I don’t know what it was but for some reason when I was on vacation I just started to notice some of the weirdest things. I saw a sign in a restaurant that read, “This is a drug-free work place.” Really? Was that a change in policy? Was there a time when the sign could have said, “The whole staff is toasted??’ Then there was a sign in the rest room that told employees to wash their hands before returning to work, because it’s the law. The law? How about good hygiene? How about saying, “After you’ve scrubbed the toilet, don’t go make a sandwich?”
I was in an electronics store that had a sign out front that read, “These doors will remain unlocked during business hours.” I just picture the owners talking one day, “You know, we haven’t sold a thing since we started this business. Maybe we should unlock the doors.” Then the other one said, “Great idea, and I’ll put a sign up so we don’t forget.”
Let’s face it. People often need to see or hear the most obvious things put in an authoritative statement. It’s true today, and it was true in Old Testament times. Just look at this passage that we will be walking through here in the month of December. We are focusing on the titles that are listed in verse 6. But do we really need to be reminded of them. Yes, we do because in times of darkness and despair we forget them. When the economy is this bad, when countries with less then questionable leadership are getting nuclear weapons, when there is uncertainty in our lives in areas we can’t control, it is good to remember who God is, maybe it should be obvious that God is the Wonderful Counselor, that He is Mighty, that He is the Everlasting and our Prince of Peace. Because when we are afraid, when we worry it’s not that we don’t know those things, it’s just that we’re having short-term memory loss.
With that in mind this passage from the writing of Isaiah is all the more amazing. The prophet writing hundreds of years before the birth of Christ describes the work of Christ in our lives with such clarity it is like He had already come. Realize what this passage is, this passage could be called a birth announcement. Isaiah has been told that the Messiah is coming, He has seen a glimpse of what the future holds and rather than just keep it to himself, he tells the rest of us. Then God saw to it that those words were preserved for us so we could hear them.
What makes these words relevant to us today is the time that they were written in. The background of this story is one of despair, darkness, and desperation. Look at how the writings of Isaiah are introduced. Isaiah chapter one, verses one and two, the very first thing that Isaiah has to tell us, “The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth! For the LORD has spoken: ‘I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.” This is the cliff notes version of the time period that Isaiah is writing in. He was called to be prophet in the year that King Uziah died, Uziah was a Godly king, his successors were not, they brought in idol worship and turned their back on God, to the point that one of them literally nailed the doors to the temple shut so that no one would worship the Lord our God. Finally Hezekiah rose to power as a Godly king and restored the worship of God, but as his reign started the ministry of Isaiah ended. Isaiah’s calling was to speak the truth of God during times of utter darkness and he did it with words of clarity and hope. Against a backdrop of darkness he writes about our Mighty God. As the temple doors are nailed shut to silence the worship of God, Isaiah writes that God is the Everlasting. Kings will come and go, but God is God.
How had the people of God gotten to this point? The point where literally they were pulling in god’s from other countries to worship? It is because they lost their awe for God. Isaiah writes that everything about these people became corrupt. Oh they had all of the right titles, they did the right procedures and rituals, but all of that was just cover for corruption and darkness. Darkness that flowed from the government all the way into their worship of God, until God ultimately didn’t want anything to do with their worship because it wasn’t about God, it was about insurance. Just in case God might want to bless us we’ll worship Him, but then we’ll pay attention to all the other gods just in case. God didn’t buy it then and He’s not buying it today.
That is the bad news for anyone who thinks that they can just go through the motions of going to church on Sunday morning just in case and then do whatever they want with the rest of their lives. God expects to be the Lord of your life, He has never expected anything less and He never will. But the good news is that for those who love God, even in the midst of darkness, whether it is outside or inside of you, Jesus is the light. That is why the focus of this passage is joy. Listen to these words again, “For 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.” Isaiah 9:6
Understand that Isaiah knows his audience. He knows he is speaking to people some of whom have spent their entire lives paying lip service to God, but not heart service and what he is saying is guys, wake up! Look even as far away from God as we can go look what He is still going to do for us. Unto us… we who are unworthy, we who have turned our back, we who are afraid of the nations and corruption around us. Unto us who are trapped in despair and sorrow, we who are lost, unto us… a Child is born. And not just any child, the government, the entire world will be on his shoulders. And we will call Him wonderful, it is a word that in scripture is reserved for things only God can do. We shall call Him wonderful. We shall call Him councilor for is with one wise and skilled with advise not just for our nation but for all people and we shall call him mighty.
Zephaniah 3:16-20, “On that day they will say to Jerusalem, ‘Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands hang limp. The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.’ The sorrows for the appointed feasts I will remove from you; they are a burden and a reproach to you. At that time I will deal with all who oppressed you; I will rescue the lame and gather those who have been scattered. I will give them praise and honor in every land where they were put to shame. At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home. I will give you honor and praise among the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes,” says the LORD.
Mighty is a powerful word. To look at what the prophet meant when he used this word to describe God, I wanted to look at another passage where this word is used. That is why in addition to our passage in Isaiah I had Zephaniah read as well. I love verse 3:17, “The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” Do you see that picture, the picture of Mighty God singing over us? That is a beautiful picture.
But let’s begin with this question, why is the prophet talking about Mighty God? Why did God need to be mighty? Well Zephaniah paints a similar picture of darkness as Isaiah does. Look at verses 3-4, “Her officials are roaring lions, her rulers are evening wolves, who leave nothing for the morning. Her prophets are arrogant; they are treacherous men. Her priests profane the sanctuary and do violence to the law.”
Everyone was corrupt. People couldn’t get justice. Their enemies were all around and there was no one who could save them who could be trusted. It is a picture of hopelessness, darkness and despair. But against that backdrop there is always the light of God, of our Mighty God who is strong to save us.
To put this in context I want us to look at two names for God that we find in the passage. The first name is Elohim. To understand this word you have to break it down into its parts. First is El, the word means ‘God’ and can literally be translated into power. This is the name used for God in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning El created the heavens and the earth.” But later as we read through Genesis and the rest of the Old Testament the plural form of this word begins to appear, I think the earliest is Genesis 17:1, which is Elohim. What is going on? The plural form of God? So are we about to become poly-theistic now? Not at all because God is not talking about many God’s but of a unity. This is explained in the Schema in Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the Lord is one.” To make that clearer substitute our English words for the Hebrew ones. Lord-YHWH and God=Elohim. Love your singular Lord who is also you plural Lord? Sounds confusing unless you realize that He is talking about unity. This is a reference to the Trinity, and in the Trinity there is power because there is unity. Elohim is a picture of unity.
Then there is another name for God that shows up in this passage El-Shaddai. It is a compound word and Shaddai means mighty or powerful. This word is often translated as “almighty.” But if El means power and Shaddai means mighty or powerful, is God being redundant? Not at all because within the root of the word there is a reference to nourishment and supply, literally what this word means is that God is mighty to nurture and watch over us.
So within these two words we have the picture of the unity of God watching over us with power to nurture and care for us. Then we come to the word “mighty.” The word refers to a hero. The prophet begins by reminding the people that God is our hero. In times of trouble people look for a hero. J.R.R. Tolkien was a veteran of World War I he knew this from first had experience, that is why in his Lord of the Rings Trilogy hero’s are so important. We look for heroes but God has always been there to take that role if we will just let Him. Look at the words of David, perhaps the greatest human hero in the Old Testament, Psalms 24:4, “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false.” The Lord is the mighty one who will go to battle for us. That is the picture that both of the prophets are painting for the people in their writings.
But thought of a hero gets expanded on. I like watching the series “Heroes” on TV.. In the beginning of the series on of the characters a Japanese man named Hiro, wow great creativity, discovers his powers but rather than use them for his own good he goes out seeking his purpose because he figures every hero has a purpose, some mission that they must fulfill. We look at our passage, God is our hero and he has given Himself a mission, it says, “The Mighty One, will save…” The mission that God has given Himself is to be the one who saves. Who does God want to save? That would be us. What does He want to save us from? Well there’s a list.
Our God is the one who will save us from the injustice of the world around us. This meaning comes from the context of the writing the verses are found in. Isaiah writes about the injustice that is found in the courts of the land. How the government and the judges are corrupt stealing from the people for their own gain. Zephaniah writes about the same issues. But what promise do we find from both prophets after listing this problem that the mighty one will save. If He will save the corrupt children of Israel from injustice, then we can be assured that that promise is still good today. Life is not fair and may never be until He comes again, but we have His promise that our Hero will not allow the injustice of this world to destroy us.
Our God is the one who defends us from the dangers of the world. Isaiah 49:25, “But this is what the LORD says: ‘Yes, captives will be taken from warriors, and plunder retrieved from the fierce; I will contend with those who contend with you, and your children I will save.” The world may be a dangerous and even at times scary place but our salvation lies in our God, our Hero who crossed time and space to step on to earth, the place where darkness reigned and defeat sin and death forever on their home field. That is our hero. People talk about a home field advantage in football, but Jesus stepped into this world that was given to Satan to rule, where he had set-up principalities and powers to influence every kingdom. Then Jesus came down as a baby, lived the vulnerable life of a man and at the end of the greatest battle of all time, with every ounce of His determination and with His last breath He said, “It is finished.” Not His life, but the power of the enemy to separate us from God. That is our hero, who protects us from the dangers of this world. Because they are now insignificant compared to the next.
Why? Our God is the one who saves us from the pit. Look at the writings of David again. I think we see a glimpse of what made him so fearless in battle and therefore so dangerous to his enemies. Psalm 86:13, “For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths of the grave”. Sheol is talking about the pit, it is talking about Hell. David said, I don’t have to worry about that anymore because You, my God, my unity, you are the one who has delivered my soul. That promise was good then, it is good today and it should cause us to live our lives with the same lack of fear, in fact the same boldness that David lived his life with. We have nothing to fear in this life or the next because our Mighty God, our hero has already saved us.
But this is what really blows me away about these passages, after realizing the might and power of God. After realizing what He was promised to do for me, look at what it says that God does, “He will rejoice over you with singing.” What in the world? I love music, I like to sing, I don’t do it well but I like to sing. But there are times when I get so preoccupied with everything else that is going on. There are times that I get upset with dumb circumstances that are nothing compared to my God, but I let them distract me to the point that I don’t feel like singing to my God. Then I read this passage, that my God, the Hero who has saved me from Hell, sings over me, me, and I feel so stupid.
But what is it about us that makes God want to sing over us? Obviously part of the answer that He just loves us that much. But there is more to it than that. The Lord delights when we remember who He is, really. God lets us have our opinions but He would rather we be accurate about it. It comes back to the concept of fear, when we understand just how big and powerful God is, He has our attention, He should make us afraid, so afraid in fact that we don’t fear anyone else. Now listen it’s not that God wants us to spend our lives cowering in the corner afraid to do anything wrong. Look at Psalm 147:11, “The LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.” We’re talking about a healthy fear. Where we understand that God is in charge so we need to do what He says, but where we also understand that when we mess up, He will so us mercy. He wants us to see Him for who He really is, a God of power AND mercy. When we do the result in our lives gives Him pleasure, it causes Him to sing over us.
Here’s the good part, when we have this attitude God’s desire is to prosper us. Look at Deuteronomy 30:9, I know most of us tend to gloss over Deuteronomy when we read through the Bible because it’s the book with most of the rules in it and what’s the fun in reading that. Well remember that most of the rules are put there to help us avoid things that are harmful, but check this out, when we follow those guidelines, the ones that are meant to benefit us in the first place we get an added bonus it says, “Then the Lord your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of you hands.” It’s saying that when we see God for who He is, and mix of power and mercy that has our complete attention and that causes us to live our lives according to His guidelines, it not that He just avoids hitting us with a lightening bold, it’s that He then literally chooses to intervene in our live, to step into our lives and make us more prosperous then we should be. Listen this isn’t the promise that we’re all going to be rich, but it is the promise that He will give us more than we would have without Him.
So what should the result be? The result should be that we should want to worship God. Everything in our lives is supposed to be worship. This is a tricky concept, it’s not just that we are supposed to so everything with an attitude that we are to do it for Christ, although that is part of it, there’s more to it than that. Everything we do is not only us worshiping God and doing it for Him, everything we do should be about wanting others to worship God as well. Think about it, you become a fan of a NASCAR driver and what do you do, you tell people how good your driver is because you want people to become fans of your driver. But what about God. God not only saves us in the world but in the world to come. He did all of the work to bring us into a relationship with Him, and then He seeks to bless us. Then He loves us so much that He literally sings over us even though sometimes we don’t feel like singing about Him. Shouldn’t we really want people to be fans us His to cheer for Him. It should become the desire of our heart to see everyone worship Christ because of the love in our hearts for Him.
If you are here today and you’ve never turned your life over to Christ, you’ve never admitted that you need help with your life, let me encourage you to do that today, because God is so good you will never regret it.
