216. A Remnant will Escape and Grow
2 Kings 19:30, 31 And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall yet again take root downward, and bear fruit upward. For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.
Isaiah speaks a word of the Lord to Hezekiah, who had prayed for the Lord to deliver Jerusalem from the siege of the Assyrians under Sennacherib. Embedded in God’s answer to Hezekiah’s prayer is a promise: a remnant shall escape out of Judah and Jerusalem, and that remnant will flourish and grow and produce fruit.
The Lord answered the prayer by sending an angel to kill 185,000 soldiers in the besieging army of the Assyrians. First, the remnant of Judah escaped danger, for now. Secondly, the prophets prophesied that a remnant shall return from Babylon to reestablish Judah, Jerusalem, and the Temple. Third, out of the nation of Israel there will be a remnant of God’s people that will remain true to the Lord and His Word and Covenant. Fourth, the “Remnant” that will take root downward and bear fruit upward will be the Messiah (who is born out of that faithful remnant of believers). He will cause the kingdom of God to flourish and grow. Fifth, the remnant finally refers to all the NT believers in Jesus Christ who enter the Kingdom of God and live forever with the Lord in eternity. In other words, we are a remnant, a minority, out of all the people who have ever lived on earth, although Revelation describes the true believers in heaven as myriad millions (symbolically 144,000).
This promise has meaning for the Church: we may feel like a small minority in the world, but that remnant is bigger, stronger, and mightier than it appears. We have been given The Kingdom and that root bears fruit upward. From one perspective the Church of believers is small, but from another perspective it is huge. The influence of a small group of Christians on the world is much greater than its apparent size. Christ comes from the Remnant, and the Remnant comes from Christ. The promise for us is that our influence and fruit has a greater impact than we think. We may feel small and insignificant, but in spiritual reality we are really huge and vitally important.