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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/murray-mccandless/isaiah-9-6/
Prophecy of Isaiah, please, in chapter 9. It helps us, you know, I know we're very quick to go, and I want to go to verse number 6, but it really helps us to know the kind of the condition of the nation and the scene that is going on when these words are given to us by the prophet Isaiah.
Verse 1,. Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as war and vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. Afterward did more grievously afflict by the way of the sea beyond Jordan and 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 not increased the joy.
They joy before thee according to the joy and harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.
For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise and garments and ruled in blood. But this shall be with the burning and the fuel of fire. Now verse number 6, in spite of all his darknesses, in spite of all looks so bleak and like somebody wants to give up, we read these beautiful words so often quoted, spoken on and ministered from and written.
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. Now notice the comma after wonderful. The word wonderful here is a noun, it is not an adjective.
That's why we have the capitalization of the word wonderful. 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, to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of the house will be performed this. The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it had lighted upon Israel.
It's not a happy scene, nor is it a bright scene, coming from the pen of the prophet Isaiah, as he is going to remind these people of their condition. Isaiah is like all of the prophets, a very, very unique prophet, but he does have some ways in which he is very much like unto Elijah, and maybe even Elisha, and in the New Testament, John the Baptist.
He did not necessarily have a message that was going to be welcomed so much by the people, but nevertheless, he had something to say to them. Such was his message, and such was the character of the man, we would read concerning this man Isaiah, that he would actually walk barefoot with very little clothes on, not necessarily drawing himself, drawing attention to himself, but giving the people something they did not want to believe, and that was this, the barrenness of their condition, the barrenness of their condition.
I think all of us would be agreed in this, brethren and sisters, let's not kid ourselves. There is a barrenness that has beset us today. I know that it were different. There was only one hope for these people, only one hope, and it was not that they would become victorious in battle.
They'd know in victories, they'd know in losses, but there had to come someone. There had to be one that's going to be set forth from his presence that would be to these people as Isaiah would look upon his own country and recognized there was something they needed, and it was comfort and cheer.
You never go wrong, never go wrong at seeking to comfort God's people or to cheer them, okay, because people come to a conference and they're not always riding at a nine out of ten. There's things maybe have come into their lives as we've been reminded in prayer, whether it be health or whether it be conditions relative to the employment or conditions in the assembly that is grieving them, that is pressing them down.
Older believers look back to a day when maybe with first generation Christians, which I work a lot with, when things seem to be so much brighter and so much better. Well, Isaiah is not coming in those early days, but he does refer to them, but he is bringing them up to the present moment, and what he is doing is what happens in chapter six.
When you go back to chapter six, there's a great king and his name is Josiah, King Josiah. I mean, his name stood for movement, his name stood for progress. The whole of the nation, their eyes were on this man, Josiah, and he knew it, unfortunately.
Now another name for him is Azariah, which means help to the Lord, and he was strong as long as he recognized he was being helped of the Lord. But something, however, got into Josiah's thinking that maybe he didn't need the Lord like that, and maybe he didn't have to follow principles that were given, and if he wanted to go in and function as a priest, he was the king, why couldn't he do it?
And you know the sad story that he was smitten with leprosy, and that's the way that he died. Isaiah confesses as a prophet in chapter six that my eyes were looking at him too. I was taken up with him.
I got swept away in it. It was very easy, very easy for those of us that seek to help God's people and preach the gospel, minister amongst them, to get swept away with the current of the day. But something brought Isaiah back to reality, and it was the year that King Josiah died.
Now he's got no Josiah to look for. He says, I saw the Lord. I saw the Lord. Suddenly the woes that were pronounced upon the people, he turns them and pronounces them upon himself. The best of the prophets were born before, after many of the difficulties in the nation had happened, but notice they will identify themselves with the weakness of the day.
I stand here today to confess to you that whatever weaknesses that we have today in testimony, I am part of that. I have contributed to it. I might not like to think that, but that's the truth. And if that doesn't send you to your knees to realize that we have failed, brethren, if we could send to a coming generation condition of testimony that was handed to us, we'd say, praise the Lord, but we're not doing it.
Do you know why? Our eyes have got off of this mighty God, this everlasting Father, this Prince of Peace. And just as you go back to chapter six and you link the two chapters together, and I'm not going to take the time to do that this afternoon, you would see that there comes a refocusing of things.
Isn't it a time that we kind of refocused? I said, we're all right. That's okay for you. What are you talking about? You know what I'm talking about. A time when we started to look with focused lens upon what the Word of God says, not what I like.
You know, he saw the spiritual darkness that enveloped many parts of the nation, especially in the north around the Sea of Galilee. He saw that darkness. Here was a man was in touch with what is going on.
I'm not responsible for the work of God at large in this sense. I have a vineyard. I have an area to which I believe that God has raised me up and has sent me to. Primarily, that is my responsibility.
I'm not expected to keep vineyards that are not mine. But at the same time, I am called upon to be fellow workers in the ultimate vineyard of God. I have to be very, very careful that I don't just kind of blindside what's going on and say, fine, and become, can I use the word, indifferent to it.
Just indifferent to it. Know what kind of an attitude that is? Well, so what? What did they expect? But to be sympathetic with it and to realize that, hey, just like in the Church of the Revelation, there are those here and there, and they want better than what they've got.
And younger people, find God for younger couples, younger believers that we have here and amongst us and now where we come from. And they want right things. And they want what this book teaches. And they want to get refocused and stay focused.
Every now and then, it doesn't matter what kind of, I don't work a lot with lenses or binoculars and these sort of things, but I do know this much about them, the very best of them. They have what they call, in some of them, autofocus.
Must be nice, you don't have to touch them. When it comes to what we're talking about, there's no autofocus. You're responsible, brother. There's no use trying to kid ourselves. We've got to get right clear to exactly what he is speaking about.
You know, see, the area, of course, had been conquered. The people, this would go back, of course, to 1 Kings chapter 15. The situation looked hopeless. The darkness of spiritual death. But Isaiah sees a light.
He sees a light break forth. And that's where he begins here in verse number six. Interesting. This Assyrian army was waiting in arms, not just to take the northern kingdom, but to sweep through and take the south too.
Wipe the whole thing out. As in Josiah's day, King Josiah, what a marvelous recovery. What a marvelous restoration. Lasted 17 years, not even a generation. All it took was a marriage. All it took was a marriage of his son, Jehoiakim, was it?
To marry Jezebel's daughter, Athaliah. And idolatry swept in like a flood. This man saw the dangers of that without approaching Assyrian army. He realized that God was going to use that army to deal with his people.
But Isaiah knew that the days of this northern kingdom were numbered, but the southern kingdom was in trouble too. Okay? Not just Ephraim, as in his term later on, but Judah as well. You see, we live in a world today, and it's the conservatives, and it's the liberals.
And I'm not going to go into political names here today, but you know what I'm talking about. Isn't it sad that that same kind of sentimentality, that same type of mentality can creep in among us? Well, you know, after all, you can't be that straight-laced, and you can't be this, and you can't be that.
Oh, can't you? Can't you? Brings me to my verse. Let me get on with this. Verse number six. In spite of all this going on, those further, earlier verses. Here's the, you know, if you read commentaries, I like to read them and see what people have in them, and beg, borrow, steal.
If I like it, if I don't, whatever. Everybody races into this passage, and as far as I'm concerned, and I've not written any commentary, so I'm not condemning men that have. But very quickly, of course, on why not they want to get unto the child that is born, but they forget what I think is the most important phrase in the chapter, and it is this.
Unto us. Well, you see, that's, we have the same thing, Luke's gospel. No, we don't. No, we don't. Do what I have to do at times. Brush myself up. Read our Bible carefully. Luke's gospel does not say unto us.
Unto you. Unto you is born, this day in the city of David, a Savior, Jesus Christ, who is Lord. Unto you, says the angels, or angel, whatever way you want to take it. But this is the prophet speaking, and the prophet says, unto us.
Why doesn't the angel say in Luke's gospel, unto us? Because he couldn't include himself. Angels could know nothing of redemption. They could know nothing of God's grace. So at the best, the angels speaking, I'm not speaking despairingly of angels or their testimony of what they testified, but at the best, in Luke chapter 2, the angels are spectators.
Who are they speaking to? In the context, brethren, who are they speaking to? Gentiles. And so they say, unto you. Yes, you too. Unto you is born, this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
But when I come to Isaiah chapter 9 here, listen to what he says. Unto us a child is born. Isaiah's just not an interested spectator. Do you know Isaiah is really here when you come to this passage? Well, he becomes a grateful beneficiary of the fact that it was unto us.
And I think in the context of Isaiah chapter 6, primarily he is speaking of the nation. It's in a national sense. But I have no problem taking it wider than that and believing that it is in a global sense when I link the two passages together.
So here we are today in 2018 at the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Conference, and isn't it wonderful, brethren, to say or to sing and shout and talk about that unto us is born a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
But let's come back to what the prophet says. Unto us, unto us a child is born. A son is given. Now it's been well pointed out. Unto us a child is born. That's his humanity. A son is given. That's his deity.
He was never a child before Bethlehem. Never. But he was a son long before Bethlehem. So that tells me of his deity. But it's lovely the order in which the Spirit of God gives it to this prophet, and he in turn by God gives it to us.
Unto us a child is born. A picture of the absolute dependency of our Lord. Dependency. We live in a world of independence. Nobody wants to be dependent. We had one of our boys, the oldest, and yeah, he was too big now.
He was all of five years old. He didn't need mom's hand crossing the street in St. Thomas one day. So his sister, he pulls it out and runs out. Bam! Car put him right down. He's right underneath the car.
And so man stops, gets out and dragged him out. He got up and dusted himself off. They're going to the shoe company across the street. And he was more interested in getting all cleaned off. And he sat down in the shoe store and the big mirrors.
He looked across. He saw his mother and his sister Joan crying. He said, what are you crying for? They said, Alan, you could have been killed. He said, I'm all right. Independence. I speak to someone today and that's you in the assembly.
We're going to get to it in a minute. Government for you? I don't need government. I'm going to come to that and tell you that all of us need government, including the one standing on this platform just now.
Unto us a child is born. Isn't it sweet to think of the dependency, the absolute dependency of the Christ of God to an earthly mother. So dependent he was. And yet to think that the worlds, the far flung worlds were dependent on him.
As often said, quoted, no less almighty at his birth than on the throne supreme, his shoulders upheld heaven and earth while Mary upheld him. He was never a child before. Mary would give him sustenance.
He sustained the world. What a marvelous child is born. He thought that's what she had when her firstborn came, but she learned sadly very quickly that he was not the promised one. Isaiah knows who the promised one is.
He's made no mistake. She would wrap him in swaddling clothes, but he wrapped the creation in swaddling bands of darkness and would command the light to come out of it. Unto us a child is born. Isn't it wonderful, brethren, to think that he came into the world.
Listen, Adam didn't come into the world that way. Adam came into this world a full-grown man. He did not come looking like some undernourished, I'm speaking reverently, undernourished teenager and God would say, okay, get on with your vegetarian diet and you'll hopefully grow and you'll make all right.
Not at all. God made his first man the same way that he has made every new creation in a man since. Remember what the Lord Jesus says to the man at the pool, will thou walk now? What's he say to him? Will thou be made whole?
If he's made whole, he can walk. Unfortunately, we likely have amongst us some that can't walk because they've never made whole. They cannot carry their bed because their sins have never been forgiven them.
It doesn't matter what they tell you. There's something genuine and real about God's salvation and the evidence becomes very, very clear. Unto us a child is born. A son is given. A picture of absolute deity.
The ancient of days, the self-existing one, because he was a son from all eternity. So it's not a son, of course, that is born. It is a son that is given. That's the way that John introduces him of the Holy Spirit.
The son that is given. Don't you thank God. Isn't that what we were doing this morning, brethren and sisters? We were thanking God that a son was given. Son wasn't withheld. There's no son in reserve with him.
Not like Abraham, who we've just been hearing about. Abraham had a son in reserve, if you like. Not the one that we worship this morning. He didn't give much. He gave everything. He sent forth his son.
So unto us a child is born. A son is given. His humanity, his deity. The government shall be upon his shoulder. It proved too much for Adam. The government was placed, in a sense, not in the entirety like it was on the Lord, was placed on the shoulder, shoulders maybe, of Adam, but he failed it.
Same with Noah. Same with Noah. I mean, what a sad thing to think that Noah will literally go through the deluge of judgment and come out the other side. And my, who would have known that about Noah? I mean, enough to thank God that his family is saved.
Your family's saved today, brother. Maybe you're like my father-in-law when he was living. We were having meetings, and the two girls, I married the one, Shirley, and the man I was working with, my father-in-law said to them all, he said, Dave, he said, if, you know, if just Henry would get saved, we'd just complete everything.
He said, the girls are saved, and Joyce and I are saved, and he said, if Henry would get saved, and you know what Dave would say? Well, he said, wouldn't that be nice, Mr. God? So then you'd be able to stop living for the Lord.
That was a little rough, really. That happens. That happens. Listen, Father. Listen. I speak to you as a father and a grandfather. Somewhere I've got to get to an age where I can speak with some little bit of experience.
Don't you do, don't you do what Lot did. You know what Lot did in his life? He did something that caused his sons to walk in a wrong direction. They walked backward. My, it's nice. It's always a cheer.
It's a joy when sons are walking in the right direction. It's a heartbreak when they're walking backward. Don't you do something, don't allow something in your life. Why come to the end of it? And what do you read of Lot after that?
The man that sailed the sea so victoriously, so used of God. Isn't it interesting when it comes to David? After what happened with David, I don't even like to mention what happened with David. Very little do you read of David after that.
I know he wrote Psalms that broke his heart and breaks our hearts when we read them. Boy, do we not say, brethren, all of us today, preserve me, O God, from thee do I trust. Here was the dependent one.
Here's the child that was born. Here's the son that was given. Now, further than that, the government shall be upon his shoulder. Okay? I would take that further, the just universal government. Okay? You may disagree with me.
Okay. I've had that happen before. I believe from Hebrews chapter 13, ultimate government in your assembly still rests with him. I am expected as a minister of this word, you as an overseer, the underroar as it is given, is expected to move, taking your orders from the man above, with whom all government rests.
The government shall be upon... His government doesn't fail because testimonies fail. Because things happen and testimonies fail doesn't mean that his testimony fails and his government has failed. God never fails us, brethren.
We fail him. So he said, the government shall be upon his shoulder. No wonder the wonder of his name, the wonder of his person. So dear brethren, as hard as it is at times and things that you have to face, I know nothing about.
You can bow by your bed at night, maybe sometimes in tears, feeling that you have failed and who hasn't failed. Ultimately, government is upon his shoulder. I sat down at a recent conference with a situation.
I'm not going to relay it to you. I just had to tell these two young couples, back off, back away. First Corinthians chapter 11, government ultimately rests with God. And when that under government doesn't act, the ultimate government will act in due time.
Without going into details, I know two grandfathers right now, one and both in heaven. What broke those men that bucked their brethren and bucked this and bucked that, you know what broke them? Following the hearse with the grandchild in it.
I had to speak to a young sister. It wasn't easy because I got grandchildren too. I said to that dear sister, listen, one trip to the graveyard was enough, was it not, dear? Not another one, not another one.
Now it's a case of things going wrong in the marriage. I just want to tell you what it is. But ultimate government. With me, that's a tremendous thing. There's certain things that happen. And that's why Paul, this is not with the apostles, he just rested that the Corinthians are coming at him and even Ephesus are starting to question him in first Timothy chapter one.
Okay. And he says, I obtained mercy because I did it in ignorance and unbelief. And so he goes to the Corinthians, not mockingly, but he says this, it's a small thing that I've judged of you. Really it is.
It's a small thing. He says, God judges me. Brethren, fellow servants, overseers today, God will judge. Good for us all to keep that in mind. So he says, government shall be upon his shoulder. Wonderful counselor.
You know what that tells me? There's problems you can't solve. Leave it with God. Leave it with God. Leave it with the one who is the wonderful counselor. It does not take us back to Genesis chapter 32 and said unto him, what is thy name?
He says, Jacob. That's honesty, isn't it? That's what it comes to. Wonderful counselor. Very quickly, the mighty God. You know, I was thinking the other day, heathen gods have got to be carried. Man's got his God.
He's got to carry it. Come on. We as Christians can get gods and we got to look after them. We got to carry them. We got to do this and make sure this, and then something comes in and poof, the God is gone.
This mighty God carries us. This mighty God carries us. Those gods of wood and stone, and I'm speaking of the basics, they carry nobody. Wonderful today to knowing that underneath are the everlasting arms.
God carries us. That is wonderful truth. None of those prophets could have survived. The apostle Paul would never have got to the day. None of them would have. They would have fainted by the way if they didn't keep their focus on the one that Isaiah is talking about.
Then he says, everlasting father. What do you mean by everlasting father? Well, just think, I would think it this way. You may say again different. If there were children before the foundation of the world, okay, let me go slow with this.
If there were children before the foundation of the world, did it not mean necessary, it necessitated them having a father. So that's why the prophet sees that. The everlasting father. That's John chapter 17.
Never ceased to be that. No matter what happens in my life, no matter what I do, no matter, he's still my father and I can address him as such. So I would look at it like this. Wonderful, that's his person.
Counselor, prudence, okay. Wonderful, that's his person. Counselor, prudence, mighty God, his power. His power buys in that we're looking forward stout to see a mighty work of God and power come in and literally blast those children out and the older ones coming too, out of the darkness of their sin, out of the quarry of human nature, and see them raised, stones put into that building, and to be able to come back sometime and break bread with them and say, hey, I remember when I prayed for you there, that little prayer.
Hey, how about we go into the prayer meeting? You want the prayer meeting, brother? I'm talking about stout right now. And we say, well, I'm, what? You're not farming. You get the prayer meeting. Don't forget the one after too.
Sure, I'd like to go home and hold my wife's hand and put a record on too. Go to the prayer meeting first. That can come later. Wesley Martin was over, I must tell you this. Amazing, things come into your mind up here.
Wesley Martin was over from the north of Ireland, was a very good help to us in the Bridgewater Conference. So I want a picture of Wesley and his wife standing together and myself and Shirley. So the four of us are standing.
I have the pictures right on my phone. I can show it to you. Wesley's holding her hand. So later he comes and he says, hey, McCandless, what happened to you? He says, don't you hold her hand? So I got over that.
Oh, come on. Of course, the women were all beating me up on that one. I said, well, okay, we did, but not in public. Wesley, come on, you got to know me. Next day is Sunday. I said to him, where's your wife?
He said, I lost her. I said, you lost her? Weren't you holding her hand yesterday in the picture? And you've lost Karen already? I said, I haven't lost Shirley. She's right beside me. I didn't have to hold her hand for her to be right where she was the day I married her.
So brethren, listen, put everything into it. Put everything into it because there's one who is the mighty God. Everlasting Father. I know if there was children, there had to be a father. But when I think of a father, you know what I think of?
Pity. Pity. As strict as we want to be with them, I have to admit to you, I have more pity for my grandchildren than I did for my own. They know what to, you know, if they get hurt, I see, I worry more about them.
Something happened to them. I did about Joan, Alan, Tim, and Sarah. Okay. I was just, I don't know what happened there, but there was something that happened. But now those little ones, come on, you grandparents know that.
You got soft too. Now mind you, I get soft, but I have to remind them now when they come to my house, hey, this isn't home. This is grandpa's house. You go pick that coat up. You don't throw those shoes like that.
Straighten them up. Okay. But the same side, the father, there's pity. The father's pity. Now I'll just give it to you. The Prince of Peace. There's your word. Peace. See some of you are writing down.
I'll just give them to you one more time. Wonderful is person. Counselor is prudence. Mighty God is power. Everlasting Father is pity. Prince of Peace, his peace. Wonderful is his person. Counselor is his prudence.
Mighty God is power. Prince of Peace is his peace. I would say to you today, brothers and sisters, as I take my seat, hallelujah. What a Savior.