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Isaiah: Book of Good News!

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It's so easy to be distracted by the stuff of life and the technology of life, and even when we're sitting in a service or sitting in a
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Sunday school lesson, it can be distracting just knowing that with a flip of a switch, a push of a button, we can look at something else and our interests can be diverted and distracted.
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So Lord, help us to stay focused today. We pray for those who are hurting this morning.
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We pray for Chris, that you'd continue to heal her hands and her elbow. I pray that you would just give her mobility, completely mobility to her and heal up the wounds and pray that she'd come through this well, even through this week, give significant healing.
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We pray for Dean Kinnaman and pray that you would heal him from COVID, that he may be the hospital soon, back to home and to health.
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Father, we pray today as we open your word that you would speak to us, that you would challenge and encourage us.
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We need all of these things. We need conviction of sin. We need the blessing of knowing your grace and kindness, and we just need to grow.
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We need to grow in grace and knowledge of Christ. Speak to us and teach us. Today we pray and we ask these things in Jesus name.
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Amen. All right. I want you to think about the state of affairs in the world today.
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Okay. How's that for a depressing thought? All right.
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Very. All right. Well, what are the things? Let's think about this. What are some of the things, the biggest threats that we face right now?
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You think about runaway inflation. I saw the other day that there's this terrible drought in the
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Southwest. It's been going on for years, and Lake Powell, Lake Mead have diminished so much that corpses are showing up, bodies are showing up at the bottom of this thing, boats that have sunk and so forth.
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But I saw the other day, and I didn't realize it, that there's drought all over the world, and crop failures, and really bad in Europe and so forth.
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So what does that mean for the future? So we've got runaway inflation.
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We've got weather problems like the drought and so forth. We've got international instability, a lot of saber rattling from these rogue countries.
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We've got in our own nation weakness, we've got political weakness, there's moral weakness, there's even militarily there has been some weakness over the last few years.
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And at the same time, there's the rise in power of some of our enemies, like China. And then we can think maybe on a more personal level, just on our own personal lives, what are some of the threats that we may face?
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You may be thinking of some growing health concerns, maybe some kind of chronic problem that's not getting any better, or financial concerns.
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It's certainly an understandable concern in these days.
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You know, you start looking at those things, and if you mold them over and you meditate on them too much, things can look pretty gloomy.
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And a lot of people are living in that frame of mind right now, that everything is just dark, everything is gloomy.
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That's exactly the way things looked in the year that King Uzziah died. I want us to turn to Isaiah, we're going to look at chapters 7 through 9, verse 7, and look at the dark backdrop of what's coming, the blight, the blessing that is to come.
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Light always shines most brightly when it has been really dark, whereas the illustration is often given when a jeweler takes out a diamond that he wants to show off to a potential buyer or customer, he sets it on a black velvet background, because it makes the diamond sparkle all the more.
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Well, there is a dark backdrop, and it comes out in chapter 7. Uzziah has died, and his successor is
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King Ahaz, and just to kind of remind us of a little bit of Israel's history, King Ahaz rules over the two southern tribes in that divided kingdom.
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The northern tribes, those ten tribes to the north, are called Israel, sometimes referred to as Ephraim, the name of one of the tribes, and the southern kingdom is referred to as Judah.
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And Ahaz rules over Judah, the southern kingdom. And the troubles are starting to brew here in chapter 7, as Israel, or Ephraim, has forged an alliance with the foreign nation of Syria, and in verses 1 and 2, that alliance has ganged up on Judah.
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So it says in verse 1, it came to pass in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezan, the king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to make war against it, but they could not conquer it.
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But look at verse 2. And it was told to the house of David, saying, Syria's forces are deployed in Ephraim.
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So his heart and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the woods are moved with the wind.
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So what Ahaz realizes, Ahaz and the people of Judah realizes that these two nations,
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Syria and Ephraim, or Israel, have forged an alliance and they want to gang up, they want to attack and overthrow
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Judah. And you can see at the end of verse 2, they're very concerned about that. They're shaking like trees in the wind.
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Well, the message from Isaiah in verse 4 is, hey, keep your cool, be calm, be careful, don't be afraid.
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Look at what he says. He says, take heed and be quiet. Do not fear or be fainthearted for these two stubs of smoking firebrands.
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Stubs of smoking firebrands. Now that didn't look that way to those living in Judah, didn't look to Ahaz like Israel a much larger country to the north, and Syria, larger country to the northeast, doesn't look like there are a couple of smoking firebrands, it looks like they're full -blown torches.
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But this is what the message of the Lord is. Take it easy, keep calm, don't be afraid of them.
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And in verses 7 and 8, he says the message is, trust in the Lord and all will be well.
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Thus says the Lord God in verse 7, it shall not stand, nor shall it come to pass. For the head of Syria is
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Damascus, and the head of Damascus is reason. Within 65 years, Ephraim will be broken so that it will not be a people.
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The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remeliah's son. If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.
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The challenge is believe, and you will be established. You won't be shaking like trees in the wind.
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So trust in the Lord and all will be well. So then in verses 10 and 11, the prophet, the
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Lord through the prophet, tells Ahaz to ask from the Lord a sign of confirmation.
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See this at the beginning of verse 11, ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God. Ask it either in the depth or in the height above, ask anything, some kind of a sign, you ask.
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A sign that would be a confirmation of the trust and confidence that they can have in the
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Lord. And Ahaz responds in verse 12, it sounds like a pious response, doesn't it?
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Ahaz says, I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord. You can read it that way.
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See the meaning of Ahaz's response really has a lot to do with your inflection, doesn't it?
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Oh, I will not ask nor test the Lord, I mean, who am I? Who am
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I to do such a thing as that? Or you can read it this way, I'm not going to ask or test the
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Lord. And it's the second way that he responds, it's the second inflection is his inflection.
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And what he's communicating by that is, thanks but no thanks. I'm going to look for help somewhere else.
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And specifically, Ahaz is going to go make a deal with Assyria, not Syria, but Assyria, A -S -S -Y -R -I -A,
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Assyria, a much bigger kingdom, the rising empire of the
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Assyrian Empire. So Ahaz says, no, I'm not going to bother with the Lord, I'm not going to bother with a test of the
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Lord. So then verses 13 and 14, God says, all right, I'm going to give you a sign anyway. And here's the sign.
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Verse 14, it's that Christmas promise, right? Verse 14, therefore the
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Lord himself will give you a sign. If you don't ask for it, that's okay, fine, the Lord's going to give you one. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name
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Immanuel. That's the Christmas promise, but originally, that promise was a promise of judgment.
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It was a word of judgment. And the judgment is that the reign of David's godless sons is going to come to an end.
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I mean, is Ahaz a godly king? Is he listening to the word of the
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Lord? Is he paying attention to what Isaiah has to say from the Lord? No. Is he trusting in the
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Lord? No. And yet, he's in the better of the tribes, Judah. No.
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And there's been this whole history of descendants of David, sons of David, that have proved to be disappointing.
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There are a few bright spots along the way, but by and large, they have been terribly disappointing, and it isn't going to get any better.
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Well, I think it will get a little better with Hezekiah, but again, the roller coaster ride of following the kings of Judah is going to continue, and it's going to continue to deteriorate.
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But the promise is, the prophecy is that the reign of Judah's godless kings, these
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David's godless sons, is going to come to an end, and God is going to start again, if you will, with a virgin and her son.
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And the word of judgment continues in verse 16 to clarify that yes, indeed,
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Israel and Syria are going to be defeated. He says, He says,
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The end of verse 16 is saying that both
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Israel and Syria are going to be defeated. But verse 17 says, so is
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Judah. Verse 17 says, The Lord will bring the king of Assyria, whom
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Ahaz is going to go to for help, the Lord is going to bring the king of Assyria upon you and your people and your father's house, days that have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah.
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So this prophecy is a word of judgment, and the promised boy that is to come, the offspring of the virgin, notice he's going to eat the food of poverty.
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It says, Curds and honey he shall eat. Curds and honey. That's not like, you know, he's not going to be faring his diet, it's not going to be, you know, filet mignon and grilled asparagus and a delicious salad with all the fixings and the toppings, no.
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It's going to be the bare stuff that can be gotten.
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It indicates, in other words, there's going to be a collapse of the economy. And verses 21 to 23 elaborate on that.
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It says, It shall be in that day that a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep. Why? So that they can have something to eat.
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It shall be from the abundance of milk they give, they will eat curds, for curds and honey everyone will eat who is left in the land.
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It shall happen in that day that wherever there could be a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels of silver, it will be for briars and thorns.
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The whole economy is going to collapse and the store shelves are going to be virtually bare.
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And then Jesus will come and will be called Immanuel. Then he will come and he'll be called
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Immanuel. But before that time happens, before Immanuel comes, both
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Israel and Judah are going to suffer defeat and exile. I'm telling you, this is the dark background, the message that Isaiah is communicating here.
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Now in chapter 8, verses 1 and 3, Isaiah has a son and this son is another sign of judgment.
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Verse 1, the Lord said to me, take a large scroll and write on it with a man's pen concerning Meher Shalal Hashbaz.
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What is that? Verse 3, then I went to the prophetess and she conceived and bore a son and the
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Lord said to me, call his name Meher Shalal Hashbaz. How would you like to have that name?
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How come none of you young couples didn't give any of your kids that name? That's a good biblical name,
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Meher Shalal Hashbaz. He could go to school and, you know, everybody's name in school is shortened, right?
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They give a shortened name. They can go to school and call him Hash, you know? And then these days, you know, they call him
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Hashtag because everything's a hashtag. Hashtag this, hashtag that. Meher Shalal Hashbaz.
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What does that mean? It means quick to plunder, swift to the spoil.
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His name is a message of judgment. And in his lifetime, in the lifetime of Meher Shalal Hashbaz, in his lifetime, the
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Assyrians are going to defeat both Ephraim and Syria. You see this in verse 4.
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For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, my father and my mother, the riches of Damascus, that's the capital of Syria, and the spoil of Samaria, Samaria the capital of Israel, Ephraim, will be taken away before the king of Assyria.
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But here's the thing, Ahaz, the floodwaters of the
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Assyrian assault is not going to be limited to Israel and Syria.
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Verse 8, he will pass through Judah. He will overthrow and overflow and pass over.
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He will reach up to the neck and the stretching out of his wings will fill the breadth of your land,
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O Emmanuel. Emmanuel's land is going to be overflowed with a flood of the assault of the
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Assyrians. So here's the point, the point of this particular prophecy.
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Judah had hoped that Assyria would save them, would save Judah, but instead, the
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Assyrian empire is going to be a terrible threat, even upon Judah. So how do people respond to such a gloomy outlook?
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How do people respond to such a gloomy outlook today? How are people responding today? And it isn't any different than they responded a few thousand years ago.
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They respond with superstition. Look at verse 19 of chapter 8. When they say to you, seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter, should not a people seek their
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God? So, Judah, instead of seeking the
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Lord, their God, we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.
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Instead of turning to their shepherd, instead of looking to their God, they're looking to mediums and wizards.
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What they need to hear, what they need to hear is the law and the testimony, verse 20, to the law and the testimony.
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The problem is that the people keep hearing the testimony, and it's a testimony of judgment. They keep hearing this testimony of warning.
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There's a purpose for the warning, isn't there? God always gives warning of judgment to come for the purpose of compelling people to repent, encouraging people to repent, to turn from the sin that is bringing the judgment.
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And He has said on multiple occasions, and anytime He prophesies judgment, turn from your wickedness, turn from your evil ways, and I will relent.
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So God offers in the testimony of warning, He offers opportunity to repent, but people get tired of hearing.
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They don't want to hear these warnings. They don't want to hear about sin, and they don't want to hear about judgment, so they look elsewhere.
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They look to the mediums and the wizards. Why? Because the mediums and the wizards, they tell us what we want to hear.
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They tell us smooth things. They tell us things of peace and ultimate prosperity.
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You're going to get over this. You can get through this and that kind of stuff. Tim Chester, whose book
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I'm using as a basis for this study, he asks this question. He says, does it make sense to consult the dead?
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They've already lost the battle, right? They're dead. He says what we need is someone who came back from death, someone who defeated death.
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We need to hear from the Savior. We need to hear from the Lord Jesus. But this is how people respond.
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They respond with superstition. Do we not see that in our day, in the darkness and the gloom of the day?
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To what do people look? How do they respond? They respond with superstition. Others will respond with rationalism, with rationalism.
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So verse 21, it says, they will pass through it hard -pressed and hungry.
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And it shall happen when they are hungry that they will be enraged and curse their king and their
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God and look upward. So here's the picture. They're starving.
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They have nothing to eat but a few curds and a little bit of honey. And things are not going well.
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There's famine, there's deprivation in the land, and people are suffering.
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And so here's what they do. They look to their king, and they look to their God, and they look to God, and they look upward.
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So it's an upward look that is like this, that says, where are you in this, right?
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Where is God in this? How many times have you heard that question asked in the context of some kind of catastrophe?
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Whether it's a mass shooting or a weather disaster.
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Where was God when Sandy Hook happened? Where was God when this guy opened fire in Highland Park?
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Where was God when this tornado came through? Where was God when this hurricane hit?
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Where was God in all of this? You see, and what's going on in the asking of such a question?
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It's nothing but rationalism. It's a kind of logic that says, if there was really a
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God who had any care for us at all, He would not have allowed this disaster to happen, all right?
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Get the premises here. If there is a God at all, He would not allow something like this to happen.
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Something like this has happened, therefore, what's the conclusion? There is no
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God. There isn't a God. Well, there's a problem with that kind of logic.
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So part one of their logic is they look upward, and they curse God, and they take Him out of the picture.
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He's nonexistent. Either He's nonexistent, or He is indifferent, or He is irrelevant, or He is incapable.
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However, whatever conclusion they draw there about the existence of God and the nature of God, it is not the
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God that reveals Himself in the Bible, all right? He is either nonexistent, or He is indifferent to what's going on, or He is irrelevant,
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He's disconnected, or He is incapable of doing anything about it. None of those conclusions are correct.
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So they look upward and curse God. The other thing they do in verse 22 is they look outward and see only gloom.
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Then they will look to the earth and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish, and they will be driven into darkness.
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And that is exactly what happens when God is taken out of the picture.
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That's what happens. You take God out of the picture, and what are you left with? You take the light out, and what do you have?
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You have darkness. There's more to it, though, than that. What kind of darkness?
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What kind of darkness? I think I might have spelled some of this out on your handout. But without God, you take
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God out of the picture, you eliminate any objective moral standard.
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Why such darkness? Why such darkness? Because with God out of the picture, there is no objective moral standard, so therefore there is no true, consistent justice.
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What's one of the problems we're seeing in our society today? We're seeing a breakdown of justice, aren't we?
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Why? Because we've taken the objective moral standard out of the equation.
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And without an objective moral standard, there is no objective criteria for judging between right and wrong.
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How do you know something is wrong? How do you know something is right?
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The answer to that question, if you take God out of the picture, is murky at best.
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You have no real definitive answer. It's all squishy, isn't it?
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It's just all nebulous. You take God out of the picture, and you're left with a survival of the fittest.
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There's no one to hold anybody accountable, and to what do you hold people accountable? The result of all of that is distress and gloom.
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I mean, just think back two years ago in our country, where you had all of this rioting going on and looting, and the authorities, the police, are either overwhelmed or they're told to basically stand down and not do anything about it.
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Or in some of our cities today, where the definition of a crime, of stealing and so forth, has been so watered down and basically eliminated, criminals can go into a store and take what they want, and they don't have to really worry about anything happening to them.
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I mean, it's insane. But why the insanity? You take
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God out of the picture, and you're left with no moral objective standard. And without God, there is no light of revelation.
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If there's no God and no light of revelation, there is no hope of redemption, and there is nothing left for us as human beings but to try to figure everything out on our own and to save ourselves.
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And how's that working? In fact, I think it is in the second
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Humanist Manifesto, written about a hundred years ago, one of the statements in that manifesto is, there is no
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God to save us. We must save ourselves.
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I think that, if I'm not mistaken, that was written before World War I or World War II.
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How's that working out for us? Saving ourselves. Again, Tim Chester says, so the best we can hope for is to muddle through life without facing a major illness, crime, redundancy, or war.
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But even if people avoid these things, in the end, every life ends in death.
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Now that's the dark, gloomy background. In verses one through three of chapter nine, the prophet says, look, light is coming.
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Light is coming. And it's coming first to Zebulun and Naphtali. The land of Zebulun, in the middle of verse one, and the land of Naphtali, afterward more heavily oppressed her by the way of the sea, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
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These are the two northern tribes in Israel, far northern tribes, who first were attacked by the
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Assyrians. So they first saw the darkness really descend upon them, and the light is going to dawn on them first.
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And when that happens, there will be no more gloom. There will be no more gloom. Verse one, nevertheless, the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed.
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And that light will dawn in verse two. And what replaces the darkness when the light dawns?
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What replaces the gloom? Verse three, joy. You see that word repeated four times, a form of it.
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The people who walked, verse three, I'm sorry, you have multiplied the nation and increased its joy.
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They rejoice before you according to the joy of harvest as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.
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So the darkness is going to be replaced by light, it's going to be overcome by light. The gloom is going to be displaced with joy and rejoicing.
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Light is coming. Verses four and five make it clear that peace is coming.
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Peace is coming. And it's going to come because in verse four, God is going to end the oppression and the bondage.
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Look at verse four. It says, for you have broken the yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder.
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This is why they're rejoicing. The rod of his oppressor as in the day of Midian.
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That's a reference to Gideon and the Midianites. It's Gideon's army of 300 overcoming the
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Midianite horde. Well, the burden of the yoke is going to be broken and the staff is going to be removed.
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Not by an army of 300, but by the power of the one, the one, the king who is coming.
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We'll get to that in a minute. So God is going to end oppression and bondage and he's going to end, verse five, he's going to end war.
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Peace is coming. Every warrior's sandal from the noisy battle and garments rolled in blood will be used for burning and fuel of fire.
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Won't need those garments anymore. Won't need those warrior's sandals anymore.
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Why? Peace is coming. There's darkness, there's gloom.
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But light is coming. War is on its way, but peace is coming.
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War will end. And verse six, the king, the king is coming.
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Look at verse six. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder and his name will be called
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Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
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This child that is born, this son that is given, is the son promised back in chapter seven, verse 14.
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A virgin will conceive and bear a son and his name will be called Emmanuel.
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This is the child that will come. This is the son that is given.
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It's also the son that was promised to David back in 2 Samuel chapter seven.
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Look back there at this, just as a reminder, because I think it's good for us to remind ourselves from time to time of this promise that God made to David, King David, before he passed off the scene.
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God's covenant with David, he says, after you is going to be your son who will build a house for my name, in verse 13, that of course is
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Solomon who built the temple, and in verse 13 he says, I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
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So the kingdom of the throne of Solomon, the throne of his kingdom, is going to be established forever, which means
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David's throne is going to be established forever, right? Now look at verse 16. And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you.
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Your throne shall be established forever. And this is a fulfillment of chapter 9,
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Isaiah 9, 6, this is a prophecy of the fulfillment of that very promise, that there would be a son who would be given, who will reign on the throne of David, and his throne, or his government, will know no end.
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So this is the son promised to David. Obviously, as you well know, this promise is fulfilled in Jesus, it's fulfilled in Jesus.
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What was Jesus' hometown? Tell me. Nazareth, yes.
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What region is Nazareth in?
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Galilee, exactly. What's the prophecy? In the end of verse 1, in Galilee of the
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Gentiles, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
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Jesus lived the bulk of his life in this little village of Nazareth.
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It's in Galilee, where the prophet says the light is first going to dawn.
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Let's turn to Luke chapter 1, and look at the announcement to Mary, Luke 1 verses 31 -33.
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Keeping in mind the prophecy of Isaiah 7, 14, and 9, 6.
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Verse 30 says, The angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
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And behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name
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Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest, and the
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Lord God shall give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.
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Isaiah prophesied that a virgin shall conceive. And here the angel comes to the virgin
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Mary, and says, you will conceive in your womb.
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Remember how utterly perplexed she was with that? How in the world can it be that I'm going to have a child?
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How is that possible that I can have a child? Why would she be so perplexed?
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She was a virgin, betrothed, but, you know, the marriage had not yet been completed.
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A virgin will conceive. You, Mary, will conceive. The prophet said, unto us a child is born, a son is given.
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The angel says to her in verse 31, you will bring forth a son.
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You will bring forth a son. Okay? The prophet said in chapter 9, verse 7 of Isaiah, of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward even forever.
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So the prophecy was that he will reign on David's throne.
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And the angel tells Mary, the Lord will give him the throne at the end of verse 32.
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The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and of his kingdom there will be no end.
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This is the prophecy of Isaiah 9, 7, right? Of his kingdom there will be no end.
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In verse 33, he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end.
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There will be no end. So he will reign forever. The king is coming.
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There's another way in which this prophecy is fulfilled. Look at Matthew chapter 4,
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Matthew 4 and verses 12 through 14.
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It says, now when
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Jesus, Matthew 4, 12, now when Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, John the Baptist had been put in prison, he departed to Galilee.
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And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea in the regions of what?
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Of where? Zebulun and Naphtali. Why? Verse 14, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali by the way of the sea beyond the
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Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region in shadow of death, light has dawned.
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Is this an accident? Is this a coincidence? Isn't this a fascinating confirmation of the reliability of the book you have in your hands?
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That hundreds of years, hundreds of years before Jesus was ever born, the prophet very specifically laid out a number of details about the birth and ministry of Jesus that are specifically fulfilled, just as the prophet declared.
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The king is coming. The king is coming. And lastly, notice, the king will reign.
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So Isaiah 9, 6 gives this fourfold designation of the identity of this child that is going to be born, this son that is given, this son who is a king.
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His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
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The king will reign. He will reign as the Wonderful Counselor. Wonderful Counselor.
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I know sometimes that it's debated whether that should be Wonderful comma
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Counselor. I think they go together just to be consistent with the rest of these designations.
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Wonderful Counselor. And do you not see the reality of that, the fulfillment of that in the life of Jesus, the ministry of Jesus?
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As he went from place to place and he taught the people, the people heard him gladly.
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Why did they hear him gladly? Because he spoke as one having authority. They heard wonderful things coming from him.
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He spoke as no man has spoken. His counsel was profound.
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It was wonderful. You think about how it was heard, the people that come to Jesus to hear him teach and he says to them, come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden.
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I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Take my yoke upon you.
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I am meek and lowly. I'm gentle and lowly in heart. Can you imagine the surprise of such an invitation on the part of those who heard
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Jesus? It doesn't seem like so startling a thing to us because we've been hearing it for years and years and years.
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We know those verses, but you're there in the crowd listening to him teach and you're weighed down with the burdens of the
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Pharisees who are telling you you've got to do all this stuff and maintain all these very meticulous rules if you have any hope of heaven.
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For the first time ever, a rabbi, this is how he's perceived, a rabbi says come to me, you who labor and are heavy laden.
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I will give you rest. I will give you rest. Wonderful counselor. The mighty
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God, this son that is to be born of a virgin, this child that is to be given is designated as the mighty
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God. So he's not merely a human baby. There's more to this child, this son, there's more to it.
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He is, as Isaiah 7, 14 prophesied, he is
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Immanuel. And Immanuel means what? God with us.
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He is the mighty God. And it isn't that he was just God with us, but he was the mighty
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God. And how did he show that? How often and how frequently did he show that? He touched her hand and the fever left her.
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He touched a leper and he was well. He took a lame man by the hand or told a lame man, get up, take up your bed and walk.
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And he did. And so forth. And even more than that, he said to that lame man brought on the pallet, let down from the roof, your sins are forgiven you.
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He's the mighty God. The everlasting Father, the everlasting Father.
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This king is coming, not merely to reign, but he's coming to recreate, if you will,
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God's people, people who will be born again as a new people, the everlasting
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Father and the Prince of Peace, the Prince of Peace.
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As the next verse goes on to say, of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end.
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The Prince of Peace. John Chrysostom, nicknamed the
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Golden Mouth because of his eloquence. He said this, this is about 1800 years ago or something like that.
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Chrysostom said this, he says, the peace which comes from a human being is easily destroyed and subject to many changes.
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Yep. But Christ's peace is strong, unshaken, firm, fixed, steadfast, immune to death and unending.
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In the world you shall have tribulation, Jesus said, but in me, you shall have peace. Why? Because he is the
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Prince of Peace. So, because of the fulfillment of this incredible prophecy given in a time of deep, dark gloom, you and I can be reconciled to God, we can live at peace with God through the
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Son that was given, and we can anticipate the ultimate dispelling of all gloom and darkness, even that which has descended upon our world and maybe, in some cases, in our lives.
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All of it dispelled. Thank you, Father, for your Son, the
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Lord Jesus. Thank you that the light has shone. Thank you that the day star has arisen.
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Thank you that the King has come. Thank you that the King will reign.
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Bless these thoughts to our hearts today, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, we have about...