FIRST QUARTER 2021
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #5
JANUARY 30, 2021
“NOBLE PRINCE OF PEACE”

 

"For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder, And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6.

 

This week's study affords an opportunity to reflect on the time and circumstances under which this familiar Messianic promise was specified. Was it given as a reward for exceptional spiritual growth among God's people? Hardly. Just last week we reviewed the history of King Ahaz, who shut down worship at the temple in Jerusalem and built a competing worship center (altar) following the pattern given him by a heathen king. He caused his son to pass through the fire. He sanctioned spiritualism and communication with evil spirits disguised as the dead. Gloom and distress were upon God's people. There is always trouble and darkness when we forsake Him (see Isaiah 8:19-22).

Yet with the heart of a Father's love yearning for His rebellious children, Jesus instills hope when to all appearances there is none.

"Nevertheless," the prophet of faith continues, ". . . The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light" (Isaiah 9:1,2).

The next four chapters continue this juxtaposition of the backsliding of God's people with the promises of God's faithfulness and the Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace to come.

As Isaiah recounts the spiritual failings of God's people, he picks up a refrain: "For all this His anger is not turned away, But His hand is stretched out still" (Isaiah 9:12b, 17b, 21b; 10:4b). There were consequences for Judah's failings, yes, but in these passages, we see over and over the theme of a seeking Savior -- "Love that found me wondrous thought, found me when I sought Him not."

God's patience with our defiance must be an astonishment to the onlooking universe, a revelation of His character of love. Despite all the trials and judgments that befell Judah as a result of her waywardness, God uses this setting to present some of the most sublime promises of a Savior to come found anywhere in Scripture.

The question is, how would we treat this Child that would be born? The natural heart seeks its own and values others according to their social standing, dress, and worldly position. This unlikely Son of David would come as a root out of dry ground. He would have no outward display to attract our attention (Isaiah 53); no red-carpet entrances, no paparazzi, no gratification of pride. When the people who were called by His name were so downtrodden as to be only a stump in the ground, He would spring forth from that nothingness as a Branch--a humble stick (Isaiah 11:1). The Spirit of the Lord would rest upon this Branch and give Him wisdom, understanding, counsel, and might, knowledge and the fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11:1, 2), but not the self-gratifying traits to which we selfishly clamor.

How could this humble Child, descended from an apparently extinct line of kings, bear the government upon His shoulder and establish His throne forever? The church leaders of Isaiah's day failed to comprehend the import of this prophecy. "For the leaders of this people cause them to err, and those who are led by them are destroyed" (Isaiah 9:16). Centuries later, the religious leaders of Jesus' day would lead out in a murderous scheme to rid the world of its only hope. "His blood be upon us and upon our children," they cried.

"For all this His anger is not turned away, But His hand is stretched out still."

His hand reaches down through the ages to save to the uttermost all who are willing to be saved. Yet we are told that few will be saved. Why?

The king of Assyria said, "By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am prudent" (Isaiah 10:12). Self-idolatry is at the root of every sin. Whether a pagan king of Assyria or Babylon ("Is not this great Babylon that I have built?") or a professed follower of Christ, there is something in our hearts that wants credit for what we have done. The cross of Christ lays bare the perverseness of our sinful hearts. What is our response as we behold Him crying out in anguish under the crushing weight of our sins? Are our hearts moved with appreciation? Or hardened with pride? Can we stand off in a distance in pride, politely ignoring the anguish and ignominy of the King of the universe hanging naked on the cross? Somehow this message must penetrate our dull hearts before we can be transformed from the inside out.

The world still needs to see the real Jesus. Not a politically correct, upwardly mobile Jesus that sanctions fashionable sins and prophesies smooth things. We need the humble, helpful, self-denying Child Jesus, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the Father of the human race, Who became nothing that He might free us from the clutches of self-love. How few will be drawn! But how many more might be could they only catch a glimpse of the love of Christ now before it is too late.

The promise is, A remnant will be saved. Out of millions alive at the time of the flood, only eight responded to the preaching or righteousness and entered the ark. A remnant is what remains after most everyone has left. "And it shall come to pass in that day that the remnant of Israel, and such as have escaped of the house of Jacob, will never again depend on him who defeated them, but will depend on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. The remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob" (Isaiah 10:21). In Gospel Workers, p. 397, Ellen White explains that this text applies to Jews who will return to Christ just before the second advent. Almost all have forsaken Him, but some -- a remnant -- will return. "When this gospel shall be presented in its fullness to the Jews, many will accept Christ as Messiah" (GW, p. 398).

God has a people on earth today who are the spiritual descendants of the Jews: Seventh-day Adventists. We share more in common with our Jewish forbears than is often recognized. "He came unto His own and His own received Him not" (John 1:11).

After all the thrilling prophecies set forth in the Old Testament that prefigured the Messiah's humble birth and journey to the cross, the people whom He had come to save rejected Him.

The application comes still closer to home. Nearly two millennia after the cross, the world was stirred by the judgment hour message proclaimed up to 1844. Jesus was soon to come. But after the great disappointment, many left. Only a remnant remained. The command was to "prophesy again about many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings" (Revelation 10:11). After a few decades of waiting, however, we slipped back into a comfortable complacency of spiritual formalism. We had the doctrines -- the Sabbath, the sanctuary, the state of the dead and more -- but where was the love of Christ? Why did our hearts no longer throb with longing at the thought of His return?

A test came in an unexpected way through the preaching of Christ our righteousness by two young men at a General Conference session in 1888. The reaction of the church leaders was, at best, mixed. Not a few were offended. Why? This was the most precious message of Jesus Christ and His righteousness, warmly received and affirmed by the Spirit of Prophecy. The resistance to the message ultimately lay in the fact that it laid the glory of man in the dust. It is never pleasant to be humbled whether in private or publicly through the preaching of the Word. Self does not like to die, and it didn't. The aftermath of this was that Jesus' disappointment was "beyond description" (RH, Dec. 15, 1904, par. 8).

Jesus was ready to return, yet like the Jews nearly 2,000 years before, we took offense at the cross.

Thus, perhaps, we find this story veiled in these words: "It shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people who are left" (Isaiah 11:11) in one final ingathering of souls from every nation, kindred, tongue and people. In 1888, Jesus came to His own in anticipation of preparing His bride for a wedding (the first time). We said no, and His coming -- and the wedding -- have been long delayed. But the promise is that the Lord will set his hand a second time to recover the remnant, those who are left.

As we observe the events occurring in the world around us, we see signs that this second attempt to recover the remnant is underway. What remains is for the most precious message of Jesus and His righteousness to be proclaimed to the world and experienced in our lives. This alone will equip the remnant who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus to stand during the time of trouble like none other.

"And in that day, you will say: 'O Lord, I will praise You; though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, and You comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; "For YAH, the Lord, is my strength and song; He also has become my salvation" ' " (Isaiah 12:1, 2).

 

~Patti Guthrie