Isaiah 11
1 And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:
2 And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord;
3 And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:
4 But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth: with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.
5 And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.
1) “His delight is in the fear of the Lord.”
God reached out to reconcile sinful man to his holy God. How else can sinful man be reconciled to God, but through Him Who is sinless? Man gossips, slanders, gets angry, covets, hates, murders, etc. God is holy and has no fellowship with sin. He cannot sin. Natural man is born in sin. Some families (and even nations) are known for their sinful traits as being full of wrath, lazy, etc.
The birth of Jesus was different from any other normal birth. He is fully God and fully man. He possessed two different natures. Being fully man He was tempted in all things like we are tempted, yet His delight was in the fear of God and He sinned not.
We also read that “the spirit of wisdom and understanding” shall rest upon Him. That’s why He could even answer His enemies when they set traps for Him, and they couldn’t answer Him again. When they asked Him whether it was right to pay taxes to Caesar, He perceived their craft and wickedness and answered them to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s”. The Sadducees also questioned Him about the resurrection and marriage, but He answered them that “in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, God said, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” (Matt 22:18 – 31)
Paul also delighted in the fear of God. He said that “I live; yet not I but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20). When Jesus is in you, He lives His life through you and you can no longer live in sin. Some excuse their sin by saying that it is the flesh which causes them to sin, yet the Bible says that “if you live after the flesh you will die” (Rom 8:13).
2) “But with righteousness He shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.”
This judgment is unto salvation and life. He judges us so that we can be justified and saved. (There is also the judgement of the wicked unto condemnation, which we will discuss in the next point, but that’s not what’s referred to here.)
In Matt 5 we read that “blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.”
When Jesus is in you He will point out the sins in your life and judge you. If Jesus lives in you you cannot tolerate sin neither justify your sin. In fact even before He is in you, He will judge you and convict you of your sin. Remember how you realised your lost state when Jesus met you originally and you came to the cross to be cleansed and washed from your sin. There was no pride or haughtiness or justification of self, but you threw yourself at His feet for mercy and forgiveness.
Jesus’ conviction of sin is the judgement unto salvation and not to condemnation. Jesus in you won’t allow you to gossip and slander others, flirt with the opposite sex, or hold a grudge against your brother.
Those who acknowledge their sin when the Lord convicts them, they are the meek. As we read in Rom 7, “for what I want to do, I do not; but what I hate, that I do. O, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom 7:15 – 8:3).
Cry to God that He delivers you and make you a new creature in Christ. You have to get rid of sin in your life, for if Jesus lives in you, He will not tolerate sin in your life.
3) “He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked. 5 Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins, And faithfulness the belt of His waist.”
The wicked He judges unto condemnation. If you continue to harden your heart Sunday after Sunday, He will strike you for it. If you as a child refuse to listen to the pleadings of your parents, teachers and those who seek to turn you from your evil ways to God’s ways, God will eventually smite you for you wickedness.
Hell was created for the devil and his angels. But if you harden your heart against God’s Word, you automatically side with the devil, and you will also burn with him. Those who have been given much of God’s Word will be judged accordingly. Woe to you if you do not live accordingly; then it would have been better for you not to have heard the gospel and disobeyed, than that you’ve heard and then disobeyed. Your judgement will be worse. Your conscience will devour you for all eternity on the inside and the fire on the outside, if you do not part from sin. Your greatest sin will be that Jesus died on the cross for your sin, and yet you spurned Him and turned your back on His grace.
Has God given you a burden for lost souls? Maybe God has called you but you harden your heart. You will be judged for that. See the souls that go lost continually and cry to God for their salvation so that they might hear the gospel and be saved from eternal damnation.
A bird that makes its nest in a sugarcane field is not wise, for before the eggs hatch the sugarcane will be burned and the nest too. The beaver male bird builds the nest. When he is finish the female comes and she inspects it inside and outside. If she’s not entirely satisfied she tears it apart and he has to start all over again. Learn from this. You are busy building right through your life. Make sure you build in the right place and in the right way so that the fire won’t destroy everything.