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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/david-petterson/isaiah-9/
I have a different message today than what we'll be focusing on in the next few nights, but I'd like to read with you from Isaiah chapter 9. We'll begin at verse 1. Isaiah 9 and 1,. Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea beyond Jordan in Galilee of the nations.
The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. Thou hast multiplied the nation, and increased the joy.
They joy before thee according to the joy and harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder, a rod of his oppressor is in the day of Midian.
For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise and garments rolled in blood, but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. I want to speak just for a few minutes about the light of Christmas. We might refer to it in that way. Light has fittingly been associated with Christmas for a long time.
Let's go back in time about 150 years. So when people were starting to bring Christmas trees into their homes, they took candles and glued them with wax to the tree branches or fastened them with pins.
If you have a tree, maybe you thought it took a long time for you to decorate your tree. Think about that. And then they lit them for a few minutes, as you can imagine, just for a few minutes. They would blow them out because the risk of house fires was so high.
People light their trees now and then they go out on their own, right? The bulb breaks and the whole strand goes out. But the lighting of the tree was a symbol. It was symbolic for something and there was a reason why people did it.
Well we have to go back about 2 ,000 years when the shepherds were given that announcement of Christ's birth. It was accompanied with the appearance of the glory of the Lord which shone around them and there was great light bursting forth and dispelling the darkness of the night sky.
The lighting of the tree symbolized the coming of Christ, the light of the world. Now I'm not here to preach about Christmas trees, obviously. Let's go back another 700 years from then. We arrive in the days of the prophet Isaiah.
Here we are in Isaiah chapter 9. And Isaiah first linked light with the coming of the Savior. Verse 2, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.
And then he introduces us to him as in verse 6, this one who was the child born and the son given. So Isaiah prophesied long ago that that light would come. And thank God the light of the world has indeed come.
You remember that when he was here, that's what he said. I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Now there are a number of things about Isaiah's prophecy that we need to examine here.
And I want you to think of the setting of this great prophecy that refers to the Lord Jesus coming as the light of the world, the setting of the prophecy. And then we're going to look at the subject, who the subject of the prophecy is.
And then we're going to get into the substance of the prophecy, the details that are here. And then finally, the sureness, the sureness of this prophecy, it has found its fulfillment partially and it will find the remainder fulfilled in a day to come.
So first consider then the setting of the prophecy. What's going on here in Isaiah chapter 9? Well, the last verse of chapter 8 tells us that it was going to be a very dark time for Israel. Look back at chapter 8, verse 22.
It says, And they shall look unto the earth, and behold, trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish, and they shall be driven to darkness. What is Isaiah writing about here? You would know that the people of Israel had been divided.
They were split into the two kingdoms, the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. The rebel northern kingdom comprised 10 of the tribes and they had turned away from God. They had embraced other gods.
They were living in wickedness. And after all God had done for his people, they persisted in their sin and idolatry. And God had had enough. Judgment was going to be sent to the people. Far to the north, the dreaded Assyrians were assembling, mobilizing for a devastating southward march of conquest.
And prophets gave warning to the 10 tribes to turn away from their idols, to turn from their idolatry, turn back to the one true God, but the people didn't listen. And Isaiah is one of those prophets who was warning the people, but they didn't obey.
And then to dramatize the situation, Isaiah gives birth to a son and gives him a very interesting name, Mahar Shalal Hashbaz. That would be interesting to introduce yourself as that person, right? It must have taken a long time to do introductions.
Why did he name him that? Well his name meant something, right? The meaning of Isaiah's name was hurry to the spoils or hasten to the plunder. There was a message there for the people of God. Isaiah names his son this and he wants people to realize that in the naming of my son, this is a message about what's about to happen to the northern kingdom.
It was about to be lights out for the north. But there's light in the chapter, even though this is about what's going to happen. As often is the case in prophetic passages, there's prophecy of judgment, there's prophecy of doom, but then there's going to be after the darkness, there's going to be light.
And there's light here in our chapter, verse 2, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Now how is this light going to be revealed? Well first there is celebration in verse 3, it almost seems out of place when we think about what we've read so far, but there's celebration in verse 3.
Thou hast multiplied the nation and increased the joy. Darby and ESV and a lot of the other translations have just the opposite of what it says here in the King James. Thou hast multiplied the nation and increased the joy.
They joy before thee according to the joy and harvest and as men rejoice in the Lord Notice when they divide the spoil, there's this celebration going on here in verse 3. Well what's the reason for it?
Note the 4 of verse 4 which tells us, actually verse 4, verse 5, and verse 6, they all start with the word for, it's an explanatory word. This is why this is happening, this is why this is happening, this is why this is happening.
So why is there celebration in verse 3? Why is there so much joy in verse 3? Look at the 4 of verse 4. For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor as in the days of Midian.
The reason for the celebration is liberation. They've been, the yoke that was on their shoulder has been broken. The rod of the oppressor has been shattered just like it was in the day of Midian. So we have celebration.
Why is there celebration? Because there is liberation. There has been this breaking of the bonds. Now how do we account for that? How do we account for that? Well notice the 4 of verse 5. For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise and garments rolled in blood, but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.
Just to understand it a little bit more, the ESV says, for every boot of the tramping warrior in battle, tumult, and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. So what is he saying there?
Here we have not now celebration and liberation, but pacification. There's a complete end of the warfare. There's a complete end of the conflict. You only do the things here when this battle is over. Bows and arrows are gone, swords are gone, but even the boots and the uniforms of the soldiers are burned up.
How do we account for this? How do we account for this pacification, the end of the conflict? Well now we come to the next 4, and that's in verse 6. How does this all happen? This is a shock. For unto us a child is born.
Wow. So we have celebration because there's liberation, and we have this liberation now which has led to pacification, total peace, end of conflict. How does all this take place? Because a child is born.
That's how all of this is going to take place. That seems a bit strange. I think it was Ray Wortland who said that the power of God is so far superior to the Assyrians and all the big shots of this world that he can defeat them by coming as a mere child.
Unto us a child is born. This child is going to make all the difference. This child is going to bring peace to his people. This child is going to bring an end of conflict. This child is, well we're about to learn, he's going to be called the Prince of Peace.
So there's the setting of the prophecy, these verses that lead up to what we want to focus on in verses 6 and 7. But let's think about the subject of the prophecy. Who is this about? If you didn't have the New Testament, would you know who this was about?
Who is this son given? Who is this child born? Well we can thank God that we have the New Testament and it's easy for us to conclude that this is indeed the Lord Jesus Christ. Can we prove it from scripture?
Yes we can. At the beginning of Jesus' public ministry in the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew 4 says, quote, while in Galilee he moved from Nazareth to make his home in Capernaum by the sea in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali, those are the two regions mentioned in verse 1 of our text, so that what was spoken by Isaiah the prophet would be fulfilled.
And then he quotes it. Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light. So this is fulfilled in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christ is the subject of this prophecy. And notice that his ministry begins, Matthew is speaking of the beginning of his public ministry, his ministry begins where God's judgment first fell. You see, armies that would invade the land of Israel would come from the north and they would first enter the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali.
They would always bear the initial brunt of those forces that came in. And there's where we see the Lord Jesus beginning his ministry. God would come to his people first where they had suffered the most.
These areas especially devastated when the Syrian army moved in were especially honored by the ministry of the Lord Jesus. So it's pretty, it's plain to see that Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ is the subject of this prophecy.
Thankfully, Matthew tells us exactly that. But let's get into the substance of the prophecy. You might remember that when Christ began his ministry, he preached about the kingdom of heaven, right? He came offering a kingdom to his people if they would acknowledge him as their king.
And his kingship is emphasized in our text. We read about the government being upon his shoulders. And then verse 7, that his dominion will be vast and that he will rule on David's throne and he will rule over David's kingdom.
The substance of the prophecy centers on a king and his kingdom. Of course, when the Lord Jesus came, he was despised, he was rejected by his own people. He fulfilled many of these Old Testament scriptures in relation to his coming.
But because he was crucified, because he was rejected, there are other parts of these prophecies that have yet to be fulfilled and demand his coming again in order to fulfill them. And we know that he's going to fulfill his word.
There are three things here, though, that we need to focus on. And one is, first we have the introduction of the king. We have the introduction of the king at the beginning of verse 6. Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.
And then we'll see something about the character of the king when we see these titles that are used of him at the end of verse 6, the character of the king. And then we'll see in verse 7 something about the nature of his kingdom, the kind of kingdom that he's going to set up when he returns and comes again.
But first, the introduction of the king, then. Verse 6, unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. A child born. That obviously stresses his humanity.
He would come into this world as a baby. He would be born. He's just like us. He's like us, a child born, stressing his humanity. But he's a son given, which emphasizes his deity. He is not like us. He is divine.
He's the son, the son of God, the son given. He was the only person. Jesus was the only person who existed before he was born. That's hard for us to understand, but it was true. He was the root and offspring of David.
He was the son of David. He was David's Lord. How could that be? He was the seed of Abraham. And yet, you remember that when he was here, he said, before Abraham was, I am. So a son given emphasizes his deity.
A child born emphasizes his humanity. But the government being upon his shoulders points to his sovereignty. He's going to rule. He'll have dominion. He will reign. Humanity, deity, sovereignty, the government would be upon his shoulder.
The word government in Hebrew means the rule of a monarch. In ancient times, it was considered to be a burden to be born on the shoulders of a king, which would be represented by that robe placed on the back and the shoulders of the king.
So they would wear the robe. It was supposed to remind the king of the responsibility that he bore, and it would be weighing down upon him. They were often very heavy. It was meant to remind the king again and again of the great weight of responsibility that was upon him to rule over his people.
We might feel sometimes the government is weighing down upon us, but here's one who's going to come, and he will have the weight of the world on his shoulders, and he will not buckle under its pressure.
He will not fail. He will succeed in everything that he does. He will succeed where all others have failed. But what a marvelous introduction to this king, one who's unlike any other, because he has perfect humanity, and he has full deity, and he has absolute sovereignty.
He is unlike any other ruler who has ever been or who ever will be. And so Isaiah gives us this introduction to the king. Then we have something about the character of the king in these beautiful descriptions at the end of verse 6.
Now I'm going to go through them as if there are four, not five. I know some join together wonderful and counselor, or separate wonderful and then counselor, but I'm going to join them together. So we have a wonderful counselor.
We have a mighty God. We have an everlasting Father. We have the Prince of Peace. He is a wonderful counselor. The word wonderful seems to be an adjective for a counselor. See, anybody can be a counselor.
It's not always wonderful when they act as a counselor, right? You've probably all been given counsel that you wished had not been given to you and wasn't so wonderful. You can go anywhere for advice, but if you want wonderful counsel, if we want wonderful counsel, all we need to do is listen to the words of the Lord Jesus.
He is the wonderful counselor. He already knows everything about those he will counsel. It was John 2 that says of him, right? He knew what was in man. He knew everything that was in man, and he needed no one to testify of man.
He knows all that's in us. If you go to a counselor or a therapist, a counselor will have to ask many, many questions in order to say something, in order to give some sort of counsel that might be able to help you, and the Lord Jesus doesn't need any of these answers because he already knows everything about us.
He doesn't have to hear both sides of a story because he already knows all sides of every story, so we can bring our problems to him. Now, there's a day coming. We see this in the Lord Jesus when he came the first time that he was the wonderful counselor.
We see people coming to him. We see people coming to him for help. We see people coming to him for advice, and he would always speak such words of wisdom, and when people would try to trap him in their words, he would always wisely craft an answer that shows that he is indeed the wonderful counselor.
He knows how to answer everything, but in a day to come when he returns to this earth and sets up his kingdom, he will demonstrate consistently as people come to him that his counsel is indeed wonderful, so he is the wonderful counselor.
Isaiah tells us he's the mighty God, and in that day that he returns to reign upon the earth, he's going to demonstrate that he's the mighty God, but even when he was here, you think of the miracles that he did, the people's lives that were changed.
Every one of those acts, it was a sign. It was demonstrating that he has the power to bring about the promised kingdom in the Old Testament, that he is the chosen one, the promised one, the Messiah, but all of that showed indeed that he was the mighty God.
The day that he returns to reign upon the earth, he's going to demonstrate that he's the mighty God. As a mighty warrior, he will vanquish his enemies. He will take Satan and cast him into the abyss for a thousand years.
His might is unmatched, for his might is that of omnipotence. We will see him coming as that rider upon the white horse, and all of his enemies will be cut down simply by the sword that proceeds from his mouth, as if to suggest that he'll just say something, and that will be enough to render them all helpless and cut them down entirely.
His might is unmatched, for his might is that of omnipotence. But the fact that he is the mighty God also tells me that Christ not only has the ability to counsel us, but that he has the power to change us.
He enables us to change with the counsel that he gives, and there's not a counselor on earth that can do that. We can be thankful for counselors and therapists that tell us certain things and that are a great help to us, but Christ's word, the word that he gives, also has the power to make us different, the power to change us.
He is the mighty God, the mighty God. He's the wonderful counselor. Now the third one is the hardest. He's the everlasting father. Ascribing fatherhood to Jesus is certainly unusual, given that we reserve that for God the Father, but I think the idea here could be paraphrased as maybe something like this.
He's a father forever. He's always a father. He's father-like, and he always is. It never changes. He cares for us all the time, forever, so that this part of his name balances the immediately preceding one.
The mighty God speaks of his power and his might to fight for his people, to defend his people. A father forever speaks of his tenderness and of his care for his people in all circumstances. That's the Lord Jesus, right?
And we see this when he was here. He had compassion on the multitudes. He was always tenderly dealing with those who came to him in need. He's a father forever. It's who he is. It's part of his nature as one who cares for his people, and he will display that again in a coming day when he returns to reign.
Now the last of the four that Isaiah gives us here is that he is also the prince of peace. He's the prince of peace. Who can accomplish what we read about in verse 1? I'm going to read this again, but in the New English translation.
Who can accomplish what we read about in verse 1? The gloom will be dispelled for those who were anxious. Who can do that? A mighty counselor. Who can bring about the victory of verse 4, where the yoke is broken and the enemy is shattered?
The oppressor is defeated? Who can bring about the victory of verse 4? A mighty God. That's who. Who cares so much for his people that he can bring them the joy of verse 3, joy that's mentioned three times?
Who cares so much for his people to bring them this joy? You know who can do it? A father forever. And who can achieve the pacification of verse 5, where there's a total end of conflict altogether? You know who can do this?
A prince of peace. And that's who Isaiah, that's the last description that he gives here in verse 6, that he is the prince of peace. His kingdom on earth will bring peace. There's also, as you know, there's certainly a spiritual aspect to his kingdom.
And those of us who have trusted Christ as Savior, we enjoy peace with God right now. We enjoy peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. I hope you have peace with God. It only comes through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We have spiritual peace, but the day is coming when there really will be peace on earth. It's hard to imagine, but it's going to happen. We won't have a war department. We won't have a secretary of war.
There'll be no Department of Homeland Security with its color-coded charts and threat levels and all of that. No massive annual defense budget will be needed because the prince of peace, Jesus Christ, will be sitting upon his throne.
Maybe you heard the one about the surgeon, the engineer, and the politician. And they were debating which profession of theirs was the oldest. They were all believers, and the surgeon was arguing that his profession was the oldest because God opened Adam's side to form Eve.
And he says, that goes all the way back to Genesis. It goes all the way back to Genesis 2. Okay. Well, the engineer argued that God, the great engineer, worked to establish order from the chaos in Genesis 1.
He must have believed in the gap theory, but he did. He said there was chaos, and then God stepped in as the great engineer with all this chaos. Then the politician chimes in, and he says, well, where do you think the chaos started?
But imagine no chaos. We've seen this in our country, too, haven't we? We've seen it under a democratic republic, which still fails because the people who rule aren't perfect. I think it was Winston Churchill who said, democracy—I'll refrain from trying to use his accent.
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms of government which have been tried from time to time. But imagine no chaos, and no division, and no political parties at odds with each other, no nations at war with one another.
Christ, when he comes, he will come in power to bring that peace about by dealing with his enemies. But he will be, indeed, the Prince of Peace. So Isaiah gives us this beautiful introduction to the king, and then describes the character of the king.
He is the wonderful counselor. He's the mighty God. He's the Father forever. He's the Prince of Peace. But we also have here the nature of his kingdom. What's this kingdom going to be like? Verse 7, of the increase of his government and peace, there shall be no end.
Upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. So it will be an earthly kingdom. It will be an earthly kingdom.
There are people that don't believe that now. They think that it's all spiritual. He's not reigning upon the throne of David in heaven right now. He will reign upon David's throne on the earth in the future.
He will literally fulfill what promises were made to David in 2 Samuel 7, that his house would stand forever, and that he would have a son that would bring these conditions about. It will be an earthly kingdom.
An earthly kingdom. It will be an equitable kingdom. An equitable kingdom. Verse 7 tells us that he will establish this by promoting justice and fairness. It will be an equitable kingdom. Laws will be fair.
Justice will always be done. Justice will always win the day. It will be an equitable kingdom. It will be an expanding kingdom, right? Of the increase of his government and peace, there shall be no end.
So when Christ returns, this is after the rapture now. We're already raptured with Christ in heaven. He's coming back to the earth. His return will be, we're told where, his return will be to the land of Israel.
Zechariah chapter 14 and verse 4 says that his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives when he returns. Psalm 24 tells us that the King of glory will go into the city, Jerusalem, Zion. Lift up your heads, O gates.
Lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. His kingdom will be set up. It will be established there and it will expand until, as the psalmist says, he shall have dominion also from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.
It will be an expanding kingdom. There won't be a place on earth that will not be under the perfect rule of the Lord Jesus Christ. There won't be a place on earth that says, no, we're not going to have him as our king.
No, he's going to be the king. Zechariah says he's going to be king over the whole earth, every bit of it. Praise the Lord. It will be an expanding kingdom. And verse 7 also tells us it will be an eternal kingdom.
To establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. His reign will be everlasting. It's not a four-year term and then there's, who's going to be the next leader? No, it's nothing like that.
Handel had it right. And he shall reign forever and ever. Hallelujah. King of kings and Lord of lords. Yes, he'll reign for a thousand years and he will deliver up the kingdom to the father. First Corinthians 15, that God may be all in all.
The millennium is just the front porch of eternity. He will reign forever and ever. And we say with Handel, hallelujah. Praise the Lord. And so we have the substance of the prophecy itself. The setting of it, the subject, this is God's son, the Lord Jesus, the substance of it, and then finally I want to just say something for a couple of minutes about the sureness of this prophecy.
Verse 6, again, the government shall be upon his shoulder. And now verse, at the end of verse 7, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. I don't know about you. You read these verses and they, wow, they seem to promise a lot.
They seem to promise a bit too much. We might be tempted to be skeptical. Is it really possible that all of this is going to happen? The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform it. It means everything to him.
This is going to happen. Nothing can stop it from coming to pass in the Lord's time. That light is going to shine again. The nation that was in darkness is going to see a great light and they are going to be in utter darkness right before Christ returns to set up his kingdom.
The darkness of the tribulation days, the darkness of the day of the Lord, it will be thick, it will be heavy, and then Christ will come. The light will come and will shine again in the nation. When Christ came the first time, offering to set up his kingdom, he was despised, he was rejected, he was slain.
They put out the light and he hung in supernatural darkness on a cross, but he's coming again. It is guaranteed. God's zeal for the glory of his son will make this happen and no power on earth, no power under the earth will be able to stop it.
Let me just end with a final word of encouragement, beginning of verse 7 again. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end. His kingdom, yet his kingdom is going to increase continually until he reigns over all the earth.
But his kingdom is increasing continually even today in this spiritual sense. Souls are trusting Christ and entering into the kingdom, as Colossians, Paul wrote to the Colossians, entering into the kingdom of his dear son.
And so the impetus is there for us to share the gospel now so that his kingdom increases now. There'll be more, there'll be a part of this glorious kingdom to come. And to any here who are not saved, any here that are not Christians, if you were to receive Christ as savior today, his kingdom would increase a little bit more and your life would change a whole lot more.
All because a child was born and a son was given, that child born was Jesus. And as God's son, he was given for us for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Everyone here today who knows Christ personally, we can say with Isaiah in verse two, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. We have met the light of the world and we know his promise is true.
He that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of light. That light is Jesus Christ, God's son. He's the light of Christmas. He is the light of the world.