Jesus Prophesied As King In The Prophets Series

1. Jesus’ royal Person prophesied (11:1)

2. Jesus’ royal power prophesied (11:2)

3. Jesus’ royal purpose prophesied (11:3-5)

ISAIAH 11:1-5

Statistics say that if you or I was to list one hundred things predicting what a person was going to be like— It would take two hundred billion earths as full of people as ours to come up with a person who fully fulfilled those prophesies. That blows your mind, doesn’t it? But Old Testament Scripture records not just 100 prophesies about Jesus, it records 300 that were fulfilled in His first coming alone. By man’s standards, 100 prophesies are impossible—much less three times that amount. That’s why Satan works so hard to discredit the Bible. Because he knows that what it says is Truth. He knows that God told the prophets to tell about the coming Messiah. And they did. And they did it accurately. So, since Satan can’t discredit the prophesies, all he can do is cast doubt on the text itself. He says the Bible is full of mistakes. He says it was written by men with an agenda. He says it was written by men other than who the Bible identifies as the authors. But Satan’s attacks on Scripture don’t hold water. When you study Old Testament prophesy and see how true and accurate and detailed it is, there is no doubt God is the author. God is the author and He doesn’t lie. In the Old Testament, the prophets described everything about Jesus, including the fact that He would come as our King. The Israelites understood that. They understood He was coming as a King, but they misunderstood what kind of a king He would be when He came the first time. Today, we can look back and see how the prophesies concerning Israel’s Messiah were accurately fulfilled in the Person of Jesus Christ. By looking at those prophesies, we can get a better understanding of Jesus’ royal nature and what He came to do. Tonight, as we look at Isaiah’s prophesy about Jesus’ royal nature, I want each of us to begin to see Jesus as more than our Savior. I want us to begin to see Him as our King. And as we see Him as our King, we will have no choice but to worship Him as King. In order to see Jesus as King tonight, we’re going to look at three aspects of Jesus’ royalty that Isaiah prophesied. The first aspect is Jesus’ royal Person was prophesied.

ISAIAH 11:1

Jesus’ royal Person prophesied. Up until this point, Isaiah had been prophesying about the things that were going to happen to Israel as a result of their constant rebellion. History records that Isaiah’s prophesies were 100% accurate. That’s why many theological liberals say Isaiah wasn’t written by Isaiah. And that it was written many years after he actually wrote it. See, they can’t stand the fact that God makes promises that actually come true. The fact is, the prophet Isaiah wrote these words many years before the events happened. God inspired him, he wrote what God told him to, and the things happened just like he said they would. So, in the chapters and verses leading up to our passage, when Isaiah prophesied that Assyria would invade Israel, it actually happened that way. Then in chapter 10, when he prophesied that Assyria would be laid waste by Babylon, that’s the way it happened. In his prophesy, back in chapter 10 verse 34, Isaiah likened Assyria to a thicket of forest that God was going to chop down. Have you ever seen a forest that has been clear cut? When we used to live in Mississippi, it seemed like Georgia-Pacific owned half the state. They would have these huge forests of pine trees and would clear cut hundreds of acres of them at a time. The thing about it was that you could never tell what was going on from the main roads. They would always leave 50 feet or so of pine forest between the roads and the clear cutting. They did that so people couldn’t see the devastation of the land and how utterly desolate it looked when they were finished. It was barren and ugly. It looked like what you would picture the surface of the moon to look like. Once you would break through that wall of woods off the road, all of a sudden there was nothing living. Acres and acres of deadness. That was how Isaiah described God’s coming judgment on Assyria. He was going to clear cut them and leave nothing standing. Utter deadness and desolation. But then he gets to verse 1 that we just read. All throughout Old Testament prophesy, God promises judgment. But He always shows the light at the end of the tunnel. Because His judgment is to turn hard-hearted people back to Him. Now, picture the scene—a huge clear cut field of utter destruction. And you look. Off in the distance. A sign of life. A beautiful, living twig. Shooting out of an apparently dead stump in the ground. But, of course, we know the stump isn’t dead. The roots in the ground represent God’s chosen people—the house of Israel. This morning we talked about the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants. God made those promises to the Jews and He never backs out on His promises. So even though the Jews would look like they had been destroyed in God’s judgment of Assyria, they weren’t. The stump still lived. And out of that stump, a King would come from the line of Jesse. Now, remember that Jesse was David’s father. He wasn’t a king, but his son was. Jesse was just a simple shepherd. A nobody. Just like the line of David was when Jesus came. I mean, think about it—who was Joseph? In the grand scheme of things, he was a nobody. Israel’s kings weren’t on the throne because of the curse of Jechonia that we talked about. Rome was in the process of trying to take over the world and were ruling Israel. Herod was somebody—Caesar was somebody. Joseph was just a carpenter. A nobody. Just like David’s daddy—Jesse the shepherd. But just like Jesse, because of the royal bloodline, God made Joseph the legal father of a King. God promised a King would come from the desolate and clear cut roots of Israel. Life out of apparent lifelessness. He promised a King would come from the most insignificant person in the lineage of David. The King of kings from an insignificant nobody. But that’s the way God works. He brings hope out of hopelessness. He uses the nobodies of the world to be somebodies for Him. Isaiah prophesied that Jesus’ royal Person would come from a desolate nation and an apparently insignificant line. A stem and a stump. But not only did he prophesy Jesus’ royal Person. He prophesied His royal power.