Isaiah 9:6-7 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given: and the government shall be on his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful… 1. Over the forces of nature. (1) The sea is a crystal sepulchre. It swallowed the Central America, the President, and the Spanish Armada, as easily as any fly that ever floated on it. The inland lakes are fully as terrible in their wrath. Recent travellers tell us that Galilee, when aroused in a storm, is overwhelming. And yet that sea crouched in His presence and licked His feet. He knew all the waves and the wind. When He beckoned, they came. When He frowned, they fled. The heel of His foot made no indentation on the solidified water. (2) Medical science has wrought great changes in rheumatic limbs and diseased blood; but when the muscles are entirely withered, no human power can restore them; and when a limb is once dead, it is dead. But here is a paralytic — his hand lifeless. Christ says to him, "Stretch forth thy hand"; and he stretches it forth. In the eye infirmary, how many diseases of that delicate organ have been cured! But Jesus says to one born blind, "Be open!" and the light of heaven rushes through gates that have never before been opened, (3) The frost or an axe may kill a tree: but Jesus smites one dead with a word. (4) Chemistry can do many wonderful things; but what chemist, at a wedding when the refreshment gave out, could change a pail of water into a cask of wine? (5) What human voice could command a school of fish? Yet here is a voice that marshals the scaly tribes, until, in the place where they had let down the net and pulled it up with no fish in it, they let it down again, and the disciples lay hold and begin to pull, when, by reason of the multitude of fish, the net brake. 2. Behold His victory over the grave. Here comes the Conqueror of death. He enters that realm, and says, "Daughter of Jairus, sit up!" and she sat up. To Lazarus, "Come forth!" and he came forth. To the widow's son He said, "Get up from that bier!" and he goes home with his mother. Then Jesus snatched up the keys of death, and hung them to His girdle, and cried, until all the graveyards of the earth heard Him: "O death, I will be thy plagues! O grave, I will be thy destruction!" 3. But Christ's victories have only just begun. The world is His, and He must have it. (T. De W. Talmage, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. |
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