Peace on Earth-At Last! - Part A

In any era of history, any time human beings decide we're going to bring peace on earth, it's just an impossible task.

But it will happen. It will happen one day and Isaiah the prophet happens to be one of those prophets who predicts the coming day of peace. The world has not known a time of true peace for years and years. But today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip shares with you about a coming ruler who will finally bring peace on earth. Right now, we want to tell you about a resource that shines important light onto what's happening in the Middle East.

The beating heart of Bible prophecy is the land of Israel and the Middle East. Joel Rosenberg has his finger on the pulse of the world shaking changes happening right now. And he unveils them in his new nonfiction book, Enemies and Allies. Enemies and Allies from multiple New York Times bestselling author Joel Rosenberg takes you on an unforgettable journey inside the turbulent Middle East. You'll go behind closed doors to hear from the very kings and crown princes, presidents and prime ministers who are leading the charge. Enemies and Allies includes exclusive never before published quotes, insights and analysis from the author's conversations with some of the world's most controversial leaders. Your hardcover copy of Enemies and Allies is our thanks for your generous gift of $35 or more today.

To give, call 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com. Now, as we join Skip Heitzig for today's teaching, we're in Isaiah chapter nine. So outside of the United Nations building in New York City is this very, very famous statue. I'm not going to try to pronounce the guy's name. He's a Russian artist.

Forget it. Anyway, it's a strong man with a hammer beating a sword into a plow. And that depicts Isaiah chapter two, which we're going to be looking at in a moment. And across the street from the United Nations building are the very words that that statue is coming from.

It's from Isaiah, they shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. Their stated goal was to end war and to bring in world peace. It's a wonderful goal to have, but let's be frank, they failed miserably. Since the United Nations was founded, there has not been a single year of peace anywhere on earth. Now, I want to give them a break a little bit because it could be a stated goal, but nobody has been able to pull it off.

No one. Not the United Nations, not any king, not any kingdom. In any era of history, any time human beings decide we're going to bring peace on earth, it's just an impossible task.

But it will happen. It will happen one day and Isaiah the prophet happens to be one of those prophets who predicts the coming day of peace. This message is called peace on earth at last.

And it will happen when and only when the prince of peace returns and takes over what he created. I want you to try to imagine for a moment a world without any war. Try to imagine a world in perfect peace, a pristine utopia. Imagine a world that does not need homeland security. Imagine a world that doesn't have any missile testing because there are no missiles to test. Imagine a world where all the politicians are saints. Now that always gets a laugh, that one, and that's because you are really having to stretch your imagination. Imagine a world in which everything is always fair.

There's no need of an army, there's no need of a navy, there's no need of an air force. Now imagine a world that is so healthy that if somebody dies at age 100, they are said to die as an infant. Imagine a world where the curse is removed, the animal kingdom is tamed, the environment is pristine. Imagine a world where toddlers can play in a snake pit and not be harmed.

And where the snakes are unharmed by the toddlers as well. Imagine a world that is abundant with food but also packed full of people. Now we can only imagine that, it's only in our imagination.

But one day we will not have to imagine it because it's going to come. And it is called the kingdom, or the kingdom age, or the millennial kingdom, or the thousand year reign of Christ on the earth. Whatever title it is the kingdom age. Isaiah the prophet is the author of this book and we're looking at Isaiah chapter 9. Isaiah chapter 9 is one of the most famous passages in all of the scripture. Unfortunately, people usually only read it in all of the scripture. Unfortunately, people usually only pull it out around Christmas time because it mentions the child being born.

And so it finds its way into Christmas cards and it's preached on at Christmas. When Isaiah wrote this, he wrote it about 100 years before the Babylonian captivity, about 600 years before the birth of Christ. Isaiah in this passage and several others, by the way, in this book. This book is full of kingdom prophecy. Isaiah is looking past his own lifetime, past Bethlehem, though there are overtones of it in verse 6.

He looks past the first coming of the Messiah, past the cross, past the resurrection, into the future when the Messiah reigns as monarch on the earth. Today, if you mention a king or a kingdom to Americans, that doesn't sit very well. I mean, we're a nation founded in rebellion to the king. We're not going to have a king reign over us. We left the king of England's reign over us.

But when we talk about, there's some very, very patriotic person back there who's just all anti-England, I think. But the idea of a kingdom is a monarchy. The monarchy we're talking about is a compassionate, benevolent, all-knowing, all-loving God ruling over his creation. And what I want to give you out of Isaiah chapter 9 verses 6 and 7 are three reasons why the dominion we're talking about is going to be successful and bring in lasting peace. And it all revolves around the ruler.

It's the right person at the right time. We're going to look at a remarkable king and his royal character and then his righteous kingdom. Look at verse 6 and 7. Let's read it all together. 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 and i've always loved in particular this last little sentence the zeal of the lord of hosts will perform this we would translate that god's going to get her done he's going to make sure that happens now let's go back to verse 6 and uh and notice this king that is predicted three things are immediately said of him his humanity is mentioned unto us a child is born his deity is alluded to unto us a son is given and his sovereignty is stated the government will be upon his shoulders let's take each one unto us a child is born that's christmas that's the nativity that's when jesus was born in bethlehem that's where we celebrate every christmas time but you will notice that isaiah goes on to further identify this child who is born by calling him the mighty god so the child who is going to be born according to isaiah is also the mighty god which begs a question immediately and that is how does god get born i mean if he's god how is that even possible how can god fit into a womb how do you get god in a placenta filled with amniotic fluid and there's only one answer to that a virgin birth it's the only way god could possibly be born by the way isaiah also in his prophecy predicts that not here but elsewhere in chapter 7 a virgin birth the only way to make this happen is if this child is conceived by the holy spirit in the womb of a human girl so that biologically he is related to mary but not biologically related to joseph but he was then fully human he was born thus he was he was human and so that means he experienced what you and i experience he knows what it's like to be tired as a human he he knew what it was like to get hungry as a human and he knew what it was like to suffer and ultimately die as a human but something else is said of this remarkable king not only his humanity but it says unto us a son is given did you notice the wording there it does not say unto us a child is born unto us a son is born but unto us a child is born unto us a son is given there is a suggestion just in the text of pre-existence in fact i'll say it this way pre-existent de-existence is a suggestion deity in other words before he was born as a child he already existed as god as the second person of the trinity but when the child was born that's when the son was also given that's john 316 for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son now try to get your head around this one jesus christ was the only person who existed before he was born he is the only person who existed before he was born no wonder paul wrote to timothy and said great is the mystery of godliness that god was manifested in the flesh what it means is jesus never became god jesus was god before he was born and remained god after he was human again we can thank isaiah for putting it all together in chapter 7 and he will be called emmanuel which means god with us so unto us a child is born unto us a son is given that's his humanity that's his deity notice a further description is his sovereignty for it says and the government will be upon his shoulder now it's in the future tense will be upon his shoulder he's looking with the prophetic lens into the future beyond christmas beyond the cross into the kingdom when the government of the world will rest upon his shoulder by the way the word government this is a hebrew text we're dealing with in the old testament not greek the hebrew word for government here is the word misra and it literally means the rule of a monarch now i really like this for this reason when jesus comes he's the monarch he rules as as one okay he's not voted in for four years four years you know we don't really like the messiah we want to we want a new one tough this is a monarchy and uh you can't impeach him can't do that he's in for good it's the rule of a monarch but what's this idea of the government will be on his shoulder in ancient times governance was considered a burden to be born on the shoulder of a monarch they understood the responsibility if you're going to rule you have to bear the weight of responsibility for the decisions you make and they considered it a burden it's a burden that the king wears or the governor wears now we live in a day and age when the government wants to put the burden on us but they saw the burden on them in those days and it was symbolically represented by the robe that the king wore they would wear the robe on the shoulders to signify the burden of government resting upon the shoulders of the monarch of course we know that jesus took off his royal robes in heaven so to speak came down to the earth as a child born as the son given to walk among his people i've always loved the story about the king who twice a year decided to take off his kingly robes and and dress up like a peasant i should say dress down like a peasant he disguised himself walked around people in the city in the countryside and this drove his guards and officials nuts this is a security issue sir you can't be you can't do that and he did it anyway twice a year and his rationale was pretty clear he said i cannot rule my people unless i know how they live so god in the form of jesus christ became the child born the son given one day the government will be upon his shoulders but because he lived among us he knows how we live so essentially already we have a virgin born son of god coming into the world that he had made one day ruling the world with a literal earthly geopolitical kingdom that will encompass all the kingdoms and the governments of the world and if you think i'm just sort of making this up or or adding what isn't really there uh you need to read a little more of your old testament because even nebi kineser a pagan king who ruled the world during his day and age in babylon remember the night he had a dream and he called all the wise men in babylon he said look i had a dream last night and i want you to tell me what it means and basically they said good you tell us what you dreamed we'll make something up you know we'll we'll make some interpretation but tell us what you dreamed he goes no that's too easy you tell me what i dreamed and then you tell me what it means if you don't do that you're all dead so that didn't bode very well because none of them could do that daniel stepped in and so said i can do it and i can't do it because i'm great but i can do it because there's a god in heaven who knows everything and he has revealed it to me so so king here's what you saw in your dream you saw a huge statue made out of gold and silver then bronze then iron then iron and clay and that represents successive world dominating kingdoms you're number one you're the head of gold you control everything on earth but after you another king will arise medo-persian empire after that another kingdom will arise the grecian empire after that another kingdom will arise the roman empire all of it happened and then there's going to be in the latter days a confederation of kings 10 nations and in your dream oh king you saw a stone cut out not with human hands coming from heaven careening to the earth it hit the statue busted it up destroyed all those kingdoms and that rock grew into a mountain that covered the earth and the king said yeah that's like exactly what i saw dude what does it mean and daniel said in the days of those kings god will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed it's a kingdom on earth like nebykineser like medo-persia etc he will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed and that kingdom shall stand forever here is the remarkable king child born son given the government will be upon his shoulder now let's keep going in verse six and and go to the second reason why this dominion will be successful and bring in lasting peace and that is his royal character you will notice that in verse six isaiah gives four names to this king some would count five if they keep a comma there i'll talk about that but when isaiah gives these names it doesn't mean the child will actually be called by those names it's not like anybody said hey wonderful counselor over here or hey mighty god but but these are descriptive characteristics of his reign so look at the first so look at the first one his name will be called wonderful then it says comma in my bible counselor so some say his name is wonderful then another name is counselor and then other versions more modern versions take the comma out so wonderful becomes the adjective for counselor so his name will be called wonderful counselor you know what doesn't matter it's all true he's he's just plain wonderful and he's a counselor but he's also a wonderful counselor and really that's probably the best way to see it take the comma out because literally in hebrew it's put this way he will be a wonder of a counselor he will be a wonder of a council in other words his wisdom as a counselor transcends all human wisdom now uh let's be frank here anybody can give you counsel it's not always wonderful might be well-meaning but it might be ungodly counsel uh by the way everybody has an opinion of how you should live everybody does everybody thinks you should have a certain value system which is their value system everybody has an opinion how you should live but jesus council is wonderful he is the wonderful counselor there's an old danish proverb that says he who builds according to every man's advice will have a crooked house so if you try to just kind of bow to everybody's opinion your life will just kind of look wonky but when jesus was on earth and he came to his hometown of nazareth the people marveled they were all amazed by the gracious words that came from his lips it's like wow that was good he's a wonderful counselor now imagine if jesus opened a counseling office down by your house so there's his name out there jesus counseling hours are given you go in there to get counsel you walk in and he already knows everything about you yeah jesus i've had a rough week um my boss and he goes you don't even have to you don't even have to keep going i saw what your boss did to you and i heard what you said back to your boss right so he so he knows everything and he would always give the right advice in john chapter 7 jesus was in the temple and he spoke and the official said no man ever spoke like this man like this man his counsel was and will be always wonderful and when he rules and reigns and you'll see why this is important because the law will go forth from where he is presiding in jerusalem and it will be a wonderful council by the way i i need to say that perhaps one of the reasons that there has never been peace on earth heretofore is because politicians usually don't seek god they don't oh they get counsel they get advice they have their own analysts around them they have their ambassadors around them they get on the phone and usually talk to other leaders so they're getting counsel from one another but rarely do you find a leader of a nation who is really intent on finding out what god has to say that Skip Heitzigs with a message from his series give peace a chance now we want to share about an exciting opportunity you have to take your knowledge of god's word even deeper personal and small group bible study is a great way to learn about god and his word but what if you want to dig even deeper learn about the bible's inspiration inerrancy and interpretation when you take the history and authenticity of the bible at calvary college increase your knowledge of the bible and your confidence in its authority and education and biblical studies will impact your spiritual life for the rest of your life classes start january 10th so apply today at calvarychurchcollege.com listeners like you play a vital part in this ministry your generosity makes an eternal impact by helping connect so many others to the truths found in god's word if you've been impacted by this radio broadcast consider supporting connect with Skip heitzig with a gift today to help people around the world find spiritual nourishment through biblical teachings just call 800-922-1888 that's 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate that's connectwithskip.com slash donate thank you tune in tomorrow as Skip Heitzigs and talks about a future kingdom where peace will reign and how you're going to be a part of it make a connection make a connection at the foot of the crossing cast all burdens on his word make a connection connection connect with Skip heitzig is a presentation of connection communications connecting you to god's never changing truth in ever-changing times