Christmas According To Isaiah 2024 Series

Christmas According to Isaiah:

What’s in a Name?

Isaiah 9:6

First Baptist Chenoa

Pastor Jefferson M. Williams

12-18-2024

A Name Prophesied

When I was single and working a children’s home in North Carolina, I would eat dinner with Rico and Linda Delprado. They were New Yorkers, from the Bronx, and felt sorry for me. They would feed me a home-cooked meal and Rico would lay his huge calloused hands on my head and pray for me before I left.

One night, as Rico was praying for me something happened that I would never forget. Rico began to cry and said, “Look up at me.” He continued, his voice quivering, “You shall have a son and you shall name him Joshua for he will be a leader of men and Michael for he will be a warrior for God.” I just remember whispering back, “Yes sir.”

I was single but I did know a cute little red-headed girl named Maxine…

Obviously, when my first-born son came into this world we didn’t have to worry about picking out names. It had been prophesied beforehand.

By the way, the most popular baby names of 2024 are Olivia and Liam. If you have a dog - Charlie and Luna. If you have a cat - Milo and Bella.

We are going to be looking and one verse this morning - one verse and four names. But these four names have the power to change your life!

Turn with me to Isaiah 9:6.

Prayer

Not the First to Do This

Rico wasn’t the first to do this. When Zachariah and Elizabeth (close to 80 years old) had a son they named him John, although no one in their family had that name. Why? Because the angel told his father to name him John and said:

 “He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. 

He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Luke 1:14-17)

When the angel appeared to Mary, he too gave her the name of the baby to born to her:

“Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” (Luke 1:30-33)

Seven hundred years before these two miraculous births, Isaiah the prophet gave his readers four names that would describe the Messiah to come. These four names tell of His character, His power, and His mission.

You have seen these four names on Christmas cards and in songs like Handel’s “Messiah.” And we have been memorizing this scripture together in our adult Sunday school class. This morning I want us to look at what they mean to us.

Text within its Context

When Ken’s grandson Isaac visited last week, he told me that he gets really frustrated with people that take Bible verses out of context. He’s 13 years old by the way.

In Isaiah 8, he lays out a prophesy of destruction that would come as the Assyrians invade their country, particularly the northern part of the Promised Land around the Sea of Galilee.

Isaiah was a prophet who lived about seven hundred years before Jesus was born. He wrote a very long book that contains incredibly specific prophesies concerning the nation of Israel and the coming Messiah.

In the chapters leading up to chapter nine, Isaiah has been trying to get the people of Israel to trust God completely. Their King, Ahaz, had abandoned God and introduced the worship of idols and witchcraft into the land. Ahaz was worried about the Assyrian army possibly invading Israel so he attempted to make alliances with several pagan nations.

Israel had become a dark place, full of hopelessness and wickedness.

Isaiah begged and pleaded with Ahaz to turn back to the Lord and to trust Him but Ahaz and the people ignored Isaiah.

So, just as Isaiah predicted, Assyria invaded the land and absolutely ravaged it, starting with the northern tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali.

Although things look bleak, Isaiah begins chapter nine with words of hope:

“Nevertheless, 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 nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness ?a light has dawned. (Isaiah 9:-1-2)