My mom is a "plant-o-holic". The house I grew up in literally is filled with all sorts of plants: big, small, tree, flower, common, exotic, tender, tough, pretty, ugly...you name it.
In my room, I only have two. They were given to me by a couple that attended our church for a year or so, and then left. In an earlier post, I mentioned that I keep them in my room, as I see in them beautiful & living illustrations of some important biblical truths for the Christian life.
This plant was once a thriving beast. And then it got some kind of infection that began decimating all the leaves, and even the stalks. So, in an emergency effort to save the plant, I gave her a good ol' pruning. Though the plant does not look like much now, the disease has been removed, and the process of recovery has begun. New shoots are appearing out of their former, apparently lifeless stalks.
This is a beautiful picture of the hope of Israel in the 7th century B.C. Israel, because of Yahweh's sovereign grace, was a thriving nation, flourishing under God's unique blessing upon His chosen people. However, in her prosperity she let her guard down and allowed a ruthless & cancerous contagion - sin - to enter, which left unchecked began to decimate the nation at every level. Because Yahweh loved His people too much to let them wallow in their sin, some painful pruning was in order. Emergency surgery was required to save the nation from self-destructing into oblivion. And so, metaphorically speaking, He cut her down, using the foreign nations to purge & discipline her.
Inevitably such pruning would bring about despair to God's people, as they would certainly wonder if He had forsaken His covenantal promises made to Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob. And so Yahweh, Israel's intimate Savior, inspired a prophet named Isaiah to prophesy hope to Israel, even though all she saw around her was hopelessness. In Isaiah 11:1-3, 8-9 we read:
Behold, the Sovereign LORD of Hosts will lop the boughs with terrifying power; the great in height will be hewn down, and the lofty will be brought low. He will cut down the thickets of the forest with an axe, and Lebanon will fall by the Majestic One.
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. 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 the fear of the LORD...
In that day the Root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples - of Him shall the nations inquire, and His resting place shall be glorious. In that day, the Lord will extend His hand yet second time to recover that remains of His people.Any Jew alive at that time knew that this was explicitly referring to God's promise to send His Messiah to the earth to rescue His beaten down & broken people, and then set up the Kingdom of God among the elect remnant.
This pathetic looking plant reminds me that regardless of how hopeless and despairing things might appear to my eye, God is at work. His promises to His people will never fail. About 100 years after Isaiah prophesied, God raised up another prophet named Habakkuk, who reminded the people:
"The vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end - it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it: it will surely come, it will not delay" (2:3).If God has saved you, look with eyes of faith to the fact that God's promises to His people will not return to Him void (Isaiah 55). Even in the great pains we experience in life, He is sovereignly working all things out to conform to the end He designed, for His glory (Eph. 1:10, 13-14; cf. 1:6; Rom. 8:28). Not only is He God. He is good.
Pastor Ryan
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