as it makes progression through the land. We have listed here, then, cities and villages to which the advancing Assyrian army comes as it makes its way toward Jerusalem. And with verse 32, Jerusalem is well imbued. But we have a problem. We have a problem if we move with this cat along this line.

For these cities mentioned all belong to the northern and eastern approach to the city of Jerusalem. the cities that lie along the route as you make your way south through Benjaminite territory. You’re coming down from the north through the territory of Benjamin toward Jerusalem in order to make your assault upon Jerusalem which is in the territory of Judah. You get the picture. A sudden course for the assault is in view in the mentioning of these cities as the army makes its way towards Jerusalem.

But when the Assyrians finally do make their assault, remember this is a prophecy concerning a future assault by the Assyrians, when the Assyrians finally do make their assault, And, as Isaiah 36 verse 2 tells us, they actually make that assault from the southwest. Not from the north, but from the southwest and from the city of Lachish, near the boundary of the territory of Philistia. The text in speaking about the Assyrians charts a southern course through the territory of Benjamin for Jerusalem. But the actual Assyrian assault comes from the southwest, and from the city of Lachish.

Well, what do you make of this? Well, in chapter 10, prior to the Assyrian invasion, Isaiah naturally thought, an Assyrian invasion will come from the north. So he wrote it up that way. When the actual invasion did occur, it seems that the Assyrians tripped up even Isaiah. How silly of them.

So much for prophetic and even biblical infallibility. Some might not be overly upset by this apparent discrepancy, and would say, Nor for Saul, who cares, it doesn’t make any difference. The main thing was that the invasion occurred and the Assyrians did in fact make an invasion, and Isaiah at least had that much right. After all, neither the Bible nor prophecy is an exact science. The tragedy is that people who talk like this hardly know how destructive they are. The balance is not only biblical authority and the Bible’s infallibility, but the squandering of a golden opportunity to grasp hold of an important feature of the Prophet’s revelation.

You see, what Isaiah is actually describing in the listing of all of these cities, is the advance of the combined army of the Israelites to the north under Pekah and the Syrians under Rezan. We read about their advance in chapters 7-9. Setting the tone for this section of Isaiah’s message is what we read in chapter 7, verse in the days of Ahaz, king of Judah, when Rezan, the king of Syria, and Pippa, the son of Ramallah, king of Israel, went up to wage war against Jerusalem, but could not conquer it.” Chapter 7, verse 1. The progression of this combined army of the Israelites and the Syrians is marked by the city-by-city march chronicled for us in chapter 10, 28 through 32. But what, we might ask, is the advance of this combined army doing in a section talking about the advance of the Assyrian army?

One of the devices of the prophets is to describe one event, it may be present or past, in such a way so as to anticipate a future event. Even in such a way so as to see laid within that event the most future and ultimate of events, the consummation of all things. It’s as if, in reading an event, the prophets are able to see in those events the coming judgment that is sure to come upon all of the world. Future events laid within present events, and even the most future event of all, the end of all things.

Therefore, Isaiah sees in the current events of the Assyrians and the Israelites, the future invasion of the Assyrians. When he speaks about the Assyrians in this passage, whose invasion is guaranteed, Isaiah says, by Judah’s reliance upon the Assyrians in her struggle against the northern alliance. But of course, you will note, and this drawing out our considerations concerning the Prophet’s estimation of time and history, this is not all that Isaiah is privileged to see. In verses 33 and 34, as the tenth chapter ends, he sees a devastation from which Judah herself cannot and will not be excluded. A devastation that comes to Judah to be sure in the Assyrian invasion, but an invasion in which Isaiah in turn sees the nation of Judah so fully laid low that the tree of Jesse is reduced to a bare stump.

And it will be many, many years in the future, and many, many more invasions still, before that shoot and branch will miraculously sprout. You see, in the event current with the Prophet, he sees the events that he visions in front of him in terms of those things that are future and yet to be realized. It will be many, many years still, and many, many invasions yet, before the shoot and branch from Jesse will miraculously sprout.

Verses 1 through 5 in that 11th chapter in Isaiah. And many, many years further still, when the perfections of his reign will manifest themselves in an environment reminiscent of Eden, verses 6-9. But a reign that will finally transcend Eden itself, as the root of Jesse is gloriously exalted and made sublime in his final resting place. which is nowhere else but glory itself.” The Prophet’s message here, as it deals with time, as it deals with history, lends an immediacy to all these events that are circumscribed. Truly then, the Prophet’s vocabulary presents many instances along this very line.

Jesus himself, the Prophet, preaches the end of the world in his predictions concerning the A.D. 70 destruction of Jerusalem. That is why the prophecies of Jesus concerning the coming destruction of Jerusalem are so hard for us to decipher and understand. He is speaking in those prophecies in prophetic form. He is looking at a near event, and he is seeing a yet future event superimposed on that near event, so that when he gives the declaration concerning it, it becomes very hard to sort out what is pertaining to the destruction of Jerusalem and what belongs to the end of the world. And how many exegetes had stumbled over his proclamation at that very point? How many churches have stumbled over Jesus’ proclamation of the coming destruction of Jerusalem and what it means concerning the end of all things?

And John the Apostle, writing the Revelation, will do the same thing as he speaks about judgments that come upon the Church and the world, judgments pertaining to the period in its extensiveness between the first and second coming of Christ. This is the Bible’s method. This is the Bible’s way of bringing us right up against the ultimate issues and the most conclusive considerations, oppressing upon us the urgency of God’s purpose and His call. The Prophet’s method of communication by the Lord’s design brings near the future distant blessings, but also the coming certain destruction of this world.

And it effectively sets before us the question, am I, in appropriating the salvation of which the prophets speak, ready for the judgment they announce? Am I, in appropriating the salvation of which the prophets speak, ready for the judgment they announce?” Are you ready?

Our Father, we pray that we would not be among those who run away from your prophets and even the difficulties that are encountered when we confront the prophets. Instead, O God, for the good of our souls, we pray that we might rush toward the prophets, that we might be busy considering the prophets’ message. May we take to heart, O God, all of the methods they use, as these are by divine design. and intended to help us with regard to the nature of our faith, character of our life, and the importance of the salvation and the judgment which the prophets present. Father, bless us, then, your children, that we would take to heart all that your word says, the law and the prophets, even as they bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And in all of this, O God, may we be prepared for the day which the prophets saw, and know that our souls are secure in Christ, and that we are ready to meet our Lord.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

January 17, 1999
A Rod from the Stem of Jesse

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Isaiah’s Christmas Children” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 10, 1999.

About this sermon

Dispensationalists misuse the prophets, and Isaiah 10-11 shows how. Readers debate whether 10:33-34 addresses Assyria or Judah. From the cut-down stump of Jesse a rod comes forth in 11:1, and Romans 3 shows the righteousness it brings.

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Sermon transcript

We begin our scripture reading this morning in Isaiah chapter 10, and we are reading from verse 24 into the 11th chapter. This is Isaiah 10, verse 24. Give your attention to God’s word. Therefore, thus says the Lord God of hosts, O my people who dwell in Zion, do not fear the Assyrian who strikes you with the rod and lifts up his staff against you the way Egypt did, for in a very little while my indignation against you will be spent and my anger will be directed toward their destruction. The Lord of hosts will arouse a scourge against him like the slaughter of Midian at the Rock of Oreb. and his staff will be over the sea, and he will lift it up the way he did in Egypt. So it will be in that day that his burden will be removed from your shoulders and his yoke from your neck, and the yoke will be broken because of fatness.

He has come against Aeth. He has passed through Migrom. At Mikmash he deposited his baggage. They have gone through the pass. saying, Giba will be our lodging place. Rhema is terrified, and Gibeah of Saul has fled away. Cry aloud with your voice, O daughter of Galene! Pay attention, Laëtia and wretched Anaphoth! Madmenna has fled, the inhabitants of Gabin have sought refuge, yet today he will halt at Nob. He shakes his fist at the mountain of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.

Behold, the Lord, the God of hosts, will lop off the bowels with a terrible crash. Those also who are tall in stature will be cut down, and those who are lofty will be abased. He will cut down the thickets of the forest with an iron axe, and Lebanon will fall by the mighty one. 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, 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 the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Also, righteousness will be the belt about his loins, and faithfulness the belt about his waist. 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, and a little child 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. then 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.”

Now, we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God, because by the works of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. even the righteousness of God through faith of Jesus Christ for all those who believe, for there is no distinction. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness, because in the forbearance of God he passed over the sins previously committed. For the demonstration, I say, of his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Christ.

Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith, is one. Do we then nullify the law through faith? May it never be. On the contrary, we establish the law.

Be with us, O God, in our prayers, that we, Lord, in our prayers, would give ourselves away for the sake of your people in the world. Surely, Jesus Christ, by his priestly administration, does this very thing. He gives himself away as sacrifice He extends himself even at your right hand at his intercessions for his own. We pray, Lord, that you will bless your people in the world, and particularly, O God, may you give them good instruction. O Father, would you raise up for yourself men who are capable in the gathering of the harvest and in the instruction of your flock? And Lord, may it be pleasing to you to hear our prayer, even as your church is strengthened through the preaching of the word. For we pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.

Many in the Church throughout the centuries have found the prophets hard plowing. Very difficult indeed. And as a result, some have tended to avoid the prophets, to avoid them altogether. In the last century, a number of godly people, committed to the word of God, well-intentioned in themselves, because of this phenomenon of avoiding the prophets, were attracted to dispensationalism.

Because of dispensationalism’s claim that it would make the prophets intelligible once more, easily accessible. This claim by the dispensationalists continues to have great impact upon our present century, that we of the Reformed faith, that we here at Grace Church, have maintained that the prophets are, in fact, penetrable apart from the schemes of the dispensationalists. apart from those schemes which essentially, and in the most superficial manner, separate the Old Testament from the New Testament, the law from the gospel, and when it comes to the prophets specifically, ethnic and territorial Israel from the Church. At base, the dispensationalist refuses to allow the prophets’ promises to ethnic and territorial Israel to be fulfilled in the Church. And thus the Dispensationalist contends that all such promises in the Prophets must have in view a future literal fulfillment for the Jews in the geographical land of Palestine. It is for this reason that Dispensationalists show great interest in the events in the Middle and in Israeli politics, and why they tend to be apocalyptic alarmists and pretty much preoccupied with Zionist theology.

The Reformed faith historically has not been impressed by these things, and at its best it has insisted upon the essential unity of God’s covenant As God’s revelation moves from the older administration into the newer administration, the Reformed faith has insisted that the law and the prophets, as a whole, intentionally serve the gospel. with the implication, again made explicit by the New Testament, that Israel finds her destiny in the Church of Jesus Christ, not apart from it. And that without us, without the Church, Israel is not made perfect. To paraphrase, words from the Epistle to the Hebrews. But having said this doesn’t make our reading or our hearing of the prophets particularly any easier.

The prophets are truly full of complexities, difficult construction and images, oblique historical and geographical references, rapid changes in mood and emotional direction. One moment the Prophet is speaking about the most severe gloom, and in the bat of an eye, the next breath, he’s speaking in the most startling fashion about the appearance and the importance of grace. But beyond these matters, the prophets are also full of what seems to be, at times, the most baffling audience shits. The most baffling shits in audience, so that We are not always clear about whom the prophet is speaking.

For example, in what we read this morning, is it clear to you who is in view in Isaiah 10 verses 33 and 34, the last verses of that tenth chapter? Who are the boughs the Lord will lop off, the tall and lofty cut down in a baste? Who is the thicket of the forest wasted by the axe? Who is this Lebanon felled by the Mighty One?”

Some, like E. J. Young and Derek Kidner, building upon exegetes like J. A. Alexander, find hear in these verses clear reference to, unambiguous reference to, the Assyrians. But others, like the British critical scholar A.S. Hebert, believe these verses refer to the Jews. He is uncertain as to whether they refer to the ten northern tribes or to the two southern tribes. but he appears to be convinced that they refer to the Jews. Who is right? Is E.J. Young right, or is A.S. Hebert right?

Our immediate inspiration is to side, of course, with Young, Kidner, and Alexander. After all, these individuals are Reformed in their orientation. They are conservative and evangelical men, and many of us have come to trust them in their exegesis. Our theological prejudice is enough to move us to their side of the argument.

The discussion is over, and the case is closed. Isaiah 10, at least verses 16 through 34 of that chapter, as nothing less than a collection of independent oracles brought together artificially from various sources and backgrounds, although not without some internal logical cohesion. Heber is obviously a theological and exegetical liberal. So why would we even bother with it? Well, because on the narrow issue of who is being addressed, Hebert may very well be right. Or at least, he may be, shall we say, more right than our stalwart conservative and reformed friend.

By this I mean that Hebert may be preserving something in these verses, in verses 33 and 34 of Isaiah 10, that is completely lost from view in the exegesis of our tried and true friends. Admittedly, things do not look good for Hebert at first glance. In addition to the things already mentioned, in addition to his liberal bias, Hebert seems to miss the obvious connection between verses 33 and 34, and verses previous in the chapter, verses 15 through 19.

These earlier verses, 15 through 19, without question refer exclusively to Assyria. In fact, Assyria is specifically mentioned in verse 5, verse 12. You note that Assyria is again mentioned in verse 24. In these earlier verses, specifically in verses 15 through 19, you will also note that we find mention made of an axe, verse 15, of thorns and briars, verse 17. of the forest and the trees of the forest, verses 18 and 19.

All of these elements, all of these aspects, in their own way, mentioned again in verses 33 and 34. The conclusion being, if verses 15 through 19 are about the Assyrians, then verses 33 and 34 are about the Assyrians also. both sets of passages, both sets of verses, using the same language and the same images.

Things are not looking good for Mr. Ebert. But secondly, influencing us against Ebert, we find the flow of verses 25 through 32 in this chapter 10 also deciding against him, it would seem. These verses begin with a call upon Zion not to fear the threat of Assyria, verses 25-27.

And then, in the most dramatic way, these verses conclude with a description of the progress of the invading army as it makes its way city by city, village by village, that’s the meaning of the listing of all the names. through the territory of Benjamin. There are all Benjamite cities and villages en route to Jerusalem, which is now in view, in sight, of the invading army when you come to verse 32. The natural reading, therefore, is that as you progress through the chapter, the natural reading of verses 33 and 34 is that the invading army is now pictured as the locked-off bowels, the proud and vain, cut down to size, verse 33, the thicket cleared by the axe, the Lebanon felled by the tree, verse 34. And that the invading army is, as we would conclude, logically it would seem from verse 5, 12, and 24, explicitly stated there, the Assyrians. Again, the discussion is over the case in flow.

However, as Hebert effectively points out, these last verses of Chapter 10 provide a masterful introduction to the opening of Chapter 11. The image of the wasted forest and the devastated land in those last verses of chapter 10 provide then the perfect setting for the appearance of the stem or the stump of Jesse out of which the shoot and branch springs. The picture is of the scorched earth. The picture is of the scorched earth in which Jesse’s wine is now but one of the felled trees. And from that stem, from that root, from that stump, That stump of a destroyed and dead tree comes miraculously a living sprig and a vital branch.

David’s true and long-expected son, the final presentation of the child figure in this section of Isaiah’s prophecy. But had we not said, in keeping with the Reformed and conservative exegesis of those last verses of chapter 10, that the forest and growth laid waste by the Lord in those verses are the Assyrians, how then the picture of Judah, as you begin chapter 11, as laid waste, as a broken and dead tree out of which a living sprig sprouts?

In answer to this question, we discover that Heber, after all, does have something to tell us. Not because we would follow him in all of his liberal reasoning, not that we would embrace him in his attitudes about the construction of the text, but because he’s laying hold of something here that is even more important than he knows. In fact, if we investigate the figure of the scorched earth, the wasted forest, and the solitary tree trunk in the previous chapters of Isaiah, The results are very, very interesting.

For instance, in Chapter 2, the language in verses 5-11 of that second chapter, directed against the Jews for their arrogance and vanity, easily slips into language about universal indictment in verses 12-22. A day of reckoning is coming, says the Lord, not just for Israel, but for the world as a whole. All who are lifted up and proud, verse 12. All the cedars of Lebanon, all the oaths of bation, verse 13 of that second chapter. The language of trees, the language of the forest. Anticipating the language we read later on in chapters 10 and 11.

What we ought to see in the judgment of Israel, according to chapter 2, is the judgment of the whole world. Look at Israel and the judgment that comes upon it. And no, the judgment is coming upon the whole world. That Israel herself is to be seen along these lines is reinforced by what we find in chapter 6 verse 13. Here, in the context of Isaiah’s call, grandly described, and the Lord’s relentless hostility expressed against Judah, not against the world, but against Judah.

The Lord promises the preservation of a tenth portion in that thirteenth verse. Saved through burning, the language is beginning to sound the same, like an oak felled whose stump remains the holy seed being the salvaged stump. Sound familiar? And what do we make of Isaiah 9, verses 18-21?

Here, the ten northern tribes of Israel, capital Samaria, are spoken about in language anticipating our passage, the later chapters. The wickedness of the ten northern tribes brings about burning, we are told. These times are like the thicket of the forest set ablaze, verse 18. The Lord’s fury consumes the land, the people themselves are fuel for the fire, verse 19. The language is compounding, it is mounting as you move through these early chapters of Isaiah. We return then to Isaiah 10 and 11, and the Prophet’s prior language achieves its end as we are led to these chapters by what has preceded.

Yes, to be sure now, Assyria will be laid waste, but such judgment is not irrespective of the devastation that is coming upon God’s own people, a devastation that comes upon Israel and Samaria to the north, and then upon Judah and Jerusalem to the south.

The fluidity of the Prophet’s words here ultimately plays off of a universal judgment, not one in which Israel is destroyed but Judah is spared, not one in which Jews are laid waste but their enemies and the nation’s escape untouched. No, the prophet’s baffling audience shift moves from the tirade against Assyria in the opening verses of that tenth chapter imperceptibly into a general condemnation that includes Judah by the concluding verses, verses 33-34. And why? Why is this the movement for the prophets? Because such a baffling shift of audience, like the rapid-fire mood shifts from wrath to mercy in the prophets, in the final analysis, preach the gospel. and Isaiah, like all of the prophets and the law as well, serves the gospel.

Carried along by description of God’s coming judgment against Assyria, we are tripped by words from which we cannot exclude Judah. Carried along by description of God’s judgment against Assyria, we are tripped up by words from which we cannot exclude Judah. Do you think that you are immune? that it is only those wicked Assyrians that will get their due. What then is the impact such a baffling shift in audience intends to have upon succeeding audiences?

Precisely what is later put on paper by the Apostle Paul to be inspiration of the same spirit who inspired Isaiah That every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God Romans 3 19 for all have sinned, Jews and Assyrians alike, and come short of the glory of God.”

How difficult it was for the Jews of Isaiah’s day to hear it, to understand it, to grasp it. How difficult it was in the days of Jesus Christ for those who were even in his presence to grasp it. How difficult it remains for the Church of Jesus Christ, even into the present time, to grasp it.

For Paul, in preaching the gospel of sovereign grace, is confronted by those who would deny that grace and preach something else altogether. A message that would leave some in a privileged position, as if they had a righteousness all built up in themselves by their works and an inherent merit. Isaiah, 700 years before the coming of Christ, was preaching the gospel. And as you consider those statements by the Apostle Paul, if you look at them in isolation, they are in fact quite devastating, are they not? Yet every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

But Paul, as you know, in the same context, he being proof of the gospel that he has embraced, does not leave us without hope, even in light of universal condemnation. for he preaches the gospel and speaks to us about being justified freely by God’s grace. How can it be otherwise if the Jews themselves are condemned?

How can it be otherwise through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Romans 3.24, the Savior of not only the Jews but the Gentiles as well as Romans 3.29 implies? But you know, this one whom Paul identifies as Christ Jesus, the very one who met him on the Damascus road, is the one Isaiah calls the rod out of Jesse’s stem, the branch growing out of Jesse’s root. Verse 11, and he it is who brings the universal reign of righteousness and peace, he alone and by him all the earth is made full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

The messages about Isaiah’s Christmas children are at an end. The rod and branch of Jesse being the last of the child figures in this glorious section of Isaiah’s Each presentation of the child, be it Shir Jeshub, a remnant shall return in chapter 7, verse 3, or Immanuel, God with us in chapter 7, verse 14, or Meher, Shalal, Hashbaz, swift as the booties, easy as the prey in chapter 8, verse 3, or the glory child of chapter 9, verse 6, or the branch now of Jesse in 11, verse 1, each presentation of the child has conveyed its own message about the severity of God’s wrath and the inexplicable wonder of His grace. Each presentation of the child figure deliberately insults human pretensions and pride, while exalting the God who perfects His power through weakness. Each presentation of the child figure then preaches the gospel, making each child portrait a Christmas portrait. as laid within the series of child figures, is the message that God himself is coming through the line of David in the interest of a universal reign of righteousness and peace, into which enter those who, embracing the Lord’s very own manner of coming to them, become themselves little children in a manifest demonstration of their own weakness and need.

I said the child of chapter 11 verse 1 is the last child. That isn’t exactly correct. The last child appears in verse 6 of the 11th chapter. And a little child shall lead them. the nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. We children all are brought into the kingdom. We children all in manifest demonstration of our own weakness and need and utter dependence. Are you among the children?

Our Father, we do thank you for the subtleties of your Word, and do challenge us, O God, that we might press on, that we might see what is laid within your Word, that we might look at your word intently and dig out of it its riches. But may we know, O God, that in the final analysis all that you have said serves the gospel, which means our undoing, that we might be remade after the image of your Son. And to this end, O God, the figure of the child is so beautifully instructive. For in the child we are confronted with the fact that you perfect your strength in weakness. The figure of the child, not one that you abhor, but one that you embrace, becoming a child yourself. that you might lead us in our childlikeness into your kingdom.

Bless us then, O God, with the cherished rebirth of which your scriptures speak. And may we perceive that message of rebirth as it is declared by the prophets and the as surely as we know it to be on the surface of things in what Jesus declares and what his apostles tell us. Lord, may we be a people of the gospel, that meaning that we are not proud and haughty, we are not like lofty boughs of the forest, but rather we are those who take the light in a dead stump, and in a miraculous way, living branch. To your glory. Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

January 10, 1999
The Child Born to a Nation

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Isaiah’s Christmas Children” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 3, 1999.

About this sermon

Prophetic literature poses three difficulties for its readers. God gives the glory child of Isaiah 9:6 to the whole nation, apart from any human parents. ‘For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.’

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Sermon transcript

This morning we begin our scripture reading in Isaiah’s prophecy, the eighth chapter. We are beginning with verse 16. This is Isaiah chapter 8, beginning with verse 16. Give your attention to God’s word. Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. And I will wait upon the Lord that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in Mount Zion.

And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and that mutter, should not a people seek unto their God? the living to the dead. To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. And they shall pass through it hardly bested and hungry, and it shall come to pass that when they shall be hungry they shall fret themselves and curse their king and their God and look upward. And they shall look unto the earth and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish, and they shall be driven to darkness. Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he likely afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by way of the sea beyond Jordan in Galilee of the nations.

The people that walk in darkness have seen a great light. They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. Thou hast multiplied the nation and not increased the joy. They joy before thee according to the joy in the harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.

But thou hast broken the yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise and diamonds rolled in blood, but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end. upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this.”

It is our hope, O God, borne by your word and by your spirit, that we, in hearing your word, would be like your people throughout the world, who today receive your word gladly. O Father, May it be a joy to us to be in worship, not only for ourselves, but for all of your people, as we are gathered as if we were one man, there presented before you that we might receive from you those things that you would teach us. Do teach us, O God. We, being taught, may we obey, and that from the depths of our hearts, and in that obedience, O God, may it be evident to you and to the world that the humility and meekness of our Savior has been a garment in which we have been dressed. And Father, may we be so glad to be so close We ask now that you would encourage us as we listen to your word proclaimed to a people throughout the world as well, that we with them would give our full concentration to that word, and help us, O God, that we might be a help ourselves to others about us, that we would be an encouragement to their concentration as well. We pray this in Jesus’ name.

Now, it may very well be, if you were to tell the truth, if you were to be honest, that you are put off by readings from the prophets. You would much rather be somewhere else than in the prophets. There are, of course, those golden passages, those texts that rise right off the page, that seem to be self-contained units in themselves, cogent all by themselves, intelligible, at least you think they are. There are those passages like what you find in Isaiah 9, verse 6, the familiar text, For unto us the child is born, unto us the son is given. And you even rehearse verses like these, and you use them. You might even emboss your greeting cards with them. But while you are familiar with the words, at the same time, you have to admit, if you are honest with yourself, The prophetic literature is not your favorite scriptural literature. You would rather be somewhere else.

The clarity of Isaiah 9.6, notwithstanding, for you have noticed as you have worked through the passage that we have read this morning, that you have these opaque, not quite translucent statements appearing in the latter part of chapter 8. Comments about binding up the testimony, verse 16 in that 8th chapter.

Remarks about familiar spirits and peeping and muttering lizards, verse 19. soldiering refugees, wandering about, as the King James puts it, hardly bested and hungry. As if the prophets weren’t difficult in their own right. We have to heap on top of that the obscurity of 17th century King James English. Hardly bested What does that mean? Well, I won’t leave you in the dark. It means painfully situated. You didn’t know that.

Things don’t get much better as you move into the ninth chapter versus immediately preceding our so-called golden passage. Verse six in that ninth chapter. What do you make, for instance, of the day of Vivian mentioned in verse 4. What is that all about? What do you make of the boots and garments, gold and blood, and destined for the incinerator in verse 5?

But if the difficulty of these words and the images evoked by them aren’t enough, we also have in the prophets those sudden and profound changes in direction, and seemingly without warning. you’re moving along in one direction and suddenly you’re caught off guard.

It seems as if there’s a complete reversal within the space of a sentence. In an earlier message we noticed one of those profound reversals of direction as we move from verse 8 and chapter 8 into the 9th verse. The 8th verse speaks unmistakably about the impending judgment that’s coming upon Judah. however, speaks about the promise of justice that’s going to be meted out upon the nations, the thought of which, by the time we reach the end of the thought in verse 10, is expressing itself in the greatest confidence concerning God’s covenantal presence with His people. Verse 8, God’s judgment upon Judah, by the time we reach the end of verse 10, God’s blessing upon these same people. What is going on here?

But further, we’re going to make it darker still, if I were to add one more unsettling feature from the Prophets, beyond the obscure words and images, beyond the radical redirections, midline it seems. You might consider verse 3 there in chapter 9 for a radical reversal, midline. If I were to add one more unsettling feature from the Prophets, another feature equally liable to put you off with regard to prophetic literature, I would call your attention to the frequent confusion, seemingly, within the Prophets concerning not simply of what is being said, but to whom it is being said, or about whom it is being said. you can’t keep all of the characters straight. As you move through the prophets, you don’t know nearly what, you’re not nearly in the dark about what he’s talking about, you’re in the dark about who he’s talking about, and who he’s talking about. Prophets become like one of those massive Roman I’m sorry, Russian novels, where you have a list of characters with all sorts of different names, and you’re in the middle of the novel and you have no idea who the author is talking about.

Looking once more, particularly along these lines of our passage this morning, we may conclude that the latter verses in chapter 8 are especially focused upon Judah, but chapter 9 While apparently picking up on the theme at the end of chapter 8, note the trouble, darkness, dimness, and anguish of verse 22 in that 8th chapter. This ninth chapter, however, appears to be addressed to the ten northern tribes. Chapter nine makes mention in verse one of Zebulon and Naphtali. Northern tribe, we move from Judah back to the ten northern tribes.

We even move beyond the Jordan territory that is not within the province of Judah at all, and we make mention of Galilee of the Gentiles at the end of that first verse. not then simply the radical redirection of the message from judgment to deliverance, but the radical disjunction of those addressed as we move from section to section. These are reasons why the prophets, except for those golden passages, may not be our favorite portions of Scripture.

But having said this, it is not to say that God himself is unaware of our predicament. It is not to say that God himself is without his reasons for making the prophetic revelation what it is, even making it as difficult as it is. those quick, sudden redirections, those abrupt, surprising shifts from wrath to grace, from wrath to mercy, are as startling as God’s grace itself. There it is. The message of these redirections is not meant in any way to lull Israel to sleep in a vain confidence that regardless of how bad things are, or even how bad Israel herself might be, she can always count on God’s love, because there is that intrusion of mercy even in these passages about wrath. Now, that message, the message of these radical redirections, is that against the background of God’s just judgment, His grace, His mercy, is always surprising and inexplicable. In other words, given the deplorable state of His people, The appearance of grace is not the natural thing. It is not the expected thing. It is not even the logical thing. For the natural, expected, and logical thing is the Lord’s just judgment.

Therefore, as utterly gracious as His mercy is as utterly unmerited as his deliverance for his people is so completely disarming and befuddling, and sudden are the prophet’s announcements of salvation even in the context of statements about judgment to an unworthy people. you might well work off of the profits in this regard concerning your own estate. For the temptation may be for you to think that God’s mercy and grace to you is the natural thing, it is the thing to be expected, it is the logical thing. You may even, in a flattering way, point to aspects of your own personality and character that make this such a natural thing, such an expected thing, such a logical thing.

Well, I am actually a very good person. And God knows that, so the logical thing, of course, is that He will show me mercy. That is very close to the theology of Islam. I don’t know whether you know that or not, but it’s very close to the theology of Islam. It is not the theology of the Bible.

With regard to these radical redirections as you move suddenly from a message about judgment to mercy, as utterly gracious as God’s mercy is, as utterly unmerited as his deliverance for his people, so completely disarming and befuddling is the prophet’s announcement of salvation to an unworthy people.

It is this mercy, it is this grace, which is further served by the Prophet’s movement from audience to audience within his message. The redirection from wrath to grace, the confusion as to who he’s talking about anyway. Grace central to the one, grace central to the other as well. It is this mercy, it is this grace, which is further served by the Prophet’s movement from audience to audience in his message.

As we have already noted, Isaiah’s words at the end of chapter 8, beginning with verse 16, find their context in the Prophet’s address to Judah. But even moving on from Judah more particularly, their immediate address is to the small band of disciples that have gathered around the prophet himself in Jerusalem. It would seem that God’s grace, as we watch the movement from audience to audience, it would seem that God’s grace has receded now from the ten northern tribes, but also from the two southern tribes, and is now residing with a little group of Isaiah’s followers. But before we can blink, we move into the ninth chapter of Isaiah and its message about the great light to shine upon a people in darkness.

And who are these people? They are not Isaiah’s disciples, living within territorial Judah and within Jerusalem, who might well expect to receive the light, since they are eminently worthy, nor are they Judah itself, who has claim, in their own estimation, to David’s throne and proximity to the temple.

Instead, the light is promised to the most unlikely candidate of all, the ten lost northern tribes. which in the course of time, and because of their dispersion, were placed, humanly speaking, in an impossible situation beyond all retrieval. That’s the power of the language. They walk in darkness as a perpetual state. They live under the shadow of death as a perpetual state. The point isn’t the possibility of rescue, the point is the impossibility of rescue. But it is these people, described here, who could not be any further removed from hope It is these people who become the recipients of what is most precious from God.

And that in order that Judeans, proximate to that throne of David and the temple, so that even Isaiah and his disciples might know and be absolutely certain that the Lord’s radiant favor is all of grace. and his work of redemption is by his power and by his power alone.

And nothing less than this is the lesson of Isaiah’s glory child in Isaiah 9 verse 6. The glory child of Isaiah 9, verse 6, is the fourth child in a list of five child figures belonging to this section of Isaiah’s prophecy, Isaiah 7-12, the so-called Book of Emanuel. Two of the previous children were Isaiah’s own, Shir Yashub of chapter 7, verse 3, and Meher Shalau Hashbaz in chapter 8, verse 3.

The other child amongst those three was the mysterious child of chapter 7, verse 14, the child given the name Immanuel. If, with the presentation of these three previous children, there had been a systematic and ingenious dismantling of human pride, an undoing for the nation of Judah, like the undoing of the prophet himself in the description of his call in Isaiah 6, then this fourth child is the crowning touch. I say this to you not simply because of the way the child is described and the titles that are heaped upon him by the end of that sixth verse, but because of the way in which the verse begins, the way in which his birth is presented. Whatever there was of the supernatural involved in the previous three children, is now outdone in the fourth. I say this fully aware of how much has been said about Immanuel in connection with the supernatural, for even a virginally conceived Immanuel, if that is how we are to understand the child of chapter 7 verse 14, is outdone by the glory child of Isaiah 9. You see, the glory child of Isaiah 9 is shrouded in more mystery still.

To begin with, his birth is described as a collective birth for all Israel, as if the whole of the nation were pregnant and delivering the child. For unto us a child is born, or as the New American Standard version has it, a child will be born to us. as if we are the ones giving birth to the child.

This fanciful way of presenting the child is set before us not in order to relegate the child or the birth to the world of myth or fantasy, rather it is meant to highlight The unity of the people in the interests of their true hope. All Israel, as it were, gathered for the purpose of giving birth to the substance of her hope. And that, you see, against the background of the judgment that’s just been read out over all of Israel. The nation is dispersed, the nation is judged, the nation is gone. But now, the nation is described as gathered, and as if that nation were one person, as if that nation were one woman giving birth to the child. Of course, this is a poetical way of speaking, and only in the theological sense of it does it have its full and proper meaning, since obviously, in the literal sense, no nation gives birth to a child.

But now, having seen this point, we are alert to the fact that in the literal sense, no parent, no individual parent, is identified with regard to this child. No parent, no individual parent is identified with regard to this child, and in this regard, the glory child of Isaiah 9 is the only child among all the children mentioned in Isaiah 7-12 so identified. No parent.

The intended impact of this description is to heighten the sense of the supernatural, even carrying you beyond what you may have perceived of the supernatural in the description of the Immanuel child of Isaiah 7 verse 14. The intended impact, then, of this description is to heighten the sense of the supernatural and to suggest to you that the true parentage of this child is none other than God himself. And the very next phrase in the verse fills out this interpretation. Unto us, not only is a child born, unto us a son is given.” Once more, the collective sense of it in the reception of the child, as if the whole nation were receiving the child as one. But likewise, once more, no identifiable parent. The implication being that God is the parent, and that it is he who is giving the child to the people. The child is his gift to them. But you remember how we led into this section in the sermon.

It has been made clear that God’s people are not worthy to receive God’s gift, are they? Neither are they, in their own strength, capable of procuring the child or generating the child. Therefore, laid within the glory child of Isaiah 9 is the message that God’s deliverance of his people will be through a child he uniquely begets. One who will be the pure embodiment of his own absolute grace and his absolute power.

The manifest demonstration of both. And what a child this is. The rest of the verse, if you please. What a child this is. According to one reading, his name shall be called, as a counselor, wonderful. In might, like a god. For eternity, a father. In the realm of peace, a prince.

But such a description of this child is not quite adequate. It doesn’t quite capture the sense and magnitude of this child. who has forgiven.” Looking at the supernatural and divinely gracious character of the child himself, such a reading, as has been suggested, will never do. For, in truth, this child is the most wonderful of counselors, exceeding all No godlike hero is he, a champion for the people, but rather the mighty God himself.

He is indeed a father. He is a father, the father of eternity. That is, he is the progenitor of eternity and of those who belong to eternity. And he is a sovereign with his own domain. that domain be in peace. He, a sovereign who both owns that domain and in his very person is identified with it. He is not only the prince over peace, he is the prince that is peace. So the child, the glory child, has come and has been acknowledged to be all of this. Has he not? Even by you. But even before there was the statements read out by the Apostle Paul that he, this child, would be received by all Israel, that is, all Israel that is Israel, and not only by Israel but by the nations flung far and wide.

To those to whom this child has truly come there is no question about his identity, nor is there any question about whether their goodness or their works produced him. brought about his birth. You see how the Protestant message of salvation by grace alone must be proclaimed with the Christmas message. You see, no work by Israel by a Jew, no inherent value rising from them, no inherent goodness, no work on their part laid in righteousness could bring forth the birth of the child. The child was a gift, and as the child is the gift, so is the salvation that is to be found in him. There is no other way, and there can be no other message than this. It is those people who are receiving this child on God’s terms, who know that the gift is all of grace, and that it is all of God.

Praise His name. Don’t you? Father, the strain is always there. It was in Isaiah’s day. It was manifest in Paul’s day. He, Lord, having lived in an earlier time, would have been the sworn enemy of Isaiah, but yet, according to your mercy in that latter day, became the proclaimer of the gospel that was laid within the message that Isaiah proclaimed himself, the message of sovereign grace, of the absolute power of God to save those who are unworthy and unfit.

Lord, where would we be? If you had not caused the light to shine upon us, if you had not delivered us from death, if you had not delivered us from our sins, where would we be, O God, if you had not given to us a child, if you had not given to us a son? Lord, as you have given the child, so also you have given salvation with him. And we now, your people, extol you and praise your glorious name. For, Lord, we cannot look to ourselves, we can only look to you. Our hope. Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

January 3, 1999
The Five Children

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Isaiah’s Christmas Children” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 27, 1998.

About this sermon

Isaiah names five children, and God uses the figure of a child for a reason. Mahershalalhashbaz means ‘swift is the spoil, speedy the prey,’ and God stays with his people even as he judges their sin. In Matthew 18:1-4 Christ sets a little child in the midst of his disciples.

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Sermon transcript

We begin our scripture reading this morning in Isaiah chapter 8. This is Isaiah’s prophecy, the 8th chapter. We are reading, beginning at verse 1. Hear the word of God. I’m reading from the New American Standard Version this morning. Then the Lord said to me, take for yourself a large tablet and write on it in ordinary letters. Swift is the booty, speedy is the prey. And I will take to myself faithful witnesses for testimony.

Uriah the priest and Zechariah, the son of Jebarekiah. So I approached the prophetess. and she conceived and gave birth to a son. Then the Lord said to me, Name him Mater Shallau Hashbaz, for before the boy knows how to cry out, My father or my mother, the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away before the king of Assyria. Again the Lord spake to me further, saying, Inasmuch as these people have rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah and rejoice in raising the son of Remeliah, now therefore behold the Lord is about to bring on them the strong and abundant waters of the Euphrates, even the king of Assyria and all his glory.

And it will rise up over all its channels and go over all its banks. Then it will sweep on into Judah. It will overflow and pass through. It will reach even to the neck, and the spread of its wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Emmanuel. Be broken, O peoples, and be shattered, and give ear, O remote places of the earth. Gird yourselves, yet be shattered. Gird yourselves, yet be shattered, devise a plan, but it will be thwarted, state a proposal, but it will not stand, for God is with us.

For thus the Lord spoke to me with mighty power and instructed me not to walk in the way of this people, saying, You are not to say it is a conspiracy in regard to all that this people call a conspiracy. and you are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it. It is the Lord of hosts whom you should regard as holy, and he shall be your fear, and he shall be your dread. Then he shall become a sanctuary, but to both the houses of Israel a stone to strike and a rock to stumble over, and a snare and a trap for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. many will stumble over them, then they will fall and be broken, they will even be snared and caught.”

Then turning over to Matthew’s Gospel, the 18th chapter, reading from verse 1, Matthew At that time, the disciples came to Jesus and said, Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And he called a child to himself and set him before them and said, Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest. in the kingdom of heaven.

Let’s pray together now. O God, you have made it plain to us that our foes are great and seemingly innumerable, and that they are spiritual powers who emanate evil and wickedness. Father, we are acquainted with the same, even in our struggles with sin. But Lord, you have been gracious in saving us from sin. and delivering us, O God, even unto your righteousness. May we, Lord, with your word in hand, the veritable sword of the Lord, fight well in your power and in all of the armor that you have supplied, that we, your children, fight ourselves, the valiant warriors, in the cause of Christ, against evil. That, of course, coming to us even as we are conscious of that sin that has been a part of us, from which we are delivered by grace, even for your glory. We pray these things in Jesus’ name, amen.

In Isaiah chapters 7-12, the so-called Book of Emmanuel, in Isaiah’s prophecy, we find an unmistakable, unavoidable concentration upon the figure of the child. We have five distinct passages over the course of these chapters in which the Prophet Isaiah sets before us the figure of a child. First, Isaiah’s very own son, Shir Yashub, by name, spoken of in chapter 7, verse 3. Then the enigmatic child Immanuel, from that famous text in chapter 7 verse 14. Third, Isaiah’s newborn son, the birth of this child described for us in the text that we read this morning, the child with the foreboding name followed then by the inexplicable glory child of chapter 9, verse 6, the one known as Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. And finally, but by no means the least, The child of chapter 11, verse 1, indeed the same child as that glory child of chapter 9, though now differently described, the branch from Jesse’s stem.

Five presentations of the figure of the child, each presentation being prophetic. That is, each presentation speaking about the future of God’s dealings with his people. To be more specific, God in the figure of the child is pleased to convey the expansiveness of his plan. he is pleased to convey even the monumental transformation he intends to bring for the entirety of the world in its course of history. God’s big doings, his biggest come in tiny packages, the large, the immense, compressed into the small and the minute, into the figure of a child. God’s magnificent work of salvation, then, by which he changes everything, is brought about through and in a child.

But why, why this concentration on the child. Why this choice of the figure of the child to convey God’s purpose and his activity? Well, of course we know, don’t we? Kids are so cute. They’re so cuddly. They’re so attractive in and of themselves. They draw attention. They even command attention. And they are so innocent.

Well, no. No, God’s reason for concentrating on the child, his reason for choosing the child as the appropriate image, is not for any of these reasons that may interest the world. Why is it, then, that the child is appropriate for Isaiah, led by the Spirit, as he, throughout the course of these chapters, repeatedly puts before us, then, the figure of the child. Why is it, then, in the final analysis, that God chooses the child as that suitable vehicle in the effecting of his purpose? even to the point of coming to us himself in the form of a child. First of all, the child is a proper figure in the administration of that government of God’s kingdom, because the child speaks to us about new beginnings. Children and the birth of a child speak to us of the arrival of a new state of affairs, ask any parent.

Nor does it matter how many children are in the family already. A new child in itself speaks about an altered environment. Things will be different. And inevitably, that altered environment is one that is filled with hope. Thus, the birth of a child is accompanied by joy. In actual fact, God intends the child to be the sign of the transition into the permanently altered state of eternal joy. and that affected, in and through, the last child, the ultimate child. The birth of the burial defense and this telegraphing to us the new beginnings which God intends for his people.

But at the same time, And in the case of Isaiah’s Christmas children, each of the children he mentions is a sign which either implicitly or explicitly communicates God’s justice. and joy, yes, but here with Isaiah’s children, the child, if you will, and wrath. In the cases of the two children mentioned before, this child in chapter 8, Neher Shalal Hashbas, the communication along this line of justice in wrath is a bit more subtle. Shir Yeshuv’s name, chapter 7 verse 3, after all means A remnant shall return, and implies, to be sure, despite its jubilant message on the surface, a horrible devastation out of which the remnant will be gathered. So while it may seem as if the joy, the rejoicing are there graciously accompanying even this child, the first of the children mentioned, is this implied message of horrible devastation out of which the remnant must arise. The same can be said for the second child, Immanuel, chapter 7, verse 14. What compares, we might ask, with the positive meaning of that name Immanuel? It means God with us. No joy equals the joy of the people of Immanuel, the people who know, in keeping with that name, that God is with them.

But you see, even this name implies a darkness. in which the light of the name then shines. It is specifically because God has not been with his people that his renewed presence, as symbolized in the coming of a child, means so much. But even more, if that were possible, it is God’s presence now which continues to mean so much to the people of God, particularly as they continue to face distress, threat, and manifest evil. And even the consequences of the same, namely death. Truly in the midst of a persistent unnerving reality, even as that reality testifies to God’s dealings with a wicked world, if not a wicked church, how comforting for those who truly believe to know that God is with them.

Emmanuel. But were the message of God’s justice, yes, his wrath has been implied with the message of joy in Shir Y’shuv and Emmanuel, that message now becomes explicit and dominant in child number three. The account of the third child’s appearance is dramatic. The Lord, beginning at verse 1 in chapter 8, instructs Isaiah to write on a large tablet in easily readable letters the Hebrew words, Neher, Shalau, Hashbeth.

These words meaning, swift is the booty, speedy is the prey, or as one translator has rendered it, quick loot fast plunder. With regard to this action on Isaiah’s part, the Lord then secures two witnesses, verse 2, Uriah and Zechariah, who validate what Isaiah writes regarding the circumstances of his actions in inscribing the tablet. Then, as if Isaiah’s inscribing of that tablet in verse 1 were itself prophetic of the prophet’s relationship to his wife, she, his wife herself, becomes the means of his writing the name yet again. Isaiah knows his wife, who now is described as a prophetess, verse 3, and she conceives and gives birth to a son. At the birth of the child, the boy is given the name that was written on the tablet.

Verse 1. As if the child had been prophesied by the inscription itself. We are then told that the infant will not know how to call out the words, my father or my mother, before the Assyrians, the dreaded Assyrians, loot and plunder both Damascus and Samaria. Verse 4. The two cities, you may recall, that have set themselves presently against Jerusalem. However, the boy’s name will continue to have significance as the Assyrians, not content with the plunder of Damascus and Samaria, turn their gaze southward toward Jerusalem itself, verses 5 through 8.

To say the least, this third child communicates the explicit and dominant message of God’s just judgment, his wrath upon his people, North and South alike. But as clear as this is, We must not be deaf to the message of joy laid within even this child. The message of God’s judgment may not have been all that clear in the first two children, because the message of joy was dominant. But here we come to the third child. and recognize fully that the message of judgment is there on the surface for all of us to read. But in seeing that message of justice, we might miss the message of joy laid within the child and his appearance.

After all, this child also is a child. This child in his embodiment of Israel and Judah’s judgment is at the same time the son of Isaiah and Immanuel’s brother. And this is why verses 9 and 10. going on with the prophecy, this is why verses 9 and 10, in picking up on the name Immanuel, at the end of verse 8, go on to speak about the ultimate undoing of the heathen nations and their plans, those who stand against the people of God. and why these verses go on to speak about the ultimate vindication of God’s people so wonderfully then trumpeted at the end of verse 10 by a restatement in translation form of the meaning of Emmanuel’s name. For Emmanuel, God is with us.

The judgment, yes, but also the joy laid within the child. But going even further, we can even discern such a positive note, as amazing as it may sound, in the story of this child’s birth, moving back to the beginning of the chapter. This is truly subtle. So you have to concentrate.

You see, the pattern of the inscription, verse 1, the pattern of the inscription, sealed by the dual witnesses in verse 2, Then giving way to the content of the inscribed message in the birth of a child is the very pattern of the movement of God’s revelation as it courses history.

Here is the movement from the Old Testament to the New and into the birth of Jesus Christ himself. the movement from an inscribed message, sealed by due witness, Are they priest and prophet? Are they law and prophet? Is that the significance of Uriah and Zechariah in the second verse? Are they priest and prophet, law and prophet, giving testimony and sealing the testimony of the inscription of the written record? And then that written record testified to by the priest and the prophet giving way to the birth of an actual child as the old, with its inscripturated record and its letter, gives way to the administration of Jesus Christ in the Spirit.

Does this third child then, so much wrapped up in the message of God’s justice and wrath, also communicate the marvels of God’s activity in fulfilling his word and sending redemption, so that in the new day the tragedies and terrors of the old are truly set behind the people of God and they now live in His glory.

You should remember though as you think of this and reflect on it in light of Christ’s very birth. That as we have worked with child number three moving from wrath to joy, we must also understand that in considering Christ, we will have to work from joy to wrath. You will not be permitted to forget it. The birth of Christ is indeed positive. What joy is equal to the joy that accompanies that birth?

However, that birth also seals God’s judgment climactically upon a resistant, stiff-necked, hard-hearted people. And that very child, born as a sign of hope and joy, in his maturity becomes, in the words of the 14th verse of this 8th chapter, as God himself, a stone of offense and a rock of scum. But what is it about God’s ways that both houses of Israel, both Samaria and Jerusalem, find so offensive? What is it about God’s ways that both houses of Israel identify as such a stumbling block stumbling stone for themselves.

It is here that we must be sensitive to the second reason why God chooses the child as the appropriate vehicle for revealing his plan and purpose. Yes, the child speaks about new beginnings, even that new beginning laid within the gospel, which see in their most pejorative and prophetic light tell us about God’s saving activity over against the darkness and termination of an old, decadent world. But the child also, as a child, says as much by its smallness. not just as it speaks to us about a new beginning, but as the child, as child, speaks to us about its smallness, its weakness, its vulnerability. The figure of the child in itself, then, by God’s determination, deflates the pumped-up estimation of self-important people. the child becomes a sermon to such people preaching God’s delight in that he proves his power through the meekest and the weakest means. In that way, there is no argument about whose power is power. If God chooses the vehicle of the child to demonstrate his power, there can be no question as to where the power resides. Who has the power?

Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of thine enemies that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.” Psalm 8 verse 2. The little things, the weak things, the insignificant, the dismissible, the vulnerable, God has chosen the weak things of the world. in order to set his power before the world. It is not because of your strength that you are redeemed. It is not because of even amoral strength that you are redeemed. It is because of your powerlessness Isn’t it interesting that as the Lord chose the child for Isaiah as the fifth instrument of instruction, concerning his eschatological ways, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, does the same.

For he places a child in the midst of his bickering disciples. They’re arguing about who is greatest in the kingdom, that is, who has the power. that now the child becomes the eloquent message to which Jesus then had commentary. Truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself as this child, he is greatest in the kingdom. Matthew 18 verses 3 and 4.

And actually if you consider it, if you consider what Jesus has done and what he has said, Both points that we have been making in this sermon are made by Him, the point with regard to new beginnings and the point with regard to powerlessness and humility.

Personal conversion is rebirth. Personal conversion is a new beginning by which you become a child and partake of the grand new beginning brought about in the gospel. But that this transformation for you takes place in your personal conformity to the figure of a child means that, as far as you are concerned, there is absolutely no question where the power has come from. And most amazingly of all, such power as is now visited upon you is in true fact located in the one who speaks to his disciples in this passage in Matthew 18.

This one not only has the power and even the greatness as his own, he being the eternal Son of God, equal to the Father and the Spirit, but he has this power and this greatness because in keeping with the divine purpose, he himself became a child. Before you were called upon to become a child yourself and follow him, he became the child. So now it’s not even your strength in thinking it’s a bright and good idea for you to become a childlike child because that’s the root to power. No, no, no, no. Your experience of being a child is now found in him and through him. It is all of him. He, in becoming a child, also becoming the perfect expression of a child’s humble weakness and vulnerability, and that’s for you.

If you sense then your grasp upon God’s new beginnings in Christ, together with your own expression of an appropriate humble weakness as inadequate, then I plead with you to turn to Jesus, who not only sets the child in the midst of the disciples, but himself became the child so that you might be led to glory, so that you might stand before your Heavenly Father, a true child of God. Isaiah’s Christmas children, intended for all God’s children. And aren’t you among them?

Lord, the world would look at the prophet and throw up its hands and exclaim near confusion. Unfortunately, O God, many in your church would look at the prophet and do the same. But we ask, Father, that if you are gracious to us, we, looking at the Prophet and into his words, would see Christ. And because we see him, O Father, may we know that yes, the wrath is presented, but also your grace and the love of the gospel. And Lord, we who have known even the darkness, do we not also now, because of your workings in us, by which we have been made children, know the light? And are we not the children of light? Lord, we thank you for your work in our souls, which you shall perfect in our bodies even unto the resurrection of the dead, through Jesus Christ who has preceded us even in that. In his name we pray. Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

December 27, 1998
God With Us in Distress

This recording is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison archive, part of the “Isaiah’s Christmas Children” series, delivered December 24, 1998.

About this sermon

Immanuel means ‘God with us,’ and Matthew 1:23 applies the name to Christ. Shearjashub’s name speaks into Israel’s distress in Isaiah 7. God goes through our distress with us, and God unites his people to the coming child.

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Sermon transcript

Tonight we begin our scripture reading in Isaiah chapter 7. Give your attention to God’s word. We begin with verse 1. Now it came about in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah the king of Judah, that reason A king of Aram and Pekah, the son of Ramaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not conquer it.

When it was reported to the house of David, saying, The Arameans had camped in Ephraim, his heart and the hearts of his people shook as trees of the forest shake with the wind. Then the Lord said to Isaiah, Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shir Jeshu, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the forest field, and say to him, Take care and be calm, have no fear, and do not be faint-hearted because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands on account of the fierce anger of Rezend and Aram and the son of Ramaliah. because Aram with Ephraim and the son of Ramaliah has planned evil against you, saying, Let us go up against Judah and terrorize it, and make for ourselves a breach in its walls, and set up the son of Tabeal as king in the midst of it. Thus says the Lord God, It shall not stand, nor shall it come to pass. For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezan. Now, within another sixty-five years, Ephraim will be shattered so that it is no longer a people. And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remeliah.

If you will not believe, you surely shall not be established.’ Then the Lord spoke again to Ahazphan. Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God. Make it deep as Sheol, or high as heaven. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord. Then he said, Listen now, O house of David, is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name Immanuel.

And he will eat curds and honey at the time he knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.” Again, the Lord spoke to me further, saying, “‘Inasmuch as these people have rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah, and rejoice in Reza and the son of Remeliah, now therefore behold, the Lord is about to bring on them the strong and abundant waters of the Euphrates.’” even the king of Assyria and all his glory, and it will rise up over all its channels and go over all its banks. Then it will sweep on into Judah. It will overflow and pass through. It will reach even to the neck and spread, and the spread of its wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.” And finally this evening, turning over to Matthew’s Gospel, the first chapter, beginning with verse 18.

Now, the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, be not afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sin. Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet. Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which translated means God with us.

Our Father, as our minds may be filled with many things, we pray, Lord, that you would quiet us in order that we might concentrate upon you. And Lord, may all of us, yes, the young who seem to be so important to us at this time of the year, and we who are older, May we all concentrate on your word and give our full attention. May our worship here and the attentiveness that we give be such that these things are a blessing to us personally, but also, O God, may they prove to be a blessing to each one of us and all those who are close to us. We pray, Father, that to this end, even as the angels were fully attended, and the shepherds as well, as those who came before the Christ, so may we also, O God, even as we give our attention to your words, May this be true, Lord, for your people, in her worship services throughout the world, not only at this time of year, but throughout the entirety of the year. For we pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

My encouragement to you is that you should not allow the size of Isaiah’s prophecy, lo, it’s sixty-six chapters, to intimidate you. At least intimidate you in the sense of forcing you to lay it aside and not consider it. Much rather, even the size of this prophecy should be an opportunity for you to develop spiritually, for you to exercise spiritually. My own prayer is that you would, in looking at the magnitude of this prophecy, consider as well the enormity, even the immensity, of God as he sets himself before you in what Isaiah sets down. My prayer is that the magnitude of the entirety of this prophecy would communicate to you God’s own immensity, before which you in your own sinful finitude would then appear to be as nothing. the greatness of God and the smallness of man.”

Thinking of things in terms that Isaiah would wish to communicate to those to whom he writes, the greatness of God, the enormity of God, and the smallness of Judah. through Isaiah’s prophecy than at any time during the year should prove to be instructive, if for no other reason than the way in which this prophecy confronts us with God’s grandeur and our own corrupt insignificance. But possibly moving through this prophecy at this time of year is especially beneficial to us, since such an exercise may prod us towards the truly extraordinary and sublime dimensions of Isaiah’s message. After all, no one quite like Isaiah among the Old Testament writers sets before us the great balance between God in his sovereign glory and humanity in its full and fallen creatureliness. And at the same time, among the Old Testament writers, no one quite like Isaiah sets before the gracious divine enterprise whereby the exalted Lord of all eternity overcomes that great gulf between himself and his sinful creatures through a voluntary, even vicarious, humiliation on his part. A voluntary, vicarious humiliation intended and designed to save some, his chosen people, his elect, those we might even describe as his church.

In the earlier chapters of Isaiah, the portion that catches our eye along these lines is that section which has come to be known as the Book of Emmanuel, specifically chapters 7 through 12. This section of Isaiah’s prophecy, as I’m sure you realize, gains its title from the name which appears for the first time in it at verse 14 in chapter 7, that famous 14th verse. The name also appears in the 8th verse of the 8th chapter, and we have read that verse as well this evening. You might note in that 8th chapter that The word once more appears, however, it’s in the Hebrew instead of the English of that tenth verse in the eighth chapter. But it is not simply the mere expressed mention of this name that characterizes this portion of Isaiah’s prophecy.

For permeating the entirety of these chapters, chapters 7 through 12, is the meaning of this name, Immanuel. And that meaning, as you know, is God with us. In communicating this central thought, and this dominant theme and motif. We find notable about these chapters something more than just the mention of the name Immanuel and all that that name communicates.

For we realize that in the initial instance, this name is introduced to us in a child at And that furthermore, throughout these chapters, there is set before us again and again the message which the Lord has for us through Isaiah, that message communicated to us in the figure of a child.

It is in the figure of a child, then, that both the great gulf between the creator and the creature, think of it, in the figure of a child, that both the great gulf between the creator and the creature, as well as the inexplicable humility which God demonstrates in his dealings with man, are accentuated. It is there for us again and again, not just one figure of a child, but with repeated figures given to us throughout the course of this section in Isaiah’s prophecy. There are no less than five children presented to us in the course of these chapters. Although not always different children, to be sure, yet uniquely set forth, distinctly set forth, in what we find before us.

In chapter 7, verse 3, we have the introduction of the first child for the section. It is one of Isaiah’s own children, a child by the name of Shir Jeshu. We have already mentioned, somewhat at length, the mysterious child, Emmanuel, set before us in the 14th verse of the 7th chapter, and we’ve read of him. In chapter 8, verse 3, we have another of Isaiah’s children set in front of us. This one with the very long and strange name, Meher Shalal Hashbaz.

I have to practice that before I’m able to rattle it off for you. But these three children mentioned so far are then followed by the two blatant portraits of the Messianic child, the coming Messianic child, the glory child of chapter 9 verses 6 and 7, and then finally the shoot out of Jesse’s stem in chapter 11 verse 1. Now, in taking stock of these children, you must be careful with your appreciation. I say this because invariably when we look at a child, or at the birth of a child, we look at that child and the child’s birth in the most positive way.

While it is true that joy does surround these children in their successive presentations by Isaiah, with each one we are face-to-face with a disturbing ambiguity. For accompanying the joy comes a certain dissonance, the terrifying and cacophonous sounds of chaos and disaster. In some way, that might not be inappropriate for a child after all. The introduction of dissonance and cacophonous sounds of chaos and disaster, even those that from time to time disturb disassembly.

But what we are observing here is certainly the case for the first child, Shir Yishun. The boy’s name means, a remnant shall return. And it’s very important as you consider that child’s name, that you understand what is being assumed when that child’s name is given and when it is spoken. Isaiah is to take the boy with him, we read of it this evening, he is to take the boy with him when he goes out to meet Ahaz, the king of Judah.

While Isaiah in his message offers hope to Ahaz and to Judah, In the midst of the current conflict in which he and that nation are involved with Syria and the ten northern tribes of Israel to the north, Jirshir-Jishu, this child of Isaiah, serves as a walking sermon concerning the distant reach that would inform and instruct Ahaz’s faith, and no less the faith of Judah.” You see, in the context, Isaiah preaches immediate deliverance in the present situation, but sheer Jeshu, by his name, he standing beside his father, proclaims to Ahaz a quality of faith that now must accept God’s word concerning a future distant debacle, a truly excruciating ordeal in which faith, if it be the type of faith which justifies, expresses the most serene confidence. such a faith as is in view, as it is proclaimed in this child.

Such a faith is serene despite devastation yet to come, looming as yet on the horizon. Such a faith is serene even as devastation comes and registers its most severe loss. Shir Y’shuv is a walking prophecy of the yet coming devastation of Judah, a devastation that is not going to come at the hands of the Syrians, at the hands of the ten northern tribes, or even at the hands of the Assyrians, but far distant, coming through the hands of the Babylonians, and that’s because of Jehovah’s judgment. And in that context, Shir-Yeshu becomes a working prophecy of the gracious salvaging by God for himself of a remnant. A remnant shall survive.

It is specifically this kind of faith that is now challenging Ahaz and is challenging Judah through the prophet Isaiah and his son. It is the kind of faith that reaches out to the distant future and grabs hold of that future despite all the horrors and terrors that that future may hold, and vindicates God in the midst of it. It is a faith that latches hold of the future even in terms of the future’s extremities, and then works backwards into the present circumstance. You see how most people have it all wrong? The faith that they’re looking for is a faith that nearly satisfies them in the immediate context. that is helpful for them in the present situation, that enables them to cope right now, moment by moment. But the faith that is being held out before Ahaz here is a faith that grasps hold of the distant future of Judah’s history. and calls him to believe in the God who will preserve for himself a people even though the land is lost and the people themselves go through a horrifying judgment. Do you see how Biblical faith works? how this faith that is being preached by Isaiah and in the child, Shear-Jeshub, works. It reaches out to the distant future and then sees all present circumstances in light of that future, because you see, all the important and ultimate matters have been resolved and settled.

I’m terrified about losing my job because in the final analysis, I’m afraid of death. If you do not have a faith that reaches out to the conclusion of the matter, even dealing with the most severe loss, you do not have the biblical faith. What I’m suggesting to you is that nothing less than what is in view here in Isaiah 7 characterizes the faith that you yourself as Christians profess. By this faith you are compelled to face the dissolution not only of your body and that reaching out to the ultimate, but the destruction of this world and the melting of its elements, according to Peter and his statements in his second letter.

Has the gospel which you have embraced as the gospel which you have believed in, is that gospel granting to you such a faith that you know that not even your death, no, not even the dissolution or end of this world can rob you of your inheritance, which has been made secure for you in Jesus Christ, an inheritance that is laid up for you in heaven, reserved for you there? is the faith which you profess at this time of the year, the faith that characterizes all of your days and will characterize your days till you die. That truly, just as there was a sheer Jeshua beside Isaiah, a remnant shall survive. In fact, it shall survive through death and the undoing of this creation. And if you have such a faith that justifies God in the face of such realities, then your faith is the justifying faith, sealed even by Christ’s blood and the Spirit’s work.

But we move along. As verse 10 in Isaiah 7 says, the Lord spoke again to Ahaz. And in this further word, the second child, as you know, is introduced, this child Emmanuel, verse 14. The Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Immanuel.” Again, the name means God with us.

It should be clear to you from this context that this child is promised in the time of Ahaz and Judah’s current distress. In other words, this child is a contemporary child. one that was born in and lived in the late 8th century B.C. What is said here by the prophet is not, first of all, dealing with the distant birth of Jesus Christ. That is not its intention in the first order. The focus of the prophecy here, the statement, has to do with a child that was going to be born, presumably in Jerusalem, contemporary to Ahaz and to Isaiah in the context of the late 8th century B.C. He is to be born during the time of the threat of that alliance between Syria and the ten northern tribes of Israel, as they have joined themselves together against Judah. This child, by his birth and by his name, comes as a confrontation So, says Isaiah, on the authority of the Lord, comes as a confrontation to Ahaz’s arrogant, feigned piety.

Although he had invited to ask a sign as deep as hell and as high as heaven, Ahaz begs off self-righteously and evasively by saying, I will not ask. nor will I test or tempt the Lord.” He sounds quite pious when he is anything but. For Ahaz knows what is in his own heart and mind. The Lord, regardless of what signs he might provide this king, is not Ahaz’s confidence. Instead, Assyria is Ahaz’s confidence. As Syria and the ten northern tribes have set themselves against Judah, Ahaz has not turned to the Lord, instead he has turned to us, Syria, for his deliverance. This is his oath. Whatever joy then we might attach to the birth of Emmanuel, that joy is surrounded then by the current threat but also by Ahaz’s wicked treaty with Assyria and the failure of his own faith.

In the midst of all of this, Emmanuel does become a sign, functioning effectively in the distress that has overtaken Judah, overtaken Judah’s people. In fact, it is particularly this ambiguity that defines Emmanuel’s usefulness as a sign. He is a sign of God’s presence in distress. You see, you have to have the distress to appreciate God’s presence in the distress. Now, many of you are arguing with God because you believe that Christianity entitles you to a life without distress. There is no such thing. You see, Emmanuel is a sign of God’s presence in distress. God, in the sign, in Emmanuel, accommodating himself to the distress. That this is true specifically in what we find in this prophecy is borne out by the progress of the prophecy itself.

Emmanuel will be born while the Assyrians and the Ephraimites, that is, the ten northern tribes, threaten. But he will live out his days even into the time of the assault of the Assyrians, which is coming. the very Assyrians to whom Ahaz presently turns for help, but who shall in turn turn upon Judah, making Judah their prey. This means, then, that this child, Emmanuel, will be alive during the days of the Assyrian invasion. When the Assyrians overwhelm the promised land in its its totality led by their general and king, Sennacherib.

And neither Immanuel’s presence nor his name’s meaning will secure Judah or Jerusalem against this onslaught. Most amazingly, Immanuel himself, the child now growing up, will live through the onslaught. Emmanuel, the one whose name means God with us, will suffer because of the onslaught.

Just how much we are to grasp, this is made evident as the prophecy continues into the eighth chapter, especially that eighth verse. in the eighth chapter, then the tidal wave of Assyria will sweep into Judah, it will overflow and pass through, it will reach even the neck, and the spread of its wings will fill the breadth of your lands, O Immanuel.” Immanuel, we thought, was a name that bespoke that which was positive, but here it is spoken of in the midst of that which is negative. Emmanuel himself bearing up under the judgment, bearing up under the onslaught, he himself experiencing the onslaught, the character of the faith generated by this child was the sort that remains adamant about God’s presence in the face of the nation’s destruction. But in Immanuel, we are equally instructed about God’s identification with his own cause, so that like the child Immanuel himself, he, the great God, goes through the ordeal also. The name is Immanuel. God with us in our distress, in the destruction itself. Do I need to draw out the significance of all of this for you? Is it not clear enough to you?

The baby Emmanuel from Isaiah’s day, even the boy as he grows, the man as he matures, the one who carries that name will live through the coming ordeal, he will live through the coming distress, he will live through the coming destruction, the name itself preaching the hidden presence of God among his people. But this child, little Emmanuel, belonging to Isaiah’s day, of course, anticipates a child who, as a sign in the latter day, reaches fully the depths and the heights. This latter child is no mere human baby, symbolically bearing the name Immanuel, but a divine child, really and truly fulfilling that name. The new Immanuel is born to be is born to no mere maid in Judah, but miraculously conceived to a literal virgin.

This one will live through and suffer in the life of his people in order that his people might live in him. He compels the faith of all of God’s people in order that they might know that God has actually taken to himself is people’s condition, human flesh, and is bound to us in our life in this world until that life is completely resolved by the glories of the kingdom of heaven.

And thus, the enormity of God is matched by the enormity of his love. and that telegraphed to you in a child. Our Father and our King, we thank you, Lord, for the genius of your message to your people, and how beautifully and wonderfully, even in the pages of the Old Testament, and in what might seem to be the obscure messages of the prophets, the word of the gospel is declared. And how, Lord, we thank you that the day anxiously awaited by Isaiah and others has come, and that the arrival of this day means now that we are enabled to understand so fully So marvelous.

The extent of your greatness. And the wonders of your life. Oh father we ask. That the lesson of the children in Isaiah. May register well upon us. And father we are asking. That the message of Emmanuel. would preach volumes. Lord, may we have such a faith as is prepared to receive the message, and may we receive it with gladness. We pray, Lord, that this may be to our good and to your glory. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

December 24, 1998
The High and Lofty One

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Isaiah’s Christmas Children” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 20, 1998.

About this sermon

Isaiah’s prophecy is immense and Judah is small. In Isaiah 57:15 the high and lofty One dwells with the contrite and humble. Judah’s sin fills 1:1-8, God’s surprising grace answers it in 1:9, and Isaiah turns again and again to the figure of a child.

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Sermon transcript

We begin our scripture reading this morning with a verse from Isaiah chapter 57. Before we go back to Isaiah chapter 1, we start in Isaiah 57. I’m reading verse 15. Give your attention to God’s word. For thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken.

I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corruptors, They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, they have gone away backward.

Why should ye be stricken any more? Ye will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it. but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire, your land as strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in the Garden of Cucumbers, as a besieged city, except the Lord of Hosts had left unto us a very small remnant. We should have been as Sodom, we should have been like unto Gomorrah.”

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims. Each one had six wings. With twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.

One cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand. which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar. And he laid it upon my mouth and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thy iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I, send me.

And he said, Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not, and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.’ Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitants, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate. and the Lord hath removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. But yet in it shall be a tent, and it shall return, and shall be eaten as a teal tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves, so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.

Let’s pray together. O Lord, with your word, refresh us. And Father, grant your mercy to your people in the world, that they with us may be refreshed. But Father, we pray for the powerful effect of your word as well not only for us and your children, but among those who are being gathered. So we would ask, Lord, your blessing upon your servants who preach the word today, who preach it in places far off, even, that they may be empowered by your spirit, and that the effect of that proclamation may be marvelous. We ask, Lord, that we might pray with expectation and confidence that all of your purposes are being fulfilled.

Oh Lord, we trust in you. Amen. Isaiah’s prophecy is remarkable in its scope. We stand in awe of it, if for no other reason, because of its sheer size. It’s sixty-six chapters. That size, like the size of the other two major prophets in the Old Testament, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, contains a message in itself. For this book, being of such enormity, communicates by its size the far reach of the divine purpose and the immensity of God’s very own person.

By contrast, Israel is but a little nation. Even in its unified state, previous to the days of Isaiah, Even in its unified state, Israel is but a little nation. And even if Israel were to gain all of the territory to which it in ancient times aspired, and even in present times aspires, it would still be but a little nation. And what of Judah, that broken-off piece of Israel, that piece of Israel to which Isaiah speaks in his prophecy? This piece of Israel is a smaller nation still.

But to this microscopic excuse for a country comes this immense monumental revelation. And in that revelation, nothing less than as if the ages, present and future, as if the universe, the entirety of the cosmos, in its most comprehensive consideration, were jammed into the confines, not just of this book, but of the nation itself, its boundaries and its history.

Something like pouring an ocean into a cup. The size, then, of Isaiah’s prophecy is instructive. It is instructive by design, by intention. Its sheer size forces Judah to a consideration of her smallness, even as she considers herself against the background of the immensity of God’s plan. the sheer size of the prophecy, works in Judah, forces Judah into a humble reflection upon herself, if she is seeing things rightly. And that in light not only of the magnificence of God’s great design, but in light of God’s wonderful promise, the end of which is that through the instrumentality of this small, insignificant piece of real estate, the Lord is constraining the entirety of creation to move towards the new heavens and the new earth. nothing less grand than that. It will be this interplay between the minute and the monumental. between the comprehensive and the provincial, between the unobtrusive and the grand eloquent, that not just colors, but determines the doctrine, the theology, the message of Isaiah. from beginning to end.

Nowhere does this receive such succinct, such compact and powerful expression as it does in Isaiah 57, verse 15, which we read as we began our scripture reading this morning. in the agency of the Lord himself, sets before us the self-identification of the Lord from the Lord.

He is the one who is identified as the High and Exalted One. You’re reaching for the limits here. The High and the Exalted One, the One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy. And this one says, I dwell in the high and holy place, but also with the contrite and lowly of spirit. Do you see the reach of it? And then the irony of it? The greatness and the magnitude and then the smallness I dwell also with the contrite and lowly in spirit, in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and the heart of the contrite.”

Yohades Vash goes so far to say that this one verse, more than any other verse in Isaiah, expresses the fundamental burden of Isaiah’s message. the high and the low, the limit in the lofty extremes, and the most humble. The immense and the little. Compressed into this verse is what is laid within the fabric of the book of Isaiah as a whole. And what we find in the fabric of the whole finds itself expressed more expansively in other places in Isaiah. For instance, in that matchless passage, Isaiah 40.

A passage which many of you have labored to commit to memory. You know the chapter. The chapter begins with those familiar words, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. And that chapter ends with the words, But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

And in between these two realms, at the beginning and at the end, we are reminded of the sinfulness of humanity, not just of the finiteness of humanity, but of the sinfulness of humanity. We are reminded of the sins of Judah and the repayment doubled for all of those offenses. We are reminded that all flesh is as grass, so says the Lord. And we are told, in comparison to God, all the nations are as a drop in a bucket, indeed all is nothing.

But it is the God who sets himself forth here in Isaiah, no less in Isaiah 40, who is the one who gives power to the faint, to them who have no might he increases strength. In these latter chapters of Isaiah, the incomparable magnificence of this contrast between the infinite God and a finite, broken, and corrupted humanity is set forth finally for us in a solitary figure, in the figure of the Lord’s own faithful suffering servant, whose life is set forth for us in the famous Servant Songs of Isaiah, the most famous of which is Isaiah 53. This servant in his innocence adorns himself with lowliness. He chooses that lowliness. He takes to himself a contrition, and that for the sake of those for whom he is sent, those whom he serves. in order that these might, in the language of Isaiah 57, be revived, that is, born again, or that they might, in the language of Isaiah 53, be justified. The Lord shall see the prevail of his servant’s soul and be satisfied, for by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.” Isaiah 53, verse 11. when the suffering servant finally, then, the great God, meets man in his lowliness and even his dismissible insignificance.

But since, as Avos has said, Isaiah 57, verse 15, captures the prophecy as a whole, And this message is woven throughout, evident in the expansive statement of Isaiah 40. We certainly don’t have to wait, do we, until the latter chapters of Isaiah to catch the scent of the theme. That theme in the early chapters of Isaiah strikes home from the very beginning notes, and that in the most pointed way. be tempted to think, lest you be tempted to think, that in the scales measuring out the respective immensity of God and the dismissible gravity of the human race, that at least Judah is still of significant weight, then think again.”

Isaiah, in his opening verse, identifies the Judah is in her heyday. Oh yes, she is a broken-off piece of Israel, but she is in her heyday. Not since Solomon had such strength and prominence been known within the territorial borders of the promised land, and that in the successive reigns in that eighth century B.C. of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.

But in the midst of such might and prosperity, the prophet Isaiah commands the heavens and the earth, in the first verse of his prophecy, to hear the Lord’s testimony against Judah. With the horrific judgment against the ten northern tribes already visible and certain, the Lord, through his prophet now, shakes Judah to the south with a vision of her coming devastation and that for her sin.

We have read Isaiah’s account of Judah’s sin in verses 2 through 6 in that first chapter. We have read Isaiah’s vision of Judah’s coming devastation in verses 7 and 8. These opening verses strike at Judean pride. They tell of Judah’s demise in light of Judah’s pride.

The demise of the two southern tribes, that is, and their capital city, Jerusalem, a demise that follows suit parallel to the destruction of Israel to the north, the ten northern tribes, and that capital there, Samaria. But now, in light of such proclamation, declaration of judgment, What then becomes of the significance claimed by Judah and Jerusalem? What of their supposed weightiness in the scales? A weightiness they imagined spoke favorably for them, even if God himself were placed in the balance.

But Isaiah says, all sinful nation a people laden with iniquity, sons of corruption. Your land is desolate, your city burned with fire, your fields devoured by strangers in your presence, your country is desolate, overthrown by strangers, and the batter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.” Now, you are mistaken if you think that there is some comfort in that lodge in the cucumber patch. You are mistaken if, in listening to these words from Isaiah, you think that they leave room for some form of hope. That is not their intention. They are framed in such a way as to leave Judah, if understood properly, with nothing.

Nothing whatsoever for her own self-esteem to put in the scales, particularly as she would place herself in those scales with herself on one side and God on the other. it is precisely this point, the utter devastation and distress communicated by these opening words, it is precisely this point which makes the ninth verse so dramatic. For in this ninth verse, the Word Himself, according to His sovereign grace, according to his unexpected, surprising, sovereign grace. You are moving through the chapter, through the verses, listening to the indictment coming from Isaiah upon Judah. You are hearing the words of judgment and censure, and you’re not prepared for what you get in verse 9.

It’s not as if there’s been a slip It’s not as if there’s been a falter on the part of the Prophet, or a lapse on the part of God Himself. The swift change from verse 8 to verse 9 is deliberate and intentional. It’s not the intrusion of a later writer, it’s not someone trying to inject hope into an utterly depressing passage.

It is the vice used by the Lord himself in order that he might underscore his sovereign, unexpected, surprising grace.” As surprising as this verse is, so surprising is God’s grace. As unexpected as this verse is, so unexpected is God’s grace. as inexplicable as this verse is, so inexplicable is God’s grace. So that the Lord now, in the course of the diatribe, In the course of reading out the sentence and the judgment, according to his mercy, unexpectedly and surprisingly, tips the scale by preserving something in the balance opposite him where there should be nothing at all.

It is in the face of such total annihilation the true Holocaust, if you want to know, that the Lord God, in his servant Isaiah, says to these Jews, except the Lord of Hosts, have left unto us a very small remnant. I love the King James. A very small remnant. we would have become as Sodom we would have been like unto Gomorrah. But admittedly now, I recognize this, the Lord’s point here is subtle.

There is a certain air of ambiguity hovering over this text. In my interpretation of it, I have subjected it, you may say, to a certain reading, namely that verse 9, with this verse, the Lord means to accent His sovereign grace by preserving something where there should be nothing. I contend that this is the way the Apostle Paul reads this text when he quotes it in Romans 9, verse 29. However, at the same time, admittedly, and I recognize this, there is, as I said, an air of ambiguity.

Might not this verse also be interpreted along the line that the reason the Lord leaves the is because the remnant in itself has value. That the remnant in itself has a residual, commendable strength. In other words, we could ask, with regard to this verse, is the remnant here in itself still something rather than nothing? It is this question that begs for an answer, and I suggest to you that that answer is graciously given to you in what follows in the course of Isaiah’s prophecy.

The latter chapters of Isaiah so powerfully focus upon that solitary figure. who is the one who is set forth when no one else is sound, when no one else is sound who can stand. That solitary figure of the suffering servant, innocent in himself and separated from humanity generally. thereby in his person setting before us the stark contrast between God and his awesome holiness and humanity in its finitude and simpleness. But here in these earlier chapters, with their own special power and forcefulness, in a preliminary way, in a provisional and preparatory way, this same contrast is set forth but in its most immediate expression, not in one inherently innocent, as would be the promised suffering servant, but in one who himself by nature is corrupt and desperately in need of the Lord’s sanctification. I am speaking, of course, of Isaiah himself, who in his confession acknowledges that he has no business being placed in a comparative scale with the Lord.

In the face of God’s glorious self-revelation to Isaiah in chapter 6, Isaiah cries out, “‘Woe is me, for I am undone! May be better, I am ruined, I am destroyed, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.’” The Lord’s preservation of Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 6 is no more by Isaiah’s merit than the remnant’s preservation in chapter 1 is by the remnant’s merit. And by way of extension, we can say that Isaiah’s preservation in chapter 6 is no more because of Isaiah’s native strength and weightiness than the remnant’s salvation in chapter 1, verse 9, is due to its collective strength and significance.

Instead, the remnant’s salvation will be by way of the Lord’s strength and glory, God for his own glory being pleased to reveal his power and his splendor in and through the weakness and insignificance of those whom he calls to himself. And it is for this reason, that is, God’s interest in exalting His divine power and grace even through human weakness.

It is for this reason that in the early chapters of Isaiah, Together with the presentation of this fragile remnant and the fractured prophet Isaiah, the prophet’s message gravitates toward the repeated presentation of the figure of the child. You will find in what follows Isaiah 6 repeated appeals by the prophet to the figure of the child, and that deliberately. It will be in the coming messages. that we will be looking at Isaiah’s Christmas children, successively set in front of us in chapters 7-11, children who each in turn speak to us about God’s greatness and goodness in contrast to human insignificance and unworthiness. It will be my task not only to properly identify these children for you, but to help you appropriately identify with them.

Our Father, we may well have been overwhelmed by the size and magnitude of Isaiah’s prophecy, but Lord, with the size of that prophecy, there is also the magnitude of our God and the immensity of his purpose. And Lord, we pray that in considering these things, we would be impressed with the mystery of your workings, whereby you are pleased to bring praise and glory to yourself through that which is weak, through that which is even given over to destruction, so that in light of that destruction, the only way that hope can arise is if the Lord himself acts. Father, we trust you, for you have acted. You have acted for your people in manifesting your strength even in their weakness. We trust you, O God, because you have acted in and through your Son, who in the weakness of his crucifixion, and in giving himself over to destruction and death, You have revived him and brought him to yourself, exalting him to your right hand. Lord, we pray that as we consider Isaiah and his message, that even these things that are out in front of Isaiah would become clear to us as they are laid within his words. We pray this, Lord, to your glory.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

December 20, 1998
A Remnant Shall Return

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Isaiah’s Christmas Children” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 20, 1998.

About this sermon

Ahaz faces Syria and Israel, and Isaiah prophesies into that crisis. Chapters 7-12 form the book of Immanuel, and its children carry the message. Isaiah’s son Shearjashub bears a name that means ‘a remnant shall return.’

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Sermon transcript

give you attention to God’s word. This is Isaiah 7, verse 1. Now it came about in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezan, the king of Aram, and Pekah, the son of Ramaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not conquer it.

When it was reported to the house of David, saying, The Arameans had camped in Ephraim. His heart and the hearts of his people shook as trees of the forest shake with the wind. Then the Lord said to Isaiah, Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son, Ashur-Jeshub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway to the fuller’s field, and say to him, Take care and be calm. Have no fear, and do not be faint-hearted because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands, on account of the fierce anger of reason and Aram and the son of Remeliah. Because Aram, with Ephraim, and the son of Remeliah, has planned evil against you, saying, Let us go up against Judah and terrorize it, and make for ourselves a breach in its walls, and set up the son of Cabele as king in the midst of it.

Thus says the Lord God, It shall not stand, nor shall it come to pass. For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezan. Now within another sixty-five years, Ephraim will be shattered, so it is no longer a people. And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remeliah. If you will not believe, you surely shall not be established.

Lord, we thank you for every reminder of your son’s birth. And Father, as your people, those who are zealous to confess you, we ask that as we are reminded of the birth of your son, that our minds might be kept clear and that our hearts would be pure. Father, the world is drawn into the celebration, and Father, we know that even this has its ironic twist, that those who do not know you or confess you are seemingly compelled to acknowledge you and the greatness of your Son. But Father, we would not be deceived by all that sparkles, all that distracts, all that catches our eye.

Instead, Lord, our souls would be fixed upon Christ himself, your gift to us. Help us therefore, O God, by the way we conduct ourselves, to be those who testify in keeping with the words that are given to us, keeping, O God, with the opportunities that present themselves. O Lord, help us to be an evident testimony to the graciousness of our God and the wonder of Christ. Bless us, Lord, even at this time of year, and, Lord, may we not allow our hearts and minds to run away with us into all kinds of sentimentality, but may we be content, O God, to be fixed with the confession of our faith and the glories of Christ. We ask this through Christ. who lives within us.

Let me try this evening to give you a feel for what is going on here in Isaiah chapter The year is 740 B.C., or thereabouts. Judah’s great king, Uzziah, has died, and with his death there has also come the death of a long period of peace in the experience of the people of Judah. In fact, both Judah You know your geography and something of the history of the people of God. Both Judah to the south and the nation of Israel to the north, the two southern tribes, the ten northern tribes, split by civil war after the reign of Solomon. had at this particular time enjoyed nearly fifty years of freedom from massive external assault. If you know anything about life in the ancient world, that was certainly a blessing.

Syria, to be sure, was a nuisance, a disturbance. But now, on the horizon, rose the imposing predator, the Assyrians, who had been called by some the Nazis of the ancient world. To a succession of impressive leaders, Tiglath-Belizer, that is the third. Don’t you love the names? They’re even fun to say. Shalmaneser the fifth, Sargon the second, and of course, that most formidable of all, Through a succession of impressive leaders, the Assyrians had campaigned in the interests of their superpower mentality.

These Assyrians weren’t your ordinary land-grabbing marauders, you know, the rape-and-pillage They set their sights on more than the proverbial spoils of war. Their interest was world dominance, which they advanced through a systematic program, a program uprooting entire nations. That was their method. A method that meant the transportation of the inhabitants of the defeated nations, and then to ensure power and their rule of law, the swift and immediate reprisal for the faintest hint of rebellion. And I mean swift and immediate. Assyrian power has been described as hideous, for the Assyrians were exceedingly cruel.

About five years after Uzziah’s death, that death mentioned for us at the beginning of Isaiah 6, if you will recall, With Ahaz, his grandson, now on the throne in Jerusalem, distressing news shakes the Judean world. It seems that Israel, those ten northern tribes, have united with Syria, the nuisance, in an effort to block the advancing deluge from Assyria. in the minds of both the Syrians and the Israelites, those described as Ephraim, it only made sense that Judah should tag along, join them in the stand. The thought was that these three nations, and possibly some other lesser nations, as could withstand the Assyrian assault. But what shocked the Judeans was word that the Syrian-Israelite coalition was so distressed by Judah’s refusal to join in their alliance that this coalition now set its sights upon Jerusalem itself.

Ahaz, in this situation, a very proud man, acted seemingly as if, well, what’s the problem? when in actual fact he was internally stumbling and looking for a solution. The king is as terrified as the people, so what does he do? He turns to the Assyrians, those cruel people which the Assyrians and the Israelites had hoped to stop.

This then brings us up to date with Isaiah 7. When Judah refused to help, the Syrian-Israelite coalition invaded the land of Judah with the objective of placing their own man, the son of Kabil, on the throne of Jerusalem, and that individual is mentioned for you in the 6th verse of the 7th chapter. for what we have read in the seventh chapter.

But it might also be helpful to set the stage theologically. As we said this morning, Isaiah is the prophet of divine grandeur, and that specifically in relation to, and even in contrast with, human weakness and vanity. the magnificence of God and the puniness of man, the greatness of God and the littleness even of Judah and those who inhabit it. This message is variously communicated throughout the prophecy from Isaiah, and that in such a way that even Judah, for all of her advantages, She is, after all, living in the shadow of the temple. She is living with the planes of David there, hovering over the city of Jerusalem and securing the people within the land which they believe has been promised to them. Even Judah, for all of her advantages and all of her supposed reasons to boast, are put in their place.

For here, in light of this stark contrast, the immensity of God and the smallness of man, is portrayed for us a universal devastation that reduces man, reduces humanity to nothing, to utter desolation. Meaning, of course, that if there is anything to be salvaged, if there is anything to be saved, God himself will have to act. For man does not have it in himself, even in what he is as a creature, much less what he is as a fallen creature. to save himself. God’s salvaging activity, sovereign and gracious, God’s salvaging activity has been variously presented throughout the prophecy of Isaac. at the very beginning of the prophecy and throughout the early chapters, that salvaging activity repeatedly turns to the very small remnant of which the Prophet speaks.

If Judah is little, the remnant is littler. If Judah is insignificant, then the remnant is even more insignificant. Judah dismissible, the remnant even more dismissible. But at the beginning of the prophecy of Isaiah, and throughout those early chapters of Isaiah, you will find the Prophet repeatedly referring to the remnants, so wonderfully identified in the first chapter of Isaiah, at least according to the King James Version, as that very small remnant. Not saved by its own merit, nor by its own strength. The remnant doesn’t even have the wherewithal to form, out of its number, an army.

And at the end of the prophecy, what can we say about the way things progress at the conclusion of the prophecy, specifically with reference to the famous suffering servant figure set forth for us there. That one who takes to himself the weakness and the fallenness of his people and bears in his body the judgment that they deserve.

But you know from this morning’s message that God’s salvaging activity will also be highlighted in the prophet himself, in Isaiah, personally. And that’s why Isaiah 6 is so significant. For here you have the confession of one who stands in privileged position within Israel, within Jerusalem, within the temple.

He is brought right within the sanctuary, and as he is confronted with the vision of God in all of his glory, in all of his magnificence, he is constrained to cry out, Where is me? For I am a ruined man. I am distraught. A man of unclean lips, living in the midst of a people of uncleanness.

This unworthy man then, in keeping with God’s salvaging activity, his saving enterprise, becomes a conduit of God’s holiness. God’s salvaging activity is also powerfully presented for us as we launch into chapter 7, is powerfully presented to us in the figures of a number of children. It is now becoming as profound as it is sublime. You have Judah, you might imagine strength for her, you have the remnant, you might even be able to conjure up strength for the remnant in thinking about it.

But when you are face-to-face with a child, what do you do? The child is utterly helpless. The child is completely without power. If the remnant cannot generate an army in demonstration of its own strength, then what about a child, for heaven’s sakes?

The lessons are keeping up, they’re being piled up for Judah’s consideration, and beyond Judah, they’re being piled up for your consideration. Theologically, it is not going to be sufficient for us just to take stock of these things that are laid out for us here, for we are going to have to consider them in light of the program and the scheme of God’s redemptive purposes. For where does Isaiah live? Where does Ahaz live? Where does this church of the Old Testament at this time live? Where does it exist?

It exists between the time of the ascent of David to the throne. It lives in the time between the ascent of David to his throne to that time of the promise of the return of David, even in his greater self. And redemptively and historically, you see the correlation between Ahaz’s situation, Isaiah’s situation, the church of the Old Testament. and your own. Where do you live? You live between the time of the ascent of David’s greater son and his returning glory.

And that’s what makes this word meaningful. It means for you that this word carries with it its own application, and it is imperative that you identify with it and live under what it says. That church in Isaiah’s day being called by these various means to consider her circumstance and situation, particularly in light of God’s greatness and her own weakness, and you likewise, my friends. Just what power Will you present from yourself before the God who sits upon the circumference of the earth and looks upon us as if we were so many grasshoppers? I didn’t make that language up.

It comes from Isaiah chapter 4. So then you have a series of children, one after another, striking, striking at you, striking at your pride, just as they struck at the pride of the Judeans in the days of Ahaz. Isaiah 7-12, those chapters, have been called the Book of Emmanuel, a description which this section of scripture picks up from the second child in the series to be mentioned. This second child introduced to you in verses 10 and following of the seventh chapter is dramatically described as that one who is virgin conceived, verse 14.

Now we’re really talking about powerlessness, aren’t we? The name of this child, Immanuel, as you know, means God with us. It is repeated in chapter 8, verse 8, alluded to, laid within the lines of chapter 8, verse And it is thought that the nature of the person in view and the reign in view progressively builds throughout these chapters to an appropriate conclusion. From the immediate threat introduced at the beginning of chapter 7, these Immanuel chapters extend to coming events in Judah’s history and envision even a worldwide dispersion of God’s people, chapter 11. But going even further, These Immanuel chapters touch the last days in God’s saving purpose for the whole earth, chapter 12. It’s as if the book of Immanuel were a book unto itself, complete unto itself. And in it you have, as it were, the history of the entire world set in front of you.

That is, from God’s perspective. The child becomes the appropriate figure, then, in God’s saving activity, because, as it should be obvious to you, the child so eloquently communicates, first of all, weakness, helplessness, not strength and power. The child is the appropriate vehicle in whom and through whom God is able to speak about the absoluteness of his power in accomplishing his purpose in contrast to human inadequacy. Emmanuel is the second child.

Actually, there are five distinct references to children in the course of these chapters, seven through twelve. not that they are all separate and distinct children. The first three appear to be children born either to Isaiah or at least contemporary to him, and that’s the immediate meaning even of Immanuel. These three children are Shir Yishuv, chapter 7, verse 3, a man who we already identified, 714, and then the one whose name is a mouthful, chapter 8, verse 3, maker shallow hasbaz. You will want to be here for the message on him. The last two children identified are first the glory child of chapter 9, verses 6 and 7, the one that is spoken to us along the lines of that famous line, For unto us a child is born. And then finally, the poetically described child of chapter 11, verse 1, the rod from Jesse’s stem, the branch from Jesse’s root, these last two children undoubtedly the same child, the future messianic child. Nevertheless, even the earlier mentioned children are prophetic, and they relate to the future. As such, Their meaning is tied to God’s activity, as that activity will manifest itself in the course of successive events over which God is absolutely sovereign. This is the case with Shir Yeshua, the first of the children, chapter 7, verse 3. Shir Y’shuv is Isaiah’s own child, born to him.

His name means, a remnant shall return. The Lord tells Isaiah to take this child with him when he goes out to meet Ahaz. We’ve read the text, we won’t read it again. Obviously, I’m sure you’ve picked up on this, the child in his name is meant to communicate something to Ahaz. It won’t be just the words that Isaiah speaks, it will be the child himself. But what exactly is this child meant to communicate? From what follows, the precise nature of that communication is not altogether clear. In fact, it seems as if the child in his name is something of anachronism, out of place, out of joint, historically.

For Isaiah is to tell Ahaz that Syria and Ephraim will certainly be extinguished. They are smoldering stubs of a fire burning. The plans of Pica and Reason will not come to pass. Ahaz is not to fear. But this sounds as if Judah, then, is going to be spared. There will be no defeat, there will be no subsequent exile or displacement for the people as a consequence of the defeat, and thus there will be no need for a message concerning a returning remnant. So if Isaiah is calling Ahaz to faith in this passage, what role does shir jeshuv play in accompanying his father on this mission? If the child’s name means a remnant shall return, from the message that Isaiah is verbally communicating to the king, it would seem that the child, in his name and in his presence, is nothing less than superfluous.

Again, anachronism. Out of joint, out of sync, historically. But before you leap too quickly to that conclusion, The truth of the matter is that Shir Yishud, in his name, is altogether relevant. You see, that boy, that child, carries a name that preaches territorial loss. The boy carries The child carries a name that assumes territorial loss, even the loss of Judas’ grip upon the land of promise. The child in his name preaches loss and sacrifice. What the Lord intends to set before Ahaz in this child, and we assume the child says nothing, what the Lord intends to set before Ahaz in this child is the dynamic of that faith to which the king himself is called. What is operative in that faith?

While faith is not merely asked to rest in the promise of a present deliverance, that tomorrow everything is going to be all right, even though today you are quaking in your boots. No, that faith is constrained to look even further. In fact, Ahaz has to look past Isaiah to the child, and in looking further, in looking past Isaiah to the child, he is consented with a walking message that speaks eloquently, that message touching the future. the future of Judah herself, preaching a message to Ahaz that he is being compelled to consider that despite present deliverance, deliverance will not always be there. In fact, you are going to have to face loss, and in the midst of loss, it is in that kind that the dynamic of that true faith that I expect from my people will be tested and be confirmed. Tomorrow, the Syrians and the Ephraimites will disappear, but there is coming a day in Judah will be faced with loss, the dimension of that loss so great that it would seem that restoration is utterly impossible. And what of your faith then? A remnant shall return.

Here is the man who is involved in intrigues, who is plotting and scheming all of the time, insuring himself against the bets of the nations, conspiring with Assyria in order to secure himself, and he is being faced now in the figure of a child with the ultimate issue of loss. And it is only in that context that faith in its ultimate reach proves itself, and it is the same, you see, for you. Trouble with the job? It resolves itself, doesn’t it? Temporary illness, you get through it, don’t you? Crisis in the Church, we ultimately move past it, don’t we? But it’s that thing that is tested by the loss of everything that proves itself. What if you die? Will you live?

That’s the message. And I think you understand how it is vitally and dynamically connected to the gospel. You do understand, don’t you? For your faith, by root of the gospel, touches ultimate things. And it is your confidence, due to that faith, that despite death, you will live. Now that’s a Christmas message. Those are the kinds of Christmas messages we need, not mine, and I hope you delight in it. Let’s pray.

We thank you for your servant, O God, Isaiah, raised up by you so powerfully and effectively used. And Lord, in looking to him, we would be moved to plead on behalf of his race, on behalf of the Jews themselves. But many, in considering him even today, would be moved by his message. and now, because of your Spirit, comprehend. We ask for ourselves also, that we would not lose heart. And Father, may it be that our faith is not just a remedial faith, one that is convenient, the present at hand for the troubling little and trivial disturbances in our lives, that actually reaches out and touches the end of the world. O Lord, help us to see all of our present difficulties in light of the vast and magnificent plan of salvation which you oversee. And may we know, O God, that even if we suffer loss, we shall gain. And even if we die, because of Jesus Christ, we shall live. Grant us strength for Jesus’ sake.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

December 20, 1998