Isaiah - The Kings Kingdom

Isaiah — Steve Gregg

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Isaiah - The Kings Kingdom

IsaiahSteve Gregg

Christ's Kingdom reigns as the ideal of God's rulership, with Jesus enthroned at the right hand of God and reigning over people who acknowledge him. The spread of God's Kingdom is happening faster than ever before, and it is accessible to anyone who embraces Jesus as their king and is willing to obey him. The book of Isaiah speaks to the eschatological end times and the ultimate outcome of the Kingdom of God, which will be universally known, and the victory over spiritual foes will be given to God's children.

Transcript

All right, we were talking about the concept of the king and his kingdom in Isaiah. The Kingdom of God is what we're talking about, the concept that begins in the Old Testament and is fulfilled in the New. And the king, of course, is Christ.

And we were looking at, just before we took our break, we were looking at the passages that focus on the king himself, the birth of the king, the character of the king. But we have not yet looked as closely as I would like to at the passages that describe his kingdom. Now, right from the very beginning of our lectures on Isaiah, I've made reference to the Messianic Age passages, which are numerous in Isaiah.

They're numerous in other parts of the Old Testament, too. Almost all the prophets contain passages where the prophet breaks away from whatever else he was talking about and looks for a while, sometimes for two or three verses, sometimes for a whole chapter, sometimes for a block of chapters. As in the case of Jeremiah, chapters 31 through 33, a whole block of chapters.

Or in the latter part of Isaiah, sometimes a number of chapters in a row, are one continuous Messianic Age prophecy. And these prophecies are those which have been disputed among Christians as to whether they refer to the future millennium, which would begin, in their view, when Jesus returns, or whether it's the present age, which has been inaugurated by Jesus' first coming. I've said on many occasions in these lectures, and I repeat now at the beginning of this consideration, that my view is that these passages describe a kingdom that was established at Christ's first coming.

When Christ came, he said that the kingdom of God was at hand. That means near. And then he said the kingdom of God has overtaken you.

And then he said the kingdom of God is in your midst. And the apostles, in their writings and their preachings, presuppose that God had now enthroned Jesus, thus inaugurating a kingdom under him, and that the gospel message is that people are expected to recognize that and act accordingly. That is, submit to him, put their trust in him.

We saw in the passages that we last looked at that the Messiah would not only be ruler, but also savior. That is, he does what rulers are supposed to do for their people. He protects them.

He rescues them. That's what the ideal is that God has in mind for rulers. In Romans chapter 13 and in 1 Peter chapter 2, there are passages where the role of government is mentioned.

And in both places, both Paul and Peter tell us what God has ordained governments to do. And in this case, he's talking about the regular, secular governments of our nations. He says he's ordained them to punish evildoers and to praise those who do well.

So that the role of a government, ideally, is to protect innocent citizens from criminal behavior and to encourage good behavior. And certainly, the way that the Messiah is described fits that ideal. He rules justly.

He maintains peace. He protects his people and saves them from oppression and harm. That is the Messiah.

That is Jesus enthroned right now at the right hand of God and reigning over his people today. Those who have acknowledged him. But the kingdom also is to spread to cover the whole earth.

So that the day is to come when the process that has been going on for the past 2,000 years continues beyond the point of success that it has reached already in our time. The kingdom began in the upper room, it would appear. Or it may have begun earlier in Jesus' teaching and ministry.

But at some point in the 1st century when Jesus was here, he inaugurated the kingdom with his disciples. At one point, namely the point of his betrayal, there was one disciple who stood with him. A few hours earlier, there were 11.

Still a pretty small kingdom. Interesting that Jesus would have spoken to them in that circumstance in the upper room and said, in the world you will have tribulation, but in me you will have peace. Be of good cheer.

He says, I have conquered the world. Which must have sounded a very strange claim for a man to make who stood among only 11 loyal followers who were even at that time hiding from the authorities. He says, don't worry about a thing, I've conquered the world.

Makes a man sound delusional. But of course, he was not delusional. He did conquer and is continuing to conquer more and more of the world.

And his kingship has spread from on the day of Pentecost, originally 120 in the upper room, to later the same day, 3000, and then more and more and more. So that although many people say, well, Christianity seems to be receding in our time. It seems to be losing ground.

Once again, that's our provincialism. We're looking at America. And we're saying, well, it seems like Christian values and such were much more defining of our American way of life a generation ago than they are now.

America seems to be going backward. Yeah, it does seem to be going backward. I don't think anyone could doubt that.

America is not the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is global. And the kingdom of God is spreading in many parts of the world, some of the most populous regions of the world, Africa, South America, Asia.

It's spreading in these places faster than in any time in history. So we need to make sure we're not wearing our narrow blinders and looking only at our own backyard and saying, well, it looks like things are going badly for the kingdom of God today. Even if they were, that's not predictive of what things will be doing 10, 100, or 1,000 years from now.

But the point is, it's not as bleak as it looks when you look at one little corner where things are not going as well as they once did. The kingdom of God is destined to, under Christ, envelop the whole planet and all nations. All the kings will bow to him.

Every knee will bow. And every tongue will confess. And Isaiah, as well as other prophets and the Psalms, devote complete chapters and shorter verse portions and longer, too, to describing this age.

The fact that it recurs so frequently suggests it is the main theme, the main theme from which the Old Testament writers can't stay far from, even though they're talking about something else most of the time. They're usually talking about what's wrong with Israel at the moment, in the moment they're living in, what they're doing wrong, what God's complaint is. They're idolatrous, they're adulterers, they're drunkards, they're cheats, the rulers are corrupt, oppressors.

This is what the prophets begin talking about. And then they talk about how God's going to judge them, which is also, more or less, in most cases, a rather short-range view of things. And then they talk about, after that, God will come back and rescue them, which is even also talking about, usually, something that occurred in the Old Testament times.

But they can't get there very often without jumping forward to the ultimate time of God's salvation of His people and the Messianic age. Which means that even though they really had something else in mind when they started talking, they could not resist going to their main passion, which is that God will someday rule all things through the Messiah. And thus it's reasonable to suggest that these kingdom passages that we read are the heart and the soul of the book of Isaiah and of every one of the prophets.

Other things are spoken of peripherally, but it always comes back to the real issue. The Messiah is coming, He's going to rule, things are going to be right, God's going to have His way as He has always promised. Now, in Isaiah, I've identified a number of passages for you that are references to the Messianic kingdom age.

As you can see from your notes, just looking, scanning down, Isaiah 2, especially verses 2 through 4, I put 1 through 4, but verse 1 is just kind of an introductory statement. But chapter 2, verses 1 through 4, chapter 4, verses 2 through 6, chapter 9, verse 7, a single verse, but we actually looked at it, it contains several of the elements of the kingdom passages just in that one verse. Chapter 11 in its entirety.

Chapter 32, I would say the first five verses. Chapter 35 in its entirety. Chapter 40, especially verses 9 through 11.

And then a number of other passages I've just listed in a single line. For example, chapters 54 through 56. These are the chapters immediately following chapter 53, obviously.

And chapter 53 tells about the death and suffering of the Messiah. Chapters 54 through 56 talk about the results of that, which is, of course, the Messianic age. Chapter 59, verses 16 through 21.

I believe has this in mind. Another block of three chapters, chapters 60, 61, and 62 together, would be a kingdom age passage. And a chapter and a half, well, most of chapters 65 and 66, I've broken it down into certain verses, because in my opinion, chapters 65 and 66 is looking at the transition, and some of the verses talk about the destruction of the apostate Jerusalem, but the main subject is the establishment of the new Jerusalem and the new order under the Messiah.

So there's certain verses in chapter 65 and 66 that talk about the new order, and they're interspersed with verses that say something about the judgment on the wicked. Now, I want to look at as many of these in some detail as we can. Now, by some detail, to my mind, I'm really joking, because the word detail suggests some close analysis, and that's not what I have time to do right now.

I'd rather spend a whole session on each of these in order to talk about details, but just a little more detail than a quick pass. Let's look at chapter 2. This is one of the most wonderful passages, and he sticks it right at the beginning of his book to get people excited about his main theme. And it says in chapter 2, verse 1, the word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

Now, Judah and Jerusalem in his day were, of course, the Jews and the city, the capital city. However, we have found that Judah and Jerusalem are interpreted in the New Testament as that entity that is comprised of the remnants of the Jews to which Gentiles have been added in, like the olive tree, where some Jews remain, some have been cut off. Some Gentiles have been added in.

The entity is multi-ethnic. It's still the new Jews, the new Jerusalem. It says, Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills and all nations shall flow into it.

Many people shall come and say, Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways and we shall walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, which means he'll arbitrate and rule among the nations, and they shall rebuke many peoples.

That is, he shall rebuke many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

And then Isaiah says, almost by way of application, O house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord. Then he goes on to talk about how far they have fallen from doing that. Now, perhaps he gives this vision in order to shame them for not doing so.

Because he goes on in verse 6 to say, For you have forsaken your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with Eastern ways. They are soothsayers like the Philistines, et cetera, et cetera. Israel has not walked in the ways of the Lord.

And perhaps in order to perhaps set up his rebuke of them for that, he presents the vision of what God's ultimate goal is, and that is that not only the Jews, but that all nations will walk in the ways of God. All nations will come into Mount Zion and hear the word of the Lord and they will walk in his ways. That is what God has in mind.

Now, the Messiah is not mentioned in this passage particularly, but that it is a reference to the very same period that the other Messianic passages, some of which do mention the Messiah, are referring is, I think, unmistakable. I don't think there's a single scholar, whether he's premillennial or amillennial or postmillennial, who would deny that this passage is talking about the same thing that all the other kingdom passages are talking about. Therefore, the absence of mention of the Messiah does not mean that he's not present.

In fact, of course, it's the Messiah that establishes this. Now, a couple of things. This is said to take place in the latter days.

Obviously, we live in a time where people are fascinated with Bible prophecy and eschatology and end times and things like that, and so we hear about the last days or the latter days a lot. And when we run into passages in the Bible that talk about the last days or the latter days, perhaps our conditioning has led us to think immediately of, oh, he means the end of the world. And those who would think that way about the latter days would be very justified in seeing this as a description of something that must happen yet in the future.

And by the way, if you take its imagery literally, it would have to be in the future because nations have not beaten their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. So if it's literal, it's future. And then the latter days might incline us to think that way too.

Although we find, of course, when we read the New Testament, that all the New Testament writers believed they were living in the latter or last days. They all said so. For example, in Acts 2, on the day of Pentecost, when Peter seeks to explain the phenomenon of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the speaking in tongues taking place there in the upper room, and he's explaining to the curious bystanders about that, he says, these men are not drunk, as you suppose, but this is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel.

And then he begins to quote, in the last days, says the Lord, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. So in other words, he's saying God predicted he would do something in the last days. This is it.

In other words, these are those days. So Peter says, essentially, these are the last days. Likewise, in 1 Peter, Peter says the same thing.

In 1 Peter 1, around verse 22, I think it is, he says that Christ was foreknown or predetermined before the foundation of the world, but was made known in these last days, or manifest, it's verse 20, 1 Peter 1, 20. Indeed, Christ was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. So when Christ came, Peter refers to it as these last times, certainly a phrase we would otherwise think of as maybe the last times, the end times, but he's saying, no, our times are the last times.

The writer of Hebrews, whoever that was, spoke similarly in his opening verses when he said in Hebrews 1, 1, God who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by his Son. That is, Christ has come and spoken to us in these last days. When Christ came, it was the last days.

Peter said, in these last times Christ was manifested though he was foreordained long earlier. James also speaks of the last days as the days in which he's living. In chapter 5, James 5, rebuking the rich men of his day, it says in verse 3, your gold and silver are corrupted, their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire.

You have heaped up treasure in the last days like you're living in the last days. That's the time in which you've heaped up treasure. You've done it in the last days.

So, the last days, according to James, according to Hebrews, according to Peter, according to John, are here and were here even back then. In 1 John, we'll see that John said the same thing. We've looked at Hebrews, James, Peter, now we'll look at John.

In chapter 2, in verse 18, it says, little children, 1 John 2.18, little children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have come by which we know that it is the last hour. Last times, last hour, last days.

How about Paul? Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 10. 1 Corinthians 10 in verse 11. He says, Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition on whom, that is we, on whom the ends of the ages have come.

He doesn't say the last days. He says the ends of the ages. Strange phrase because ages and ends are both in the plural here.

The ends of the ages. I've never heard a real good explanation of why that phrase is used, but I wonder whether he means that as the Jews always spoke of this age and the age to come, meaning that the age to come is the Messianic age, and this age was prior to that, their own age, that Paul might be saying we're now in that overlap at the ends of the ages, the tail end of one age and the beginning end of the other. These ages have ends at both ends, the beginning and end, and the ends of both ages have overlapped in our own time.

The end of the Jewish age will be found in 70 AD, the beginning of the new age at the cross, and we're living in between that where the ends of the ages intersect, the two ages. He might mean that. I don't know if he does.

I don't know if I've ever heard him say that, anyone, but it could be. Getting back to Isaiah 2, then the last days or the latter days is not the end of the world, but the last days of something else. Of what? Many scholars have felt that the New Testament writers who speak of themselves living in the last days are simply saying the church age is the last days.

We've been in the last days for 2,000 years. Though I don't think it's necessary to see it that way. Obviously, the way they use the words, it could mean that because they saw themselves as living in the last days.

However, if they're talking about a period that endures for 2,000 years, last days seems to be not as fortunate a term as maybe last age, last centuries or something like that, not last days. But they were living in the last days of something and that is of the Jewish age. I believe that that's what they recognized.

All these men who wrote in the New Testament had been born Jews and born in the Jewish age near the end of it. They were living in the last days of that particular age and the days in which a new thing was going to be established or was being established. That new thing would arise in the latter days of the older age.

There's a new age of the Messiah that will be established in the latter age, the latter part of the old age of the Jews. So there's an overlap there. It should come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord's house, now the house of God in the New Testament is the church.

The mountain speaks of a kingdom. The church is a kingdom but it's also a temple. It's both God is our political ruler and our object of worship.

So the idea of a mountain and a house, that is a temple, are mixed. It shall be established on top of the mountains. That just means the church will be the most authoritative kingdom among the mountains or the kingdoms of the world.

It shall be exalted above all the hills. This is poetry so the same thing is said twice many times. And all nations shall flow into it.

That is of course what has been happening for the past 2,000 years. Gentiles have been coming to Christ and into His kingdom. Many people should come and say now these exact words are not necessarily what they're saying but this is the attitude that the nations have.

Let's go to the Lord. Let's go to the mountain of the house of the Lord. Let's follow the God of Jacob.

Zechariah chapter 8 talks about a day when he says 10 men from every nation will grab a hold of one Jewish man and say let us go with you and worship your God with you because we've heard that your God is the real God. And Zechariah is talking about the same thing. Many Gentiles embracing the God that previously had only been embraced by Israel the same God.

They're coming to the house of the God of Jacob the Israel's God they're coming to. But of course that God now has a house made of living stones not of granite and you know physical stones. The church is the house of the God of Jacob the same God and they'll say he'll teach us his ways and we'll walk in his paths.

They're coming to be obedient they're not coming just out of curiosity they're coming to say I want to learn how to follow this God I want to learn how to please God I want to walk the ways of God this is the attitude of a convert this is the attitude of a true Christian. Now you find in our churches people who are called Christians who don't care to walk in God's ways and they just assume you didn't interrupt their normal course by telling them they should obey the Bible or that they should be living like Jesus those people are not these people these people are Christians these people are people who have embraced Christ as their king and want to obey him and so they come and say let's learn what God wants us to do and let's do it and it says we'll walk in his paths and it says for out of Zion which here is the spiritual Zion the church shall go forth the law Jesus told the church to go out and teach the nations to observe all things Christ commanded so the law of Christ the law of God going out to the nations from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem now it says he shall judge between the nations and shall rebuke many peoples is simply saying that he'll be the ruler not of just Israel but of many nations essentially all nations as it turns out and they shall beat their swords into plowshares their spears to pruning hooks simply means they have no more use for preparations of war their weapons can be dispensed with they've got other projects more important like farming take the instruments of war and exchange them or transform them into instruments of farming it's figurative of course neither now nor in the past nor in a future time can we expect people to take actual pruning hooks or actual swords and spears since they aren't used anymore in war and transform them into ancient farming implements you know nowadays you use tractors and combines and things like that not pruning hooks and so forth unless you're dealing with your private garden but the idea here is that war was once an important vocation for these people perhaps only to defend themselves from enemies or maybe to spread the kingdom of God as they did in Joshua's day by the sword the kingdom once was advanced by warfare that's because the kingdom was associated with a political nation named Israel not anymore there is no political nation associated with the kingdom of God it's a spiritual brotherhood it's a spiritual community and they don't fight each other they did before they were Christians but now God's broken down the middle wall of partition between them and made in himself one new man so making peace so they're not hostile toward each other in Christ we're all brothers and we love each other that's the mark of being in Christ if you love one another so what do you need to fight for get rid of those weapons and let's cultivate let's plant seeds let's grow the fruit these are people who are going to produce the fruit of the kingdom and further on it says nations should not lift up sword against nations you could translate that Gentile against Gentile they're not the Gentiles won't in the church will not be fighting each other anymore they might come from countries that were at war with each other previously but not so in Christ Corrie Ten Boom of course talks about how she was in a German prison camp she was Dutch and she was of course abused tortured and so forth her sister died there her father died her brother died she lost a lot through this at the hands of the Germans but later after the war was over she actually was speaking in a church somewhere in the back there was a German man who had been one of the guards at one of the prisons who had treated her family in that way and she had she said she had a difficulty shaking his hand and being friendly to him but she she just realized he's a brother now he was an enemy before but he's not my enemy anymore he's my brother and he was and he was a Christian now former enemies don't once they come into Christ the hostility is removed they don't learn war anymore that's not the vocation of those who are followers of the Prince of Peace so this picture it's not to be understood as a global cessation of hostilities between all nations it's describing those nations that flow into the Kingdom of God hear and learn and determined to obey God's words as a result they live peaceably with each other instead of fighting each other so there's reconciliation now in chapter 4 verses 2 through 6 we've we've looked at this in a bit of detail before we will not repeat everything because we have other things to look at that we have not discussed but in chapter 4 verses 2 through 6 says in that day the branch of the Lord a term which is commonly used of Christ the branch shall be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing well that's what God's always wanted is the fruit of course it's not physical discussed here for for those of Israel who have escaped that be the remnant a term for the remnant and it shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion another reference to the remnant and he who remains in Jerusalem will be called holy everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem when the you know when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD only the remnant that survived were the holy ones they were left after after the destruction took place they did not experience death nor exile because they escaped before the Romans conquered the city and therefore they were the ones left and they were the Christians therefore Jerusalem had been purged of its apostates and it says when the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion meaning the population of Jerusalem and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst by the spirit of judgment by the spirit of burning this I'm convinced is a reference to the holocaust of AD 70 then the Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion and above her assemblies a cloud and smoke by day which of course that used to exist at least ideally in the temple in Jerusalem God's shekinah glory was associated with the holy of holies which was in Jerusalem although of course we have no record of the shekinah ever appearing once the temple was well we do too I take that back I mean when Solomon built the temple the shekinah appeared but it didn't stay there necessarily it left in the time of Ezekiel and we don't read of after the exile the shekinah ever returning to the temple after it was rebuilt but the shekinah is said to dwell now not in Jerusalem but in every dwelling place in the spiritual Zion every Christian is a dwelling place of God and God's presence dwells in each one who is a Christian and it says and above her assemblies a cloud and smoke by day the shining of a flaming fire by night for over all the glory there will be a covering there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat and a place of refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain these same things were said of course of that king in chapter 32 who rules in righteousness he'll be a shelter in the storm and a shadow from the heat this is what the church also is the church is after all the body of Christ you come under King Jesus you come under that king who is a shelter you come into his church it is the tabernacle but the tabernacle which is the house of God has many dwelling places in it each one is itself individually inhabited by God which is the emblem of the Shekinah glory appearing over every dwelling in Zion not just over the central temple they are the temple and so God dwelling among his people is said to be a feature of the messianic age and now we come to we looked at chapter 9 verse 7 which is just one verse speaking of the Messiah it says of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end upon the throne of David over all his kingdom to order and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward even forever the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this and perhaps I should say this that those who apply these kingdom passages to a future millennium point out that Jesus has never really sat on the throne of David it is often said the Messiah will sit on the throne of David well David sat on a physical chair and ruled over Jerusalem in Jerusalem and they say well Jesus came and went back to heaven but he never did sit in Jerusalem on a chair he never sat on the throne of David therefore they say in the second coming Jesus will establish Jerusalem again and his throne David's throne will be set up there and he'll sit on it that's one of the important arguments of the pre-millennial is that the Messiah is supposed to sit on the throne of David as it says here and in other places but Jesus never sat on the throne of David well we have to understand what it means to sit on the throne of David it simply means he's going to occupy the place of being the current king of David's dynasty even Solomon didn't sit on the throne of David according to first king Solomon Solomon made his own throne apparently he discarded David's throne made another throne sat on it but he was David's successor that we could say that the current monarchs in England sit on the throne of king George or sit on the throne of we can name any ancient king of England we can say that the modern kings and queens sit on the throne of that king because what we mean is they are occupying the position of king that's what sitting on the throne of someone means and you know we don't we don't know of any king after David that sat on David's actual throne Solomon was the first one after David he didn't and we don't know that any other king pulled David's throne out of mothballs and set it up against I'm on David's throne now they were all on David's throne it wasn't the chair it was the office is what the throne of David is so like David well first of all David is the present Jesus is the present king of the David's line God said that David's seed would sit on his throne forever well Jesus is sitting there he's going to sit there forever so this is the fulfillment he sits on David's throne and this is certainly how the New Testament writers understood the promise of the throne of David if you look at Acts chapter 2 the very first recorded interpretation in the New Testament of these prophecies in Peter's first sermon on the day of Pentecost he's talking about how David in Psalm 16 had predicted that the Messiah would rise from the dead and that his soul would not be left in Hades but in verse 30 after he quotes those verses from from Psalm 16 in Acts 2 30 Peter says therefore being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his that is David's body according to the flesh he would raise up the Messiah Christ to sit on his throne okay Peter says we know David knew we all know that God promised David that he would raise up the Christ the Messiah to sit on David's throne now this everyone knows he foreseeing this spoke concerning the resurrection of Christ that his soul was not left in Hades nor did his flesh see corruption this Jesus God has raised up now in verse 30 he says the promise was that God would raise up the Messiah to sit on David's throne Peter says it's happened he's raised him up he's raised up the seat of David he's raised up Christ of which we are all witnesses he says therefore being exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit he poured out this which you now see here for David did not ascend into the heavens so his throne of course his literal throne is not up there but Jesus's is but David did say the Lord said to my Lord sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool essentially this quote from Psalm 2 I'm sorry Psalm 110 excuse me this quote from Psalm 110 is about initially seemingly about David but David's Lord is really what he's talking about David is the one who ruled as God's vice regent in his day as it were he sat at God's right hand not literally in heaven but he was God's ruler second in command in Israel so Christ is in that position David was in at the right hand of God ruling from the right hand but the most important line is verse 36 therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has past tense has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and King Christ the anointed one God has installed the King and Jesus is him and Israel needs to know that God has enthroned Jesus as he promised David that he would raise up his seed to sit on his throne he's done that Peter saw this as something already fulfilled Jesus is not on the physical throne that David sat in nor has anyone else ever sat on that throne for all we know but there have been many successors and Jesus is the successor to the rulership that was occupied by David in Acts 13 Paul deals with the same question Acts 13 Paul's preaching verse 32 and following it says and we declare to you glad tidings that means we're proclaiming the good news the gospel that promise which was made to the fathers God has fulfilled this for their children now you see this is so interesting because so many people say the promises God made to the Old Testament they've been postponed until Jesus comes back because those promises about the kingdom age they weren't fulfilled they were rejected by the Jews and therefore they've been postponed Paul didn't know they were postponed he says no those promises God made to the fathers he fulfilled it which ones? maybe these ones we're reading in Isaiah would be included in Paul's statement the promises God made to the fathers that is the Jews in the past God has fulfilled them for us and by the way he says that is the good news that's the gospel he says we proclaim to you the good tidings that means the gospel what? that God has fulfilled his promise what promise is that? well he goes on God has fulfilled this for us their children in that he has raised up Jesus as it is also written in the second psalm you are my son today I have begotten you now that statement you are my son today I have begotten you is Psalm 2 7 the verse before that says I have set my king on my holy hill of Zion he's saying that God has begotten and installed his king and Paul says this happened when he raised him from the dead and that he raised him from the dead no more to return to corruption he has spoken thus now the prophecy he's going to quote right now is it's Isaiah 55 3 and he says this is related to Christ rising from the dead here's the prophecy Isaiah 55 3 I will give you the sure mercies of David what's that mean? it means that God promised to give the Messiah those benefits those mercies that he had surely promised to David actually all commentators I think understand that phrase that way regardless of their views about eschatology they all believe that the sure mercies of David refers to the special promises David was given that God would mercifully prolong his dynasty especially through the Messiah but the point is what God promised was specifically one of your seed after you're dead will sit on your throne after you and I'll establish his kingdom forever that's the sure mercies of David that's the thing God promised David Paul says well that's happened already in the fact in the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead this fulfilled that prophecy that God would give the Messiah the sure mercies of David that's the promises God made to David about a seed sitting on the throne those are already happened when Jesus was raised from the dead he was elevated to the throne where he sits and that is him sitting on the throne of David so Peter and Paul certainly argue that the accession of the Messiah to the throne of David which pre-millennialists are still looking forward to it's so sad that they could live their whole life not knowing that it's already happened not realizing that as the apostle said God has fulfilled these promises the promises are not awaiting fulfillment they are fulfilled we should be living in their light and in the truth of them now look at Isaiah 11 this chapter is so rich I'm going to have to go rather sadly very quickly through it chapter 11 says there shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots here Jesus is clearly that branch and that stem or that rod that grows the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him the spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of counsel and might the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord now this passage goes on of course to describe the reign of the Messiah and it is one of the passages very popularly in some circles interpreted to be fulfilled in a future millennium however this does not talk about the Messiah appearing out of the sky in the clouds he grows out of the stem of Jesse this is Jesus appearance the first time when Jesus comes back he is not going to grow out of the stem of Jesse he already did that if the prophet said there will come a king from the sky well then we say oh that must be the second coming of Christ this is clearly the first coming of Christ in fact it specifically says the spirit of God will rest upon him well we saw in Isaiah 61 the opening verses the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me he is the anointed one the Messiah and God has put his spirit upon him Jesus read those verses Isaiah 61 1 and 2 and said this has been fulfilled so clearly the anointing of the Messiah with the Holy Spirit is something Jesus himself declared to already have happened when he was here and this is simply giving the same information the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him so it does so it did then he says in verse 3 his delight is in the fear of the Lord and he shall not judge by the sight of his eyes nor decide by the hearing of his ears most people assess people's religiosity by what they could see Jesus saw beyond that he saw the Pharisees their outward appearances they're like whitewashed tombs most people could only see the whitewash but he could see the dead men's bones inside he judged people differently most people would see a tax collector or a prostitute and only see a law breaker he saw someone who was a fallen broken child of God who needed to be recovered he did not judge the way others did by their sight of their eyes but he did it differently than that but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth now judge the poor doesn't mean he's going to punish the poor to judge the poor means to in many cases vindicate the poor at least make sure that their cause is heard even though they do not have the money to bribe the judge and that was usually what determined how the outcome came when the poor were on trial when the poor had adversaries most judges could be bribed and it wasn't the poor that could bribe them it was the rich and therefore the poor would rarely get justice but not so in this case he will be a just judge the poor will get a fair hearing here he will judge actually in their favor and decide with equity for the meek Jesus spoke up for the poor and the meek he said blessed are you poor blessed are you meek he judged them to be God's people he judged them other than by the side of the eyes he didn't judge them according to how much they could contribute to the temple a poor widow could only put two mites in a Pharisee could put in a lot of money Jesus didn't judge according to the side of his eyes he didn't weigh their contributions the way others would he was on the side of the poor because that woman gave everything she had he knew what was going on in her heart he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked now some people say well that has to be the second coming of Christ because Jesus didn't slay anyone Jesus didn't kill anyone or smite anyone who is here so it cannot be thought that this is referring to his first coming but I disagree if you don't mind in Hosea chapter 6 Isaiah 6 verses 4 and 5 Hosea 6 verses 4 and 5 God says O Ephraim what shall I do with you O Judah what shall I do to you for your faithfulness is like a morning cloud and like the early dew it goes away it evaporates so quickly you're faithful for a little moment and then it just evaporates therefore I have hewn them the word hewn is a verb that speaks of cutting wood with an axe I have hewn them by the prophets I have slain them by the words of my mouth and your judgments are like light that goes forth now God said that the prophetic words that came to Israel were hewing them and slaying them not literally certainly perhaps we could say the words of the prophets condemned them but the figurative poetic language is he he cut them he cut them down he hewed them he slew them this is language that sounds violent but he's really just talking about the words of the prophets the words of the prophets were to them cutting condemning and likewise when it says of Jesus he shall strike the land of Israel with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked same idea striking slaying the same two ideas that the prophets did but the prophets didn't kill anybody neither did Jesus it's the words that proceed out of his mouth the breath of his lips speaks of what comes out when he speaks his speaking is what slays people just like the words of the prophets it's not literal slaying righteousness shall be his belt of his loins faithfulness the belt of his waist just figurative way of saying this is his character faithful and righteous now what about this verse six the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb the leopard shall lie down with the young goat the calf and the young lion shall and the fatling together and a little child shall lead them the cow and the bear shall graze the young one shall lie down together and the lion shall eat straw like an ox the nursing child shall play apparently safely by the cobra's den and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper's den they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the lord as waters cover the sea this is the ultimate outcome of the kingdom that it'll be universally known but what about these images these are classic images for Christmas cards about the lion and the lamb lying down and are almost always popularly associated with the age to come when Jesus returns the millennium these are millennial images in the minds of most people but are they the time frame of this prophecy is not a future millennium we will see that not only from what I've observed earlier in the chapter but from the quotations of later verses than this verse 10 in particular is quoted by Paul as and applied to the present age this is describing something happening now but how could this be there's still predatory animals that still prey on domestic animals but in the prophetic imagery Israel is commonly portrayed as domesticated animals especially sheep or calves they are the helpless they are the ones who belong to the shepherd they depend on him for their protection because they are helpless creatures made only to be eaten for the most part and they are typically eaten by predators Israel throughout the Old Testament is likened to God's flock in Malachi they're likened to calves in the stall they're clean animals animals that are clean can be eaten but unfortunately they can be eaten by predators as well and therefore Israel which was clean and cared for by God was often preyed upon by carnivorous animals which were the Gentiles now we actually saw in one of our earlier topical lectures how nations are sometimes likened to people or animals we saw in chapter 37 of Ezekiel that God is likening Israel to his flock of sheep and he says there will no more be wild beasts in the land to threaten them the Gentiles will no more afflict them the Gentile nations are the wild beasts typically Jeremiah refers in his early chapters to Babylon as the lion why? it's a predator against the sheep lions prey on sheep as David well knew and every shepherd knew and in Daniel four Gentile kingdoms Babylon Media Persia Greece and Rome are likened to a lion a bear a leopard and another predatory animal with 10 horns in other words these wild predators are the Gentiles the sheep the goats the calves the domesticated ones are God's people the Jews and in Christ the lion and the lamb lay down together that is the Jew and the Gentile formerly enemies of one another Gentiles formerly threats to the Jews will actually come into the same kingdom and lie down peaceably it's the moving out of the middle wall of partition and making of the two one new man in Christ that is here poetically described when it says a little child shall lead them remember Jesus said who would be chief among you must be like a little child when it says a little child shall put his hand over the cobra's den or the viper's den and they shall not hurt or destroy sounds very much like what Jesus told his disciples in Luke chapter 10 Luke chapter 10 he almost seems to be borrowing the wording from this passage it would appear when he says to them in verse 19 behold I give you authority oh to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you they shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain they shall master the serpents they will harmlessly reach into the cobra's den to drag it out they will have no vulnerability to the snakes they shall not hurt or destroy Jesus said I'm giving you authority over the serpents nothing shall hurt you it's the words of this passage simply paraphrased but Jesus identified those serpents as all the power of the enemy that is Satan Satan's power the mastery of God's children even little children even young Christians over Satan in 1st John 4.4 1st John 4.4 it says you have overcome them well let me get this right here 1st John 4.4 says you are of God little children and have overcome them who the spirit of antichrist the false spirits the evil spirits mentioned earlier the false spirits that come and need to be judged you have overcome them little children John called his readers little children many times but that's not the only thing he joined that label little children to them when he was talking about how they have overcome the demonic spirits because a little child will lead a little child will master the serpents these ideas are images that seem to have echoes in the New Testament spiritualized in every case and verse 10 says in that day Isaiah 11.10 in that day there shall be a root of Jesse who shall stand as a banner to the people for the Gentiles shall seek him and his resting place shall be glorious this verse is quoted by Paul in Romans 15.10 he's referring to the fact that Gentiles are coming to Christ right now he uses this verse as a proof text he's applying it to now not a future time verse 11 quickly it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord will set his hand again a second time to recover the remnant of his people who are left now the second time is the second exodus the first time was the exodus according to verse 16 verse 16 says there will be a highway for the remnant of his people who will be left from Assyria as it was for Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt as it was in the exodus there will be a second exodus and this is what he means he'll recover them a second time this is a spiritual exodus though and he'll gather them from Assyria Egypt Pathos Cush Elam Shinar Hamath and the islands of the sea as we said in an earlier lecture these individual nations many of them are extinct now simply represent Gentiles and Gentiles in general you know the name of specific ones represent the general category he will set up a banner for the nations or the Gentiles and will assemble the outcasts of Israel so Jews and Gentiles coming in and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth remember Jesus said they will come down they will come from the east and the west and the north and the south the four corners of the earth and she'll sit down in the kingdom of God with Abraham Isaac and Jacob that's what Jesus said in Luke 13 and in Matthew 8 also the envy of Ephraim that means Israel shall depart and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off Ephraim shall not envy Judah and Judah shall not harass Ephraim they'll be joined together like two sticks joined into one hand as in Ezekiel chapter 37 Ephraim Israel and Judah joined into unity in Christ all Jews no matter what tribe they're from as well as Gentiles will no longer be hostile there'll be peace but they shall fly down upon the shoulder of the Philistines toward the west together they shall plunder the people of the east they shall lay their hand on Edom and Moab and the people of Ammon shall obey them the Lord will utterly destroy the tongue of the sea of Egypt with his mighty wind he will shake his fist over the river and strike it into the seven streams and make men cross over dry shod very figurative of course he's talking about the tongue of the river of Egypt and all that so he's talking about making a way through water reminiscent of exodus events and he says like it was when in the day he came out of Egypt in verse 16 so here we have exodus imagery referring to of course salvation and these nations that come in in verse 11 and the nations that are defeated in verses 14 verse 14 particularly are ancient nations they're not going to have a future but they represent gentiles in general or in the case of verse 14 enemies in general and probably spiritual enemies just like the serpent the cobra is a spiritual enemy so these enemies that are defeated the victory over enemies is an idea here but of course the reality is it's spiritual victories and spiritual warfare it talks as if the people of God in the kingdom age are attacking the philistines attacking the people to the east attacking Moab and Edom bringing them under subjection to them actually there's no war in the other passages about the kingdom age it's a time of peace this is a spiritual warfare and these enemies who are of course if we took them literally they are the political enemies of Israel in the old testament they are representative of spiritual enemies of the spiritual Israel and therefore the conquests are of a spiritual sort and God giving them victory over their spiritual foes and so this is the way these passages work we're out of time and we've only taken a few of them we will of course look at all of them in the course of going through the book of Isaiah but this sampling chapter 2 chapter 4 chapter 9 chapter 11 really are a reasonable sampling to kind of see how how the prophets described this and yet to see how the new testament writers understood its real meaning quite different than the Jews probably did and so we have the king and his kingdom a major motif major theme in Isaiah the next time we gather to study Isaiah we will start with chapter 1 and we'll move as rapidly as as we reasonably can through the entire book with of course not so much need for so much commentary as we would need if we hadn't gone over all this material already most of that should be familiar to us at that time