This morning, as we continue our journey through the Old Testament prophets, we’re going to deal with a concept that has come up previously, but today we’ll have a chance to examine it in more detail. We’ll do that as we continue to look at two different passages in the Book of Isaiah. So you’ll want to take your Bibles and open them to Isaiah chapter 10 and we’ll begin there in just a moment.
The concept of a remnant is one that we’ve already come across in a passage that we’ve looked at previously in Amos, but it is the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah that deal with the subject most frequently.
The term “remnant” is not one that we tend to use a whole lot in our culture and when we do, we often use is to describe a leftover piece of cloth or carpet. For instance when Larry Ramer built a couple of additional sections to increase the size of our platform for our dinner theater last year, he was able to find a carpet remnant that matched our existing carpet very well.
But, as we’ll see this morning, the idea of a “remnant” in the Bible is quite different and it is an extremely significant concept when it comes to our study of the Old Testament prophets and the Book of Revelation. So let’s use a couple of passages from the Book of Isaiah to help us understand this concept of the “remnant” and its significance. We’re going to look at two short passages this morning. The first is in chapter 10, beginning in verse 20:
Isaiah 10:20-27
20 In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. 21 A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. 22 For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness. 23 For the Lord GOD of hosts will make a full end, as decreed, in the midst of all the earth. 24 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD of hosts: “O my people, who dwell in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrians when they strike with the rod and lift up their staff against you as the Egyptians did. 25 For in a very little while my fury will come to an end, and my anger will be directed to their destruction. 26 And the LORD of hosts will wield against them a whip, as when he struck Midian at the rock of Oreb. And his staff will be over the sea, and he will lift it as he did in Egypt. 27 And in that day his burden will depart from your shoulder, and his yoke from your neck; and the yoke will be broken because of the fat.”
You’ll notice that Isaiah refers to a remnant that is going to return to the land that God had given them four times in this passage. What is really interesting is that this concept of a remnant returning to the land is so important in Isaiah’s prophecies that the name of his firstborn son even points to that remnant:
And the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-jashub your son…
Isaiah 7:3 (ESV)
We know that in the Bible, names often have significant meanings, and this is no exception. The name “Shear-jashub” means “a remnant shall return”.
As usual, we won’t have enough time to examine our passages in great detail this morning, so what I’d like to do is to point out a few of the most significant aspects of the two passages and then see if we can’t use these two passages to help us summarize some facts about the remnant that will provide us with a good foundation as we continue on this journey.
This particular prophecy, like many in the Bible, has both a near-term and far-term fulfillment. You’ll remember that at the time of this prophecy, Assyria is the major world power in the Middle East. During the period of Isaiah’s ministry, he sees Assyria invade the northern kingdom of Israel, resulting in the northern ten tribes being scattered among the surrounding nations. And, as Israel’s neighbor, Judah is obviously concerned about what Assyria might do to them. So Isaiah’s prophecy is intended to assure the people that even though Assyria will attack Jerusalem, they will not be successful, for God Himself would protect Judah and destroy the Assyrians.
The near-term fulfillment of this prophecy began in 701 BC during Hezekiah’s reign. In 1 Kings 18 and 19, we find the account about how God miraculously protected Judah from the attack of Sennacherib, the king of Assyria because, just as Isaiah had prophesied, Hezekiah chose to lean on the Lord rather than trust in the offer that had been made by Sennacherib. And it is not too much later that Babylon becomes the new world power and puts an end to the Assyrian empire, just as Isaiah had predicted.
That near-term fulfillment culminated many years later. Even though Judah was protected from the attack of Assyria, because they failed to repent and return to God, they were eventually attacked by Babylon and taken into exile in Babylon in 587 BC. But 70 years later, under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, a remnant returns to Jerusalem and rebuilds the Temple and the wall around the city.
The far-term fulfillment of this prophecy is still to occur in the future. As we have discovered in our study of the Jewish feasts as well as in Joel, Amos and Obadiah, there will be a time during which God’s people will undergo a period of tribulation, which will be very similar to the Assyrian attack on Jerusalem. But again, God will preserve His remnant through that period and at some point God’s tribulation, which is for the purpose of identifying those who are the righteous in Jesus will end and God will begin to pour out his wrath on those who have been God’s agents in that tribulation. And at that time, God will gather His remnant and bring them back to the land that He has given to them.
Verse 25 gives us some additional insight into this future fulfillment. When Isaiah writes “For in a very little while my fury will come to an end” the word he uses there for “fury” is the same word that we find in the Book of Daniel:
And the king shall do as he wills. He shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak astonishing things against the God of gods. He shall prosper till the indignation is accomplished; for what is decreed shall be done.
Daniel 11:36 (ESV)
The word “indignation” in that verse is the same word translated “fury” in Isaiah 10:25 and it appears that both passages are referring to the same future event. This verse is a clear reference to the person that we normally identify as the Antichrist. The idea here is that the Antichrist is going to prosper until the time that God’s indignation, or fury comes to an end and then God turns and pours out His wrath on the one who has been attacking the remnant. This is exactly what happened in the near-term fulfillment of the prophecy when God turned his wrath upon Assyria, who up until that time had been His agent of tribulation.
Before we move on to our next passage, let me address one verse that might be a bit confusing – verse 27:
And in that day his burden will depart from your shoulder, and his yoke from your neck; and the yoke will be broken because of the fat.”
The first part of the verse is pretty straightforward – God is going to remove the burden of Assyria in the near-term and of the Antichrist in the far-term. But the phrase “because of the fat” is much less clear. If you have an ESV Bible, you have a footnote that indicates that the meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain. The Hebrew word can also mean oil and some translations have taken the liberty of translating that word as “anointing” because of a possible connection to the oil of anointing.
Frankly, it’s really hard to be dogmatic about exactly what this phrase means so it seems best to just take the plain meaning of the rest of the verse, which is quite clear and not try to make too much of the last phrase, an exercise that is open to much speculation and which is likely to distract us from more important matters.
Let’s turn now to a second passage that we’ll look at this morning:
Isaiah 11:10-16
10 In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious. 11 In that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that remains of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea. 12 He will raise a signal for the nations and will assemble the banished of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. 13 The jealousy of Ephraim shall depart, and those who harass Judah shall be cut off; Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah, and Judah shall not harass Ephraim. 14 But they shall swoop down on the shoulder of the Philistines in the west, and together they shall plunder the people of the east. They shall put out their hand against Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites shall obey them. 15 And the Lord will utterly destroy the tongue of the Sea of Egypt, and will wave his hand over the River with his scorching breath, and strike it into seven channels, and he will lead people across in sandals. 16 And there will be a highway from Assyria for the remnant that remains of his people, as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt.
This second prophecy is clearly a far-term prophecy that is yet to be fulfilled. Here Jesus is described as the “root of Jesse” in a passage which is quoted by Paul in the New Testament:
And again Isaiah says,
“The root of Jesse will come,
even he who arises to rule the Gentiles;
in him will the Gentiles hope.”
Romans 15:12 (ESV)
Although there was a partial fulfillment of the prophecy at the first coming the Messiah, the root of Jesse, it is clear that the complete fulfillment will not occur until His second coming.
Let me briefly explain a few of the more significant details from the passage and then we’ll combine what we learn with what we learned from the passage in the previous chapter and see if we can’t draw some conclusions about the remnant.
• The idea of the Lord extending his hand a second time has at least two possible meanings:
o In a sense, what Isaiah describes here is a second Exodus. There are clearly many parallels between what Isaiah describes here and how God lifted His hand against Egypt in order to free His people from bondage in Egypt. To me this is the most likely explanation and it would certainly fit with verse 26 in chapter 10, which we looked at a moment ago:
And his staff will be over the sea, and he will lift it as he did in Egypt.
o The second time could be contrasted with the first return of the people to their land after the Babylonian exile.
• The remnant will include both Israel and Judah. You will note the repeated references to both Ephraim, which is another name for Israel, the northern ten tribes, as well as Judah, the southern two tribes. And as we’ve alluded to frequently, God is going to restore the commonwealth of Israel and put an end to the hostility between Israel and Judah.
• When the word “nations” is used here in this passage, it is a reference to the Gentiles, and some of your translations may actually render the word that way, much as Paul did when he quoted from Isaiah.
This idea of the Messiah being a signal for the nations is related to bringing back the remnant of Israel, the northern 10 tribes. Remember that when Assyria conquered Israel, the people were scattered into exile in the surrounding nations, many of which are listed by Isaiah in verse 11. Those people never did return to Israel and they became interspersed among the surrounding peoples to the point that they were no longer identifiable as a people. So the term Gentiles often includes not just non-Jews, but also the ten tribes of Israel who were interspersed throughout the world and are no longer identifiable as a people. In fact, it is quite possible that some, or even many, of us in this room today may very well belong to that group.
But when Jesus returns, He will become the signal by which those people will be gathered from the four corners of the earth and be settled back into the land that God has given them.
• God is going to use supernatural events as part of the process of gathering the remnant back to its land.
Again many of the events pictured here are echoes of how God miraculously delivered His people from Egypt through the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea. God will destroy the “tongue of the Sea of Egypt” – the Gulf of Suez. He will dry up the River – probably a reference to the Euphrates River – so that people will be able to walk across the dry ground in their sandals. And He will establish a highway from Assyria – present day Iraq – to Israel.
With that brief look at these two passages, let’s see what conclusions we can draw about:
Characteristics of the “remnant”
1. The remnant consists of those who are faithful to God in the face of tribulation
Being part of the remnant is not merely a matter of heritage. It is clear from these passages that not all of those who were part of the twelve tribes of Israel will be part of the remnant, a fact that Paul emphasized in his letter to the church at Rome:
For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
Romans 9:6-8 (ESV)
In other words, just being a descendent of Israel doesn’t guarantee that a person will be part of the remnant. It is only those who prove to be faithful to God in the face of tribulation that will become part of the remnant. We’ve seen consistently that God is going to bring tribulation for the very purpose of identifying those who are truly the righteous in Jesus. And it is only those who pass that test who will become part of the remnant.
But there is some encouraging news about this time of tribulation – it will not last forever. The attack from the Assyrians was cut short by God and the persecution of the Antichrist will be cut short as well. God knows exactly how much tribulation is necessary to refine and prove His children and He won’t allow the tribulation to go beyond what we are able to bear.
However this doesn’t mean that we become part of the remnant based on our own work and merit, because the Bible is clear that…
2. Being part of the “remnant” is solely dependent on God’s grace
God certainly didn’t preserve Judah from the Assyrians because they deserved it. Nor will he preserve His remnant at the second coming of Jesus because of their works. Paul confirms that fact, again in the Book of Romans:
So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.
Romans 11:5 (ESV)
We’re going to come back to the first part of that verse in a moment, but for right now what I want us to notice is that being part of the remnant is not based on our own works, but rather on the grace of God. Being faithful through the tribulation will merely be a confirmation that we have truly chosen to trust in Jesus Christ alone as the basis for our salvation and that we are made right with God as an act of His grace.
3. The remnant consists of only a small portion of those who claim to be God’s followers
Once again, Paul quotes from Isaiah in the Book of Romans:
And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.”
Romans 9:27, 28 (ESV)
There are a couple of aspects of the sons of Israel being as the sand of the sea. First it is a picture of how Israel has been scattered and mixed among the nations in the same way that the sand of the sea is constantly being stirred up and mixed with the other objects in the sea. But it is also obviously a picture of the vast numbers of people who can trace their lineage back to Israel. And only a small portion of those people who have that heritage will become part of the remnant.
Jesus confirms that only a small portion of those who claim to be God’s followers will become part of the remnant and enter into His kingdom:
Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
Matthew 7:13, 14 (ESV)
4. The remnant experiences the full measure of God’s salvation
Although, as we’ve seen, not many will become part of the remnant, for those who prove to be faithful to God, there is a great blessing. The prophet Micah describes some of the blessings that those who are part of the remnant will experience:
Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
and passing over transgression
for the remnant of his inheritance?
He does not retain his anger forever,
because he delights in steadfast love.
He will again have compassion on us;
he will tread our iniquities underfoot.
You will cast all our sins
into the depths of the sea.
Micah 7:18, 19 (ESV)
5. The remnant is God’s means of perpetuating the kingdom of God
Throughout the Bible, God has preserved a faithful remnant for the purpose of perpetuating His kingdom:
• After the flood, Noah and his family are preserved as a remnant for the purpose of repopulating the earth and perpetuating God’s reign.
• When God separated the Hebrew people for Himself and they became the commonwealth of Israel, God set them aside as a remnant for the purpose of perpetuating his kingdom. Unfortunately, we often have a great misunderstanding of what it means when we speak of Israel as God’s “chosen people”. They were not chosen in the sense that they are special or that God would protect them no matter what. They were chosen in that God gave them a task to be the instrument by which His kingdom would be established and perpetuated. We clearly see that in God’s call to Abraham:
I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
Genesis 12:3 (ESV)
Abraham and his descendants were to be an avenue by which God would bless all the peoples of the earth.
• When Jesus ascended to the Father after His resurrection, He left behind a remnant for the purpose of carrying on His work and perpetuating the kingdom of God.
• If you are a follower of Jesus, then you are currently part of a remnant that is charged with perpetuating his Kingdom. Let’s go back to a verse that we just looked at a moment ago:
So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.
Romans 11:5 (ESV)
This time I want you to focus on the first part of this verse. What we find is that the remnant is not just something for the future – there is a remnant at the present time, and if you are a follower of Jesus, you have been tasked by God to be about the work of perpetuating His kingdom by making disciples.
APPLICATION
Let me leave you this morning with just two applications. I could certainly come up with many more, but I’m convinced that these are two of the most important principles that we’ve identified so far in our study of the Old Testament prophets:
1. Faith in Jesus is the only way to become part of the remnant
First, let me address the issue of how we become part of the remnant.
As we’ve seen clearly, it is not possible to become part of the remnant by our heritage. We don’t become part of the remnant because our parents or our grandparents or some other family member is part of that group.
It’s also not possible to become part of the remnant by our own good works, as important as they are. As important as it is to do these things, we can’t enter into the remnant by reading our Bible, praying, going to church, or serving in some ministry.
When we stand face-to face before God some day, the only thing that will matter is what we have done with the Root of Jesse, the Messiah, Jesus. There are no words in the entire Bible that are clearer than the words that Jesus spoke in response to Thomas when Thomas asked Him how he could know the way to God:
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
John 14:6 (ESV)
There are not many ways to God, there is only one – Jesus. There are not many ways to be included in the remnant and to experience all the blessings that God has in store for those people. There is only one – Jesus.
If you’re here this morning and you’ve never committed your life to Jesus and placed your faith in Him alone as the means for your relationship with God, then I need to tell you lovingly and yet firmly, that you cannot ever be part of the remnant. That’s not my opinion, that’s what Jesus said.
So if that describes you this morning, I beg you to please not leave here today until you’ve settled that matter with God. If you have some questions about how to do that or would like to talk about it some more, please see Pastor Dana or me after the service or fill out the flap on your bulletins and check the box that reads “I would like to learn how to begin a personal relationship with Jesus.
If you’ve already made that decision, praise God. But the second application applies directly to you:
2. Being part of the remnant is a call to make disciples
Obviously, being part of the remnant brings with it great benefits and blessings. We’ve looked at just a few of those this morning. But more importantly, as we’ve seen clearly, God’s purpose in preserving a remnant is always to perpetuate His kingdom. Another way to put it is that God’s call is always a call to a task.
As followers of Jesus, we are currently a remnant and we have been called to a task, one made clear by the words of the Master Himself:
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20 (ESV)
This command of Jesus is not just for the pastors or the elders. It is a command that is given to every single follower of Jesus. Regardless of how long you’ve been a believer, regardless of how little or how much you know, you are to be participating in the process of making disciples wherever God has placed you.
Perhaps that is immersing yourself in God’s Word so that you can be better prepared to share it with others. Perhaps it is praying Biblically for the needs of others. Perhaps it is sharing what Jesus has done in your life with a family member, neighbor, friend or co-worker. Perhaps it is teaching one of our Bible classes or working one-on-one with a less mature believer to help that person grow in his or her faith. Perhaps it is living your life in a way that it directs people to seek out God in their lives.
What are you doing right now to observe the commands of Jesus in your own life and then pass that onto others? What are you doing right now to testify to your faith in Jesus and then helping others to do the same?
