Wonderful Counselor (Part 1 of 3)

When you need wisdom or advice or encouragement, who do you turn to? Today on Truth for Life, we begin a series titled A Child Is Born, and we'll hear where the prophet Isaiah directed God's people in their time of crisis and darkness for encouragement and wisdom. Alistair Begg begins with part 1 of a message titled, Wonderful Counselor. I invite you to turn with me to Isaiah and to chapter 9.

We'll begin reading from the nineteenth verse of chapter 8, and we'll read through to the end of chapter 9. When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?

To the law and to the testimony. If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land. When they're famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. Then they will look towards the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness. Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who wear 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 way of the sea along the Jordan. The people, walking in darkness, have seen a great light. On those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. You 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. For, 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.

For every warrior's boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. 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. Of 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 Lord Almighty will accomplish this. Thanks be to God for his Word. Gracious Spirit of God, come now and be our teacher so that we might understand what the Bible says, that we might meet the one of whom the Bible speaks, and that all of the darkness of our sin and distress may be banished in the joy and light of that which Jesus brings.

For his name's sake we pray. Amen. It's not uncommon—in fact, it is increasingly common—to overhear someone saying, I am seeing a counselor for that, or, I am in counseling. I am old enough to remember when such a statement would not have been offered willingly. Rather, it would have been seen as such an admission of need that you wouldn't want to volunteer it either on your resume or when you were engaged in an interview. And as the need for counselors increases, and as the number of counselors increase, it is actually possible that we do a disservice to those whose needs are deepest, insofar as we recognize that each of us at some point in our lives will need to go to someone else, to somewhere else, in order to find wisdom, help, and encouragement. But such genuine cries for need, such necessary intervention may very easily be obscured by a preoccupation with matters which are just particularly trivial. I was thinking about it just this week as I listened to somebody try to speak to a living person by means of a telephone.

It was clear as I was in the company of the individual that they were giving answers to electronic questions and were being responded to by electronic somethings. And I just stopped myself from saying when the phone was finally disengaged, you know you should probably see a counselor for that. Because it is so unbelievably distressing. The complexities of modern life, both in public and in private, reveal very quickly to us our need of help. And as society becomes increasingly fractured as relationships more and more disengaged, it is not surprising that Berman, a professor of law at Harvard, writes, our whole society seems to be facing the possibility of a kind of nervous breakdown. And when you listen to a twenty-four-hour bombardment of news, when you read your newspapers, when all of those little things pop up on your computer screen, you can understand why it is that someone as articulate and intelligent as Berman would make that kind of observation. But we then might be tempted to believe that this is unique to our circumstances, that it is because we live in this cyberspace generation. It is on account of the fact that life has become increasingly complex for us, and we are distinctly unable to handle the affairs of time. And then, of course, we could just read history books and be corrected, and we could certainly read our Bibles and find that in every generation, men and women were in need of a counselor.

Indeed, in every generation, men and women are in need of a wonderful counselor. Isaiah writes to a people eight centuries before the Lord Jesus Christ who, without newspapers, would have been aware on a routine basis that they were confronted by war and by distress and by darkness. Indeed, they were aware, at least some of them, that this kind of darkness which sought to engulf them from outside was more than matched by the darkness which sought to undo them from inside.

And if we doubt my assertion, then we need only to turn to the Bible ourselves. And I want just to point this out to you by referencing one or two early pieces of Isaiah's prophecy. And first of all, in Isaiah chapter 3 and in verses 6 and 7, we have an indication of a circumstance with which we are not unfamiliar in our own generation—namely, a crisis in leadership. And somewhat cynically, the individual says, A man will seize one of his brothers at his father's home and say, You have a cloak, you be our leader. Take charge of this heap of ruins. In other words, the need for leadership is so deep that the fact that someone has a nice coat that they could wear to walk out into the community is used as a basis for suggesting that this person is perhaps the ideal individual to become the mayor or the governor.

The crisis in leadership. Over a page to your left, in chapter 2 and in verse 7, eight centuries before Christ, materialism was alive, and, well, you look at what we read, Their land is full to seven of silver and gold. There is no end to their treasures. Their land is full of horses. There is no end to their chariots. Their land is full of idols, and they bow down to the work of their hands. And the same thing is reinforced when you get to chapter 5, verse 8, Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left, and you live alone in the land. Surely the great houses will become desolate, the fine mansions left without occupants. Now, you see this repeated throughout history, don't you? You live in Cleveland, and people say, ah, but if you'd been here at the turn of the century, you would have realized what an amazing avenue Superior really was.

It was well named as Superior Avenue. It doesn't look particularly superior at the moment, even though some are endeavoring to refashion it. No, those great mansions have crumbled. They are now desolate. Eight centuries before Jesus, the issues of wine and women and song and superstition were the issues of the day.

Let me point it out to you. Chapter 5, again in verse 11, Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks. They don't care if it is five o'clock somewhere or if it isn't. Who stay up late at night till they're inflamed with wine? They have harps and lyres at their banquets, tambourines and flutes and wine, but they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord, nor respect for the work of his hands.

Eighty-six proof anesthetic crutches prop you to the top, while the smiles are all synthetic and the ulcers never stop. Women. Chapter 3, verse 16. The Lord says, The women of Zion are haughty, or snobby, walking along with outstretched necks, flirting with their eyes, tripping along with mincing steps, with ornaments jingling on their ankles. That's a kind of contemporary ring to it, doesn't it?

Was this person just at Beechwood Mall? What is this? I love it when people tell me, you know, the Bible is such an ancient book, it is irrelevant. I don't know why anyone would ever read it. The person who says that has never read the Bible. Wine, women, and superstitions. Chapter 2 and verse 6.

6b, they are full of superstitions from the east. They practice divination like the Philistines and clasp hands with pagans. And you will have noticed, I think, in our reading, which began in verse 19 of chapter 8, that that was the very emphasis of the prophet at that point.

When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God, why would you consult the dead on behalf of the living? That's 800 years before Jesus. Now we are 2,000 years beyond Jesus, and it's not unusual.

It's quite routine to have some individual on, either morning television, which I see once in a blue moon, or talk shows, which I see infrequently, describing and clamoring for words of insight and wisdom and counsel that come from beyond the grave. What have we learned? Nothing in almost 3,000 years.

This great advanced generation, this great man-on-the-moon country. Are we really just the same as they were, in need of a wonderful Father? Yes.

Absolutely so. You see, the basic problem now as then was not the absence of information. It was not that there was no counsel to whom men and women might respond. It wasn't that there was an absence of truth to which they may tune their ears.

The problem was that they chose to listen to lies instead. In fact, in verse 20 of chapter 8, the prophet says, To the law and to the testimony. It almost demands the addition of two words. We go. To the law and the testimony we go. In other words, we're going to pay attention to what God has revealed. And then he says, But if they do not speak according to this word, to this law and this testimony, they have no light of dawn.

The light won't dawn on them. It's almost as if the person is brought up in the realm of the truth. They're brought up under the instruction of God's Word. Their parents have brought them up within the framework of the Shema. Here, O Israel, the LORD your God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and your mind and your strength, and so on.

And that was their upbringing. And they knew that blessing was there. Blessed is the one.

But they've turned from blessing. Blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the wicked but whose delight is in the law of the LORD. Now, you may be here today and that actually fits your picture. You may actually be making another sortie, as it were, around the truth of God and the Bible and Christmas. And my passing-through-away line puts a finger right somewhere deep inside of you. Because this describes you, confronted by this truth with frequency, but no dawning of it in your heart. Still dark in there, still confused in there, still empty in there. Oh, you say, this is a sorry picture at the end of chapter 8, is it not? Well, yes, it is, without any question at all. The Bible never disguises how dark things are when God is left out.

It states it very, very clearly. And just to the point where we might anticipate that God would leave these people in their darkness—after all, they had chosen to reject him, they had been rebellious in their hearts—just when we might expect that he says, Well, let's just close the book on you folks. I'm tired of you and want nothing more to do with you. I'll just consign you now to darkness. At that point we read, Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. Suddenly a light has shone across the darkness. Suddenly, just when it appears as though the wintertime of the soul is about to come in all of its crushing sadness, the light shines, and it is a dazzling light. And into the sorry predicament of these wanderers who are distressed and hungry, 8, 21, roaming through the land famished, looking upward to leadership and crying out in rebellion, looking down towards the earth and consumed with fearful gloom—just in that moment God comes. And I have something to tell you this morning. If you read the Bible, you will find this story repeated again and again and again.

In fact, it comes from the very beginning of the Bible, when Adam and Eve turn their backs on God and decide to go their own way, at the very point where God might have said, Have it your own way. What does he do? He comes looking for them in the garden.

Where are you? He comes and discovers them in their nakedness. And what does he do? He provides clothing for them to cover their nakedness.

He is the God of grace who comes into the darkness and emptiness of the experience of men and women to bring his light and his joy and his peace—a story which is so wonderfully conveyed to us in the celebration of lights that we enjoy at this time of year. You will notice that chapter 9 opens with a reference to the past—in the past. In the past, he—that is, God—humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. What does that mean? Well, it's a reference to the fact that God humbled his people by means of the invading armies of Assyria.

That's really all you need to know for the time being. In the past, he has done this. And then you will notice, in the future, he's going to do something else. In the past, he has humbled his people by the invading armies, and in the future, he's going to help his people. And the same context in which the humbling came, the same geographical area, will be the geographical area in which the help comes.

Now, this ought to set some of your minds to work. And it is one of the points in the study of the Bible that we're able to say to each other, This is the time that we say, By reading our Bibles backwards, we may understand the best. And, because you've already thought of this but are not sure where to find it, let me tell you that what you're thinking of is Matthew chapter 4 and verse 12, which reads as follows, When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he returned to Galilee. Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun. Now, Zebulun, you say, Oh, I know Zebulun. Of course you do.

We just read it. Isaiah chapter 9, Zebulun. And Naphtali. Oh, that's that other place!

Yes, it is. Well, what was Jesus doing in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali? Well, he was actually taking care of Isaiah chapter 9 verse 1b. And in fact, that's exactly what Matthew tells us. He was fulfilling what was said through the prophet Isaiah. Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way to the sea along the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people living in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned. So when you read Isaiah chapter 9 verse 1 and say, What in the world does that mean? The answer is provided for us in Matthew chapter 4, and we need be in any doubt at all. It's fantastic.

It's helpful. But those of you who are thinking have already detected the fact that Isaiah writes about this using tenses that are in the past, that the appearance of this light has already come. But we just read Matthew 4, and we've discovered from Matthew that the appearing of this light in all of its fullness is in the arrival of Jesus. But we're eight hundred years before Jesus, so why is Isaiah writing about it as if it had already happened?

Answer? Because it was so vivid, so clear, and so certain in his mind that he could use the prophetic perfect in order to make clear exactly what was going to take place. That's why Peter, when he writes about the prophets, said that the prophets themselves were, as it were, standing on tiptoe looking to see the fulfillment of the things that they had written. Isaiah was convinced enough of the reality of this to write as he did, but he never lived to see the fruition of it.

He never lived to see the fulfillment of it. Nevertheless, in Isaiah's mind, that which he describes, he describes as having already taken place. The people walking in darkness have, past tense, seen a great light on those living in the land of the shadow of death. A light has dawned.

Now, how has this come about? How is darkness replaced by light? How is war replaced by peace? How is distress replaced by joy? Those are relevant questions, I think you would agree. You could get a conversation going on most of those questions in any decent spot where people are hanging around for any length of time at all. How do you think you can take your depression and replace it with joy? I don't know.

Do you think it is possible to have peace in our world? Well, we could discuss that. And so on. Well, notice the answer. The you of verse 3, you have enlarged the nation, is referring to God. This is what God has done.

And this is very, very important. It lies at the heart of this prophecy. Who is it that has caused all this to take place? Answer God, who is the source of light, and in whose light alone, men and women may see light. That of course is Alistair Begg, reminding us in this increasingly fractured and disengaged world, we need God to shine his light into our darkness. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. If you'd like to know more about how God can turn your distress into peace, visit the Learn More page on our website. There you will find two videos that help you gain a better understanding of today's lesson. One video shows Alistair explaining the gospel. The other is an animated presentation about God's plan of salvation called The Story.

You can watch one or both of the videos. Visit us at truthforlife.org. If you listen to Truth for Life regularly, you have heard me mention the book Spurgeon on the Power of Scripture. This is a collection of seven sermons preached by 19th century Pastor Charles Spurgeon. The book was compiled so that we can draw from Spurgeon's teaching to grow in our confidence in the truth of God's word. Charles Spurgeon once compared the Bible to a lion in a cage. He said, it doesn't need to be defended.

You just need to let it out of the cage and it'll defend itself. In this book of seven of Spurgeon's sermons, he unpacks the scripture in all of its power. We're only going to be offering Spurgeon on the Power of Scripture a few more days, so be sure to connect with us soon to get your copy. It's yours by request when you donate to Truth for Life. You can give online at truthforlife.org slash donate or call us at 888-588-7884. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening. Tomorrow we're going to learn about the amazing things that happen when God shines his light into darkness. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.