Isaiah 9:7
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
Church, it is so good to be here with you all tonight. Let's look at God's word together. Imagine this. You and your people are about to be in a war. But you get to choose who your king will be for this war. And you can choose anyone from all of history to be your king. He doesn't have to be someone who fights on the front lines with you. He could just be the mastermind and the background of all your war strategy.
Who would you pick? I'll give you a second to think about it. Maybe you thought of Winston Churchill. Maybe you thought of Alexander the Great. Or maybe you chose a bit more of a bad guy who's just really good at war, like Genghis Khan. Well, for me, who I chose was Ash Ketchum from Pokemon because Pikachu is basically invincible. Yes, my king wins, yours loses.
Sorry. But anyways, what if I said that my question actually about choosing a king is a legitimate question and your life depends on the king you choose? and your future in his kingdom you must consider. Well, our text today is going to be Isaiah 9, 7.
Isaiah 9, verse 7, which can be found on page 573 of the Pew Bible that's in front of you. And I'll give you a second to open that up. of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. On the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. Here's our main idea tonight, church. The king is coming, and his kingdom will never end. The king is coming, and his kingdom will never end. I've got two points for you. Point one, the king, and point two, the kingdom. So, we're near the beginning of this ginormous book of Isaiah, a book written almost 3,000 years ago, A book written by the prophet Isaiah, who was sent by God to go into the world and deliver a message that would ultimately lead to the judgment of his hearers.
God told Isaiah that the people would hear, but their ears would get packed deeper and deeper with mud until they wouldn't be able to listen anymore. Their eyes would become even more blind, and it was all because of their own sin. The people of Israel did not want to listen to God to repent of their sin and bow their knees to the king, God himself. And the beginning of Isaiah is a scorching pronouncement of judgment on Israel because they have forgotten their God and turned to their sin.
In Isaiah 8, the chapter before ours, leaves us in a dark, hopeless place. God tells Isaiah that the king of Assyria is about to enter the land of Israel like a flood. They'll be swallowed up in the judgment of the waters of their enemy. We're told that all the Israelites will find during this flood is nothing but distress. The gloom of anguish, thick darkness.
Death is around the corner. And then out of nowhere, in the darkest part of the night, a light of hope starts to shimmer in the distance. And verse 1 of chapter 9 tells us, but there will be no gloom for her who is in anguish. And then it goes on and it says, and the nation will be multiplied and his joy will increase and the yoke of their burden will be broken and a child will be born who will have the government on his shoulders. His name will be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And now we find ourselves in our verse for today, verse 7 of chapter 9.
Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. On the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. Simply put, the king is coming. Despite Israel's sin and rejection of their God, the king is coming. And we see this king doing a lot of things in our verse, but who is he?
Well, verse 6 told us that he'll be a man born as a baby like the rest of us, but then he gets some titles that belong exclusively to him in all of Scripture. The wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace. That is the one whose government and whose peace will never cease to increase. And boy, could we talk about those titles for the rest of our time together, but that was not the verse that I was given.
So we'll move on. But there is another hint of who this king is in our verse. Our verse says, he will sit on the throne of David and over his kingdom forevermore. So what's the significance of that? What it doesn't mean is that there's a physical throne with the name of David inscribed on top of it. And this king will walk right up to the empty seat, sit down, take out a mug that he filled with water from the fountain of youth, and declare, ha ha, yes, I sit in the seat of David.
Look at me, I will reign forevermore. No, that's not what it means. Let me give you another example. Imagine if I snuck into the Palace of Westminster in London, found the empty sovereign's throne, snuck in there, sat down, and then declared, ha-ha, I am the king. Tim Jack would probably laugh, and Greg Tarr would probably kill me. No, the king of the line of David is coming.
the one that God promised David in 2 Samuel 7, the king who would establish the king of David forever, the one whom Psalm 89 says will be the offspring of David whose throne would be built for all generations to come. This verse is talking about that king. And here in our verse, God promises again that the king is coming. I wonder if at this point in the story, for the Israelites, if this king seemed too good to be true.
Too impossible for a land that at this point has imploded on itself into two separate kingdoms with two separate kings and with outside kings threatening to wipe them off the face of the earth. Yes, the Israelites should have already believed that the Davidic king was coming. But Isaiah takes the eyes of Israel and fixes them again on this great hope with a slightly different vantage point of the same glorious promise. It's as if Isaiah has taken the crown jewel of their hope and stuck it in the light again, but this time at a slightly different angle so that the light enters it just a bit differently so that they can see its beauty in just a whole different way.
and so i say isaiah saying listen israel the king is coming the throne will be established and the kingdom will never end but i think the question remained for israel when lord when how much more pain and how much more suffering until you bring us the one who will sit on the throne of David. The original audience of this message from Isaiah never got to see this Davidic king come. But brothers and sisters, the crown jewel has been shown to us in every dazzling angle. Luke chapter 1, verses 31 through 33. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the most high
and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end. Church, the crown jewel of the Bible and of our lives is the gospel of Jesus Christ this glorious king Jesus Christ the mighty God emptied himself by taking the form of a servant the everlasting father became obedient to the point of death on a cross and through his death and resurrection the prince of peace has been highly exalted and had the name above every other name bestowed on him so that the name of Jesus every knee would bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord.
And the wonderful counselor ascended into heaven and currently sits on its throne as the king of the universe. He, Jesus, is the king who has established the throne of David and upholds it forevermore. And if you have never recognized this king before today, That very king is offering you a place in his kingdom right now.
For now, you have the option to bend the knee before the throne of David and to repent of your sins and give your allegiance to him, to put your faith in him. And he will personally give you a place with him in his kingdom forevermore. He will grant you peace. The peace that this verse is talking about, peace with God, even though you've lived in rebellion against the king for your entire life.
Bend the knee to the king, I beg of you, before he forces you to do it, to bend the knee when he returns, and then he banishes you from his king eternally. my brothers and sisters do you take the kingship of Jesus for granted? I fear that some of you far too often think about the seat of the president of the United States than you do of the throne of the king of the universe.
I fear that many of you know that Jesus is your friend But when you fall into that same consistent pattern of sin, you forget that he's your king. I fear that your anxieties, your impatience, your pride is all fueled by a weak recognition that the king of the universe is currently reigning over your life personally. and the kingdom of hell cannot stop his good plan, his good will for you.
Look to your king. Know that he reigns powerfully over every aspect of his kingdom and that includes you. And find peace in reminding yourself who leads you. And that brings us to point two, the kingdom. So, back to the beginning of our verse, the increase of the king's government and of peace have no end. What does that mean? There isn't a single example in world history of a government that continued to increase, and that peace coincided with that infinite increase.
Alexander the Great, beginning in Macedonia, stretched all the way to India, and then failed. Genghis Khan, from the east of China to the border of Austria, and then failed. Caesar and the Roman Empire from England to Egypt and then failed. Many of history's great kingdoms even just collapsed after their mortal ruler did. But if we look around this relatively small room today, you'll notice something. China, Afghanistan, England, Canada, Africa, all together under one immortal king.
At peace with one another because we found peace with God in Christ. look at each other as the evidence of our mighty king's infinitely increasing government and peace that has no end. As we sing here in a moment about the earth receiving her king, I want you to look around the room and be in awe of what our king has already accomplished. And he's not done. Go out as an ambassador of this king with the good news of what the king has done for us.
and watch what he does. And there's only one more thing I want you to see in this passage. I want you to see how this kingdom came to be and how it continues to exist. I'll just read a verse from the beginning again. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. Look at what this verse has said about what we have done in service to the Lord to establish this kingdom. Take a look. Absolutely nothing. The king establishes it and the king upholds it with justice and with righteousness. Listen, the only thing that we had in our possession as the borders of the kingdom continued to expand and then started to inch up to us, the only thing that we had was our sin.
Yet, the zeal of the Lord of hosts, the God of angel armies, his passion for you told the thousands upon thousands of angel soldiers to lay down their swords. and instead of pouring out his justice against you and your sin, the righteous one, establishing the throne of David, the king himself, took the wrath reserved for you. He did that as he died on the cross for your sins, and justice was carried out for the sins of everyone who would repent and believe in the king, and then enter his kingdom of peace.
And you, yes you, are now established with justice because the righteous king delivered his justice in full on himself. And you are now upheld in righteousness because the righteous king has taken off his unstained righteous robes and place them on your shoulders.
And again, all you ever did was bring your sin. And that, that is why, brothers and sisters, your citizenship in the kingdom of heaven, this kingdom that will be forevermore, your citizenship is not for question. You never did anything. It was all the king. The king has established you. And the king will uphold you forevermore.
Let's pray. Father God, Lord, we praise you that we bring nothing to your throne and that King Jesus has established it forevermore. And you have invited us to become your sons, your daughters for forever. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that we got to spend time in it tonight. and I pray all this in Jesus' name, amen.