Isaiah 9:2–7

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil. For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.”

Advent – The Ageless Love of the Lord of Hosts

An unsaved person doesn’t know what love is. Despite the fact that I mean that as a simple truth, it’s a provocative statement that likely pricks at many people. What is possibly the lowest hanging fruit to counter my claim is the obvious example of family. Am I saying that people who have not received salvation through the blood of Christ don’t love their families? Ultimately, yes, I am, but allow me to flesh out this thought and better explain the condition of things. You love your husband or wife, you love your children, you love your parents – but Jesus says during the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:7–11,

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?”

The part I really want to draw your attention to being verse 11,

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

Paul, citing the Old Testament, writes in Romans 3:10–18,

“as it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.’ ‘Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.’ ‘The venom of asps is under their lips.’ ‘Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.’ ‘Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.’ ‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’”

Even those who are evil, those who are at war with God, who do not practice or seek good know how to give good to those who are their own. Romans 1 attests to creation itself testifying to God’s existence, and the blame laid upon mortal men who deny Him and lift up their own images to worship. Those lost in sin, who live in the flesh, live against their design and against the natural order, but this doesn’t mean that there won’t be some areas of adherence to what God has laid, despite rejecting Him overall. You’re supposed to love your husband or your wife, and your children, and your parents. That’s not to say that everyone does – there are those who reject even this most basic quality of our design, who are so evil that they would in fact offer a stone in place of bread, or a serpent instead of a fish – who hate, rather than love their own family. But the fact that you meet a minimum standard of design, that you as an unsaved person love your family as you should, doesn’t really affirm that you in fact know or understand love, because you remain alienated from God who is Love. You hold a piece, and think of it as though it were the whole – it’s as though you hold a loaf of bread and imagine it to be the same thing as a crop of wheat – as though your loaf could yield enough to feed many, or could bear seed that would result in future crops. But a loaf of bread will only feed so many mouths, and burying it in the ground will grow nothing… And ruin your bread. Likewise, the “love” that the world has does not behave the same way as the true Love that is found in God. We’ve discussed as we’ve moved through Advent how each word, each quality which is manifested in Christ is misused by the world – hope, peace, joy – James 4:14 says,

“… What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”

When we take these things which are great, divine, and eternal and pull them down to mortal definitions we’re left with hollow reflections, just as insubstantial as our mortal lives are. This is not what hope, peace, joy, or most of all, love are. So as we conclude our time in Advent and our final week in Isaiah 9:2–7, I want to draw your attention to the very end of this passage, the final sentence that is the second half of the last verse,

“The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.”

In this one sentence, we can understand our own shortcomings, and we can begin to fathom with reverent wonder, the hope, peace, and joy that rest upon the foundation that is the Love of God – the Mighty Father, the Holy One of Israel, the Ancient of Days, the Lord of hosts.

1. His Love was Present Before the Beginning

Love is not something that we pull down to us, but something that raises us up to where it is. It is not a concept that can be degraded, watered down, or otherwise altered and remain intact. It does not have a malleable definition. 1 Corinthians 13 tells us that love is patient and kind, not envious or boastful, not arrogant or rude. The chapter tells us that love does not insist on its own way, is not irritable or resentful, that it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but in the truth, and that it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. This is too big, too vast for human minds to comprehend. How can we, of finite body and limited mind, possibly think to claim such a thing of ourselves? To say that we who are so temporal and so very flawed could measure up to holding or expressing what love is? With the vast 1 Corinthians 13 criteria, it’s difficult to imagine that something so grand and glorious could exist at all until we bear in mind 1 John 4:8, a passage we will look at more fully later, which says,

“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

That sets the perspective, it gives us an understanding of the immeasurably lofty position of the Love of God – and it gives new and proper gravity to the promises of Isaiah 9. The light to those in the darkness, the eternally increasing joy, the endless peace and freedom from oppression – the fulfillment of all these things, all through the arrival of Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, and Son of God, into the world to deliver us from the destroying weight of sin, was not contingent on us. Sinful humanity could not claim for ourselves hope, peace, joy, and certainly not love, we could not seek light, could not break free from oppression, we could not bring to bear a single thing that God has promised of our own accord – and that’s okay, because God never expected us to. Despite the fact that the Law showed us the glaring depth of our iniquity, we were never meant to work our way to redemption, rather to understand the impossibility of this task. And from the beginning – rather, from before the beginning, God had a plan for us, and for our future with Him. John 1:1–5 says of Jesus,

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Genesis 1:26–28 shows the act of love that God showed in first creating and blessing man, made in His likeness like no other living thing,

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”

Before man was made, our Redeemer lived. Before we even existed to sin, there was already One who stood to one day atone, to shine as the eternal Light that vanquishes the darkness, and free the slaves who had not yet been enslaved. What sinful man calls “love,” this thing that is so fleeting and temperamental, could never hope to do this. What we cling to in our passion, fleeting desires, and attachments that can exist only so long as we do, how can they possibly compare to what has stood in perfection since before reality as we know it began? This is good news, it’s the best possible news, because it reminds us that our foundation is not ourselves, not the work of human society, or the strength of the world around us – we stand assured by the zeal of the Lord of hosts. God is called many things, given many names and titles across Scripture. We’ve seen four of them together just in this passage of Isaiah that we’ve been in, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” But when we see God called, “the Lord of hosts,” there’s a different sort of emphasis put on the imagery of His power. Isaiah 6:1–5 says,

“In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!’ And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: ‘Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!’”

All the descriptions of God, all His names and titles describe the same God – from Son of Man, to Everlasting Father, God is One. However, different names help us understand different attributes of God by highlighting certain qualities. “The Lord of hosts,” paints an image of ultimate power and authority, the God whose glory fills all around Him, who is surrounded by an army of angels singing His praise. He is perfectly holy, entirely powerful, and completely eternal – this is the One upon whose zeal our promise stands. This is the Love that has existed before time was time, or space was space, before the cornerstone of the earth was laid, and the morning stars first sang together in the sky. This Love that ransomed us, that saved us from certain death, and reconciled us to Himself. Ephesians 1:3–6 says,

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.”

And so, as we look to understand Love – not as the world does, with blind eyes and wicked hearts, but to know Love in the Truth that is God and God alone, this is where we must begin – before the beginning. And in doing so come to draw comfort and faith in the Love of our Father that was present before humanity, or the world, or the sun, and moon, and stars, and sky were ever spoken into existence by the power of His mighty voice – a Love that transcends the beginning of time itself.

2. His Love is Present Now

History is of great significance – you are wherever you are today because of things that people have done in the past. Societies were formed, infrastructure was built, laws and governing bodies were established, and now you occupy that space. Looking to far greater things than human governance, God once spoke the universe into existence, created and presided over the people of the earth, and into this He made you, you were born, and His Love stands as an eternal hope for you. Understanding all this looking back is vital, but as we move from the past and worshipping God for all that He has done, we have to shift to the present and include in our joyous praises all that God is currently doing. 1 John 4:7–12, the passage I referenced earlier says,

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”

God who is Love, and established this Love among His children is not just active in the past – this is the Living God, who is working and present in every moment. John writes in 1 John 2:1,

“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

Don’t sin. But – if you do, if you stumble, if you fall, you have – not “had,” not “will have,” you have an advocate with God the Father. This is a Love that is working in you and for you right now. Paul writes in Romans 8:31–34,

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”

The blood of Christ is not just a thing of the past, but one of the present. He died once for sin, a single, all-sufficient sacrifice, but the power of the blood, the weight of the atonement, the endurance of His Love goes on, and is living and active in this very moment, saving lives and changing hearts to the glory of God the Father. Hebrews 1:1–4 tells us,

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.”

This is the Love that right now sustains the very universe by His power, the Great High Priest who, His work finished and His blood still interceding, is seated at the right hand of God in heaven. John 4:23–26, recounting the dialog between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well says,

“‘But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am he.’”

We cannot understand the Love of God as this woman mistakenly did, her hope stemming from the past and resting in a vague future. Rather we must hear what Jesus says and understand that is applies to us this very day – God’s Love is with us, in us, and working through us – the True Vine that abides in us as we abide in Him, and the True Foundation, upon which we are built upon and sanctified in the assurance of the zeal of the Lord of hosts.

3. His Love will be Present in Eternity

This zeal of Almighty God, of the Lord of hosts is something that existed before the world began, and it carries on into this very moment. But as we look to further understand the depth and absolute certainty of the promises of God, we have to understand the ultimate distinguishing characteristic between what the world thinks of as love, and the true Love of God – it’s eternality. This is a Love that never flags, fails, falls short, or runs dry. It is not fickle or temperamental – there is no deception, no mood swings, no misgivings, or obligation – only perfect, just, holy, and eternal Love. This is our ultimate hope, our everlasting peace, and our never-ending joy, as John describes in Revelation 22:1–5,

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.”

This is Love, the One who is, who was, and who is to come – the One who knew us before we were formed, who is with us through every moment of life, and whose presence we stand in in eternity. When we read Isaiah 9 and, as those to whom it was originally written, look out at a dark world from a hopeless position at a war we can never win by our own might, we must remember the Love of God and take heart, knowing the might upon which His promises stand, and the eternal power that is our deliverance. We must know that regardless of our trials and suffering He is with us, and while we sojourn in a fallen world, we are called home to Him, a way opened by and through His Love. It is by this promise that Paul can write in Romans 8:38–39,

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We belong to Him – the God of all creation, the Ancient of Days, the Lord of hosts. He is our Father, our Shepherd, our King – we are His children, His flock, His people – and there is no one and no thing that can take us from Him, or Him from us. We have a promised hope laid down from the beginning, an enduring peace that meets and sustains us where we are in this fallen world, and an eternal joy that awaits us in the presence of our Father – and this is guaranteed, laid upon the Cornerstone of Christ, the Love of God, the assurance that stands upon His every promise to His people,

“… The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.”

Pastor Chris’ sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ8OWHAaVhY