Wonderful Counselor Series

And more than anything during this series, I want to help us all get a little closer to that hope and warmth and security.

I don’t know any better way for that to happen than for us to look, piece by piece, at the gift God brought to earth when He delivered His Son from the womb of a woman in a stable of Bethlehem. Because imagine friends: Imagine if you would really understand who God wants to be in your life. Imagine how that would change you: give you clarity, and courage, and understanding, and hope.

On a side note, I think those are things people everywhere have always wanted.

I think that’s why God couldn’t wait to write down the text of Isaiah 9:6 so many years ago. I think He couldn’t wait to tell folks about how wonderful His Son would be to them when He finally came to earth.

So instead of just announcing it a day or two before his coming-out party, 700 years before Jesus was born, God chose a prophet, a man very near and dear to him, and He said to him, “Isaiah, write this down and tell people about it. Here’s what My Son is going to be like: he’s going to be a wonderful counselor, a mighty God, an everlasting Father, and a prince of peace to you all.”

Because so many people needed the clarity and courage and understanding and hope, God began announcing the news about His Son 700 years before He ever arrived.

How’s that for excitement?

When I was a little guy, my parents decided that it would be good for us to visit the east coast to tour all the historic sites there. So we started planning that trip about six months in advance and a few months ahead of time, I started telling my friends about it.

“I’m going to get to miss two weeks of school to go to the east coast,” I would say. I think I was actually more excited about missing the school than seeing the east coast.

As early as 700 years ahead of time, God was getting so excited about the difference His Son was going to make on planet Earth, that He started telling His friends about it.

The book of Isaiah was written around 700 BC.

We know from historical records that Isaiah lived from about 760 BC to 680 BC.

As I was thinking about that, it occurred to me that during these 4 weeks, we are going to be looking at some words that tie us into a historic flow with spiritually-sensitive people over the last 27 centuries.

Long before Handel ever wrote the Messiah, people who felt like they were in darkness were looking at this description of God’s Son and saying, “Woe! This helps me.”

So let me read the central part of it to you 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

Some people who wonder how the Bible can be true, read this passage, and when they learn that it was written 700 years before Jesus was born, and that the Israeli government has a copy of it on display in Tel Aviv from 100 years before Jesus was born and they say, “You mean the Bible spelled out 700 years ahead of time that a child would be born who would be called the God’s Son and bear the responsibility of governing mankind?” And then they find out that The O.T. contains more than 300 other prophesies about Christ that are fulfilled in the N.T., and most of them are far more explicit than this one, often they switch their reasoning from, “How could the Bible be true?” to, “How could the Bible not be true? Only God could be this accurate so far in advance.”