The Coming Light | Sermon Series 12/01/2024

Isaiah’s Prophecy of the Coming Light

All right, if you would please open up your Bible to the prophecy of Isaiah chapter 9, leaving our 1 Corinthians series to focus on the Incarnation starting with Isaiah chapter 9. We're going to be in verses 1 through 5 today.

The title of the sermon is The Coming Light. The Coming Light. So starting in verse 1 of Isaiah chapter 9, hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true God. But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish.

In earlier times he treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt. But later on he shall make it glorious. By the way of the sea on the other side of the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.

The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them. You shall multiply the nation. You shall increase their gladness. They will be glad in your presence as with the gladness of harvest.

As men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For you shall break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders. The rod of their oppressor as at the battle of Midian. For every boot of the booted warrior in the battle to molt and cloak rolled in blood will be for burning fuel for the fire.

Thus ends the reading of God's holy and magnificent word. Let's pray once more as a church as we approach his word.

God we need you today. I need you Lord.

This is such an important text. This prophecy shows the coming light. This prophecy shows Lord what the people have been waiting for. Who the people have been waiting for. And even for us, even though we didn't live in this time, so many of us were walking in darkness.

We didn't know who we were looking for. We didn't know what we were waiting for, but we knew Lord that we were empty. And so God we come today with hearts full, hands open, expecting to receive from your word.

Please encourage us, edify us, teach us this day by your word. And Lord we live to exalt your name. We pray this in Christ's name, amen. Well church, in history, there have been moments of glooming darkness before the light comes.

You can even think back before the creation of the world. You look at Genesis chapter 1, Genesis 1 -2 says, the earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

And for us, that image of something that's formless and void and so dark, that's frightening to consider. We're physical creatures. We're spatial, we're finite. To think of this moment before God created the world is to think of how we had no existence.

There was nothing of us, no one of us. There was no human to praise God or even to think about God. No one to enjoy what his hand has made. And so whether you're a child who's been afraid of the dark at bedtime, you think of divers who go down really deep, they could even go diving when the sun is out, but if they go a certain depth, it's just blackness, blackness.

You think of a hiker, hikers who have gotten lost in the wilderness have expressed not having a flashlight or matches, and the stars were even covered by cloud cover, and it's just blackness, blackness.

So hard to see, engulfed in it, and there's nothing quite like it. You ever think about that? You ever been in such darkness that you're just blinded? You're kind of groping around. You can't see. And this is the kind of idea when you think about before creation, this void, this blackness in which Genesis 1, 3, then God said, let there be light.

And there was light, authority and power and brilliance and radiance emanated and came forth from the Almighty, just pure power, dynamite power, incredible power. When God said, let there be light, boom, amazing.

Where there was no matter, matter then came into being. Particles and atoms and molecules came forth and followed the orders of their Maker, and the light came, and when the light came, it pierced darkness.

You see, in this room right now, we see the lights. We see the artificial lights in here. We see the light of the sun outside. If I were to take a box right now, and I had an enclosed box, and inside that box it was seamless, it was perfect.

In that box was total darkness, total blackness. If I were to open it barely, light would destroy it. Light would just utterly destroy any sort of thing where I could contain darkness. But on the flip side, if you have complete darkness in here, if it was completely black, and I opened up a box that had light in it, boom, it would pierce everything.

And that's what God did when he said, let there be light. In fact, it says, God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the.

Darkness.

There was a separation. They weren't blended together. The light was good, brothers and sisters. And one way you could think of it is when the light is around, it conquers the darkness. If you bring a light into the child's bedroom, there you go.

You bring light under the ocean waters to the ocean floor. You bring light to the deepest cave. Wherever there is darkness, one single light subdues it. It wrestles it. It takes it down. Light always wins, every single time.

Now from this moment of creation, darkness would then become an analogy of all that is not good. God saw that the light was good, but darkness would be an analogy of that which is not good. Light comes from our good God.

And therefore, light would be good, as the Lord said so, especially in a spiritual sense. You see that. You know, false religions try to take from the Christian worldview. They see nature around them that speaks to God's existence.

And they even see, in other religions, they say there's light, there's darkness, there's good and there's evil. And they see the analogy in that because they have the law of God written on their hearts.

But essentially, you think back of when Adam and Eve first sinned. What did they do? It says that they hid from God. They hid from God. They left the light and they went to places that were darker, that could hide them.

Shadows of darkness. When all mankind had become so corrupt in Noah's day, the spiritually dark were cast under the black storm clouds and dark waters and they perished. Darkness, darkness of the heart, darkness of the flood.

Then the people of Egypt, during the plagues, were cast into three days of total darkness while the Hebrews had lighting in their homes. And whenever God speaks of judgment in His word, He speaks of sending darkness.

Ezekiel 32, 8 says, all the shining lights in heavens, I will darken over you and I will set darkness on your land, declares the Lord God. Joel says, on the day of the Lord, the sun and the moon will grow dark and the stars will lose their brightness.

Amos 5, verse 20 says, will not the day of the Lord, which is a day of judgment, will not the day of the Lord be darkness instead of light? Even gloom with no brightness in it. You look at the book of Revelation, it tells us the same thing.

Darkness is associated with sin. Darkness is associated with evil and darkness is what sinners inherit in the judgment of God, according to the word. Now with that in mind, let's think about the context of Isaiah in which we have thrust ourselves.

Isaiah, just before this, we're in chapter nine. In chapter six, Isaiah had the heavenly vision. Did he not? He saw a vision of the Lord in the heavenly throne room, the train of the Lord's road filled the temple.

And at that moment, God called Isaiah to preach. You're going to preach warning, you're going to preach repentance to the people. And God said, they're not going to turn because of your preaching. They're going to continue to be in their sin.

God reveals then to Isaiah that judgment is coming to Israel, the northern kingdom, and eventually judgment is coming to the southern kingdom, Judah. It will be by the hands of the Assyrians and by the hand of the Babylonians.

But there's a flicker of hope. There's always a flicker of hope. There's a flash of light. God, in these chapters preceding the one we're in, gives the promise of a believing remnant. There's going to be a group of those who are faithful, and the remnant won't believe because of themselves or because they have something different from everyone else.

They'll believe because of the one who is coming. God won't hide his face from us one day. They had hope for Zion. And then at the end of chapter 8, Isaiah says the people look to other sources of revelation rather than God himself.

He says they look to necromancy, they look to divination, they look to other places for revelation. He says they do that because they have no dawn. That's what it says in the Hebrew in chapter 8 of Isaiah.

The people go after other revelation because they have no dawn. There is no light in them. And eventually, because they love the darkness rather than the light, they will look upward, it says, and curse their God.

They walk in darkness and then they will look up and they will shake their fists at God and they will curse Him. In verse 22 of chapter 8 it says, after looking up and cursing God, quote, then they will look to the earth, so they'll look up and curse Him, then they'll look to the earth and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish, will come and they will be driven away into darkness.

And for hundreds and hundreds of years, this is what happened. Darkness crept over the land. Blackness pervaded the world and the hearts of men and women. Of course, there were brief glimmers of hope and brief moments of light, but they were as fast fading as lightning comes and strikes.

Quick, just a flash of hope. Anguish, starvation, foreign oppression and evil dotted the land of Israel and Judah during this time. It was very dark. It was like the hopelessness of Egypt once again. Slavery, slavery, bondage, slavery to sin.

And the people waited. They waited and they waited and they waited. And especially the remnant, the remnant waited. We're in darkness, God, we're in darkness. When's the light coming? When's your light going to shine on us?

They knew the prophecies. But in some ways, those prophecies seemed too good to be true. Yet God has spoken. The world was not going to stay the same. He promised that. The prophet Isaiah, by the power of God, was then thrust forward in time to see what God will do.

That's how we come to our text today. The promise is so sure, our text today is written in the past tense in Hebrew as if it had already happened. Isaiah's mind was brought into the future. It's as though he's looking back at the mighty deeds of God in their completed sense.

Isaiah tells them this will happen. This will happen. So let's see, go to verse 1 in our text today.

It says,.

But there will be no more gloom for her who is in anguish. In earlier times he treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt. But later on he shall make it glorious by the way of the sea on the other side of the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.

There will be no more gloom. Gloom in the Hebrew means an absence of light in a person. They're agonized by the darkness. And the key is, while the faithful are still looking at the darkness, can they see the light coming?

When you're in darkness, can you see the light coming? Do they know God has not forgotten them? Because the darkness may be true right now, but the darkness isn't the whole truth.

Does that make sense?

The darkness may be real right now, but it's not the true reality. It's not going to be their reality forever. The gloom will be gone. And if darkness is fading, then that means the light is coming. And so Isaiah says, in earlier times, the Lord treated the land of Zebulun and Naphtali with contempt.

You see, Naphtali and Zebulun are, of course, two of the twelve tribes of Israel. And they settled in the north. They were the northernmost borders of Israel. And they bordered the Arameans to the east.

And north above them were the Assyrians. These Gentiles who often oppressed them. Their gift from God, though, was to border the sea. That they would be in this land of plenty. The Mediterranean was to the west.

And the Sea of Galilee, specifically, was in Naphtali. When Jacob prophetically blessed his sons, he, in fact, turned to Zebulun and said, Zebulun, you shall dwell at the shore of the sea, and you shall become a haven for ships, and your border shall be at Sidon.

And Naphtali, you are a doe set loose. You will bear beautiful fawns. Meaning that the natural resources of the sea and of the land will be open to these northern tribes. And yet God treated them with contempt.

That means curses. And the way He did that is seen in the record of 2 Kings 15, verse 29. This is in your printout, if you want to see it. This is what happened with the northern tribes. In the day of Pekah, king of Israel, Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, came and captured Ijon, and Abel-Beth-Makah, and Genoa, and Kadesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee.

All the land of Naphtali. And He carried them captive to Assyria. So the land that contained the sea and the land that contained their resources were stripped away from the people of Zebulun and Naphtali along with them.

And to lose your land is to lose your inheritance. To lose your land is to lose your identity for the Israelites. To lose your land is akin to losing your covenant with God. But a new covenant is coming.

In fact, the text speaks of this northern region that was taken over by darkness. This northern kingdom was in complete darkness. They were invaded. They were taken away by ropes. Imagine your family.

There's a rope around you, and you're dragging your kids, and you're walking for miles and miles and miles to the land of Assyria. You're in captivity. Your kids are crying. You're trying to carry what supplies you have.

You're starving.

You're thirsty. And they were taken away. That's a dark time. Imagine being taken away with a rope around your neck to another land, and your home is in the rearview mirror. That's darkness. But God says that the light's coming.

He says,.

Later on God shall make it glorious again by the way of the sea on the other side of the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. You know what happened during the time of Joshua, the conquest? If you remember, Israel was to inherit the promised land, and they were to fill the land of Canaan as their inheritance.

Do you know what happened in the northern tribes? They didn't listen to God. They disobeyed, and they didn't expel all the Canaanites in the land where they were. And that, of course, proved problematic.

Their influence made them turn to idols, and then also they were more prone to foreign invasion when they didn't do that. During the reigns of the kings, they didn't properly protect the northern borders, and now in these lands, there's not an Israelite to be found.

The Israelites are gone. Zebulun, Naphtali, they're gone. The people of God were taken away by ropes. Captivity. Up north to Assyria. Some were killed. Some died along the way. Some had to serve them in the courts.

More prestigious ways to serve, but some just had to serve as slaves. And this is the darkness. Just imagine all these homes in this land, desolate, and these Gentiles flood in. They move in. And so you can imagine those in the south in Judah are looking up north, and they see these Gentiles coming into the northernmost lands of their brothers, Zebulun and Naphtali, and they just have to live with it.

Because the king of Assyria says, I'm coming for you next, Judah. I'm coming for you. I'm coming to Jerusalem, and what's happened up there, I'm going to do to you. It's a dark time. Very dark time. And the people are not turning to Yahweh.

They're not going, Lord, help us. Keep us from this. They're turning to necromancy. They're turning to divination. They're turning to Baal. They're turning to Asherah. These false... Oh, save us, Baal.

Save us, Asherah. Save us, Molech. They're praying to demons. And so God says, let them be taken. They'll be taken. And that's what's going on at this time. But what's interesting in verse 1 is, according to the prophecy, although Gentiles are filling this northern land, and that was a curse, it'll turn into a blessing.

It's going to switch. God will make what was bad, and He'll turn it good. Gentiles in your land will become a blessing. The name of Zebulun and Naphtali changes and gets a new name. You know how you and I, according to Scripture, it says, and I'll give you a new name?

Well, names are really important in the Bible. And it says here that Zebulun and Naphtali got a new name. They're called now the Galilee of the Gentiles. Actually, it says specifically, Galilee of the nations.

That's what it says in Hebrew. The nations. That word in Hebrew means everyone else except for the Jews. The nations. It's going to be now Galilee of the nations. The Gentiles will fill that land. And so something is happening, or someone is coming in which the name changes.

And what was once for only Israel becomes available for all peoples. That's what's going to happen with the coming great light. Verse 2. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.

The people who walk in darkness cannot see properly.

They are blind.

But when the great light comes, they will see it. You get those images, maybe you've seen them in a movie, you've seen them in a photo. You see the blackness of storms. And all of a sudden the clouds part and you can see the light of the sun through it.

You can imagine that. Spiritually speaking. Everything's black. Everything's dark. It's horrific. But then far off in the distance, you see a ray of light shining down. What's coming? Will this storm break?

Will this clear? Will we see the light of day again? And that's what's going on in their minds.

It shines through.

The people did not make the light, nor are they responsible for the light's coming. They are like people groping in the dark and then they blink suddenly with light. It's like a child when you're trying to wake them up.

You come into the room,.

It's time to wake up, and you turn on the light and their eyes are like this, right? What? But that's what it is. They're so used to the darkness, they've been walking around blind, eyes closed almost, and then when this light comes, the coming great light, it's like, is that, am I seeing something?

Is this a mirage?

Can it be? What's been told? The light's coming?

What is this?

So helpless are those who are in darkness, those who only know sin, right? And so the light starts coming. The darkness can't keep back the light.

And you know me,.

I can't help but think of Tolkien's famous 1955 book, Return of the King, and he writes of Frodo and Sam's journey, and they're currently at the end in Return of the King, and they're in the land of Mordor, the land of evil, the land of darkness, and it says this, there peeping among the cloud rack above a dark peak high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while, and the beauty of that star smote his heart.

As he looked up out of the forsaken land, hope returned to him, for like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end, the shadow was only a small and passing thing. There was light and high beauty forever beyond the reach of darkness.

There's light in places that darkness can't even touch. And it gave him hope. Even in the most evil of places, there are stars. There is light. And God can pierce the darkest places with His light. Now, it must be known that before the light came, it truly was dark.

It says that they lived in a dark land here in verse 2. The Hebrew has a special case ending on the word dark. Specifically, this word in the Hebrew is a hyphenated conjunction. It says it is the land of dark death.

The word death is attached to that. It's dark death. And so sometimes this verse 2 is translated those who live in the land of death's shadow. The land of death's shadow. And that's what happened to creation as sin came into the world.

Sometimes you and I find ourselves, of course, in the shadows of these mountains. The shadows of the Wasatch Mountains. And they can block the light depending if you're by the Ochre Mountains or the Wasatch Mountains.

And that's the image that we have with these people. That the shadow of death was so high. It was towering over them. They're reminded by it day after day. They're walking. And they're in this land of shadowy death.

The shadow goes right over them. Death is always in their view. Death is staring at them. Death is in their peripheral. Death is behind them. Death is before them. The shadow of death is all around them.

This is the place in which the light came. The place of shadowy death. Truly remarkable. Now it's one thing to see light while you're still standing in darkness. It's one thing to see light and you're in darkness and you see it from far away.

And there could be hope with that. There's most definitely hope to that image. Yet, there comes a recognition that you're still far off from the light. It's far off from you and you're waiting. And so, Isaiah says, besides those who walk in darkness, who will see the great light, it says that those who live in the dark land, those who live in the land of death's shadow,.

It says this,.

The light will shine on them. They're going to see it. Then it's going to come to them. And the light is going to shine on them. In the Hebrew, this word shine means the light will physically manifest on them.

The light will come to them. They won't just see it far off from them, but they will be touched by the light. They'll feel the brilliance. They'll feel the warmth. They'll feel the radiance. The glory will come to them.

That's the image we have. Something that even the shadow of death cannot eclipse this light that's coming. And so along with that, instead of captivity and instead of the people dwindling down to nothing, when the light arrives to the people of darkness, God will, it says, multiply that nation.

He will bring many sons to glory. Look at verse 3. Isaiah 9. When the light comes, it says, you shall multiply the nation. You shall increase their gladness. They will be glad in your presence as with the gladness of harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.

And so, as I told you, this word nation means not only the Jews, but it means everyone of the world.

Okay?

Everyone will see the light. God will multiply all nations into one large nation by the coming light. You see where I'm going with this? All nations, all peoples, will be brought together and be made one people, one nation, when the light comes.

That's what it says here. When you read that the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali have been exiled, but later God will make them glorious, you might think, okay, He's going to bring back the 12 tribes of Israel.

That's what's going to happen. When the light comes, it's just the 12 tribes. That's not the case. It's better than that. It's far better. The 12 tribes will eventually come back together, but the light is going to come and touch all people.

All nations. Not just people who were part of this old covenant, but now all peoples will be part of a new covenant. People who have been in darkness from the beginning. Pagans and heathens and barbarians.

Peoples of all types will get to be part of this new nation who sees the light. And for this reason, it says you shall increase their gladness, Lord. Lord, You shall increase their gladness. This is joy.

This is delight. This is cheerfulness. And in Scripture, it is the appropriate response to the manifestation of the worship of God in the midst of unfavorable circumstances. And that's what makes sense, of course, because these people will be glad, it says, in God's presence.

It says that right here. In God's presence. They will be glad in Your presence as with the gladness of harvest, as when men rejoice when they divide the spoil. This gladness, this joy will pervade all the earth.

And do you see what this does when the light comes? When the light comes to a people who walk in darkness, who live in a dark land, number one, this is what happens, okay? This is a reversal of the separation that we have with God.

Mankind was removed from the presence of God the day Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden. No more walking with God. No more walking with God in the cool of the day. They were expelled from the Garden of Eden and at the entrance was put a cherubim angel with flaming sword.

No entry. No entry. Separated from the presence of God. But this is a reversal of this. Here we can see, it says, they will be glad in God's presence. They will be glad in God's presence. God will come back to them.

This can only mean that they were made the people of God. Only the people of God have access to Him. We have access to God again by the coming light. Number two, the gladness that they have will be that of the harvest.

What's interesting here is it doesn't say that they worked for the light. They didn't earn the light coming. The light just came to them. You remember part of the curse of the fall for mankind was extreme toil in our work.

It's part of the curse. By the sweat of your brow, you'll work and there will be thorns and thistles. You go to work tomorrow on Monday and you find obstacles there. It's part of the curse. But Jesus is removing that as far as the curse is found.

But that's what's interesting here is they didn't work for this. They didn't plant anything. And yet they will be glad as the day of the harvest. Have you ever grown something and picked from its fruit?

Have you ever seen fruit trees just filled with fruit? Maybe you don't have that in your yard, but you've taken your kids to go to an apple orchard or a peach orchard.

I don't know about you,.

Maybe it is just me, but when I see a tree full of fruit, I just get giddy. I'm like, that's amazing! That's incredible! It grows on trees, right? It's incredible. And so there's this wonderful delight of the harvest.

Fruit trees loaded with sweet fruit. The best wheat they could ever pull. The best grapes for the best wine. There's nothing like it. Delight washes over you. When the light comes, harvest is here without any work and without any curses.

Just harvest. They will have delight as the day of harvest. And finally, number three, their gladness when the light comes will be as when men rejoice when they divide the spoil.

Tell me,.

In what circumstances do you divide the spoil? After a war?

After a battle?

At the conclusion of a battle, right? And yet, not just at the conclusion of a battle, it's at the victory of a battle, right? Those who get to divide the spoil have won. The losers don't divide anything.

They walk away empty-handed. In fact, they walk away with casualties, with lack of resources. It says your gladness, your joy, your cheering will be as that of the day that the battle is won. The day of dividing the spoil.

And so you've got this image that when the light comes, the enemy will be vanquished. That's the only way you could be glad as the day of dividing the spoil. He'll crush the enemy on the head. The death blow will be delivered.

The battle will be won when the light comes. That's where their gladness is sourced. In God's presence, and as at a harvest, and as when a victory is won in the battle. Go to our final verses for the morning.

Verses 4 and 5. For you shall break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor as that of the battle of Midian. For every boot of the booted warrior in the battle to malt and cloak rolled in blood will be for burning.

It will be for fuel for the fire. You know what a yoke is, right? Some little kid goes, it's from the eggs. No. It's from a beast of burden. A yoke. It is, of course, the wooden bar that is fixed to a beast of burden in which the plow is connected with the plow driver.

And so when it says that the yoke will be broken, that their burden will be broken, it's an image of what the Assyrians did to the peoples of the northern kingdoms. As I told you, they were captured. They were bound.

They walked in long lines back to Assyria. For hundreds, if not over a thousand miles, they were yoked to an evil ruler and an evil nation. They were bound. They were enslaved to it. And so the image here is that whatever enslaves these people in darkness, whatever drives them forward to do its will rather than their own or rather than God's will, whatever traps them with forced labor will be broken by God.

Whatever you're enslaved to, whatever you're connected to, whatever drives you forward to do its will, it will be broken. It will be broken. Whatever yoke is on them, God is more powerful than the yoke.

That even works for you and me. Whatever you've been addicted to, whatever you've been enslaved to in your sin, whatever has drawn you forward can be broken in Christ. Maybe you're still walking in it.

Maybe you don't realize that the plow driver's not even behind you anymore. Maybe you don't even realize you haven't even looked up. You've been walking like this in your sin for so long. You don't even realize that the yoke on your neck was broken.

The rod has been broken. You can turn off. Maybe we've been enslaved so long and there's a psychology to that. People who have been enslaved or imprisoned for so long, they don't know. No, I'm free. I'm free.

And that's the image that we get that we are freed by the coming light.

And in fact,.

When the light comes, he will become the new master.

But here's the difference.

He says,.

My burden is easy and my yoke is light. Take it upon you and he'll be with you. It will be easy. It will be light. He'll be your new master. He won't drive you the way that your sin has. He won't drive you the way that the Assyrians have.

Now, Isaiah finishes this section of Scripture. He says that the light will break the rod of the oppressor as at the battle of Midian. Now, I talked about this.

In the past couple weeks.

I talked about the original 300. We talked about that movie and I kind of said, this is Israel, right? And the guy kicks him into the thing. The original 300 was Gideon's army. Gideon's army. And that's what Isaiah's referencing here back in Judges.

Midian was oppressing, once again, the northern tribes of Israel where Ephraim, Manasseh, Zebulun, and Naphtali were. And the people cried for a deliverer from God, and Gideon was that deliverer. Gideon was that man.

He destroyed the idols of Baal. He destroyed the idols of Asherah. And he and the original 300 went to battle against Midian and Amalek at once. It is estimated that Midian and Amalek had 132 ,000 men versus 300.

132K versus 300. And so Isaiah references this. Think about it. The light is coming to darkness, to a dark land, to a dark people, and the image is that the dark is so big. 132 ,000 soldiers. It'll be as of the day of the battle of Midian.