The Coming Messiah III: A Glimmer of Hope

Welcome to the WHOLE Council podcast. I'm Jon Snyder and we are a third of our way into a series on the Emmanuel prophecies in the book of Isaiah. A couple of weeks ago, we started where we looked at Judah and its wicked King Ahaz going full-blown into idolatry.

And as a consequence, God has allowed the enemies around Judah to rise up. There's the great Assyrian Empire, but there's also the Arameans, the Philistines, the Edomites, but also Israel to the north.

The ten tribes to the north have become an enemy of the two tribes to the south. God sends an amazing message, a message of mercy and pity for a man who is constantly rejecting God. He sends Isaiah to the king and he tells Ahaz that God will protect him against the Arameans and the Israelites who are trying to attack him.

In the midst of this promise, he offers the king a sign, which is really unique for the Lord to say to anyone, I will do something and because of your unbelief, I will allow you to request a sign, any sign, and I will do it for you.

So for this pagan king who loves the Lord no more than the Israelite king to the north, who's worshiping the two golden calves or the Arameans or the Edomites, Philistines, or even the king of Assyria, this pagan king is offered such a merciful message and he rejects it.

He is indifferent to Isaiah's words because of unbelief and he already has plan B in place. Isaiah gives a sign from the Lord anyway and this is where we first hear about Emmanuel and we're grateful that he did give this sign.

In Isaiah 7 verse 14, we read,. We looked at what followed that passage where God describes the judgment that he will bring and that takes us to Isaiah chapter 9. And this is the first chapter that really we see this Emmanuel prophecy spelled out.

So we're going to see the curtain pulled back further and our view of the coming Messiah of our Lord Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, is going to be progressively more and more clear. We're going to get more information about him today and in the coming weeks.

Well, first of all, chapter 9 opens with an amazing statement regarding a land and then it's people. And that's chapter 9 verses 1, 2, and 3. But then what follows that and what we'll look at next week is verse 4, 5, 6, and 7.

We find the reasons for the hopeful statements made in verses 1, 2, and 3. So let's just look at verses 1, 2, and 3. So verse 1, we read this,. 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 Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.

So the first glimmer of hope following chapter 8's description of God bringing judgment on the people who not only are idolatrous but who are unaffected by these words of the coming of Christ. Amazingly, we find in verse 1 of chapter 9 this kind of dawning of hope.

The king is going to do something. Emmanuel is going to do something that causes such a transition in the land that the very land which was once distinguished by God's contempt will now be forever known as a place that God was kind toward.

Well, let's think about it. He says no more gloom but rather happiness for the land of Naphtali and Zebulun. Now what is he talking about? Zebulun and Naphtali, when this was written, they are regions in the north, not in Judah, but in Israel to the north and they are the regions that are being invaded by the Assyrian armies first.

So when Assyria comes to conquer Israel to the north, which you know they will conquer Israel and will carry off the Israelites up north into exile. And God explains in 2 Kings that this is because of the idolatry that they followed.

When Assyria attacks, the first place that his armies penetrate are these two territories. And you can imagine the shock for the Jews as they see that Zebulun and Naphtali are unable to slow down the armies of Assyria at all.

And this land, which is the land that God promised centuries before to Abraham and he fulfilled his promise when through Joshua the land was conquered. And now the people have lived there for centuries and they are idolatrous and God is now taking them out of the land.

You can imagine the spiritual confusion. Has our God failed us? What about all these promises? I thought this was God's people and in the land of God's people and this was part of a covenant that he made with Abraham.

If you go back and review that covenant, you see that God does promise consequences if the people are unfaithful. And one of those consequences is that they would not be able to stay in the land and we're seeing that happen.

But in Isaiah 9, Isaiah is writing at a time where Zebulun and Naphtali are the areas where the Assyrians are penetrating first and he describes it in this unique way. It is as if God despises or treats with contempt these two places.

It's as if they will go down in history as the particular places which God is offended at. Well, what's coming, the prophet says, when Emmanuel comes is that something will occur in these places which will make them not the place known as the first to be conquered by Assyria, the first to undergo the wrath of God, but these will be places that are described as places that God has favored.

They will be glorious and they are and we'll talk about that in a few minutes. But Matthew will call our attention back to these places during the ministry of Christ and we see that these two regions are the regions that seem to be particularly favored with grace during the time of Christ's ministry.

Well, no more will gloom and wrath distinguish them, but the glory that they will be known for is a glory of great mercy. In verse 2 and 3, we continue to read and Isaiah says this, the people who walk in darkness will see a great light and 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, he says, of God. They will be glad in the presence of God as with the gladness of harvest as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.

So this area will be an area that goes from gloom to gladness and he gives some descriptions here. The area now is described as an area that is completely dark and the people who live in this darkness, they have no light.

That is no clarity, no spiritual hope. It's just darkness. If we think about the metaphor of darkness and how it's used in Scripture, generally the things that come to our mind when we think of spiritual darkness would be spiritual confusion.

I don't know where to go. I have to make a decision, but I'm not sure what would be right. What's right for me? What's right for my family? How will this impact those people around me? So there's confusion.

There's a lack of safety. So you feel insecure. You are in danger because it's dark and the unknown is on the border of your life and you don't know what's coming next. And there is a hopelessness because of those two, a despair.

I don't know what's the right path. I don't know what enemy is coming at me next and there's kind of a hopeless despair. It says that they walk in darkness. Again, another metaphor that we see so many times in Scripture.

It's the kind of thing you can just skip right over and not slow down and consider. The walk. When God describes our walk, he's obviously talking about the hundreds and thousands of small choices that make up what we think of as our life or our pattern of life.

The walk of these people, every one of their decisions, every event, every relationship, every desire, every thought, every conversation occurs in darkness. In the unknown, in the danger of being alienated from God and in that hopeless despair of the thought that tomorrow will be no better than yesterday.

But now, he says, a great light shines on them. We could think of it in a very simple picture. Here's a group of people who have lived in darkness and their parents lived in the spiritual darkness and their parents lived in spiritual darkness.

But if we think of it as a physical metaphor, these people have only known darkness. They have never seen the moon. They have never seen the sunrise. They have never seen starlight. All they've known is complete and utter darkness.

And they don't know that anything else is even possible. But one day, something different happens. On the horizon, there is a gleam of light and there has never been a gleam of light before. You can imagine if people lived in this situation what it would be like.

And so someone sees it and they run in fear and amazement. And they wake everyone else up and they say, Look, look, what's that? And all the people come out of their homes and they look at the horizon and the little strip of light widens and it's a sunrise and the sun comes up for the very first time.

And there's this great light in the sky and it bathes their lives with light. And they never go back to the darkness. It's a wonderful picture of what Emmanuel will do for his people spiritually. He will bring light and the result is there's safety.

There's clarity. We know what choices are the right choices for life. There's a clear path. There's a light shining on the path of my feet now and there's hope. Well, now instead of gloom, there's laughter and happiness.

And the people are so happy that the prophet describes it in this way. You will be happy in that day when Emmanuel comes. You will be happy like the people are happy when harvest comes. You work all year long, harvest comes, and you sell the produce and you bring it into your barns and, you know, you go to the market.

And so it's payday, but it's the one payday in the year. Or you're happy like people who come upon great spoil. The armies have conquered your enemies. Instead of despair and enslavement, you're victorious and you are free to walk through that conquered enemy's territory and you just walk and everything that they own, you can take.

It's the spoils of war. Well, we don't think of things like that today. We would maybe say it like this. You will be happy like a person who is struggling to pay their bills. They're working as many hours as they can.

You know, dad doesn't even feel like he sees his kids. Mom feels like she's juggling everything on her own, not knowing how they're going to make ends meet. And suddenly you get a letter from a lawyer that says that you have a very wealthy relative that you've never met, but you are next in line for an enormous inheritance and you think it's too good to be true.

And you verify it is true and everything in life shifts because now there is money and now you're extremely wealthy and you're so excited. When Emmanuel comes to a people that are spiritually in darkness, he will bring that kind of hope.

Now, I want us to close down our thoughts on these verses with just one application. It is a picture of what Christ will do spiritually. There is no group of Jews that have never seen the sunrise. Later, you remember, when Christ is born, prior to that, John the Baptist's father, Zacharias, gives a prophecy about what his son, when he's born, what will he do?

This son will be the forerunner for the Messiah. But in that great statement in Luke 1, there are a few verses that don't speak of the work of John the Baptist, but the work of Christ. And he says he will be the day spring from on high.

He will visit us with mercy, tender mercy. So when we think of the spiritual application, if you look at a life where a person is ruled by self, what do I want? What's in it for me? At first, it may look like a nice life.

It may be a cleaned up version of selfishness, and it may not be so embarrassing. It may not look like it's ruinous, but sin always brings poison. It always comes to kill and to steal and to destroy what is precious.

The darkness is a description of our spiritual condition, born from Adam's fallen family. We are blind, blind to the realities of God. We live in darkness. We are surrounded by people who live in darkness.

Our parents were born in darkness. Our grandparents were born in darkness. And if we have children and grandchildren, they will be born in darkness. But because of Emmanuel, lives that look like they are distinguished by the wrath of God, the righteous offense that God feels against us as we ignore Him and live for ourselves, those lives can be so transformed by the coming of Emmanuel that not only are we happy and safe and walking with the living God and His presence is our joy, but our lives are identified from that point forward, not as people who are under the wrath of God, but as people who are distinguished by an extraordinary visit.

God, Emmanuel has come to us, and He has become your Savior. So when you think about your life, would you say you are spiritually distinguished by the consequences, the rule and the ruin of sin? Or would you say, by the grace of God, everyone who knows me best knows that my life is distinguished by an unexpected and amazing grace, the favor of the King coming to me through Emmanuel.

Well, next week, we'll pick up with verse 4, 5, 6, and 7 of Isaiah 9, and we will see the reasons He gives for this hope.