CHRISTMAS SEASON INTERLUDE

Revisiting Messiah’s Descriptive Names

Part III: Christ Our Everlasting Father

(Isaiah 9:6)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

This Christmas Season, we stand in need of lasting safety:

(1) We need lasting financial safety: “(T)his year, thanks to an economy disrupted by covid, soaring interest rates and three years of high inflation, many . . . Americans are hurting in their pocketbooks. This past year credit-card debt jumped faster than ever before in history . . . as more Americans are borrowing at high interest rates just to meet their daily living needs. An increasing number of people are taking hardship withdrawals out of their 401K savings accounts, reports CNBC – tapping their future retirement funds to pay bills they are unable to afford today.” (Tom Purcell, “Restoring the gift of giving,” Republican-American, December 6, 2023, p. 7A)

(2) We need lasting safety from criminals: A “Harris poll found 60% of respondents saying having a gun is necessary to defend themselves against criminals, with 55% saying that rising crime is the fault of ‘woke’ politicians.” (Chris Powell, “‘Gun safety’ is camouflage for going easy on crime,” Ibid., December 7, 2023, p. 8A)

(3) We need lasting safety from the failure of religious leaders to offer edifying oversight: Columnist Christine Flowers writes that she has become disillusioned with Pope Francis. She stated that at the start of his papacy, there “was a great deal of celebration and expectation . . . including from this columnist. Unfortunately, the honeymoon didn’t last very long . . . He initiated a mini feud with Donald Trump, calling his immigration policies ‘anti-Christian,’ something he’d never mentioned when Obama was earning a reputation as ‘deporter in chief,’” but when “Fidel Castro . . . expired, the Pope,” with moral inconsistency, “sent a telegram to his brother Raul lamenting the ‘sad news’ and offering ‘my sentiments of sorrow’ . . . (The Pope’s) embrace of pro-abortion public Catholics like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi is just the most obvious insult. But . . . then he comes out with morally relativistic comments about the suffering in Israel and Palestine, ignoring the fact that all of the victims can be attributed to the terrorism of Hamas and their radical brothers . . . It’s so easy to write this off as a liberal-conservative problem . . . It’s more than that. It’s about feeling alienated from the very person who is supposed to hold you in his embrace . . .”

(4) It occurs locally: Last Sunday, four people in our congregation expressed to me their concerns about spiritually unsettling issues they have seen in ministries or in Christians or Christian leaders in our area of the state.

Need: So we ask, “This Christmas, what should we do about our need for lasting safety?!”

I. The Isaiah 9:6 KJV title, “The Everlasting Father” for the Messiah in Isaiah’s era signified the fatherly protection and provision that Ancient Near Eastern kings claimed that they provided for their subjects:

A. The Hebrew noun ‘ad meaning “everlasting” (KJV) means “perpetuity, duration,” and it expresses the “quality of the fatherhood of Messiah” (E. J. Young, The Book of Isaiah, 1974, v. I, p. 338-339). Messiah “eternally is a Father to His people. Now and forever He guards His people and supplies their needs,” Ibid., p. 339.

B. Dr. Young supported this claim by citing the ancient Babylonian king Hammurabi who likened “himself as a natural father for his people” since he had supposedly “established perpetual safety for his people,” Ibid.

II. Thus, Messiah’s title of “The Everlasting Father” suggests God’s supply of lasting safety for His people:

A. Instead of trusting God for safety from the threat of an invasion by the Aramean-Israel invasion, Judah’s king Ahaz had hired the Assyrians to attack this coalition, so God would let the Assyrians on whom Judah had relied to invade her as great threat to Jerusalem’s welfare to lead Judah to rely on the Lord, Isaiah 8:5-8.

B. However, Judah was Immanuel’s land, so the “Everlasting Father,” Messiah (Isaiah 7:14; 9:6; Matthew 1:21-23) would defend Judah from Assyria as “Immanuel,” i. e., “God is with us,” was with Judah, Isaiah 8:9-10.

III. This promise was fulfilled when the “Angel of the Lord,” Who is the Preincarnate Lord Jesus Christ Himself (Lewis Sperry Chafer/John F. Walvoord, Major Bible Themes, 1974, p. 54), slew 185,000 enemy Assyrian soldiers one night as they ominously camped outside the city of Jerusalem, cf. Isaiah 37:33-38.

IV. Being Judah’s “Everlasting Father,” Christ in the nation’s history always ministers to give it safety:

A. In Genesis 18:1-15, the Angel of the Lord enabled aged Abraham and Sarah to produce Israel’s ancestor Isaac.

B. In Genesis 22:11-12, the Angel of the Lord saved Isaac from death as a sacrifice by Abraham on Mt. Moriah.

C. In Genesis 48:15-16, the Angel of the Lord saved Jacob, another ancestor of Israel, from his trials, including the threat of poverty when he was cheated out of his wages ten times by his uncle (Genesis 31:7-12) and the threat of death by his estranged brother Esau when Jacob was helpless before him (Genesis 32:24-33:17).

D. In Exodus 3:2, the Angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the burning bush to call him to lead Israel out of Egyptian bondage and into the Promised Land.

E. In Exodus 14:19-20, 23-31, the Angel of the Lord protected Israel from harm by the pursuing Egyptian chariot army at the Red Sea, and then he destroyed the Egyptians in the Red Sea while delivering Israel unharmed.

F. In Exodus 23:20-21, the Angel of the Lord went before Israel to give her military victory in conquering the Canaanites so that Israel’s people could inhabit the Promised Land.

G. In 2 Kings 19:35, the Angel of the Lord destroyed 185,000 of the threatening Assyrian army that had invaded Judah and surrounded Jerusalem in king Hezekiah’s day.

H. In Zechariah 14:1-4, the Angel of the Lord as the Incarnate Christ at His Second Coming to earth will destroy Israel’s foes in the campaign of Armageddon. This deliverance will overcome the work of demons who deceive the ungodly to gather to oppose Christ’s return, Revelation 16:12-16; Bib. Know. Com., N. T., p. 968.

Lesson: Messiah Jesus Christ throughout the history of His people always provides safety for them as they rely on Him by faith as their “Everlasting Father.”

Application: (1) May we trust in Christ Who died as our Atoning Sacrifice for sin that we might receive God’s gift of eternal life, John 3:16; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11. (2) May we rely on Christ, OUR “Everlasting Father” for what perpetual safety WE need in the CHURCH era TODAY to fulfill His callings for US.

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message and provide additional guidance . . . )

(1) On the issues of concern in our introduction, Christ our “Everlasting Father” Who gives us perpetual safety will meet (a) our financial needs (Philippians 4:10-19) and (b) needs of safety from violent criminals (Ezra 1:1-4 with Ezra 8:21-32) that we might fulfill His calling for us if we rely on Him by faith.

(2) As for spiritually secure oversight in church institutions, Christ, the Preincarnate Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament and now our Incarnate Lord, provided valuable insight in the Matthew 13:1-52 parables on avoiding spiritual harm and being edified in today’s churches (as follows): (a) These eight parables are meant for Christ’s servants to understand (Matthew 13:10-11), and they guide His servants on the harsh spiritual challenges they will face during the eras between Christ’s rejection by Israel and His Second Coming to establish His Kingdom, a broad time frame that also includes the Church era. (b) The first four parables predict the spiritual trials Christ’s servants will face in discipling others, and the last four parables teach how Christ’s servants are to handle those trials in spiritual victory. (c) Thus, (i) the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:3-23) predicts that as Christ’s servants are used of Him to proclaim God’s Word, most hearers will initially respond positively, but due to their varying degrees of victory over Satan (hard ground), the sin nature (stony ground), and the world (weedy ground), just a minority of the hearers will mature, with varying degrees of maturity due to their varying degrees of victory over Satan, the sin nature and the world. (ii) The Parable of the Wheat and “Tares” KJV (Weeds; Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43) foretold how Satan will secretly plant unbelievers among them, for unbelievers and immature believers act alike (1 Corinthians 3:1-3), and Satan will by this action try to discourage Christ’s servants from proclaiming God’s Word. God will not remove the unsaved from the groups until the last judgment to avoid upsetting the discipling of weak believers. (iii) With unbelievers mingled with believers, Satan will influence the groups to expand so that demons enter the groups (birds nesting in the branches), the prediction of the Parable of the Mustard Seed, Matthew 13:31-32. (iv) The Parable of the Leaven in Matthew 13:33 predicts that in the growth of these groups, Satan will secretly corrupt them with errant beliefs (cf. Matthew 16:6-12, the only other context in Matthew that alludes to leaven, and there it is called false teaching). (v) Though all this Satanic activity will oppress God’s servants, they are to respond to it by seeking out edifying truths from the Old Testament (Parable of the Hid, old Treasure, Matthew 13:44), and the New Testament (Parable of the new, unsold Pearl of Great Price in the market, Matthew 13:45-46) and delivering these truths to hearers as God’s faithful stewards (Parable of the Householder, Matthew 13:51-52) to disciple those who apply God’s truths. (vi) The Lord promised to remove unbelievers from groups of believers in the last judgment (Parable of the Dragnet, Matthew 13:47-50) to encourage His servants, so God’s servants meanwhile were to keep focused on Bible exposition for God’s great eternal reward (Matthew 13:43). (vii) Thus, every human institution where Scripture is expounded, be it a marriage, a family, a church, a school, a business, a government, etc., can become a spiritual war zone! However, God blesses the heart of each believer who heeds His truths in spite of the war zones faced!

May we trust in Christ Who died as our Atoning Sacrifice for sin that we might receive God’s gift of eternal life. May we rely on our “Everlasting Father,” Jesus Christ, for the perpetual safety we need in every realm of life and ministry to fulfill His calling for us.