Wonderful Counsellor
Sunday, December 2, 2001
Intro: Look at the birth announcements in Saturday’s paper. Not one of the announcements have a reference to what the baby will be when it grows up. No one can predict.
But in Isaiah 9:6 we have a different sort of birth announcement. The birth of the Messiah - the birth of Christ. In this birth announcement the announcement not only predicts what kind of person this baby will be but does so seven hundred years before the birth takes place.
Read Isaiah 9:6-7
For these Sundays in December we want to take a different title for Christ each week and focus in on the Saviour who came as a son, a child at Christmas.
The first title that is given in Isaiah 9:6 is Wonderful counsellor.
A wonder of a counsellor
1. The context of the meaning - counsellor
In our therapeutic age when we hear counsellor, we immediately think more of the therapist, the psychiatrist, the person who listens to people’s troubles and then gives encouragement and advice on how to handle those personal problems.
However, that is not the kind of counsellor that Isaiah is talking about. Probably better to think of the cabinet. The chisellers that the nation’s leaders gather around who give advice on how to run the country.
Isaiah 1:23--26
Isaiah 3:1-7
Isaiah 5:20-23
As part of Israel’s punishment God will remove her sinful leaders or counsellors.
Also - the ungodly Israelite counsellors were advising an alliance with Egypt to face the Assyrians.
Isaiah 19:11-13
In a world where their is no wise counsel - no wise Governors, God promises a child who will be the one who has the ability to be a wonderful counsellor.
2. The context of the meaning - wonderful
The NIV uses the word wonderful 21 times in the Old Testament. Every single one of them refers to the work of God.
Isaiah 28:29
3. The meaning positively
Isaiah 11:1-5
The child who is to come, on whose shoulders the government of the world shall rest, is one whose plans, purposes, designs and decrees for his people are marvellous.
Wonderful counsellor - Christmas brings a message of hope. Because of the child of Bethlehem all of the injustice and unfairness of this world will one day cease. They will be swallowed up by his kingdom of righteousness. By coming to Bethlehem and dying on Calvary, an inevitable chain of events have been set in motion which will culminate in the universal rule of the Wonderful Counsellor.
