In 2012, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC, published a documentary that was called The World's Top 10 Richest Songs. These were the highest money-making songs ever around the world. Now, did you know that three of the top 10 highest-earning songs in the world are Christmas songs? In 1934, a publisher in New York City approached a lyricist by the name of Haven Gillespie, and he said to Gillespie, You know, I think you have a vocabulary that children understand. I think he meant that as a compliment. But anyway, he went on and he said, I would like for you to write a Christmas song. So Gillespie sat down and he got together with a collaborator, J. Fred Coots, And it took Gillespie about 15 minutes to scribble the lyrics on the back of an envelope. And it didn't take his collaborator, J. Fred Coutts, very much longer to compose the melody of the song that we all know, Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Now that song has made $27 million. The Gillespie and the Cootes families have a copyright on it until the year 2029. And so every time you hear it, they make a little bit of money. Now the second song that also appears in this top 10 list as a Christmas song here, it was also written in 1934. It was written by a jazz musician. His name was Mel Torme. and he called it The Christmas Song. You're probably just as familiar with this song, chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose. Now here's what fascinates me about the song. He wrote it in the middle of a blistering Los Angeles summer. I can assure you there were no chestnuts roasting on an open fire and there wasn't any Jack Frost nipping his nose. Mel said that it took him about 45 minutes to write the song. He's made about $20 million from it. So Mel Torme, who is Jewish, has profited greatly from the Christmas holiday. But neither of these two songs are the highest selling on this list. The world's top 10 richest songs. Now, the highest song that happens to be a Christmas song on that list is actually number two on the list. The second highest money-making song in the world And it has made more than $30 million. Now this one was written in 1940 by a Jewish immigrant from Russia by the name of Irving Berlin. It was sung by a young man who was nicknamed Bing. And by now you know what song I'm speaking of, don't you? That's right, White Christmas. And I'm sure some of you might even be picturing the album cover of that song being smiling and wearing a red felt cap with a white pom-pom on its tip. I realize none of these top songs portray the real meaning of Christmas. that God came to earth? Emmanuel, God with us. But they have become such a part of everyone's Christmas memories. Personally, I get a little annoyed. No, I get very annoyed. Every year, just after Thanksgiving, when my favorite contemporary Christian radio stations which I turn on to edify my spirit. To edify my spirit with the truth of God. Weeks before Christmas, they'll abandon their normal format and they'll focus so many on these top 10 songs. Every now and then, fine, but it's like a lot. that they have them on. There's no biblical message in them. And it's all this slow, somber music like the type you'd hear in an elevator or sitting in a dentist chair to relax you. Now, I get it. I'm not truly Scrooge. Christmas is a time of celebration and these songs, without any Christian truth or meaning, they do bring a sense of joy to so many people, Christians included. They elicit strong emotions and nostalgia. But here's the thing. This is why I'm bringing all this up. Songs have power, don't they? Songs have power to move us. Often a song gets stuck in my mind, it just loops over and over. Yesterday I woke up, of all things on my mind was, she'll be coming around the mountain when she comes. Where did that come from? I have no idea. But songs, they do. They get stuck in our minds and, you know, they have power to move us. They compel us to act. They even have power to change our mood. Sometimes we're in a bad mood. And we hear or we think about a song and suddenly we see that things are beginning to change. Now, this must be why one philosopher wrote, let me write the songs of a nation. I do not care who writes the laws. Wow. He was observing that a nation's songs have more influence on people than the nation's laws. Songs do have power. Songs have power to bring hope when there is no hope, to bring joy when there is no joy, to bring light in the midst of darkness, freedom in the midst of bondage. Think for a moment about the most oppressed, severely marginalized and deprived communities of our nation's history. My mind goes back to the pre-Civil War period of the mid-1800s in the southern states of America. The plantation slaves survived by singing and dreaming about their ultimate destiny. Heaven. Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home. In the midst of hardship, strife and suffering, God gave this special group of his children songs for them to get through the hard nights and the days of cruel injustice. God gave them songs of anticipation, songs of hope, songs that mourning will come. All of this shows me that songs have power. And this theme that songs have such power brings me to our text for today. Isaiah chapter nine. It's not a letter. It's not a story. It's not a vision. It is a song. It's one of the very first Christmas carols. Now, unlike the top-selling Christmas songs of today, this contains a lot of truth. It can be very well titled, and I will call it, The Thrill of Hope. So let's turn now to Isaiah 9, 1 through 7, and I don't know if you have noticed, but typically I have a black Bible up here. It's an ESV version. I'm gonna be reading through the NIV, because I'm in the Older Testament. I like the NIV best in the Older Testament. So I'm gonna be reading from the NIV. This is Isaiah 9, verses 1 through 7. Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past, he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. But in the future, he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles by way of the sea along the Jordan. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light on those living in the land of the shadow of death. A light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy. They rejoice before you as people rejoice at harvest, as men rejoice when dividing the plunder. For as in the day of Midian's defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them. the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. Every warrior's boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. For to us, a child is born. To us, a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders, and he 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. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. Our God loves his people so much that he really wanted to communicate an important hope. He wanted to have the strongest impact. The greatest influence. So he gave us a song. Some of you might have heard in your mind the melody that George Friedrich Handel put to this scripture back in 1741. Handel's cantata called The Messiah is often sung at this time of year. Some of you might have been part of singing it or hearing it and so forth. A lot of it is a scripture taken directly out of scripture and this is a major piece of it. It's important to understand this song in Isaiah 9 in its context. Very often we hear it quoted and we hear the music from Handel's Messiah, but without the context, the song's impact is greatly lessened. Isaiah was commissioned by God to write this song more than 700 years before Jesus was born. God, through his prophet Isaiah, wanted to lift up this song of hope for his people who were in the midst of darkness. They were in the midst of tremendous difficulty, scary days, confusing distress. God did this for them even though his people had brought their circumstances on themselves by their own choice. It was their own choosing. Now a powerful kingdom far up north known as Assyria was eating up all the nations. This was during a time in Israel's history called the Divided Kingdom. Two tribes of Israel made up the southern kingdom known as Judah and the other ten tribes made up the northern kingdom called simply Israel. Now, between this mean bully, Assyria to the far north was another nation, Syria, the people of Syria. When Assyria was rising up in all of their militaristic might and gobbling up territories, and boy, they had some severe psychological warfare. These were scary dudes. Well, Syria and Israel bonded together and they said, let's make a pact. We got to do something. We have to defend ourselves. And hey, why don't we involve Judah in this as well? Judah said, no. Well, you can imagine that ticked off Israel and that ticked off Syria. They were counting on the three of them together standing up. And so Israel In Syria, the king of Syria's name is Rezan. You'll see his name in the scripture here. They decide they're going to teach Judah a lesson or two. And so now they're threatening Judah. Okay, that's a little bit of the background as we get ready to turn into the previous chapter, just before Isaiah 9, because there's so much there that we need to get to really understand Isaiah 9. So with all of this threat, they know that they're setting up to come make life miserable for them. And Judah has some decisions to make. Would they turn to God? Or would they try to do things on their own? Will they try to handle matters on their own? We can handle this our way, God. Now, I'm gonna start in Isaiah chapter eight, but if I were to start in chapter seven, there's another familiar passage there to you where this same circumstance that I've been talking about here was going on, and in chapter seven, God comes to the king of Israel through a prophet, he comes and he says, I'm gonna deal with them. You want a sign? I'll give you a sign. I'll prove it to you that I'm gonna take care of them. This threat that you're feeling right now. You know what the king said? Nah, no thanks. God gave it to him anyway. And he said, for this will be a sign to you. A young woman will give birth to a child. You know it as Isaiah 714. We quote it all the time at Christmas. It's all part of the same context that I'm getting into here, of what is going on here in the nation there. Well, they were saying, we'll handle this our own way. They're still doing it. By the time we get to chapter eight, They're still saying, no God, we don't need you, we'll handle this, we're gonna do things our own way. We choose to walk in darkness rather than your light. You know what, that is the choice that we make so often as well. So let me get into the context of Isaiah nine, one through seven, which we've already read, but I wanna go into chapter eight here. I'm gonna take it a little bit by bit and make a couple of comments as we go through these verses. So beginning in Isaiah chapter eight with verse one, here's the first couple of verses, and I'll just be walking through them until we get to the end here, just to give you a feel, so that when we get to nine, You can feel the full impact of that song. All right, here it is. The Lord said to me, this is Isaiah, God is talking to Isaiah. The Lord said to me, take a large scroll and write on it with an ordinary pen. Isaiah, I want you to write in the common language that the rest of your countrymen would be able to understand. God wants to communicate with us so many times more than we want to listen to him. God is always wanting to communicate. But he's saying, all right, Isaiah, I could tell you this prophecy, but I want you to write it down, and I want you to write it down in a language everybody can read, everybody will understand. And he says, here it is, here's the message. Maher shalal hashbaz. I hope you're all blessed by that. All right, here's what that means. Translated, what that means is quick to plunder, swift to the spoil. He's starting to tell them there is going to be some warfare. There is going to be, and it's going to happen suddenly. It's going to be fast, man, quick to plunder, swift to the spoil. Those are dreadful words to think that your belongings are going to get carted off by somebody who's coming in and taking it. You don't have any say in the matter. Okay, so we're getting kind of a somber note here on this. And I will call in Uriah the priest and Zechariah, son of Jebrakiah, as reliable witnesses for me. Okay, Isaiah, you're not alone in this. I'm gonna bring in two people that the people of Judah respect. And they're also gonna be witnesses. The three of you are gonna have this message to take to the people. You're not gonna be left alone, Isaiah. Respected citizens are going to have the same message. Then I went to the prophetess. I did a lot of study on this prophetess. What? Huh? And most of the scholars that I respect are saying this prophetess was his wife. Now whether she did prophecy or not, that's unclear. But the main sense is that this was Isaiah's wife. Okay, so then I went to my wife, the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. And the Lord said to me, look at that. Name him Meher Shalal Hashbaz. Your son's gonna have that name. That icky warning. that sentence that makes people tense, that tenses up right away, your stuff is gonna be taken. Wow. So now they have this permanent reminder. Nobody's gonna be able to say, well, how come God didn't tell us? It's written down, the reminder's given, and God wants to communicate so badly. He does. He's a great communicator, if we listen. Verses four through eight, before the boy who knows how to say my father or my mother, the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria. Those two kingdoms that are threatening you now, before your boy can even say mama, daddy, It's coming quick. It's going to happen soon. Assyria is going to come and they're going to take all of their plunder away. Okay. The Lord spoke to me again, because this people has rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloh and rejoices over Rezan and the son of Remaliah. Shiloh was the pool in Jerusalem that gave them water and life. It was God's graceful provision. It wasn't a fast rushing river. It wasn't as glorious as the Tigris River. But it provided. And it was God's provision. And so now God is telling him, this is why I'm going to be doing this. Okay? You, the people have rejected my graciousness, my provision, my life giving provision to you. And instead you're looking over there at that mighty rushing Tigris River. Oh my, that's what we want. And God's going to say, oh, you want that river? Be careful what you wish for as we go on, you'll see. Okay, therefore the Lord is about to bring against them the mighty floodwaters of the river. Anytime you see a prophet speaking of a flood, it's usually an army coming in and just wiping clean, flooding. To bring against them the mighty floodwaters of the river, the king of Assyria with all his pomp, it will overflow its channels, run over its banks, and sweep into Judah. It's not just those two kingdoms up north. You're going to get it, too. Because you weren't satisfied with my provision, the waters of Shiloh. You wanted something mightier and grand. Okay. All right. I'll give it to you. Isn't that ironic? Passing through it and reaching up to the neck. And then he kind of changes imageries here. Now he goes to a bird spreading its wings over all of Judah. Okay. Assyria is going to be like this bird covering their land too. Wow. Oh, Emmanuel. It's almost as if he's now looking at the prophecy in the previous chapter, Isaiah 7. And he cries out and he puts his focus on God. God with us. You remember, that's what Emmanuel means. Oh, this God who promises to be with us. And then with a surge of confidence, a renewal of confidence, he goes on and he says, raise the war cry, you nations. Go ahead and be shattered. Listen, you distant lands. Prepare for battle and be shattered. Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted. Purpose your plan, but it will not stand, for God is with us. He took a lot of assurance by looking to Emmanuel, God is with us. The Lord spoke to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me not to follow the way of his people. He said, do not call conspiracy everything these people call conspiracy. Do not fear what they fear and do not dread it. You know, the people, when Isaiah started talking about Assyria, they're coming. The people began to say, Isaiah, you are a conspirator with them. You are engaging in their psychological warfare. You are trying to defeat us. You are conspiring against us, Isaiah. And God is telling him, God is saying, don't believe him. Sometimes we begin to believe the criticisms we hear from others when we're proclaiming truth and we begin, well, did I get that right? God is saying, Isaiah, stick to your guns. There's gonna be cries of conspiracy, conspiracy, and there was, as they rose up against him like that. The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy. He is the one you are to fear. He is the one you are to dread. And he will be a sanctuary. But, for both houses of Israel, He will be a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. They're not going to follow me. They're going to stumble over these warnings and they're going to fall. And for the people of Jerusalem, he'll be a trap and a snare. Many of them will stumble and they will fall and be broken. They will be snared and captured. They're going to make some bad choices, folks, and it's not going to be good for them. Their own choices are going to put them in some real darkness. build up the testimony and seal the law among my many disciples." Isaiah, I'm going to give you some of your disciples. Prophets would have disciples. They'd have schools of prophecy and so forth. He said, I want this prophecy I'm giving you, Isaiah, to go on centuries later. This is why we're reading it today and we're talking about this because God preserved his testimony of of this prophecy, and he said, I want you to put these words in your disciples. So you not only write that title down, that sentence down, not only have these two stable witnesses that the rest of Judah trusts, but now I want this teaching, all of these particulars I'm giving you, I want you to teach it to your disciples. I want this to persevere. Our God wants to communicate with us, doesn't he? He does, he does, he does. I will wait for the Lord who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob. I will put my trust in him. Here I am, and the children of the Lord he has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the Lord Almighty who dwell on Mount Zion. This is how bad it got. Look, this is how bad things devolved. It got from bad to worse to worse, and look at this. When men tell you to consult mediums and spirits, that's what they were doing. That's why I say people are gonna tell you to do it. When men tell you to consult mediums and spirits who whisper and mutter, Should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and the testimony, if they do not speak according to his word, they have no light of dawn. Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land. All right, now here's the consequence of their bad decisions. When they are famished, they will become enraged and looking upward. Instead of worshiping God, now they're looking up at heaven. Instead of worshiping God who's there, they'll curse their king and their God. Then they will look to the earth. and see only distress and darkness and fear and gloom. And they will be thrust into utter darkness. Okay, now you have the background. This is set us up and now we're ready for Isaiah chapter nine. Now this is not exactly what you would want to write on your Christmas card, is it? No, but we need to know this. It's not something we would hear in Handel's Messiah, at least I don't remember hearing it. But it is important for us to get this context. And here is the reason why we need all of this context for Isaiah 9. You know, When God offers his people light, we opt for darkness. It's the old, it's the age old story about our need for God's grace. And how God is so willing to pour out his loving grace to each and every one of us? That's what's happening in this early Christmas song of hope. A people that know that they should inquire of God decided instead to consult mediums and spiritists, the very thing they knew God hates. He warned them never to do that, time and time again in his law. And you might be saying, okay, well, that was them and this is us. That was then and this is now. You know what? I can assure you that there are plenty of spiritists and mediums that people are consulting today. My wife and I finished just this week reading together a new book that came out in September by author, pastor Lucas Miles. Charlie Kirk wrote the foreword to it as the last thing he wrote formally before his assassination. The title of the book is The Pagan Threat. Now this documents just how much paganism and witchcraft and overt demonic activity has really overtaken Western civilization in the last couple of years, folks. I kind of suspected it, but to read about it in a very well-documented source. He outlines the name of people, and many of these are huge celebrities. Pop icons! As well as public and private events. Wildly popular television shows on Netflix and other networks. These are drawing people in by the millions into paganism. Overt, demonic stuff. The book shows how it has pervasively infiltrated evangelical Christianity, our good churches. You might be skeptical, I sort of was at first, but Lucas Miles brought out a lot of connections that we can all see if we're paying attention. It was particularly an eye-opener for me as he connected the dots for how Marxism, which we see. I scratched my head, why do people think it's good? And he was connecting the dots for this sudden rise of Marxism, how Marxism is using modern-day paganism and Islam. to tear down the Christian moral fabric of our nation, which it has to do, in order for it to prevail. It's what we see happening. I'm convinced that in the coming year, the church is gonna be faced with a lot more of the same situations that God's people faced 700 years before Jesus was born. of this time period in the book of Isaiah when he wrote this song. Challenges the likes of which we've never faced before are coming. You know it. More and more pressures are going to be put on us to find consolation from demonic influences and the world's systems rather than turning to God and his light. We have the same choice that they had. God's people who were people of the Torah, people of the book, who knew that they needed to drill down deep into the word of God, instead of readily consulting God and inquiring of God and looking into Torah, they needed to be commanded to consult God's instruction. and to heed his warning. In the midst of being famished by their Assyrian oppressors, they became enraged. When looking upward, they had opportunity to praise their God and their king. And you know what the text says. They cursed their God and their king. They, just like we, what we have a tendency to do, folks, looking down at all the havoc and all the chaos that has been brought on by the Assyrians and the darkness and the distress and the gloom and it filled their hearts. I don't know about you, but I'm guilty. I watch the news and I get my eye on the earth and all the things that are going on here. I have to remind myself, all right, turn it off and pray. Put your focus on God. Look to the God and start worshiping him. Because we see an awful lot of ugly stuff, don't we? It's all around us. When God offers us light, we often opt for darkness. Now, I don't need to persuade you that darkness is real. You watch the news. You read Facebook posts. You hear reports on the radio. You look around. We see it in our society. We see it in our system and structures and really we see darkness at relational levels as well. Even in a congregation this size, someone here knows the experience of the pain of a divorce. Someone knows the experience of being the survivor of abuse. Someone knows the experience of debilitating depression from crippling anxiety. Someone knows the experience of needing to heal from past hurt. Someone knows the experience of losing a loved one. Someone knows the battle of addiction. Yes, darkness is real. And it's not just that darkness is out there. If we're honest with ourselves, we begin to realize that the darkness is not just out there, but darkness is in here. Evil is in our hearts. I remember hearing a story some time ago about a little boy who had been writing a letter to Santa Claus, but Santa had not been giving him the gifts that he wanted. So he decided to work his way up the organizational chart and complain about Santa by writing a letter to God. So his letter began this way, Dear God, I have been good all the time this year, so I would like lots of presents. Then he crossed out one part and he started over. Dear God, I have been good most of the time this year, so I would like most of my presents. He crossed that out. Dear God, I'm reasonably sure that I have been good some of the time this year, so I would like some of my presents. He crossed that out. And then he looked over at the little nativity set that his parents had set by the Christmas tree and he noticed the little baby Jesus in the manger. He picked up and he held the baby Jesus in his hand and then he went back to his letter writing. Dear God, if you ever want to see your son again, then I want all my presents this year. Stories like that, they poke fun at something that we know to be true. There's evil in our hearts, isn't there? The darkness isn't just out there. The darkness is in us too. When God offers us light, we will often opt for darkness. But here is something else that is true. I want you to look back now at Isaiah 9, verse 1. Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who are in distress. In the past, he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future, he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles by way of the sea along the Jordan. Yes, it's true. We need to include ourself in this verse. isn't only for the people of God who lived thousands of years ago. When God offers us light, we opt for darkness. But you know what else is true? God refuses to let us remain in darkness. You know, one of my favorite verses of this song, one of the favorite words in this song is the word nevertheless. We wouldn't have time to go into this today, but I assure you if we made time, we could hang around here all day hearing everybody hears nevertheless. Person after person would come up here and they would probably say something like, When my marriage fell apart, I thought my life had fallen apart. Nevertheless, God. When my loved one died, I thought I had died. Nevertheless. I have left dozens of people that I have hurt and harmed and had plenty of regrets that I've left in a wake behind me. Nevertheless, God Every single one of us should be able to say, I know that I am not yet who I want to be, and I know that I am not yet what I am supposed to be, but I know I am not who I used to be. Nevertheless, God. What a song we have here. God refuses to let us remain in darkness. We see it over and over again in this text. And if you look at verse one, it says that in the past, in the former time, God humbled his people in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali. You know what that is, that's Galilee. That's where Jesus was raised. That's where Jesus had most of his ministry for three years, based out of Capernaum. That's right there, this area that has been prophesied about. And the sea that's mentioned in verse one, that's the Sea of Galilee. in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali. In the future, God would honor these very people, these very people who were hurting, that chose darkness, that were plundered. Now, Galilee wasn't really thought of as being a real part of the people of God. I mean, it was like a foreign place, foreigners mixed with Jews because they passed by on the trading routes. They mingled with them. It was backwards. It was uncultured. Certainly it was not as pure as Jerusalem. Jerusalem had the temple. Jerusalem was the religious center of the nation. The further you got away from Jerusalem, the less godly you were thought to be. Now, Galilee is far away. Far away. It was considered to be a non-Jewish place. It was a dangerous place. But in the midst of a backwards, foreign, dangerous place, God is able to take a people who are living in shame and bring them honor. Matthew 4 verses 13 through 15 says, Leaving Nazareth, Jesus went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali to fulfill what was said by the prophet Isaiah. Land of Zebulun and Naphtali, the way of the sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. Now isn't it curious that Jesus would conduct his earthly ministry primarily in backwards, foreign, and dangerous place? But listen, for a people living in shame, God promises that he will bring honor. Then in verse two, for a people living in darkness, God promises that he will bring light. In fact, the prophet Isaiah is so sure about it, he puts it in a tense in the original language. It's called the present perfect tense. He is so sure enough about it that when we read it in English, it looks like, oh, is this future 700 years before? Is he writing as if it's happening? Well, he wrote as if it was happening now because that's how sure he was. 700 years before the coming of the Messiah. This is what's gonna happen. He was as sure that the sun will rise in the east and set in the west, that this was gonna happen. The God that brings honor to those who are in shame is the God who brings light to those who are in darkness. Verse three, the people are experiencing despair. Someday they will experience joy. Joy over despair. Verse four continues. It says, for as in the day of Midian's defeat, you remember the story of Gideon, don't you? Gideon went with only 300 soldiers up against a number of Midianites that were more numerous to even count. And God brought his army down to only 300. Impossible circumstances. But God was there. God did it. And here's the reminder of that story right here in the prophecy. For as in the days of Midian's defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. Those who are in bondage, those who are shackled, it doesn't look possible right now. I mean, those Assyrians, they're mean folks and they're really threatening, but it's going to happen. Freedom that only God can bring is going to happen. Then we come to verse five and it says, every warrior's boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning. They're going to be useless. You won't need your battle garments anymore. Throw them in the fire. Because you're not even going to need them. They'll be fuel for the fire. For a nation accustomed to violence, for a people accustomed to oppression, God promises to bring peace. The God who brings honor over shame is the God who brings light over darkness. It's the God who brings joy over despair. It's the God who brings freedom over bondage. It's the God who brings shalom. over violence. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ this morning, you know a God like that. And let me tell you something, the world does not need more Christians to cozy up to people who are in power. The world doesn't need Christians who are gonna cower in fear because of the growing pagan threat in our society. And the world certainly doesn't need more churches who abandon the truth of Scripture in order to fit in with an ever-changing society with its morality. You know what the world needs? The world needs Christians who will be bearers and testifiers of a God who brings light to darkness. under the most impossible circumstances? Who brings freedom to bondage? Who brings honor over shame? Who brings joy over despair? Who brings peace in the midst of violence? What do we see today? The message of our song today, the message of this early Christian song, is God injects hope into impossible situations for people who don't even deserve it. The message of our Christian song is that God refuses to let us remain in darkness, even though we chose it. Some time ago, I was reading a Christian article about a parent whose child was having all kinds of behavioral challenges. behavioral challenges at school, behavioral challenges at church, and behavioral challenges in just about every single social situation. And the author of the article asked this parent, so what do you do? I mean, what do you do when you don't know what to do? And the parent answered with, I get close to my little boy. I pull him close and I say to him, I love you too much to let you do this to yourself. That depicts what we're reading right here. God says that to us. I love you too much. than to let you do this to yourself. You and I know a God like that. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, it means you have been found by a God, a God that loves you too much to let you do this to yourself. For to us, a child is born. To us, a son is given. Why the change of wording there? Wasn't it enough just to say a child is born? You know what? One is Mary's part, and the other is what only God can do. There's a divine element here in the second part of it. A son is given. God had to do that. And the government will be on his shoulders and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. The son of God was given and that requires a father who loves us very, very much. Enough to give us his only son. For to us a child is born and to us a son is given. God is a generous God. Now, I want you to consider just real briefly these titles. They mean that God is a powerful God, a wonderful counselor. It means that his purpose and plans are always right. To say he's a wonderful counselor means that his plans are perfect, even if we don't feel that our plans are perfect. There's an old saying that goes like this. The surest way to make God laugh is to tell him your plans. But when we acknowledge that he is a wonderful counselor, we affirm that even if I don't see it right now, there is something above and beyond me, Jesus the Messiah, who is able to conceive the perfect plan and purpose for my life that I can't see right now. To say that he's mighty God is to say that he's mighty in battle. To say that he's everlasting father means that in a world of broken relationships and families and so forth, there is an everlasting father who is perfect, the head of the family and all of our relationships. Even if our relationships are falling apart, we have an everlasting father. To say that he's the prince of peace is to say that whether the conflict is out there or in here, There is one who can bring peace where there is no peace, one who could bring hope where there is no hope. But also in the midst of our rejoicing and giving thanks with this Christmas song, we also have to remember that the child born in a crib of wood will one day become a man who will die on a cross of wood. that Jesus, who is the Son of God, the Son who is given, will one day lay down his life for you and me. And that reason is because he came to push back the darkness. Only Jesus has the power to push back darkness. During this Christmas season, perhaps you will nostalgically listen to a lot of these high-dollar, money-making Christmas songs, which is okay. But I want you to know that there is a song that is much better, much truer, much more powerful than any of those songs. It's a simple one. The message of Isaiah's early Christmas song, the thrill of hope. God injects hope into impossible situations for people who don't deserve it. God refuses to let us remain in darkness, even though we chose it. So when you leave church today, you might be tempted to have some other familiar song play over and over in your head. The song that you often play over and over in your head, it might say something like, if only I were richer, if only I had a bigger house, a newer car, if only I had a different spouse, if only I had a job promotion, if only I were a better student, if only I could say wiser things to impress people, yada, yada, yada. Please know that there's a better song, a truer song. There's a song that God is ready to put on your heart as a believer of Jesus Christ. It goes like this. God injects hope into impossible situations for people who don't deserve it. God refuses to let us stay in darkness. Now, perhaps tomorrow when you go to work or you go to school or you engage in your normal activities as a retired person, you might be tempted to listen to a different song, a different song that might sound something like, if only I were thinner, if only I had a better body, if only I were stronger, if only I were smarter, if only I could do more, do more, give more. Only I could be the kind of person that I really want to be. I want you to know there's a better song. There's a truer song. There is a song that God wants to put in your heart this Christmas season. It sounds like this. God injects hope into impossible situations for people who don't deserve it. God refuses to let us remain in darkness. So tonight, when your head hits the pillow, you might be tempted to rehearse in your mind the day's events. You might be rehearsing past regrets, past mistakes, the addictions, the temptations. Perhaps the scripts that continues to go through your mind might sound something like, well, I'll never be good enough. I'll never amount to anything. I've totally messed up. I want you to know that there is a better song. There is a truer song. There is a song that has power to push that darkness out of your mind and out of your heart and out of your life. It sounds like this. God injects hope into impossible situations for people who don't even deserve it. God refuses to let us stay in the darkness. In 1847, a Catholic priest in a small town in France wanted a local poet who lived in that little village to write a song for Christmas. And so he approached this local poet, who also had a reputation for drinking too much in the village, The priest asked him to write the lyrics for the song. Now, the poet was a lyricist, but not a composer. So on a long carriage ride to Paris from that little town, he tried to decide which composer he would approach and ask him to write the music for this song. He knew someone who wasn't a Christian. He was a Jewish composer. But he thought this would be the perfect person for this particular song. So he approached this composer. The composer looked at the lyrics and the composer decided, yeah, I'll compose a melody for this. The song premiered on Christmas Eve in that little town and it was an instant hit. In fact, that song made its way from that town to other towns and from town to town it finally made its way to Paris and spread all over France. Fast forward a couple of years later. Now, that the one who wrote the lyrics decided he wanted at this point to leave the faith altogether and join the socialist movement. It had been concealed that a Jewish composer wrote the melody, but it was revealed at that time that this man who had left the faith and that a Jewish man had written the melody. And so the church in France outlawed the song because its writer was a socialist, an unbeliever, and its writer of the song and the melody was Jewish. They barred it from being sung in the church for many years. Years later, a Unitarian American minister who was dedicated to the abolition of slavery in the United States came across this same song. He was a collector of songs. He liked to recover songs from different places in the world that might be sung and heard here in the United States. And he was especially inspired by this song because of a particular line there in a verse of the song which says, So the song made its way across the ocean and people began to sing it here. Now I will have you fast forward to 1906. A young professor, 33 years old, classically trained as a violinist, had an opportunity to play the first song ever heard on national radio. On Christmas Eve, he read from the Gospel of Luke. And then he read the lyrics to the song and he began to play the music. God produces his results in situations that look impossible. Only Jesus has the power to push back darkness in your life. How is it that a song thought up by an anonymous Catholic priest, lyricized by a drunken poet, composed by a Jewish composer who didn't believe, outlawed by the church, picked up by a Unitarian minister, somehow became the first song ever to be heard on national radio. You know the answer. God is especially good at accomplishing that which is impossible. Only Jesus has the power to push back darkness. Only Jesus, the thrill of hope, is the song I'm calling you to sing. I'm gonna close today by doing something that I don't really do in my sermons. I do it every Wednesday night when I teach the kids. I'm gonna finish with an object lesson for you. I've been talking about God doing the impossible in our lives. You know, when I wake up in the mornings, one of the first things I do is I get a cup of coffee. And once I get the coffee, and I'd like to think it makes me more clear-headed, after I drink and I begin thinking about the day, I begin to notice that there's something attached to my day. Little weights. Little things, little issues, little concerns, things that I need to follow up on. Oh, I hope I prepared well enough for the lecture I'm going to be giving the students at the college. Oh, there is that one student who wants to see me about this problem. I hope I can really help them. There's somebody in the church that's dealing with an illness and I really would love to be Jesus with skin on to them. Little weights, little concerns, but also what we have been talking about today. Oh, and let me just have this cup represent me with all of my little concerns and so forth that are here. Mike, would you just feel the weight of this cup for me here? And while you do that, I'm going to go get something else. And feel the weights of these. Which is heavier? The cup is heavier, okay. All right, now we have been talking about the song that we find in scripture. And we just completed our series in Ephesians, which the word of God is compared to a what? a sword. So we'll take the sword as the word of God, and we have our symbolism already as I've represented this to be me with a lot of problems and so forth that I have in my life. And one of the problems I woke up with this morning was, boy, I hope this works when I do it in church. It works about 90% of the time, you know, when I've done this. And so hopefully this is going to be one of those 90% of the time. Now, the impossibility. God delights in doing the impossible, doesn't he? And we know by the Word of God and what we've been seeing here today is that he wants to push back the darkness in our life. He wants to handle our concerns, all of the things that we are worried and we're concerned about. Can we really trust God in His Word? What do you think would happen if I let go of my problems? What would happen? Anybody? I know this is church, but you can talk out loud. What would happen if I let go of my problems? You want to see? Okay, let's see. It did. That was one of the outside of the 90% of the time. Okay, so I guess my worries I didn't completely let go of, did I? All right, let's try it again. When we let go of all of our worries, base our trust on the Word of God. He can hold us up. He can handle us and our worries. Would you pray with me?