I picked this because I thought it made a pretty fitting follow-up to what we looked at this morning. In fact, in the New Geneva Study Bible, which is the version that I use, it says at the bottom of it that the good news is the birth of Jesus Christ. The four royal names expresses divine and human qualities, giving assurance that he is indeed Emmanuel. We'll look at that for a few minutes, Lord willing, here. I want to read to you verses 6 and 7, a very, very familiar passage to us all in which we read, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful. Counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. Upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it with justice, judgment, and justice from that time forward even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. As I've said, this is one of the more familiar passages, I suppose, in the Western world, as was the one this morning. And I think that that is probably as much as anything because of its being made musically immortal by Handel's Messiah. Now, it has been reinterpreted musically by being attached to a whole lot of different tunes over the years, but all of them pale in comparison to Handel's Messiah. To be quite honest, I've always wondered why anybody would want to create new music for this text, unless it is to give credit to Handel by admitting with one's own handiwork that he cannot come near it in terms of majesty and quality. Anyway, the world had looked forward to the fulfillment of God's promise since the time of Genesis 3. The prophecy of a seed of woman who would crush the head of the seed of Satan had been developed over the passing of the years as the world neared the fullness of time, such as we looked at this morning. And Isaiah's prophecy here is one of those strands, and I would like to look at this these two verses this evening under three heads. A child is born, a son is given, and a king is enthroned. Now there's not a whole lot of whiz-bang alliteration there, I'll admit, but I do think that we will stick pretty close to the text using these. So first of all, a child is born The birth and subsequent life of Jesus was truly both ordinary and extraordinary. We see the ordinary characteristic of it in Hebrews, the second chapter, verse 17. Let me read it. Therefore, in all things, he had to be made like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God. to make propitiation for the sins of the people. In all things, all things, he had to be made like his brethren. He was born of a human woman, as we saw this morning, and quite frankly, it was a very normal human woman, except for the fact of the way she conceived. And he grew up according to what we call the laws of nature, and he, that is, He died, grew up, lived and died just like everybody else. We see the extraordinary character of his birth and life in Luke 1, particularly verses 34 and 35 where we read, Mary said, how can this be since I don't know a man? And the angel answered and said to her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you. Power of the highest will overshadow you. Therefore, the Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. That's pretty extraordinary. Jesus' conception was certainly unique. It came about as a direct result of the Holy Spirit's miraculous work in her body. And furthermore, as we are taught in Scripture, Jesus was God, and so He was preexistent. All other people come into being at a certain time, at least according to those of us who don't believe in the pre-existence of the soul, they come into being at a certain time in history. But God the Son simply took on another nature, which Mary, when he was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. He was, as we saw this morning, both God and man. He was Immanuel, Im-nu-el, three Hebrew words, with us God, in that order, Im-nu-el, which we anglicize to Immanuel. This was necessary that he be Immanuel for three reasons. First of all, it was necessary because it was man who had sinned, and therefore it had to be a man who paid the penalty for sin. However, no man could pay enough of a price to pay even for his own sin, much less those of many, many other people. And so he also had to be God, because the payment had to be of such a nature that only God himself could pay it. The sin was that big. Secondly, it was necessary for him to be our mediator. He represented man to God as mediator. No one individual man could possibly mediate that well, just to put it very plainly. No one could be good enough to stand before God and mediate on behalf of millions and millions of other people, not even of himself. And third, in a word then, Jesus was God's saving emissary and man's savior advocate. He came to save people by paying their penalty in full. And he continues to represent his people even as we speak. So this was not just any child who was born. This was not just some of the world's greatest prodigy, such as would be the case with a super duper Beethoven or a Bach. It was not one just fated by the stars to be great such as some believe about the Dalai Lama, for instance. He was not just one with some natural personality traits that he would have that would have such a profound impact on humanity, such as a Gandhi. He was not someone who just happened to be at the right place at the right time with the right message and just the right talents, such as would be the case with Martin Luther. No, this was no less. than God himself, who became man in every respect. There was no other way to explain his impact on the world, and there is no other interpretation allowed by scripture. This child who was born was truly Emmanuel, Emmanuel, with us God. Secondly, we see here that as he is described, a son is given. The incarnation was a tremendous act of condescension and generosity on the part of the Father, the Heavenly Father. He gave his son. Man did nothing to deserve to have such a gift given. God did not have to do it, except that It was the only way to save the rebellious sons of men, the basis upon which he would grant them salvation. I heard someone say in Oklahoma one time, with reference to that idea about God having to do something, in Oklahoma one time I heard a man say that God created man because he was lonely. Perhaps you might have heard that from someone at some time. God, poor old God up there in heaven, didn't have anybody to hang out with except the other two persons of the Trinity, so he just had to make something so he wouldn't be lonely. Such theological ignorance is hard to comprehend specifically when it comes from someone who was supposed to receive messages directly from God on a regular basis, as this guy claimed to do. But to suppose that there was some need within God which would cause him to have to save a portion of mankind would be equally as ignorant a statement. God saves not because of any fellowship need within himself, but simply because God is gracious. He is gracious. He gives good to those who do not deserve it. The gift began long before the actual incarnation. We see that in 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1 verse 20, where we read, He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but is now manifest in these last times for you. This started before the first rock, ever came into being. This was an eternity past that this was all decided. Particularly before Genesis 3, there we begin to see the revelatory outworking of the covenant which was made before creation. But the plan was already there. In fact, before creation it was there to save individual souls. We read that in Ephesians 1-4. before the creation of time, we were ordained, those of us who are or will be saved, ordained to be so. It culminated in God's becoming Emmanuel, with us, God. God the Son was given in His birth. He was given in His death. He was given in His resurrection. And it is still given to all who will receive it every day. This is plainly stated in what must surely be the most, at least one of the two or three best known passages of Scripture, of course, John 3.16. For God so loved the world, so loved the world, that was the reason, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. I do not see how anyone in our culture could live for any period of time and say that he has not heard the gospel. Everybody has heard that, and that is the most, I suppose, encapsulated, distilled expression of the gospel which exists. God loved the world. He gave his son to save it. This was a costly, costly gift indeed. It involved great humiliation, as we saw this morning. It involved the creators becoming a creature in every respect except for that of sin. He had even to endure the effects of sin in his own body. That is, he got tired, he got hungry, he had to suffer hardships, he was being subject to health problems. All of those things which cause us to describe this existence as a veil of tears. And he did these things not for himself. He did them for his people, people who were hopeless and helpless apart from his grace. He endured the ultimate expression of wrath, that of the withdrawal of God's presence as he hung on the cross. In gracious love to us, God the Father turned his wrath upon his own son, the only one who was worthy to pay your penalty. The son who was given was truly Emmanuel, with us, God, Imnu El. Third and finally, a king is enthroned. And we're told in this passage that the government will be upon his shoulders. And that, I think, has pretty far-reaching implications. Some 2,000 years later, do we not see this happening in many, many places before our very eyes? To be sure, it is easy to look around us and open the newspaper some particular moment in time and believe that the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket. That's easy enough to see. Things are falling apart in Washington. Things are blowing up in the Middle East. And we wonder, how in the world can anyone say that things are getting better? But when we take a point of view which is instructed by history and also which is instructed by the Word of God, looking at it from the perspective of our Father in Heaven, I think we see something quite different. Consider, if you will, the Bible is now translated into many, many different languages. Who knows how many there are yet to go? Not nearly as many as have been done, I know that. Who can doubt that the Christian faith is moving seemingly inexorably as it covers the earth, as the waters cover the sea, to use the prophecy of Habakkuk. Lives are changed in every land. People flock to hear the gospel and respond in country after country, and we may see Here in our part of the United States, small churches shriveling and dying in town after town. Yes, it's happening, but that doesn't mean that the kingdom is shriveling and dying. Because there are places around this world where people are coming by scores of thousands. The largest Muslim country on earth, Indonesia, is exploding with Christian converts. Rick Canada comes to Presbyterian every now and then after his trips over there and tells us about things that are just miraculous that are taking place in terms of the numbers of people that are coming to Christ in, again, the largest Muslim country on earth. Places we never hear about on the evening news in this context are having the same thing happen over and over. Where the effort has been made to extinguish the gospel flame, it seems in most places to burn even brighter. As Christianity grows, Satan, realizing the end result, becomes more and more aggressive. And so today, even in our own country, we see a militant atheist movement around the globe and here as well, as people who deny even God's existence come out of the closet and disparage us believers as fools and crazy and everything else that is not good. Great mercy ministries, hospitals, orphanages, soup kitchens, refuges for battered children and women and so forth, based upon compassion, instructed by Christian mindset, has sprung up all around the world and continue to do so. Conditions are better than ever for most of humanity. except for a few places, most notably, ironically, in Africa, and particularly many areas dominated yet by Islam, slavery, which was once commonplace, has just about been eradicated. Championing the basic right of humanity is becoming more and more acceptable around the world, whereas once it was denied that there even was such a thing. In the areas of science and medicine, Many, if not most, of the great strides which our present practices are based upon and upon which they build were made by Christians as they worked through a worldview interpreted through the eyes of the Christian faith, not through godless atheism and its chaotic worldview, evolutionism. Jesus reigns in lives today and is changing the world daily. Is there really anyone in this room or anywhere else that would like to return to the good old days where infant mortality was common, where people didn't go to the dentist who also doubled as a barber and there just to get their teeth pulled, where standards of hygiene were low and produced diseases, and where it took hours and hours of labor to produce a product that can be produced now in minutes by a machine. Does anyone really want to go back to the days when pennies were pinched because they were so precious, because there were so few of them to go around? Do we want to go back to the days when all of us, or many of us in here, grew up and the only thing we had to cool us at night in the summer was an open window with, if we were really fortunate, an attic fan, which got turned off because it burned too much electricity. Hopefully we were already asleep by then. Who would like to go back to those days? But how, almost everything that is technologically advanced has come as a result of the mindset which says this world is an orderly world made by an orderly God and it has orderly laws which can be utilized for the well-being of mankind and many, many, many of those were Christians. Economics, medicine, hygiene, human rights, freedoms, and so many other things that we take for granted came about, not exclusively, I will admit, but in large part by Christians and the promulgation of the gospel, which sees the individual as having dignity before God, being noble, and who should be free to pursue his God-given rights and duties. Yes, I would submit to you that Jesus is reigning He is raining and he is covering the earth as the waters cover the sea. And you know how waters cover the sea? Deep and wide. That's how the kingdom is progressing. His kingdom is expanding. And of it there shall be no end. There are, to be sure, there are still battles to fight, no question about that. There are still whole nations which are held in darkness by Islam, whole cultures which are Shinto, Hindu, and many other expressions of paganism. But the earth as a whole is so much better because the king rules from on high. Without the influence of his people, of the Christian faith, of the church in which the king rules through his servants, believers, it would simply have been impossible to make strides that have been made, that have made our lives the pleasant things that they are on earth. Now, if anyone thinks that I have made too much of the influence of Christianity in the secular world, I would invite him to study those cultures which have been held in bondage by non-Christian religions for centuries. See where they are in terms of human rights. See where they wind up as they work themselves out. Just one that I think of that comes immediately to mind is the American Revolution versus the French. The American Revolution had a theological base to it, and it was pretty much Calvinistic, if you want to know the truth. And as a result, it saw man as noble a man as someone who ought to be free to develop himself and his life and his family and his goods to the glory of God, it also saw him as fallen. We call it that total depravity in our tradition. And so there were some laws necessary to restrain him. And out of that we have free market capitalism in which the primary motive is not greed but self-interest and the well-being of others. And when someone understands that, self-interest means I sell my product for less than my competitor and that means that I can sell more of it and that it benefits the person I get it. Contrast and compare that with the French Revolution which enthroned reason as its goddess and which turned out to to be evidenced by what is known as the reign of terror, where hundreds and thousands of people were decapitated for who knows what reason. I don't think that we have made too much of this. See where non-Christian cultures are in terms of human rights, philanthropy, compassion, as well as these technical advances. So, as I said, this business of Jesus' reign has pretty far-reaching implications. But also, Jesus reigns more personally to us in the sense that His kingdom is expanding always in the hearts of His people. He reigns in the hearts of those who are His people. And that is how one can tell that He is one of His people. They're different. Their ethics, their language, their family lives are different from those around them who are not his people. They live and they reside under the lordship of Jesus, their king. And finally, there is one other way in which he is their king, and that is that he is behind all movements, courses, crusades, machinations, and operations of this world. He is sovereign. He is in control. It is all perfectly in sync with his direction, as difficult as that may be for you and me to see sometimes. And it is, I'll acknowledge it. He is not yet acclaimed by all, by any stretch of the imagination. He is not yet acknowledged by all. But the time will come when the vast majority of mankind will bow the knee and the neck and proclaim Him as what He is, the Son who became the King, Emmanuel, with us, God. And this brings us to our conclusion. Jesus, as we've said this morning and as we've said this evening, was born a human, a complete, total, full human in every way except for sin. He was God who became man. He was given to us as a gift, and this was an expression of God's free grace. And He is King today. He sits on His throne today. All will acknowledge His Lordship one day. At some time in history. A time yet to be revealed in the future. But it will come. I am convinced of it. Of course, Ultimately all will, down to the last man, woman, and child alive or that ever did live. And we call that the Judgment Day. Even those who are about to be thrown into hell will acknowledge Him as Lord at that time. Not in saving trust, but they will not be able to do otherwise. We call that day, as I've said, Judgment Day. When Christ will come again. He won't come again as a tender baby. He won't come as an apparently defeated rebel, as the Roman Empire thought, but he will come as the awesome judge of all mankind, to separate the sheep from the goats, the righteous from the wicked, and to set matters straight as he judges those who persecuted his elect. And that, quite frankly, makes our lot worthwhile. As we celebrate Christmas day after tomorrow, I do hope that in the midst of all the busyness of the day, we will pause and think for a moment upon Jesus, who he was, what he did, what he has yet to do, and that we will thank God for his gift to us, his people, for his gift to the world. in giving us all the greatest gift possible. Emmanuel, God with us. Let us pray. Oh God, our Father in heaven, we thank you for the greatest gift which has ever been given. And that of course is the gift of your son, our Lord Jesus. Father, may we, as we grow older, Appreciate that gift more and more and more all the time that we might live more and more as we should as we bow before His sovereignty. May His Lordship in our lives be expressed more and more as we grow in grace. Do not leave us to ourselves, O God, but may your Holy Spirit move in our hearts to turn our minds and our hearts to your lordship in our lives. May we be more diligent than we have been to read our Bibles, which you have given us to as an expression of your will. May we be more diligent to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to love you with our whole heart, soul, mind, body, and strength. Oh God, we pray that as we come upon this day that we call Christmas, we would remember above all else the greatest gift ever given to mankind, that of Immanuel, God with us. Thank you, O Lord, for hearing our prayer, for speaking to us, and for causing us to be your people. We pray all this.