ROOTED - Tuesday, April 28, 2026

Isaiah 11:1-3

1 There shall come forth a shoot
from the stump of Jesse,

    and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

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 the fear of the Lord.

3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord…

Reflection: Jesus Prophesied

Written By: Pastor Jesse Caro

Isaiah
is a book that has many prophecies as to Christ and his coming. Chapter 9
famously declares that “unto us a child is born.” And throughout the book we
read sporadic mentions of the Lord’s coming. Chapter 40 begins a cascade of
prophecy about the Lord’s chosen one. Now, there is much debate as to some of
the prophecy in this book, and whether or not it applies to Jesus or a future
Jewish ruler that is unspecified. But most scholars agree that the majority of
these prophecies speak about Jesus.

Chapter
11, specifically, is not even close to being debated. One could not mistake the
prophecy in this chapter as referring to anyone but Christ. “There shall come
forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots
shall bear fruit.” You will remember that David was the son of Jesse. It is
through David that Jesus’ family lineage comes… his kingly authority, and his
Messianic birthright. The Gospel of Matthew chapter 1 gives us a detailed
lineage of the ancestry of Christ, documented and clear. That lineage was
spelled out 600 years after this prophetic word from Isaiah. And this is
important in the sense that one of the great pieces of evidence that Jesus is
who he claimed to be is the fact that he was prophesied centuries before. We
can have great confidence that Jesus is who he claimed to be. I recently read
that the probability that one person fulfilled just 8 of the Old Testament
prophecies is 1 to several quadrillion. That sounds high to me!

Prayer

Heavenly
Father, thank you that the record we have in the Old Testament, and in Isaiah
in particular, gives us great confidence to our great faith from Scripture.