Isaiah Chapter 9:6-7

vs. 6-7

- “For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on His shoulders. And He will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of His ancestor David for all eternity. The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven's Armies will make this happen!”

A SON IS BORN

- These two verses are a Messianic prophesy looking towards the coming of Christ.

- In the first part, the HOW is given. He will be born as a son. This was of course confirmed in the birth of Jesus to Mary.

- When Gabriel appeared to Mary in Luke chapter 1, he tells her that she is favored of God and that God is with her. “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name Him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His ancestor David. And He will reign over Israel forever; His Kingdom will never end!”

DAVID

- Notice that yet again the throne of David is mentioned...

- This is important because God promised David that his descendants would be on the throne of Israel forever.

- In II Samuel 7:8-16 when David decides that he wants to build a permanent temple for the house of God, this is what the prophet Nathan tells David.

- “This is what the Lord of Heaven's Armies has declared: I took you from tending sheep in the pasture and selected you to be the leader of my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have destroyed all your enemies before your eyes. Now I will make your name as famous as anyone who has ever lived on the earth! And I will provide a homeland for my people Israel, planting them in a secure place where they will never be disturbed. Evil nations won't oppress them as they've done in the past, starting from the time I appointed judges to rule my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Furthermore, the Lord declares that He will make a house for you—a dynasty of kings! For when you die and are buried with your ancestors, I will raise up one of your descendants, your own offspring, and I will make His kingdom strong. He is the one who will build a house—a temple—for my Name. And I will secure His royal throne forever. I will be His Father, and He will be my Son. If He sins, I will correct and discipline Him with the rod, like any father would do. But my favor will not be taken from Him as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from your sight. Your house and your kingdom will continue before Me for all time, and your throne will be secure forever.”

- Both Mary and Joseph were direct descendants of David. So even looking at his earthly father figure, Jesus was still a part of the tribe of Judah and descendant of David. (Matthew 1 and Luke 3)

- In Revelation 11:15, the seventh angel blows a trumpet and voices start shouting “The world has now become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever.”

- Christ, a descendant of David... will rule on the throne forever.

GOVERNMENT

- A few of the commentaries that I've been reading on this say that there was an insignia of sorts worn on the shoulder of rulers of the time period. So, “the government will rest on His shoulder” could be that.

- Or it is thought that He would uphold the government... as in He would maintain them. They would therefore rest on His shoulders as you would carry a burden or support something.

- Now, a couple of things in either direction...

- In I Corinthians 15:24-28 says this: “After that the end will come, when He will turn the Kingdom over to God the Father, having destroyed every ruler and authority and power. For Christ must reign until He humbles all His enemies beneath His feet. And the last enemy to be destroyed is death. For the Scriptures say, “God has put all things under His authority.” (Of course, when it says “all things are under His authority,” that does not include God Himself, who gave Christ His authority.) Then, when all things are under His authority, the Son will put Himself under God's authority, so that God, who gave His Son authority over all things, will be utterly supreme over everything everywhere.”

- Colossians 2:10 says “So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.”

- God gave Christ authority over all things... He rules over all. And don't let the God/Christ separation in the Corinthians verse confuse you... because Christ said in John 10:30 “The Father and I are one.” (The trinity at work. 3 persons in one unity working always together. Never at odds with one another and always One being.)

- So Christ as ruler over all things, supports all under-authorities. Even the seemingly (or literally) really bad ones...

- “Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. So anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished.” (Romans 13:1-2)

- Even though they may think that they took rule from somebody else, or that they worked their way to the top... God has put them in that position.

- Even the Pharaoh who wouldn't let the people go from Egypt... Romans 9:17 says that God told him that He had appointed him for “the very purpose of displaying my power in you and to spread my fame throughout the earth.” (Exodus 9:16)

- So all earthly authority and rule belongs to Christ.

- I Peter 2:13-17

CHURCH

- With that also comes church government.

- “Now He is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also in the world to come. God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made Him head over all things for the benefit of the Church. And the church is His body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with Himself.” (Ephesians 1:21-23)

- “...We will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the Head of His body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.” (Ephesians 4:15-16)

- Colossians 1:15-20

- Christ is our head. He rules over the rest of us. He directs us, He leads us, He commands us. We are the followers.

- Indeed, He not only rules over us, we gain our entire existence from Him. “But we know that there is only one God, the Father, Who created everything, and we live for Him. And there is only one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom God make everything and through whom we have been given life.”

- Acts 17:24-28

- So not only does earthly authority belong to Christ, so does Spiritual authority.

- Matthew 28:18-20

COUNSELOR

- When I was searching for other places that mentioned Christ as “Counselor,” I found something rather interesting.

- In John 15:26, Jesus says “But I will send you an Advocate—the Spirit of Truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me.”

- The word “Advocate” can be translated as: “comforter, encourager, or counselor”.

- Wow... And that's not the only place that calls the Holy Spirit the Counselor. It's mentioned just before that in chapter 14 as well. It says that the Holy Spirit would come to teach us everything we need to know and would remind us of the Words of Christ.

- God Himself comes to us to counsel us. To give us wisdom in situations. To speak His Word to us when we need it. That's so AWESOME!

MIGHTY GOD

- What can we say about the Almighty God?

- How many miracles did Jesus do? How many acts of wonder did God do in the Old Testament?

- Water turned to wine, healings, casting out of demons, the separation of waters so dry land could be seen, the plagues, creation itself!

- Read through Job chapters 38-41. Job and his friends have been discussing why all these things have happened to Job. His world has been turned upside down. He's lost EVERYTHING. And here they sit... trying to come up with an answer as to why these things have happened. And God answers Job.

- He basically says “Who are you!? What right have you, a man, to question ME!? Look at all the things I have done! Were you there when I formed creation out of nothing? Do you know all the little details about all the animals in the world? Can you make it rain? Do you know where the snow is stored?...” And God just keeps going. Expounding on all the things that He knows and has done. (It's an awesomely worded couple of chapters...)

- “The Lord is King! He is robed in majesty. Indeed, the Lord is robed in majesty and armed with strength. The world stands firm and cannot be shaken. Your throne, O Lord, has stood from time immemorial. You Yourself are from the everlasting past. The floods have risen up, O Lord. The floods have roared like thunder; the floods have lifted their pounding waves. But mightier than the violent raging of the seas, mightier than the breakers on the shore—the Lord above is mightier than these! Your royal laws cannot be changed. Your reign, O Lord, is holy forever and ever.” (Psalm 93)

- Our God is mighty above all others. He reigns and has authority above all earthly and all spiritual things. He is stronger than all.

EVERLASTING

- We already talked a little about Christ having rule over all things for all eternity. Now we look at the Father side of things.

- As a Father, God is compassionate towards us. He loves us immensely.

- “See how very much our Father loves us, for He calls us His children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don't recognize that we are God's children because they don't know Him. Dear friends, we are already God's children, but He has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He really is.”

- I'm still reading on and A.W. Tozer book... and the other day I got to a chapter on God's love for us. Tozer likes to use proofs... so... because of one thing, a second must be true. He's been talking about the infinity of God. How there is no end and no beginning to God and therefore, when God shows us an attribute of Himself... like Love, or Faithfulness, then that attribute, because it is of God, is also never ending...

- “From God's other known attributes we may learn much about His love. We can know, for instance, that because God is self-existent, His love had no beginning; because He is eternal, His love can have no end; because He is infinite, it has no limit; because He is holy, it is the quintessence of all spotless purity; bottomless, shoreless sea before which we kneel in joyful silence and from which the loftiest eloquence retreats confused and abashed.” (The Knowledge of the Holy- A.W. Tozer)

- Isn't that amazing? God's not just our Father, He's our Father forever. And He LOVES US! With a Father's love... but not just love like we know it. An infinite, never-ending, love that is not at all based on who we are or what we've done... it is rather because of Who HE is and what HE'S done. Therefore, His love will never change towards us. No matter what we do, no matter how far we fall from Him... He will always love us. And long to do good for us!

PRINCE OF PEACE

- Peace. Such an elusive thing in today's world...

- Philippians 4:6-7 says: “Don't worry about anything; instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand, His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”

- God's peace... that passes all understanding... peace in the middle of chaos... peace when you don't think peace is possible.

- The last few years, every year they've told me that my job won't exist for the next year. Every year, there's been a job for me... the SAME job. They said it was impossible. That the position wouldn't be there the second year. That they were definitely going to cut it. But every year... God's kept my job for me.

- The first year... not gonna lie... I was a little worried. But I just kept thinking... “okay God... if this is what you want me to keep doing, You're gonna have to open a door somewhere...”

- The second year... I was less worried... had a few other paths I could take. Wasn't really worried about this particular position. But it was more because I had a backup plan than because I was really trusting God wholly.

- By the third year that they were yet again telling me that my job wasn't going to be there... I literally laughed in my principal's face when he told me they were going to cut me the next year. I said something like “Look Don, my God is bigger than the board office... and if He still wants me to be here next year, then I'll still be here... and there's not a thing they can do about it.”

- And you know what? I'm still here! Lol

- They are finally moving me to a new school next year... but it's okay. It's time for a move and God's very much in the move. And I'm not going to be out of a job in any way shape or form. In fact, I'm going to be at one school instead of two and only about 15 minutes from my house! It's BETTER!

- No matter what kind of worry comes... God's in control. And we have to learn to trust that.

- In John 14:27, Jesus said this: “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don't be troubled or afraid.”

- A gift! Jesus left us a gift of peace. Free. No strings attached.

- Peace doesn't mean that storms won't come... it just means that you have an anchor to hold you steady when the storms DO come.

CONCLUSION

- So, because God is everlasting... so is His ruling, His authority, His love, and His peace. It will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice for all eternity.

- His “passionate commitment” will make this happen. Because God is committed to these things... fairness, justice, love, peace... they will come to pass. What God has promised, He will accomplish.

- Isn't it WONDERFUL to know that we serve a God we can TRUST!

- “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.” (Hebrews 13:5)