Layer by Layer, Promise by Promise

Good morning. Today we are in Isaiah 11, the whole chapter.

And ironically, I woke up and I saw this beautiful text about the promises that we have and all of this stuff, and I went, Isaiah—and had to sit with that for a while.

Because this is beautiful.

And then sat with my frustration with this.

I'm sure part of this is just hormone-induced things going on in my life, but also, like, there's already—and we're just in chapter 11—there's already so much dense repetition.

And then I had to stop and think that while Isaiah is the human author, God is the ultimate author. There is a distinct reason why He is doing this consistent, repetitious building.

And ironically, that made me think of how a home can be 3D printed with concrete.

Fascinating process, if you have ever watched it. I'm sure you could find a YouTube on it.

Then it goes around and it lays one thin layer, and then by the time it gets back around, that is firm enough that it can place another layer on top of it.

While this feels so repetitious to me right now, each time we go into it, we get a little more detail. We get a little bit more, then we get a little bit more.

And I love how it is just this slow, layered build.

And I know that I need the repetition.

And ironically, this really made me stop and think of Habakkuk 2:1–3:

"I will stand at my guard post and station myself on the watchtower; and I will keep watch to see what He will say to me, and how I may reply when I am reprimanded.

Then the Lord answered me and said, 'Write down the vision and inscribe it clearly on tablets, so that one who reads it may run.'"

I'm going to pause here, because how many times already have we heard God instruct Isaiah to write it down clearly and have witnesses on it that it is indeed about the future?

And He wanted the witness.

And then verse 3 just so applies for Isaiah's time, for our time.

We each have something beautiful to look forward to.

We each have a new level of understanding.

So verse 3 says:

"For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hurries toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it delays, wait for it; for it will certainly come, it will not delay long."

Now granted, we may think that we need an answer far quicker than what Isaiah's prophecy provided, because it took, I guess, 700 years between Isaiah's prophecies and Jesus's coming.

And we have our own unknown amount of time to wait for all of Revelation to come to pass.

And yet in Isaiah's day, they had these thin layers of explanation of what was going to happen.

And now, again, we can look back at Isaiah and be on the other side of it and go, "See? Jesus did come."

So that gives us hope, so that when we look at Revelation and all the promises of things to come, we can know that our God is faithful and He will fulfill.

And that applies to so many things.

It applies to the mom praying for her babies.

It applies to the mom praying for her adult kids.

For marriages that are struggling.

We may not be here for when God answers our prayer, but that doesn't mean that He's not going to fulfill His promise.

And sometimes His answer is no.

That's still an answer.

Sometimes His answer is not yet.

That is still an answer.

It's a yes, but it's going to happen in a way we could never expect, and that is still an answer.

Sometimes we think the only answer is when we get a yes, and that's just not true.

The verses in 11 that stuck out to me that I just loved—

Verse 1:

"Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch from his roots will bear fruit."

And then verse 6.

I don't know. I always saw this one as a lion and the lamb, but this gives a little bit of a different view:

"And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the young lion and the fattened steer will be together; and a little boy will lead them."

Wow.

That certainly doesn't happen now.

So that's our future hope.

And then we have verse 10:

"Then on that day the nations will resort to the root of Jesse."

So in verse 1, we had a shoot that will spring from the stem of Jesse, and now it returns to Jesse, and this is the root of Jesse,

"Who will stand as a signal flag for the peoples; and His resting place will be glorious."

And then the last verse was 16:

"And there will be a highway from Assyria for the remnant of His people who will be left, just as there was for Israel on the day that they came up out of the land of Egypt."

Of all of these promises—and it's this mix of promises that would happen in Jesus's time, promises that are going to happen earlier in history for the remnant.

And then I wonder if verse 16 doesn't also apply, possibly—I don't know for sure; this is just Hope thinking—for His remnant now.

So I don't know.

There's so much here to just sit with and be in awe of.

There's places that it reverts back to itself with talking about being chopped down, and yet here a shoot will spring from the stem.

I just—I don't know.

There's so much here to sit with.

There's so much here to walk with here.

I thought this one was going to be short, and it's a little long.

So what jumped out at you?

What made you pause and think?

What layer do you like the most?

Lord, I thank You for today.

I thank You for meeting me even as I really struggled to find my way through this.

Thank You for always meeting me wherever I am, even as I stare at a passage and go, "But what, Lord?"

Thank You.

Thank You for being faithful.

Thank You for teaching us in thin layers so that we can get slowly, partially, a vision into the depth that You are teaching.

Thank You that there is something here for those of us who are new and some of us who've been in Your Word for a long time.

God, You are so faithful.

I just ask that You'd be with us as we go out and do the things that You've asked us to do.

May we see our world with wonder today.

May we see You with wonder today.

Oh, it is in the precious name of Jesus I pray. Amen.

Thank you for joining me today as we wander through God's Word with wonder.