Isaiah chapter nine, verse six. We've been preaching through this passage in chapter 9 through the month. The pastor will finish us up next week in verse 7. And I'll tell you what, I really drew the plum when it comes to the part of the text that I think is the very best. It's probably the most familiar from this section of Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6. 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. This whole section of Isaiah you might recall that we've been looking at is referring primarily to events that took place around 700 years before the Gospels were written about the birth of Jesus. The old nation of Israel had split after the death of Solomon and the tribes of the north split away from the two tribes in the south. And in the 700s B.C. the northern tribes of Israel with their allies were interested in attacking those kingdoms in the south brother against brother. They had their own civil war going on. Judah was under King Ahaz at the time not a good man. one of the worst of the kings. In fact, they were very few good kings in Judah. There were none in Israel, by the way. But Ahaz was the king at this time. And he felt that he had no choice but to enter into some sort of an alliance with the evil empire, which was represented in that day, Assyria. And Isaiah, speaking for God to the king, urged him not to go into a coalition with the unbelievers and the infidels, but rather to have faith and to stand firm and to trust in God and to refuse that coalition. And in fact, God even offered him a sign, the birth of a child in Isaiah chapter 7, verse 14, telling him that this was his sign that he would provide protection for them. But he has refused the sign, did not listen, and he entered into a period of spiritual darkness for himself. He made an alliance with the Assyrians and the result was a period of spiritual darkness both for the nation of Israel to the north because after the Assyrians had their way with them, then they decided to go south. They were sacked and overrun and crushed in humiliating defeat. Loved ones were brutally killed. Families were broken up and destroyed. The land was totally devastated and resulted in economic havoc, and then they began moving to the south. And this former coalition broke up as the Assyrian evil empire then decided to devour Judah as well. And the story does not end well. In chapter eight, in fact, in Isaiah, ends with these words, there's trouble in darkness, dimness of anguish. They shall be driven to darkness as this once great nation was brought to a point of humiliation and judgment. And then verse 2 of chapter 9 refers to their condition as dwelling in the land of the shadow of death. It was just that bad. But as you remember a couple of weeks ago when we were preaching from the first two or three verses of this section, we learned that the darkness and the gloom would be replaced. It would be gloriously reversed and be filled with joy rather. And that's been the subject of our preaching then these first few weeks of December as we approach the celebration of the birth of the one who is described for us here in chapter 9 verse 6. There will come a time, Isaiah is announcing, when the gloom and the despair will give way to rejoicing, or rejoicing like you might have around a harvest time, or rejoicing as those times of great rescue, the rescue that King Ahaz thought that he might have with the help of the pagan nation of Assyria that never came. And in today's text we learn that the removal of the gloom, and the joy of a great harvest, and the destruction of the instruments of war and oppression that is associated with the arrival of Wait for it now. The thing that's gonna change everything, the solution to Israel's problem, the solution to Judah's problem, the solution to Ahaz's problem, and the solution to the world's problem is a child. But not just a child. a special child, and one whose names will form the main part of our message a little bit later on in the morning. But before we examine those four names, the four titles given to the child king, I want to make a few more points before we get there. There is literally no speculation about what is happening in this text, even people that barely believe the gospel. come to the conclusion that Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6 can be speaking of no one else but Jesus Christ, the Lord, the one that we would call Messiah, the one whom we call Jesus, our Lord. And it's a familiar passage to anybody. If you've come anywhere near a church building in any Christmas season, any time in your life, you have heard these words spoken, no doubt. The words child and son instantly produce images in our mind that have been implanted there for a long time. Whether they're scriptural or not, we have all these images in our mind all jumbled up together of a baby in a manger surrounded by Joseph and Mary and wise men. And though it's doubtful if those scenes are completely accurate, the idea of a child being born and of a son being given, these images are imprinted on our minds today. In preparing for this sermon, I went a little bit further afield than I usually do when I'm preaching on Christmas. It's always been one of my favorite times of year to be preaching sermons. And the problem with having preached so many years as I have and coming to Christmas every year is trying to find something new, something that's a little bit different or an unusual. And so I decided to kind of reach out a little bit further even this year, began reading Martin Luther of all people. I'm not talking about Martin Luther King, you understand. I'm talking about Martin Luther, the reformer from the 1500s in Germany. Most Baptists don't even read Martin Luther, even the Reformed ones. But we do recognize, of course, his great influence on the Reformation, and largely the Reformation took place as a result of his preaching and his teaching and his writing, and it's still having an effect today. Christians in his day based upon what he taught and preached, recovered those Bible truths that we call the five solas that have been almost lost to Christian history. Those truths, by the way, will be the subject of our preaching in January and February. Anyway, getting back to Luther, I think I'm going to have to rethink this avoiding Luther business. I'm going to have to go back and read some more of him, I think. And here's why. I read a Christmas sermon that he had preached on this text. And instead of going straight into those four names the way a lot of preachers would as they go into this text here, he stopped for several paragraphs to reflect upon the words unto us. And so I did the same thing. Whatever else we learn about God and about his son while we read and study this passage this morning, probably the most important thing to remember that everything in chapter 9 verse 6 is for us, unto us, and on our behalf. And that's not a bad thing to remember every time you read or hear anything about what Jesus has done. In our Sunday school lesson today, Doug was teaching about Christ, our portion. That is, God has given Christ to us as our portion. When Romans chapter 5 speaks of Christ dying, it says, When we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. A little earlier in the Roman letter, Paul speaks of Christ having been delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification, for us. In Romans chapter 8, the Spirit makes intercession for us. In 1 Corinthians, Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. In 1 Corinthians 15, verse 3, Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. Christ has been given for us. God is working for us. If God be for us, who can be against us, the Scriptures ask? For us, again and again in the Scriptures, God is working on our behalf. Even the angels had it right when they announced the Savior's birth in the fields where the shepherds were watching their flocks at night. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior which is Christ the Lord. For you. They may have been speaking, may as well have been speaking to us this morning. And so the New Testament is echoing the words of Isaiah who says, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. But Luther points out that Christ is not only born to us, but that he has been given to us as a gift from God. He is ours. Luther makes the little point about somebody admiring a baby. in a cradle perhaps and asking, is it a boy or a girl? And the couple would say, he's a boy and he's ours. He's been given to us. the gift of God to all who will have him given to us. I think those are great, great thoughts for us to have in our minds as we walk through these gates and examine the fourfold name given to Jesus the Messiah. But there's one more little side trip I want to make before we walk through the gate. And that is the phrase that Isaiah says, the government shall be upon his shoulder. Israel and Judah could use a good government. The United States of America could use a good government, do you agree? It didn't happen very often in their history. Their history shows a lot of bad leadership, evil rulers, idolatrous, shameful sinners. Truly good kings and political rulers seem to be rare in just about any century and not just in Israel and Judah. It's one of the reasons why it looks like Isaiah is repeating himself when he says, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. And of course, there's this idea of Hebrew parallelism. You'll see this a lot, especially in the book of Proverbs, where you have one line and then a line underneath it that says almost the same thing. So child and son here are obviously related. But whenever God uses the word son, It's not always just in the context of just talking about a child being born, but there's something special about the child rather. It's like in 2 Samuel 7, verse 14, God made a promise to King David there. We call this the Davidic covenant, that after he had passed from this life, the throne would continue in his line. among his descendants. And God spoke to him of a son that would come. Not just to say that there would be children, but a particular son. And he wasn't just talking about Solomon coming after him, but he was talking about something else a little bit further on down the line. I like to think of the word son in that context as being spelled with a capital S. Daniel 7 speaks of a coming ruler of Israel known as the Son of Man who would superintend a kingdom of peace. And after a while you come to the conclusion that it's no coincidence that the word son is being used in the way that Isaiah is using it when he says that a son is given. And it makes sense, I think, to those who first heard these words that a child would be born, but that he would be more than simply just born the way other human beings are born. He would be somebody who would be given to them, and that is something coming directly from God. It's why the Apostle Paul uses that phrase in Galatians chapter four regarding the birth of Christ when he says, in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son. Not his child, but his son. Emphasizing the same thing that Daniel emphasized, the same thing that Isaiah emphasized, the same thing that the Old Testament prophets emphasized in calling the descendants of the king the son. Paul doesn't mention anything in the book of Galatians about mangers or stables or shepherds, though I'm pretty sure he was aware of such things. But for him, the important thing about the birth of Christ was that God sent forth his Son for us. It's also what Jesus had in mind just as he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. He prayed to God that people would be able to understand, he says this, that they might know that you sent me. He's talking to God, sending him. And so the son is sent from God, given to us to rule as a king. And now we come to the part where we talk about the throne names, the four titles that are given to the one who is coming, the son who is given, the child who is being born. Not just names to designate him, but these things actually describe him and describe what he's up to. Ancient Near East Kings. I did not realize this until just this last week. Ancient Near East Kings nearly always had more than just one or two names. They liked to pile names up around themselves. In Egypt, it was not unknown at all for a ruler to take up to five names the day he was crowned as Pharaoh. One king who was crowned heard the priest say this over his head, let the great names of the good God and his titles be made like those of the God Ra, mighty bull, one capable of planning, great in wonders, filled with truth, son of Ra to whom life is given. That sounds a little familiar, doesn't it? And so the king was considered in Egypt to be somebody who had might and who had wisdom and had wonders and truth and life associated with him. And they did this in Israel. It looks like 2 Samuel chapter 23 says this about David. David, comma, the son of Jesse, comma, the man exalted by the most high, comma, the man anointed by the God of Jacob, comma, Israel's singer of songs. That's going to take up a lot of space on a letterhead, don't you think? But for rulers in Egypt or Israel, most of those things that were said were just hopeful things. We hope he has wisdom. We hope he has wonders. We hope he has power. We hope he has life. And for many human rulers since, it's just not only been a hope and a dream, but simply their own imagination. They don't always have wisdom. They don't always have power. They don't always have good plans. But Jesus, the Messiah, the Son who is given to us, not only has those titles, but the vivid descriptions of what it would mean to have a ruler who truly had the government on his shoulder to grab our attention. You take the first one, the first title of the description, His name shall be called, or if you've been listening to Messiah like I have all week, His name shall be called. I don't know why they do it that way. His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor. Now I take those two words together as a compound instead of two separate things. I'm not sure how a comma got in there, but it doesn't quite fit. If you look at the other titles, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, they're all sort of included and there's nothing separating them. In fact, Isaiah has a very similar phrase in chapter 28 without a comma. It's not a big deal, but I just wanted you to know that I'm not illiterate, okay? I just thought I'd let you know what I'm doing up here. But the idea of using wonderful, describe him as a wonderful counselor, is to express something that's extraordinary, that's surpassing, that's marvelous. I still hear people today misuse, I call it misusing, the word awesome to describe what I think are fairly ordinary things. You know, if everything's awesome, nothing's awesome, right? You ought to save it for a really, really awesome thing. And the same thing is true for wonderful. Everything can't be awesome and everything can't be wonderful. Wonderful means that it's so big, so high, so fast, so advanced, so whatever that you actually stop and wonder, what is it? How does it do that? And when Isaiah speaks of a wonderful counselor, he's speaking of somebody who has an extraordinary sense of what's coming down the pike. One who knows how to plan for those things that are coming down the pike and to make decisions and to rule in the light of what's coming. Quite unlike us, we are always confused and blinded by our sin. And that's the reason why we make such awful choices in life. But a wonderful counselor always knows the right thing to do. Why would not a person want to be guided by such a counselor? A wonder of a counselor whose plans are beyond description. You know what? I can kind of identify, I think, with some of the people around Jesus who recognize that capability of his. Remember what the Samaritan woman said about him? Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did. Is not this the Messiah? The next phrase referring to the son who was given to us, Almighty God. Now that may have you scratching your head a little bit. But remember, we're in the prophecy of Isaiah, and he had been announcing in chapter seven and eight that the coming king of Israel, the coming king, he says, will have a special name. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name, remember that, Immanuel. That is, God with us. And so to take the words Almighty God and to apply them to Messiah is really not out of line at all according to Isaiah. Matthew in his gospel even referred directly to that passage in the birth of Jesus in chapter one, calling that a fulfillment of that very prophecy of Isaiah, that his name will be called Emmanuel, which means God with us. You take the next one, the mighty God, it's kind of rather the El Gabor rather, refers to this sheer power. of Christ, and so we call him Almighty God or the Mighty God. This is where we get the notion that some of what we are being told about Jesus Christ will not be manifested completely in his first coming. It's one of the confusing things, I think, about looking at the prophecies of Isaiah, Chapter 7, that a virgin will conceive and his name will be called Emmanuel. We get into Chapter 9. where the government's upon his shoulder and he's wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, and so on. If you're not careful, you get the idea that Isaiah is saying all this happens all at one time. and it will happen during the lifetime of Isaiah and the people that he's writing to. Well, it's probably more correct to say that the things that he describes will begin to start coming to pass at the first coming, but they'll not be manifested completely in that first coming. As we were taught, the appearance of Jesus to most people was that of an ordinary man. Book of Philippians chapter 2 says, "...when he came, he took upon himself the form of a servant, that he suffered, that he was killed." These do not look like the actions of somebody known as the mighty God. And yet Jesus could, when called upon, manifest great power even in that state. He could do healings and perform miracles of nature, multiplying food to extraordinary supplies, and to cause winds and waves, to weather even to obey what he had to say. So he could manifest great power, but we're led to understand that even as powerful as those things were, and as wonderful as those things were, they are going to pale in comparison to what will be revealed in the end times. In Matthew 24, Jesus said that immediately after the tribulation of those days, "...shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven." He's talking about this chaos that takes place near the end of the age. And He says, "...the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be shaken. Then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, Then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And so those things that were begun in his first coming then find their fulfillment and final manifestation in the second coming. But even before that time, he could say just before he ascended to the Father, all power is given unto me in heaven and on earth. And so the term Mighty God, a phrase that Isaiah's first hearers might think was probably more honor than reality, actually became historically true and literal when the Bible says God was manifest in the flesh, as Paul put it in 1 Timothy 3, verse 16. The next title, Everlasting Father, is a bit like the Mighty God. It sounds like it may be too good to be true or too big to be fulfilled. in human terms, and I don't have time for a complete explanation here, but there are funny times in the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms and in some of the prophecies, where it looks like God the Father and God the Son are actually speaking with one another. in a conversation. You see this in the Psalms quite a lot. And it can be confusing if you don't have a good program in front of you. And in some cases, it's like they actually change places. So the father addresses the son like he's the God, the father. and then vice versa, it goes back again then. Like I said, I can't fully explain it, we don't have time to do that today, except to say that it's another touchstone for us, to help us to remember that whenever you speak of Christ in terms of God language, and when you address Jesus as God, that's not all that out of line, really. In fact, Jesus brought up that very thing more than once when he was arguing against his detractors in the Gospels. They would say, you can't be the Son of God. You can't be like God. And then he would say something from the psalm and quote something from one of the prophets and say, well, if that's true, how come this? But then there are other times he just plainly said it. John 8, 23, I am not of this world. What are we supposed to make of that? John 543, I came in my Father's name. And then what do you do with John 1030? I and the Father are one. These are plain statements. Undisputed statements. Then you have that familiar example. when Jesus is being criticized by some of the Pharisees and the scribes. And they get into a discussion about Abraham and how we are descended from Abraham. And Jesus is arguing that if you were really descended from Abraham, you'd recognize me for who I am then. Because he says, Abraham, rejoice to see my day. And before Abraham was, I am. There's no Israelite in that day and time who would not recognize what Jesus was actually saying when he said, I am. You say, are you sure? Well, if you look at the verses right after that, they began picking up rocks. What do you think they're going to do with the rocks? They want to stone him. Why would they want to stone him? Because he had committed blasphemy. And in fact, if you remember, When the Pharisees and the scribes, when they finally got in front of Pilate to make their charge against Jesus Christ, they didn't charge him with doing miracles. They didn't charge him with making lots and lots of bread and fish. They didn't charge him with walking on water. They charged him with the crime of saying he was the Son of God, which makes him God. Therefore, he ought to be put to death. Pilate recognized it was a religious argument. He tried to get rid of it. But that was their charge. A lot of modern scholars say Jesus never said any such thing and nobody really thought he was God until like three or four centuries later. I beg to differ. Eyewitnesses charged him with the crime of saying he was the son of God. Isaiah's point is clear. Messiah is not of this earth. but he has been given to us and for us from heaven. The last title in the verse is Prince of Peace. I could have spent an entire hour, I think, just on this one alone, but we're coming to the close and so I won't do that. Although Wes assures me that we have at least three hours of power battery up here, but I won't do that to you. As one who carries the government on his shoulder, As a wonderful counselor, as the mighty God himself, he will be able to do what no human ruler has ever been able to do, let alone the likes of Ahaz, the wicked king of Judah, and that is he will bring to his people the blessings of peace. I don't know about you, but every time they talk about some sort of peace process taking place in the Middle East, I kind of chuckle. It's not going to happen. One state solution, two state solution, five state solution. It doesn't matter. If you eject the prince of peace, there will be no peace. It's as simple as that. Now you have to remember that to a speaker of Hebrew, as Isaiah was, and as the first readers were, peace is not just the absence of war. It's not just the lull between wars. To Isaiah, to God, to Messiah, peace, shalom, is a condition in which all things are following the plan of God undisturbed, the way God intended it. Elsewhere, the prophet will say this of the time when the Prince of Peace has the government on his shoulders. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall leave them. This can only occur once drastic changes occur and happen on the earth. Therefore, Isaiah's vision of the messianic age that he's putting forth here will culminate in the prophecy of a new heaven and a new earth, a whole brand new creation. You do have to admit a couple of things. You go back into the first coming of Jesus. Jesus did promise that those who came to him would find rest for their souls. And he did say in John chapter 14 that he gave them peace, not as the world gives. but that was a very long time ago and we've been subject to wars and tyranny and despots and anything except peace these last 2000 years since the arrival of the wonderful counselor and mighty God, the everlasting father and the prince of peace in Bethlehem. I have to conclude when I see that that sort of conundrum that in some way Isaiah and the God he's speaking of sees earth history somewhat like a telescope that sort of expands out a little bit at a time. So much of this prophecy in these chapters 7, 8, and 9 sounds much more like history than prophecy. Even in our text, the names of the Messiah are said to be in the future. His name shall be called, the Bible says. But in the first part of the verse, it says the child is born, the child is given. That's past perfect. What this tells me is that if we look through Isaiah's telescope, from his time to the end of time some of it's going to look like it's just as good as done already and some of us still out there waiting for us to experience even the birth of jesus at the time of this text even though it says the sun is given and the child is born as though it had already been done is still seven hundred years off into the future but in the mind of god in the words of isaiah it is an accomplished And that should give us comfort about what God has in mind for us. You know, nothing really happens by chance. There are no accidents taking place in world history. Now, men can affect things, and men can do stupid things, and we often do. But the fact is, God does have a plan, and He does have a purpose. And part of that plan and purpose is revealed here in these verses. Part of it's revealed in the birth and life and death of Jesus Christ. I think maybe something like that, what we read here in Isaiah, is going on as we see how Messiah begins to wear these four titles. I mean, he represents a little bit of each of these four titles even in his gospel story. He began to rule, I think, the day he was born. He began to bear the government on his shoulders the day he was born. I believe that. and he began to show the plans of God and he began to display the power of God in his life and he began accomplishing the peace of God with God and of God in his first coming. And we can be confident that in his second advent all these things will not only be done in part but will be perfected and manifested completely. For now This Christmas season, 2017, with the world in such turmoil, with a lot of darkness and gloom, such as maybe Isaiah might have described for us in chapter 8 and chapter 9 of his prophecy, one of the things we need to do is take comfort that the Son has been given to us. God has sent the Son, that he died for us, that he has accomplished making peace between God and ourselves. Now, Dr. Criswell at the Old First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas said one time, quote, the shoulders that bear the government of the universe are the same shoulders that bore the cross to Calvary. And God has given us an indescribable gift, and the gift he has given tells us nearly all that we need to know about him. God could do no better in his gift giving than to give us his son. a son has been given. And the words of Isaiah hold out hope for not only his generation, but for our generation as well. God will not abandon His people, but He promises a bright future ahead for them as they remain faithful and true to Him. And when Jesus came on that first Christmas, He laid the foundation for all that will be fulfilled by the King who has the four titles, rightly so. We, of course, are the carriers in the meantime of the message that the peace with God and any peace at all on earth only comes as you and I acknowledge Jesus as our true King. the child that is born for us, the son that has been given to us. Let's take these thoughts into our Christmas week and into the year to follow. Father, we're grateful today for the word of God, for Isaiah, for the story, for the gospel writers, for all those who explained to us the four-titled Messiah. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.