Christ: The King of Christmas (Isaiah 9:6-7)

In your copy of God's Word, Isaiah, the book of Isaiah, in the 9th chapter, Isaiah chapter 9.

And when you've found your place, let's bow in prayer before we begin. Our Father, we pray that you would open our eyes and our hearts to your

Word. It is our hearts that need to be illumined by the gift and grace of your Holy Spirit, so that we may understand your

Word and that we may give to you affectionate hearts full of desire to obey you and your

Word. We pray that you would fix our hearts and our minds upon heavenly things, upon Christ, and upon the future that we have with him.

And do so from this passage, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. I had no idea what the nature or the content of the song was going to be that the choir sang at the beginning of the service today.

I was listening to the practice before the service, and they started singing this passage in Isaiah 9, verses 6 and 7.

I thought, wow, that works out really, really well with what I had planned to preach. And so, without knowing any of that, and I swear to you,

I didn't know any of that, I chose this passage to preach from today. And I say all of that just to remind you that when something does go well with my preaching, it's usually completely accidental, which it was in this case, and it was a good gift of God's providence to us.

So, we're going to be looking today at Isaiah 9, 6 and 7 in a little bit of that context. And it's always my goal around Christmas and Easter to do something that is in keeping with the themes of those two holidays.

I don't usually arrange my preaching schedule around holidays on the calendar, but there are two exceptions, and that's

Christmas and Resurrection Sunday. And even at those two occasions, I try to take a little bit of a break, or I try and incorporate the themes into whatever passage we're dealing with in the normal schedule or course of my preaching.

And we've been in Hebrews. Last week, it was somewhat easy to do that, because the text in Hebrews 10 talks about the incarnation of Christ, and one of His reasons for coming into the world, that the

Father prepared a body for Him, and that body was to be offered up as a sacrifice. So, that came quite naturally last week.

But as we look at the next passage in Hebrews, it doesn't really tie in as specifically. So, I determined to take a break from the book of Hebrews, which we've been in in recent months, recent years, and to do something a little bit different.

So, that's why we're in Isaiah 9 today, and we're going to be looking at a little bit of a different theme. Last week, we saw how one of the purposes of the coming of Christ was to offer

His body as a sacrifice. And it was really, that passage deals with the priestly ministry of the

Lord Jesus Christ. And today, we're going to be transitioning a little bit and talking about the kingly office of the

Lord Jesus Christ, and what He fulfilled, and what was promised concerning the messianic expectation that a king would be born as both a

Savior, and a prophet, and a priest. And so, that is, in fact, what the Jews of Jesus' day expected.

They had a very intense and rich messianic expectation that all revolved around the

Messiah being a king. And they expected this because the Old Testament taught so much about the kingdom of the

Lord Jesus Christ, the kingdom of the Messiah, and that it would be David's kingdom, and that He would rule and reign over the house of David, and on the throne of David, in the city of David.

That was what was promised in the Old Testament. And the Jews didn't expect Jesus to come in the way that He did, nor to be the type of person that He was.

They weren't expecting Him to be born in a manger. They weren't expecting Him to be born to a poor couple, an obscure couple, who lived in a backwater town off in Hickville of Israel, in the northern part of Israel.

They weren't expecting any of that. They weren't expecting a Christ who would be meek and lowly, who would come and teach and preach.

They weren't expecting one who would be subject to the forces of Rome and end up dying on a cross at the hands of Roman executioners.

That was the last thing that they would have expected. They were expecting a king. And it is interesting how often in both the

Old and the New Testament, the promise of Christmas, or the promise of the coming of the Messiah, is coupled with the promise of His kingdom and His role as a king.

Jesus is, and He will be, the King of Israel. And the identification of Him as King runs all the way through the

Old Testament and all the way through the New Testament. The overwhelming expectation of the

Jewish people at the time of Jesus was that the Messiah would be a ruler, a prince, a king, that He would sit on the throne of David, and that He would rule over the kingdom of David, and that His kingdom would have no end.

They expected Him to come and to rule and reign from the city of Jerusalem, and to have an earthly kingdom.

You say, why did the Jews expect that? Because that was what the

Old Testament promised. And the Old Testament did not promise that in some obscure corner of some obscure passage of some obscure book of the

Old Testament on one or two occasions. The Old Testament made that promise repeatedly, and there are massive passages and texts of the

Old Testament that describe the nature of that kingdom and the nature of His rule and of His reign.

And those promises are in nearly every book of the Old Testament. The psalms are prolific with messianic psalms that describe the kingdom and the rule and the reign of that messianic kingdom.

That was the Old Testament expectation. You say, why did the Jews miss it then? Why did the

Jews miss the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ? They were expecting a king. Is that all that they were expecting?

Shouldn't they also have expected one born in Bethlehem, as Micah 5, 2 promised? Shouldn't they have expected one born of a virgin, as Isaiah 7, 14 promised?

Shouldn't they have expected one who would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver and betrayed by a close confidant and end up dying of suffering on a cross, as Psalm 22 describes?

Shouldn't they have expected one who would come and bear our sins and by whose wounds and stripes we would be healed?

A perfect servant who would come to do the will of the Father, who himself would die in the place of transgressors, as Isaiah 53 promised?

Why did they miss all of the promises regarding the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and just focus in and expect and make much of the promises of the second coming of the

Lord Jesus Christ? How could they have missed Him at the first coming? They missed Him for a couple of different reasons.

For one, because even though His rejection was predicted and promised in the

Old Testament, the nature of His ministry spread across two advents or two comings was not specifically and explicitly declared in the

Old Testament. In fact, we see many times in the same passage of Scripture, promises concerning the first coming of the

Lord Jesus Christ and promises concerning the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and they are in the same passage, sometimes the same verse, and sometimes the same sentence.

Sometimes the same sentence they're put together. And the fact that those promises would be fulfilled by Him in not just one advent, the first one, and not just the second advent, but over two separate advents separated by time, the fact that those promises would be fulfilled in that way was not something anticipated and expected under the

Old Testament. It wasn't something revealed under the Old Covenant. A second reason that the

Jews missed Him at the first coming is because they didn't understand how the prophecies and the promises regarding His first coming could be fulfilled just as literally as the promises and the prophecies regarding His second coming.

How is it that this one who is supposed to reign and rule on the throne of David forever over the nations is also going to suffer and die and be rejected by His people?

Without the revelation of the New Testament and in the person of Christ, you would never be able to see how these two things could go together.

How can the one who is supposed to be universally worshipped by all the nations be rejected by all the nations at the same time?

How can He rule and reign and suffer and die? And because they couldn't see how these two things would go together, they instead began to spiritualize and sort of allegorize and take in a spiritual sense all the promises regarding His first coming.

So they would look at Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 and they would say, well, certainly those cannot possibly be fulfilled literally just as they're written.

Instead, this suffering must be allegorically or symbolically speaking of the nation of Israel. Maybe it's

Israel that's going to bear our stripes and be afflicted and rejected of men,

Isaiah 53. Maybe it's the nation that that's speaking of. Or they would begin to think, or they suggested, maybe these promises will be fulfilled in two separate persons.

One of them would come and fulfill the office of Messiah as the suffering servant, and one would come and fulfill the office of the

Messiah as the ruling and reigning king. But because they could not see how those two prophecies, those two ideas of a

Messiah could fit together, they began to spiritualize the first one. So when He showed up as meek and lowly and humble

Jesus, suffering and dying at the hands of men, they rejected that because they said that can't possibly be our

Messiah. And listen, Jews today reason the exact same way. He can't possibly be our

Messiah. Our Messiah is going to come as a ruling and reigning king. I think Christians, and this is not to get into an eschatological debate,

I think Christians today make the exact same mistake in the other direction. Now we have eschatological camps that emphasize so much the first coming of the

Lord Jesus Christ that they refuse to take literally in a straightforward fashion the promises of His second coming, that there will be an actual kingdom, that there will be an actual king, and that He will rule and reign on the throne of His father

David and over it forever and forever. So that brings us to Isaiah 9, verse 6 and verse 7.

We're going to be looking at these two verses today. These two verses, I think, are two of probably the most used and yet least taken seriously verses of all of the

Christmassy verses that we attach and put on Christmas ornaments and Christmas cards. We're familiar with verse 6.

Typically, when we quote that verse, we quote it this way. That's it.

That's an ellipsis, as if that's all that there is to the promise. And yet verse 6 describes the government resting upon His shoulders.

His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, the Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. And listen, verse 7 is just as much a

Christmas verse as verse 6 is. Look at verse 7. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, and on the throne of David and over His kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. Now, to take that passage, that promise of a

Messiah, and to cut it into the middle and to suggest, well, verse 6 really describes Christmas, is to do, I think, damage to the reputation of the person and the work of the

Lord Jesus Christ. Because this describes two separate comings. Remember earlier when I said sometimes the promises of the first coming and the second coming are together in the same passage, sometimes the same verse, and even in the same sentence?

You see it here in verse 6 and 7. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. That's the first advent.

And the government will rest upon His shoulders, and to His kingdom there will be no end. The zeal of the

Lord of hosts will accomplish this. That's the second coming. It's all the same passage. This is all the same person.

And listen, if we take the promises regarding His first coming literally just as stated,

I believe we have to take the promises of His second coming literally just as stated. You can't avoid that.

We don't switch our hermeneutic in the middle of a sentence and say, this is literal, that's spiritual. That's not how we handle

Scripture. Not at all. All right, let me describe to you the context here because verses 6 and 7 become even more magnificent when we understand the context in which this came, particularly to the

Jews in Isaiah's day. Isaiah wrote toward the end of the southern kingdom just prior to the Babylonian captivity, or the

Babylonian invasion which resulted in the Babylonian captivity. The northern kingdom had long ago fallen, and Isaiah is right at the end.

He's watching the dissolution of the southern kingdom. For him, for the Jews in Isaiah's day, the memory of the

Davidic kingdom and the Davidic monarchy with all of the power and the wealth and the glory and the peace and security of that, that was a distant memory.

They had international enemies who were knocking on the gates of Jerusalem and on the cities inside of Judea, and they were threatening to take over.

And they were stronger nations than Israel was at the time. And all they knew of the Davidic monarchy was hundreds of years earlier, it was a great and it was a glorious thing, but the kingdom of Isaiah's day was nothing like the kingdom of David's day.

And spiritually, the nation was at an all -time low. They were involved in rampant apostasy and spiritual harlotry.

Idolatry was all over the place. In fact, I want to just take you back to Isaiah chapter 1, and this will be quick because we're not going through nine chapters today, but I just want you to get a flavor for what

Isaiah was dealing with in his day, Isaiah chapter 1. I want you to notice in verses 3 and 4 the spiritual picture that Isaiah paints.

An ox knows its owner and a donkey its master's manager, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.

Alas, sinful nation, people weighed down with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who act corruptly.

They've abandoned the Lord. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They have turned away from Him. Where will you be stricken again as you continue in your rebellion?

The whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint. Look at this apostasy described beginning in verse 10.

Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the instruction of God, you people of Gomorrah. He's calling them to repentance.

What are your multiplied sacrifices to me, says the Lord? I've had enough of your burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle.

I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who requires of you this trampling of my courts?

Bring your worthless offerings no longer. Incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath, the calling of assemblies.

I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly. I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts.

They become a burden to me. I'm weary of bearing them. So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I'll hide my eyes from you.

Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood. He calls them to repentance in verse 16.

Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your deeds from my sight. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good.

Seek justice. Reprove the ruthless. Defend the orphan. Plead for the widow. Beginning in verse 18, judgment is promised.

Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.

If you consent and obey, you will eat the best of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.

Truly, the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Verses 21 to 23 describe their iniquity.

How the faithful city has become a harlot. She who was full of justice. Righteousness once lodged in her, but now murderers.

Your silvers become dross. Your drink diluted with water. Your rulers are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and chases after rewards.

They do not defend the orphan, nor does the widow's plea come before them. Verses 24 and 25 describe the judgment on those adversaries.

Therefore the Lord God of hosts, the mighty one of Israel, declares, Ah, I will be relieved of my adversaries and avenge myself on my foes.

I will also turn my hand against you and will smelt away your dross as with lye and will remove all your alloy.

He's threatening judgment on the nation for their spiritual apostasy and their wickedness. Then chapter 2 describes the coming kingdom of Christ.

Chapter 3, 4, 5, 6, even in chapter 8, there's judgment prophesied upon Damascus and Assyria.

As Isaiah focuses judgment, the prophecies of judgment upon the nation of Israel because of their rampant spiritual apostasy and their adultery.

Spiritual adultery and all of the wickedness going on inside the nation at the time. There was hardly a righteous man anywhere in the nation.

And wickedness was exalted and wickedness was approved at the highest levels of the entire society.

It was corrupt from head to toe. And God says the only thing to do with this is to judge all of that sin.

And the scope of that judgment expands out and even incorporates other nations in chapter 8. And then we get to the end of chapter 8 and look at verse 20.

Sorry, verse 21. They will pass through the land hard pressed and famished and it will turn out that they are hungry.

They will be enraged and curse their king and their God as they face upward. Then they will look to the earth and behold distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish.

And they will be driven away into darkness. That is a solemn promise of judgment.

That is dark. So then you may say, well, with all of that spiritual apostasy and all of that wickedness and the promise of judgment, destruction from foreign enemies, and the

Davidic monarchy lying in ruins, almost no spiritual hope, almost no political hope whatsoever, almost no way that they could ever foresee the promises of a king and a kingdom for their nation ever coming to pass in that context.

We may ask ourselves, in the midst of all of that apostasy, does that mean that God's promises that he made to David so many centuries earlier, that God has set those aside as God determined that because of their spiritual apostasy, they have forfeited those promises?

Or will God still fulfill his promises to the nation even in spite of their apostasy and in spite of their sinfulness and their wickedness?

Even in spite of their disobedience, will the Lord bring to pass all that he has promised to them?

For his glory, for his name's sake, because he promised it. Or is what he promised conditional upon their obedience?

Has God set aside his promises to the nation because of their sinfulness? And the answer to that question is found in chapter 9.

And the answer is no. After that dark promise of judgment at the end of chapter 8, look at verse 1 of chapter 9.

There will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish in earlier times. He treated the land of Zebulun, the land of Naphtali, with contempt, but later on he shall make it glorious by the way of the sea.

On the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.

The Gentiles will see, that is. Verse 3, you shall multiply the nation, you shall increase their gladness. They will be glad in your presence as with the gladness of harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.

For you shall break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders, the rod of the oppressor as at the battle of Midian.

In spite of all of that judgment that is to come, God will destroy the oppressors and he will liberate the nation and restore their gladness.

Verse 5, for every boot of the booted warrior in the battle of Tumult and the cloak rolled in blood will be for burning fuel for the fire.

No more war, no more destruction, no more nation rising against nation. How will these promises be bought to pass?

Verse 6, for a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders, and his name will be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. And there will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace, for on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. See, that is a promise of a literal, physical,

Davidic kingdom and a king given to the nation at their lowest point, right on the cusp of the worst judgment they would ever face as a nation.

And yet God says, this promise, it's still yours. You will eventually be glorified and you will enjoy that glory and I will restore your gladness because a son will be born to us, a child will be given to us, and the government will rest upon his shoulders.

Verse 6 describes this king. We have in verse 6 a description of his coming and of his character, and then verse 7 describes his kingdom.

So that's our outline. We're already halfway through it, and that just sets up the context. So now we have to look at this king, the description of the king and his kingdom.

Notice first his coming in verse 6. A child will be born to us, a son will be given to us. I want you to notice that he would just be born.

It would be a natural birth, a natural... He would come into the world in a very natural way. Now in one sense it was supernatural because it was the womb of a virgin.

And in one sense it was supernatural because his birth was attended by angels who appeared to shepherds out in the fields nearby the city of Bethlehem or the town of Bethlehem and announced his birth.

Now his birth was natural in the sense that it was just as any other human is born. From a woman, he came as a child, he came as a son, he came as a baby.

He didn't descend directly from heaven. He didn't come out fully grown from heaven and descend in the clouds and come here to earth in that way.

Instead it was a very natural birth, but in another sense it was supernatural because I doubt that any of you were born of a virgin and I doubt that any of your birth was announced by angels to shepherds nearby.

So it was very supernatural and unnatural in one sense, but in terms of the physical activity of it, it was a very natural and normal birth.

And a survey of the Old Testament shows that they were to expect one who would be born and who would come from a certain lineage.

It would come from Adam and from one of Adam's descendants, Noah, and from one of Noah's particular three sons,

Shem. And Shem would have a descendant named Abraham. So to Abraham was given the promise of the land and the seed and the kingdom and that this king would come through Abraham.

Abraham had a son Isaac, two sons, and it would come through Isaac and not Ishmael. And from Isaac's line it would come from Jacob and not

Esau. And of all of Jacob's sons it would come from Judah and not any of the other 11 sons. The promise would be fulfilled through Judah.

And so one comes from Judah, David, who becomes king over the nation of Israel. And to David, God says,

I will raise up for you a descendant, and I will give him your throne, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever and ever into his kingdom.

There will be no end. So you can trace the physical lineage of the king, the coming king, through all of those

Old Testament patriarchs. Then we come to the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is the one who comes from the tribe of Judah through David.

He is a descendant of David through both Joseph and Mary, legally through Joseph, physically through Mary. He's a descendant of David in that regard.

And David can trace his way all the way back up through Adam. We ought to expect from the Old Testament prophecy, since his lineage is given, that he's not going to descend down out of heaven physically as an adult male.

Instead, he would be born in a normal way, just as verse 6 described. A child would be born to us. Do you take that literally or spiritually?

Do you take that literally or metaphorically? Is that allegorical, born to us? What does the born to us represent?

How do we interpret the prophecies regarding his birth? Quite literally. He was born to us as a child, as a son.

Unless you think that he's just ordinary in every way, and there's nothing extraordinary about this birth whatsoever. Notice that verse 6 says, the government will rest upon his shoulders.

Now, what does that mean? The government will rest upon his shoulders. In what can only be a conscious and willful attempt to avoid the plain and straightforward language of that passage, people have suggested that that is speaking symbolically or allegorically of the cross.

It was really popular in the 2nd and 3rd and 4th centuries when allegorical interpretation was all the rage.

Big hip things. Social media was all lit up with allegorical. Everywhere you turned, and they would take these very plain prophecies and these very plain narratives, and they would find in them all these symbols and types and shadows, and they would connect all of these obscure dots, and what resulted was usually an obscure understanding of the passage, and an obscuring of the plain meaning of the text.

And so, in an attempt to avoid that this would actually be speaking of a literal, physical, earthly government that would rest upon his shoulders, they instead said that this reference to the government being upon his shoulders was a reference to the cross.

It was symbolic of the cross, which he bore on his shoulders. I'll give you an example. Justin Martyr, who lived in the early 2nd century, said this, quote, this signifies the power of the cross, which at his crucifixion he placed on his shoulders.

See the symbolism? The government will rest upon his shoulders. Jesus bore a cross on his shoulders. Can't you see how those two come together?

I mean, it's obvious, right? It's not obvious at all, is it? What gets even worse,

Ambrose in the 4th century said this, he bowed his shoulder to labor, bowed himself to the cross to carry our sins. For that reason, the prophet says, whose government is on his shoulder.

This means above the passion of his body is the power of his divinity, or it refers to the cross that towers above his body.

It says the government rests upon his shoulders. It refers to the cross powered above the shoulders of his body.

Caesarius of Arlice at the turn of the 6th century said this, Christ then had the government upon his shoulders when he carried the cross with wonderful healing.

Not unfittingly does Christ's cross signify government, because by it the devil is conquered, and the whole world recalled to the knowledge and the grace of Christ, close quote.

Not unfittingly does the word government refer to the cross, because by the cross the devil is conquered.

Do governments conquer one another? So since governments conquer one another, and the devil was conquered by the cross, the government was able to connect those dots.

You say, Jim, I've never heard an interpretation like that. Well, but you're in a community church. You're right, you won't. As long as I'm alive, you won't.

Do you think that that's what Isaiah meant? The government will rest upon his shoulders? That that must be referring to the cross?

Do you think any Jew in Isaiah's day, scratch that, any Jew between Isaiah's day, 700

B .C., and the year 30 A .D.,

do you think any Jew anywhere in there would have read Isaiah's prophecy here? And in light of understanding

God's promise to David in 2 Samuel 7, when the Lord said to David, when your days are completed and you lie down with your fathers,

I will raise up a descendant after you who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name.

I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. Do you think that any Jew read

Isaiah 6 in light of 2 Samuel 7, the promise to David, and thought to themselves, the government must refer to a wooden beam physically placed on the shoulders of the

Messiah? Or do you think that a Jew in Isaiah's day would have heard this promise in chapter 9 verse 6 and thought,

I wonder if chapter 9 verse 7 has anything to say about what the nature of that kingdom is? Sure enough, there will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace, and on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore.

Do you think they might have interpreted the word government in verse 6 in light of the rest of the sentence in verse 7?

They might have done that. And if they did that, what conclusion would they come to? Isaiah must be describing what?

A literal, physical kingdom. The only way, the only thing

Isaiah could have been describing is to suggest that government is symbolic of the cross, is to take an interpretation from outside of the text and force it upon the text and make the text to mean that, when the text in its most natural sense could never and would never have meant that.

This son of David will rule, and the government will rest upon his shoulders, and he will rule and reign over the house of David, over the nation of Israel, from a physical throne, in an earthly city,

Jerusalem, and that kingdom will be established, and it will have no end. It will go on forever and forever.

That's the promise. That is a glorious and a beautiful promise. It's not allegorical.

It's not spiritual. It's not a figurative rule. It's not a rule from heaven. It's not a rule in the church through elders.

It's not a rule in the hearts of his people. Not any of that. It is exactly what

Isaiah described that we are still waiting for and expecting. Describes the coming of this king.

Notice now he describes the character of this king. Look at his character. He will be called, in verse 6, his name will be called

Wonderful Counselor. Some people divide that up and say it's Wonderful and Counselor. It could be because the punctuation is not inspired in the text.

It could be Wonderful. It could be Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. It could be four titles there or five titles.

Let's just take them each. Wonderful just describes something that causes intense amazement or a feeling of awe or a feeling of wonder.

There's something about the nature of this son which will be wonderful or awe and wonder inspiring. That is certainly true of him.

The more we get to know the Lord Jesus Christ and the more we see of him in Scripture and the more we know of him in our lives, the more wonderful he becomes to us.

The more beautiful and glorious and magnificent is his person, not because we make it so but because it is so, and we become more enthralled with him as we are brought from one degree of glory to the next in our understanding of who he is.

He is a person who is filled with wonder, and he is a counselor. So unlike every other king who would gather around him a council of men who could give him wisdom and knowledge and understanding and advise him, this king will need no counselors because he is the wonderful counselor.

He's the perfect counselor because he is infinite in wisdom and infinite in knowledge and infinite and perfect in his understanding.

He doesn't need to get advice from any counselor or any council of wise men or a cabinet or a group of advisors.

He doesn't need that. Why? He's going to teach the Lord. He's going to say to him, here's what you need to do in this situation.

Here's the right course of action. Here's how you need to handle that. He will not need that in his government. He will not need any group of counselors because he himself is the wonderful, wonder, awe -inspiring counselor.

He is also El Gabor, which is translated Mighty God. His name is called here Mighty God. This is a reference to the deity, the

Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate son. There's a reference to his deity right here in the Old Testament. He is

God the son of one substance and one nature with the Father. In him dwells all the fullness of God in bodily form.

He is the exact representation of the Father in every conceivable way. He is perfect and one in unity, one in nature with the

Father and with the Holy Spirit. So he is appropriately referred to as the Mighty God. I think it is in that way, in terms of his deity, that the next phrase,

Eternal Father, should be understood. This doesn't mean that he is to be confused with the Father because it is the son who becomes incarnate here, not the person of the

Father. But it describes one of two things. Either that this person who is going to be born to us would be to his people like a father in terms of he would protect them and he would guard them and he would keep them and provide for them.

Or it could be just a reference to the fact that he is the father of eternity, which most people take it to be describing that.

That he is the one who holds time and eternity. His goings forth have been forevermore, Micah 5 .2 says.

This one who was born in Bethlehem, too small to be labeled among the tribes of Judah, this one who would come into Bethlehem has also his goings forth have been from everlasting to everlasting.

He's the eternal God, so all of eternity is his. He's the progenitor or the father of time. He's the progenitor or the father of eternity.

Everything flows out of him because he is the mighty God. And he is also the prince of peace. What will his reign be like?

It will be a reign and a rule of peace. Now he is the prince of peace in the sense that, and we know him as the prince of peace because he has done something for us in terms of peace, has he not?

The gospel is a gospel of peace and it's called that in the New Testament because the gospel puts us at peace with one another so that men who are

Christians are not at war against other men who are Christians of other nationalities or nations or tribes or peoples.

In the cross of Christ, because of the cross of Christ, and in the kingdom of Christ, there is peace between men between whom there was once enmity.

Paul describes this in Ephesians 2 and 3. He has brought peace by the cross and by the gospel of peace.

He's also reconciled us to God, making peace between us, we who were his enemies, God who was rightly offended by our sin and against whom we were at war.

And now Christ, because of what he has done, has brought peace between God and man. And Christ has brought peace between man and man.

He's also going to bring peace to this earth. Rules and reigns, it would be perfect peace.

Recently, we've had peace treaties inked and some normalization of relations between Israel and some of their neighbors in the

Middle East, and that's a good thing. People don't die, people don't blow each other up and blow themselves up, that's a good thing. But listen, there's going to be no true or lasting peace in the

Middle East, no matter who is president. There's going to be no true or lasting or real peace in the

Middle East until the prince of peace rules and reigns in the Middle East. And then, because of his rule and his reign, there will be absolute and perfect peace.

He will bring that peace when he returns, establishes his kingdom. Perfect rule, perfect.

No longer will a nation wage war against other nations. They will beat their swords into plowshares.

They will lay down their armaments. They will not go up to war against one another. You want to know what real peace looks like?

When the heads of Arab nations, heads of the Jewish nation, worship

Yahweh together in Jerusalem, in the person of Christ.

That's true peace. When all around the world, universally, we all worship

Yahweh in Jesus Christ, that is true and perfect peace. Now, I want you to notice that Isaiah gives us a description of the kingdom.

I can know, and you can know with absolute certainty, that when Isaiah says the government will rest upon his shoulders, that he is not describing the cross of the

Lord Jesus Christ. He is instead describing the very thing that he clearly lays out here in verse 7.

There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace. I want you to notice here the scope of his kingdom, the security of his kingdom, and then the surety of his kingdom.

Those are the three things we're going to notice. The scope of his kingdom first. There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace.

This government, which the Lord Jesus Christ will establish, according to Revelation chapter 20, it will be a thousand -year expression here on this earth.

At the end of that, this earth will be dissolved. It will be burnt up. He will recreate a new heavens and a new earth. But that kingdom, which began on this earth and existed here for a thousand years, where the saints rule and reign with him for that period of time, that kingdom will go on into the everlasting kingdom.

It will morph into the new heavens and the new earth in its expression there, where it will go on forever and ever, just as the prophets imagined.

That kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ has not come to an end at the end of the thousand years. The thousand years is just the first phase of that that is expressed here in this world, but then that kingdom will go on for all of eternity into the new heavens and the new earth.

So what does it mean that there will be no end to the increase of his government? How does a perfect king in a perfect kingdom, ruling and reigning perfectly over all of creation, how does his kingdom continue to increase and his dominion and government continue to increase forevermore, so that there is no end to its increase?

How does it continue to increase? I think that the only way that this can be understood is that in the new heavens and the new earth, and I'm not going to develop this at length because this is a bit long, but here it is in a fortune cookie.

On the new heavens and the new earth, that kingdom, that perfect rule and reign, will of course be over all things, but the expanse over which and the ways in which he rules and reigns through his people, though it is perfect, it will continue to increase as the new heavens and the new earth and our dominion over it, as we exercise it, continues to grow forever and ever and ever without end.

The new heavens and the new earth will expand and go on forever and ever without end, and there will always be an increase to his government.

What makes it perfect? So in one sense it will be over everything always, and in another sense, there will never be an end to the increase of it.

The ways in which he rules, over which he rules, will continue to expand forever. Why did the

Jews expect a Messiah who would rule and reign, and a kingdom over which he would rule and reign would continue to increase forever and ever?

Wasn't that what Gabriel said to the angel? Sorry, Gabriel was the angel. Wasn't that what Gabriel said to Mary? Luke chapter 1, verse 32, when he says,

He, speaking of Jesus, will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father

David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will not end. You would expect that after all the spiritual apostasy of the nation of Israel, 700 years after Isaiah, when the

Messiah finally came to be born, that if God had changed his plan and there was no longer a plan for Israel, that that would have been the time for the angel to say,

Look, know what Isaiah said, but plans have changed. Nation apostasized.

We're going to tweak this just a little bit. Not really going to be the throne of David. It's not going to really be his kingdom. It's not going to really be an earthly government.

We're switching it all up. It's all different now. So all that stuff in the Old Testament, allegorize it, spiritualize it, do whatever you want with it.

The angel didn't say that. The angel said, The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will rule the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end.

Micah 5 .2 promised a ruler who would come forth from Bethlehem. 2 Samuel 7 .16,

The Lord told David, Your house and your kingdom will endure before me forever. Your throne will be established forever. Psalm 89, which describes that promise that God made with David.

Psalm 89 says, Once for all I have sworn to my biholiness, and I will not lie to David that his line will continue forever, and his throne endure before me like the sun.

It will be established forever like the moon, faithful witness in the sky. Who could possibly rule over a kingdom that goes on forever?

What type of a king could rule and reign without ever dying? Such a thing was a mystery. Until the king comes and gives his life as a sacrifice for sin, rises again in an incorruptible body so that he can live forever more because over him death has no dominion.

Now he can come and take what? The throne of his father David. And he can rule over a kingdom forever because death no longer has dominion over him.

His suffering and death at his first coming had to happen so that he could rise from the dead and occupy a glorified body so that he could take the throne of his father

David and rule and reign forever more. The first coming was necessary, the suffering and the death and the resurrection so that he could never die again and fulfill all the promises of the

Old Testament regarding the kingdom of David. There's a reason the Jews were expecting a king and a kingdom because that's exactly what

God promised them. You see it right here in this passage. Listen, we could go on for all afternoon. I could read to you passages from the

Old Testament that describe this kingdom, the coming kingdom. The nature of it, the government of it, the people who inhabit it, the type of things that will go on in it, the peace that it will bring, the righteousness of it, the justice of it, the glory of it, the prosperity of it.

You even have it here in Isaiah chapter 2 and Isaiah chapter 11. You see more of it later on in the book of Isaiah chapter 65 and 66, the elements of that kingdom described.

Let me give you just a couple of them. Psalm 2. I got a ton of them here, but I'm running out of time. Psalm 2. I have installed my king upon Zion, my holy hill.

I will proclaim the decree of the Lord. He said to me, you are my son. Today I have become your father. Ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance.

The ends of the earth your possession. You will rule them with an iron scepter. You will dash them to pieces like pottery.

Psalm 110, which is the most frequently quoted psalm in the New Testament. Psalm 110.

The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion.

You will rule in the midst of your enemies. Your troops will be willing on the day of battle. Jeremiah 23, 5 and 6.

The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up to David a righteous branch, a king who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land.

Zechariah 9, 9. Rejoice, O daughter of Zion. Shout, daughter of Jerusalem. See, your king comes to you righteous and having salvation.

Daniel 2, 44. In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people.

It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end. And it itself will endure forever.

Daniel 7, 14. He has given authority, glory, and sovereign power. All peoples and nations and men of every language will worship him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away. His kingdom is one which will never be destroyed.

And you saw that theme in the book of Daniel when we went through it. And again, you could turn over to Isaiah 11. You could turn over to Isaiah chapter 2.

You could go to Isaiah 65 and 66. The kingdom is described all over the Old Testament. And some of those promises were given to the nation of Israel at their lowest points when their spiritual apostasy was rampant.

And if those promises depended on the obedience of that covenant people, at some point God would have said, no, you've disobeyed.

The promises are no longer for you. But the Lord never says that. The Lord over and over again says, the promises don't depend upon your obedience.

They depend on my grace, and I will do this for my name's sake. Zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.

Second, Isaiah describes the security of this kingdom. He will establish it. He will uphold it with justice and with righteousness from then on and forevermore because this one who rules is mighty

God. He rules and reigns in such a way that God would rule and reign. How does God rule and reign?

God rules and reigns with righteousness and justice. Psalm 89, 14, righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne.

Psalm 897, verse 2, clouds of thick darkness surround him. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

Notice the reference to righteousness and justice here in Isaiah 9, verse 7. Because this one who is mighty God rules and reigns in righteousness and justice just as God himself would rule and reign.

And third, Isaiah describes the surety of this kingdom or the certainty of it. And that is with that phrase, zeal of the

Lord of hosts will accomplish this. Now listen, this would have been good news to the people of Isaiah's day because all that they could see when they looked out across their nation, all that they could see was spiritual ruin and political ruin.

Everything was horrible. There's no Jew alive during Isaiah's day who if they didn't have a revelation like this and the promise of God in their heart would have ever thought that the

Davidic monarchy could ever rise again and that a king would take that throne and rule and reign forever. The nation could have never imagined that they would see that.

All of them would have said that's impossible. That the throne of David is a distant memory. It's a shell of its former self.

We have no power. We have no prosperity. We have no ability to conquer the nations. Our military is a joke.

Our leadership is in shambles. The whole nation is spiritually apostate. None of them honor or worship the

God of Israel. None of them are keeping the covenant. This whole place is a dog's breakfast.

This whole land is a spiritual train wreck. That's what they would have said. Here's the key.

Establishment of this kingdom is not of human doing. That's what it means when it says the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.

We don't bring in the kingdom by the preaching of the gospel. We don't improve the world to the point where it's kingdom ready or kingdom worthy, nor do we take this world through the preaching of the gospel and make it the kingdom so that the king will come back.

It's not our job. That is not our work. In Daniel's vision in chapter 2, do you remember the statue that he had with the gold and the silver and the bronze and eventually the feet mixed with clay, the iron legs and the feet?

Remember what happens at the end of that vision? Daniel says, Nebuchadnezzar says, he saw a rock, stone, massive stone, cut out of a mountain without hands.

It comes and crushes that statue. Later on, Daniel describes the same thing, and he describes that kingdom, that rock begins to fill the earth according to the vision that Nebuchadnezzar had.

Daniel interprets that, and he says, that rock that is cut out without hands, the kingdom of the Messiah, it will come and destroy all of his other nations.

Then it itself will fill this entire earth. Twice in that passage it says that that stone, a symbol of the kingdom, is cut out without hands, meaning it's not of our doing, not our accomplishment.

It is not our obedience. It is not our obedience that brings the kingdom in. It is not our disobedience that thwarts the kingdom.

It is not our preaching of the gospel that makes this world better for the sake of the kingdom. We don't turn this wretched place into the kingdom by taking over industry and taking over culture and taking over all of these positions of power in our culture and Christianizing everything so that the king will return.

That is not the purpose of the gospel. That is not the message of the gospel. That is not what we are doing. It is the zeal of the

Lord of hosts will accomplish it. I wonder, how is this ever going to happen?

The Lord is setting in place a series of events, preplanned from eternity past, which series of events, the rise and fall of all the nations, will result in the coming and the establishment of the kingdom.

It will not be by human doing. And if it is not going to be our human work that ushers it in, and it is not going to be our disobedience, the

Lord himself, this kingdom, a massive stone cut out of another mountain, without hands, is going to come and it is going to crush, destroy all of the nations of this world.

He will judge his enemies. Everyone will get judged.

Everyone. Your sins will either be paid for in eternal hell, or your sins have been paid for on the cross of the

Lord Jesus Christ. But every sin is perfect. You and I can be satisfied.

If you reject the Christ that is born in Bethlehem, you will see nothing of the coming Prince of Peace. That is my promise to you.

You will get nothing of the Prince of Peace. You will not bow the knee to the meek and lowly Savior who died on the cross to save you from it.

If you have never been born again, you have no part in this kingdom, but instead you will see the wrath of God for all of eternity. Lying, your blasphemy, killing, your disobedience, your idolatry, your apostasy, gossip, your slander, corrupt thoughts, your hateful thoughts, your adulterous heart.

All of it has heaped up a mountain of God's wrath. It hangs over you even this very day if you are not in the

Lord Jesus. That is the bad news. Good news. 2 ,000 years to you.

Born on that day in the city of David. Christ the Lord. Savior. Came to this world, died on a cross to live a perfect life.

He is the prophet, the priest, king, Savior. He came to give his life to ransom for many.

Pay the sin debt that you deserve. What he demands of you is repentance and faith that you will turn from your sin.

Acknowledge your sin debt. Trust in the one that he sent to save you. If you will not bow to that king today, you will not see that king sets up his kingdom.

Instead, you will suffer his wrath. So I say to you what Psalm 2 says, Come and worship that king.

Bow down and do homage to him. Face him on the cross. Bless this day.

Born in the city of David. Savior. Christ the Lord. Let us not forget. He saved us from our sins back then.

He is going to save us again. Eschatological sense. He who was born a

Savior, he will rule. He will reign.

On David's throne. For the Lord God will give him the throne. Father David. He will rule over the house of Jacob and over Israel forever.

His kingdom there will be as glory. Father, we do thank you for so merciful a salvation.

So full and so free an offer that you have made to us. That by Jesus Christ and what he has done a thousand years ago, we can have our sins forgiven and have eternal life.

And we know peace with you. Thank you that our hope is not in this world or in our ability to accomplish the salvation of this world.

Our hope is in Jesus Christ and him alone. First advent for our salvation from sin.

Send him to die for us and have our sins atoned for. Thank you for so merciful.

So free a salvation from the sin debt. That was our greatest need. And we thank you that we can look forward to that day when we'll give to your son, throne of his father

David, over the house of Jacob. He will rule forever. We look to that with great expectation.

And we pray that you would fix our hearts upon he who is both Savior and King. In the name of Christ our