A Sermon For You
A Ministry of Huckaby’s Evangelism
Sermon Title
His Name Shall Be Called Wonderful
By-Evangelist Gary Huckaby
(Preached At The Morning Service At Antioch Baptist Church Woodbury, Georgia, 6-8-2003)
Our Text comes from the prophet Isaiah in chapter nine and verse six.
Isaiah 9:6; "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Over the years times have changed in many ways. In history names had a greater significance that they seem to today.In all areas of business, labor, the military nearly every person has had a nick name which often is closer to the real person, than their family name. All of our family names have come from something that was important.
In the Bible there are 256 names given for the Lord Jesus Christ. Probably because that He is so infinitely more than any one name could ever express. I would like for you to look with me in this message at this the first name of Isaiah 9:6, and let us see if He is worthy of this name.
His Name Shall be called Wonderful!
Our text comes from the prophet Isaiah some 800 years before the birth of Jesus to this earth. But does this name fit the one born some 2,000 years ago? Was the prophet correct in calling one of His names as "Wonderful?"
Let us examine this name given Him to see if He fits this name.
Jesus Was Wonderful In His Birth
Normally a prince would be born in the finest of hospitals. Born is a place of luxury, born into pomp and comfort. A prince of this world would have had the best of everything, but this is not how God chose to come into the world. He chose the worst of conditions in which to condescend for the salvation of mankind.
Jesus had only one earthly parent, He was virgin born. The Holy Spirit brought about the miraculous birth of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He was born in the poorest section of the area, Bethlehem of Judea. No crowds watched for His arrival, even the shepherds had to be told to go and see Him. The Creator becoming a man, the God man, to provide for us the sacrifice, the only sacrifice that could take away sins. His own blood.
He was and is wonderful in his Birth.
Jesus Was Wonderful In His Character
His character was wonderful. No one has ever approached perfection as did Jesus Christ. It is wonderful that the greatest character ever produced should have come from Nazareth. He cane to bless, not curse, to heal, not to kill, to lift up the fallen, not to cast them down. He came to reveal the Father’s love, and to give rest to the weary.
That Christ came to earth at such a time as He did, to such a country as He came proves his Divinity, for no other as ever come to this world in such a way as He.
After visiting the city of His birth, one preacher said that only God would have chosen such a people as they, and such a country as Nazareth. The people there are still today just as lazy, selfish, lustful, and ignorant as they were when Jesus came some 2,000 years ago.
He is wonderful in His character.
Jesus Was Wonderful In His Life
His life was wonderful. Even His enemies could not find any fault in Him. Only that He claimed God for his Father, and that He would do good on the Sabbath day. There was not the slightest evidence that He was selfish or self centered. He was always helping others, and not once did He do anything for Himself. He would not even turn stone into bread, though He certainly could have when He was hungry after a forty day fast in the wilderness.
When escaping from His enemies, He stopped to help a blind man who had been in that condition since birth, doing so at the risk of his life. He never sought His own in any way, but always was helping others. He had compassion over Jerusalem as He wept over the people there. His first miracle was to save a peasant woman from humiliation at a wedding, and raised the daughter of one that cried unto Him for help. He cleansed ten lepers, and had only one to return to thank Him.
His Name Shall Be Called Wonderful! How a person could reject or refuse to receive such a person, I can not understand, you are just nuts to refuse His call to your soul and life.
Jesus Was Wonderful In What He taught
His teachings was wonderful in what He taught as well as in the way He taught it. He taught that He was greater than Moses. Think of the audacity of that statement, to claim to be greater than Moses, to the Jews who regarded Moses as almost divine. He declared that He fulfilled the prophecies and the law of Moses. His only effort to prove that claim was to point out the works that He did.
Jesus taught that all men would be lost unless they believed in Him, and I have yet to see anyone get salvation in any other way. There have been many who have tried to obtain salvation by their works, but the Bible tells us that only in the Name of Jesus Christ is there salvation for the lost sinner.
Acts 4:10-12, says; Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner.Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
If you go to the place in this world that is closest to being hell, you will find there those who hate Christ, hate God, but if you go to the place on earth that is most like heaven you will find there people who are in love with Jesus Christ.
Wonderful In His Trial, Suffering And Death
Jesus often told those about Him how He would die. It was wonderful that he would be betrayed into the hands of those who hated him, by one of His disciples, and wonderful that He should be sold for such a small price. Only thirty pieces of silver, the price that was paid for many a slave in that day.
It is also wonderful too that He was condemned to death in the way that He was, by both the religious leaders, and the civil authorities of the day. All on the testimony of false witnesses, in the name of God, when all of the laws were defiled in His trial.
It was wonderful that He was tormented and tortured before being sent to the cross. This only proved His Deity even more, as it was the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old testament. Jesus took the place of the Passover Lamb that day to take away our sins, and to wash us clean in God’s sight, and made to be whiter than snow.
The publicity of His death was also wonderful. It is doubtful that any other death had ever witnessed such a crowd of people till that day. Hundreds of thousands of people were in Jerusalem to attend the Passover feast, and they saw Him crucified that day. They experienced the darkness as it covered earth for three hours, they felt the earthquake that shook the land, they saw as the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom to show forth the holy of Holies, an place where only the high priest had entered, and then only once a year, on the great day of atonement.
Yes, He was wonderful in His death, in His sufferings, and in His trial!
Wonderful In His Resurrection
He often told His disciples of the coming resurrection, but also telling them of His coming resurrection, three days later. Yet none of His disciples were at the tomb on that third day, only the women came, and then only to prepare His body more full for the grave. This shows how fully they abandoned all hope when they saw Him dead. Some even left the city and were on the road to Emmaus when He appeared to them after his resurrection.
The manner of His resurrection was God like, as He was and is God. No human mind could have ever imagined such a scene as happened that resurrection day. If man could have had anything to do with His resurrection, he would have had trumpets sounding, earthquakes, and thundering with lightning all over the earth happening. Man would have had all of earth’s armies standing at attention with saluted hand and bended knees. But God’s ways are different from mans ways, and so God sent an angel to roll the stone away to show that His Son was not there anymore for He had risen! There was no disorder at His grave, the cloth which covered His face they even found neatly folded and laid aside in His tomb.
Wonderful In His Appearances After The Resurrection
It is also wonderful that Jesus showed Himself alive after His resurrection. In Acts 1:3; the Bible tells us;
To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:
He appeared to all of His friends, but not one unbeliever got to see Him. Had man had anything to do in His appearances, he would have had Jesus go to all those who hated Him and crucified him, but God didn’t do that, He chose rather to go to His own people to give them courage, and strength to go forth and carry out His last commission to preach the Gospel to all the world.
Jesus A Wonderful Saviour
He was is a wonderful Saviour too, because He can save a soul so quickly. Quicker than one can think, Jesus Christ can give you a new life. As quickly as one will come to Him for salvation, He saves.
Jesus calls the sinner to come to Him, and to those who come to Him, that He would in no wise cast out. He told us that He would give those who receive Him the power to become the sons of God.
And My last evidence to the fact that Jesus Christ was and is wonderful is that He saved me. (give a bit of testimony).
What about you? Is He wonderful to you? Do you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour today?
Huckaby’s Evangelism
P.O.Box 1011
Pine Mountain, Ga. 31822
glhuck@earthlink.net
glhuckaby@excite.com
