Isaiah 9
Last week we looked at Isaiah 7. Today we look at Isaiah 9
Lets start by reading verses 1-7
1Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were
in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of
Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way
of the sea, along the Jordan—
2The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of
the shadow of death
a light has dawned.
3You have enlarged the nation
and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you
as people rejoice at the
harvest,
as men rejoice
when dividing the plunder.
4For as in the day of Midian's defeat,
you have shattered
the yoke that burdens them,
the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor.
5Every warrior's boot used in battle
and every garment rolled in
blood
will be destined for burning,
will be fuel for the fire.
6For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on
his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of
Peace.
7Of
the increase of his government
and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David's throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this.
Before we think through these verses lets remind ourselves of the context of this passage. It was written 600 years before Christ was born. It is part of great prophecy of Isaiah which we looked at earlier in the year. In the Old testament, a prophecy is a book where the prophet either saya what God says or interprets the world around him in the light of God’s revelation. In doing so, we get glimpses of a future which God includes a detailed account of the birth, life and death of Jesus before it happened.
The prophecy of Isaiah can be thought of as three books, written by one man but each having different emphases. Our passage this morning is in the book of the King. But the book of the servant speaks about Jesus death and the book of the anointed Conqueror speaks of his return. But it is embedded in the world of Isaiah’s day. It was written not just for us but also for the people of Isaiah’s day. So much of it deals with the disaster of the pending overrun of Israel and Judah by the Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian empires.
Our passage comes in a larger section of the book of the King which I have called ‘the Triumph of grace. If you want to remind yourself of the bigger picture you can borrow the tapes and listen or go on the website and read the sermons.
The section on the ‘triumph of grace begins with Isaiah’s call and then goes on to speak of the future in terms of the king and his people. First the prophet and God turn their attention to Judah where Isaiah lived and then to Israel a breakaway part of the original kingdom that was above to be obliterated. Our passage comes at the end of some severe stuff, which Ian spoke of last week. It almost seems like out of context. Hope in a time of disaster. But that is God telling us that he is Immanuel even in the disaster. He is God with us in all circumstances.
So lets look at the passage in detail. It is a poem with two main sections
First verses 1-3 The hope is described
In verses 4-7 the hope is explained.
In a time of gloom and depression , the world needs hope. Without it there is no way out of our difficulties. While there is hope we will fight, struggle energize and act. When hope is not there we just sit in front of the telly and do nothing.
Our Gospel is one of hope and next year we are going to run everything under the banner of HOPE 08. With other churches across the land we are going to spread hope by our actions, our compassion and our words. Paul reminds us that our Christian “Hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” (Romans 5:5)
Each one has three sections
What God does
What his people enjoy
What follows
1Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who
were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of
Naphtali, but in the future he will honour Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way
of the sea, along the Jordan
The nevertheless refers to the previous section. In ch8:19-22 Isaiah has challenged the prevailing culture of using mediums and spiritists and other Satanic practises to find ‘the light’. He points out that rather than light and peace they always bring darkness and despair. But Isaiah says there is a way out from their gloom and distress. That way is Jesus.
Zebulun and Naphtali were Northern frontier towns, already overrun by the Assyrian army. Galilee was also in the North. The impending horror of occupation cast a deep shadow over the nation. It is here where God acts and what does he do? He has humbled them for their sin. But now he will honour them. God is not vindictive, he measures out punishment but also pours out grace. Never lose sight of the two parts. It is easy to believe that God is all love and sweetness. But he also is just and holy and cannot tolerate sin. He sent Jesus to die for your sin because he hates sin so much and he will have no mercy on those who reject his Son, Jesus. But to the repentant and humble grace is poured out freely.
The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
This is God's view, it is about contrast a light switched on. Walking in darkness has a sense of permanence.
on those living
in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned.
This is man's view, it is about gradual change, increasing light. Now is living in the land of the shadow of death with the sense of coming death, inevitable.
Notice where the light dawns. It is in Galilee. Jesus was born in Bethlehem but he grew up in Nazareth and most of his ministry was in Galilee. Jesus said “ I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. But notice that Jesus was speaking to a nation under occupation, Roman occupation. The setting had not changed in the 600 years but Jesus can transform the gloom of despair and misery of life and made it light.
So what God is he honours Galilee; What the people enjoy is darkness has become light; So what follows?
3You have enlarged the nation
and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you
as people rejoice at the harvest,
as men rejoice
when dividing the plunder.
Here we have a development. Moving from, You have enlarged the nation to the result men rejoice. The honour is seen in terms of increased size of the nation, an illusion to new life as children are born and the community grows. But Isaiah speaks of the joy of a new baby in the family, the joy of a successful harvest and the joy of military victory to describe what fallows the light dawning. Hope is such a precious commodity that it completely transforms us when we receive it. Jesus is our hope. It is on him our hope is founded. Notice again the two aspects. God has increased their joy and they rejoice before him.
So we now move on to the explanation.
First we have a reference to Midian. It was the oppressor that Gideon was used by God to overcome. Judges 6-8. What is pointed here is that Gideon called out Mannasseh, Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali to fight. He was the local hero. But God won the battle And Isaiah wants to remind you that it is not you who wins but Jesus. We may play our part but he has broken the power of the evil one, he will triumph over the devil. The devil will be destroyed with all his forces. And what you and I enjoy, in part now but one day in full is a day when the paraphernalia of war is cleared up, burnt up. What follows is amazing. Hope is a child born.
This is a prophecy about Jesus. But it is couched in the prophecy. Isaiah has had two children. Immanuel, in ch7, which Ian spoke of last week and Mahal-shalal-hash-baz. Both were named and both came with prophecy, Immanuel a prophecy of encouragement that the immediate threat would be removed. Mahal with a warning of the immediacy of judgement, before he could say mummy and daddy – within 18 months. But this child is different. He is not one of Isaiah’s children, he is one to come. Isaiah does not warn of immediate threat or impending disaster but of peace. It is difficult to understand what it meant to Isaiah but for us it clearly speaks of Jesus.
He was born of Mary, so he was human. He was given by God,
he is God’s Son. In Luke 1:26-38 the angel describes this as “the Holy
Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”
This child will have the government on his shoulders. The people had a bar on their shoulders, Jesus takes the burden of kingship and leadership and sets out for the cross to die for his people. Then we are told
And he will be called,
Wonderful counsellor, Mighty God , Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. What do these names mean to you?
What did they mean to Isaiah?
Well the wonderful counsellor would have been a distinct improvement on all the poor advice around the court. Remember last week , Ahaz , the king who couldn’t even ask for a sign when God graciously offered him one. Good advisors in any government are of great value. Pray that the advice this government gets is more about truth and justice and righteousness and less about keeping in power.
But here we are reassured that our child-King is himself a wise, no wonderful, perhaps supernatural counsellor. He knows our future and our past he knows our make-up and our weaknesses. It is good to know that our hope is based on good sense and safe thinking. Christianity is currently reviled for being intellectually challenged by the so-called great thinkers of the day. But they are wrong. God not only is but he is also intelligent and active. Those who follow are guided by advice which is reliable.
The second name explicitly declares that the child is God. This is so stupendous a claim that it takes your breath away. Isaiah, a believer in the one true God says that the child that is born is the mighty God. Not a God, not sort of God, but God himself. We may not understand the nature of God, we might describe God as a trinity but that still asks more questions than it answers, it is beyond our comprehension but here it is spelt out quite simply. Jesus is God himself, born into this world, the physical expression of the Immanuel principle – God is with his people.
But he is a mighty or Warrior God. He has the strength to ensure liberation and peace. He is not a UN negotiator, he has the strength to make peace, secure liberation, ensure and guarantee it. In our day such imagery is a bit embarrassing, except that we hide from the fact that we have an army active in several parts of the world to maintain our freedom and ensure our peace. God’s word does not pretend that peace and liberty are easy. It says that your freedom, your peace was secured by the deadliest enterprise of all, God crucified by man so that man could be given eternal life.
He is the Everlasting Father. There are two questions here. What sort of Father? and what do we mean by eternal? The first is clearly a problem to us as we have very different models of what a Father is like. None of them is or was perfect, we who are Fathers all fail our children. But that puts the model the wrong way. God as Father is the model, not our Fathers as a model for God. His father qualities are that of infinite care, never-ending patience, amazing love and great leadership. And he is eternal. Whereas the kings of Isaiah’s day were coming and going faster than democratic governments do. Here is continuity. God, the unchanging, is the same today as he was in Isaiah’s time, he is the same God who walked in the garden, calling for Adam. He is still seeking out a people for himself.
He is the Prince of peace. Others made a name for themselves by making war. Jesus’ followers thought he would do the same and overthrow the Romans. But Jesus came to make peace by his death on a cross. Peace first and foremost with God. But when you are given peace with God, it brings about a change in you that means that you can be effective in making peace in all your relationships. Family, work, neighbours, friends. Because when you have peace with God, you are secure yourself and not fighting for your own identity and turf.
Verse 7 reads badly, who wants increased government! The Conservatives actually persuaded us that they would reduce government in their 10 years but actually they increased the number of government staff. It was just that they contracted out services to make it look like reduced government.
However, this is not about the ever- increasing control over our lives and taxes. It is about the increasing number of people who accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour and accept the Kingdom of God rule in their lives. In this country we are going backwards as less and less follow Jesus. But the picture is quite different in the world in general where God’s kingdom is extending in many countries. Operation world will amaze you with the extent of the Kingdom of God in this world now. Remember that it is an eternal kingdom populated by those who have died in Christ and gone to heaven as well as us. And the prophet says there will be no end. Man has created peace by brutal empire building – Pax Romana, the British Empire and now the empire of the USA, but they make a false peace because they do not heal the hurts and bring reconciliation. Yugoslavia was a sad example of this. Tito suppressed all opposition and maintained a peace for 40 years after WW2 but the country disintegrated as soon as he was gone. And it is still falling apart. Jesus brings a different sort of peace. His is based on forgiveness and reconciliation and changing the hearts and minds of his followers so that they replace hatred with love, fear with trust.
You can’t get enough of that sort of government!
The prophecy then speaks of the child being on David’s throne. Jesus was of the family of David, his genealogy traces back to David. He is King and the rightful heir to the promise God gave to David. That promise was that his descendants would always be king. Now we understand that the meaning of that promise was that God was to raise a son who was both a biological heir to David and the Son of God, who is now seated at the right hand of God in heaven. His reign will be eternal.
Just in case you missed it, the poem ends with a reminder that God is the one who will act. There is a certainty in this statement, it will happen because God wants it to.
It is his plan and purpose, not something dreamed up by a fantasy film producer. This is prophecy not pipedream. The immediate future for Israel and Judah was grim, but God was at work and he would bring these things to happen. We now know that God brought it to fruition around 0AD in David’s town in Bethlehem. And that child, born king, grew up in Galilee of the gentiles and revealed the truth about God there for three years before he was taken and crucified to bring about peace with God. That is why we get excited about the birth of Jesus.