Well, good morning, everybody. I hope you had a good holiday this week, good time with friends or family. I want to do something a little bit different today and in the run-up to Christmas. So, at great risk, because I'm not sure how it'll go pronouncing it, I want you to turn to Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 9.
Now while you're turning there, let me explain the thought behind these books. This is not something primarily for you to read, though I think if you take them, it would be good to read it, so you know what you're putting in the hand of somebody else. But that's the point, it's to put in the hand of somebody else. So, I want you to take one, one for your right hand, one for your left hand, okay? You have both. Take two on the way out.
And what I want you to do is not rush but maybe take the next week or two weeks to pray and ask that God would help you to know someone or to think carefully about someone to give this to. And actively pray in the run-up to Christmas that God would use this to work in their life.
So, part of this, we want to encourage evangelism all the time in our church, and sometimes the way that's done is just seizing cold conversations, opportunities just to speak of Jesus, but God has put you in a particular life setting, a stewardship, to use the language that we've been talking about so much, in Luke, So there are people who work with you. There are people in your family. There are friends, I think most of you have, that are part of your circle. And sometimes we can take those particular circles for granted.
And what I want you to do one for your right, one for your left, leave with at least two books, and I want you to be praying that God will give you an opportunity to give this to somebody. It could be as simple as maybe you already are giving a gift to a colleague at work that you think a lot of, and you have a good relationship. Well, why not just add this to the gift? put this in alongside and pray that God would use it in their life.
It's a really short, simple book. Picked it very deliberately because it is short, it's very accessible, language is very clear, and it's gospel centered. So, I think a lot of good could be done by this, but primarily, what I'm hoping is you would pray, you would give it to a friend, they would read it, and you would have opportunity to follow up with great conversation about our Lord.
Now, it may be that that doesn't happen immediately. That's okay. But we want to be purposeful. And there is a wonderful openness at this time of year to think about Christ. So, let's be purposeful in seizing the opportunities, being active in pursuing the opportunities, to proclaim our Savior.
So, take a couple and don't rush to give them out. Pray and think carefully about whose hand you can put this in, and to do it in a sweet and thoughtful way. So, we want, as elders, to encourage you to be purposefully evangelistic with the circles that God has put you in contact with.
Now, if you have your Bibles open at Isaiah chapter 9, let me read what is a very familiar passage in the run-up to Christmas. Let me read from verse 2 to verse 7. Isaiah chapter 9 and reading from verse 2.
[Scripture Reading] “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness on them the light has shone. You have multiplied the nation. You have increased its joy. They rejoice before you, as with joy at the harvest, as 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, as in the day of Midian. For every boot of the trampling warrior in battle tumult, and every garment rolled in blood, will be burned as fuel for the fire.
For to 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. If the increase of His government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.”
Let's take a moment and pray.
[Prayer] Heavenly Father, we do thank You at this particular time of year in the build-up to Christmas. There is an openness to think about Jesus Christ, the Word who became flesh and dwelt amongst us. Lord, You know the way so many of us think about this particular season and in particular about the incarnation and how light we make it. We pray, Lord, that the theological truth contained in this section of Scripture would help us to see not a baby wrapped in swaddling cloth and lying in a manger, but to see the King of kings and the Lord of lords who came to reign and to rule. We thank you that in that child is found all of the qualities that his people need. And we pray, Lord, that You would help us to understand that a little bit more this morning, that we would marvel at the great King that came to earth to rule over His people. Help us to love Him more and to understand Him more as a result of our study. For it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. [End]
Here at the start of chapter 9, God reveals a great hope is coming. A great light is about to pierce the darkness. There is one who would come that would give hope to a very bleak, a very dark world, that this prophecy was designed to give in that particular day in which it was issued, to give hope to those who were looking to God in the midst of darkness.
Isaiah's words were spoken in a very dark time, a very bleak season of history. A dark threat was looming over Jerusalem. The Assyrians were coming. The Assyrians in their day were the first real empire to take over a significant section of the world. They were a massive war-like machine. They weren't very good at governing, and because of that, their kingdom eventually would crumble. But what they were incredibly good at was gobbling up kingdoms. They were a military force, a military force that nobody could stand against.
And so, as Jerusalem expected the Assyrians to arrive, as they recognized that all support was gone from any surrounding nations, there was no get-out-of-jail-free card for them. Northern Israel, another kingdom of its own, and Northern Israel had tried to deal with the Syrians through making allegiances with other nations, in particular with Syria. And they thought, if we band together and we plot together, we can stand against that force.
While the king in Jerusalem, Ahaz at the time, Ahaz, he thought he'd snuggle up to the Assyrians. And so, Ahaz's idea was to go and to spend time with the king of Assyria, to pay him off with gold and to gossip and to tell on northern Israel and Syria and their conspiracies against Assyria. He wanted to gain favor.
And basically, you need to know Syria, northern Israel, Judah, which included Jerusalem, and Ahaz, every single one of them were a mess. Politically, they didn't know what they were doing. There were leaders in all of those countries meant to lead and to think and to be wise and to guide the people forward, and not one of them knew what they were doing.
And as a result, everybody gets destroyed. Syria gets destroyed. Northern Israel gets consumed by the Assyrians. In fact, Judah, where King Ahaz reigned, the nation that had the temple within it, it was consumed all the way up to Jerusalem. It was all taken apart from the capital. And the only reason the capital was spared it's because God directly intervened and He squashed the Assyrian army on their movement to conquest the capital. It took a direct intervention of God.
And so, this climate is a dark climate politically. No leader seems to know what to do. No leader has a clue. Everybody in this moment thinks they know what may be a good idea. They're all doing different things, but it doesn't work out for any of them. Because not only was it politically very dark, but spiritually it was very, very dark. The people were living in spiritual darkness. So, few in the world at the time, and even in Judah, even in Jerusalem, believed in the true God. And so, few at the time sought his help. Look at what verse two says. It describes this group of people as a people who walked in darkness. And also describes them as those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness. Here is a people described as being morally, spiritually dark. They had no time for God. The people at large were living for themselves. They were being led by wicked men, but they themselves were wicked. And they had absolutely no time for God.
Now, our circumstances look very different 3,000 years later. We don't have the Assyrian army breathing down our neck, looking to crush us. In Dallas, nobody is worshiping around the Asherah Pole. But I think we could make a good case, for politically, the world feels very dark at the moment. There's lots of issues taking over the whole world. There's lots of things. The news media are having a field day. There's always something to report because our world is always, it seems, in crisis. And nobody has the golden ticket. No earthly leader seems to truly know how to navigate it all. Some do better than others, but nobody does perfect. They're all navigating in darkness. And spiritually today, we live in a world where the majority of people are living in darkness. And so, 3,000 years later, we still need the light to pierce the darkness. And that light that we need to pierce the darkness today is to be found in the same place it was to be found in the day of Isaiah. In the child that was to be born.
You see the picture, a whole world in chaos, and the solution is to be found in a child. It seems so strange. In this child is to be found the Mighty Redeemer. The one that nation and every nation ever since needs. The Liberator of the oppressed. A child who was to be born. We're talking about a baby. And His strength was not to be found in the army that he controlled like the Assyrians. It was not to be found in the wealth that he possessed, like the Egyptians. It was not to be found in the powerful lineage that he had, like King Ahaz. Rather, the strength of this child was to be found in the qualities of the child himself. In the child was to be found all that the world needed. The light that would pierce the darkness. As one commentator says, “God's answer to everything that has ever terrorized us is a child.” It's a child. Look at verse 6 in particular. Look at verse 6. “For to 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…”
The name in Scripture so often isn't just a name. I'm called Andrew. And technically, if you were to get on Google and to look it up, the name means strong and mighty. Not all of us live up to our name. In the Bible, so often, the name is important because it reveals to us something key about the character. God occasionally would change the names of individuals because that name spoke to the nature of that person or the help that God would give to that person. This name is important. This name reveals something about the character of the child. What it is about this child that the world needs. What it is about this child that destroys darkness. What it is about this child that gives hope to people still living in a dark environment.
And what is this name? Well, it's fourfold. His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Here is a child with a fourfold name.
Now, if you know me, you may realize that I am a husband. I am a dad. Sometimes I am a friend. I am a pastor. And do you know what? I'm all those things at the same time. All of those are true of me. So, it's not unusual to find multiple roles and multiple qualities in an individual. But what is altogether different is the four qualities, the four roles that we find in this individual. And if we're going to understand the nature of this child that gives hope to the world, we need to think, and we gain real benefit from thinking about the qualities that are revealed in these four names that are part of who He is. He is all these things at the same time. And it is all these things that set him apart from every other earthly ruler.
And so over this Sunday and the three to follow, I want us just each week to look at a name. You've been thinking to yourself, how can we go any slower? Well, we're gonna do just two words this morning, okay? Two words. I want us each week to think about these names in the run-up to Christmas, so that when we get to Christmas, we would marvel. We would become so much more thankful, so much more aware of all that is to be found in our Savior, Jesus Christ. And so, this morning, I want us to focus on the first part of that fourfold name, “Wonderful Counselor.” “Wonderful Counselor.”
And at three points this morning, I know, only two words and yet still three points, how does he do it? Three points this morning, and here's the first one. This child is Divine. He is Divine. That first word there, wonderful, has become a very cheap word today. Whenever I'm sitting in the study trying to look over and to think about what I'm going to do on, how I'm going to handle the text that we come to on Sunday morning, every so often Sarah will poke her head in and she'll say, “Andrew, would you like a coffee?” And my reply is, “ooh. That would be wonderful.” Wonderful. If you're mixing afterwards and talking to each other, maybe you'll have a conversation and somebody will say, “look, maybe we should get lunch together.” And you would say, “oh, that would be wonderful.” We use the word so often, and we use the word so often, we've actually forgotten what the word itself means. It seems normal. We think of it as meaning a good thing. It would be good to do that. That would be nice. That would be briefly comfortable. That would be a little bit better than what I currently have. But that is not what the word itself means.
We use the word so casually today, it's lost all sense of its origins. The word is one that refers to that which is miraculous, supernatural. It goes beyond what normally can take place, beyond everyday explanation. It's miraculous. It is something that fosters within us, when we behold it, wonder, marvel. It is full of wonder. It is wonder inducing. It is wonderful. It is a quality in something that can only be explained by the direct intervention of God. There's no other explanation. The coffee that I drank this morning, there's an explanation for that. We could go into details about how it was made, but there are certain things in this world that are beyond that, beyond explanation. They can only be explained by the direct intervention of God Himself.
We see that in the Bible. Turn in your Bibles but way back to Genesis chapter 18 and verse 14. Genesis chapter 18 and verse 14. I want you just to see a little sense of how this word is used scripturally.
Now in Genesis chapter 18, God comes to Abraham and a long period has already taken place. Abraham has been following God for a long season already. And he's an aged man. And he's married to an aged lady. And it's in that context that God comes and proclaims to Abraham while Sarah listens in that she, old Sarah, will have a child. Will conceive. Will give birth. And Sarah, she can't get over it. You know the story. She responds with laughter. A kind of bewildered laughter. Well, look at verse 14. Genesis chapter 18, verse 14. God says, “is anything too hard?” That's our word. “Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time, I will return to you about this time next year and Sarah shall have a son.”
Now, every Bible translation is slightly different, but every so often, have you noticed there's those little letters that they put beside a word and they have a little footnote at the bottom? That's a way that the translators are seeking to help us. Because anytime you move between languages, a word may have more of a fuller meaning than we can get across in a singular English word. And if you look at your Bible, at least I see it in mine, beside the word hard, there is a little letter. And when I look at the footnote about what that little letter means, it says that the word means wonderful. It can be hard or wonderful. And so that word is our word for wonderful counselor.
There's something hard. You get it. God is talking and Sarah is bewildered and it seems hard. It seems impossible. How can an old lady who's barren suddenly conceive a child? That's not normal. In fact, it's not just not normal. Humanly speaking, it's impossible. It's impossible for man, but it's wonderful. It is possible for God. It requires the action of God. So that's what the word means. Not human, divine. It has to be divine.
Turn over to Exodus chapter 3, verse 20. Exodus chapter 3 verse 20. It's a great section of Scripture. I'd love to preach Exodus sometime. Well, hopefully we'll get there. But in the book of Exodus chapter 3, Moses is being commissioned by God and he is bewildered. He doesn't know how to move forward. He feels so inadequate for this type of calling. He's resistant. And so, God reveals to him what it is he's going to do in Egypt. And in Scripture, it isn't often called the plagues. We talk about the 10 plagues in Egypt. It's not often called the plagues. Well, what does Scripture call them, do you know? The signs and wonders. The signs and wonders, done, in Egypt. Look at verse 20 of chapter 3. So, I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the—here's our word—wonders that I will do in it. And after that, He will let you go.
It's a word we use here to describe that divine activity, those miraculous wonders that were done in Egypt, those things that can't be explained by natural phenomena, those things that can't be explained by clever Moses. Only God could have brought it about. Only God could have caused the water to turn to blood. Only God could have caused the land to be infected by frogs. Only God could have killed all of the livestock. Only God could have caused darkness to descend upon Egypt and yet preserve light in Goshen. How does that work? Wonder. Wonder. It's something only that can be explained by the action of God.
Go while you're in Exodus to chapter 34. Chapter 34 in verse 10. Chapter 34, verse 10. It says, chapter 34, verse 10, and “He said, behold, I am making a covenant before all your people. I will do marvels,” that's our word, “I will do marvels or wonders, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation.” You can't see this anywhere else. It's an action that's altogether different. And it continues, “And all the people among whom you shall see the work of the Lord, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.”
All-causing, altogether different. Here is something the world has never seen. Here is something that there's no repetition of. Here is something unique, altogether different, because it is something that comes from the Creator Himself. Something only God can do, and a God-only type of work.
Last one, look at Psalm 139. Psalm 139, a favorite psalm of many. Look at verse six. Here in those first few verses of the psalm, the psalmist is really proclaiming God's sovereign control over every detail of this universe and every detail of our personal existence. His sovereignty is declared so fully. And then verse 6 says, “such knowledge is too wonderful,” that's our word, “for me. It is high. I cannot attain it.”
That's such a helpful picture to understand the word wonderful. It's beyond me. I can't get it. I can't grasp it. When we're talking about the wonderful God, we're talking about the God who does what we cannot. Altogether different. This is what wonderful means. It's not a cup of coffee. That would be wonderful. It's something only God can do.
Whatever we're talking about, we're saying it is from the realm of God alone. This is beyond the ability of man or woman to conjure up. It can only be explained by the action of the divine. It's wonder-inducing. It's supernatural. It goes beyond human explanation. It's not simply the best of human activity. It's beyond human activity. We're in the realm of God action, of the action of the divine. There's no other explanation.
Now, do you see what that reveals about this child that was to be born? Think about it. What is God revealing to Isaiah about the child that was to be born? He would be one, most notably, not like anybody else. Not like any other child. Not even like any other prince or ruler or king. Right from the beginning, he goes over and above. The explanation for him is something unique. It can't be explained in any other way. He is the God-Man. Altogether wonderful. Altogether different. Altogether set apart and only to be understood, not in human terms, but in divine terms. That child would take its first steps in this world with a God-like authority. He would be able to heal the sick, to grant sight to the blind. He could restore life. He was altogether different from any other human that has ever set foot on this earth. Even every king and president and ruler, He was the God-Man.
And to understand this child, that's where it begins. Luke chapter 2 verse 34. Do you remember Simeon takes that child in his arms and he speaks that blessing over the child. He says to Mary His mother, “behold this child is appointed for the fall and the rising of many in Israel. And for a sign that is to be opposed, so that the thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.” This child can see into the heart. Here's a child that knows not just what it sees about you, and not just what happens in the darkness, but knows the very motives of your heart. Altogether different.
When Isla was younger, we were driving home from a children's club at church, and from the backseat she asked with sincere curiosity, “Dad, does Santa believe in Jesus? Does Santa believe in Jesus?” And she didn't realize she was asking the chair of the Irish Baptist Historical Society that question. And I'd been waiting for it for a while. I got very excited. And I said, “Isla, let me tell you about the Council of Nicaea. 1,700 years ago this year. Let me tell you about the Council of Nicaea, because at the Council of Nicaea, Saint Nick was there. And actually, Saint Nicholas, it is said, was so perplexed by a terrible character, Arius. Arius proclaimed that Jesus was the best of men, the firstborn son of creation.” Now, do you see what he was saying? He's amazing. He is set apart. He is over all of us, but he's less than God himself. He's the best of creation, the absolute best, but he's not the creator. He's not the one from whom everything comes. He's the firstborn.
And Arius was really tremendously influential in the early stages of the church's development because he was a hymn writer. And he propagated his heresy through hymns. And people embraced, this is a real testimony to why we should be thankful for Tristan and the other musicians that work hard to carefully pick hymns that are full of truth. Because Arius, he really, poisoned the mind of many in the church through theologically-off hymns.
And there at the Council of Nicaea, old Saint Nick threw a punch and he punched Arius in the nose because Arius sought to make Jesus less than fully God. Now, why did he care so much? Why was it so important to not just St. Nick, but many others at the council? Well, it's because that doctrine is what sets Christianity apart. We are not trusting in the best of men. We are not simply following the example of men who can lead us to a greater God. We have a gospel in which the God-Man was born. He came to earth as a child, but he is fully God. And that's what allowed Him to have a perfect life and a sacrificial death that didn't just stand in the place of one sinner, but many. For He is infinite. The reach of the sacrificial death that He lived covers many too. All who would trust in Him. He wasn't just the best of men. He was fully God. The God-Man. He is one who is, from the beginning, full of wonder, only to be explained by the fact He was the divine. He is wonderful. That child in the feeding trough in Bethlehem was no other than the divine. We sometimes sing in the run-up to Christmas:
“Veiled in flesh the Godhead see.
Hail th’incarnate Deity.
Pleased as man with man to dwell,
Jesus our Emmanuel.”
Emmanuel, it means God with us. Not just man, not even the best of man, God with us. That's why Christmas is such a profound part of the Christian calendar. Because it takes time to dwell on the fact that the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. God Himself, He is divine.
Secondly, He is wise. He is wise. Wonderful counselor. Nearly one in five, according to recent statistics, one in five American adults experience a diagnosable mental illness each year. 46% of Americans will meet the criteria for a diagnosable mental illness sometime in their life. Half of those people will develop that condition before they're 14. 4.8 million 12- to 17-year-olds have major depression in this country. 46.5 million, that's 18% of U.S. adults have a substance use disorder that has been expressed in the last year.
Now, we can debate and quibble about the nature of what qualifies as mental health and a condition and everything else. All that is simply to say there are a lot of people in crisis. There are a lot of people who are struggling. There are a lot of people who feel the darkness that they're living in, and we shouldn't make light of that. We need to be aware, as we think about giving out these evangelistic books over the next few weeks, we need to be aware that we live in a society that is in crisis, that it feels something. Whatever way they want to label it, they feel something of the weight of the darkness that they dwell in.
And Christians, too, often do have struggles. If you read Christian biographies, they are full of accounts of struggles. Some of the greatest saints, some of the greatest church leaders in the past are men who battled depression, who had real moments of melancholy and loneliness when they needed the help and the encouragement of others to be able to get back into the pulpit.
Now, I want you to see the glorious counseling ministry of the child here in Isaiah chapter 9. I want you to notice what the text is not saying, first of all. That's why it's complicated, isn't it? I want you to think about what it's not saying. That that word counseling, because it is prevalent in our society, is a loaded term. And as I proclaim it in front of a group this size, naturally some of us are going to have other ways of understanding it than the way that it's being communicated.
It is not saying that Jesus is good at listening and asking you, how does that make you feel? It is not saying that He is a great facilitator of our thought processing. Rather, though, it is true that He does hear us. What a wonderful thing. And indeed, the Bible tells us he is a sympathetic high priest. That's a glorious reality that we read about in Hebrews. The name is not declaring that here. It's declaring that He has perfect advice. In fact, better, perfect counsel, perfect guidance because He is Himself perfectly wise. He knows what is best and He knows what is right. He knows the long-term effects of decisions, not just the short-term.
We talked about that last week at our church picnic, how the Lord, if it was just the short-term, we would not have and hold on to that property, but the Lord knew what He was doing. The Lord sees the end from the beginning. He knows in the most complex of situations what would honor the Father. The Bible says He was familiar with suffering and He knows what is right in suffering. He knows what it is to lose someone that you love. He knows what it is like to be abandoned by those you love at the very time of your greatest need. He knows what it was like to be mistreated by the crowds and those in power. He knows what it was like to suffer physically and emotionally. He knows what it is like to be tempted by the fiercest of attacks of the evil one. He knows what it is like to live in a fallen and broken world. He knows what it is like to live in a world of darkness. And yet, in all of that, He was wise. And He knows what wisdom looks like in every single one of those circumstances and any other circumstance you can create. He knows what wisdom looks like.
Wisdom is that ability to know what would honor the Lord, what would please the Lord in this circumstance. And there is not a single circumstance in this existence that Christ does not know what is the right way to move forward. What is the right thing to do? What would please the Lord in this circumstance?
Jesus didn't just know what God's word said. Rather, the Bible says, He was in fact the Word. That's the point. He's the one from whom all wisdom comes. John 1.1, ‘in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” You go on down in John 1.9, it says, “the true light which he gives, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. He came to His own and His own people did not receive Him. But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God,” verse 14. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. And we have seen His glory. Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
He lived wisely, altogether differently. Jesus embodied the word in that sense. Everything that is to be understood about what pleases God, about the desires that should drive us, was lived out by Jesus on earth. He knows what honors God when it comes to our families. He gets what it looks like to honor God in the workplace. He understands what it takes to live for the Lord in Texas in 2026. He understands all of that.
Sometimes Christians today fall into a trap because we get a little bit grumpy when we talk too much to each other. And instead of spurring one another on to love and good deeds, we get each other down. Because we talk and act like the world has never been as dark as it is today. Oh, everything's so terrible. Those phones, the trouble they cause. There's never been a time like it is today to bring up children. How do we bring up children in this particular dark world? How do we bring up children in a world that will talk about changing their gender? How do we bring up children in a world where there is social media that will harass and bully them? How do we bring them up in a world that stigmatizes true Christianity as an ancient and oppressive system? We act in a way that if you parented it 20 years ago, you're out of touch today. You wouldn't know what to do today because it's just got so bad.
Wise up, there is nothing new under the sun. And our God of wisdom knows exactly. People think the world is getting darker. Do you know what it was like in Jesus' day? If they didn't like the gender of the child that was born, they left him on the streets to die. You'd walk down the streets and you'd hear babies crying as they starved to death. That was a world that had normalized pedophilia. In Rome, Roman citizens, those with influence and money, pedophilia was part of their weekend activity. It was stark. They didn't just have prostitution, it was state-mandated prostitution. They prided themselves in persecuting believers. We reckon Paul was martyred in the time of Nero. There was a season where he would light his gardens with Christians that he burned at the stake, he would just put so many of them up that he would go for walks in his garden while these Christians screamed in painful peril. Friends, this isn't the darkest generation. It was very grim. It was grimmer back then. I don't think we realize how good we have it.
And yet, even that said, Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6 is making clear that that child that was born knows what to do in this society. His counsel is perfect. He is divine. He is wise. And here's the third point. He rules with wonderful counsel. He rules with wonderful counsel. What I'm trying to say in this point is a very important thing. It's not just that He is wise and we should pray to Him, but He actually governs in wisdom. That's the point in this context, and it's so important we don't miss it.
It goes on to say in verse 6, and then in verse 7, it talks about the government that will be upon His shoulders. These names, in particular, are names that reflect the way that He governs, the way that He rules, the way that He exercises his kinship over this world, and in particular, over His people. He is not just a good man that listens. Rather, this is a King that rules His subjects with this type of quality. With wisdom.
His rule is marked by wonderful counselor. What does that mean? Well, it means that He makes decisions that are best for everybody under His rule. You think of the context this is spoken in. The king of Assyria is making his plots to try and you know, have enough strength against the Assyrians, and the king of northern Israel is all caught up in it too, and he's making his plans, and they're both gonna get destroyed for it.
Meanwhile, King Ahaz in Jerusalem, he's making his kind of arrangements too, and he's trying to pay off the Assyrians. He's going a very different way, very different line of counsel. He's trying to make it work too, and it's gonna kill him as well. You see the context? Every keenly ruler of the day is a mess. And whatever they're doing, they're doing the wrong thing.
In fact, even Assyria, that big force to be reckoned with, it'll disappear because they don't know how to manage people. They'll slip away from history because they don't know how to govern. So, all of the world at that time is in turmoil because of a lack of wise government.
And yet, remember chapter 6 verse 1, in the year that another terrible king, King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up. This was a world where they were desperate for counsel. In fact, chapter 8, verse 19, it speaks of the people seeking counsel and fortune-telling. They wanted some spiritualist to try and give them a way forward because nobody else was giving them a clear way forward. This was a world where the blind were leading the blind, and nothing was working. But there was one stable force. And the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, seated upon His throne. He was there. He continued to be in control. He would still be in control. He is still in control, even though many have forgotten.
And most importantly, right from eternity past, God had a plan. And the plan was to send into this broken, sin-cursed world a child. A child who would rule in a way that was different from the king of Assyria, that was different from the king of northern Israel, that was different from king Ahaz in Jerusalem, for He would be God's Son. fully God and marked by all wisdom. And so, He would rule with wonderful counsel. The government that would be on His shoulders would be led perfectly.
Friends, this is the point. We have a King who knows what He's doing. That's why we don't have to be grumpy. That's why Christians can be optimistic. Whatever nation we find ourselves in, if I was to take you and throw you into the most aggressive parts of Nigeria, the most aggressive parts of the Middle East where Christians are persecuted, your Lord would still be on His throne. And He would still know what He is doing. King Jesus doesn't make mistakes. King Jesus doesn't get the call wrong. King Jesus never needs to say sorry to the nation because he botched it. His kingship is marked by wonderful counsel.
And notice the language. That wonderful counsel is for us. For to us a child is born. We're the ones that need that leadership, that need that direction. We're the ones that need this type of a king. The focus of this verse is not what He will do, it's how He will reign. That's the idea in all of these names. And His rule, His reign is marked by ongoing, wonderful, divine levels of counsel. If you're a Christian this morning, you have a wonderful counselor, one who supernaturally always gets it right with you.
Do you ever feel crippled by the decision you have to make? You know, you have to make one choice or the other, and we just don't know how to move forward. Friends, we're in the hands of one who knows exactly. There's wonderful relief in that. whose plans are perfect, whose ways can't be thwarted. He rules over us with that amazing rule, and in that is to be found amazing hope. If we understood the way he ruled more, we would have far greater confidence marching forward.
And so, it's right as we close to ask the question, this wonderful counselor, unlike any that ever has or will set foot in this world apart from Him, is He your King this morning? If it's all about His rule, if it's all about His government, is He your King this morning? Do you know His wonderful counsel personally? Do you know Him personally?
Here is a quality that marks the perfect King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the one that every single individual in this room needs, but He is only to be known. His rule is only embraced, the Bible says, through repentance and faith. Have you repented of your sin? Have you exercised faith in the good work of the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you come under His rule so that you can know the blessings of the wonderful Counselor?
Let's pray.
[Prayer] Heavenly Father, we are so conscious of the fact that we live in a world of darkness, and so often we don't know how to put one foot in front of the other, but we thank You that King Jesus is in control of all. We thank You that the plans of God are perfect. We thank You that in those plans You care for the individual, that nothing can snatch us out of Your hand. That nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. That You know the very number of hair upon our head. That You who clothe the lilies of the field have promised to provide for us. That You who provide food for the birds of the air have promised to provide our daily bread.
Lord, help us to trust that You, the One in control, are perfect in Your governorship, perfect in Your rule, and full of care for Your own. Lord, we thank You for that child who was born, that he was unlike any other, for he was fully God. He was wonderful. And in Him, we can find the hope to press forward in a dark world, knowing that His counsel will take us all the way home. Lord, help us to trust and love Jesus more. For it's in His name we pray. Amen. [End]
