Good morning. We're going to continue our study
in the names of Christ given to us in the scriptures this
morning. And the name that I want us to look at this morning is
the Prince of Peace. The Prince of Peace. It's good
to have Wes and Melanie from Rocky Mount, Virginia. We're
Paul Mahan pastors there here. on vacation with their two beautiful
little girls. We're happy they're here. Dennis
Fitzton, who most of you know from Charlotte, is here with
us this weekend. Dennis, it's a blessing to have
you. Our text this morning is Isaiah
chapter 9, verse 6. Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6. If
you'd like to turn there. Let's ask the Lord's blessings
on His Word to our hearts. Our Heavenly Father, we're so
very thankful that we have a throne of grace through which we can
approach Thee. We thank Thee that we have an
advocate, one who has himself satisfied all the demands of
Thy holy law. One who has presented himself
as our righteousness. One who has suffered the fullness
of your wrath for our sin and satisfied divine justice once
and for all. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Alpha
and the Omega, the mighty God, the Prince of Peace. We come
before thee in his name and we ask, Lord, that you would be
pleased to lift him up. in our hearts, and that you would
cause us, Lord, to find all our hope, all our salvation, and
all our satisfaction in him. We pray for the places where
your gospel goes out this morning. We ask, Lord, that you would
give liberty to hear, liberty to speak, Lord, that you would
bless it to the hearts of your people. We pray it in Christ's
name. Amen. Over a hundred different names
and titles are given to us by the Holy Spirit in the Word of
God to reveal to us the glory of our Savior. He's so magnificent
in His person and in His work that the Spirit of God knew that
we needed many, many different titles and names to describe
Him to us. We've looked at His name, Jesus,
for He shall save His people. We've looked at His name as the
Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the
Last, the One who ordained all of salvation and the One who
accomplished it through His work, and the One who will bring it
to its fruition. We looked last Sunday at his
title given to us in Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6, the mighty God. And
how so often times lip service is given in the world to the
Lord Jesus Christ as God, but his essential power is denied
when men say that he's not able to save unless we cooperate with
him, unless we invite him into our hearts, unless we let him
have his way. His hands are tied. And they
deny Him of His deity, they honor Him with their lips, but their
hearts are far from Him. We don't believe that for a moment.
We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the mighty God, and
that He hath done whatsoever He wills with the armies of heaven
and all the inhabitants of the earth, and that no man can stay
His hand, and no man has the right to say unto Him, What doest
Thou? He's the potter. He has the right
to make from the same lump of clay some vessels of honor and
some of dishonor. And we don't question that. We
bow to that. What a glorious God we serve.
Here in Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6, the Lord tells us that a child
has been born. So the son that was given pre-existed
the child that was born. God was made flesh, born of a
woman, born under the law to redeem them that are cursed by
the law of God. So here we have the Son who is
eternal in His nature being made flesh and dwelling among us that
we might behold the fullness of His glory. And a child is
born. the government shall be upon
his shoulders." He's going to uphold all things by the word
of His power. That's just who He is. And He
goes on to tell us that His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor,
the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, The Lord Jesus Christ
is described here. We'll look at this in the weeks
to come. The unity that the Lord Jesus
Christ has in the triune Godhead with the Father is beyond our
comprehension. We don't understand anything
we believe. We really don't. But we believe
it. It's been declared clearly in
the scriptures and God gives us faith to believe that the
Father and the Son are one. If you've seen me, you've seen
the Father. And he's called here in our text the everlasting Father. The Prince of Peace. The Prince of Peace. You remember
our verse in Psalm 37, 37, Mark, the perfect man? And the rest
of that verse says, for the end of that man is peace. He's the prince of peace. He's
the only peace that there is to be had, is to be found in
him. And peace is such a desired thing
in the world. It's the treasure that is the
most sought after and the most elusive at the same time. Men fail to achieve peace because
they're looking in all the wrong places for it. The diplomats
and the politicians and governing officials commit their lives
to achieve world peace only to be mocked by history that shows
as soon as one conflict is over another arises. The world has
never known the kind of peace that men are trying to achieve
because it's not to be had in entreaties, it's not to be enjoyed
through things, it's not to be achieved by man's means. The Lord Jesus Christ, that's
what our verse says in Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6, the Lord Jesus
Christ Himself is the Prince of Peace. In John chapter 14
he says, my peace I give thee, not as the world giveth, The
peace that I give you is not like the peace that the world
is seeking after. Turn with me to that passage
of scripture. The world understands peace as
the absence of conflict, the absence of trouble, peace that God has to give is
the absence of conflict and it is the absence of trouble but
not in this world. The Lord never promised his children
to be insulated from the troubles and the conflicts that this world
has to bring. Matter of fact, more times than
not, when the Lord's pleased to save one of His lost sheep
and bring them to Himself, He increases their conflicts. He gives them troubles they knew
nothing of before. They find out for the first time
in their life that they've got a conflict living within their
own breast, in their own flesh, that they really knew nothing
about before. And that conflict drives them to the Lord Jesus
Christ to find true peace. The peace of God from the Prince
of Peace. Look in John chapter 14 verse
27. Peace I leave with you. this chapter begins by the Lord
assuring his disciples that he's going to prepare a place for
them he says in verse one let not your heart be troubled they're
beginning to understand a little bit of what the Lord's telling
them about his death and about his departure and their they're
becoming very concerned and very worried about what are we gonna
do and so the Lord says to them don't let your heart be troubled
you believe in God believe also in me for my father's house are
many dwelling places many mansions that's the word there Many places
for, there's sufficient supply of all that you need. If it were
not so, I would have told you. I'm not hid anything from you.
I've told you everything you need to know. I'm the Prince
of Peace. All that you need to settle the
disquietness of your heart, all that you need to give you hope
and security is found in me and in my words. Or if it were not
so, I would have told you. He said, I go and prepare a place
for you. I'm going to the Father. I'm
going to present myself before Almighty God as your righteousness. so that God will be completely
satisfied with the accomplished work that I've performed in satisfying
the demands of His holy law on your behalf. And I'll be your
advocate with the Father. And He'll be satisfied with the
divine justice that I've suffered under. God, I'm going to prepare
a place for you. When the scripture says that
God sends forth His Word and it will accomplish the purpose
for which He sends it, it will not return unto Him void. That's the preacher's hope. That's
the believer's hope when we declare the Gospel. That the Word of
God will take root and produce fruit in the lives and hearts
of God's people. But it's also a hope that all
believers have for the Living Word. We don't separate the Lord
Jesus Christ as the Living Word of God from the written Word
of God. The written Word is given to reveal Him, to reveal the
Living Word. So when He ascended back into
glory, He did not return void. He accomplished that for which
the Father sent Him. And He took with Him the names
of all those for whom He lived and died. All those that God
Almighty had chosen, the covenant of grace, all those that He satisfied
the law for, all those that He suffered the wrath of God's justice
for, He took them with Him. So that Paul tells us in Ephesians
that all of our blessings are in heavenly places in Christ. And that's what he's saying to
us here. Don't be afraid. I go and prepare a place for
you. And I will come again. Here's our peace. I'll receive
you to myself so that where I am there you may be also. The thought
of departing this world is not a fearful thought for the children
of God. Oh no, it's just the opposite. When Paul speaks to
the church in Thessalonica about the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ, you know how he concludes that description of His coming? He does it twice. He says to
them, comfort ye one another with these words. Are you comforted at the thought
of the Prince of Peace? coming it does not yet appear
what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear will
be made like him are you comforted with that are you comforted with
the with the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ revealing to you
the fullness of his glory and settling in your heart all the
peace that he has for us comfort one another. Abraham, who's the father of
the faithful, he looked for a city whose builder and foundations
were God. And he believed that he that
promised was able to perform the things that he had promised.
He was looking for another land. He was looking for another city.
The Scripture calls us pilgrims in this world. Here's our comfort.
This is our peace. This is our hope that the Lord
is coming soon. I want to remind you of this
every time we come together. I do. Because we get so caught
up in the things of this world. We get so distracted by temporal
stuff. And our hope is not in this world. Our hope is in Christ, the Prince
of Peace, who has promised to come and to bring us to Himself. And in fact, the only way that
we can have any peace in this world is to have the peace of
knowing that when He has appointed His time, that we will go to
be with Him. In other words, the only way
to experience the peace of God in your heart right now is to
have peace with God. And the only way to have peace
with God is for the Prince of Peace to be your representative
before God. You're completely trusting His
righteousness for all your righteousness before God. You're trusting that
what he accomplished on Calvary's cross satisfied the demands of
God's justice. You have, you have peace with
God. I had somebody tell me this week, I just don't have the peace
of God that passes understanding. I said, well, you know, the only
way to have the peace of God is to have peace with God. And
if you have peace with God, turn with me to Ephesians, Philippians
chapter three, Philippians chapter three. uh... chapter four I'm sorry
Philippians chapter four look at verse four in Philippians
chapter four here's where the now I want you to notice verse
seven first of all and the peace of God which passeth all understanding
shall keep your hearts and your minds through Christ Jesus that's
what I want to know about I want to know about the peace of God,
not the peace that the world has to offer, not the peace that
says, well, if you've got plenty of money and you don't have any
troubles and you're well, you know, you're healthy, wealthy,
and wise, you know, then you'll have peace and nobody's out to
kill you, you know, then you'll have peace. That's the world's
peace. I want to know something about
God's peace. And he says here that the peace
of God passes human understanding. Why? Because men can't enter
into it. They can't understand it. They
have no knowledge of it. Not the peace of God. Why? Because
they have no peace with God. Why do they have no peace with
God? Because they're not rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Look
where this passage begins in verse 4. Rejoice in the Lord
always. And again I say rejoice. All the time? You mean all the
time? Yeah. Yeah. Always. You see, this is the
peace of God. To be able to rejoice in Christ
Jesus, to be able to rejoice in His finished work, to be able
to rejoice in His free and sovereign and irresistible and effectual
grace, to be able to know that I have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, to know that all my sins have
been put away, that there's no condemnation in God towards me,
that I have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the
one I'm rejoicing in. I tell you what, if you believe
that, if God gives you the grace to rejoice in Christ Jesus, hey,
If God before me, who can be against me? Who can be against
me? And whatever he's ordained for
me, if I'm in Christ, if I'm found in him, not having my own
righteousness, which is of the law, but that righteousness,
which is through the faith of Jesus Christ, if I'm found in
him, then I can rejoice. I can rejoice. and have peace and know that
I'm accepted and that there's no condemnation, no condemnation
to them who are in Christ Jesus. The wrath, the fiery wrath of
God was quenched on Calvary's cross. All the sins of all of God's
people were put away once and for all through the sacrifice
of themselves. That's peace with God. That's everything. And the Lord Jesus
Christ is the only one that can accomplish that. He's the only
one that can do it. He is the Prince of Peace. He's the dispenser of peace.
He's the cause of peace. He's the object of peace. He's
all. And He's in all. And if we're
to know the peace, if we're to know the peace with God, then
we have to, by the grace of God, be able to rejoice in Christ
always. The world can't do that. The
world knows nothing about rejoicing unless everything's going well
for them. This is a matter of the heart. This is not a matter of circumstances. This is, as I said, More times
than not, God will stir your circumstances and make them more
difficult in order for you to realize that your peace is not
in this world. It's not in this world. It's
not in your determination. It's not in your success. It's
not in anything other than Christ, that He alone is the Prince of
Peace. And you're not going to have
any peace with God. Unless you're looking to the Lord Jesus Christ,
who alone doused the fire of God's wrath through the sacrifice
of Himself. Not only is there no condemnation,
there's nothing but affection. There's nothing but affection. John said it like this, he said,
Oh, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us. of all people,
that we should be called the children of God? To be a child
of God? How much do you love your children?
What would you not do for your children? If you being evil would
do that for your children, how much more the Heavenly Father
who loves us infinitely and has loved His people, never been
a time when God didn't love. His children. Never been a time. The prophet said He's loved us
with an everlasting love. His love's the same now as it's
always ever been. So this knowing of the peace
of God begins with rejoicing in Christ Jesus. Rejoicing in
Christ Jesus. We looked at this verse yesterday
at the preacher's class and the verse where Paul tells us to,
where the Lord is saying to us, rejoice, be thankful in all things,
be thankful in all things for this is the will of God in Christ
Jesus concerning you. Now you might hear that verse
or read that verse and think that what it says is it's the
will of God that you be thankful in all things. But that's not
the structure of the verse. What the verse is saying is be
thankful in all things for all things are the will of God in
Christ Jesus concerning you. You see the difference? People say, I want to know God's
will for my life. You're right smack dab in the
middle of it right now. All things work together for
good for them that love Him and the call according to His purpose.
That's the rejoicing in Christ Jesus. To find your comfort and
your hope and your satisfaction in Christ and to believe that
what He did is sufficient for you. Do you believe that? that what he accomplished is
sufficient for you that you're you're pleased to be saved God's
way without any contribution of your own trusting Christ alone
and rejoicing in him rejoicing in him the Lord knows that we're made
of dust He remembers that we're made of dust and he knows how
fickled we are and how of little faith we are and how circumstances
do affect us. And that's why he says, again,
I say unto you, rejoice. Yes, even now, even now, rejoice. Rejoice in Christ. Why? Because your circumstances don't
change who He is. And they don't change what He's
accomplished. Not in the least. He's the same
yesterday, today, and forever. He's immutable and His work cannot
be changed. You can't add to it. You can't
take away from it. So you just rejoice in Christ.
Always. Always. Look at the next verse. Let your moderations be known
unto all men. Do everything in moderation.
Don't be an extreme person. Extremes are just emotional outbursts
that we have trying to gain control of our circumstances, aren't
they? Either we become extremely sad, or extremely glad, or extremely
mad. Let your moderation. Be a moderated
person. Why? Because the Lord's at hand. You know what that means? That
means He's as near to you as is your hand. That's what it
means. That's how close He is. The Lord's
at hand. He's got this under control. Be careful for nothing. Now, God's not saying, don't
worry, be happy. That's the world's philosophy.
That's the world's peace. Don't worry, be happy. He is
saying, don't worry. But he said, instead of worrying,
let your requests be known unto God. Make your supplications
to Him. Look what He says. Be careful
for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving. Let your requests be known unto
God. Express your needs to Him. He's the Prince of Peace. He's
able to settle your heart. He's able to fix your whatever
it is. He's able. He's able. He's certainly able to put away
our sin. If that's been done, all's well. All's well. The peace of God. peace of God that passes human
understanding, a peace that the world can't relate to, will keep,
will keep, settle, guard, protect, give faith to the heart, keep
your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. See, so the Prince of
Peace is the one who gives us peace with God and provides for
us the peace of God, and He's the one that His peace leads
back to. So He's the Alpha and the Omega.
See, the peace of God keeps us in Christ Jesus. He just leads
us back to Christ. So we start with Christ, we end
with Christ. He's the Prince of Peace. He's
all. And He's in all. You don't get
away from Him. You don't want to. Where else are we going to go,
Lord? All of our peace, all of our
hope, all of our satisfaction, all of our salvation is in You. The world doesn't know anything
about this peace. Now that passage in John 14 that we looked at
a moment ago, my peace I leave thee, my peace I give unto thee,
not as the world gives." Prior to that verse, He says, I'm going
to send the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. And He's going to lead
you into all truth. And He's going to remind you
of those things that I said and point you to Me. That's His ministry. That's His work. So where does
that leave us? Oh Lord! Lord, give me Your Spirit. Have you asked God to give you
His Holy Spirit lately? Lord, just give me Your Spirit. Lord, just give me Your Spirit. If he does, the Spirit of God
will point you to Christ and he will comfort your heart. That's
his name. We're talking about the names
of Christ here. The name of the Holy Spirit that the Lord Jesus
Christ uses in John 14 and John 16 is the Comforter. The Comforter. Do you need to
be comforted? Do you need to be comforted that
all is well with God? Do you need to be comforted in
knowing that your sin's been put away? Do you need to be comforted
in knowing that God is still on His throne and that He's working
all things together for your good and for His glory? You need
to be comforted. You need to have the peace of
God. Or are you being careful? Anxious? You said be careful for nothing? Lord, give us your Spirit. Finally, brethren, don't you
love this verse? Everything comes back to Christ. Not having peace is a matter
of the heart, isn't it? And, you know, I know people
like to separate the heart from the head and they said, well,
you can have a head knowledge without a heart knowledge. In
fact, the scriptures use the two terms interchangeably. And,
you know, the disconnect is not between the head and the heart.
The disconnect is between the heart and the tongue. That's
the disconnect. Men will say things they don't
believe. They'll honor God with their lips when their hearts
are far from Him. They'll confess things that's not in their heart
or in their mind. And just because they can articulate
some truths if it's not coming from the heart, they're just
proving themselves to be liars, that's all. So, when the Scripture
speaks of thinking on these things, He's talking about holding these
things in your heart. Finally, my brethren, whatsoever
things are true, The Lord Jesus Christ said, I am the way, the
truth, and the life. All truth is to be found in the
Prince of Peace. There's no truth outside of Him.
Whatsoever things are, honest. Oh, we're so deceitful, aren't
we? We're so dishonest. We just are. I mean, we measure honesty on
our own scale to say that, you know, well, you know, I'm being
honest with you. But in fact, we're always wanting to present
ourselves better than we are, aren't we? We don't want anybody
to know the full exposure of our hearts, do we? No. So we're, you know, but here
the Lord is just honest and you can be honest with Him. You can
be honest with him. First of all, you can't tell
him anything he doesn't already know. A whole lot better than you know it. Second of all, he said, come
to me, all ye that are burdened and heavy laden. I'll give you
rest. My yoke is easy. My burden is
light. I'm the Prince of Peace. Whatsoever
things are just, the justice of God was satisfied through
the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross. God's
justice was met. You see, all these terms, all
these words that he's telling us to think on are just descriptions
of Christ. So once again, our minds and
our hearts are back to the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatsoever things are pure. How
are we going to stand before God lest we have pure hands and
a clean heart? How are you going to have pure
hands and a clean heart? Only to be found in Christ. Christ
is your advocate before God. You've got clean hands and a
pure heart. If you've got faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, God reckons that faith as righteousness. That's
what the scripture says. The faith of Abraham God reckoned
as righteousness. Why? Because Abraham was looking
to the promise of God, believing that he which promised was able
to perform that which he promised. And when we're looking to Christ,
we're looking through the faith that God gave us, and God considers
that faith righteousness because of what it's connected to. The
faith doesn't save. Someone said that faith is like
the chain that connects the anchor to the boat. That's true. You disconnect that chain from
the anchor and see what help you get from it. It's not going
to help you at all, is it? The anchor of our soul is the
Lord Jesus Christ and He's sure and steadfast and all the faith
does is connect our boat to Him. He's the one that holds it. There's no salvation apart from
faith. So he's telling us to look to the one who has satisfied
the justice of God, the one who's pure, the one who is lovely,
the one who is of good report. Why callest thou me good? There's
none good but God. They told Moses on Mount Sinai
when Moses asked for him to see the Lord. What did God say? What
did the Lord Jesus Christ say to Moses? I'll cause my goodness
to pass before you. Oh Lord, would you cause your
goodness to pass before me? I Have no goodness in myself
in me that is in my flesh dwelleth. No good thing But he's nothing
but goodness. He's pure goodness Think on these things Virtue. Praise. Oh, he gets all
the praise, doesn't he? The Prince of Peace gets all
the praise. For there's no such thing as
peace. Not real peace. Not the peace of God and not
peace with God. Apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. Set your affection on things
above. where Christ is seated at the
right hand of God. Look to Christ. Your peace will be found in Him. Alright, let's take a break.