Today we conclude our series based on Isaiah 9:6. In this verse, the prophet Isaiah was inspired by the Holy Spirit to speak about the Messiah -the Lord Jesus Christ, In so doing, Isaiah spoke of His coming, mentioning our Lord’s first coming ("For to us a child is born, to us a son is given") and mentioning His second coming ("and the government will be on His shoulders"). He then goes on to speak of the Messiah’s character, using the vehicle of a title to describe the Lord Jesus. But in doing so, the prophet could not restrict himself to only one name, but found that he had to use multiple titles in sharing with us about the character of the Messiah - "Wonderful Counselor," "Mighty God," "Everlasting Father," and "Prince Of Peace." It is this last title that we will consider today.
Jesus is described by the prophet as the "Prince Of Peace." In other words, where ever Christ reigns, peace rules. As we mentioned, the prophet Isaiah prophesied about our Lord’s first and second comings. One day, Christ will come again. In that day, He will reign upon the earth and peace will rule. Peace will rule, because Christ will remove from the earth all who oppose Him as He makes a new heaven and a new earth. All that will be left will be those who are right with Him, therefore, peace will be the rule of the day. The prophet" speaks of that glorious day when our Savior returns to make all things right in heaven and earth in verse 7, where he says, "Of the increase of His government and of peace there will be no end" (Isaiah 9:7).
In our world today, man seeks to establish peace, yet whatever successes he might seem to achieve are never permanent. Instead of achieving peace, man continually lives with chaos, confusion, and conflict. Perhaps one of the best illustrations of the kind of chaos and confusion that reigns in the world today is found in a story related to the traditional birthplace of Jesus.
For many years a large silver star adorned the top of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. One day back in the 1800’s, the Roman Catholic Church, which shares a part of the building with a Greek Orthodox Church, decided to take down the silver star & replace it with their own star. But the Greek Orthodox church refused to let them do that.
The Greek Orthodox Church was supported by Russia, & the Roman Catholic Church was supported by France. But it was Turkey who actually ruled over Palestine at that time. When Turkey sided with the Roman Catholic Church, Russia declared war on Turkey. Immediately France & England allied themselves with Turkey, & fought what history calls the Crimean War which lasted from 1853 -1856. At the end of that war the star came down.
Isn’t it ironic that in the very place of the birth of the Prince of Peace there has almost always been conflict & war? When TV cameras take you to Bethlehem this Christmas season you will have to notice the armed soldiers who are watching over the crowds that gather to worship the Prince of Peace.
But when Christ returns, all that will change. Through His second coming, Jesus will make peace permanent.
When Christ reigns on the earth, His peace will rule the world, because all will be made right by God.
It is going to be different when Jesus comes back again. The first time He rode a donkey. The next time He will ride a white horse. The first time He stood before Pilate. This time Pilate will stand before Him.
At first, Jesus was rejected, but at the last every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. At Christ’s first advent He wore a crown of thorns. At his second, He will wear the diadems of glory. There is coming a day when Jesus Christ will make walking on water look like child’s play when He steps out of eternity into time and walks on the clouds. There will be a rainbow of victory wrapped around His shoulders.
There will be a smile on His face. At that moment, the laws of gravity, time, and space will simultaneously collapse and His disciples will instantly be standing in His presence. Hollywood and glitz will be replaced with holiness and godliness, and He will reign in peace!
Peter tells us that every Christian should look forward to that glorious day, "But in keeping with His promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness, " (2 Peter 3:13). We can look forward to Christ’s reign of peace on the earth one day, because we know the reality of His peace in our hearts today. While His second coming will make peace permanent, through His first coming, Jesus made peace possible. As we allow Christ to reign as Lord in our hearts, His peace will rule our lives, because we will be right with God.
I want us to think today about how this Jesus, who will one day return to make peace permanent, first came to make peace possible, so that each of us might be made right with God and have His peace made personal.
(Refer to Romans 5:1)
Paul speaks about the fact that if I am to know the peace of God, I must be made right with the God of peace. I need to make peace with God.
The Bible tells us that in his natural state, man is in rebellion against God. Bound by sin, man is unacceptable to God and under the condemnation of God. The penalty for man’s crimes of sin had to be paid in order for the justice of God to be satisfied. The nature of the penalty that man would have to pay for his sin is such that it would require an eternity’s worth of suffering on man’s part before the justice of God could be satisfied. This meant that man was in a terrible situation.
But not only did the justice of God need to be satisfied, the love of God also needed to be satisfied. God loved His creation and desired that things be as they once were between Himself and man, before sin had ever entered into the world. But that could never come to pass, if the penalty for sin was left for man to pay on his own, for man would be condemned to suffer for all eternity, leaving a love relationship with God impossible. So what was the solution? Paul tells us God’s solution in this verse.
1. How peace with God was made possible - v. 1b
God’s solution to the dilemma of how to make it possible for man to be made right with Him so that both His justice and love could be satisfied was the first coming of the Messiah - the Lord Jesus Christ.
What He did at His first coming made it possible for us to have peace with God.
A. He is Christ - that is, He is the one come in fulfillment of prophecy to deliver us from the bondage of sin and Satan - God with us, come to deliver us.
Christ sought to remedy our situation.
B. He is Jesus - that is, He is God come in human flesh to reveal Himself to us and to redeem us to Him. In human flesh, He came to suffer the penalty of sin in our place so that we wouldn’t have to! Jesus suffered to remedy our situation.
C. He is Lord - that is, He has conquered sin, Satan, death, and Hell, and declared that His justice has been satisfied by the payment made on our behalf for our sin! As Lord, Jesus declared - "It is finished!"
Our Lord is sufficient to remedy our situation.
Associated with the attack on the foot and mouth disease that ravaged farms in the Great Britain was the sad slaughter of thousands and thousands of unaffected cows & sheep. The purpose of this was to create a "firebreak" between the infected and the uninfected farms. Some farmers interviewed on TV spoke of how difficult they found it to hand over to slaughter their "innocent" livestock. But it had to be done, in order to remedy the situation
The sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ was the remedy for situation that mankind was in. Jesus, the Lamb of God, suffered, the innocent for the guilty - the pure for the polluted, to save us from the judgment on our sins and make it possible for us to have peace with God.
There’s a line that’s been drawn through the ages, On that line stands an old rugged cross; On that cross a battle is raging, For the gain of man’s soul or his loss. On one side march the forces of evil, All the demons and devils of Hell; On the other, the angels of glory, And they meet on Golgotha’s hill. The earth shakes with the force of the conflict, And the sun refuses to shine; For there hangs God’s Son in the balance, And then through the darkness He cries:
"It is finished," the battle is over, "It is finished," there’ll be no more war; "It is finished," the end of the conflict, "It is finished," and Jesus is Lord!
But understanding that Christ has provided what was necessary for us to have peace with God is not enough. I must not only understand how peace with God was made possible, but I must understand,
2. How peace with God is made personal - v. la
A. Christ’s remedy must be appropriated by us - "through faith"
Faith could be defined as "Forsaking All, I Trust Him."
Harry Houdini, the famed escape artist issued a challenge wherever he went. He could be locked in any jail cell in the country, he claimed, and set himself free quickly and easily. Always he kept his promise, but one time something went wrong. Houdini entered the jail in-his street clothes; the heavy, metal doors clanged shut behind him. He took from his belt a concealed piece of metal, strong and flexible. He set to work immediately, but something seemed to be unusual about this lock. For 30 minutes he worked and got nowhere. An hour passed, and still he had not opened the door. By now he was bathed in sweat and panting in exasperation, but he still could not pick the lock. Finally, after laboring for 2 hours, Harry Houdini collapsed in frustration and failure against the door he could not unlock. But when he fell against the door, it swung open! It had never been locked at all! But in his mind it was locked and that was all it took to keep him from opening the door and walking out of the jail cell.
We must abandon our efforts to free ourselves from the bondage of sin and trust that Christ has done what is necessary for us to be set free to know the peace of God. Once we simply choose to lean on Him, we will find that the door to a right relationship with God is open to us!
Once Christ’s remedy has been appropriated by us,
B. Christ’s remedy is then applied to us - "we have been justified"
1) This application is complete - Declaration of not guilty in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. To be justified means that God looks at me "Just if I had never sinned."
2) This application is continual - "Justified" is in the aorist tense, which indicates that at a definite time one was declared right with God and continues to stand before God in a justified state. The instant I choose by faith here on earth, to appropriate Christ remedy for my sin, His remedy is applied to me and I am declared right with God in heaven!
This declaration is what Jesus was speaking of when He said, "Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven," (Matthew 10:32).
Conclusion: You cannot know the peace of God until you have been declared right with the God of peace.
Through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you can appropriate the remedy for your sin and be declared right with God. Once you do that, through the person of His Spirit, the prince of peace will come to reign in your heart; and where He reigns, peace rules!
Yet in my heart the battle was raging, Not all prisoners of war had come home; They were battlefields of my own making, Didn’t know that the war had been won. Then I heard that the King of the Ages, Had fought all the battles for me; And victory was mine for the claiming, And now, praise His name, I am free.
"It is finished," the battle is over, "It is finished," there’ll be no more war; "It is finished," the end of the conflict, "It is finished," and Jesus is Lord!
