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This is an announcement of the mission of our Saviour. He is to be peace. Two facts in the text.

1. A special danger is apprehended.

2. A provision is made to meet the danger.

I. THE CRISIS OF DANGER. Two great nations invaded the Holy Land, the Assyrian and the Babylonian. These differed. The former was heathen, the latter idolatrous. The one sought to destroy all worship; the other to establish the worship of its own gods. These two nations represent the different forces that battle against Christianity to the present time. In the philosophy of the infidel we see the one; in the superstition of Rome we see the other.

II. THE PROVISION TO MEET THE DANGER. This Man, Christ, is our peace. Christ meets the infidel successfully at every turn. Human unbelief directs its whole power to break down the truth of God in Christ, and to destroy the hope of man. Sometimes by outward, open, organised attack, at other times by private, insidious attacks on the heart Of man. In the midst of all this hostility the advent of our Saviour is our peace.

III. SOME OF THE WEAPONS OF THIS ASSYRIAN ENEMY.

1. It contested the authenticity of the Scriptures. This was the method of attack, from Porphyry and Celsus down to Hume and Gibbon. This mode of attack is ended.

2. The impossibility, the absurdity of the incarnation of Christ is urged. The Assyrian rejects the personality of God, the immortality of man. He seeks the enthronement of matter.

3. There is a private, a personal hostility. Many a man retains his peace amid all the outward conflict, but when assailed by doubt and fear the citadel of the soul is carried. But this Man — this Saviour — is the strength of the soul forever.

(Stephen H. Tyng, D. D.)

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KJV: And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men.

WEB: He will be our peace when Assyria invades our land, and when he marches through our fortresses, then we will raise against him seven shepherds, and eight leaders of men.