Third Presbyterian Sunday Morning Bible Study - December 6, 2020

Below is the Bible Study written by Jim Rudiger for his Sunday School Class which meets at Third Presbyterian Church, Norfolk, Virginia. It's based on Isaiah 11:1-9.

Shhhh.  Everybody be quiet for a minute.  Peaceful isn’t it?  Who doesn’t want a peaceful time every now and then?  What is the most peaceful time or place that you can think of?  When I was a little boy, I would sit in a rocking chair on the front porch on 27th Street with a gentle rain tapping on the tin roof.  Cars traveling down Hampton Boulevard splashing in the puddles.  The rocking chair creaking as I pushed it back and forth.  All of these sounds combined, gave me a feeling of security and peace.  As a grown up, I get that same feeling of peace in the Blue Ridge Mountains in the morning with the sun still low in the eastern sky.  Standing at Raven’s Roost with the birds soaring high in the sky.  Looking down and seeing the trucks in the valley below leaving home for work and smoke curling up from houses waking up to a new day.  The rustling of the tree branches as a gentle breeze caresses them is the only sound I hear.  It just makes you want to forget all the things you have to do back at home and stay there cradled in the privacy and solitude of those mountains.

In today’s study, Isaiah talks about peace in one of the most familiar of his prophesies.  One thing you have to get used to with Isaiah’s prophesies is that they are written as poems and sometimes are bit colorful.  Isaiah has spent the first eight chapters warning the people that bad times lay ahead.  Their fear that they would fall victim to the Assyrian army that wiped the northern kingdom of Israel off the map was real and the Assyrians were getting closer to Judah.  Isaiah called to their attention that it was all their fault.  They chose to disobey God and they will have to pay the piper.  If Isaiah had left it there, can you imagine how depressed Judah would have felt? 

How do you feel when something happens and down deep you know that it was your fault?  If you had only done something differently, the problem wouldn’t have led to a disaster.  But, Isaiah tells them not to give up hope.  Better times - they are a coming.  God won’t forsake Judah.  Even though Assyria will destroy a lot of Judah in the 10th Chapter, Isaiah assures Judah they and Jerusalem will be spared what the northern kingdom went through, because God will destroy Assyria.  

The description of the Assyrian destruction will be like cutting down a forest.  All of the proud trees representing the proud leaders of Assyria as well as the Jewish leaders who tried to get along with Assyria by turning their backs on God, will be cut down.  Even the Cedars of Lebanon won’t be spared.  The only thing left will be stumps marking where that great forest once stood.  The land would be like those pictures we see of the trench warfare in World War 1 where the trees, stripped of the bark, were reduced to stumps and looking barren and dead.  With this description of a destroyed forest, the 10th Chapter ends and brings us to our study for today.  

Isaiah 11: 1 A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

Here’s where the hope kicks in.  As dark as everything looked, there was a silver lining - a rosier future. What is going to happen to one of those stumps that Isaiah talked about in Chapter 10?  A shoot will sprout out of that stump.  God looks over the all of the stumps and picks the right one and causes a small fragile sprout to poke through. The Hebrews believed that a tribe is like a tree with all of it’s strength in it’s roots.  If a stump of the tree remains, God can bring new life to the tree because of it’s strong root system.  So, here is the picture: there is a stump representing a tribe of Israel and God will raise up a new leader from that stump that has been nearly destroyed.

Whose stump is picked?  Jesse.  Who is Jesse?  The father of King David.  The new sprout will be a descendant of Jesse.  Who is this new sprout?  The Messiah. But, the people are expecting the Messiah to be descendant of David.  Nobody thought about David’s father, Jesse.  Why doesn’t Isaiah just say the stump of David and leave Jesse out of it all together?  Tree stumps aren’t the prettiest things to look at much less admire.  Stumps appear withered and their day in the sun over. Stumps are really kind of a sad reminder of something that once was majestic.  Identifying the stump as David wouldn’t be putting David, Israel’s number one hero, in a very attractive light.  Since David came out of Jesse and the Messiah will come out of David, this allows David to maintain a little more dignity. Also, Jessie was a more humble person then David.  He was just a shepherd.  By claiming the Messiah will come from Jesse stresses the humble beginnings of Jesus.  Isaiah is using a little poetic slight of hand here. Another thing about this stump, it had been 600 years since David’s rule.  With the Assyrian invasion ready to start, it looked like David’s family tree was as dead as an old tree stump.

Isaiah 11: 2 The spirit of the LORD shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.

This branch, this shoot, is growing out of an apparently dead tree stump, but actually it is full of life.  In fact this shoot is a pretty tough customer fighting all the odds to remain alive.  The word used for “shoot” is the same word used for the material that wicker baskets are made of or the same thing that Grandmamma used to switch my legs when I endangered my brother Jack’s life again. So, it is a tough shoot.   Isaiah goes on to list seven spirits who will make up this Messiah - this new sprout and king.  Why seven spirits?  Remember, numbers were important to the ancient Hebrews.  What did seven represent?   The perfect complete number.  Isaiah is telling his readers that the Messiah will be the perfect and complete representation of God with nothing else needed.  Who are those seven spirits?

(1) Spirit of the Lord.  This wasn’t a false spirit or a deceiving spirit and it certainly wasn’t the spirit of man.  This was the spirit of God resting on the Messiah.  In Luke, Jesus scolds the apostles by telling them they don’t know what spirit they are dealing with.  Jesus knew who he was and whose spirit was in him.

(2) Spirit of wisdom.  This spirit made Jesus perfectly wise in everything.  We all know a lot about one thing like cooking or our jobs, but know very little about everything.  Not so with Jesus.  Corinthians says that Jesus became for us, wisdom from God.  That means that it isn’t so much that Jesus had wisdom; it’s that He is wisdom.

(3) Spirit of understanding.  You know, we hear a lot of things.  The problem is understanding what we hear.  But, Jesus understands all things - everything.  When you have a problem, do you go to the guy who doesn’t understand anything about the problem or the guy who has experienced and resolved the problem before?  The odds are that you will get the help you need from the guy who knows - been there; done that - and that’s who we have in Jesus.

(4) Spirit of counsel.  Two weeks ago we talked about counseling.  What is counseling?  Giving advice.  Why would Jesus be a good counselor?  He has wisdom and understanding.  Wisdom to recognize our problem and understanding to help us understand and resolve the problem.

(5) Spirit of might.  Jesus has the power to do whatever he wants.  He isn’t a weak namby pamby guy who talks a big game but is AWOL when it come time for action.  There are a lot of people who would help us if they could, but they just don’t have the power needed to help us.  And, there are people who have the power to help us, but don’t care enough about us to help us.  Jesus has both the love for us and the power to help us.

(6) Spirit of knowledge.  What’s the difference between wisdom and knowledge?  Look at it this way: knowledge is facts and wisdom is how do use those facts.  Jesus knows everything that there is to know. Most importantly, he knows our hearts.  Ever tell somebody a decision you have made and they immediately tell you what a bad decision it was without giving you a chance to tell them how you arrived at that decision?  You tell a friend that you have decided to have your nose worked on.  Your friend berates you for being so vain and besides your nose isn’t all that big.  On cloudy days, it hardly casts a shadow.  He doesn’t give you the opportunity to explain that while your nose looks normal, it was broken when you were young and is causing you breathing problems.  Your friend offered his opinion before he knew all the facts.  No matter what you ask of Jesus, he has all the facts - all the knowledge - before he answers. 

(7) Spirit of the fear of the Lord.  This may be the most important spirit of all. Even though Jesus was divine, while he was living here on earth in human form, he willingly submitted to God, respected God and honored God.  He even submitted to being separated from God while hanging on the cross.

Isaiah 11: 3 His delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.  He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; 4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. 5 Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

How shall the Messiah view his fear of the Lord?  It will be his delight.  The words “his delight” comes from the verb meaning “to smell.”  The Messiah will not only be clothed in righteousness, but, will be wearing the Fear of God like a perfume.  I guess you can say that there is a certain air about him. Jesus not only smells good, he can smell out when something is fishy.  When you buy fish, if it doesn't smell right it's probably not good to eat. 

Isaiah says that the Messiah won’t judge by what he sees or decide on what he hears.  What is he talking about?  He isn’t going to be swayed by physical appearance or buddies talking you up.  Suppose two people came up to you and asked a favor.  The first guy is clean,  well dressed and polite while the second guy is wearing ragged dirty clothes - like my “working in the yard” clothes - and speaks gruffly.  Which guy would you most likely do a favor for?  This is going back to the “knowing everything” spirit that Jesus has.  We might not know that the second guy just came out of his garden and didn’t have time to neaten up and the fertilizer he was spreading had caused him to have a coughing fit.  Jesus knows all of the back ground, so, he will judge how?  With righteousness.  Why single out the poor and the meek?  They are the ones that the world won’t give a break to.  We've seen a lot of wars start when the poor and meek aren’t given justice

The Messiah shall strike the earth with what?  The rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. More poetic language.  What does this mean and it doesn’t have anything to do with his mouth wash?  We know that God spoke and the world was created.  God spoke and the world was flooded.  God will speak and the world will dissolve in fire.  The Messiah has that same might, that same power.  He has only to announce judgement and the bad guys will be no more.  The point is that without justice there is no peace.  People who are misused and treated unfairly get angry and resentful and sometimes this leads to violence.  Sometimes it ends in people saying, “What’s the use.  The game is rigged.”  And they give up and opt out of society.  Today, injustice comes in a lot of forms - tyrants, big money, murderous religions, IRS.  Back in Isaiah’s day the injustice was mostly economic oppression.  The Jews had mechanisms built into their religion to help to prevent this from happening.  But, people were administering the plan and when that happens, looking out for number one supersedes any good plan. In Thessalonians the answer to the unfairness of the world is expressed this way: “And then the lawless one will be revealed, who, the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.”

How is righteousness described?  As a belt around the waist.  How do you figure that?  Remember, back then a belt around the waist held the robe closed.  It was an important part of what you wore.  It stood between you and an indecent exposure charge and no man left home without his belt in place.  You could say it was an essential part of his attire.  For the Messiah, righteousness and faithfulness were as essential to his integrity as a man’s belt was.

Isaiah 11: 6 The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. 7 The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den. 9 They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

When Israel’s kings failed to be just, compassionate and loyal to God, the people still had hope.  Some time in the future there would come a Messiah who will be full of God’s spirit and he will right the scales and give them peace.  Isaiah starts telling the people what this peace will look like.  I am sure that these descriptions went way pass their expectations.  There would be a new world order brought in by the Messiah.

What’s the first thing that will happen?  Wolves will live with the lambs.  Up to this time what was the relationship between wolves and lambs?  Wolves ate lambs.  The same can be said about the leopard and the kid and the lion and calf.   Considering these combinations, what are the wolves, leopards and lions?  Predators.  And what are the lambs, kids and calves? Prey.  Predator gets hungry and eats a meal - a lamb.  Does this mean that the wolf, leopard and lion will starve to death when the Messiah sets up his kingdom?  What will they eat?  Grass and straw.  In other words, nature will be transformed.  There won’t be any predators among the animals anymore.  If the animals don’t eat meat, what does that mean they will be?  Vegetarians.  But, we are Presbyterians and we don’t like change.  Ever since God created this world animals including us have eaten meat.  Isn’t that true?  

Actually, no.  Genesis 1:29 states that God gave human beings every plant yielding seed and every tree with seed in it’s fruit for food.  God didn’t even mention eating animals.  What about animals? What did they eat? Animals were given every green plant for food.  But, I always thought that God gave us cows so that McDonalds could sell us hamburgers.  If we all started out as vegetarians, when did things get tastier?  It all started after the flood.  God knew the heart of humans and knew that they wouldn’t be satisfied with veggies, so, he gave us all living creatures for our food.  The only prohibition was that you could not eat flesh with it’s life still in it.   The blood was equated to life, so, what we were told is that we couldn’t order steaks rare.  Since blood was equated to life and life belonged to God, to eat the blood was to take something that belonged to God.

Isaiah says that a little child will lead them.  Who will the little child lead?  The animals.  The idea is that not only the way the animals treat each other changes, but, the way they relate to people will change too.  And for a lot of animals that’s a big change since they are used to us eating them.  If you think something is going to eat you, the safest thing to do is either run away or attack.  Since humans won’t be eating animals anymore, it will be so safe that a little boy or girl will be able to go up to a wolf, leopard, lion or bear and pet him and lead the animal down the road with no fear of being attacked.  

But there is more.  How do you feel about snakes - even the non-poison kind?  Snakes have had a bad reputation ever since the Garden of Eden. What scares you about snakes? It’s the fangs.  We have to admit, snakes just look bad.  They slither along on their bellies.  No feet or hands.  How can you trust something that doesn’t even have paws?  They hiss at us and don’t show us respect.  After the change, there will be a difference in our attitude about snakes.  The snakes will be so docile that what can happen?  A little child can put his hand right down a snake hole and pet a snake. 

Isaiah may be making another point about children.  Most children don’t like to see animals hurt. Remember when you were young and saw Bambi’s mother get killed?   When I was a little guy during the war, my father raised chickens.  One day my father told me we were going to have fried chicken for supper and did I want to help.  I loved fried chicken, so, I all I could see was a big plate of fried chicken just waiting for the greasy fingers of a little boy.  He told me to go catch a chicken in the coop and bring it to him.  Those chickens knew more than I did and kept away from me, but, I finally cornered one and brought to my Dad.  He took the chicken over to a tree that had a big nail sticking out about six feet up off of the ground.  He tied a string around the chicken’s neck and hung the chicken on the nail.  I was getting a little upset thinking about that poor chicken strangling hanging on that nail.  My worries about the chicken strangling to death was short lived.  My Dad came back with a hatchet and with one quick chop separated the chicken body from the chicken head.  Have you ever seen a chicken that has lost it’s head?  It wobbled and careened around the ground until my Dad put a bushel basket over it.  It was hard to chew on a chicken leg that night.  Maybe, Isaiah was pointing out that children are more sensitive to hurting other things.  Perhaps the feelings of children are truer to God’s plan than what guides adults.  

So the animals will go back to being vegetarians, but, where does that leave us?  Does this mean no more Whoppers?  No more Pollard’s Chicken?  No more jumbo dogs at Harbor Park?  A lot of religious scholars believe that when Christ returns for his 1000 year reign, humans will return to being vegetarians like it was in the Garden of Eden.

What won’t hurt or destroy us?  Animals won’t hurt humans and humans won’t destroy animals.  And where will this take place?  On God’s holy hill.  And where is that holy hill?  Jerusalem.  Perhaps, the New Jerusalem.  Jerusalem and everything will be brand spanking new.  All that caused us to prey upon each other will be gone.  There will be peace in the valley at last.  But, it will only work because the whole earth will be what?  Full of the knowledge of God.  And who has this knowledge of God?  Jesus.

Is it all a pipe dream, just wishful thinking?  Looking at our world today, is there any good reason to believe that the world Isaiah described is even possible?  Isaiah’s world seems like a fantasy world.  But, maybe Isaiah had something there.  Think of it.  A world where there are no predators or prey.  A world that recognizes that God provides sufficiently for all of our needs.  A world where we don’t have to grab from others to get what we need.  Maybe it is too much to hope for, but, it isn’t too much to seek.

One thing is promised.  We will have peace.  I wish that it came with just one more rainy summer afternoon sitting in that rocking chair on the porch on 27th Street.  We can’t bring back those sweet days when we were young.  But, the peace Isaiah describes goes even further than sitting on that porch.  It is a time when we will be at peace with all of the animals in the world and that includes a lot of our relatives.  We’ll be at peace with all of our neighbors and, most importantly, at peace with our God.

Prayer. Father, we pray for peace in our world, our community and our church.  Make us your instruments for that peace.  Amen.