Will you pray with me this morning? Oh Father, what great joy we sing this morning. Because Christ came into the world to save poor, lost, sinners in darkness, wandering. And you came at the right time, right as the Father planned. And the Spirit of God overwhelmed us with glad tidings of great joy. And we get to now look forward to your promises being fulfilled in the future that we will feast in the house of Zion. And we will sing with our hearts restored. And we don't even know what that sounds like. We don't even know how we can do that other than your great work of grace in us. We'll sing on our behalf. You are the great Savior. You are the great King. God, would you take the word of God and lighten our hearts of this truth this morning. Let us hear with hearts who hear spiritually. Let us understand, open our ears of understanding so that our eyes will see this great God and we'll live looking forward to this day. Father, this is the wonderful news of the gospel. And we're here today because not only was there news of the gospel, but it actually was lived out by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So this morning, we have much to be thankful for. God, I think that the message of the gospel goes out around the world. Lord, I can't help but think of Redeemer Bible Church, the valley down in Donna, Texas, with Pastor Chago Curling preaching there today. Father, would you encourage their hearts with the understanding once again of the great news of Christ's birth, his life, his perfect life lived, his death, his sacrificial death, and his glorious resurrection. Father, you take the word of God and run it to the hearts there in these folks there in Texas. Lord, I also think of my good friend Louis Kong in Kowloon, Hong Kong. Lord, as he speaks at Grace Bible Church today, may the word of God dwell in those folks richly. Bring to people salvation, Lord, as the gospel is preached there. And then here today. Father, it's been a difficult week for some. Some have battled sin, and some have seen some victory, but yet also some defeat. Would Christ be praised, and may the gospel be the ointment of the soul today that would encourage them, that would bring hope and salvation to them again. Lord, for those that are here today who do not know Christ as Lord and Savior, may today be that day where they understand the gospel. Turn the light of truth on in our darkened hearts, we pray. In Christ's name, amen. You may be seated. Stephon, can you bring that other thing? This one's Kind of going down. All right. You say, where's the pulpit? We're having a full stage tonight. If you haven't been to one of our concerts. Yeah, I don't need that either. Thank you guys. Look at this. All right. I'm used to the I'm used to the, the other one sits up higher too, but we'll be fine, we'll be fine, all right? If I miss a note or miss a word or so, you'll know why, all right? But I want you to hear Be Back Tonight at seven. The auditorium will be filled, come early. Come early, come often. But come and hear. We've got Jenny Whitehead has really done an excellent job preparing the choir. We have a very good sounding choir. You folks that are singing in it, I'm very proud of you and thank you for volunteering with this. But also bring people who need to hear the gospel tonight, because they'll hear it. in the singing as well as in the speaking that is being done as well. These are always wonderful times, but this has also been going on in this church for a long time, and this will be able to celebrate it yet again tonight. God is so good. All right, Isaiah chapter nine. Isaiah chapter nine, we'll be looking at verses one through seven. Chaz preached this as we were going through Isaiah last year, and I read through his message. I'm not going the same route, but it's the same message, all right? But this is a wonderful text. speaking to us for a child is born. We've sang it already. It's been marvelous to sing through these words. May the word of Christ dwell in your own heart richly this morning as we go through this text. You read quietly as I read aloud verses one through seven. But there will be no gloom for who was in anguish. In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. But in the latter time, he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. You have multiplied the nation. You have increased its joy. They rejoice before you as with joy it harvests, and they are glad when they divide the spoil. For the yoke of his burden and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor you have broken is on the day of Midian. For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle, tumult, and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end. and on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. This is the reading of God's word. May we be careful on how we hear it this morning. This particular text is really the end of an entire unit that began in chapter seven, verse one. And it ends here at the end of our passage in Isaiah nine, verse seven. It's a strategic unit, but it's a single unit. And here in this one unit, we find two great incarnational Christmas prophecies. Last week, it was the virgin who would conceive in Isaiah 7. Chaz told us all about that. It would bear a son and would call his name Emmanuel, meaning God with us. Now, in Isaiah chapter nine, at the end of this unit, we find the second Christmas prophecy. Now, they didn't know it was Christmas. This happened over a period of time, but when we put it all together, we can rejoice at what we hear this morning. This child would be born. This son would be given, and his name would be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. And in a very real sense, Isaiah is writing a Christmas letter here between chapter seven and chapter nine, verse seven. And this is Isaiah's prophetic message to Judah, to King Ahaz, king of Judah, and to that rebellious nation itself. You see, their rebellion had created a wicked, God-forsaking culture outlined in the very stark and very plain terms that you read in chapter eight, verses 21 through 22. Just look up before and go into chapter eight and look at verse 21. Listen to the culture these people were in. They will pass through the land greatly distressed and hungry. And when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against their king and their God and turn their faces upward. And they will look to the earth to behold distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness. What we're seeing here is the reality of evil. The anger against God, the anger against men, leaders, and it's a darkness that is filled with distress, gloom, and anguish, and it is thick. The idea here is you can feel the darkness. This is very real. It's a foreboding picture Isaiah gives to us, and you say, wow, what a picture to be seen at Christmas. Well, hang on. There's a reason why he's demonstrating this. He is speaking into the rebellion of Judah against God, and in the midst of God's chastening, in the midst of the gloom, and in the middle of the heaviness, and the burdens that God was bringing on his people because of their rebellion, They hear a clarion call of grace. And it's a cause for any of us here this morning to take heed into our own lives. In the shadow lands of our own rebellion, we are in need of rescue. We are in need of peace. And we are desperate and without hope for salvation except for grace. Because sin has so affected in us this lostness, this darkness. Internally, these folks are fearful and without hope. Externally, they're confused, without God, and facing humiliation and destruction from this mighty army called Assyria. And whenever humanity seeks to divorce themselves from God, chaos, confusion, destruction, and devastation is what follows every time. And so Isaiah is addressing Judah in its worst predicament. His message, the message that's same for you and me this morning. See your desperate need for peace and receive the amazing gift of peace from God. See your need. and see the need satisfied through Christ alone. Judah's peace with God was ripped to shreds because of their insistence upon self-rule, self-protection, self-help that only brought darkness. But God uses Isaiah to expose this. and it's beautiful what we see here today. So see three things. First of all, this morning, see the darkness of sin and judgment. That's verse one and two. Isaiah wants us to take a long look at this, because over and over in Isaiah, he tells the story of destruction, of devastation and destitution, that sin and rebellion has ravished not just on Judah, God's people, but also on entire creation. They were desperate for light. And from Adam on, all of us sit in a lightless prison of our own making that Isaiah talks about in Isaiah 42.7. Darkness here is a metaphor that is connected with evil, sin, and death. And before humanity can ever come to see salvation, Isaiah insists that God's people must stare into the reality and the harshness of the effects of sin in every crevice and every layer of their life. And in their earthly success under King Ahaz, they left the one true God and gave themselves to idolatry. It's a tragic picture, but they had no peace And scripture says here in this text, they also had no dawn, they had no light. And so the first thing we see here that he tells us is found in verse one, that they are a people living under gloom and anguish. Gloom and anguish. You see, Israel's exile and spiritual blindness reflects humanity's fallen condition. It's a tragic picture, not of the lush life and the splendor of the garden from which they came, but the complete death grip that sin and evil has on our souls and on our world. Gloom and anguish reflect the whole of man. Gloom is that inward darkness, that obscurity, that ignorance, that dimness of life. And anguish is not only felt within, but there's an outwardness, an external nature to anguish. This kind of darkness has baggage with it. Darkness isn't just a thing by itself. It has things as a part of it. You say, what are you talking about? Well, things like insecurity. When the lights turn off at home, you think you know where you're going, but you forget about that one little thing that sticks out and you stub your toe on it. And so you're walking and you're just trying not to turn the light on because it will awaken the children or awaken your wife or your husband, and so you stub your toe. So there's this insecurity in the baggage of darkness, rejection, there's shame, there's guilt, there's remorse, there's embarrassment, there's anger, resentment, and so much more. So notice in Isaiah's words in 8.22 that we read, notice this one little sentence here. They will look to the earth. This is what people do in darkness. They look horizontally. This is the word for land or soil or really, it's the word for anything that's not heaven. In other words, everywhere they turned in life here on earth, they would only see distress, hopelessness, and disappointment. Oddly, people get comfortable with their discomfort, and they're comfortable with their distress, and they're comfortable in their anguish. And it's almost like they will insist upon this anguish because that's the only thing that they're comfortable with. If you start taking that anguish away, it gets really destabilizing to them. It's like they obstinately insist on making wrecks of their lives. As a pastor, you see this often. Here's the way to go. No, I'm not gonna go that way. Here's how you live. Here's who Jesus is. No, I'm not gonna go that way. And it's almost like they insist on making wrecks of their life. It's quite a pathetic picture from God's point of view. Why? Because we were made for Eden. We were made for fruitfulness. We were made for fellowship, joy, gladness, peace, light, and God's blessing. Now in sin, it's all lost. It's gone. It's dark. And this is his point in verse one as he explains. But then notice secondly, God's sovereign grace breaks through darkness. Now, look at verse one again. If you're reading through that, you've probably picked up on that very first word, that conjunction, but, right? Did you not pick that up? After explaining the realities of sin's devastation in chapter eight, Isaiah turns the page and this little conjunction changes the picture. It's also translated nevertheless, meaning God is bringing judgment just as he always had, however, or nevertheless, meaning God is bringing transformation and God is bringing real hope. This is the beauty of the story. Who could have thought of something like this? And artists have this understanding of the brilliance of light. and one of the master portrait artists made use of a technique called chiaroscuro. What's, how is it? Chiaroscuro, yeah. It's a beautiful thing. A guy by the name of Gerhard van Hortherst, good friend of mine, painted this picture in 1622. Look at this picture. This offers a beautiful example of this technique, because in the painting, the Christ child in the manger is the sole source of light. Do you see that? His little body, like a peaceful candle in the darkness, scatters the shadows from all who adore him. It's like the master portrait artist, Isaiah sets out and he appeals to this very idea that the Christ child is the light that drives out all evil as the Messiah that he is. And it's a beautiful picture. We see it, but in reality, this is who Christ is. It's God's great, eternal, divine initiative for humanity's salvation. In that darkness, you can see it, you can just see it, the light just flows out of that baby. And in God's great eternal divine initiative, he points to this land. Notice what he says here. In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun, the land of Naphtali. He brings out this picture, these are mountainous areas north of Jerusalem. called Zebulun and Naphtali. It's land that was originally settled by God's people back in the book of Joshua. And they lived under the King David and King Solomon, and they flourished there like they had never flourished before. And after Solomon died, that land quickly became a land filled with idolatry. and where worship of God was once vibrant and pleasing to God, false worship sprang up on the mountain areas of Zebulun and Naphtali. And when Assyria invaded and devastated the land, they carried away the Jewish people. The Jewish population was carried away, but they replaced it with pagan Gentiles who didn't worship the Lord. And so over time it turned into this land, into this place of deep godlessness and gloom in more ways than one. And now Isaiah looks forward to a day when that empty and dark territory that was once filled with light, it will someday be completely transformed. In the middle of darkness, he says in verse two, a great light was shown. Every one of us sitting here this morning should bow in worship and reverence to our great God. This is God's initiative. This is God's work. This is not human effort. And God's sweet grace comes to a humanity that only deserved judgment and destruction and yet God shines a light and he gives us sun. We really enjoy light at Christmas, don't we? Especially at Christmas. When it's so dark seasonally outside, some of you do this, what do you do at night? You get in your car and you drive around to see what? The lights. The lights. It brings peace to our souls, it brings relaxation, and this is why we do this. However, those lights are not lights that save. They don't save like God's scent light saves. And God has shown this light, a light that exploits darkness, and it's the glory of a saving king who brings peace. This is Jesus. And notice thirdly, that Christmas begins with honesty about our need. If there's ever a time in our life, Christmas ought to be the time when we see our need of redemption. You can't miss this point if you're honest with yourself. Christ comes because we cannot save ourselves. Isaiah has made this clear. He looks in chapter eight, verse 17, he says this, I will wait for the Lord who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob. I mean, Isaiah understood that God was not playing games here. And Jacob was coming, but God was not revealing himself. And Isaiah says, I know this God, and I will believe and trust in this God. And I will hope in him. You see, Isaiah has experienced this intervening grace of God. Those who have genuinely experienced this kind of love and grace soon learn they don't want anything else. Nothing else is quite satisfying as the work of Christ in our behalf. Why can we say this? Why at Christmas can we say this? Because he has shown us how feeble and dark life can be. Some of you saw that in your own hearts this week. You saw how quickly your heart can grow cold. and how darkness can come and we can't see and enjoy the good things that God does, how futile other idols are. And now without him, we can't possibly muster up the kind of help we really need. Why? Because we need Jesus. And Jesus comes. And this brings the next point that I want you to see in verses three through five. the joy brought by God's deliverance. There's gloom in verses one and two. There's anguish in verses one and two. And then all of a sudden, because the light is shown, there's this thing called joy in God's deliverance. In the darkness, God initiates bringing light. But now Isaiah emphasizes another reality of sin. Sin is bondage. It slaves us, it dominates us, it rules us, it brings us a powerful sway over our emotions, our thoughts, and controls everything that we do. And Judah was in such despair. And we feel this despair in our lives. When we go through dark nights of our soul, the temptation is for us to go deeper and deeper into that darkness. And we begin to look around and we look for ways that really, when you think about it, don't really make sense, but we're groping, trying to find some way out of this gloom and this anguish. And this is why people self-medicate. It's why we do a thousand different things to make us feel better about the despair and the despondency of the sin in our souls. Judah ran to mediums and necromancers, idolatrists. They were not gonna go to God. They were not gonna go to their king. They weren't running to the word of God. They had all the answers. They weren't fleeing to the prophet Isaiah. They had all the answers. And yet you notice what Isaiah says in verse three. Do you see this? You have multiplied the nations. That's basically God, you have blessed this nation. You have allowed it to multiply. You have allowed it to grow more and more and more. and you have increased its joy because the light has shone, joy has increased. You plant something and it blooms and it bears fruit. And they were glad when they divided the spoil. That's a harvest term. In the mess that sin brings, in this climax of this section, he unfolds this movement from darkness to light. And what he sees is in Christ there's this great joy. Light brings this joy. Truth brings this joy. And it's not a meager joy. It's a bounding, an abounding joy. Because Christ sets his people spiritually free, and he explains it by using three words, or three uses for the word for. Do you see that? Look at verses four, five, and six. Do you see the word for? For the yoke of his burden, and every boot of the trampling warrior, and every garment rolled in blood will be burned with the fire, for to you a child is born. You have multiplied, why? Because the yoke of his burden and the staff for his shoulder and the rod for his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. For every boot, for to us a child is born. Let's look at this carefully. Notice first of all that Christ in verse four is our great liberator. He is our great liberator. You see the yoke, he says, is broken. This yoke, there's a joy even though they will face oppression by a very vicious enemy. Assyria is not going away. One who would wield that, what feels like this overwhelming power and control, but he says it won't last. And so Christ, as the Messiah, went toe-to-toe with three tools of oppression. Do you see that? Three tools of oppression. One is this yoke that he talks about. Judah was likened to an ox under the bondage of Assyria. And Isaiah looks off to a day when one mightier than the Assyrians of this world will break to pieces the yokes of people who are captive to sin. That's the picture. Jesus spoke of a yoke. You remember this in Matthew 11? But he says, my yoke will be easy. My burden will be light. My yoke will be gentle, filled with kindness. This is not Assyria. But you begin to see the picture of great light and great joy is that yoke of sin broken. Secondly, he talks about a staff. which was placed across the shoulders of someone carrying a heavy burden. They would have this pole and they would put it on there and they would put one amount of like a basket full on this side and one on this side and the weight of that would cause the person to stoop and to bend. It's the weight of a pain of betrayal, the pain of denial, the pain of abuse that God causes God's people to carry and to endure, and it causes them to stoop and bend, but now that rod is broken. And then thirdly, the rod, the staff is broken, and now a rod, and this is a picture of slave driver with his whip. Sin oppresses, the curse oppresses on every level, but it's Christ who's at work here. You understand, God is in the middle of all that oppression, And what he's doing through the oppression, through the anxiety, through the anguish, is he's breaking the yoke. He's breaking the staff. He's breaking the rod. And you see this, it's Christ who is at work. So that we can understand it, Isaiah alludes to this story of Midian. How many of you remember the guy named Gideon? You remember him from Judges chapter six, verse 15? This is the story of a victory won through an unlikely hero called Gideon. God deliberately reduced the size of his army from 32,000 to 300. And you think, how silly, how crazy. Those odds are unbearable. And then God uses a unique bluff. God threw the enemy into a panic because with Gideon's men, they blowed trumpets, they broke jars, and they hold up torches in the night, saying the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. And God threw this enemy into a panic, and they slaughtered their own men. That's quite a panic, isn't it? And here, Isaiah's looking ahead to a liberator even better than Gideon. That's his point. You see, the only creator himself can remedy sin. And so God multiplies the joy, not by earthly prosperity, but by gracious provision of redemption. All shattered, all broken by Christ alone. He shatters our slavery. Our bondage to sin and its consequences and all the baggage of darkness is gone because of Christ's work. Christ is our liberator. Notice secondly, in verse five, Christ decisively wins. See verse five, for every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. It's a beautiful picture. Because of their sin, their whole culture knew nothing but war after war after war after war. And here, Christ would fight for them. You say, how do you know this? Because the words will be burned? It's passive voice. Meaning they're not actually doing the battle. They're not even actually the ones doing the burning. All that was left for them to do was to celebrate. And every mechanism of earthly warfare will be burned up in the bonfire of God's grace. The garments were doused with the blood of the enemy and indicated the fruits of victory of a battle that they themselves did not win. But God did it for him. Yahweh who acted on their behalf, our Christ wins. Our Christ acts on our behalf and wins our battles. And then Christ's child is the great deliverer. You see verse six, the final four. this beautiful picture, for unto us. You see, my friend, deliverance is not only free from great oppression, deliverance in this kind of work of God is not only free from bloody battles against sin, but also the provision of a righteous and just ruler, and that's just his point in verse five, a child, the right child. You see, at Christmas, we celebrate not sentimentality, We celebrate deliverance. Christ brings a truer peace than politics or armies could ever bring. Only the all-powerful delivering Messiah can remedy humanity and sin. Remember Genesis 3.15. If you've been to any kind of church for any period of time, you will know that verse because God speaks that God himself would put an enmity between the serpent and the woman, between his seed and her seed. That's the first preaching of the gospel itself. But before the Lord even spells out the pain that must follow sin, listen to this, he gives a promise. Even in that darkest hour, the Lord cannot wait to be gracious. It's part of his plan. And God is going to give a male offspring. Now stay with me. God will crush the head of the serpent. And we follow the given seed from Noah to Abraham's seed, then to David's seed. And after all those many centuries of waiting, now to get to this, you have to understand if you were a believer in Israel and you were a woman, you would have thought, am I the one who would give birth to this seed? Is God going to give me, give this son through me? And so what that meant was every male baby born from Adam and Eve, there was always this question. Is this the promised one? Every leader began to be scrutinized as one who would perhaps be the deliverer. Is this the deliverer? And now Isaiah says, wait a minute, that deliverer that you thought, you keep thinking about, he is going to come, and he's coming in the very womb of the church, as it were. You say, why the church? Because he says, for to us. That's you and me. A child is born, for to us a son is given. He's going to be born of a woman and under the law, the eternal son is going to be given. He's a free gift and the only way for you to benefit from Christ is to receive as what he is in truth, an absolutely free and gracious gift from God himself. And this truly is what Christmas is, isn't it? One writer says this, God's answer to everything that has ever troubled us is a child. The power of God is so far superior to the Assyrians and all the big shots of this world that he can defeat them by coming as a mere child. His answer to the bully swaggering through history is not become even a bigger bully. His answer is simply a child. This child is Jesus and this child will end all of our wars. What a remarkable deliverer Jesus is. This should change your view of Christmas forever. And then notice the last part of verse six through seven. The gift of the divine king. If you notice in this text, you can see yet again Isaiah's work as a pastor. It just flows out of him. He's not writing merely to inform Judah and us, but he's seeking to drive theology deep in the soul of those transformed by this new birth. How does this victorious, promise-filling work of God come about? How does this happen? By what way do Lord's people enter into an undeserved salvation? By a king's birth. The emphasis shifts away in these two verses, away from unto us, and just points to just who this unique baby is. The birth that is given here is a birth announcement. Isaiah is weaving into his Christmas letter a birth announcement, but instead of saying to Mary a virgin will conceive, he now says this child is born, this son is given. And note that this child will not be born for another 700 years. But I want you to get the point, because the way he says it here, it's in present perfect tense. Remember English class. What he's saying is, he is so sure that it will happen, he is proclaiming as if it already has happened. But in this text, this baby is not officially called a king. We only see references to a kingdom and a government and a throne. Births of coming kings were always celebrated because it gave civilization hope for the next generation. And this is exactly what Isaiah is doing. Every ruler these folks had seen was a complete failure. And now the government, he says, will be on this baby's shoulders. This is a remarkable allusion to what will take place for this baby. Because when we know now, they didn't know then, but we know now that the only thing that this Messiah will ever carry on his earthly shoulders is a what? A cross. And you can read about that in John 19, 17. The weight of the entire world with that cross was put on his shoulder. the rule of this entire world, and that cross was put on his shoulders. This is a remarkable moment, pointing their hearts to the fact that all authority over all things would be given to this babe by the Father, Matthew 28, 18. And this reveals to us our hearts, doesn't it? isn't what we want in our own godness. We want our own authority. We don't want the Godhead to be our authority. We want desperately to be God. And so this isn't good news to rebellious people. It's only good news to people who have realized their rebellion and are in the process of turning from darkness to light. and praise God for his grace. Because Isaiah here in a real sense is saying the hope of all the ages has already been fulfilled. Peace with God is finally given through Christ. Let heaven and earth receive her king. Joy to the world. And notice two very important theological truths. One is the incarnation. Christ enters this baby, enters this baby. Christ enters into this world as a baby. Verse six, now remember in chapter 714, it was a supernatural conception, it was a virgin birth. Now Isaiah speaks of a supernatural birth, the incarnation, a child is born. The highlights that this speaks of is that Jesus is fully human, that there's no human being that can come into this world without it being born. This king is human with flesh, and God's design is for death to take place to flesh. There would be one who would have to die to fulfill the law of God. Death only comes as a result of the sin in humanity. So then Isaiah says, a son is given. A child is born, but a son is given. Isaiah speaks here of his full divinity. This is no ordinary child, my friend. The eternal God, the Son, takes on flesh and here's where the righteousness for humanity is provided. It's divine righteousness. It is holy righteousness. It is God's righteousness. Life comes from God himself who is righteous and we, like Judah, have every reason to be optimistic and hopeful about the success of the gospel because God has promised it to us. That means that no matter where you are in your life, if God takes you home right now, you have the righteousness of Christ given to you, and it allows you to walk boldly into the throne of grace, and to find what? Mercy. Do you know your soul needs mercy? And God provides it for it. You see, my friend, you and I need this as an anchor for our souls that is constantly doing battle with sin. so that we will not be driven and tossed by every circumstance in life. And so what Isaiah is saying here again is, folks, we're talking about God here. We're not talking about frail humanity here. We're talking about the eternal God himself. Then to highlight this, he gives us his saving character. It's the last part of verse six, his royal names. His royal names reveal his saving character. He will be called. This is literally, one shall call his name. It's very explicit here. The idea of the name here is the sum and the substance of his entire character. It declares the entire person. And these names, these four names coincide with our four greatest needs. Now listen carefully, we'll go through this quickly. We need counsel. We need strength. We need care. And we need peace. And so it shouldn't surprise us that his first name is Wonderful Counselor. Perfectly wise one. Wonderful carries the idea of remarkable or capable or full of wonder and unfailing wisdom. He's the advisor, he's the strategist, he's the guide, he's the planner. You see, sin has left us lost, without hope, undone, wandering and confused, and the perfect answer to gloom and the baggage of our sin is Jesus, the wonderful counselor. And I talk to Christians all the time who go into great, have great problems in their life, and they've already gone to see their medical doctor, their psychologist, on and on, a therapist, and on and on, and they don't come to the source of wise counsel, God himself. This is why we firmly believe in the sufficiency of God's word. Doesn't mean you can't get medical advice, we can, but our dependency is on what does God say. Wonderful counselor, mighty God. That idea there is the divine warrior. Who do you want fighting for you? Don't you want You don't want the incredible Hulk, you don't want the great American Avengers, do you? You want the mighty God. And what he's talking about here is this divine warrior, this great hero, this valiant one, this skilled, this authorized warrior full of power. You see, because we lack power, we lack strength, and we cannot persevere. We give up, we walk away, we're going, I'm not fighting this anymore, get tired of it. I'm with you. I get tired of it. But I have to run, and I get to run to the mighty God, because he is infinite godness. He is the all-powerful one, everlasting father. He's the divine protector and provider over all time. He's been doing this forever, and will continue to care for us. There's no end to His protection and provision. He's the eternal Father. He's the Father of eternity. He is the enduring one. He's the everlasting one. He's the one that knows no end. My friend, what that tells us is we are the inconsistent ones. We are the unfaithful. We are the fickle ones. We need love and we need compassion and father-like care. And where do we go to get this? Jesus, the everlasting Father. Beautiful. And then Prince of Peace. The giver of shalom and reconciliation. Oh my friend, listen to me. We need peace in our souls. We need peace with God. We need peace with one another. And what God is saying is this child, this very nature of this child, his name is going to be the Prince of Peace. And John Calvin writes this, he says, when we are inwardly tossed by various tempests, when Satan attempts to disturb our consciences. Let us remember that Christ is the Prince of Peace and that it is easy for him quickly to allay all of our uneasy feelings because he came to bring victory and he won that victory on the cross. He broke the bondage for himself and he broke it by himself. That means he's already made peace for you through the blood of his cross. The peace that you long for in your soul from the burdens of your sin, the guilt of your sin, the shame of your sin, the power of that sin, it's already been made through the shed blood of Jesus. He is our peace. Do you believe that? Then why are we looking to everything else to find that peace? And then what we see in verse seven is his gift of endless peace. This is not just any old peace. Isaiah takes this last title of the son and he stretches it out over the next verse and he tells us the increase of his government and his peace will have no end. Why? Because he's the alpha and the omega. He's the beginning and the end. He's the one who says when things start. He's the one who says when things end. We can't get our arms around this this morning, can we? There's going to be an ever-expanding nature to his rule. and ever-expanding nature to this peace, and it will run to the corners of the earth. It will run from sea to sea and from the rivers to the ends of the world. Jesus is being shown here to be the greater Solomon, whose rule and reign stretched and expanded. And Solomon's name actually means one who gives peace. He was the wisest son of David. He was a model of the wonderful counselor. He was a model of the mighty king. He was like a father to God's people in Israel, and he was the prince of peace in one sense, but he was not the prince of peace in the ultimate sense. But Isaiah tells us here that there will be no end to the increase of the role of this child and this son, that God will fulfill all of his promises to David with perfect justice, with righteousness and peace from this time forth and forevermore. God was thinking of Calvary Bible Church when he wrote that. Both now and forever. This brings me great hope. As a grandfather, I want to see my children and my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren understand this great peace from God. He's the mighty king. This means, though, that he's the final king. The king to end all kings. And how do we know this will happen? That last phrase gets me every time I hear it. The zeal of the Lord of hosts. That very delight and intensity of God. An intensity that is holy and righteous and pure and endless. That zeal will perform it. So my friend, today, see your desperate need for peace. It's okay to need peace. And receive this amazing gift of peace from God himself. Will you pray with me this morning? Great Father, we speak of things that we know so little of. We just kinda touch the tip of the iceberg, as it were, in who you are. and how you've demonstrated yourself so rightly through Jesus Christ. We are a people who are desperate for counsel. The strife that goes on quietly in our hearts are endless arguments, endless wrestlings, endless battles. We need the mighty warrior. to come and fight those battles for us, and in fact, it's already been done. May we have the faith to believe that and to rest in it. We need care. We often complain that we feel lonely, that we feel lost, forgotten, we're not affirmed, but you are the everlasting Father. Your love and care has no end. And then we waver in our trust in you because of that lack of confidence that you bring through your peace that you have taken care of all of our needs. Father, forgive us for our unbelief. Forgive us of our Christless living this week. and draw us ever closer to yourself by these truths. Cement them into our hearts. Drill them deep into our souls so that unbelief will not be what characterizes our lives, but our confidence in Christ. And even when we say the confidence, we know it's a wobbling confidence. It's a weak confidence. But you're not weak. And you're not without strength. You're the mighty God, the mighty warrior. Be our God, we pray. Lord, I pray for that one who's hurting this morning, that keeps looking to the earth, anything that's not heaven, in order to find that peace, that sustenance. God, would you remind them of who Jesus is, this babe. Let our hearts rejoice and trust you, we pray in Christ's name, amen.