Isaiah 11:1-9

Sometimes we want to "skip" the nasty bits of life, like a scary movie. Yet when you know what happens, you can get through them without fear.

In this chapter, Isaiah is reminding people that God knows how things end - He knows what the future holds past the dark parts of life. While we cannot rely on others or even ourselves, God has made promises that help us with that - yet sometimes we struggle to see that working out.

The Israelites felt the same. They couldn't see how God's promises would be fulfilled and so turned to nations like Assyria for support. Yet that only brought dark times.

Isaiah 11 says "there will be a king! I have not forgotten you". He promises a leader that will come and bring safety, peace, and security. We see clearly now that that leader was and is Jesus.

The Spirit of the Lord

As Christians we are called to follow Jesus for our entire life. Not just a Sunday morning faith but a day to day, minute to minute. Our prayer during those days should be to become like Jesus. That we have the Spirit that He has in verse 2.

Living for Christ should change everything in our lives. How can Jesus change our attitude towards things?

Jesus' Judgement

The reality of a perfect leader is that there will be justice towards evil. There are many wrong things in this world around us, and see we long for justice. Jesus sees the injustices around us and hates them. He will do something about them. Wickedness and evil will be judged, by Jesus - and so we don't need to do the judgement ourselves - justice will be done.

On the cross, Jesus' judgement of the wicked began. He became all the evil in the world, He became all the injustice.

Yet we have evil in our own lives. We too have acted poorly. But that evil is taken into Jesus too! And He was judged for it. We know how it ends because Jesus finished it for us.

The peace of Jesus

The picture at the end of this passage is of a really upside down world of peace. The world there couldn't be more opposite that our own! Such is the affect of evil. A world without that evil can be hard to imagine, yet it's impossibility speaks to the fact that only God can achieve it.

If you live in Jesus and follow Him with all your life, that perfect peace is yours. All the evil and suffering in the world will be gone. We know that this is the end; we don't need to "skip past" the bad bits.