Christ Defeats Sin and Slavery
By Pastor Matt Black
August
13, 2006
Lord's Day Evening
Isaiah 9:3-5
Introduction: Open your Bible to Isaiah 9. Tonight we look to the birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ. It was prophesied over and over in the Old Testament. God would come in human flesh. Genesis 3:15 was the first promise after the fall. The seed of the woman would come to save the human race from the dreadful depravity of the human race. The serpent’s head, the head of satan himself would be crushed by the Messiah, even though satan would bruise the Saviour’s heel. Christ made a an open show of Satan and “destroyed the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). In the cross, Christ crushed Satan’s power as Colossians 2:15 says that by His cross He “spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.” At the crucifixion Christ is most certainly wounded and bruised, but what is He bruised for? Isaiah 53:5 “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”
Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity would be born into the world of men! That is the promise of the Old Testament. Over and over again, the promises are given. We come to another of those promises tonight. Remember God promised to send Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14)? God would be with us, and come in human flesh. The Word would be “made flesh” and dwell among us (John 1:14). In our text tonight we are looking at how Christ came into this world. This is one of the most fascinating texts in the entire Old Testament. So the title of tonight’s message is “Unto Us a Child is Born”. Let’s stand and read Isaiah 9:1-7.
Last week we learned about the promise of the Messiah. As verse 2 says, “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.” Christ would come to what was left of the defeated and dismal ten tribes of Israel. He would make a main part of his ministry in “Galilee of the nations”. He would shine there, and in that time there would be a great prosperity.
The nation would be multiplied. As verse 3 says, “Thou hast multiplied the nation.” When Jesus Christ came into the world, God brought many of the Gentiles into the true Israel, the household of faith, part of the “commonwealth of Israel” and partakers in the “covenants of promise” (Ephesians 2:12). In Genesis 12:2, the Lord made a promise to Abraham. He said, “I will make of thee a great nation.” The Lord said to him “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 22:18). God told Abraham in Genesis 26:4, “I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven”. These children would not come through natural generation. These children would not come through any kind of physical birth. Turn over to Isaiah 54:1-3, “Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD. 2 Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; 3 For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.” Paul quotes this very verse in Galatians 4:26 and applies it to the church.
Israel would inherit the Gentiles. This is a promise through the Old Testament. Paul makes the same case in Romans 15:8-12, “Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises [THAT CHIRST WOULD COME] made unto the fathers: 9 And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, [2 Samuel 22:50] For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name. 10 And again he saith [Deuteronomy 32:43], Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people. 11 And again [Psalm 117:1], Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles; and laud him, all ye people. 12 And again, Esaias saith [Isaiah 11:10], There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust.”
Paul says in many other places that the Gentiles will be added to Israel. Paul calls this grouping of both Jews and Gentiles into the church “the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16). Paul compares national Israel and spiritual Israel and calls the church in Galatians 4:27, the “Jerusalem which is above” as compared to the physical Jews now living over all the earth which he calls the “Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.”
Galatians 3:7 Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.
Paul says again in Galatians 3:29 And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Do you see that unless we are part of this multiplied nation, we have no right to the promises given to Abraham. Romans 4:11 tells us that Abraham is a “father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also.”
When Christ comes to earth, he kicks all unbelievers out of Israel. Paul says in Romans 9:8, “They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.” They might be physical Jews, but they are not “children of the promise” but only “children of the flesh”.
Paul says it so clearly in Romans 2:29, “But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.”
Turn over lastly to Romans 11:17-18, “And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; 18 Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.” The idea here is that there is a fat olive tree in the vineyard which represents Israel, and there is a wild olive tree outside of the vineyard, which represents the Gentiles. Paul’s picture here of the church is that wild branches from this olive tree were grafted into Israel. And if we want to boast, we must realize that the Jews—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are holding us up. The root bears us!
So back to our text in Isaiah 9:3. God multiplies the nation by adding the Gentiles to Israel. God says there’s going to be amazing joy because of this among the people. The last part of verse 3 says, “they [GOD’S PEOPLE] joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.” This is not earthly joy, but a joy comes at the end of the harvest and at the end of the war that is won when you divide the spoil. Friend, “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy”. There’The joy does not increase in an earthly sense when God enlarges spiritual Israel. Did you notice when you got saved your back pain did not go away? You were added to Abraham’s family, but you still had bills to pay and cars to fix. You still regularly get headaches and stomach aches and aches where you didn’t even know you had muscles! But we also realize that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).
So we see the Mercy of the Lord, and the Multiplication of the Nation.
Israel was like someone who had a slave master. Like a farm animal, Israel was like a toiling ox. The Bible says Israel is like this animal that had a “staff” laid across its shoulder. So there was the slavery of the yoke, the heaven burden to bear in the rod across the shoulders, and not only that, there was “the rod of his oppressor”.
There are three main images here…
4 For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden,
Slavery of the yoke
It was not however the leather straps of a yoke that kept Israel in slavery. It was the constant passions to worship like everyone else in the land. From the earliest times, even during the time of Gideon among the Mideanites, altars of Baal and poles to Asherah (the female fertility goddess) littered Israel’s countryside.
(4) and the staff of his shoulder,
Burden of the wooden bar
The wooden bar that lay across the neck upon the shoulders of Israel was not a literal wooden staff. This earthly illustration was a picture of something much heavier. Israel had the burden of sin and corruption and of departing from God. The misery of sin is something no human being can bear in and of himself. Sin causes people to go insane every day. Each day that passes the burden and guilt of sin causes people to commit suicide. The burden of guilt push people to take drugs to cover them up. Go into your communities today, and if you knew the statistics it would shock you. A good number of the people you see are on Prozac or other mood altering drugs. Others just turn to the old fashion bottle. The younger generation take a myriad of designer pills or painkillers.
Others turn to different kinds of distractions like Hollywood entertainment or the soaps and sitcoms on the television.
(4) For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. Just as Gideon did not need physical force to be delivered from the Mideanites, so the Lord does not use that which our eyes can see. Remember Gideon’s fighting force went from 32,000 men to 300 men. God does not use fleshly means to accomplish our salvation. It is a miracle. God works in the heart where no eye can see. It’s a miracle. It’s like the day of the defeat of the Mideanites. In on fell swoop, 300 men defeated the armies of the Mideanites by the light of their lanterns and the sound of their trumpets. Zechariah 4:6, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.” And so it is that Christ’s light has shined in our hearts and done a miraculous work of salvation. That’s why he calls it being “born again” (John 3:3) or a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Look now at verse 5. Something is happening so great that war will be done with. It is true that “every battle of the warrior is with confused noise”, but when the Lord does his work, this type of war shall not be how he works with his people. The battle noise and the “garments rolled in blood…shall be with burning and fuel of fire”. The Messiah will come with such a great victory that Israel’s no longer will be waged in blood!
Isaiah had promised in Isaiah 2:4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
Our war is a spiritual warfare.
Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Conclusion: Perhaps you are here tonight, and you are like Ahaz of the previous chapters. You want to fight with the arm of the flesh. When things don’t go your way, you throw a fit! You say the weapons of my warfare are carnal! You use bitterness and the silent treatment to get your way. These are not the fruit of the Spirit. Have you turned your weapons into plowshares?
Turn over to Ephesians 4:31-32 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: 32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. Are you living a live in which Christ has defeated your slavery and sin? He has conquered sin and death! Is that a reality in your life today?
Closing Hymn: 229 O Come O Come, Emmanuel