O Dayspring (Isaiah 8:16-9:3)

Summary

In our fifth Advent sermon, Pastor CJ explains why Jesus is called Dayspring. The one who is called Key not only unlocks our prisons. He also escorts us into the light. Light can glare at first, but it's the only place to flourish.

Text

“Bind up the testimony; seal the teaching among my disciples.I will wait for the LORD, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him.Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the LORD of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion.And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.They will pass through the land, greatly distressed and hungry. And when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against their king and their God, and turn their faces upward.And they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness.

But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil.”

(Isaiah 8:16–9:3 ESV)