{"id":25156,"date":"2023-02-09T22:00:22","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T05:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/isaiah-8_1-22-copy\/"},"modified":"2023-02-10T12:12:15","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T19:12:15","slug":"isaiah-9_1-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/isaiah-9_1-7\/","title":{"rendered":"The Child Who Would Be God"},"content":{"rendered":"

Isaiah 9:1-7 \u00a0 Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Isaiah 9:1-7.<\/p>\n

As usual, I highly recommend that you read the whole passage on your own a few times first.\u00a0 Then take a look at my sharing below.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Isaiah 9:1-7 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n1\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan\u2014
\n2\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.
\n3\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as men rejoice when dividing the plunder.
\n4\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor.
\n5\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire.
\n6\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0For 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.
\n7\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the\u00a0LORD\u00a0Almighty will accomplish this.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 1-7:\u00a0 So far in every chapter of Isaiah, Isaiah has prophesied about how the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel would be attacked and humbled.\u00a0 But here Isaiah speaks to a later day when, \u201cnevertheless\u201d (v1), the land of Israel would be honoured.\u00a0 Names like Zebulun, Naphtali, and Galilee of the Gentiles (v1) are all references to the northern part of Israel.<\/p>\n

The reason the people would go from being humbled to being honoured (v1), from darkness to light (v2), from weeping to rejoicing (v3), from carrying a heavy burden to having that burden lifted (v4), from wearing garments used in war to discarding them (v5) is all because a child would be born, and not just any child, but\u00a0the\u00a0<\/em>child.\u00a0 This child would be called \u201cWonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace\u201d (v6).\u00a0 Clearly this was not Hezekiah as some skeptics suggest.\u00a0 Nowhere in the Bible is Hezekiah called any of these names.\u00a0 This was no ordinary son of David, but\u00a0the Son of David<\/em>.\u00a0 Isaiah is talking about the Messiah, this promised Saviour King that God would send to His people.\u00a0 This Messiah would not be an ordinary human being, but would be divine.\u00a0 His kingdom will never end (v7).<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In the kingdom of God, humility comes before honour (Proverbs 15:33; 18:12).<\/strong>\u00a0 That is the story of every exemplary character in the Bible\u2013 whether it\u2019s Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, Ruth, Naomi, John the Baptist, Peter, or of course Jesus.\u00a0 That is the story of every child of God today.\u00a0\u00a0God breaks us so that He can build us up again.<\/strong>\u00a0 He lets us be wounded so that He can heal us.\u00a0 He humbles us so that in the end we can honour Him and be honoured.<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Messiah that Isaiah was foretelling would not just be human but divine.\u00a0\u00a0Jesus is that extraordinary child that would be born, who is Mighty God, Wonderful Counselour, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace.<\/strong>\u00a0 Because of Jesus, our humility turns into honour, our darkness into light, our weeping into joy, our burden into freedom, our fighting into peace.<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The fact that this Messiah would be born in Israel in the \u201cGalilee of the Gentiles\u201d (v1), i.e. a place that was filled with non-Jewish people, indirectly suggests that this Messiah would give hope not only to Jews but to Gentiles as well.\u00a0 Once again we see that\u00a0God\u2019s kingdom consists of people of many nations, many cultures, and many languages<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Jesus, I praise You for being the fulfillment of Isaiah 9:1-7.\u00a0 I worship You as my mighty God, my wonderful counselour, my everlasting Father and my Prince of Peace, the one who turns my darkness into light.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Isaiah 8:1-22.<\/p>\n

As usual, I highly recommend that you read the whole passage on your own a few times first.\u00a0 Then take a look at my sharing below.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Isaiah 8:1-4 (NIV)
\n1\u00a0\u00a0The\u00a0LORD\u00a0said to me, “Take a large scroll and write on it with an ordinary pen: Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.
\n2\u00a0\u00a0And I will call in Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah as reliable witnesses for me.”
\n3\u00a0\u00a0Then I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said to me, “Name him Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.
\n4\u00a0\u00a0Before the boy knows how to say ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria.”<\/p>\n

On verses 1-4:\u00a0 God had impressed upon Isaiah these words \u201cMaher-Shalal-Hash-Baz\u201d, which means \u201cquick to the plunder, swift to the spoil\u201d.\u00a0 God then gets Isaiah to write these words down on a large scroll in the presence of two hostile witnesses (v1-2) who were close associates of King Ahaz of Judah: Uriah the priest (a \u201csketchy\u201d priest in that when Ahaz wanted to build an altar just like the one the Arameans used to worship idols, he got Uriah to make the sketch (2 Kings 16:10)) and Zechariah, who was most likely King Ahaz\u2019s father-in-law (2 Kings 18:2).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25156"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25159,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25156\/revisions\/25159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}