A Very Old-Fashioned Christmas

I just texted Judah he deserves a raise. I used to say that as a deacon, I would always say when the guys like this morning, they're doing double and triple duty back there, we're going to get overtime pay.

Well, you're going to want to turn in your Bible to the book of Isaiah and I'll explain the title of the sermon later. It's either Old Fashioned Christmas or Very Old Fashioned Christmas.

I forgot to, by the way, mention prayer for Mr. Collins. Jim Collins was at the ER this morning. He thought he was going to get here on time, but Carmen isn't doing well and they're doing some tests and things. So be in prayer for Jim.

So you may have heard this before. You may have heard the idea that religion or Christianity is the opiate of society. Have you ever heard that quote before? It's often leveled at Christianity as a criticism and it was Karl Marx that said it. Karl Marx famously said that, which is again, the old chess player in me and the cynic and sarcastic me from before I was saved would love what I'm about to tell you as a weapon, our fight against the unbiblical worldviews. But I'm not telling this to you to use as a weapon, even though it is a good weapon.

Karl Marx did not actually mean that critically, if you study the quote and the origin of that quote. What Karl Marx was saying is, typically speaking, religion is used in societies to accomplish something that the people actually need opium for. So in other words, people have emotional and spiritual needs. So what do they need? They need some sort of medicine and what do they turn to? Religion.

Now Karl Marx was saying that them turning to Christianity was bad, meaning they need the medicine and so they turn to Christianity and that's bad. But what he was saying was they need the medicine and communism is what they need. So Karl Marx was essentially saying, Christianity is currently the opiate of society, but communism should be. What he wasn't saying was we don't need medicine.

People often call Christianity a crutch. It's a crutch, right? And then I always say, yep, and we all have busted legs. It is a crutch. We absolutely are needy. We are 100% dependent. It is only the American pride that says, I don't need anything. I'm self sufficient. We're broken and we need medicine.

Now I'm saying all that to you now because a lot of what we find in our culture and that culture that has sort of leaked into the church is constant temporary relief from problems. Maybe the problem is permanent. Maybe the problem is temporary, but it's a constant seeking of a potential relief, temporary relief for an issue that we might have now.

And I will tell you that we are addicted to this in our culture, especially with social media. We were talking about the LDS Church downstairs for the last couple of weeks. How long ago was it? It wasn't even two months ago that the guy drove the truck into the LDS Church back east. It was huge news for 48 hours. Gone now, right?

How big was the Charlie Kirk news in our country? In fact, I already know what's going to happen. That somebody in the future will hear me preaching this sermon in a recording, and they're going to say, who's Charlie Kirk? This is just the way the news cycle works. It's the way we move from thing to thing.

And the reason I bring that up is because we often try to seek temporary relief from a temporary problem. And one of the things we seek often for temporary relief is religion.

Nowhere is that more evident than Christmas time, where everybody goes into Christmas time with this sort of tacit agreement that we all sort of agree together. For these next few weeks during the holiday, while the lights are up and the wreath is on the door and the trees in the living room, we going to pretend to be nice to each other. We're going to pretend we have joy. We're going to pretend we have peace. We're going to sing songs about joy and we're going to drink hot chocolate. And for the next few weeks, we're going to pretend everything's okay.

But then comes January 1st.

So is religion the opiate of society? I actually agree with Karl Marx. It is for better or worse that we use the things of faith to give ourselves a reprieve from the difficulty of life.

But the point of this morning's sermon, as we open the book of Isaiah and we think about the gospel of Jesus and Christmas, is that I'm begging you, I'm begging you to seek permanent relief, eternal relief, that Christmas is not a few weeks. I'm not the person that's going to get up here and try to say we should have Christmas all year, like the Grinch said. But I am going to get up here and say we can learn from the history of Israel not to seek temporary relief like they did like we have for centuries. Well, two and a half centuries.

Why Isaiah? Well, I think Isaiah is a great example that can kind of separate us from our current culture, to kind of get us out of our own heads as Americans, as moderns. If we go back to Isaiah's day and learn a few things about his day. And then I'm going to go ahead and start now and say it and. And what Isaiah thought about Christmas, because he did think about Christmas. Isaiah loved Christmas. He just didn't see what we see in Christmas.

We're going to go back a few hundred years. We're going to look at what the prophet looked forward to, why he looked forward to it, what was going on in Isaiah's day. What kind of things would Israel need an opiate for? Which, by the way, isn't it ironic that the number of opium deaths there are in our country now, that used to be religion was the opiate of society, but now opium is. But now drugs and people are just. And fentanyl and it's just killing thousands and thousands of people. And we're just kind of quietly going along with it, especially the prescription versions of it. And that's happening in our country. So now opium is the opiate of society. The irony.

What can Isaiah teach us? We're going to go back in time. That's why it's Isaiah. We're going to hear what Isaiah experienced in his time. We're going to ask the question, did Israel's attempts at temporary relief solve their permanent problem, or did God promise a better solution to their problem?

And if we can look in on Isaiah and what he looked forward to, is it possible that we can look to Isaiah's future and see our past in the birth of Christ as the solution to Israel's temporary problems? And then can we now as moderns look at the gospel and instead of looking forward to next week as some sort of temporary relief with hot chocolate and wreaths and mistletoe, see a permanent solution to our permanent problem, which is sin and death.

So we're going to hear from Isaiah, I think, or should, how we should be thinking about Christmas. We're going to look at the hope that Isaiah had and what he saw in the future as a prophet of Israel, what the people of Israel should have heard him say. And we're going to be smart enough to listen to what he said, and we are going to internalize what he said so that we have a permanent solution. We don't need opium or crutches. We have Jesus.

Let's pray, Father.

Now, as we open your word and we look at the prophecy of Isaiah, as we contemplate the upcoming holiday, what it means and what it should mean, we often say Jesus is the reason for the season. And of course that's True, but that wasn't just something thought about in the first century. It was something thought about since the beginning, since the foundation.

The Word says he's the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. You told Eve that he would crush the head of the serpent. These are things that are old things.

And Father, I'm asking, as we go into this season, as we go into these next days, especially this church and these people going through what they're going through, instead of trying to find a temporary solution to any problem, they find the permanent solution in Jesus. Help us see that, please, and celebrate it in his name. Amen.

Well, I'm going to give you some history during Isaiah's time. We're going to go back in time to Isaiah's day, and we're going to stick there, by the way, most of the time. Everything I'll say this morning will be pertinent to what happened in Isaiah's day at his time.

Just a quick history and I'm going to do this. I actually kind of have a plan to do this. I've been wanting to do it for years, but I felt inadequate to do it. I would like at some point to make a course or a sermon series or a study series on us all as Christians, having the ability to summarize all of Israel's history from memory. That's really what I want. I've wanted it for a long time. I just can't seem to get the, I don't know, courage or the right way of putting it down so that I can make a useful version of it. Thought of acronyms, I thought of all kinds of things.

But I would like you to be able to do what I'm about to do right now. So starting with creation thousands of years ago, not millions of years ago. And some people think it has to be 6,000. I don't know if you know where that comes from. That comes from mainly a man named Unger who did the actual math of the genealogies in the Old Testament. And he did all the math and added that up to about 6,000 years.

The problem with that is there's a lot of overlap and gaps in that math. There are sometimes where two kings were kings at the same time, even though they're both named. Right. So their genealogy, the timeline wouldn't add up to a generation correctly. Math.

So here's what I will say. The age of the Earth is between 6 and 10,000 years old, I think. But 100%, it's not millions of years old. Okay, 100% it's not. And if you say, well, no, what about carbon dating? That's another discussion. We can trust the Bible. Jesus preached it literally and we believe the earth is young. Okay, I'm saying all that because if you go back six to 10,000 years now, the next major event on history's timeline is your first event for this morning's sermon. And that is the calling of Abraham out of Ur.

That was around somewhere. These are all ballparks. Some of the dates are exact, Some of them are ballpark. 2200, that's the first date you need to remember. Maybe if I did it over here for you and put it here so it can be first in your lineage. I'm doing the Hebrew version. No, I'm just kidding. Because Hebrews write to. Let's 2200, that's your first day. Abraham called by God, taken from idolatry. And God promises him he's going to make a nation from him and his offspring, right?

And incidentally, our hope is in that promise to Abraham, right? Our hope, that of the blessing to all the nations comes from the seed of Abraham capital S that Paul tells us in Galatians is Jesus. So that family is going to bless the whole world.

So there's Abraham, he calls him. Then you have the patriarchal period, right, with Isaac and Jacob and then of course, Joseph after that. Right. And then you have the bondage of Joseph's during the time of Joseph and his people. And, and all that happened. Well, first it wasn't bondage first it was him rescuing them right after the, the famine.

So Joseph and you know the story of Jacob's sons, Israel's sons, and then the rescue from the famine by Joseph because God had raised him to power even though he was rejected. I don't have exact dates for all that, but we're still in the 2200 year.

And then a few hundred years later, about 800 or so you get to the time of the Exodus. So you have the 400 years of bondage in there and you get to 1446, that's your next date. If you want to write these down, it's 2200. It's 1446. Okay, 1446 is the time of the Exodus when God rescues the people from bondage in Egypt and takes them out of there.

And then of course, you have the break and the times in there. And then in the time from 14:46 to our next important date for us this morning is 9:31 B.C. this is all B.C. 2200, 1446. 931, incidentally, I'm doing all this from memory. This is what I would hope you could do.

Okay, 9:31 is an important date because after the time of King Saul, then King David, then his son, who did not listen to him, Solomon, who was the supposed to be the wisest man who ever lived, then his son didn't do right and didn't listen to right counsel. In 931, he listened to the counsel to treat people of Israel harshly instead of fair like the elders did.

So younger people stop thinking older people aren't smart. They've seen things that you haven't. And now with some of this gray, you might listen to me too.

So that in 931 BC, the nation splits in two. It splits in two with the 10 tribes in the north and the two tribes in the south. And in your Bible, when you read Israel and Judah, sometimes those are actually representative of the whole nation. Sometimes they're more literal and direct. So that when you hear Judah, it means the two tribes down south, Judah and Benjamin. Both of those two tribes in the south and in the south is Jerusalem. That will come into play big time in our history this morning.

So Judah and Jerusalem are down south. The other 10 tribes up north, Dan and all the others. Okay, Reuben, all those guys are up north. Try. The country splits in two.

Just like our country had a time where we were split in two, right after the abolition in the movements and the civil war and all that. So now they're at odds with each other sometimes. Other times they're not.

There were no good kings up north. You know this story. I always think of Ellen, Sunday school material that had the kings where they're nice enlisted. It's like her Sunday school material is better than some of the seminary material I had seen.

So you got the 10 tribes up north, you got the two tribes down south, and they begin this cycle that you all know about of disobedience. I didn't mention the time of the judges where they were up and down and up and down. But here they are after the time of David, after the time of Solomon, after. After the time of Rehoboam failing, the nation gets split in two.

Jeroboam sets himself up as king up north, right? And of course, he's not a good king. He's an evil king. He sets up the false religion up north of the high places, what I call the megachurches of the early centuries, right? Where these places where he would say, you don't have to go to Jerusalem, to make your sacrifices, worship here. And they would set up all these places of worship and then it was idol worship. It wasn't.

He also set up golden calves. What's worse than one golden calf? How about two golden calves? Jeroboam was a bad guy. Eventually he is threatened by God and told his he will not have any lineage. Right. His heritage, he's going to be wiped out. Your name, Jeroboam will be a byword.

So this is all happening from 9:31. The next important date is while Israel is being disobedient in the ten tribes up north. They've got bad kings, they've got bad people like Jeroboam, they've got idol worship and God is warning them. Some of the prophets are directly to them at that time during that period of from 9:31 to the next important date, 7:22, where God had promised and promised and promised. And that's where we find ourselves today. I'm going to go past it a little bit, but today when we open Isaiah, that's where we're going to be.

Seven in the seven hundreds BC you can say BC it's not blasphemous to say before the common era. You can say that. Okay. It's just a time marker. Some people say no, I'll always say BC And AD that's fine. You can make that stand if you want. It's not that big of a deal to me anyway.

931 to 722, both tribes up and down north. Really bad to where in 722 the Assyrians come and they take Israel, the northern tribes, captive. Okay. In 722 the northern tribes go down to Shalmaneser. He's the guy that is the Assyrian king at the time, who comes in from, I always say from the east because it's east in the, in the map. He comes from the east and they go, they lose.

And incidentally, that's where the, where you hear about the Samaritans that are so despised in the New Testament. They come from this time when the Assyrians and the Jews intermingled and the Jews were not supposed to do that. That was unequal yoking. And those half breeds, those, those compromised Jewish genes in the, in the Assyrians that became the Samaritans later, which is why the Jews hated them so much, because they were not pure Jews. Right?

So that's for later in 722 Israel goes into captivity. And just for. So you can put the last couple of Dates or main date, the next day is when the final two tribes of Judah go into captivity in Babylonian captivity, when the conquest is now the whole nation is in Babylonian captivity is 586 BC.

And incidentally, I always say this because it's important to me. That's why my son's name is Judah. It isn't just because it's the coolest name ever, second to Johnny, of course. I'm joking. I'm joking. It is. I love the name Judah. It always sounded strong. And you might have thought, well, I picked it because Jesus is from the tribe of Judah. That's part of it.

But why I did was because the last bastion of faithfulness was Judah in the history of Israel. And they stood longer and they were more faithful. So I always want my son to be like that. Right? That's why we named him that and obviously why his middle name is Caleb. Superhero

2214, 46, 931 Kingdom splits. 722 Northern 10 tribes go into Assyrian captivity. 586 Southern tribes go into Babylonian captivity.

All right, we enter into the book of Isaiah as the judgment of the northern tribes going into Assyrian captivity is coming. The king of Assyria is on his way. And the prophet Isaiah, he preached for years, decades. He preached through four kings that were in the Davidic dynasty. He had a big ministry, Isaiah did.

And his ministry is essentially the same word over and over again. Hey, Israel, stop worshiping idols. Stop making allegiances with false, with nations that hate our God. Stop, stop, stop, stop. God will not tolerate this forever. God will not allow us as a nation to be blessed.

There was a time where Israel and Judah almost had a true, like the way we understand it, civil war. Can you imagine of the 10 tribes, of the 12 tribes of Israel, 10 and two of them going to war against each other. These are the tribes of Israel that God promised all the blessing to.

So we enter into Israel's history about 700 years before Christmas. And this evil king, this evil power is coming. And he's. He's around the corner and, and the prophet is trying to tell them over and over again they're coming, they're coming. And if you keep aligning yourself with the wrong people, if you keep worshiping idols, if you keep denying the Lord and worshiping in the high places, God is going to cut you down, like the old song says, and you can't keep doing it.

And the prophet's heart is breaking for the people of Israel. And he's telling them things like, there's only one true God. No God can be formed. We quoted in Sunday School, you can't keep worshiping these gods and expect the true God to be okay with it. You can't keep denying his commandments. You can't keep perverting worship. And instead of worshiping purely the way he outlined for us and in the law and in the Torah, you can't keep doing this.

And then what did Israel want? They want what America wants. They see their country in trouble. They feel the stress of the difficulties of the day. And what do they want? They want what we want because they want things like opium, like social media, like a president that fits my worldview.

And if we have those things, then we'll be happy, we'll be fine, if we could just get the thing we want. And of course, on the other side of the aisle is the trans person or the Muslim or somebody else who has an absolutely opposed ideology to you. And they're saying the same thing. If we could just get rid of those dumb Zionists and Christians, then we'll have what we want. We can get rid of those dumb people who have traditional values like a man and a woman. And instead of us being what we want, gender, then we'll get what we want.

If we can get the right president, if we get the right congressman, if we can get the right whatever app, whatever it is, if we can find the thing, we will get relief from the things that plague us right now. And the things that plague me right now are anything that doesn't give me what I want.

That's what Israel wanted, too. That's why they kept worshipping idols. That's why they kept their unholy alliances. They kept trying to find a solution to their problem, never realizing that their problem was them. We have seen the enemy, and he is me.

So they kept on over and over again, listening to false teachers, listening to false shepherds, listening to false prophets, listening. Like the prophet would come along, say, everything's going to be fine. And they would say, whoo. That was a closed one.

So 700 years before Christ, the prophet raises up the prophet Isaiah, and he says, israel, you are not your own solution. And you don't need a temporary solution. You need a permanent solution. You don't need a small change. You don't need a temporary change. You don't need the right guy in office. You don't need the right prescription, you don't need the right therapist, you don't need the right car, you don't need the right income. What you need is a permanent solution.

Because your problem, Israel, isn't the lack of solutions. Your problem is sin. And you keep trying to find your answers, your opium in other places.

And Isaiah starts pretty early in his book if you want to follow along. All the notes are in your outline.

He starts pretty early in his book with all that trouble, Israel, with everything you've done. We're at the point now where you're about to go into captivity. And eventually Judah goes into captivity. And then the nation as we know it will never be the same again. It will never be like it was. Even when they rebuild the temple and everything else, it was a vague glimpse of what it used to be.

And we find our first solution to Isaiah's problem. The thing that Isaiah needs to hear, the things that we need to hear is Merry Christmas. Isaiah, chapter 7, verse 14. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you Israel. Disobedient Israel, obstinate Israel, idolatrous Israel. God is never going to give up on you. He's going to give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name. What is his name? Class? His name is God with us. That's what his name is.

What's Israel's problem? They've chosen everything but the true God. What is God's solution to give them God. Your problem is you've denied your God.

And God had always had a promise to have a people. He. I will have a people. They will be my people and I will be their God. That was the problem. How does he fix it? It wasn't them. They were not obedient. They were not reaching up correctly. They were reaching the idols, they were reaching down. What's the solution? I will reach to them. I will go to them.

They did everything but the right thing. Jesus, birth isn't a day to exchange presents. It's not a day off of work. It is not a temporary reprieve from a very busy life and difficult things, even loss. Jesus coming. This birth, this Emmanuel, this God with us is the solution, the absolute solution, not only to Israel's problem, but the world's problem.

These people were doomed. They were not receiving the help of God. They were not repenting. And God will fix it. They can't fix it. And he will. And he does it by sending a son who becomes God with us.

We could go a little further. You might only have to turn one page if you have a small print Bible. And if you do, I envy you. Because I could never read a small print Bible anymore.

Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6 and 7. The undeniable solution. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. Now remember, keep in your history mind. Okay? U.S. is not U.S. in this room. Us is Israel. Right? Isaiah is telling his people, the prophet of his people, we're broken, we're in sin, we're in disobedience, we're in idolatry. We're doing everything against God. And instead of wiping us out, God, who made his promise to Abraham in 2200 B.C. is going to keep his promise. He. He said in Abraham, all the nations of the world will be blessed. How can we bless the nation if we are failing? Well, because a solution in Jesus doesn't fail.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. And the government will be upon his shoulder. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. Upon the throne of David, there's the throne. And over his kingdom, there's that kingdom language to order it and establish it with judgment and justice. From that time forward, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

Jesus is not a president. He is a dictator. And I say Hallelujah. All of our presidents, folks, have been our choice. How have we done for 250 years? Hey, take an X ray of the United States of America in 2025. How have we done? We are the sovereign ones in this country. The people. We the people. The best form of government ever, by the way. I totally love it and I still care. But how have we done?

We did the same thing Israel did. We denied our God. We elevated idols, we promoted sin. We called evil good and good evil. And now we have what we have. Where's our solution? Oh, two weeks off in Christmas. That'll fix it. Just no talk anymore. Don't let's not talk about it. Let's try to think positive. Everything will be okay.

I love that Jesus is called the elect of God. He wasn't nominated by humans. He was chosen by his Father. And that's the only one vote that counts.

And look at the things describing him. This is a whole sermon in itself. Wonderful, Counselor. The ones I want to emphasize are his authority. Because you need something powerful and authoritative to fix these problems. And we keep trying with our individual powers and we can't fix the problems. So to see things like Mighty God, Prince of Peace, these are things that jump out at me, his government.

I don't know how you feel about government? How's our government doing, class? The only thing government does is make more government. That's not good government. Again, I'm saying all that. Still loving our country. Don't think I'm not a patriot. I love our country. I love it. I was talking to Jim this week about a sailor that I love, that I'll miss. I love our military. I love this nation. I love that flag. I love it so much. Watch it. We watched a Christmas movie and I just noticed for the first time ever, look at all the American flags in this movie. I love our country, but I love our country like Isaiah loved his country, seeing it hurt itself and sink and wanting it to right the ship. And it can't do that on its own. It can't.

I don't know if you know this, but it's not smart to take advice from people who are worse off than you. That's not smart. And our world has caused our world's problems. So, folks, you're not going to find a solution to the world's problems with the world that caused the problems. The people are the problem. We are the problem. And you say no? If everybody thought like me, then everything would be okay. Well, guess what? They're thinking that about you. How do you fix that?

I love that Jesus is going to have a government. And I also love that it has. It isn't of the people, by the people, for the people. It's of the Lord, by the Lord, for the Lord.

Israel was hungry. They were hurting themselves. The Eastern kings are approaching. The enemy's approaching. We have pretty safe borders in America, but we know they're not that safe. Israel was pretty safe, but they're not that safe.

And here comes Assyria right around the corner. Threat. And incidentally, the prophet has seen the vision, hasn't he? He knows the future, so he knows Israel can't win the war. He knows this is God bringing the judgment of the Assyrian king. So when. When I. When Isaiah saying it, it's not speculative. He's not speculating on what could happen. He knows what will happen.

So here comes the Eastern Kings. Now let's start looking at some answers to the problem. Is the problem the sovereign people, or is the problem a sovereign king? Look at some answers if you want. You're in Isaiah. If you'd like to keep your finger there and look at Psalm. This will be the only time I leave Isaiah.

Psalm 80 is interesting because the reason I want to look at Psalm 80 is because it sort of, for our purposes, this Morning will introduce some language that I would like us to have in our pocket in this whole thought as we move forward this morning.

In Psalm 80, verse 8, this is what the psalmist says, you have brought a vine out of Egypt. You have cast out the nations and planted it. You prepared room for it and caused it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered with its shadow, and the mighty cedars with its boughs. She sent out her boughs to the sea and her branches to the river.

Psalmist, what are you talking about? Well, I want you to get the picture, and I don't have time. I don't want to keep you too long today. And I want to. I want to. I don't want to miss the point. I want to just bring this in first so that you see the. There's lots of this language in the Bible. Vines, roots, branches, trees. There's a lot of that language in the Bible. We definitely see it in the New Testament.

So I want you to see that. The point here is, as basic as I can, is that when God said, I am taking my people who are in bondage to the Egyptians out of Egypt, the psalmist is looking back to the Exodus and saying, he took them out like a vine, like a little humble vine out of Egypt. And he planted them, and he planted his people, Israel, so that they would have deep roots. And so that in his beautiful grace to them, the abundance. And that's the idea of roots and branches is fruit and abundance. It's God's provision. It's the idea that God makes fruit come on those vines. It's that God produces. He produces something.

If there's vine language, branch language, it has the idea of produce. I don't think any fruit farmer wants branches that are pretty with no fruit on them. You want some fruit, right?

So here's the idea. He's going to take this humble vine that was humble and small and imprisoned in nothing. They were small. Remember, they went into the nation, a few hundred thousand people, and they came out a couple million. And now it's time. And he says, I'm going to take that vine and plant them and I'm going to cause great, deep roots and great fruit, right?

So God is promising that in the Old Testament to the people of Israel. You are a humble little branch that will turn into something magnificent. So keep that in your mind, this vine and branch and root and agricultural language, okay?

You got to keep that in your mind because Israel is getting some sense of that as they hear this song. They would have sung this song. As they're singing this song, they are picturing vineyards, they're picturing crops. They're picturing. You can picture. Because we know people here that would picture walnuts, right?

They're picturing these things. You know what I pictured? I have it written down. She's not in here. She's probably. Oh, she's back there is my daughter. When she decided to go after that guy instead of stay at our house, she had. She had these vines in her bedroom up on a shelf. Just simple vines, right? And she had pruned one of them because it gotten along. It got all the way from the shelf down to her bed, you know, so she could have knocked it off on her head, but she pruned it when she was about to move and she threw away the prunings, right?

Well, she didn't know. Well, she kind of knew afterward. But I sneaked and got them out of the garbage. I got one out of the garbage. And I had one leaf, a single leaf. And I googled how to propagate and I had no idea what I was doing. And I had it in this little jar of water for the longest time. Like a baby food type jar on my shelf, right? And that thing right now, it's not pretty. I mean, I'm not going to tell you. It turned into a beautiful thing. It's like me, like an ugly ducky duckling. But it is a full like 20 leaves on it. And I have it in my office now.

And so when I see that plant, what do you think I think of? I think of my daughter. I think she's bearing fruit right now. My granddaughter's here. And I'm thinking, it has symbols. Don't you see it? I hear pastor talk about his walnut trees like they're babies. You know, you prune them and you take care of them and you think of them like you care about them. Your heart's in it.

And so when you take all that language, whatever your version of that is, I'm not a plant person now. I am. I've turned into my dad. I got all, like, succulents and things that were dead. I'm trying to bring back to life. Now all of a sudden, I care about plants. I'm out there watering. Every once in a while, I get busted by my family. Like, no, I'm not doing anything. There was a bug over here. You know, I don't lie. I'm just kidding.

I want you to have this language in your head. Fruitfulness, growth, produce. God makes things grow. The psalmist telling the people, God's going to make you grow, right? God's going to make you bear fruit, Israel, he didn't. He didn't take you out of Egypt for you to be nothing. He took you out of Egypt to make you something.

So keep that in mind now that you enter Israel. 700 years before Jesus roughly depends on when Shalmaneser was in power and all the things. 740 or something. I don't remember the dates exactly, but we're in the 8th century BC and the nation is falling apart. And there isn't any fruit. Its fruit is bad fruit. A bad tree bears bad fruit, doesn't it? And they're in trouble.

And the prophet is telling them, you're not bearing fruit. But then the promise, the promise of Isaiah, you go back to Isaiah, chapter 11. That's why this promise matters, because instead of the nation bearing fruit, Isaiah, chapter 11, verse 1, there shall come forth a rod. A rod, by the way, is not a. What we think of as a rod. A rod is like a straight branch, some, some form of a tree, okay? It might be off the tree and trimmed, but I don't want you to know. It's not man made. It's a. It's a natural thing, a rod from the stem of Jesse. So you think of a branch from the tree of Jesse or something like that, okay?

And a branch shall grow out of its roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. Your Bible should say the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel. That sounds a little bit like what Isaiah said a few chapters ago. Might the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

So from this family, from the tribe of Judah, from the family of Jesse, who knows? Jesse's famous son, King David is from the tribe of Jesse. Jesse is his dad. Jesse is David's dad. And then eventually David will be given the promise of his throne. That will be a throne forever and ever.

So now Isaiah the prophet is telling the people, out of that family will come this branch, using our branch language, this rod, this vine, who will be different than the branch that came out of Egypt that has been planted and not bearing fruit.

They were supposed to be the branch that bears fruit. And in a sense I have to do this because I'm a premillennialist. Let me say it. They will still bear fruit and they bore the fruit of Jesus. There's a future for Israel. Okay, I say that. But even then, right then, right then in their Disobedience. They were not bearing fruit.

The Lord, through Isaiah, the prophet tells them, one day, somebody's coming out of this group of people, specifically this family, specifically this tribe, who will bear fruit. He will be the vine, the capital V, vine. He will cover the land with fruit, like that promise in Psalm 80, after the fall, after the disobedience.

And if you're in Israel at this time and hearing the prophet say this, you might be saying, how? How can this be? Look at us. If you love Israel and you're seeing our disobedience and you're one of the people there, just like you might think, how. How can any good thing happen in America now, as far as we've come, Israel will bear fruit again.

But Israel, the nation, can't, because they're failing. They have false prophets, false teachers, false priests. But someone from David's family, someone born in Bethlehem, can. And God's going to send this Emmanuel, this God with us. He's going to send this branch and this vine, this. Out of the tribe of Jesse, out of the family of Jesse.

How can he fix that problem? How can you just replace one person in Israel with all of the people of Israel and expect that he can solve the problem? Is he going to be the best president they ever had? The best leader they ever had? Is that what it is? He's going to be charismatic? He's going to have all the answers? He's going to make everybody happy? Or is he going to fix the actual problem?

And for that you turn to Isaiah 53, Isaiah 53.

Now, keep in mind, we just go from Isaiah 11, all those prophecies that follow Isaiah 11, to Isaiah 53. And we're getting toward the end of the book, we're getting toward the sort of final word on this subject. What can fix Israel's problem? What was Isaiah the prophet looking forward to? Both in despair because he's seeing his nation's disobedience and hope. When he's hearing these prophecies, God's giving him this word. God is telling him Israel is failing. They will go into captivity. Shalmaneser's coming. And then eventually Shanacherib in the south, they're coming. They will take you out. But there will be a future.

So the people in Israel have to be asking if they're honest with themselves. How can this be? We are failing. How can there be any success? Then we have the answer in Isaiah 53.

Who has believed our report, verse 1. And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he shall grow up before him. Ah, here's our language again. What's our language again? A tender plant. And as a root out of dry ground. Why is it dry ground? Because Israel's not fertile. Israel's not being what she's supposed to be. So almost as if to say, out of nothing, here comes this branch.

He has no form or comeliness. And when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He's the opposite of what we would choose. A charismatic, powerful leader who will come on the scene with chariots and tanks and missiles and charismatic leadership. No, he's. This is a man that if you walk by him on the street, you wouldn't notice him.

He is despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and we did not esteem him.

I want to emphasize the we again in context. Israel did not esteem him. Remember in the New Testament, we read, he came to his own and they did not receive him. He's saying, this is a prophecy. 700 years before that happens, this man, this special one, this. This root, this vine will come and the people will see him as a nothing. They'll see him as something to be despised. They'll even kill him.

And you say, well, how is this good news? How can you say this is not a very joyous Christmas, Sloan.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.

Then verse 6 says it. Verse 6 is Isaiah describing Israel and every human. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Of course, that us is all who would trust the Lord? But this is 700 years before he's born.

So I'm going to ask you, what was Isaiah looking forward to in Christmas? Was he looking forward to a temporary solution with warmth and family? And sorry for those of you who are going through difficult times and you don't get to have the same warmth the rest of us do without the. Your loved one present or whatever, or pain or sickness or all the things you're going through. Is that what he's saying?

Or is Isaiah telling us the big problem has always been the big problem? And that is sin. That was Israel's problem. That is our problem. It's humanity's problem. And Christmas is not a temporary reprieve from sin. It is a permanent solution to the sin problem.

As you go forward this week into Christmas time, I hope you see that it isn't to feel peaceful for a couple weeks. It is have. It is to have unfathomable peace with God and comfort from Him. First, for those of you who were sinful and have now been forgiven of your sins, and now trust the Lord and walk with him in his grace to you.

And then also for those of you who are walking with him to find comfort that all the problems, like all the problems of Israel, all of them, all the pain, all the difficulty they were going through, Isaiah knew what we're supposed to know. This coming one, this king, that, this counselor, this one that would come when he comes. And he will come. He will come and he will be born. And he will be born in a humble little manger.

That humble vine, that humble branch, that humble shoot will grow up and from Israel, this person Jesus will grow and he will touch and bless and save the world. And then ultimately in the future, all groaning every groaning that every person who has trusted Christ has experienced, every Israelite who trusted Christ, every Gentile who has trusted Christ, all of that joy and comfort and peace on earth and goodwill to men and glory to God in the highest, none of us are going to look back and say, do you remember when I got those socks on Christmas? You remember that turkey that was really good that year? And those cookies? I don't want you not to have socks, cookies or turkey. I want you to make sure you see them for what they are. Those are blessings that are supposed to reflect the goodness of God to you as a Christian.

Having kept his promise to the people of Israel and then amazingly, including us in on it, Gentiles, dogs, he would be the Emmanuel. This is what Isaiah looked forward to. Isaiah celebrated Christmas like this. He looked forward and he said, God will be with us, however sinful we are. God made a promise with Abraham. He's going to keep that promise. And in that promise to Abraham and the people of Israel and the tribe, as it were, he includes us unnatural branches. He's decided to bless the whole nation through that family, through that tribe, through that king, and we get to be included.

So that when God with us is on earth, when he came, he didn't just come to his own, he came to us too. Isaiah saw this branch and he saw the fruit. I wonder If Isaiah ever had the privilege in his visions that God gave him to see, like Sovereign Grace Baptist Church, what if he saw that? What if a prophet got to see us Christians wearing our strange ties and things like that? I don't think he did. But imagine, just, you know, use our healthy, imagine spiritual imagination that man people all over the world will be able to worship this Messiah everywhere of every tribe, tongue and nation at every walk of life. Kings and peasants, all people will come to the branch. That fruit is going to be global.

There's going to be a king. And I say it all the time. I haven't said anything negative to you this morning yet, I don't think. But I'm going to. If you're listening to my voice and you haven't yet trusted Christ as your Savior, every knee is going to bow to this King of David. Every knee.

And you are either going to bow as his loving, humble servant that he will call a friend because you've trusted him as your Savior. You've said to God, I'm like Israel, I've gone astray. I'm like Israel, I am the problem. I understand. It's my sin that has kept me from you. Please take your son, the suffering servant of Isaiah 53, the one who came in flesh at Christmas. Please take his work, his righteousness, his death on that cross. Apply it to me. And please take my sin and put it on him and kill my sin in the Lord Jesus, forgive me.

Hey, if you know Jesus as your Savior, you bend the knee to your favorite person happily. Oh, thank you, Lord Jesus. Thank you, my king, my master, my Savior, my Lord, my God. That's a happy thought that you will bend the knee.

But if you don't know Jesus, it's the worst thought in the world because you're going to bend the knee too, and he's going to punish you. He's going to say, depart from me and everlasting punishment. Those are the stakes. Those are the consequences. That when Jesus comes on the scene and God gives you the offer of the Gospel, this is my son. He will die in your place. If you ignore that his Father takes it very seriously.

We'll begin in Hebrews again next week. And in the next couple weeks we get to those Hebrews 10 passages that the equivalent, the way God sees ignoring his son is, is like you walking at the foot of the cross as he bleeds and just trampling his blood under your feet like it's nothing. God's not going to stand by and let that happen.

So there's the challenge. If you haven't trusted Christ, please do.

But for the rest of us, look up, look forward. Look to the Lord Jesus, to our great King. He's the suffering servant. He died for us.

And one verse I haven't read yet. If you're still in Isaiah, you can flip over to Isaiah 65. When we were working on the basement. I say we. I did very little, but the guys did a lot down there. And they were putting their Sunday school classes in down there.

All the guys, when they were like sanding everything and they had wall joint compound on their faces and splinters and blisters and everything else, they would just say it to each other downstairs, like across the hall. Streets of gold. You'd see somebody walk out after sanding something. Just covered streets of gold.

Why were they saying that? Because the day is coming when we will walk the thing. We will walk on the thing. Our lowly, humble feet that used to be stinky will walk on is streets of gold. That's what's under our feet. Can you imagine what the rest of the place is like?

Isaiah 65, 17. For behold, I create a new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered. Come to mind all those pains that Isaiah saw, all the difficulties Israel went through. And for you Christian, all the difficulties, all the afflictions. It's crazy that Paul, after everything he had been through, said this momentary light affliction isn't even to be measured. You can't even compare it with the glory to come.

How good must the rule of Jesus be that the most difficult things that we can go through on earth, the most painful things we can go through on earth, and there are so many painful things we go through on earth, so many heartaches, so much loss. I stumbled this last week on a picture of me holding Naomi Blancardi. The pains and the things that we've seen, the loss of children and spouses and disease and struggle, sin, lives falling apart.

How good must Jesus be if you won't even be able to compare those things in heaven? They're not even going to move the scale. The glory of Jesus on this side and every pain you could ever imagine, every war, every rape, every disgusting thing that happens on earth, try to pile it on the scale of pain and sorrow. And the power of Jesus makes it like it wasn't even there. And it isn't, because it wasn't there. It was there. But it's what Jesus death had to fix. And it fixes it.

My family isn't very Religious. You know this. I have a stepbrother who's a Christian and follows the Lord. His wife is in the hospital, by the way. Would you please pray for her, too? But this is our first Christmas without my dad. And I didn't know how much I was going to miss him at this time. To watch him light up when my brother would be so silly. My brother Justin is like a comedian.

And even though we weren't consciously praising the Lord as a family, I was praising the Lord for my family. I'm not the only one the resentuses have lost. Everybody in this church has gone through stuff. And recently.

Would you do what I'm going to do and look up to the Lord Jesus, put your arm around somebody and say, we're in this together and this is temporary. And our solution is not temporary. It isn't two weeks in a holiday season or time off work. Our solution is the Savior who will save people from their sins and come back and be our glorious king.

I have a plot twist for you. There were no New Testament verses in the sermon. It was all Old Testament. And I did that on purpose, very intentionally, so that we could look back in Isaiah's time and see a future solution for Isaiah. And we can look in our time. Typically we go to the gospel passages of Matthew and Luke and those things. But I wanted us to think like Isaiah and look forward to our future in the Lord Jesus. And just like Isaiah now is with the Lord, we'll be with him soon.

Let's pray.

Father, there were so many reasons for you to not be good to people, including us. We just reject you over and over individually as a family. Churches reject you. Whole peoples reject you. Nations reject you. And still over and over again, you show grace. You still say, come to me and I will not cast you out.

Father, I'm just asking that somebody might, maybe today, maybe somebody might come to you, that he might hear the words of Isaiah and say, I need that Savior and turn to him.

But you know my heart, Father, especially this week. My heart is that this church would find comfort in Isaiah's promises that we saw their fulfillment in the first century and we see their coming fulfillment soon, and that we don't leave here like people who have no hope. We don't leave here trying to find our hope. Whatever temporary solution our culture tries to give us, we don't lose heart. We don't despair. We walk with the Lord Jesus, even maybe through the valley of the shadow of death. And you're with us.

Strengthen us, empower us. And Father, give us joy as we celebrate the incarnation. The suffering servant was born. He fulfilled the promises. Isaiah told us the truth. And there's more to come. And we'll thank you in Jesus name, Amen.

Please stand with me.