The great comfort in days of distress is the hope of the coming universal kingdom of righteousness and peace,
when Christ, who is in every way qualified to be King of earth, shall take the throne.
Then God’s people shall be delivered, not only from evil, but from the fear of it forever.
Isaiah 1
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.
6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den.
9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
10 ¶ And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.
11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.
12 And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.
13 The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.
14 But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them.
15 And the LORD shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod.
16 And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.
Isaiah 1 – J. Vernon McGee
Isaiah 11:1-9 – The Kingdom of the Messiah
As the last chapter closed we could almost hear the crash of the Assyrian tree to the ground, and there is no sprout from his roots. But in this chapter the prophet descries a fair and healthy branch uprising from the trunk of Jesse’s line. The vision of the King is then presented, who can be none other than the divine Redeemer on whom rests the sevenfold Spirit of God. The second verse defines the work of the Comforter, and is evidently the model of that royal hymn, Veni Creator Spiritus. But remember that He on whom this divine unction rested longs to share the pentecostal gift with the least of His disciples, I John 2:27. Note that as man’s sin brought travail and groaning on all creation, so will His redemption deliver it, Romans 8:19-25. —Through the Bible Day by Day
Isaiah 11:3—And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD.
Quick understanding. This is the prerogative of all who have received the fullness of the Holy Spirit. We all know the great advantage of having a keen scent. Those who can instantly detect an ill-odor are saved from going into places where pestilence and fever lurk in ambush for life. The whiff of ill-odor startles the unwary passer-by, and warns him that influences inimical to health are brooding nigh. Thus he is arrested and saved.
It is a blessed thing when a man’s spiritual senses are exercised to discriminate between the good and bad, the healthy and unhealthy, in literature, amusements, fellowship, and many of the questionable or doubtful things which professing Christians permit. There are many of these which appear innocent enough, like some deadly spot of a jungle where miasma and fever breed; but the deadly scent of corruption will instantly be detected by the Spirit-taught spirit, and the child of God, whose senses are exercised to distinguish between good and evil.
The sense of smell is greatly quickened by inhaling pure air, full of ozone and health, such as breathes about the mountain-brow or the ocean wave. If we return from such scenes, we are more sensitive than ever to foul odors. Live with God’s Spirit in holy fellowship, so will you become spiritually quick of scent.
The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that our senses become quick to distinguish between good and evil by reason of use (Hebrews 5:14). In the first stages of Christian living, temptation may have stolen in upon, and mastered us before we were aware of its presence. But, as years pass, and we become mature through feeding on the meat of the Gospel we become “quick.” —Our Daily Homily