What Child is This – Part 2

Christian Shields

Christmas / Jesus’ Titles; Jesus’ Metaphorical Names; Christmas / Isaiah 9:6–7

What child is this born in a manger? We discus the importance of the birth of Christ and His names given in Isaiah 9-6. Part 2: Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace

Introduction

Isaiah 9:6–7 NKJV

For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

•     Well, Merry Christmas church! This is our last Sunday service before Christmas… and it feels to early to already think about the Christmas season being over…

•     But of course I know ALL of you are going to be at our Christmas Eve candlelight service, amen?! So we will all gather together once more before December 25… still… this year I have really been loving the Christmas season.

•     The songs, the sweaters, the lights, the joy… the unpredictable snow storms, wind storms, and tempeture fluxations… okay, maybe I could use some better weather… but none-the-less… I LOVE CHRISTMAS…

•     And this year as I was praying about what to preach for Christmas the Lord dropped the phrase “What Child Is This” into my head… and it was clear He wanted us to talk about exactly who this Baby in this manger was and is.

•     As I pondered this phrase “What Child is this” of course the first thing that came to my mind was the old Christmas Carol by the same name… in this carol the author ponders:

What Child is this who, laid to rest on Mary’s lap is sleeping? Whom Angels greet with anthems sweet while shepherds watch are keeping?

•     Last week I encouraged you to put yourself in Bethlehem… to imagine that you are just a normal Israeli citizen, maybe you have grown up in Bethlehem your whole life… or maybe you are just there for the census… either way there is a lot of buzz going around about a baby who was just born in a manger… what do you think of this child?

•     What child is this? A bunch of Shepherds say that a whole troop of Angles appeared from heaven to send them to this child and give him glory…

•     And what of these wise men… where are they even from, some eastern nation? They really brought this baby gold and frankensense and myrr?

•     I mean… Gold… as a poor Bethlehemite you have NEVER owned Gold and only seen it a few times… I mean, really Gold was something only Kings could own… What child is this to receive gold?

•     And Frankincense… that stuff… isn’t that one of the main ingredients for the Holy Incense… what child is this that receives incense reserved for God?

•     And Myrrh… what on earth? That is a burial spice used for embalming corpses… what child is this to receive embalming spices…

•     Come on! Some of you know I am preaching… What child is this? To receive the gifts of Kings, the Incense of God, and the Spices of the dead? WHAT CHILD IS THIS?!

•     Surely if you were in Bethlehem your heart would stir with these questions… the Baby who kings try to kill, who angles protect, whom stars point too… What Child is this?

•     Well our key text this morning tells us exactly what Child this is, it was prophesied of Jesus some 400 years early through the prophet Isaiah… Let me read this verse again… what Child is this… He is the Son who was given…

Isaiah 9:6 NKJV

For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

•     So what I have endeavored to do is to spend two weeks going over these titles, answering the question “What Child is This”.

•     Last week we went over the first two titles, or three depending on your translation…

•     Christ is called Wonderful Counselor… this does not mean “Really good therapist” but it means “Awe-inspiring, divinely powerful, miraculous, supernatural, kingly advisor”… someone who commands armies, dictates battles, and solves problems big and small… from the international level, all the way down to our own personal issues. Christ is the King who advises with awesome strategy… strategy and advise that makes you awestruck… it is divinely wise council…

•     Christ is also called Mighty God… there is no mistake Christ is God. The Old Testament call’s Him God. The New Testament calls Him God. He is worshiped, He is praised, He does things that only God can do. He is the second person in the Holy Trinity… fully God and fully man. He is God Almighty… or as Isaiah prophesies… He is MIGHTY, HEROIC, OVERCOMING AND VICTORIOUS GOD. El Gibbor… Mighty God.

•     This week I want to talk about the other two names given in Isaiah 9:6… Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace. Let’s get into it… what Child is this? He is the Everlasting Father.

Everlasting Father

Isaiah 9:6 NKJV

For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called… Everlasting Father…

•     Everlasting Father…

•     Let me ask you a question…

•     Was Jesus created?

•     If so… when was He created?

•     Did Jesus exist before He was created?

•     Was there ever a time when Jesus did not exist?

•     These are important questions, and it was the talk of Christianity in the early 300’s… there was a very popular, logical, and persuasive Egyptian preacher named Arius who was teaching that Jesus was created by the father… Arius taught that there was a time when Jesus did not exist… and as such Arius taught that Jesus was divine, but not truly God.

•     This issue began spreading throughout all of Christianity… with bishops and preachers and church leaders taking stances and arguing over it… it became such an issue that in 325 AD the most powerful leader in the world at that time, Emperor Constantine of the Roman Empire, called for all of the most influential and well studied Christian Bishops and church leaders to gather from all around the world ion the city of Nicaea in modern day turkey.

•     When they gathered Arius famously taught of Jesus “There was a time when He was not”… but of course this is heresy.

•     If Christ is not eternal, then He is not God. If Christ was created then He is not God. If Christ is not God then Scripture is inaccurate, and thus it can’t be the Word of God… because Scripture calls Jesus God many many times.

•     But worst of all, if Christ is not Eternal, then Christ is not God, and if Christ is not God then His sacrifice on the cross was not sufficient for the forgiveness of sins.

•     None the less, Arrius preached to the council of Nicaea passionately that Christ was not eternal and that Christ was not equal with the Father…

•     This enraged some of the other Bishops and pastors there… One such Bishop was named Niclause… from a town called Myra… He was called Niclause of Myra… or just Clause for short… Bishop Clause could not stand by and listen to this heritch Arius go on and on about the Savior of the world… So, Bishop Clause  marched up to Arius and punched him square in the face… He litterly “Decked the halls” if you will… Bishop Claus was arrested and spent the rest of the council in a jail cell…

•     The council went on to determin that indeed Arius was a heritich and so Arius went home disgraced and probably with a black eye…

•     But what is really crazy is what happened to the Bishop in jail. He was stripped of his priestly garments and had all his possessions removed, including his Bible… yet when they went to release him he was wearing brand new preistly garments and had a new Bible… Bishop Clause said it was given to him by an angel… but the guards swore no one ever entered or left the jail…

•     This was such a miracle that the Catholic church would latter go on to cannonize Niclause as a saint… thus Bishop Clause became Saint Clause… And of curse the Dutch word for Saint is Santa… and thus Saint Nicolas was known as Santa Claus… Defender of Christ Jesus… Santa Claus… Defender of the Everlasting Father.

•     And I know I talk about this like every year but it is just so cool that Santa Claus literally punched a heritich because the heretic refused the CLEAR Biblical answer to the question “What Child is this”.

•     What Child is this? He is the everlasting father… but not only that, this phrase everlasting father can also mean “Father of Eternity”.

John 3:15–16 NKJV

that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

John 6:54 NKJV

Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

John 6:68 NKJV

But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

John 10:28 NKJV

And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.

1 John 5:11 NKJV

And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

•     There are so many verses that show us that eternal life comes through Christ Jesus… He is the Father of Eternity… without Christ we do not have eternal life… it is from Him and through Him that we have eternal life, He is the Father of our Eternal life… as was prophesied by Isaiah… He is the Everlasting Father.

•     And Father here does not mean biological father, but it is father in the ancient Near Eastern use of the term, which was often used in phrases like “father of the nation” meaning someone who cares for, looks over, and protects the nation.

•     Christ then is our protector and our provider… Like a father protecting and providing for His children, Christ cares and provides for us, protects us and guides us…

•     He has always been this protector and provider, and He always will be… he is the Everlasting provider and protector…

•     And He is also the provider and protector of our eternities… He provides eternal life and He protects our eternal life… He is the Father of Eternity, and the Father from and until Eternity.

•     Now I am tempted to go on a Tangent about the Trinity, because I read this Everlasting Father Title of Christ and I think “How does that work with the Trinity, the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit…” But that is a teaching for another day, just know that this title does NOT mean that Jesus IS the Father… it Just means that He is the Provider and Protector of Eternity for mankind and that He has been providing and protecting since eternity and He will never stop.

•     And the reason I don’t want to get into too much teaching about the trinity this morning is because I want to make sure we have time to talk about the final title of Christ From Isaiah 9:6… What Child is this? He is the Prince of Peace.

Prince of Peace

Isaiah 9:6 NKJV

For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called… Prince of Peace.

•     What Child is this? He is the PRINCE OF PEACE.

•     The word for peace here is Shalom… it is the peace that surpasses all understanding

Philippians 4:7 NKJV

and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

•     This peace that Jesus brings… that He is the prince of… it is different than any other kind of peace… it is a peace that doesn’t make sense… it is hard for me to explain it, because if you think you understand it… then it is not the peace of God… because His peace surpasses all understanding… it is Shalom peace… peace where peace ought not to be… peace in the midst of chaos… peace in the midst of pain… peace in the midst of death… peace in the midst of betrayal…

•     It is a peace the world does not and can not understand, for the reject the Prince of Peace…

•     Yet, and maybe I should just speak for myself… I still often find myself thinking of peace as the world thinks of peace…

•     Peace means being healthy… peace means having enough money… peace means not having enemies… but the peace Christ is the prince of is not that kind of peace…

John 14:27 NKJV

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

•     When we were in Israel, Amanda and I faced some really hard questions to our faith… we saw the evidence, heard the stories, meet survivors, and watched horrible footage from the October 7th attacks… What these terrorist did was so evil, so grotesquely inhuman… it was damaging to watch… it scarred us…

•     And then the questions come in our minds… Why would God allow this to happen? Is this what Jesus really died for? How can we preach about the Prince of Peace when we see such horrible evil happening in the world?

•     IN 1863 an American poet named Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had similar thoughts about the peace of God…

•     “Peace on Earth good will to men?” He asks “But there is no peace on earth”… he answers… this was during the American civil war… how could we preach “Peace on earth good will to men when there is such a horribly bloody and evil war going on?”… further, Longfellow was extremely opposed to Slavery… how can we preach “Peace on earth good will to men” when there is such evil happening?

•     Then it became personal… Longfellow’s son fought against the south in the civil war and was shot through the shoulder, the bullet barely missing the spine when he returned home it seemed to his father “There is no peace on earth”.

•     On Christmas day that year Longfellow wrote the poem “I heard the bells on Christmas Day”. (Preach each Stanza)

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head:
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.”

•     But maybe your issue with peace this Christmas Season is not with  wars and evil people doing evil things… maybe you find yourself lacking peace because of your health…

•     There was another poet in the 1860’s who was struggling with peace… but for 29 year old insurance manager William Chatterton Dix the peace he was missing was not because of war and evil men… it was because of a sever and life threatening sickness he had come down with…

•     For months William was confined to bed, unable to work or live a normal life… this mysterious illness lead to a deep depression, and worse, it lead to a Crisis of faith.

•     I don’t know about you, but I have some chronic health issues… and sometimes it get’s so bad, and goes on for so long, that wicked thoughts enter my head “Why hasn’t God healed me?! Does God even love me? How can God be good and allow me to suffer like this? Doesn’t He hear my prayers? Doesn’t He care?”

•     Now when those thoughts come in I rebuke them, I take those thoughts captive, I remind myself what Jesus did for me on the Cross and if that is all He ever did it would be enough… I remember that one day I will be in heaven and they temporary woes will seem as nothing…

•     William Chatterton Dix was having these thoughts, or thoughts like it… and he was struggling to take these thoughts captive… He was having a full blown crisis of faith… so, near death and fully depressed, William turned to Scripture… desperate to find something to help him… And just two year after Longsfellow wrote his Christmas poem, William Catterton Dix would write his… from his sick bed William wrote the poem “The Manger Throne” which would latter go on to become the Christmas Carol “What Child is This”… but there is one stanza in that poem that did not make that song… and I want to read you this stanza…

    Faith sees no longer the stable floor,
    The pavement of sapphire is there
    The clear light of heaven streams out to the world
    And the angels of God are crowding the air,
    And heaven and earth, through the spotless birth
    Are at peace on this night so fair.

•     I love this Stanza, and I think it is a shame it did not make it into the final song… because I think it is so incredibly powerful… Faith sees no longer the stable floor, the pavement of sapphire is there… You know what he is referencing? He is referencing the throne room…

Exodus 24:9–10 NKJV

Then Moses went up, also Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel. And there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity.

•     So Moses goes up the mountain and sees God and under God’s feet was a pavement of Saphire… Ezekial 1 shares a similar vision, God enthroned above Sapphire.

•     This means, that from his sickbed thinking he was about to die, William Dix wrote “Faith no longer sees the stable floor, but instead sees sapphire pavement”

•     In other words… this child born in a manger, surrounded by animals, in the cold of the night after a long journey… about the worst birthing scenario you can have… this Child brings peace… because wherever this child is, wherever this Prince of Peace is… that is where God is…

•     William Dix had been trapped in a room for months and months, stuck in bed, thinking he was about to die… but when he invited Christ into his room… no longer did he see that sick bed and no longer did he see that dirty bedroom floor… instead he saw the pavement of saphire…

•     Man I can’t promise you that you will never bee sick… but I can promise you that if you invite the Prince of Peace into your room… then that hospital room becomes a throne room.

•     That jail cell becomes a throne room.

•     That office space becomes a throne room.

•     That funeral home becomes a throne room.

•     That cancer treatment center becomes a throne room.

•     And it is hard not to be at peace when you are walking on saphire floors…

•     It’s hard not to be at peace when you are in the presence of God.

•     It is hard not to be at peace when you invite the Prince of Peace in…

•     I am not saying it makes since… if it made sense it would not be the peace from God… it DOESN’T make sense… and yet it is… the peace of God, the prince of peace… from manger to cross… from jail cell to hospital room… from dead end job to evection notices… from problems you created to problems entirely out of your control… whatever your worries, whatever your sorrows, whatever your pain, what every your hardship church… there is a prince of peace who will enter into your life if you would just invite Him… And when He comes in, the environment changes… fear, and anxiety, and confusion… they aren’t welcome on the sapphire pavement… they have to leave, and all the remains is you and the Prince of Peace.

•     So let me end this Christmas message by once again asking this question, reading this verse, and then answering this question…

Conclusion

•     What Child is this?

Isaiah 9:6 NKJV

For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

•     This Christmas as we celebrate the birth of Christ, take time to ponder… what Child of this…

What Child is this, who, laid to rest, On Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet, While shepherds watch are keeping?

What Child is This? Well He is the Son of God, He is our one and only Savior. He is a Divine and Supernatural strategist, He is a God who heroicly wins the victory, He is the Father of Eternity, and He is Eternally our Providor and Protector… He is the Prince of Shalom… it doesn’t make sense, it is beyond all understanding… but when Christ is there, PEACE is there…

What Child is this? Well, this this is Christ the King!

Gospel Call