Hope for Despairing Times

Let's read the entire chapter, Isaiah chapter 11, verse 1. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes or decide by what he hears with his ears, but with righteousness he will judge the needy. With justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth. With the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt, and faithfulness the sash around his waist.

The wolf will live with the lamb. The leopard will lie down with the goat. The calf and the lion and the yearling together, and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear. Their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

In that day, the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples. The nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious. In that day, the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel. He will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth.

Ephraim's jealousy will vanish, and Judah's enemies will be cut off. Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah, nor Judah hostile toward Ephraim.

They will swoop down on the slopes of Philistia to the west. Together they will plunder the people to the east. They will lay hands on Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites will be subject to them.

The Lord will dry up the gulf of the Egyptian sea. With a scorching wind, he will sweep his hand over the Euphrates River. He will break it up into seven streams so that men can cross over in sandals.

There will be a highway for the remnant of his people that is left from Assyria, as there was for Israel when they came up from Egypt. Well, I'm thankful for the Protestant Reformation that gave us Bibles, that we can read the Word of God this morning and be encouraged.

Do you know that God takes your discouragements seriously? Why is that? Because he knows that discouragement doesn't stay discouragement for long.

It ripens into something worse if it's not interrupted. We go from being discouraged to losing heart and giving up and quitting.

And yet, if we do not stand firm in the faith, we'll not stand at all. And so when he sees his people discouraged, going through discouraging times, he takes it very seriously and he brings us words of encouragement.

He would lift us up. He's called the God of hope. And so he brings us a word of hope in the midst of despair. He knows how to make our hope overflow.

And in Isaiah chapter 11, we have a chapter that's all about a hope for discouraging and despairing times.

Now, Isaiah's prophecies have told of God's deserved judgments that were falling upon Judah through the rod of God's anger, Assyria.

Assyria was on a roll. One after another, cities are falling like dominoes. And this brutal, mighty war machine of Assyria threatens the very life of the southern kingdom.

None can stand before them. Indeed, the northern kingdom would be wiped out for good. As far as a political entity. Hope is nowhere in sight.

Despair is everywhere. How did they get into this mess? Well, it was a Davidic king, Ahaz, who got the nation, brought the nation into this disaster of the Assyrian rod.

He led the nation right under the rod of Assyria. He trusted Assyria instead of God. And he found that his savior turned out to be his destroyer.

And Isaiah 11 tells us it will be another Davidic king who will bring them and us ultimate deliverance and rest.

Now, though this was a long way off, the very announcement of it was meant to keep hope alive in the remnant in Judah. It was meant to encourage them.

Though they wouldn't experience. Indeed, it would be centuries away. Yet, God, by this chapter, kept faith burning through the darkness, the darkest days that were yet ahead of them.

Do you know God deals the same with his people today? He sustains his people's faith by his word. His word of hope given through his prophets, his apostles, his son.

So this is the same message given to you to bring hope into your despairing times. Hopelessness is meant to to be met with a trusting look at this king that is to be born and rule the Lord Jesus Christ.

So that's what we'll look at this morning, the king and his reign. And next week, we'll see the last part of the chapter dealing with his people gathered this morning.

The king and his reign, the first nine verses. Now, many years ago, we planted a decorative plum tree just off our patio. And after 10 years or so, it began looking sickly.

So we cut it down. End of story. So we thought. But to our dismay, every year we had dozens of little plum trees that kept coming up as shoots off of that root.

And we were forever chopping them out of the ground. Now, to look at the stump, you would think you would think it's dead. It's over. No more life there.

But I've learned that I must be careful about drawing conclusions too quickly. Where you think there's no life, there may be life.

And the same thing happens if you cut down a trumpet vine. And you soon find that there's life in the root. And up come the shoots. Now, that's the picture that Isaiah uses in this encouraging word of hope for his people in time of despair.

He would encourage God's remnant to keep looking for the promised king of David. Now, 300 years before Isaiah, God had promised David that he would give him a son who would sit upon his throne and reign forever and ever.

2 Samuel 7, 16, your house, David, and your kingdom will endure forever before me. Your throne will be established forever. Now, as that promise ripened through the centuries, God revealed that there would be one particular king of David that would be born of a virgin.

That would be both God and man and would have no end to his government and peace. We saw it in Isaiah 7. He will reign, and in chapter 9 as well, he will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom.

Establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. That was the promise to David. But king after king from David's line came to the throne and proved to not be this coming Davidic king who would rule forever in righteousness and peace.

Some of those kings were good. Some of them were bad. None of them were perfect. All of them were flawed and brought more or less misery and grief to the nation.

So with each passing king of David that rose to the throne, they had their hopes disappointed. And so they would look for the next king from the line of David.

Maybe he will be this long promised Messiah king. And so it went for over 300 years of Davidic kings. And now Isaiah starts prophesying about God's anger and his rod coming upon Judah.

Taking them away into exile and their Davidic king as well. When houses would be deserted and fields ravaged and everyone sent far away in the land utterly forsaken and only a tenth would be left in the land and they would be again laid waste.

Left like stumps. In a field. So it would happen. First at the hands of the Assyrians, the dreaded Assyrians.

But remember it was only up to their necks. The flood came up to their necks and Jerusalem was spared. We'll see that. But then within 140 years of Isaiah's prophecy, it would happen under the Babylonians.

They would destroy Jerusalem. She would not be spared. The flood would go over their heads and the Babylonians would take its people and their Davidic king down into Babylon as exiles.

Now the last king to reign on the throne of David was Zedekiah. And he, you can read about it in 2 Kings, he is to be captured by Nebuchadnezzar's forces.

And then his sons, who would have succeeded him on the throne of David, were brought before him and slaughtered in front of him. That was the last thing he ever saw.

Because they immediately put out his eyes and took him down as a captive to Babylon. Well, that's all to come to pass.

And when it did come to pass, it would appear that the glorious line of Davidic kings that had remained for over 400 years, that that Davidic family tree had been chopped down, ended.

No life in that stump anymore. And all would seem hopeless. Just as Isaiah had warned the Davidic kings, if you, plural, do not stand firm in your faith, you, plural, you kings of David, will not stand at all.

And they didn't stand firm in their faith. They trusted in Assyria instead of God. And so the kingship in Judah came to an end.

And Zedekiah's sons are killed and he's taken into captivity. Was this to be the end of the Davidic kings?

Was this to be the end of God's promise to David? In 2 Samuel 7. Well, now comes the shockingly good news of chapter 11 of Isaiah.

Isaiah. That there's still life in the stump. That though God would severely judge them, yet he will keep his covenant commitments to David.

Judgment will not have the last word. God will. Grace will. And so we read in verse 1, a shoot will come up from this stump of David.

From his roots, a branch will bear fruit. Now, Isaiah doesn't tell us when, does he? He just tells us about him.

And actually, it would be another 700 years before this shoot would come up. Think of that. Century after century, nothing but death in that stump.

Nothing to encourage. Just the promise. But then one night, a little boy was born into obscurity in a little town of Bethlehem because he was of the line and lineage of David.

He was of the house and lineage of David. And so it was that after 600 years, after the last King Zedekiah had reigned on the throne of David, this King of David was born.

The shoot came up from the stump of Jesse. There he is in the manger. Another Davidic king. Yes. But he's even called another David by the prophets.

Because someone who's born of Jesse is David. And this is to be that David that was promised from the line of David. How unlikely that this stump should sprout after all those years.

But here he is, the promised Messiah king of David. And he grew up before him like a tender shoot, like a root out of dry ground, chapter 53 will tell us.

So that apparently lifeless stump sends up a shoot. It doesn't look like much, but it grows into a branch and that branch bears glorious fruit.

Now we'll see that fruit this morning. So that problem in your life that looks hopeless. Remember, God brought a son from David out of a stump that hadn't given birth to a Davidic king for 600 years.

He doesn't need favorable circumstances to work in your life. He works from dead old stumps. We qualify. We are ready for God's work.

Here is encouragement. Now we're looking at the ancestry of this king then, aren't we? The opening chapter of the New Testament takes pains to show us that this king is the son of David.

Matthew 1.1, a record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David. David. He's no ordinary king. He is a shoot of Jesse, verse 1, but he's also the root of Jesse, verse 10.

Now there's a puzzle for you. He is the root of Jesse, verse 1, or the shoot from Jesse, verse 1, but he's the root of Jesse, verse 10.

He's no ordinary king. It will take further light to explain this mystery. How can he come from Jesse and yet Jesse come from him?

That's going to stump the best in Judah. That's going to stump her teachers of the law. How can Messiah be both David's son and yet David's Lord?

The further light of the New Testament reveals how, because as to his human nature, he will be the shoot from the line of David.

But as to his divine nature, he will be the root of David, the one from which David and all others come. So in the closing chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22 and verse 16, this king speaks and he says, I am the root and the offspring of David.

He is no ordinary king of David, the root and offspring and all hopes for salvation of Judah, of you, of me, of anyone, anywhere, rest upon this Messiah king.

So that's the king, his ancestry. We come then to his divine equipping. How is this king equipped for his work? Well, verse 2 tells us the spirit of the Lord will rest on him.

Did you know, as far as Jesus' humanity, he rested upon, or he lived in dependence upon the spirit of God for all that he did.

The spirit was given to him without measure, without limit. And every faculty of his humanity was under complete sway of God the spirit.

He lived and moved in the power of the spirit. Luke 4. So at Jesus' baptism, the Holy Spirit descends from heaven and rests upon him.

The spirit of the Lord will rest upon him. And so the spirit came to equip Jesus for all of his messianic work. And so he goes off into the wilderness led there by the spirit.

And it's through the spirit that he resists the temptations to sin. And it's through the spirit that he offered himself unblemished to God.

And it's through the spirit that he rose victorious over death. The spirit of the Lord rested upon him. Now that Holy Spirit is identified by six of his activities.

Three pairs are given. He is called the spirit of wisdom and understanding. And notice how this fits the Messiah King for his work as king. He's the spirit of wisdom and understanding.

That enables him to see right to the heart of an issue. The way things really are. To make a right assessment of things and to lay out a right diagnosis of the problems.

Isn't that what we need in a leader? He has the spirit of wisdom and understanding on him. He also has the spirit of counsel and of power. He's the wonderful counselor. So he's able to not only see the situation and know the problem.

He's able to counsel the right course of action to take. The spirit of counsel rests upon him. But also the spirit of power.

Because it's one thing to counsel a certain course of action. It's another thing to be able to pull it off. He has both the wisdom and counsel to show the right course of action.

To speak truth and the way and to set it. But he's also able to bring to pass those plans. For he has all power given to him. And then he's called the spirit is called the spirit of the knowledge of the Lord.

And then spirit of the fear of the Lord. We'll take them one at a time. He's the spirit of the knowledge of the Lord. This is more than head knowledge about the Lord.

It actually means knowing the Lord. It's a word for intimate relationship. And there is no true knowledge without knowing the Lord. Because when we know the Lord we know what he's like and we live in light of what he's like.

It was said of King Josiah. He defended the cause of the poor and needy and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me? Is not what it means to know you?

Well, to know me to be one who defends the cause of the poor and needy and therefore you live in the light of who I am. And you defend the cause of the poor.

Is that not what it means to know the Lord? To know who he is and to walk in the light of the Lord? Yes, this will be the spirit of the knowledge of the Lord.

And he will be called also the spirit of the fear of the Lord. Now we're at the heart of true religion. Aren't we? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

And knowledge of the Holy One gives understanding. This is the fear of the Lord. That reverence of God that esteems him above everything else in my life. It's having that holy awe that says God is the most important figure in the whole universe.

My universe. And I'm accountable to him and nothing matters more than pleasing him. To walk in the fear of the Lord.

That's what the spirit does upon all in whom he rests. Upon whom he rests. And he did that perfectly in the Son of God. The fear of the Lord molds our conduct.

Keeps us from sinning. Exodus 20. 20. The fear of the Lord motivates our obedience. Ezra or Nehemiah 5 and verse 9.

The fear of the Lord inspires our worship. This is an awesome God and we come with reference into his presence. And so at the very center of Jesus heart is found this fear of the Lord.

How is it there? By the spirit that rested on him as the spirit of the fear of the Lord. In fact he so rested on him that verse 3 says that he found delight in the fear of the Lord.

He found great joy in living with reverence for his father in heaven. So these are the very qualities that the king will need to rule and reign.

The very qualities that were missing in Ahaz and many of the kings of Judah. But the Holy Spirit will equip this king to carry out his work.

And wherever you read in Isaiah the Messiah is often referred to as the one endowed with the spirit. This is my servant whom I uphold. I will put my spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations.

The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted and to proclaim liberty for the captives.

So we've seen the king, his ancestry, both root and shoot of Jesse. We've seen his equipment for his work, the Holy Spirit empowering him.

Thirdly, we see his righteous rule. How does he actually carry out his rule, his reign? Well, it's a righteous rule. Contrary to what some of our leaders have told us in the past, character matters.

Character matters. A man's basic attitude towards God affects the way he lives and rules.

In fact, if the one ruling has no fear of God before his eyes, you're to watch out. You're to watch out. Because where there's no fear of God before men's eyes, all sorts of evils follow.

But not this king. This king has the fear of God before his eyes. He delights in the fear of God. And that spirit-shaped character affects the way he rules.

He is righteous. He rules in righteousness. His commitment to righteousness is the fruit of the Holy Spirit working the fear of God in him.

And so in this king, you will find that what's true of God is true of this king. We have divine attributes found in a human being. What a king.

And part of the king's job, no small part of it, is to render judgments. Remember King Solomon, the third king? He had a judgment he had to render.

Two women, both claiming the living baby was theirs. Why bring it to Solomon because kings ruled by judging. And so this king will rule and he will judge.

Now we're told about his judging. In the New Testament we're told in John 5 that the father judges no man but has committed all judgment to his son.

This king to be born will do all the judging. And we're told about his judging in verse 3 and 4 that he will not judge merely by what he sees with his eyes or what he hears with his ears but he will judge with righteousness and justice.

You see that? Now what are the ordinary sources of information by which men make decisions and judgments? Well what they see with their eyes and what they hear with their ears.

But not this king. He does not judge by mere appearances. He has more information than just what he sees and hears.

He sees right through to the hidden motives of men's hearts. He knows what you did in the dark this week. What you did in secret when no one else was around.

And so he is able to judge righteously and justly. Why? Because he has all the facts about every case that has ever happened.

What is necessary to make an absolute judgment? Absolute knowledge. knowing everything. And that's why Jesus is the only one qualified to judge people finally.

Because he's the only one that has all the knowledge to make the judgment. So when everybody else is condemning you and you're innocent, he knows you're innocent.

When everyone else is praising you and you're guilty, he knows you're guilty. He judges with righteousness and justice. that's the king and that's the kind of reign he has.

He did not need man's testimony about him for he knew what was in a man. Nobody pulled the wool over his eyes. He knew what they were thinking. How often do you read that in the gospels?

He knew what they were thinking. So he's the only qualified king. Now there's no favoritism in his judgments.

He doesn't favor the poor or the rich, the influential or the needy. He renders perfect justice for all. Now what was missing in Judah? Justice and righteous ruling.

We read in chapter 5, the Lord looked for justice but found bloodshed. He looked for righteousness but found cries of distress from the oppressed. And that's often what's missing in a nation.

That the poor and needy are oppressed, forgotten, neglected and therefore trampled on by the great ones of society. Not so under this king. But you know there's also a reverse prejudice going on from time to time.

Sometimes it's the rich that are oppressed and judges and juries render huge verdicts against people simply because they have a lot of money and they give the verdict, give all sorts of money to the poor.

They've got to be guilty if they've got money. Not under this king. It doesn't matter who they are, what they have, he judges with strict justice.

Have you seen Lady Justice on our courthouses? She's got a blindfold over her face, doesn't she? It's saying that justice has nothing to do with who it is that's standing before her.

That's the way justice is to be meted out. And so are they influential and offering bribes and favors? You don't see that. This is the way this king judges.

Perfect justice. And notice, he'll not just hold court in Judah, but he'll judge all the earth. Verse 4 ends, he will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, with the breath of his lips.

He will slay the wicked. The wicked of the earth are the objects of Messiah king's wrath. He has armies to deal with in his righteous rule and judgment.

He has enemies to deal with and he will slay the wicked. Notice the king's weapons are his words. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth.

With the breath of his lips, he will slay the wicked. That's why the picture in the vision of Revelation 19 has the man, has him riding on a great white horse and a sword is coming out of his mouth with which he strikes down the nations and rules them with a rod of iron.

So this king has words that possess power to put into effect what he says. He's the same one who at creation just said the words, let there be light.

And there was light. light. And he has a word in store for the armies of Assyria as we'll see in Isaiah 36 and 37.

And one word from his mouth and it will be done for Assyria. And when he says in judgment, depart from me, you worker of iniquity, I never knew you.

It's over. It's carried out. It's executed. Just the word has the power to execute the judgment. This is the awesome king that Isaiah is holding before the remnant in Judah.

His word determines the eternal destinies of men. And none will complain about it being unfair. Every mouth will be stopped and the whole world guilty before him.

Are you ready to meet this king of righteousness? Are you ready to stand before him? And as we heard in our worship time singing, he has a righteousness to give to every sinner that flees to him.

That's what makes us ready to stand before this king. So we see his ancestry, his divine equipping, and his righteous reign and judgment.

And now, lastly, we see the results of his reign. What's the fruit? Remember, the branch bears fruit. What's the fruit of this king's reign? Well, what emerges from his work of reigning and judging is a transformed world of peace and safety.

The very opposite of the kingdoms of men that are so full of hostility and war. But under the prince of peace, there will be perfect harmony where before there was discord.

And that will run right through the whole of creation. Now, kids, when you go to the zoo, you find a lot of animals there, but you don't find wolves in the same pens as lambs.

Why not? Because the wolves would have the lambs for lunch. And you don't find leopards in the same pens as goats.

goats. Because they would be dining on the goats. But in the kingdom of Messiah, you will find wolves lying down with lambs and leopards lying down with goats and calves and lions and year old colts together with a little child leading them, demonstrating dominion over them, cows and bears and their young all dining together, and lions eating straw like an ox.

Something's different about this animal farm. Something has happened to our world to see these things. These inward changes in the nature and habits of the animal world point to a total reordering of nature.

And it harps us back to the Garden of Eden before the curse, doesn't it? When we read that animals were herbivores eating plants, chapter 1 and verse 30.

So Isaiah is painting for us a picture of creation before the curse. That's where we're heading. That's where this Messiah King is taking us into a whole new world that will be without the curse.

The last two chapters of Isaiah's prophecy will tell us more about this new heaven and new earth, as he calls it. But the result of Messiah's reign and judgment will be a transformed world where there is peace and safety and where the curse is no more.

All the old hostilities, all the old dangers are gone and gone forever. So the church nursery will be full of what used to be poisonous snakes.

That's exactly what he says in verse 8, that the helpless little infant will be found playing near the hole of the cobra. Unaware of his danger and just going over and putting his chubby little leg over the hole of a cobra.

And toddlers will put their hand into the viper's nest as if to pull a toy out of a toy box. Look at this, mommy.

Enough to horrify every mother. But not then. Not then. Isaiah is pointing us to a day when the curse in creation will be totally removed, undone.

And the oldest enmity of all, which was between the woman and seed and the serpent, the vipers, will be ended forever.

The oldest curse of death itself will have been conquered by this king for he will swallow up death forever. Chapter 25 and verse 7 tells us at the final resurrection Messiah king will preside over the funeral of death.

Bringing peace and safety from all that threatens, all that harms, all that destroys. Death, where is your sting?

No more death? That's a new world indeed, isn't it? That's the thing that the whole world is groaning for, waiting for, when the curse will be removed and it will be no longer subjected to frustration and decay.

In Revelation 21 and 22, the last chapters of the book, talks about that day when all things will be made new. Chapter 22 and verse 3 says there will, no longer will there be any curse.

No curse. Not only in the animal world, but in human beings too. We've already read in chapter 2 and verse 4, that under Messiah's reign, everyone will be walking in his ways and there will be no more war.

They'll beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks and nations will not study war anymore. No, not under this king, not under this prince of peace. The warring and fighting nations are often compared to beasts in the prophets, aren't they?

We've seen that in Daniel. But they will be all over under Messiah's kind rule. The steam roller Assyria, gone, no more.

Babylon, who would burn Jerusalem and take them into captivity, fallen. And so those who used to bite and devour and oppress will be doing so no longer.

A whole new world with nothing to disturb the peace. because all dangers and all evils causing fear are gone. Notice verse 9, how all that used to harm and destroy will do so no longer.

They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain. And we see in the last part of the verse that that holy mountain is to be the whole earth.

Notice the reason why they will neither harm or destroy. For, because the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Kids, here's a question. How much of the sea is covered by water? Well, all of it. How much of the earth will be covered by the knowledge of the Lord?

All of it. And again, this knowledge of the Lord isn't just there will be people there who know facts about God. No, there will be people there who know God. Where? Everywhere.

Not a square inch will be inhabited by people that don't know the Lord. They will all know Him from the least to the greatest.

And that's why there will never be any more harming or destroying done. the whole newly created order will be the temple, the temple mount, where God meets with His people and where they live together in peace.

It's not the only place where we hear the mountain becoming the whole earth. Remember Daniel's vision in chapter 2. The rock that was cut out of a mountain and it rolled down and it crushed all the nations of the world and then that little rock grew into a mountain.

mountain and then that mountain kept growing until it filled the whole earth. You see Messiah's kingdom will fill the whole earth and everywhere on earth there will be people who know the Lord.

That's not true today. There are huge tracts of land where the Lord is not known, loved, worshipped, praised. but under Messiah Jesus that will be no more.

Everyone will know him. And that's the new world order that John saw in vision in Revelation 21. Not merely for some 1,000 years but the eternal state enjoyed at Christ's return forever and ever.

He says I saw a new heaven and a new earth. Those are Isaiah's words in chapter 65 and 6. I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea and I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

I heard a loud voice from the throne saying now the dwelling of God is with man and he will live with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God and he will wipe every tear from their eyes and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away.

That old order where wolves ate lambs and leopards ate goats and Assyrians killed the people of God. Gone forever the old order.

water. And he who was seated on the throne said I am making everything new. Everything new.

So the new world order of peace is not the result of man's efforts at peace. It's not the result of the United Nations. It's not the result of peace talks and I'm not saying we shouldn't have peace talks.

It's not the result of mutual disarmament. Some spoke of World War I as the war to end all wars. It was followed by World War II and dozens of other wars. No.

War will cease and peace and safety will come to this earth through the reign and the judgment of this king who will slay the wicked and create a new heaven and a new earth in which only the righteous dwell.

And then they will neither harm nor destroy on all his holy mountain because the whole earth will be covered with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

When Messiah comes again to judge the world will be as he meant it to be.

As long as there is sin and wherever there is sin there is not peace and safety. But when sin and the curse are gone there will be nothing to harm or to destroy.

And he'll not only have a perfect environment but also a perfected people. We'll see more of that next week when we look at the people of Messiah gathered.

The believer this is the world you will live in forever and ever. And that's to come into your head and you're to think about that. This is the new heaven and new earth the home of righteousness.

Can you imagine such a world? Well you must. You see that's what these passages are in the Bible for to help you to imagine such a world. You need to think about the wolf and the lamb down together.

And the predator and the prey in our world. No longer but reconciled at peace. No death.

No curse. No terrorism. No locks. No police. No armies. No fears. No tears. Can I ask you?

What last caused you to cry? What last caused you to be afraid? It's not there. It's gone.

There will be nothing to harm or to destroy in all the earth. Your health, your finances, sinning people around you, your own sins, your own falls, all these sources of discouragement are dated.

And when the king comes back and judges and makes a new heaven and a new earth that is coming, it will be a new world. A new world.

Spend some time thinking about that new world. Walk through the streets of that new world with your Bible in your hand. Read about it. See yourself there. See all the things that cause you tears and fears.

Gone. And rejoice that that's where your king, Jesus, brings you. you see these things were a long way off for Isaiah's original hearers.

I mean a long way off. It's been at least 2700 years off before the king coming and establishing this final peace on earth.

Long way off. And yet God says this is the encouragement my people need as they face the steamroller of Assyria coming at them. Remember my king that's coming.

And that's meant to keep hope alive. So you say, well, we don't know when he's coming. No, we don't. But the fact that he is coming is to bring the joy of that day into the despair of this night.

Hope in the deepest despair comes. How? By looking to our king. What he will bring when he returns.

May the Lord help us then. You know when he comes, all creation is going to sing. And all his people are going to sing. And they will sing because he comes.

He surely comes. The judge of earth to be with justice. He will judge the world. All men with equity and the rivers and the mountains and the streams and the trees will clap their hands and sing for joy and all God's people will rejoice because he's coming to judge the world in righteousness.

How is it that we can sing of a coming judge? It's because he has found a way to be just himself and yet to be the justifier of those who believe in Jesus.

So we can sing in that day. Happy that the just one is coming to establish his just righteous rule forever and ever. And our song then is to spill over into our life now.

We're going to sing by faith then until we see him face to face. Number 21 in your grace hymns. Let's pray.

Lord Father, this old world is turning heavy under the injustices and sins and the curse and the wrath and the anger.

We see men and women marriages acting like wolves and lambs and nations biting and devouring each other.

And oh, we would join our song with the whole creation groaning for that day when this king will come and will rule in righteousness. Lord, how is it that we can sing when we have been an unrighteous people?

It's because this king has become righteousness for us. That he who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

And so we sing for joy. I pray for your people here who are going through dark and discouraging times. Come and encourage them with what is coming.

And coming for them that despair does not have the final word that grace does, Christ does. And so bring into their heartache and bring into their grief that joy of that day that is sooner than we realize going to be upon us.

And we will be joining together with all the saints of all the earth singing praises to our wonderful Savior. Bring others to sing this song today to put their trust in this Savior.

Thank you Lord Jesus for your gracious rule. We pray in your name. Amen.