Sunday, December 8, 2024 PM

Then turn to the book of Isaiah chapter 4. We'll be reading chapter 4 tonight, verses 1 through 6, and we're looking at a promise, a prophecy about the

Lord's branch. Let's begin with a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for the night.

We thank you for your word. We pray that you would help us as we read it together and think about it, that we would rejoice in your truth, that you show us concerning your son

Jesus Christ. And we pray for these things and trust in your Holy Spirit to guide us and to encourage us.

We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Isaiah chapter 4, beginning in verse 1.

And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying,

We will eat our own food and wear our own apparel, only let us be called by your name to take away our reproach.

In that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing for those of Israel who have escaped.

And it shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem.

When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning, then the

Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion and above her assemblies a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night.

For over all the glory there will be a covering, and there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime, from the heat for a place of refuge, and for a shelter from storm and rain."

So as we think about the Lord's branch, this vision, this prophecy, this set of promises is in connection with the

Lord's house in chapter 2, verses 1 through 5, where in heavenly

Mount Zion and the new covenant temple are described and all the nations are invited to come up to Mount Zion and be a part of this new covenant.

So also we have the same idea here, but given with different word pictures, different metaphors.

And the attention is placed upon the Lord's branch. Before the

Lord's house and the Lord's mountain and all of the place in which the nations gather, but here the focus on the person being called the

Lord's branch. We talked about how this chapter shows an utter reversal of what we see in the previous chapters concerning Judah, how she was trusting in all the wrong things, depending on all the wrong things.

But now in chapter 4, you see the trust, the faith, the confidence being redirected to the

Lord who is the true redeemer of Judah, the real hope of these rebellious children of woe.

And so in verse 1, we looked at the metaphor of a new bride, the seven women taking hold of one man saying, we will eat our own food and wear our own apparel.

Just let us be called by your names that our reproach will be taken away. And while we see the immediate context of judgment, how all of the men of Judah are under the judgment of God and there's warfare, which means there's death everywhere and all these men are dying.

And it would make sense then that these widows would not have anyone to cover them and give them a name.

They are under reproach. They need someone to claim them and call them their own.

So this idea of polygamy is here, but it's not here because it's not the kind of polygamy we find with Abraham or with Jacob.

They're not asking for anything other than a name, a name that can cover them and take away their shame and take away their reproach.

And we looked at some parallel passages about the 10 men who grabbed the sleeve of the one

Jew to bring them up to Mount Zion. Here are seven women grabbing hold of one man saying, let us be called by your name.

And so there's a hopeful vision here, a hopeful idea that is only reinforced by the following verse.

And you see the similarity and in that day, right? So verse one says, in that day, seven women will take hold of one man.

Verse two, in that day, the branch of the Lord shall be fruitful, beautiful, and glorious. So it's the same promise.

It's the same picture that we're being told about. The one man that they grab hold of, what is his name?

Right? We hear him called as the branch of the Lord in verse two, as the fruit of the earth.

He's being named for us in verse two. What a name to grab hold of, a name that is beautiful and glorious, excellent, and appealing.

Now that's a true covering, not like the covering that we find of the women of Zion, the daughters of Zion in chapter three, where they covered themselves in 21 layers of finery to bring attention to themselves.

But here is a true covering, a name that is glorious and excellent.

So as we think about this language, that day, we looked back in chapter two and chapter three, we discovered that it is the day of the

Lord, which is of course a day of judgment, a day of sifting, a day of clarifications, wherein

God brings about a judgment that shakes things and makes things pass away.

But what remains is glorious. God takes away that which is under judgment so that that which is of salvation remains.

And so that's what we read about in verse one, in that day. Also, we read about it in verse two, in that day.

In that day, the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing for those of Israel who have escaped.

Again, a reminder that that day is a day of judgment, a day where many die, a day that many have fallen under the holy violence of God as he vindicates his righteous name.

But there are those who escape. There are those who are spared, those who are brought out of that judgment, and they find salvation in the name of the

Lord. So the day of judgment is something where proper wrath is executed, but also grace and salvation are manifested.

These happen one after the other. And so the focus is on the branch of the

Lord, and we're thinking about a name now, a name of the one whom these seven women are grabbing hold of.

And the term branch is a title that speaks to the

Messiah. The word branch points to the anointed offices of David's heir, both king and priest.

The title branch is used to describe the descendant of David who reigns. It is also used to describe the priesthood that we see stewarded by someone named

Yeshua in the book of Zechariah. These are messianic titles used of one named

David, one named Joshua or Yeshua. And then later on, we find that Jesus Christ, who is both king and priest, fulfills the prophecies where the word branch is used to describe him.

In Jeremiah 23, we have one of Jeremiah's new covenant promises, and it focuses in on the branch who comes from David.

So why is David important? Well, David is important because Judah is important.

And why is Judah important? Because Jacob and Isaac and Abraham are important.

And you keep on tracing it back, why are they important? Because God gave a promise of the seed to Abraham, but it was the same promise he had given to Eve in Eden after sin had come into the world.

And so a promised seed from Eve, again, the promised seed spoken about to Abraham.

And so the promised seed was Isaac, not Ishmael. Isaac was miraculously conceived in Abraham's and Sarah's old age.

Isaac begets Jacob, Esau, not the heir Jacob is. And then

Jacob begets many sons of whom he prophesies concerning Judah, that Judah is a lion and who dares to rouse him, the lion of Judah.

And from him comes one who will rule to whom all the nations belong,

Shiloh, the one to whom it all belongs. And the ruling scepter will not depart from between his feet.

And that Judah will be the leader amongst his brethren, and he will have his foot on the neck of his enemies.

So the royal seed, the promised king will come from Judah. And so all attention is on Judah, though the first king of Israel comes from the tribe of Benjamin, whom

Jacob prophesied was a bit of a wolf and a bit of a snake. And Saul didn't turn out so well for the nation.

But David of the tribe of Judah turns out to be the king.

And his son, the son of David, builds a temple. Solomon, the man of peace,

Sholomon, who also was named Jedidiah, the Lord's beloved. And it turns out, you come to the

New Testament, that the son of David does build the temple, the new covenant temple. And he is the beloved.

This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And so Solomon, all of his glory was just shadow, but Jesus Christ, he was the substance.

That's why David is important. So when you're in Jeremiah 23, and you're reading about the new covenant, we're not surprised to find prophecies of the

Messiah descended from David. So Jeremiah 23, verse 3, the promise is,

I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and bring them back to their foals, and they shall be fruitful and increase.

I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them, and they will fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking, says the

Lord. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will raise to David a branch of righteousness.

Okay, so here's the term, branch. And again, the word branch in the Hebrew is nesir. Thus, Jesus was from Nisareth, branch town, right?

So this was to fulfill that Jesus would be a Nazarene, branch man. From branch town, he's the branch.

So when you read about that in Matthew chapter 2, that when Joseph took Mary and Jesus up out of Egypt, out of Egypt, I have called my son, which is from Hosea.

Then he says he heard that the son of Herod was reigning in Judea, so he went to Galilee instead.

And there he grew up in Nazareth. This was to fulfill what the prophet said, that he would be a

Nazarene. Not that he was a Nazirite, taking a Nazirite vow. That's not what it says.

He was a Nazarene branch man from branch town. So that's where all these prophecies are fulfilled that he grew up in Nazareth.

It was pointing to him. So I will raise to David a branch of righteousness. What does that mean?

Well, he says, a king, a king shall reign and prosper and execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.

In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell safely. Now this is his name by which he will be called the

Lord, our righteousness. So already we're being told something here.

Something's going to be different. Something's going to be different in the new covenant wherein everybody who is in this king's kingdom, all of them safe, all of them cared for, none of them under judgment, none of them left outside the walls, complete safety and welcome.

And so there's a signal that there's going to be a new understanding of who Israel is and who

Judah is. It's whoever's with the king. It's whoever's inside his walls, right?

Even as in Isaiah 2, we hear that, hey, all the nations, why don't you all come up to Mount Zion?

Jacob, you too, Jacob, why don't you come up to Mount Zion too? Because you need to go there too. It's a whole new idea of who

Israel is. Israel is whoever's in Christ. This is deeply written into the Old Testament.

It's not a new idea when you get the New Testament. Isaiah talks about it. Jeremiah talks about it. But notice the name.

We were just looking at seven women grabbing hold of one man saying, please cover us with your name to take away our reproach.

And the very next verse in Isaiah says, hey, by the way, this man's name is

Branch. Jeremiah says, yeah, his name is Branch, the

Lord, our righteousness. No, there's a name that covers reproach. There is a name that takes away shame, to be named by the man whose name is righteousness.

Later on, we hear from Jeremiah that the city that this king reigns over is named, the

Lord is our righteousness. The name of Jerusalem is the Lord is our righteousness.

Meaning whoever is in Christ are those who are justified by the righteousness of Christ.

And that is the scope of the New Jerusalem. Well, in like manner, Zechariah makes much of the

Branch man in talking about a priest, a high priest by the name of Joshua, contemporary of such folks as Zerubbabel in the post -exilic period when the

Jews came back from Babylon and Persia, and they came back to the city to rebuild the walls and rebuild the temple.

So Zechariah chapter three, verse eight, the prophet says, here, oh Joshua, the high priest, you and your companions who sit before you, for they are a wondrous sign.

So they are a sign, right? They're not the destination, they're a sign. You know, a high priest and priest sitting in a rebuilt temple, okay, that's not the destination.

That's a sign pointing forward to the destination, right? When you're driving in on I -40 going west, and you've gotten yourself out of Henrietta, and you're trying to get home, and you're getting past Shawnee, you're seeing signs that say, okay, see, so many miles ahead, right?

The signs aren't destinations, they're telling you where you're going. These priests, this high priest, and those who are with him, sitting in that rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, that's not the destination.

They are signs pointing forward to the destination who is Christ. Notice it says, they are a wondrous sign, for behold,

I am bringing forth my servant, the branch. For behold, the stone that I have laid before Joshua, upon the stone are seven eyes.

Revelation picks that up and talks about the Holy Spirit. Behold, I will engrave its inscription, says the

Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. In that day, says the

Lord of hosts, everyone will invite his neighbor under his vine and under his fig tree. That's the idea of in one day, all of the sin, all of the snarls, all of the problems of what

Israel had stored up, all of it gone in one day. That's what an amazing promise.

And then, the entirety of all the blessings of God, all those covenant blessings that are wrapped up in the image of the

Israelite, sitting at comfort and ease under his vine and under his fig tree, everything at perfect rest, the idea of shalom.

Shalom in a day? Deliverance from sin in a day? Behold, God's servant, the branch.

He's going to do that. And in what way? He brings, he is our righteousness.

He brings in the righteousness. He's the whole of it, the entirety of it.

To be in him is to possess all of those blessings and to possess the entirety of the inheritance.

Zechariah 6 verses 11 through 13. Take the silver and gold, make an elaborate crown, set it on the head of Joshua, the son of Jehoshaphat, the high priest.

Oh, hang on a second. What are we doing putting a crown on top of the high priest's head?

You know, there once was a man named Uzziah who was king who thought he wanted to play priest as well. And he went into the temple because he got so full of himself, and the priest said, no, that's not for you to do.

And he said, out of my way. And then the Lord struck him with leprosy. And here we are after the exile, when there is no king on the throne of David, and all you have is this high priest named

Joshua, or Yeshua, if you say it in Hebrew, and they're going to put a king on his, put a crown on his head?

Because why? He's a sign. He is a sign of someone yet to come who is not only high priest, but also king at the same time, right?

This is a picture of Messiah, where the anointed offices are being blended together and being brought together as one.

And so verse 12, speak to him saying, thus says the Lord of hosts saying, behold, the man whose name is the branch from his place, he shall branch out and he shall build the temple of the

Lord. Yes, he shall build the temple of the Lord. He shall bear the glory and shall sit and rule on his throne.

So he shall be a priest on his throne and the council of peace shall be between them both.

King and priest at the same time, right? That idea is something that we see in the old covenant was not allowed.

So this is talking about the new covenant, when those offices come together in Christ. In the old Testament, you can find a priest who is a prophet, and you can find a king who was a prophet, but you can't find a king who was a priest, unless of course you're pointing at Melchizedek, which we will allow, because that works well for the illustration as well when we get to Hebrews.

King and priest at the same time is pointing forward to Jesus Christ, the branch man.

Now in Isaiah, the branch refers like in Jeremiah, we normally hear about the branch referring to the descendant from David.

Of course, in Zechariah, it refers to the high priest, but notice here in Isaiah chapter 4 verse 2, this isn't the branch that comes from David, this is the branch of the

Lord. So what ancestry is being talked about here? This is a different type of connection being made.

Here, we're being told that he is divinely begotten, he's the Lord's branch. Of course, he's still the branch from David that we also read about in other places, but he is also the

Lord's branch, denoting him as divinely begotten. But is he not also fully human?

This is Christmas, we've been thinking about this earlier today. So fully divine, he's from the Lord, he's the

Lord's branch, but also notice in parallel, the fruit of the earth. Notice the way in which it's written.

In that day, the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing.

You see the parallel? We're to read fruit of the earth in parallel with branch of the

Lord. That's the way it's written. It's very clearly put into Hebrew parallel, it's really hard to miss.

So fruit of the earth refers to the human side of Messiah's ancestry, as branch of the

Lord is referring to his being divinely begotten. So for example, in the term earth or land in Hebrew here is

Eretz, and it is closely connected to the people of Israel.

So think about this, the branch of the Lord and the fruit of the land, the word earth here is as often translated as land as it is earth in the

Old Testament. That's just the name, that's just the word for it. So the branch of the Lord, fruit of the land.

Where does the Messiah come from? What do the scriptures say? He came from a certain land and a certain people of that land, didn't he?

He was historically rooted, all the promises say so, all the prophecies say so. Isaiah 9 reminds us that he would walk in the land, he was the light to those of Zebulun and Naphtali.

He was there in Galilee of the Gentiles, but there was a particular land that he was going to show up as the light.

He was born of the tribe of Judah in whose inheritance was the little town of Bethlehem.

The book of Ruth is all about how the ancestry of the Messiah is from the people of the land, the people of Judah, and that he would be born from the town of Bethlehem.

First Samuel 16 verse 1, the Lord said to Samuel, how long will you mourn for Saul saying that I have rejected him from running over Israel?

Fill your horn with oil and go, I'm sending you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, which is a fun word, for I have provided myself a king among his sons.

Micah chapter 5 verse 2, but you Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be the ruler in Israel, whose going forth are from old, from everlasting.

Matthew 2 verse 1 says, now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king.

What are we being reminded of? He's the fruit of the land. He's the branch of the

Lord and he's the fruit of the land. He came from a particular place in a particular time from a particular people.

Jesus was a Jew from the descendant of David and he was born in the promised land.

That speaks to his humanity, his human origins, but also being branch of the

Lord, his being divinely begotten. Remember also that he was one that would come from among his brethren.

Deuteronomy 18, in describing the nature of the great prophet who would succeed Moses, he would come from among his own brethren, among the people who possess this land.

Now the branch of the Lord, why would we want his name? Why is he so important?

Look, in that day the branch of the Lord who stands in for all of Israel, he shall be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing.

The term beautiful speaks about being graceful in motion like the gazelle.

The term glorious speaks of being weighty and precious in all motion coming towards it.

Being excellent has the idea of being stately and majestic in true pride, where it is warrant to be exalted and noble, which is of God alone.

And then also being appealing, that rank on display in a parade.

So in every fashion, coming or going, in every fashion, he is beautiful and glorious, excellent and appealing.

Now there was a four -fold folly of Judah in chapters two and three of what they thought was excellent about themselves.

But now, here in chapter four, the attention is off of Israel and onto the Lord's branch, and there's a four -fold exaltation of him.

And that's why there is an important undoing of the false faith, the idolatry, onto the one who is truly glorious.

And so we read that it shall be in that day that this comes to pass.

A day that brings down the shadows is a day that shines bright in the substance. A day that sifts and removes false confidence is what leaves that which is immovable.

The shaking of heaven and earth leaves the kingdom that cannot be shaken. As we see in Isaiah, the branch is made manifest through the cutting down and regrowth from the stump.

So Isaiah chapter six, verse 13, yet a tenth shall be in it and will return for consuming as a terebinth tree or as an oak, whose stump remains when it is cut down, so the holy seed shall be in its stump.

The branch doesn't come out of the stump until after the tree is cut down. The judgment comes first, the tree is cut down, and then the branch comes forth as glorious.

And that was the promises in the Old Testament. The further you go along with the prophets, the more they make clear the judgment of God upon Israel is essential for the making way of Messiah to come.

And that actually took place in history and recorded for us in the New Testament. So what we're left then with is a description further and further in Isaiah and in Romans, which we can pick up moving forward in talking about the remnant.

So there's a remnant theme that begins to be talked about, the remnant left over after judgment and what that means in terms of the gospel.

And also there is a promise. I think we need to investigate more from Jacob as he prophesied over his children concerning Judah and the

Messiah to come from him. But two things to look at, and this will just be homework and we'll look at it more in depth.

When we find Messiah being called the fruit of the land, and then think about all of the covenant promises of God, the blessings and the curses and so on.

When Jesus Christ is the fruit of the land and that title, fruit of the land, is paralleled to branch of the

Lord, what are we being told except that Messiah's own person, his own person is tied to the fruitful land promises themselves.

Jesus set himself forth as our Sabbath. He sets himself forth as our Shalom. He sets himself forth as our rest into which he leads all of his people.

He is the first fruit harvest. He is called the vine. He describes himself as the grain of wheat that dies.

He talks about himself as the one upon whom the curses have fallen. When you read the Old Testament, the curses fell upon the land.

Christ says the curses fell upon him. And he's the one in whom all the blessings are found.

The Old Testament land was called the inheritance. Jesus sets himself forth as our inheritance.

And in the Old Testament, the place where all of Israel gathered to dwell in God was the land.

Jesus says that God's people dwell and abide in him.

So when we're looking at how the land promises are being fulfilled, we don't have to look farther than Jesus Christ. We look how

Jesus talks about it. We look about how the apostles talk about it. And for even more,

I think, meditation and clarity, homework is simply this. Read Hebrews 4.

The whole chapter, not just the first part. People stop after the first part. Read the whole chapter, all of Hebrews 4, and think about what

Jesus is saying as you put both parts of the chapter together.

And we're going to come back to those things. We'll talk about the remnant, and we're going to talk about the rest that we have in Christ from Hebrews 4 next time we have available.