Isaiah is the most wonderful
book. It seems to be at the centre of the Bible for a good reason. So much of what comes before
culminates in Isaiah and so much of what happens into the future
of God's people is written very large in Isaiah. As Cole so rightly
said, when we actually read the scriptures, we need to read them
as spiritual words to God's people. Romans 14 says that through the
comfort, through the scriptures are given to us, that through
the comfort that they have of what we see happening in the
lives of God's people and see God's dealing with his people,
that we, These things were written for our learning that we, through
patience and the comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. So, this is a season for great
hope and we're going to be looking at Isaiah chapter 9 where this
great light comes into the darkness. But it's good just briefly for
us to look at the state of Nation Israel at this time. prophesied over a long period
of time and a climactic period of time in Israel's history when
the northern tribes were to be taken away and the ten tribes
lost forever. And then he prophesied about
the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem. But in the midst of
all of this, he actually has two things that are just abundantly
clear. The suffering that comes upon
nation Israel comes because of their sins and it comes as God
is extraordinarily faithful to the promises he's made to them.
In verse 4 of chapter 1 he says, Alas, sinful nation, a people
laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are
corrupters. They have forsaken the Lord.
They have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel. They have
turned away backward. And such is the depth of the
sin of the nation is just a reflection of the sin that's embedded deep
in the hearts of all of Adam's children. And as we read the
scriptures we need to see not just the spiritual application
to God and his faithfulness to promises, we need to see what
it says about us. And it says, from the sole of
their foot, in verse 6, even to the head there is no soundness
in it but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have
not been closed or bound up or soothed with ointment. Your country
is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Strangers, devour your land in
your presence. It is desolate as overthrown
by strangers. And so there is, in Isaiah's
time, the impending destruction of the people of Israel. destroyed
because of their sins, but destroyed because of God's faithfulness
to his promise. In chapter 2 verse 6 he says,
For you have forsaken your people, the house of Jacob, because they
are filled with eastern ways. The whole sermon could be spoken
about the eastern ways that fill our lands these days. In verse
8 of chapter 2, it becomes more personal. Their land is full
of idols. They worship the work of their
own hands, that which their own fingers have made. And it's sad, isn't it? That's
just the reality of what we see around us today. Isaiah is speaking
not just about what happened 700 years before the Lord Jesus
came, he's speaking about what happened 2000 years after the
Lord Jesus came. So they are lofty looks of men,
in verse 11. And so, but the Lord alone is
going to be exalted in all of this. Chapter 2 verse 17 and
19, The loftiness of men shall be bowed down, the haughtiness
of men shall be brought low. The Lord alone will be exalted
in that day. The Lord alone will be exalted.
He's the mighty one who shakes the earth mightily. and Jerusalem
will fall just like the northern tribes. Jerusalem has stumbled,
verse 8 of chapter 3, has stumbled. Judah has fallen because their
tongue and their doings are against the Lord to provoke the eyes
of his glory. And their sins are open, aren't
they? They declare their sin as Sodom. They do not hide it,
woe. to their soul. If Isaiah was
writing about the world we live in today, he would not have to
change one single thing. We have to keep remembering that
he's actually speaking to a religious people, to people who claimed
to know God, claimed to be God's people and claimed haughtily
that God was going to protect them regardless of what they
did. but at the end of the day there is just one purpose in
all of this, that God will be exalted. Verse 2 of chapter 2,
in that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful. And these people he has just
described as idolaters, as proud, as unclean and unfit, he then
says of them, the work of the Lord will be such that his bride,
the bride of the Lord Jesus will be called beautiful. And it shall
come to pass, verse 3 of chapter 4, shall come to pass that he
who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy. It's a great description of the
Lord's work in the lives of his people. And the Lord will be
exalted. So, in this judgement, in this
darkness, the Lord will be exalted. The whole purpose of all of creation
is that God is going to be exalted. And in verse 16 of chapter 5
he's going to be exalted in judgement. He's going to be hallowed. He's
going to be lifted up and seen as holy in righteousness. And 26 of chapter 5, verse 26
of chapter 5, he will lift a banner to the nations from afar. and
will whistle to them from the end of the earth. Surely they
shall come speedily. God's children will come, God's
righteous judgement will come and he will whistle. Many of
you have seen our dog Ali obediently respond to the whistle. that
I give her and she'll come running from afar. Such is the greatness
of our God that he just whistles, as it were, and his works are
done. Whether they are works in judgement,
as we see in these passages, and works of glorious salvation,
God just speaks. and it is done. All he has to
do is say a word. And so we live in this world,
like the Israelites did, where there seems to be darkness all
around and oppression all around. You have Assyria going to attack
them. You have the promise that the
mighty Babylonians will come and destroy Israel. So there
is darkness in this land. Then Isaiah, in the midst of
all this proclamation of woe, has the most amazing experience
where Isaiah said woe and woe and woe to all these people.
Isaiah comes to see God and he saw him in the temple in the
beginning of chapter 6 and he heard the seraphs crying, holy,
holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his
glory. And as someone once commented,
even the doorpost in the temple had the decency to tremble at
the voice of God. But then Isaiah, having seen
God, says, woe is me. Woe is me, for I am undone, for
I am a man, because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in
the midst of a people of unclean lips. And my eyes have seen the
King, the Lord of hosts." Who did he see? Who did Isaiah see? He saw the same one that all
of the saints of the Old Testament saw. They saw, in John 12 verse
41 we are told, with great clarity, these things Isaiah said when
he saw his glory and spoke of him. He saw the Lord Jesus. We've had a theme in some of
our sermons just recently that we want to exalt the fact that
the Lord Jesus is God. He is absolutely God and our
passage in Isaiah will just reinforce that again. But to be God means
that he knows absolutely everything. To be God means that he has absolute
power over all things. He is in control of this universe. We were talking about the universe
this morning. So big is the Lord Jesus, Hebrews says that he can
wrap the universe around him as if it were a cloak. The Lord
Jesus is big and the Lord Jesus is God. Part of Israel's sins
and Judah's sins was that they did not exalt the Lord God as
sovereign and holy and that is the heart of sin and the heart
of idolatry is to take away the glory of God and give it to men
in some small way. The will of men, the worth of
men, the work of men is built up. And one thing that God's
people in proclaiming the Gospel need to do incessantly is that
we have two towers. One tower which is the great
tower of man and his self-esteem and his self-worth. It needs
to be destroyed and destroyed and destroyed again and again
and again. And we cause people to come and
meet the Lord Jesus as Isaiah met the Lord Jesus. and rather
than looking around in self-righteousness at other people, God's people
say, woe is me because I have seen the Lord. And so we are
destroying always, wherever we have the opportunity, we destroy
the self-esteem and self-worth of men and we raise up the esteem
and the worth and the glory of the Lord Jesus. And the Lord
Jesus in his perfect work because the seraphim in chapter 6 verse
6 flew to Isaiah with a live coal which he'd taken with tongs
from the altar and he touched my mouth with it and said, behold,
this has touched your lips. Your iniquity is taken away and
your sin purged. That's what it is to meet with
God. Woe is me. The Lord is holy,
holy, holy. I am undone and God has marvellously
restored my relationship with him. And notice that 700 years
before the Lord Jesus came to that time when he came into this
world and came to the cross, he says to Isaiah, 700 years,
a man who was of unclean lips, he says, your iniquity is taken
away, Isaiah. Not that your iniquity will be
taken away in time when I do things to you Isaiah. Not that
your iniquity will be taken away when you repent and you do things.
Your iniquity is taken away. It was taken away in eternity. The Lamb was slain before the
foundation of the world. God's works were done from all
eternity. So your iniquity is taken away. Your sin is purged and this is
the banner that we raise. This is the banner that we lift
up. And then in chapter 7, in the midst of all of this darkness,
we have that marvellous promise. For the Lord himself will give
you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive
and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel. you shall call his name Immanuel,
God with us, as the New Testament explains to us. And so into this
darkness that comes because of the sins of people, that there
will be destruction, the King of Assyria will destroy, Jerusalem
and Judah will be destroyed. This is the darkness. the darkness
of nation Israel and the darkness of people's own hearts as Isaiah
saw. Into this darkness we have these
wonderful verses that we'll look at this morning just briefly.
The people who walked in darkness, chapter 9 of Isaiah, the people
who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Isaiah saw a great
light. Those who dwell in the shadow
of death, upon them a light has shined. You have multiplied the
nations and increased its joy. They rejoice before you according
to the joy of harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the
spoil. For you have broken the yoke of his burden and the staff
of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. For every worrier's sandal is
from the noisy battle and garments rolled in blood will be used
for burning and fuel for the fire. These are the verses that
we know so well. It's just lovely to see them
in their context. For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son
is given and the government will be upon his shoulder and his
name will be called Wonderful. counsellor, mighty God, everlasting
father, prince of peace and of the increase of his government
and peace there will be no end upon the throne of David and
over his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgement
and justice from that time forward. even for evermore, the zeal of
the Lord of hosts will accompany, will perform this. And so just
this morning as we come to this season in the year, I think it
would just be lovely to look at this wonderful description
of the Gospel. Israel was a land without a true
God and a teaching priest and in those times there was no peace. Darkness threatened people and
it was a real darkness. But the design of the Gospel
and the grace of the Gospel is to break the yoke of sin and
Satan and to remove the burden of guilt and corruption and free
us from the rod of those oppressors and that we might be brought
into the glorious liberty of the children of God. So the Lord
Jesus comes in the midst of all this darkness and he comes and
he is given these wonderful, wonderful descriptions. In the
midst of this dark time the Lord shines a light which is even
brighter because of the darkness that's all around. Unto us a
child is given. a child is born, unto us a son
is given. A child, just a child, a child
born in our nature to experience all that human beings experience
from life, from birth to death. He's touched with the feelings
of our infirmities because there's nothing that ever happens in
our life that the Lord Jesus doesn't know about not just intellectually,
but intimately know about. He knows about your pains and
your sorrows. He knows about your trials. He
knows what it is to live in a land of darkness. He knows what it
is to be rejected by family and friends. He knows what it is
to come to his own as a saviour and a king and to be rejected
by them. but unto us also a son is given. We are given the son. A child
is born but God's people are given a son. A gift from God
is what Christmas is all about. The reasons for the other gifts
should always be that they point to the great gift of all. The
son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder. He
will rule. He rules with absolute authority. There's a wonderful section in
Isaiah chapter 40 which describes the nations of this world. We
think of the might and power of this world around us but according
to God they are just a drop in the bucket, a drop in the bucket,
and they are counted as small dust on the scales, Isaiah 40,
15. It's as if God is saying, and
he really is saying, that if you go down to the fruit shop
and buy some potatoes, you're actually saying, can you please,
Mr Greengrocer, remove the United States of America, just blow
that away from that corner of the scales. I want to remove
Western civilisation. That's how big it all is compared
to God. He says it's just dust, a drop
in the bucket that's not even recognised at all. Such is the
bigness of our God that all of these things, everything that
we see around us, no matter how dark and oppressive it is, no
matter how sad it is, it's hard to think of a country in all
of continental Africa which is not in turmoil. Night after night,
it's just one country after another. Wherever we look in this world,
it's turmoil. But God is bigger than all of
that. He is bigger. The government
of this world is on His shoulder. And then He's given these names.
The first of them is often joined with the second, but I think
their two are meant to be separated. His name shall be called Wonderful. Isn't it wonderful to have a
name like that? So it's the wonders of his person
as Isaiah saw in the temple. How wonderful was that vision.
And he's as God in the temple and now he comes as a child and
as a man. So we both form one, don't they,
all of God. and all of man form one Christ. It's the wonder of his being,
the wonder of his nature. Think about the wonders of his
perfections, the wonder of his character, the wonder of the
offices he bears as prophet, priest and king, the wonder of
what it is for him to be Christ, that every single Old Testament
prophet is wrapped up and completed and finished in him. not one
thing missing. The wonders of what it is for
God to come and dwell with these men, a people of unclean lips,
a people of iniquity, the wonders of his birth. the wonders of
his life, the wonders of his ministry, his labour, his death,
everything about the Lord Jesus is wonderful. Psalm 72, 18 says,
Our God only does wonders. You might ask what else he does.
He only does wonders. Everything he does is wonderful.
And so all of these great events, aren't they? His life, his death,
his resurrection, his ascension, his throne in heaven now is wonderful. All the wonderful things that
are happening in glory are just wonderful. The wonders of the
redemption that he's won, that he can say to Isaiah, your sin
is taken away completely, Isaiah. the wonders of clothing Isaiah
in a robe of perfect righteousness. As holy as God is holy, he will
call his people holy because of the Lord Jesus' work alone.
And this all comes in saving grace, the wonders of redeeming
grace in the hearts of men. In your hearts, I pray, in your
souls, and the greatest wonder of any is that after, just like
Israel, after our repeated rebellions, our repeated backslidings, the
bruised reed he will not crush, the smoking flax he will not
put out. And so the fan of life, the life
that he puts into us, he fans it into flame again and again
and again. How often we've been like Nation
Israel when we worship the works of our hands, we run after things
that exalt us and other human beings and God in his mercy wonderfully
draws us back again and again and again, shows us the Lord
Jesus, causes us to cry out, woe is me. The wonders of ongoing
redeeming grace. His name is wonderful because
all he ever does for his people is wonderful things. It's all
he ever can do. And he's a counsellor. He's faithful
as a counsellor. He's tender as a counsellor. And in him, as Colossians says,
are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. We don't
need to go beyond the Lord Jesus to find anything for wisdom and
knowledge. All those treasures are held
up in him and he distributes them to his people as he has
promised. And the next name he has is The
Mighty God, The Mighty God. It's extraordinary, isn't it,
that there is only one place in all of creation that denies
the Absolute Deity of the Lord Jesus. Hell, those in hell at
this moment, millions of them from the time of Cain and the
flood on are saying to the Lord Jesus, you are God and righteous
are your judgements. The people in heaven are saying
you are God and you are holy and we worship you around the
throne. The angels are saying Jesus is God. All of creation
is saying Jesus is God. There is only one small group
in all of creation that's denying the deity of the Lord Jesus.
and that's rebellious human beings, and most particularly it's religious
rebellious human beings. And just like the people of Israel,
the ones who do most harm to God's people and most harm to
other people in this world are the ones who claim to be religious
and yet say the Lord Jesus has done all he can do but there's
now a work that man must do because the Lord Jesus is unable to do
what he has promised. That is in effect what's being
said again and again and again. Mighty God is our Lord Jesus. Mighty God. He is God over all,
blessed forever. And the scriptures just make
it so abundantly clear. He is called our God, he is called
your God, their God, my God. They are endless through the
scriptures. It's extraordinary that the religious
world seems to deny his deity with such fervency. But He is
Mighty God. He's God in the flesh, God over
all. He's the Great God, the Living
God, the True God, the Eternal Life. He is the Mighty God. Everlasting Father is the next
glorious name that is given. And people might say, well, if
there is a Trinity, then God is the Father and where does
the Lord Jesus fit into this? But in very, very real sense,
the Lord Jesus and the Father are one, but the Lord Jesus operates
not only as a husband to his bride, but as a father to all
of God's children. in things everlasting in love,
in provision, in care, in security. He's always operating just like
a father. He is our husband. but he is
our God. And so it's not denying his sonship,
it's just exalting the character of the Lord Jesus, that he is
a father to the fatherless. He does care for people as a
father. He loves them with a passion
as a bridegroom loves his bride, but he does work and operate
just like a father. Next one is wonderful. He's called
the Prince of Peace. Isaiah goes on in chapter 26
verse 3 to say, You keep him in perfect peace, whose mind
is stayed on you, because he trusts you. And so the peace
that the Lord Jesus brings is brought through the cross, isn't
it? And he has brought peace to the hearts of people, just
as he brought peace to Isaiah who was crying, woe, woe is me. when a flaming coal comes from
the altar and touches Isaiah and God says to him, your iniquity
is taken away. God says, who shall I send? Isaiah
says, send me. There is peace with God and God's
people are sent because of that. And when the angels come, they
declare peace. When John the Baptist's father
prophesied about the Lord Jesus, he says, Through the tender mercy
of our God, in which the day spring on high has visited us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of
death. to guide our feet in the way of peace. And so we have
peace with God. God's children have peace and
they run back to their father again and again and again. As
they backslide like Israel did, they keep running back because
now there is nothing that hinders God's children running back to
him. Jesus has taken away their sin. He's robed them in his righteousness. they have boldness to come into
his presence and they have peace between each other. As God works
in the hearts of his children he brings us into peace. and
this peace comes through the Lord Jesus having absolute sovereignty
over everything in this world because it says in the next description
of him, of the increase of his government and peace there shall
be no end. So everything in God's kingdom
corresponds or reflects the greatness of the king. It must be an increasing
kingdom. It must be a righteous kingdom.
It must be a peaceable kingdom. It must be a glorious kingdom
and it must be an everlasting kingdom, a kingdom that shall
have no end. What a wonderful saviour, a child,
a son, a father, but one with absolute sovereignty and absolute
power to do all that he will in the armies of heaven and on
the earth. He is absolutely sovereignly reigning all things. So in every
circumstance, no matter what we see with the eyes of our flesh,
we can say Jesus is in control of this and He is working. He is always working and He will
order it. He does order his government.
It is not anything out of control, no matter how much it looked
out of control. And for Israel it was going to
be extraordinarily out of control as the Assyrians came and ruthlessly
destroyed Samaria, as Cole spoke about earlier, and destroyed
those 10 tribes and took them away. And then the Babylonians
came and destroyed Judah and destroyed Jerusalem. It's all
in God's plan. It's all in God's purposes. It's
all ordered by God. As we saw a couple of weeks ago,
when David was dying, even though his family was a mess, and he
looked around him and there wasn't much to esteem, but he said,
yet the Lord has made with me an eternal covenant, ordered
and secure in every detail. When proud Nebuchadnezzar was
brought to his knees and made to eat grass like a cow and grow
his nails like the claws of a bird, he was reduced and caused to
say to God when he was restored that he does as he sees fit. Not only is it ordered, but because
it is ordered and because he is mighty God, he's going to
establish it and he's going to establish this kingdom with judgement
and justice. do everything in all of his kingdom
will be seen to be absolutely perfectly and with holy judgement. The people in hell will say,
I am here because of God's perfect judgement upon my sins. The people in heaven are going
to be saying, we are here because God has been perfectly just with
me. It's justice which is the great
claim that Christians have, isn't it, that our God does not deny
his holiness in the saving of his people. It is with justice
and judgement that he establishes it. And so it's perfectly just. for God to forgive his children
because all of their sins, like Isaiah's, were put on the Lord
Jesus and became the Lord Jesus before the foundation of the
world. He said they are mine. He took them upon himself. He
took the responsibility as the good shepherd The good shepherd
lays down his life for his sheep. The good shepherd protects his
sheep. The good shepherd establishes his sheep. And it's really sad
that so many people think that the shepherd is not the good
shepherd any longer. He tries to do his best, but
he doesn't achieve it. That is not a good shepherd.
That is not the mighty God that we read of in the scriptures.
That's not the mighty God who orders all things and then establishes
all things just as his throne is established with righteousness
and judgement. Your throne, O God, is forever
and ever a sceptre of righteousness, is the sceptre of your kingdom.
And then at the end, John saw heaven open and behold a white
horse and he that sat on the horse was called faithful and
true. In righteousness does he judge
and make war. And at the end of the day, all
of this is coming to pass because the zeal of the Lord will perform
it. The zeal of the Lord, which is
nothing other than His fervent flaming love, His fervent love
for His own glory, His zeal and His fervent love to His Son,
shown in giving all things into the hands of the Lord Jesus,
committing all judgement into the hands of the Lord Jesus,
that men will honour him as they do the Father. and the zeal of
the Lord will move to increase this government and his peace. But more than that, the Lord
has a zeal and a fervent love for his people and that's what
motivates what he does in this world, the manifestation of his
glory in the saving of his people. since it is for their good. Even
if it means the destruction of nation Israel and the destruction
of Jerusalem, it is good for his people. He took his people
out of Jerusalem before it was destroyed and he said, I will
be a sanctuary for them. Zeal and fervent love move everything
in this creation. It's for their good and his own
glory and the honour of the Lord Jesus. Isaiah 11 goes on to talk
about the Zabanna. The Lord Jesus is a banner to
the people. Isaiah 11 verse 10. The Gentiles,
us, shall seek him, and his resting place shall be glorious. And that's my prayer for us this
season that we would find ourselves resting in our wonderful Saviour,
in our mighty God, in our everlasting Father, our Prince of Peace,
our Counsellor, He who is wonderful. And may he cause himself to be
proclaimed and lifted up as a banner in our lives and in our town
and in this world. People will stream to Him. He
will do it. His zeal and His promises will
accomplish all things. Let's pray.