Podcasts about Eternal Father

Mother's Day | May 11, 2025Jen Morris ✓  WE HAVE ACCESS TO THE SUPERNATURAL.Luke 23:44-46 (AMP) “It was now about the sixth hour (noon), and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour (3:00 p.m.), because the sun was obscured; and the veil [of the Holy of Holies] of the temple was torn in two [from top to bottom]. And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit!” Having said this, He breathed His last.”✓  THE GREATEST PLACE TO BE IS IN HIS PRESENCE!In His Presence: There is PEACEJohn 14:27 (AMP) Peace I leave with you; My [perfect] peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid. [Let My perfect peace calm you in every circumstance and give you courage and strength for every challenge.]In His Presence: There is RESTMatthew 11:28 (GNT) “Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. In His Presence: There is HEALING & FREEDOMIsaiah 9:6 (GNT) A child is born to us! A son is given to us! And he will be our ruler. He will be called, “Wonderful Counselor,” “Mighty God,” “Eternal Father,” “Prince of Peace.”In His Presence: You can see the SUPERNATURALIn His Presence: There is JOYPsalms 16:11 (ESV) You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.In His Presence: WE UNDERSTAND HIS WORDIn His Presence: WE ARE LESS LIKE US & MORE LIKE HIMIn His Presence: WE SEE A VICTORYHOW DO WE GET IN GOD'S PRESENCE?1. We POSITION ourselves in His Presence.Psalms 139: 23-24 (NIV) Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.2. We stay PLANTED in His Presence.Jeremiah 17:5-8 (NIV) This is what the Lord says:“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,    who draws strength from mere flesh    and whose heart turns away from the Lord.That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;    they will not see prosperity when it comes.They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,    in a salt land where no one lives.“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,    whose confidence is in him.They will be like a tree planted by the water    that sends out its roots by the stream.It does not fear when heat comes;    its leaves are always green.It has no worries in a year of droughtand never fails to bear fruit.”3. We PRAISE in His Presence.Isaiah 61:1-3 (NKJV) “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,Because the Lord has anointed MeTo preach good tidings to the poor;He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,To proclaim liberty to the captives,And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,And the day of vengeance of our God;To comfort all who mourn,To console those who mourn in Zion,To give them beauty for ashes,The oil of joy for mourning,The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;That they may be called trees of righteousness,The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

Read Online“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.” John 6:40Do you believe in Jesus? Unquestionably the answer is “Yes.” However, to believe in our Lord is something that must deepen with every passing day. Therefore, if you do have faith in Jesus, you can also admit that you do not have faith enough. In this Gospel passage in which the “Bread of Life Discourse” is continued, Jesus calls us to do two things. First, we must see Him. Second, we must believe. Let's start with the first.When Jesus first spoke these words to the crowd, they did see His physical presence. But many of them did not see beyond the surface. They saw His miracles, heard His teaching, but very few saw the deeper reality of Jesus as the Son of the Eternal Father and the Savior of the World.If you are to believe in our Lord and all that He is, then you must first see Him. One of the best ways to foster this “holy sight” of our Lord is to gaze at Him in the Most Holy Eucharist. When you attend Mass or spend time in adoration and  look upon the Most Holy Eucharist, what do you see? Do you see the Eternal Son? Do you see His holy divinity? Do you see your God and the Lord of all?As we stand or kneel before our Lord, present in the Most Holy Eucharist, it's easy to become distracted. It's easy to allow our minds to wander to the many other aspects of our daily lives and to fail to see the eternal Son of God as He is present to us. Reflect, today, upon the way you look at our Lord. If you want to deepen your faith, your belief, then start with your sight. Start by considering how you look at Jesus, present in the Most Holy Eucharist. If you are blessed to be with Him this day at the Holy Mass or in adoration, examine the way to see Him. Gaze at Him. Make an intentional act of faith in His divine presence. Acknowledge His Godhead, His glory, His holiness and His sacred presence. If you can look beyond the surface and lift the veil that covers His glory, then this holy gift of sight will give way, also, to the gift of profound faith. My ever-present Lord, I thank You profoundly for the way You come to me in the Most Holy Eucharist. I thank You for Your divine presence and glory. Help me to see beyond the veil of the appearance of bread and wine so that I can see more clearly Your divinity. As I see Your divine presence, dear Lord, help me to profess my belief in You with greater certitude and faith. Jesus, I trust in You.  Image: Rembrandt, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Send us a textIn this episode, we look at three classic hymns with a military theme. Because of this, it has caused many "anti-war" liberals to protest against them, and even completely exclude them as hymns of worship. But those who do this, not only show they misunderstand the real meaning of these timeless treasures; they also show their ignorance of Scripture, because God clearly tells us from Genesis to Revelation that we are constantly in a war against evil and sin. Join us as we dive into these three masterpieces! Video Credits: Onward Christian Soldiers – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTxabR4Hlf8The Joslin Grove Choral SocietyStand Up for Jesus – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgRudMZvrjAAcappella HymnsEternal Father Strong to Save - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjcSpCSUjdkSt Thomas Cathedral in PortsmouthThanks for tuning in! Be sure to check out everything Proverbs 9:10 on our website, www.proverbs910ministries.com! You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Rumble, YouTube, Twitter, Truth Social, and Gettr!

On the next episode of A2 THE SHOW, we're joined by Ömer Sami, a British-Irish-Turkish filmmaker behind ETERNAL FATHER(2023), an Oscar-shortlisted documentary featured in The New Yorker, and INTO THE BLUE(2023), which played at Telluride and Hot Docs. From his beginnings with SAM AND THE PLANT NEXT DOOR(2019) to his recent work exploring trust, ethics, and the emotional depth of real-life characters, Ömer shares how he crafts powerful stories through careful subject selection, visual intention, and deep empathy. Tune in as we dive into his journey from UCLA to the National Film School of Denmark and how his documentaries uncover entire worlds through intimate human connection.

"Through the Chaplet you will obtain everything, if what you ask for is compatible with My will." – Jesus to St. Faustina (Diary, 1731)The Rosary. The Divine Mercy Chaplet. Formal Prayer.I had resistance to praying in this way.I had resistance to even saying His Name for years.But the more I said It, the more I saw—I needed to say It.Whatever is keeping you from saying It,Or feeling It,Or believing It,Or knowing It—That's exactly why you have to say It.That dissolves.That lets you go.It frees you to move on,To forgive,And to share.Because that's all we're here to do.I love you,NikTHE DIVINE MERCY CHAPLET The Image - Look at it and then see it within!Opening Prayers (On the Crucifix):You expired, Jesus, but the source of life gushed forth for souls,and an ocean of mercy opened up for the whole world.O Fount of Life, unfathomable Divine Mercy, envelop the world and empty Yourself out upon us.(3x) "O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fountain of mercy for us, I trust in You."Step-by-Step Instructions for the Chaplet:On the Our Father bead (large):"Eternal Father, I offer You the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world."On each Hail Mary bead (small):"For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world."Repeat the Our Father (large) and Hail Mary (small) prayers for all five decades of the rosary.Traditional Prayers:Our Father:Our Father, who art in Heaven,hallowed be Thy name.Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,on earth as it is in Heaven.Give us this day our daily bread,and forgive us our trespasses,as we forgive those who trespass against us.And lead us not into temptation,but deliver us from evil. Amen.Hail Mary:Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.Blessed art thou among women,and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. ( I trust in you)Holy Mary, Mother of God,pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.Apostle's Creed (On the Crucifix):I believe in God, the Father Almighty,Creator of heaven and earth;and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord;who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,born of the Virgin Mary,suffered under Pontius Pilate,was crucified, died, and was buried.He descended into hell;on the third day, He rose again from the dead;He ascended into heaven,and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;from there He will come to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit,the holy Catholic Church,the communion of saints,the forgiveness of sins,the resurrection of the body,and life everlasting. Amen.Closing Prayers (After the Decades):(3x) Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world.Final Prayer:Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible,look kindly upon us and increase Your mercy in us,that in difficult moments we might not despair nor become despondent,but with great confidence, submit ourselves to Your holy will,which is Love and Mercy itself. Amen.Take your time with these prayers. Say His Name. Start here. Trust your heart. You're held in His grace. Always.Send me your stories, reflections, or reviews. Wherever you are, you're not alone. I see you.I Love you,nik_________________________--Wake Up to Love, and pray the Holy Rosary, pray the LOVE with us LIVE every weekday morning at 4:44 am ET

Gareth unpacks what it means to know God as our Eternal Father in this message. While many struggle with fatherlessness or broken relationships with their earthly dads, the good news of Scripture is that God is the perfect Father—always present, personal, and loving. God the Father invites us into a transformative relationship with Him through faith in Jesus. Gareth explores the Father's role in the Trinity and how encountering His love brings healing, identity, hope & many other implications for our daily walk with God.

Ömer Sami, the director of Eternal Father, joins the show to talk about his documentary about how a father's attempt to defy death with cryonic preservation affects his family's lives.You can watch the full documentary by clickinghere.

What I mean by the statement, All dogs go to heaven, is really a question I have been asked numerous times by both young and old: Will my pet go to heaven when it dies? I want to do my best to answer that question, but I want you to know that my answer will also address a much broader question related to what Gods ultimate plan is for his creation. We know what His plan is for humanity, but do you know if Gods plan of redemption includes animals? Let me begin by stating some things that could not be any clearer from the Bible and then we will dive into Psalm 8. So, here is what I know beyond a shadow of a doubt: The Bible assures us that God is the giver of every good thing (James 1:17); what this means is that God is not the taker of every good thing. When Nathan was five years old, we got him a kitten because we believed that he would enjoy having a cat. You have given gifts to your children out of your love for them as well. Here is what Jesus said about what we do for our children: If you, despite being 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 (Matt. 7:1011)! God is so good that there is no room for improvement for Him to be better. I already mentioned James 1:17 but listen to what the verse actually states: Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. In Psalm 106, we are told to give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His mercy is everlasting (v. 1). According to Psalm 145, God is righteous in all His ways, and kind in all His works (v. 17). Because there is no room for improvement, God is not trying to get it right in the way He exercises His goodness. However, we live in a reality where the curse of sin is inseparable from our human experience and sorrow and sighing are like the compounds that come out of the curse that suck the joy out of life. You may even feel like Bruce from the movie Bruce Almighty in the way he described God: God is a mean kid sitting on an anthill with a magnifying glass, and I'm the ant. He could fix my life in five minutes if He wanted to, but he'd rather tear off my feelers and watch me squirm. So, lets walk through Psalm 8 together with the hope that there is enough in these verses to help us gain a fuller appreciation of what God is doing with this sin-cursed world. A Good God Created a Grand Creation I love the way the Bible begins: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters (Gen. 1:12). The earth was a formless and desolate emptiness until God spoke. He did not speak out of any need, for He was perfectly content within the fellowship of Himself in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God was not lonely or bored, nor was He obligated to speak and create. No, God created because He wanted to, and He wanted to create because He was motivated by love. Out of love, God desired to share that which nothing else could top or compare, which was Himself. God was motivated by love to share Himself with us. Our solar system is estimated to be about 12 trillion miles wide. The diameter of our sun is estimated to be 109 times the size of our earth, and if you were to drive from the Sun to Pluto, it would take an estimated 6,000 years to complete the trip. If that were not enough, you should know that our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains thousands of solar systems like ours. On our little planet, in our vast galaxy, lives just over 8 billion people. The renown astronomer, Carl Sagan, died believing that there was no compelling evidence for the existence of a Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, and said of our earth and the universe: If we are alone in the Universe, it sure seems like an awful waste of space. David, in Psalm 8, answers Carl Sagans question, and if only Sagan could have opened his eyes to see what David saw: Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth, You who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens! If you are wondering if the universe is too big if life on earth is all there is, the answer is a resounding NO! The universe is the size that it is because it is testifying to the majesty and splendor of the One who spoke all of it into existence. The God who spoke all things into existence out of the overflow of His love and goodness is not only knowable but created us with purpose! A Grand God Created Mankind in His Image with Purpose There is only one creature of all the creatures created that was created in the image of God, and that creature is all of humanity. On the sixth day, after God created the animal kingdom and everything else, He created Adam and Eve: Then God said, Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth (Gen. 1:26). To Adam and Eve, God gave them the responsibility to manage His creation as His image bearers. Humans were commissioned and commanded to care for creation and at the same time add to creation by filling the earth with humans like themselves. We are not a part of the animal kingdom; we stand above the animal kingdom as stewards of what Almighty God created! King David marveled over this magnificent reality in his psalm: When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place; what is man that You think of him, And a son of man that You are concerned about him (Ps. 8:34)? David does not stop there, for what he says in the following verses ought to be enough to answer what place your pet has in the universe: You have him rule over the works of Your hands; You have put everything under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the animals of the field, The birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes through the paths of the seas (vv. 68). Adam and Eve were commanded to manage the Garden, to be fruitful and multiply, and not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. As you know, they ate the forbidden fruit from that one tree, and by eating the fruit they brought a curse upon Gods creation. As a result, all of creation was cursed as the Scriptures testify: Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all mankind, because all sinned... (Rom. 5:12). There is only one creature who bears the image of God, and that creature is mankind. As image bearers of the living God, we were created to live forever. There is a part of us that lives on after death known as our soul which is also referred to as our spirit (not to be confused with the Holy Spirit).[1] Unlike the rest of creation, humans have a soul that only God is able to destroy. So, when it comes to death, our soul lives on even after our body dies, but death for the Christian is not the end as we are assured from the Bible: For we know that if our earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made by hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed, in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, since in fact after putting it on, we will not be found naked. For indeed, we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. (2 Cor. 5:14) So, when your pet dies, there is no immaterial part of them that lives on because they do not bare the image of God and therefore do not have a soul. What this means is that when your pet does eventually die, regardless of the behavior, there is no eternal punishment or eternal life waiting for them... they simply cease to exist. The only creature that is born and lives in active rebellion towards God are humans. Unlike the animal kingdom, sin is now a part of our nature. A Good and Gracious God Has Provided Redemption Through a Second and Perfect Adam Now, remember what I said at the beginning of my sermon: Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights... (Jas. 1:17). God is a good God who is the giver of every good thing, not the taker of every good thing! After Adam and Eve sinned, they were promised a Descendant who would reverse the curse of sin. A second and more perfect Adam was promised who would come to reverse the curse of sin: For if by the offense of the one, death reigned through the one, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:17). The second and more perfect Adam was also promised to David who wrote Psalm 8! God assured David, When your days are finished and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever (2 Sam. 7:1213). What will this second and more perfect Adam do? According to Jeremiah 23:5-6, He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land.... Oh, and the Name by which the Son of David will also be called will be, The Lord Our Righteousness. In Isaiah we are promised that when He reigns as King, He will judge between the nations, and will mediate for many peoples; and they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning knives. Nation will not lift up a sword against nation, and never again will they learn war (Isa. 2:4). The second Adam would, be born of a virgin as fully human and fully diving: ...a Son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. When the second Adam comes to reign as King, His reign will bring the kind of peace only God is capable of restoring: ...the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the young lion and fattened steer will be together; and a little boy will lead them. Also the cow and the bear will graze, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.... They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (Isa. 11:6-7, 9) When it was announced by the angels to the shepherds that the promised King was born, it was declared to them: Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:10-11). Jesus, as the second and better Adam, humbled Himself by, taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men.... He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross (Phil. 2:7-8). He was born to live the perfect life we could not live to die the death we all deserved. There is only One who is qualified to reverse the curse of sin, and it was and is Jesus! In Revelation 21:5, we are told that through His death and triumphant victory over death, that He is making all things new! This is what we all want and what all of creation is longing for! We long for a day without the dark cloud of the curse of sin. This is why Paul wrote, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the eagerly awaiting creation waits for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Rom. 8:18-21) When Jesus entered into Jerusalem the week before He was to be crucified for the sins of mankind, the children in the temple area shouted something that irritated the chief priests and scribes. As Jesus entered into Jerusalem, the children shouted: Hosanna to the Son of David! (see Matt. 21:15-16). The chief priests and scribes said to Jesus, Do you hear what these children are saying? What were the children saying? They were celebrating the promised second Adam, the righteous Branch of David, and the One who is to be called The Lord our Righteousness (see Jer. 23:5-6). Guess how Jesus answered the irritated religious leaders who were concerned about what the children were saying? He answered them by quoting Psalm 8:2, here is what He said: Yes. Have you never read [chief priests and scribes], From the mouths of infants and nursing babies You have prepared praise for Yourself? Do you realize what Jesus said to the chief priests and scribes? He was essentially saying that although Adam made a mess of creation through his sin in the Garden, there was a Son of Man who was made a little lower than the angels and God when He willingly took on human flesh to become fully human while remaining fully God at the same time! Jesus did this for the purpose of redeeming mankind through His cross for our sins, and by doing so, made redemption possible for all creation, and this is the point of Psalm 5, Yet You have made him a little lower than God, and You crown him with glory and majesty! Do you hear Philippians 2 in Psalm 8? And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross. For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:8-11) Now, against the backdrop of Philippians 2:8-11, listen what Psalm 8:7-8 promises: You have him rule over the works of Your hands; You have put everything under his feet, All sheep and oxen, And also the animals of the field, The birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea, Whatever passes through the paths of the seas. All of creation, including your pets, are eagerly awaiting for the completion of our redemption because when it happens to us, creation will enjoy the good and faithful reign of the second Adam over them as well, and when He comes to do that, He will make all things new and it is what He will restore that all of creation is longing for: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away. And He who sits on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new. And He said, Write, for these words are faithful and true. On the Day Revelation 21 becomes our reality, all that was lost, will be restored and it will be even better than the Eden the first Adam lost! I am not sure if that means He will restore and make new your pet that was lost to the curse, but I do know that it will be better! The glory we will be crowned with will be the glory of King Jesus when, There will no longer be any curse... (Rev. 22:3). We will obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away (Isa. 51:11)! The great hope of our future is not who is in office as our president, but the King who is coming to restore all that was lost through the first Adam. Christian, because you belong to the second Adam, you can declare with David: Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! [1] Soul and spirit are used synonymously in the Bible (e.g. Acts 7:54-60; Matt. 10:28).

What I mean by the statement, All dogs go to heaven, is really a question I have been asked numerous times by both young and old: Will my pet go to heaven when it dies? I want to do my best to answer that question, but I want you to know that my answer will also address a much broader question related to what Gods ultimate plan is for his creation. We know what His plan is for humanity, but do you know if Gods plan of redemption includes animals? Let me begin by stating some things that could not be any clearer from the Bible and then we will dive into Psalm 8. So, here is what I know beyond a shadow of a doubt: The Bible assures us that God is the giver of every good thing (James 1:17); what this means is that God is not the taker of every good thing. When Nathan was five years old, we got him a kitten because we believed that he would enjoy having a cat. You have given gifts to your children out of your love for them as well. Here is what Jesus said about what we do for our children: If you, despite being 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 (Matt. 7:1011)! God is so good that there is no room for improvement for Him to be better. I already mentioned James 1:17 but listen to what the verse actually states: Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. In Psalm 106, we are told to give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His mercy is everlasting (v. 1). According to Psalm 145, God is righteous in all His ways, and kind in all His works (v. 17). Because there is no room for improvement, God is not trying to get it right in the way He exercises His goodness. However, we live in a reality where the curse of sin is inseparable from our human experience and sorrow and sighing are like the compounds that come out of the curse that suck the joy out of life. You may even feel like Bruce from the movie Bruce Almighty in the way he described God: God is a mean kid sitting on an anthill with a magnifying glass, and I'm the ant. He could fix my life in five minutes if He wanted to, but he'd rather tear off my feelers and watch me squirm. So, lets walk through Psalm 8 together with the hope that there is enough in these verses to help us gain a fuller appreciation of what God is doing with this sin-cursed world. A Good God Created a Grand Creation I love the way the Bible begins: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters (Gen. 1:12). The earth was a formless and desolate emptiness until God spoke. He did not speak out of any need, for He was perfectly content within the fellowship of Himself in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God was not lonely or bored, nor was He obligated to speak and create. No, God created because He wanted to, and He wanted to create because He was motivated by love. Out of love, God desired to share that which nothing else could top or compare, which was Himself. God was motivated by love to share Himself with us. Our solar system is estimated to be about 12 trillion miles wide. The diameter of our sun is estimated to be 109 times the size of our earth, and if you were to drive from the Sun to Pluto, it would take an estimated 6,000 years to complete the trip. If that were not enough, you should know that our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains thousands of solar systems like ours. On our little planet, in our vast galaxy, lives just over 8 billion people. The renown astronomer, Carl Sagan, died believing that there was no compelling evidence for the existence of a Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, and said of our earth and the universe: If we are alone in the Universe, it sure seems like an awful waste of space. David, in Psalm 8, answers Carl Sagans question, and if only Sagan could have opened his eyes to see what David saw: Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth, You who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens! If you are wondering if the universe is too big if life on earth is all there is, the answer is a resounding NO! The universe is the size that it is because it is testifying to the majesty and splendor of the One who spoke all of it into existence. The God who spoke all things into existence out of the overflow of His love and goodness is not only knowable but created us with purpose! A Grand God Created Mankind in His Image with Purpose There is only one creature of all the creatures created that was created in the image of God, and that creature is all of humanity. On the sixth day, after God created the animal kingdom and everything else, He created Adam and Eve: Then God said, Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth (Gen. 1:26). To Adam and Eve, God gave them the responsibility to manage His creation as His image bearers. Humans were commissioned and commanded to care for creation and at the same time add to creation by filling the earth with humans like themselves. We are not a part of the animal kingdom; we stand above the animal kingdom as stewards of what Almighty God created! King David marveled over this magnificent reality in his psalm: When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place; what is man that You think of him, And a son of man that You are concerned about him (Ps. 8:34)? David does not stop there, for what he says in the following verses ought to be enough to answer what place your pet has in the universe: You have him rule over the works of Your hands; You have put everything under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the animals of the field, The birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes through the paths of the seas (vv. 68). Adam and Eve were commanded to manage the Garden, to be fruitful and multiply, and not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. As you know, they ate the forbidden fruit from that one tree, and by eating the fruit they brought a curse upon Gods creation. As a result, all of creation was cursed as the Scriptures testify: Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all mankind, because all sinned... (Rom. 5:12). There is only one creature who bears the image of God, and that creature is mankind. As image bearers of the living God, we were created to live forever. There is a part of us that lives on after death known as our soul which is also referred to as our spirit (not to be confused with the Holy Spirit).[1] Unlike the rest of creation, humans have a soul that only God is able to destroy. So, when it comes to death, our soul lives on even after our body dies, but death for the Christian is not the end as we are assured from the Bible: For we know that if our earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made by hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed, in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, since in fact after putting it on, we will not be found naked. For indeed, we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. (2 Cor. 5:14) So, when your pet dies, there is no immaterial part of them that lives on because they do not bare the image of God and therefore do not have a soul. What this means is that when your pet does eventually die, regardless of the behavior, there is no eternal punishment or eternal life waiting for them... they simply cease to exist. The only creature that is born and lives in active rebellion towards God are humans. Unlike the animal kingdom, sin is now a part of our nature. A Good and Gracious God Has Provided Redemption Through a Second and Perfect Adam Now, remember what I said at the beginning of my sermon: Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights... (Jas. 1:17). God is a good God who is the giver of every good thing, not the taker of every good thing! After Adam and Eve sinned, they were promised a Descendant who would reverse the curse of sin. A second and more perfect Adam was promised who would come to reverse the curse of sin: For if by the offense of the one, death reigned through the one, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:17). The second and more perfect Adam was also promised to David who wrote Psalm 8! God assured David, When your days are finished and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever (2 Sam. 7:1213). What will this second and more perfect Adam do? According to Jeremiah 23:5-6, He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land.... Oh, and the Name by which the Son of David will also be called will be, The Lord Our Righteousness. In Isaiah we are promised that when He reigns as King, He will judge between the nations, and will mediate for many peoples; and they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning knives. Nation will not lift up a sword against nation, and never again will they learn war (Isa. 2:4). The second Adam would, be born of a virgin as fully human and fully diving: ...a Son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. When the second Adam comes to reign as King, His reign will bring the kind of peace only God is capable of restoring: ...the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the young lion and fattened steer will be together; and a little boy will lead them. Also the cow and the bear will graze, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.... They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (Isa. 11:6-7, 9) When it was announced by the angels to the shepherds that the promised King was born, it was declared to them: Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:10-11). Jesus, as the second and better Adam, humbled Himself by, taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men.... He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross (Phil. 2:7-8). He was born to live the perfect life we could not live to die the death we all deserved. There is only One who is qualified to reverse the curse of sin, and it was and is Jesus! In Revelation 21:5, we are told that through His death and triumphant victory over death, that He is making all things new! This is what we all want and what all of creation is longing for! We long for a day without the dark cloud of the curse of sin. This is why Paul wrote, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the eagerly awaiting creation waits for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Rom. 8:18-21) When Jesus entered into Jerusalem the week before He was to be crucified for the sins of mankind, the children in the temple area shouted something that irritated the chief priests and scribes. As Jesus entered into Jerusalem, the children shouted: Hosanna to the Son of David! (see Matt. 21:15-16). The chief priests and scribes said to Jesus, Do you hear what these children are saying? What were the children saying? They were celebrating the promised second Adam, the righteous Branch of David, and the One who is to be called The Lord our Righteousness (see Jer. 23:5-6). Guess how Jesus answered the irritated religious leaders who were concerned about what the children were saying? He answered them by quoting Psalm 8:2, here is what He said: Yes. Have you never read [chief priests and scribes], From the mouths of infants and nursing babies You have prepared praise for Yourself? Do you realize what Jesus said to the chief priests and scribes? He was essentially saying that although Adam made a mess of creation through his sin in the Garden, there was a Son of Man who was made a little lower than the angels and God when He willingly took on human flesh to become fully human while remaining fully God at the same time! Jesus did this for the purpose of redeeming mankind through His cross for our sins, and by doing so, made redemption possible for all creation, and this is the point of Psalm 5, Yet You have made him a little lower than God, and You crown him with glory and majesty! Do you hear Philippians 2 in Psalm 8? And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross. For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:8-11) Now, against the backdrop of Philippians 2:8-11, listen what Psalm 8:7-8 promises: You have him rule over the works of Your hands; You have put everything under his feet, All sheep and oxen, And also the animals of the field, The birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea, Whatever passes through the paths of the seas. All of creation, including your pets, are eagerly awaiting for the completion of our redemption because when it happens to us, creation will enjoy the good and faithful reign of the second Adam over them as well, and when He comes to do that, He will make all things new and it is what He will restore that all of creation is longing for: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away. And He who sits on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new. And He said, Write, for these words are faithful and true. On the Day Revelation 21 becomes our reality, all that was lost, will be restored and it will be even better than the Eden the first Adam lost! I am not sure if that means He will restore and make new your pet that was lost to the curse, but I do know that it will be better! The glory we will be crowned with will be the glory of King Jesus when, There will no longer be any curse... (Rev. 22:3). We will obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away (Isa. 51:11)! The great hope of our future is not who is in office as our president, but the King who is coming to restore all that was lost through the first Adam. Christian, because you belong to the second Adam, you can declare with David: Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! [1] Soul and spirit are used synonymously in the Bible (e.g. Acts 7:54-60; Matt. 10:28).

Friends of the Rosary, Happy New Year in Christ! Today, January 3, Christmas Weekday, the Gospel of John (John 1:29-34) contains the first biblical presentation of the Holy Trinity. It happened during Jesus' baptism. The sky opened, and John the Baptist saw the Spirit of God descend like a dove and remain upon him. With that, a voice from the heavens said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Today, the first Friday of the month, we also celebrate the memorial of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. The name of Jesus means Savior, for His name expresses His mission. Connected to the reading of today, the name of Jesus opens heaven. It kindles our hearts, clarifies our souls, and removes anger and anxiety. Devotion to the Holy Name is deeply rooted in the Sacred Scriptures. We read in Sacred Scripture how the angel Gabriel revealed that name to Mary: “You shall call His name Jesus.” As the Catechism states, “The name Jesus' contains all… His name is the only one that contains the presence it signifies.” It's suitable for any circumstance: joy and gratitude on a trial when we have sinned. We say, “Praise Jesus,” “Jesus, help me!”, “Jesus, have mercy.” His holy name brings love and hope. Whoever prays to the Eternal Father in the name of Jesus may have hope for every grace he asks for: “If you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it to you.” Whenever we pronounce it, we ought to bow our heads; for the very name reminds us of the greatest favor we have ever received, salvation. January has traditionally been dedicated to the Holy Name of Jesus. [In the picture above, IHS monogram, with kneeling angels, atop the main altar, at Church of the Gesù, Rome] Ave Maria!Jesus, I Trust In You! Come, Holy Spirit, come! To Jesus through Mary! + Mikel Amigot | RosaryNetwork.com, New York • Enjoy this video and enhance your faith in our newly released Holy Rosary University iOS app • ⁠January 3, 2025, Today's Rosary on YouTube | Daily broadcast at 7:30 pm ET

8 Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. 10 Then the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. 11 For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger."   Merry Christmas! On this Christmas day, I thought it would be appropriate to go back to Luke 2 and once again read the real Christmas story and make a few comments about it. Everyone loves the story of a Baby in a manger! But the sad thing is that most of the world would like to keep this Baby there. It is there you can cuddle Him and tell Him how sweet He is. And if you can keep Him there you can control Him because He is only a Baby. But my friend, Jesus is far more than a Baby in a manger.   The angel declared to the shepherds that this Baby was the Savior, Who is Christ the Lord! It was only through a human birth that Jesus, the eternal, preexistent Son of God, the second Person of the Godhead Trinity, could robe Himself in human flesh so that He could be our Savior. Joseph was told by an angel in a dream that he was “to take Mary as his wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a Son, and you are to name Him Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:20-21).   In order to die in our place for our sins Jesus had to become flesh. Hebrews 2:14-15 puts it this way: “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” “We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The payment for our sin is death (Romans 6:23). Someone has to pay the penalty and Jesus as the perfect, sinless, spotless, Lamb of God, voluntarily was willing to lay down His life for us!   The story of Jesus is, from the cradle, to the cross and death, to the grave, to a glorious resurrection, and then to the right hand of the Father on the throne in heaven! Jesus came to be our Savior! And He qualified because He is the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One! At the time Jesus was born the name Jesus was a very common name given to boys. So, Jesus was distinguished from all other men with His title: Jesus, the Christ! And there is only one Jesus, the Christ! He alone is the fulfilment of the Old Testament Prophecies who came to redeem us from death. (Ephesians 2:4-10).   But not only is Jesus the Savior and Messiah, He is “the Lord”.  Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 9:6-7, “For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this.”   Jesus is the Sovereign God and has the right to rule as Lord over our lives! Have you submitted to His authority over your life?   God bless!

Jesus' Birth ForetoldIsaiah 9:6 “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”We received this scripture verse on Thursday during prayer group. I was researching how many years, before the birth of Jesus, this prophecy was given to Isaiah. While researching, I found this article that explains this verse very well. So, I thought I would read the article to you for today's episode. The article can be found on The Master's University Website. It does not say who wrote it. CLICK HERE for the article.The Christmas story in the Bible begins several hundred years before that night in Bethlehem. One Old Testament prophecy after another promised a coming Savior—the Messiah, the Anointed One—who would redeem the people of God. The centerpiece of all the Christmas prophecies, Isaiah 9:6, was written nearly six hundred years before Jesus' birth. Isaiah promised it would be a miraculous event unlike any the world had ever known, and the details Isaiah gave were fulfilled precisely by Jesus.For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.Isaiah 9:6 is the most familiar of all the Old Testament prophecies about the birth of Christ. Handel included it as one of the great choruses of his Messiah oratorio. Chances are you either sing it or hear it several times every Christmas season.Consider the rich truths in this one short verse and the attributes given to this extraordinary child. To the Jewish nation, Isaiah's prophecy was news of a coming King. To the unsuspecting world, the prophecy promised a Savior, God incarnate, whose coming would dramatically and forever alter human history.Son of Man“A child will be born to us” is a statement about His humanity. He began life like any other human—as an infant. Isaiah doesn't say more about this here, but we know from the New Testament that Christ experienced every temptation common to humanity, but He never sinned (Hebrews 4:15). As a man, He felt everything we feel, hurt like we hurt, wept like we weep, and in His death He even felt the weight of sin as He took ours upon Himself.Son of God“A son will be given to us” speaks of the Savior's preexistent deity. By saying “given,” not “born,” Isaiah suggests that Jesus existed before His birth. He was already God, the second Person of the Trinity, before He was given to us to be our Savior (Philippians 2:6-7). He came as the Son of God—God in a human body—to conquer sin and death forever. He is the perfect Son of God, the promise of the ages, the Holy One of Israel, the desire of nations, the light in darkness, the only hope for our lost world.King of Kings“The government will rest on His shoulders” looks beyond that first Christmas to a time still in the prophetic future when Christ shall reign over a literal, earthly, geopolitical kingdom that encompasses all the kingdoms and governments of the world (Zechariah 14:9; Daniel 2:44). In that day, the government of the whole world will rest on His shoulders, and He will reign as sovereign over a worldwide kingdom of righteousness and peace. In the meantime, His government operates in secret. His kingdom and sovereign rule are manifest within those who trust Him as their Lord (Luke 17:20-21).Wonderful CounselorMessiah's kingdom has the answer to the world's confusion. During His incarnation, Christ demonstrated His wisdom as a counselor. When people came to Him, He always knew what to say, when to reach out to a seeking heart, and when to rebuke an impetuous soul. The testimony of those who heard Him was, “Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks” (John 7:46). Christ is the source of all truth (John 14:6), and it is to Him that we must turn to make sense of life's confusion. Jesus is the Counselor who knows everything. He knows all about you; He knows the needs of your heart; He knows how to answer those needs. And He always gives wise counsel to those who will hear and obey Him.Mighty GodThe King is the Mighty God and His kingdom is free from all chaos. “God is not a God of confusion but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33), which means chaos is antithetical to who He is. Christ the King loves to step into a life of chaos and not only provide wonderful counsel, but also display His divine power by bringing order. He not only tells His subjects what to do as a wonderful Counselor, but He can energize them to do it—because He is the Mighty God. In Jesus we have a sovereign Master who can forgive sin, defeat Satan, liberate us from the power of evil, redeem us, answer our prayers, restore our broken souls, and reign over rebuilt lives, bringing order to chaos.Eternal FatherWe tend to cringe at the word “government,” picturing an administrative labyrinth. But our Messiah's kingdom is not like that. He requires no bureaucracy; He shoulders His government by Himself. He can do it because He is the eternal Father, or as the phrase in Isaiah 9:6 is literally translated, “the Father of Eternity.” Christ is Creator of heaven and earth. According to God the Father's own testimony, the Son—Jesus—was the Person of the Godhead who created time out of eternity and fashioned the universe from nothing (Hebrews 1:10-12). Nothing is too difficult for the Creator and Sustainer of everything. Infinity and all its intricacies are nothing to Him who is the Alpha and Omega, the First and Last, the Beginning and the End—the Father of Eternity. He declares the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). He is in complete and sovereign control, He sees the end of everything, and He guarantees that all things will work together for the ultimate good of all His kingdom's subjects (Romans 8:28).Prince of PeaceIn Messiah's kingdom there are no conflicts because He is the Prince of Peace. He offers “peace from God” (Romans 1:7) to all who receive His grace. He makes “peace with God” (Romans 5:1) for those who surrender to Him in faith. And He brings the “peace of God” (Philippians 4:7) to those who walk with Him. As we hear so often at Christmas, the beginning of His earthly life was heralded by angels who pronounced peace on earth (Luke 2:14). There never really has been peace on earth in the sense we think of it. Wars and rumors of wars have characterized the entire two millennia since that first Christmas, as well as all the time before it. The announcement of peace on earth was a two-pronged proclamation. First, it declared the arrival of the only One who ultimately can bring lasting peace on earth (which He will do when He returns to bring about the establishment of His earthly kingdom).But more importantly, it was a proclamation that God's peace was available to men and women. Read the words of Luke 2:14 carefully and note this emphasis: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.” God is pleased with the people who yield their lives to Him. “The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy” (Psalm 147:11 NKJV). When the angels proclaimed peace on earth, they were speaking primarily of a very personal, individual application of God's peace that grows out of a firsthand knowledge of the Prince of Peace.The prophetic message of Christmas is the good news of God's answer to all the confusion, chaos, complexities, and conflicts of life. It is the gift of the newborn infant, who is also the Father of all eternity. He is an innocent child, yet He is a wise Counselor and mighty King. He is God with us. Immanuel.This Christmas, consider the wonderful promise of Christ and how He has fulfilled these rich prophecies in your life through His saving, sanctifying, and sustaining work.Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for each and every person listening to this episode. Lord, I ask you to bless them and their families this holiday season. Lord, we thank you for sending Jesus to us and for saving us. We thank you for all the ways you are still saving us every day, not just from the world but from ourselves, too. Lord, we love you, and we are so grateful for you. You are amazing! We ask that you be with those who are all alone during this holiday season. We also pray in a special way for all those who are living on the streets during this holiday season. We pray all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus's holy name, Amen!Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I will not be posting a new episode tomorrow since it is Christmas. I will be back on Thursday though. I pray you have a blessed Christmas that is full of joy! I am so grateful I get to be part of your day. I love you all!Today's Word from the Lord was received in June 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “I've asked for the Spirit. We've all asked for the power of His Holy Spirit. We've all asked for His love. His love is there for us. He's not giving us false stones that look like bread to eat. He's going to give us the bread of life.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

The gift of Jesus's birth is a gift that keeps on giving. As God entered into creation He made a way for humanity to experience a taste of heaven on earth. The prophets declared what we've come to know about the Messiah. Jesus is the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father and Prince of Peace. Let's experience a taste of heaven on earth as the gift of the Messiah is celebrated around the world.

“O My Father”, and the Council of Fifty! Let's wrap up chapter 2 of “American Zion” in a quick show for the end of the year! Link to our Face in Hat discord server! https://discord.gg/MnSMvKHvwh YouTube channel!  Thanks Eric! https://www.youtube.com/@FaceinHat https://www.youtube.com/@FaceinHat/playlists Dialogue Podcast Network https://www.dialoguejournal.com/podcasts/ American Zion: A New History of Mormonism, by Benjamin E. Park https://www.amazon.com/American-Zion-New-History-Mormonism/dp/1631498657 Eliza R. Snow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliza_R._Snow “Invocation, or The Eternal Father and Mother” or “O my father” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_My_Father Testimony in Art: John Hafen's Illustrations for “O My Father”, by Dawn Pheysey https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol36/iss1/5/ John Hafen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hafen A Little Lower than the Angels, by Virginia Sorensen https://www.amazon.com/Little-Angels-Signature-Morman-Classics/dp/1560851031 Episode 1.8 Polygamy's Ghost https://faceinhat.podbean.com/e/episode-8-polygamy-s-ghost/ Hosea Stout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosea_Stout Council of Fifty, Church History topic https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/council-of-fifty Council of Fifty on wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Fifty Latest issue of Dialogue (Volume 57, No. 3) which includes works by Eric Jepson and William Morris (former guest of the show) https://www.dialoguejournal.com/issues/fall-2024/

Big Idea: The roots of God's tree grow so deep that no storm can topple it. Isaiah 9:6 For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. I. Jesus gives his strength amid conflict The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.  Romans 16:20 II. Jesus will settle your concerns “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don't let your heart be troubled or fearful.  John 14:17 III. Jesus offers security amid chaos  Don't worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7 Next Steps:  Believe:  I need Jesus to give me his peace today. Become: I will rest in Jesus's supernatural peace this week.  Be Sent:  I will be a person of peace this week.  Discussion Questions:  What does peace in your personal life look like? Provide 1-2 specific examples.  How can you nurture God's peace during times of conflict?  How does the biblical concept of peace differ from merely lacking war?  How can you make time for peace in your busy holiday schedule?  What is one action you can take to promote peace in your neighborhood this week?  In what ways was your faith stronger than your challenges last week? Pray for the Holy Spirit to make you a person of peace for someone in chaos this week.

Pastor Ian Graham continues our series on the titles for the Messiah listed in Isaiah 9 looking at Jesus the Son as Eternal Father. Support the show

Advent | Isaiah 9:6 | Jake Hering

The gift of Jesus's birth is a gift that keeps on giving. As God entered into creation He made a way for humanity to experience a taste of heaven on earth. The prophets declared what we've come to know about the Messiah. Jesus is the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father and Prince of Peace. Let's experience a taste of heaven on earth as the gift of the Messiah is celebrated around the world.

Isaiah 9:6-7// From the series titled Gratitude Fit for a King// Pastor Mike Graham – December 15, 2024

Big Idea: Our son will serve as our brother and become our Father. Isaiah 9:6 For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. I. Our Son, the source II. Our Brother, the sample III. Our Father, the savior Next Steps:  Believe: I need Jesus to save me from my sins today. Become: I will spend a few minutes focusing on my relationship with Jesus each morning.  Be Sent: I will serve someone like Jesus served this Christmas. Discussion Questions:  What is the most important Christmas tradition your family passed on to you? How will you focus your thoughts and your family on Christ this Christmas? In what way did you model your life after Christ yesterday?  What area of your relationship with Christ would you like to work on this week?  What influenced God to give you his greatest gift on the first Christmas? How can you let your community know about the love of Jesus this week? Pray for your relationship with Jesus to grow deeper this Christmas season. 

Pastor Jordan Easley continues the “And He Will Be Called…” Message Series — a four-part journey to learn who Jesus is and what that means for everyone. In this third message, “Eternal Father,” discover how Jesus, as our Eternal Father, offers perfect love, unfailing guidance, and the promise of eternal life to those who trust in Him. Learn what it means to have a relationship with the God who is forever, and how His promises endure when everything else fades away.

Mama, let's discover how to invite the Prince of Peace into your Christmas chaos! Join us as we explore the true meaning of peace, practical ways to center your family on Christ, and joyful traditions to keep your heart tethered to Him this season."For a child has been born-for us! The gift of a son- for us! He'll take over the running of the world. His names will be: Amazing Counselor, Strong God, Eternal Father, Prince of Wholeness." Isaiah 9:6 (MSG)Read this devotional HERE! Check out our NEW December Mothering Kit Community HERE!For more information about our ministry, visit our website http://helpclubformoms.comCheck out our YouVersion plans HERE!Our prayer team prays for you everyday! Send us your prayer requests at admin@helpclubformoms.com.Gift to the podcast to help sweet moms around the world receive these free devotionals! We are so thankful for your help!

The gift of Jesus's birth is a gift that keeps on giving. As God entered into creation He made a way for humanity to experience a taste of heaven on earth. The prophets declared what we've come to know about the Messiah. Jesus is the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father and Prince of Peace. Let's experience a taste of heaven on earth as the gift of the Messiah is celebrated around the world.

Happy Monday! As we continue our Christmas series called The Way to the Manger, Pastor Jeff shares that the words used in Isaiah 9:6 to describe Jesus are exciting to consider: Wonderful, Mighty, Eternal, and Prince. Isaiah 9:6 6 For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

Big Idea: An Almighty King must be greater than your mighty problems.  Isaiah 9:6 For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. I. More mighty than your greatest enemy  Isaiah 9:4 For you have shattered their oppressive yoke and the rod on their shoulders, the staff of their oppressor, just as you did on the day of Midian. II. Mighty enough to make an extraordinary future Isaiah 9:5 For every trampling boot of battle and the bloodied garments of war will be burned as fuel for the fire. III. Might that lasts for ageless eternity Isaiah 9:7 The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this. Next Steps:  Believe: Today, I surrender my soul to the Almighty King. Become: I will turn my problems over to my Almighty Father. Be Sent: I will spread the word of my God Almighty this week. Discussion Questions:  If you could have more strength in one area of your life, what would it be?  Why? On a scale of 1-5, how well do you turn your troubles over to our Almighty Father?  What would you do with it if you had all power for one day? Do you find it hard to focus on eternity when facing pressing challenges today?  Explain your answer.  What is your greatest struggle this week? How did you rely on God's strength this week? Pray for the grace to trust the Holy Spirit when facing challenges this week.

On the first Christmas, an angel appeared to some shepherds who were keeping watch over their flocks at night. We are told that at the angels appearing, the shepherds were terribly frightened. The angel announced to the shepherds: And so the angel said to them, Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger (Luke 2:1012). The Christmas story does not begin with the shepherds, or with the angels visit to Mary with the words: Behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end (Luke 1:31-33). The story of Christmas began long before the promise made to Marys fianc, Joseph: Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a Son; and you shall name Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins (Matt. 1:20b-21). The story of Christmas begins in Genesis 1:1 with the words: In the beginning. It involves an antagonist (the devil), it is all about a hero (God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit), and it is about our need to be rescued (we have a sin problem). The story of Christmas is a story that transforms unlike any other story; it is a story identified by one word in the Bible, and that word is, Gospel which means, good news. Of this good news, the apostle Paul wrote: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Rom. 1:16). The Christmas story is about the promised savior born to be kingthe Lion of the Tribe of Judah from whom, The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the rulers staff from between his feet (Gen. 29:10). Christmas is the ancient promise that the Son of David would be unlike any other king in that God would, establish the throne of his kingdom forever (2 Sam. 7:13). The coming King who would save His people from their sins would be Immanuel (Isa. 7:14)God with us. What is the Helmet of Salvation? Like the soldiers shield, the helmet could be taken of and put back on. The helmet of the Roman soldier was made of bronze and had cheek pieces to provide protection to his head. Like the breastplate of righteousness, Paul draws his language from Isaiah 59:17, He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on His head; and He put on garments of vengeance for clothing and wrapped Himself with zeal as a cloak. If you recall from my sermon on the breastplate of righteousness, the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 who was, pierced for our offences, and was crushed for our wrongdoings is the Divine Warrior of Isaiah 59, which begins with these words: Behold, the Lords hand is not so short that it cannot save; nor is His ear so dull That it cannot hear (v. 1). The One who is able to save is the One to Whom righteousness and salvation truly belongs. When redemption and righteousness was beyond the reach of sinful humanity, Immanuel put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on His head and was born of a virgin to save us from our sins. But what does it mean to be saved from our sins, and is salvation something that can be taken up and put off like a helmet? To answer those questions we must answer what salvation is. Salvation literally means, preservation or deliverance from harm, ruin, or loss. In the strictest and most biblical sense, salvation is something that has happened in the past, but it is also happening in the present, and yes... it is also something that will happen in the future. In other words, Jesus came to save his people from their sins so that they can be saved from the past, the present, and in the future, from the full curse of sin. How so? Well, think about what was announced: Jesus came to save His people from their sins. When Adam and Eve sinned, all of creation was brought under a curse, and that curse includes not only our propensity to sin against God, but also death and the vandalizing of a peace with God all of humanity was intended to enjoy. Here is what the Bible says: Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all mankind, because all sinned... (Rom. 5:12). So, when it comes to our salvation, Timothy Keller said, The Bible says every Christian stands in the middle of three tenses of their salvation. You cant understand the glory and the beauty of it unless you see it. In fact, you wont be able to understand the Scripture and you wont be able to understand whats happening to you if you dont understand.[1] We stand in the past tense of our salvation: You have been saved from the penalty of sin and pardoned from your guilt and now have been covered under the righteousness of Christ and are justified before a holy God (1 Pet. 3:18). We stand in the reality that we have been saved from the penalty of sin! We stand in the present tense of our salvation: You are being saved in the sense that God is changing you through the power of His Holy Spirit. The evidence of your nature to sin is still there and the struggle against your own sin is very real, but each moment that you move closer to death on this side of eternity is one step closer to Christlikeness. This is the fight I was talking about last week. In this present life you, Christian, fight the good fight of the faith and by doing so, we take hold of the eternal life to which you have been called (1 Tim. 6:12). We stand in the reality that we are being saved from the power of sin! We stand in the future tense of our salvation: Because we have been saved from the penalty of sin and we are being saved from the power of sin because Jesus, as the Divine Warrior of Isaiah 59, is able and will indeed rescue us from all sin. The third verse in the carol, Joy to the Word, rightly states: No more let sins and sorrows grow,Nor thorns infest the ground;He comes to make his blessings flowFar as the curse is found. Jesus came to save us from our sins in the sense that He will make his blessings flow as far as the curse is found, and on that day: Death will be swallowed up in victory (1 Cor. 15:54), what is mortal will be swallowed up by life (2 Cor. 5:4), sorrow and singing will flee away (Isa. 51:11), every tear will be wiped away (Rev. 21:1-4), and all things will be made new (Rev. 21:5). We stand in the reality that we will be saved from the presence of sin... forever and will receive a better and more glorious Eden! The salvation that Jesus came to deliver is not something we take off and put on again, so what then is the helmet of salvation? According to 1 Thessalonians 5:8, the helmet of salvation is the hope of our salvation: But since we are of the day, lets be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.Because we are saved, being saved, and will be saved... we live in the hope of our salvation no matter what the enemy launches at us or does to us, the night is almost gone, and the day is near (Rom. 13:12). How Do You Take Up the Helmet of Salvation? To take up the helmet of salvation is to live in the reality that this mortal life is not the end and that you are now, and forever will, remain a child of the living God! The helmet of salvation protects your head, it protects your mind, it protects your line of sight so that you can see the hope that is yours in Christ. When things in life seem to go south, when this life is shortened by disease, when this worlds resources are stripped away, when the proverbial rug is pulled from underneath, and when it seems that all in this world is lost... you can respond with gospel-centered hope: For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison... (2 Cor. 4:17). The helmet of salvation is the assurance of our salvation! Listen, there are two dangers that every person faces if they are a part of any Bible teaching and gospel centered church. The first danger is to believe that you are a Christian when you are not. If you believe that you can believe in Jesus with your mind for the salvation of your soul with little consequence to the way you are living your life today, then you may not be a genuine Christian. True saving faith is to believe and trust that Jesus life, death, and resurrection is enough for the salvation of your soul; the evidence that you genuinely believe and trust in Jesus as your savior will be evidenced in your standing in your past salvation, present salvation, and hope in your future salvation. Do not forget Ephesians 2:8-10! You were saved by grace through faith in Jesus, and the purpose for your salvation is stated in verse 10, For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Genuine saving faith in Jesus will be evidenced by a changing life that looks more and more like Jesus life over the years. The second danger you face in the local church is that the enemy can get you to doubt your salvation. If the enemy can get you to doubt your salvation successfully, he will have a better chance of tempting you to live closer to your sin rather than closer to Jesus as your savior. When you take up the helmet of salvation, you stand in the shoes of the gospel of peace, with your identity in Christ firmly belted around your waist, the righteousness of Christ securely fastened over your chest, so that you can take up your biblically saturated faith. When the devil attempts to undermine your salvation, you can take up your helmet of salvation knowing that only because of Jesus, there is no condemnation for you (Rom. 8:1)! When you take up your helmet of salvation in the enemys presence, you do so with confidence, knowing: ...that He who began a good work among you will complete it by the day of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1:6). When the attacks come and the devil or your flesh is all up in your face to tempt you to doubt the sufficiency of Christ, you take up your helmet of salvation with the assurance of 2 Corinthians 4:7-9, But we have this treasure in earthen containers, so that the extraordinary greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed... (2 Cor. 4:79). How do you know that the salvation Jesus provided is enough? The One born to save His people from their sins is the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace promised long ago (Isa. 9:6-7). He is the promised King whose, times of coming forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity (Micah 5:2). The One born King of the Jews is He who was declared long before His birth through the virgin Mary: I am the first and the last, and there is no God besides Me (Isa. 44:6; Rev. 1:17-18). Jesus can save because He is the righteous Branch of David who is called, Yahweh Our Righteousness (Jer. 23:5-6). He is Him who is, the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation... by Whom all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, or rulers, or authoritiesall things have been created through Him and for Him (Col. 1:15-16). The salvation Jesus provided is enough because, while He existed in the form of God as the Divine Son, He humbled Himself, by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross (see Phil. 2:1-11). This is why we can have every confidence that Ephesians 1:7-8 is all that we need for the hope of our salvation: In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. So, in light of all that Jesus is and all that he did to secure your salvation, who are you, Chistian? You are chosen by God before the foundation of the world (1:4-6)! Who are you Christian? You are redeemed as a child of God by the blood of His own Son... namely Jesus (1:7-12)! Who are you Christian? You are sealed by the Holy Spirit as a child of the living God until the day when redemption is finally complete (1:13-14). You can have all the confidence that Jesus is enough because He alone is the Divine Warrior qualified to live the life you could not live for the purpose of dying a death you deserved! Jesus is your righteousness, and He is your salvation! On December 4th, I read something Thomas Watson wrote that Jonathan Gibsons O Come, O Come, Emmanuel included in his devotional. When it comes to what our salvation means, Watsons words seem to capture the beauty and magnitude of the Jesus who came to save his people from their sins: He was poor that he might make us rich. He was born of a virgin that we might be born of God. He took our flesh that he might give us his Spirit. He lay in the manger that we might lie in paradise. He came down from heaven that he might bring us to heaven... that the Ancient of Days should be born,--that he who thunders in the heavens should cry in the cradle,--that he who rules the stars should suck the breast,--that a virgin should conceive,--that Christ should be made of a woman which himself made,--that the branch should bear the vine,--that the mother should be younger than the child she bore, and the child in the womb bigger than the mother,--that the human nature should not be God, yet one with God: this was not only amazing but miraculous. If you a Christian, Jesus is the hope of your salvation for He is the helmet of your salvation. If you are not a Christian, you can receive Him as the Hope of your salvation by surrendering your life to Him as your Savior. [1] Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

On the first Christmas, an angel appeared to some shepherds who were keeping watch over their flocks at night. We are told that at the angels appearing, the shepherds were terribly frightened. The angel announced to the shepherds: And so the angel said to them, Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger (Luke 2:1012). The Christmas story does not begin with the shepherds, or with the angels visit to Mary with the words: Behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end (Luke 1:31-33). The story of Christmas began long before the promise made to Marys fianc, Joseph: Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a Son; and you shall name Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins (Matt. 1:20b-21). The story of Christmas begins in Genesis 1:1 with the words: In the beginning. It involves an antagonist (the devil), it is all about a hero (God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit), and it is about our need to be rescued (we have a sin problem). The story of Christmas is a story that transforms unlike any other story; it is a story identified by one word in the Bible, and that word is, Gospel which means, good news. Of this good news, the apostle Paul wrote: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Rom. 1:16). The Christmas story is about the promised savior born to be kingthe Lion of the Tribe of Judah from whom, The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the rulers staff from between his feet (Gen. 29:10). Christmas is the ancient promise that the Son of David would be unlike any other king in that God would, establish the throne of his kingdom forever (2 Sam. 7:13). The coming King who would save His people from their sins would be Immanuel (Isa. 7:14)God with us. What is the Helmet of Salvation? Like the soldiers shield, the helmet could be taken of and put back on. The helmet of the Roman soldier was made of bronze and had cheek pieces to provide protection to his head. Like the breastplate of righteousness, Paul draws his language from Isaiah 59:17, He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on His head; and He put on garments of vengeance for clothing and wrapped Himself with zeal as a cloak. If you recall from my sermon on the breastplate of righteousness, the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 who was, pierced for our offences, and was crushed for our wrongdoings is the Divine Warrior of Isaiah 59, which begins with these words: Behold, the Lords hand is not so short that it cannot save; nor is His ear so dull That it cannot hear (v. 1). The One who is able to save is the One to Whom righteousness and salvation truly belongs. When redemption and righteousness was beyond the reach of sinful humanity, Immanuel put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on His head and was born of a virgin to save us from our sins. But what does it mean to be saved from our sins, and is salvation something that can be taken up and put off like a helmet? To answer those questions we must answer what salvation is. Salvation literally means, preservation or deliverance from harm, ruin, or loss. In the strictest and most biblical sense, salvation is something that has happened in the past, but it is also happening in the present, and yes... it is also something that will happen in the future. In other words, Jesus came to save his people from their sins so that they can be saved from the past, the present, and in the future, from the full curse of sin. How so? Well, think about what was announced: Jesus came to save His people from their sins. When Adam and Eve sinned, all of creation was brought under a curse, and that curse includes not only our propensity to sin against God, but also death and the vandalizing of a peace with God all of humanity was intended to enjoy. Here is what the Bible says: Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all mankind, because all sinned... (Rom. 5:12). So, when it comes to our salvation, Timothy Keller said, The Bible says every Christian stands in the middle of three tenses of their salvation. You cant understand the glory and the beauty of it unless you see it. In fact, you wont be able to understand the Scripture and you wont be able to understand whats happening to you if you dont understand.[1] We stand in the past tense of our salvation: You have been saved from the penalty of sin and pardoned from your guilt and now have been covered under the righteousness of Christ and are justified before a holy God (1 Pet. 3:18). We stand in the reality that we have been saved from the penalty of sin! We stand in the present tense of our salvation: You are being saved in the sense that God is changing you through the power of His Holy Spirit. The evidence of your nature to sin is still there and the struggle against your own sin is very real, but each moment that you move closer to death on this side of eternity is one step closer to Christlikeness. This is the fight I was talking about last week. In this present life you, Christian, fight the good fight of the faith and by doing so, we take hold of the eternal life to which you have been called (1 Tim. 6:12). We stand in the reality that we are being saved from the power of sin! We stand in the future tense of our salvation: Because we have been saved from the penalty of sin and we are being saved from the power of sin because Jesus, as the Divine Warrior of Isaiah 59, is able and will indeed rescue us from all sin. The third verse in the carol, Joy to the Word, rightly states: No more let sins and sorrows grow,Nor thorns infest the ground;He comes to make his blessings flowFar as the curse is found. Jesus came to save us from our sins in the sense that He will make his blessings flow as far as the curse is found, and on that day: Death will be swallowed up in victory (1 Cor. 15:54), what is mortal will be swallowed up by life (2 Cor. 5:4), sorrow and singing will flee away (Isa. 51:11), every tear will be wiped away (Rev. 21:1-4), and all things will be made new (Rev. 21:5). We stand in the reality that we will be saved from the presence of sin... forever and will receive a better and more glorious Eden! The salvation that Jesus came to deliver is not something we take off and put on again, so what then is the helmet of salvation? According to 1 Thessalonians 5:8, the helmet of salvation is the hope of our salvation: But since we are of the day, lets be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.Because we are saved, being saved, and will be saved... we live in the hope of our salvation no matter what the enemy launches at us or does to us, the night is almost gone, and the day is near (Rom. 13:12). How Do You Take Up the Helmet of Salvation? To take up the helmet of salvation is to live in the reality that this mortal life is not the end and that you are now, and forever will, remain a child of the living God! The helmet of salvation protects your head, it protects your mind, it protects your line of sight so that you can see the hope that is yours in Christ. When things in life seem to go south, when this life is shortened by disease, when this worlds resources are stripped away, when the proverbial rug is pulled from underneath, and when it seems that all in this world is lost... you can respond with gospel-centered hope: For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison... (2 Cor. 4:17). The helmet of salvation is the assurance of our salvation! Listen, there are two dangers that every person faces if they are a part of any Bible teaching and gospel centered church. The first danger is to believe that you are a Christian when you are not. If you believe that you can believe in Jesus with your mind for the salvation of your soul with little consequence to the way you are living your life today, then you may not be a genuine Christian. True saving faith is to believe and trust that Jesus life, death, and resurrection is enough for the salvation of your soul; the evidence that you genuinely believe and trust in Jesus as your savior will be evidenced in your standing in your past salvation, present salvation, and hope in your future salvation. Do not forget Ephesians 2:8-10! You were saved by grace through faith in Jesus, and the purpose for your salvation is stated in verse 10, For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Genuine saving faith in Jesus will be evidenced by a changing life that looks more and more like Jesus life over the years. The second danger you face in the local church is that the enemy can get you to doubt your salvation. If the enemy can get you to doubt your salvation successfully, he will have a better chance of tempting you to live closer to your sin rather than closer to Jesus as your savior. When you take up the helmet of salvation, you stand in the shoes of the gospel of peace, with your identity in Christ firmly belted around your waist, the righteousness of Christ securely fastened over your chest, so that you can take up your biblically saturated faith. When the devil attempts to undermine your salvation, you can take up your helmet of salvation knowing that only because of Jesus, there is no condemnation for you (Rom. 8:1)! When you take up your helmet of salvation in the enemys presence, you do so with confidence, knowing: ...that He who began a good work among you will complete it by the day of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1:6). When the attacks come and the devil or your flesh is all up in your face to tempt you to doubt the sufficiency of Christ, you take up your helmet of salvation with the assurance of 2 Corinthians 4:7-9, But we have this treasure in earthen containers, so that the extraordinary greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed... (2 Cor. 4:79). How do you know that the salvation Jesus provided is enough? The One born to save His people from their sins is the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace promised long ago (Isa. 9:6-7). He is the promised King whose, times of coming forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity (Micah 5:2). The One born King of the Jews is He who was declared long before His birth through the virgin Mary: I am the first and the last, and there is no God besides Me (Isa. 44:6; Rev. 1:17-18). Jesus can save because He is the righteous Branch of David who is called, Yahweh Our Righteousness (Jer. 23:5-6). He is Him who is, the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation... by Whom all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, or rulers, or authoritiesall things have been created through Him and for Him (Col. 1:15-16). The salvation Jesus provided is enough because, while He existed in the form of God as the Divine Son, He humbled Himself, by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross (see Phil. 2:1-11). This is why we can have every confidence that Ephesians 1:7-8 is all that we need for the hope of our salvation: In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. So, in light of all that Jesus is and all that he did to secure your salvation, who are you, Chistian? You are chosen by God before the foundation of the world (1:4-6)! Who are you Christian? You are redeemed as a child of God by the blood of His own Son... namely Jesus (1:7-12)! Who are you Christian? You are sealed by the Holy Spirit as a child of the living God until the day when redemption is finally complete (1:13-14). You can have all the confidence that Jesus is enough because He alone is the Divine Warrior qualified to live the life you could not live for the purpose of dying a death you deserved! Jesus is your righteousness, and He is your salvation! On December 4th, I read something Thomas Watson wrote that Jonathan Gibsons O Come, O Come, Emmanuel included in his devotional. When it comes to what our salvation means, Watsons words seem to capture the beauty and magnitude of the Jesus who came to save his people from their sins: He was poor that he might make us rich. He was born of a virgin that we might be born of God. He took our flesh that he might give us his Spirit. He lay in the manger that we might lie in paradise. He came down from heaven that he might bring us to heaven... that the Ancient of Days should be born,--that he who thunders in the heavens should cry in the cradle,--that he who rules the stars should suck the breast,--that a virgin should conceive,--that Christ should be made of a woman which himself made,--that the branch should bear the vine,--that the mother should be younger than the child she bore, and the child in the womb bigger than the mother,--that the human nature should not be God, yet one with God: this was not only amazing but miraculous. If you a Christian, Jesus is the hope of your salvation for He is the helmet of your salvation. If you are not a Christian, you can receive Him as the Hope of your salvation by surrendering your life to Him as your Savior. [1] Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

The gift of Jesus's birth is a gift that keeps on giving. As God entered into creation He made a way for humanity to experience a taste of heaven on earth. The prophets declared what we've come to know about the Messiah. Jesus is the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, and Prince of Peace. Let's experience a taste of heaven on earth as the gift of the Messiah is celebrated around the world.

Big Idea: Wise leaders are awesome… foolish leaders make your life awful. Isaiah 9:6 For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:1 I. Glory from gloom Nevertheless, the gloom of the distressed land will not be like that of the former times when he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. But in the future he will bring honor to the way of the sea, to the land east of the Jordan, and to Galilee of the nations. II. Honor from humility But in the future he will bring honor to the way of the sea, to the land east of the Jordan, and to Galilee of the nations. III. Light from darkness  The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; a light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness. Next Steps:  Believe: I will start following King Jesus today.  Become: I will follow the Holy Spirit entirely this week.  Be Sent: I will push back darkness in my city this week. Discussion Questions:  Who is the wisest person in your life?  What set them apart as wise in your eyes? Have you worked for a boss who negatively impacted the team? What are some examples of foolish leadership? How do you communicate your frustration with a foolish coach or teacher? Many people quit the team or company of a foolish leader. Why do others stay? How do you remain professional when working for a foolish boss? Pray for the faith to follow the Holy Spirit more closely this week. 

My name is Rev. Alvin Lewis of Power To Change Ministry. Thank you for sharing your day with us, we would love to hear from you, your feedback is very important.Our Reason for telling God thank you is hinged on our Gift of God's Grace, His only Begotten Son.We are forgiven of our sins because Jesus payed  our sin debt and now we can be restored back in a righteous relationship with our Eternal Father.John 3:16-17 (NASB)16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.1 Chronicles 16:34 (NASB)34 O give thanks to the LORD, for He is good;For His lovingkindness is everlasting.Philippians 4:13 (NASB)13 I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.Power To Change Ministry Rev. Alvin Lewis Powertochangeministry@gmail.Com Powertochangeministry.org 973-583-7482

Escaping Apostate Church Judgments (audio) David Eells 11/13/24 Escaping Judgment by Clean Works Anonymous. - 08/06/2007 (David's notes in red) I was in the second floor (the soul area) of a fairly huge house, which housed UBM ministry. I saw many different races, from different nations. We were all viewing through the glass window what was going on outside. (I.e., What was happening to the world and worldly church.) We were all not afraid. I saw a white tornado, which was like a very straight line with lightning emanating from it. It looked very fierce and the winds were extremely violent. Yet, we were all praising God. I was not too bothered about the tornado and went to the kitchen. I started washing my cup with a white cloth lying on the sink. My cup was not dirty to the naked eye but being meticulous, I took that cloth to clean it under running water. Next, I started to wash that cloth with a brush having golden bristles, in case the particles of dirt on my cup went on that small cloth. Interestingly, I did not know that David wanted that cloth. But he kept coming to the sink because he wanted that cloth but he was so humble and too polite to ask for it back from me. After I had finished scrubbing and washing that cloth, he came and collected that cloth back from me with a smile and started using it. I think the white tornado is the power of God going forth to straighten, cleanse and judge the church, which is not yet abiding in Him, for which we are celebrating. Nah.1:2 Jehovah is a jealous God and avengeth; Jehovah avengeth and is full of wrath; Jehovah taketh vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth [wrath] for his enemies. 3 Jehovah is slow to anger, and great in power, and will by no means clear [the guilty]: Jehovah hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. God controls the tornado, and His wrath is against the fleshly man who is ruling over His people. Only if our cup is clean are we delivered from this need for cleansing and judgment on ourselves. The cup that we drink from represents what we reap from God's hand through the world. A clean cup represents receiving righteousness and blessing from God without judgment. Babylon, as a type of the U.S. in Jer.25, brings the cup of wrath to the nations around God's people. Jer.25:15 For thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, unto me: take this cup of the wine of wrath at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it. 16 And they shall drink, and reel to and fro, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them. In A.A. Allen's vision God quoted from verses 27-29 to tell of the cup of wrath he would present to worldly U.S., typed as Babylon, and then the world. Allen saw a sword in the cup. Jer.25:27 And thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: Drink ye, and be drunken, and spew, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you. 28 And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at thy hand to drink, then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: Ye shall surely drink. 29 For, lo, I begin to work evil at the city which is called by my name; and should ye be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished; for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith Jehovah of hosts. Notice that the apostate people of God and their leadership, will receive the cup of judgment before the U.S. and the world are conquered by it. The water is the Word, but it is not as powerful to clean the cup through which we partake of without the work of clean hands, which the white cloth represents. Gal.6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. What is in the cup is what we reap and partake of. Jas.1:22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves. The gold-bristled brush may represent the valuable desire and work of holiness in our heart to clean up the work of our hands that we might escape the judgments to come.   Billions Swallowed By Death Anonymous - 12/15/2010 (David's notes in red) In October 2008, in the middle of the afternoon, I began having a horrible headache. It got so bad that I decided to lay down and spend time with the Lord and pray until it was gone. As soon as I laid down and closed my eyes, I had this vision: I was high above looking down onto this scene: A gigantic swirling black hole. It was violently swirling in a clockwise motion. There were millions upon millions of little, tiny ant-like objects all around it. They surrounded the hole 360 degrees -- not one little area was vacant. The Lord brought me closer so I could see it all clearly. My heart was so grieved when I saw what was happening. The little ant-like objects were people. People of all sizes, shapes and nationalities. Men, women and children. They were in the fetal position, being sucked into the giant swirling black hole. I opened my eyes and said, “Oh, Lord. What is this all about?” I just wanted to lay down and get rid of this headache. So, I closed my eyes again and saw the exact same vision. I got up, came into the den, headache forgotten. I sat looking out the window, seeking the Father. After a while, I asked, “Father, what is this all about?” I heard, “My people perish for lack of knowledge”. Hos.4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee ... This sent me to Isaiah 5:13-14. Now this really left me frozen in my chair. Isa.5:13 Therefore my people are gone into captivity for lack of knowledge; and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude are parched with thirst. 14 Therefore Sheol hath enlarged her mouth without measure; and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth among them descend into it. In the vision, the gigantic black hole was like an enlarged mouth swallowing people up! That's what left me frozen! It scared me. My heart was breaking for the people. I prayed and have grieved and prayed off and on over the years since this vision. I thought I was to send this about a year ago, but the Father shut it down. I have been feeling an urgency for about two weeks now to send this vision and today I am feeling that I must. Please help me to understand it entirely. If it is for such a time as this, praise the Lord! I believe the Lord was showing me the church today and the condition it's in. People being sucked, silently, with no screaming or yelling. Not even the slightest attempt to try to hold on somehow to keep from being sucked directly into hell. It's all pomp and programs and entertainment and watered-down scriptures to tickle their ears and glaze their eyes over. The people have been numbed and blinded by the leaders from the pulpit. What I don't understand is this: Why children? I thought children were not held accountable. Just as we enter the kingdom of God on Earth, we enter Sheol here. It is the place of the dead. Those who give themselves over to fleshly pleasure are dead while they live. 1Ti.5:6 But she that giveth herself to pleasure is dead while she liveth. From birth, man is beginning to be swallowed up by the curse of death. Psa.58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. The children escape it when they die in innocence but if they continue to mature they will be completely swallowed up. The only cure is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We need to tell them.   Prophetic Visions of Judgment A Prophetic Vision Given to Nita Johnson - January 27, 1989 [editor's notes in brackets] (David's notes in red)     I was awakened in the middle of the night. The Lord said to me, “Why do you think I gave you that vision of the United States?” I replied, “I don't know, Lord, why did you?” He then responded, “A surrogate mother won't work. Sarah could not be one to Ishmael. It's not My way”. As I was pondering what that could possibly mean, He followed with, “Only what is born of faith can work”. While the Lord gave birth to America's liberty and planted in her bosom a hope, He promised to be her protective covering if she would meet His conditions. He did not give birth to this sinful and rebellious nation. Although He has given birth to His church, a nation within a nation, He did not give birth to this antagonistic entity we call ‘America'. It was the blood, sweat and tears of man that gave it birth. Humanists swam in the womb with this nation and humanists have helped give it birth. They have nurtured it, coddled it and flaunted it as the son of their pride. On the other hand, it was the church who fought for the right of motherhood. She fought for the right to set up the rules and even discipline the spoiled child when it was bad. But she, alas, has only been “the surrogate mother for a rebellious Ishmael”. It was Sarah who wisely declared at last, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son, for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son!” However, while this is true, Abraham suffered over releasing Ishmael and sending him away. Even so, our Eternal Father suffers over the future of the people of America. He must cast away the rebellious but He does it with great pain. What America as a nation doesn't understand is that we have been reaping the benefits of the church's inheritance for over two hundred years. While the church has not been the model bride any more than Sarah had been a perfect wife, we the church are, nonetheless, God's bride and the spiritual nation of Israel. (By position the church is the bride but we must be made so by manifestation of Jesus in us. Those who manifest Zion will have its benefits. “Christ in you the hope of glory”.) So while the Lord loves His “spiritual Israel” (the church) and although He must even chastise His elect, He will cast out the irreverent Ishmael (Those in America who hate and persecute their brother.) Though God loves man, He hates sin and will cast out from the inheritance those that choose to serve sin. For these it might be said; He has little regard. May we also remember it was not God who first rejected America. Although He has stretched His arms out to us, we are the ones who have refused Him. So, fear not Church, that which is born of Earth will stand. God has in His judgment remembered mercy. What I'm about to share is the way in which God is going to, in effect, cast out this rebellious America He calls Ishmael. (He is casting them out now.) The process will begin while the church is still here. In fact, it has already begun and will continue until all is fully executed; I want to add one more thing before I share the vision the Bible tells us: And if you say in your [minds and] hearts, How shall we know which words the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or prove true, that is a word which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him. (Deu 18:21-22) So we are to judge the word which is spoken in the Lord's name by waiting to see if it comes to pass. If it does, we need to believe it and respond to God's warnings through it. (One caveat is that Jonah and Amos spoke words that did not come because the people repented and in the second because God had mercy.) The Vision: On January 27, 1989, I had been in a spirit of prayer all night and was finally just starting to dose off to sleep. Suddenly, I was fully awakened by a vision of a map of the United States. It was not a vision in my head but was what some call an open vision out in front of me. The map was in a silvery light and was completely sectioned off into states. just as suddenly as it had appeared, I heard a voice, as robust as the sound of many waters yet with great intensity, begin to give directions. Starting with the West Coast, the voice would speak and that same silvery light would shoot down from the direction of heaven like a laser beam onto the map. The light would follow the path directed by the voice and then effects would follow as I will explain. First, the voice cried out – “The West Coast, California, Oregon and Washington, starting from the southernmost tip all the way up to Seattle, will suffer natural disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, fire, and enemy attack.” The line shot up the map taking most of California and leaving only a small section that bordered on Arizona and Nevada. It went up through Oregon taking about half of that state and then on up through Washington, taking about one-third of that state, then out toward the ocean through Seattle. The minute the line touched Seattle, everything west of the line disappeared. The voice then cried out, “Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois will suffer natural disasters, such as floods, earthquakes and tornadoes, and enemy attack.” Immediately, this line started at about where Lansing, Michigan, is and fanned down in what became two lines going south first. Then one line swung back up easterly through Ohio, going out over the Great Lake Erie through Cleveland. The other line swung down through Indiana and then headed back up northwesterly and went out into Great Lake Michigan up by the way of the northeast corner of Illinois and out through Chicago. When it was done, it looked like two ‘U's, side by side. This affected areas all through the region, for instance, as far east as Detroit and easterly in Michigan to the Great Lake itself on the west. The whole southern part of the glove experienced cataclysmic results. Next, the voice called out, “Most of Louisiana and all of Texas will suffer natural disasters, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and enemy attack.” The line shot up through New Orleans east of Baton Rouge, up through Shreveport in a kind of wiggly way then cut off all of Texas. Texas disappeared. Louisiana experienced devastation but didn't disappear. I was ready for this to end, yet the Lord continued. “New York down through Pennsylvania, the Virginias, the eastern art of Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida will suffer natural disasters of every kind, hurricanes, flooding, earthquakes, etc. and enemy attack.” Then everything that was east of the line disappeared. The Lord continued, “The Grand Canyon will suffer natural disasters.” The line seemed to start at the bottom of the Grand Canyon heading northerly straight up to Montana through Yellowstone. This was also accompanied by cataclysmic disasters like floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, and fires. This affected a substantial area, including Arizona, Utah, western parts of Wyoming, the eastern tip of Idaho and southwestern part of Montana. The regions did not disappear, but experienced utter catastrophe. Then Missouri, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, West Tennessee, Kentucky, and on it went. There were severe heat waves, hailstorms, energy blackouts, severe snow and ice storms as well as extreme arctic cold spells to the loss of many lives. I saw it so often occur in some of the least likely areas. Famines, pestilence, plagues, and more. Nevada and Utah were all but destroyed through natural disasters of every kind and ultimately enemy attack. They did, however, remain on the map (Please note that I am not declaring that the states that disappeared fell off into the sea. I don't know why they disappeared, only that they did. Consequently, I am merely relating what I saw and not trying to interpret.) [Uninhabitable, or inhabited by invaders] (We have seen these very judgments come to pass in the recent years and more so currently so they may go to the end.) I was so dumbstruck that I felt numb, even bruised. It was hard for me to pull it all together in my mind. I just sat there in shock. Finally, I realized if I didn't write it down, I'd lose a lot of it as there was so much detail. So I wrote down what I could remember. Some states, such as New Mexico, were lost from my memory. I couldn't remember what happened to them, so I didn't record it. I distinctly remember, however, that the only part of the US that was not devastated was the Central United States, a region basically west of the Missouri River, as I have indicated on the map. I also realized that many of the things that would begin happening immediately would be of an unusual nature, such as natural disasters that would seem improbable or even impossible, at least for that particular geographical area. (The DS has been causing much of the “natural disasters” by manipulating the weather and fault lines.) I was instructed that this sequence of events would start immediately, picking up momentum with time until eventually the succession would be happening with gunshot rapidity, until all fulfilled. It's important to understand that the natural disasters did not specifically follow “the lines”, but the lines seemed to indicate the borders of the severely affected areas. The only one exception was the line that went up through the Grand Canyon north to Montana. In that case, the line seemed to symbolize the central core of action with a radiating aftermath both to the east and west. I saw natural disasters in Alaska and the Hawaiian Islands followed by warheads. (Nuclear war has been determined.) Finally, I saw a severe diminishing of our nation's military. Officers, and enlisted men, as well as the closing of many critical bases were part of the scenario. Our ability to defend ourselves was critically reduced, to a point of near ineffectiveness. (The Military cut down was not incorporated in this vision, but was seen many years ago.) (The DS has in fact reduced the military (and law enforcement by their defunding the police) through the Obama/Biden administrations through the vax and other divisive ways. The beast in mid-trib could do more.) These disasters have already begun, just as He said they would. Since that vision, there have been two earthquakes in California, terrible fires, hurricanes on the East Coast and Gulf Coast that did what all the meteorologists said could never happen. Flooding for the first time in history was recorded in a community in northern Ohio resulting in unusual deaths. There have been earthquakes near the Madrid fault line, and East Coast, floods and terrible disasters all over from tornados. Those are just a few instances, but hopefully, they're enough to drive the point home. These things are neither freak accidents, as some would have you believe, nor are they just satanic humor on mankind. Church, please realize that the Lord commanded everything that I saw hit the map. He also told me it was part of the sequential calamities which are warnings ultimately leading to full judgment assigned to this country. They are like blinking red lights along the path of judgment. Go back! Stop! Repent! The end is at hand! Will you hear? Will you pray? How in His great mercy would He gladly stop or minimize catastrophe for His praying church!   End Time Vision Daisy Osborn I lay sleepless and horrified, greatly vexed in the Spirit. The Lord visited and showed me things that will shortly come to pass. The JUDGMENT and WRATH of God will soon bring disaster and havoc to the world we live in. The DIE is CAST. God's clock is set. TIME is running out. 'In a VISION' I saw: the face of the earth and the changing of the shape of America. It was drastically altered and reduced in size through terrible disasters. Hunger and suffering were everywhere. The devastation caused by volcanic eruptions and fires were widespread and horrifying during this terrible holocaust. I saw Christians clustering together from all walks of life and many church affiliations. They did not care about their sectarian doctrines. The tie that bound them in their desperate hour, was their common faith in Christ. They clung together as though their survival depended upon each other. After these terrifying cataclysmic events which the Lord showed me, all the evils of sectarianism and apostasy vanished among the Christians desperate struggle to draw strength from one another. Those who had been lukewarm, cast aside besetting sins, and sought identity with the true believers. Cigarettes, pills, social drinkers, marital cheaters; were repented of and amends were made. A new sense of values gripped the conscience of Believers. The new morality standard and modern license for laxity was like a remorseful hangover. Most of the Christians in the “visitation” were amazed that WE “were experiencing” and WE were witnessing His WRATH and JUDGMENT!!! Many social Christians were ill-prepared. Their frivolous, unwatchful, imprudent lives had GAMBLED on Mercy & Grace, which they had thought required no reckoning---EVER!!! (Yes, many believe they will just fly away and not go through any tribulation.) I saw hordes (believers) lost among the religious and Christ Jesus rejecters. As I looked, I saw where mountains were flattened. Believers were FLEEING to the desert to take shelter in caves & rocks. The DESOLATION was so terrible that it seemed NO ONE would be spared. (Luke 21:34-36 (KJV) Matthew 24:20-22) All but a few were full of remorse. Lamentations could be heard everywhere. It was heartening to observe that during the FEARSOME DISASTERS-----UNSHAKABLE FAITH held like an ANCHOR among the Christians. They knew they would SOON see the SON coming in the clouds of heaven and with Power & Glory! (Daisy Osborn (now with the Lord) was the wife of Healing evangelist T.L. Osborn)   Judgment Begins at God's House B.A. - 06/11/2012 (David's note in red) I dreamed I was in my kitchen, preparing the evening meal (feasting on the Word of God as the days are growing darker), when I saw lightning streak across the sky and there was a clap of thunder so loud that it shook the entire house. (This was the Lord's voice sounding an alarm to His saints; get prepared, the storm is at hand. Psa.97:4 His lightnings lightened the world; The earth saw; and trembled. 114:7 Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, At the presence of the God of Jacob.) I went to the kitchen window and looked out and saw a large, dark storm cloud coming toward my house. As I stood looking at this cloud, I saw it start to form an unusual shape; it looked like a giant rolling pin. (A rolling pin is used to roll out and flatten out dough. I took this to mean judgment from the Lord and the dough represents the [leavened], apostate people of God getting ready to be judged (thrown in the oven) for their unrepentant sin.) 1Pe.4:17 For the time is come for judgment to begin at the house of God: and if it begin first at us, what shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God? Amo.3:2 You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities. 2Th.1:8 rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus. As I was meditating on this cloud, I heard a voice that appeared to be coming from over my head say, “Don't go out of the house until the storm is over”. (The house here is Jesus in Whom we must abide by repentance and faith in His blood, which is our covering and our new life. This will be the Passover judgment which, according to type, comes before the wilderness tribulation.) Exo.12:22 And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two side-posts with the blood that is in the basin; and none of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. 23 For Jehovah will pass through to smite the Egyptians (Those in the land who are not Christ-like); and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side-posts, Jehovah will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you. Isa.26:20 Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. And Heb.11:28 By faith he kept the Passover (Eating only Jesus, the unleavened bread of the Word.), and the sprinkling of the blood, that the destroyer of the firstborn should not touch them. You could tell this was no ordinary thunderstorm; this was a storm of “thunder judgment” (God has spoken it; He will bring it to pass.) Isa.46:11 calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country; yea, I have spoken, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed, I will also do it. I immediately went into my prayer closet and began to pray for all of my family (UBM) and all of God's people (Church) in the path of this storm. (We see now that this Passover judgment will affect the lost and all of God's people. I suspect this will come on the head of the beast, the U.S., but will secondarily affect the world through loss of influence, trade and economy.) I knew this storm was going to destroy houses in my neighborhood. Many of God's people have not heeded His warnings. They mock the dreams and visions He has given to His people to warn them and to prepare them ahead of this storm. Their blood is on their own hands! Eze.3:17 Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. 18 When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thy hand ... 20 Again, when a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thy hand. (The wicked leadership that does not hear and give the warnings will be held guilty of the blood of the saints. The faithful who have given the warning and been persecuted for it will be spared. Also, I believe this could mean that quakes and terrible side-effects, economic loss, etc., will judge the wicked who are gathered against the righteous. Remember, at the end of the Passover there was judgment at the Red Sea just before the wilderness tribulation.) After the storm was over, I decided to go outside and take a look at the damage. Sure enough, as I went up and down my street, many houses were completely destroyed; I couldn't even see where their foundations had been. (This represents reprobation.) Psa.11:3 If the foundations be destroyed, What can the righteous do? All evidence of those houses ever being there was completely gone. Jud.12 These are they who are hidden rocks in your love-feasts when they feast with you, shepherds that without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn leaves without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. (Although “shepherds” in this text has no numeric pattern, they are certainly included with the rest of the “hidden” fakes among us who “feed themselves” and must be separated through reprobation.) This is the reward of the wicked who would not repent. They were searched out by the Lord and spiritually destroyed. This will also be the portion of the factious who have ignored and scoffed at the Lord's messengers and refuse to repent. Some houses were badly damaged, but with a little elbow grease (the Lord's works) they could be completely restored. (Some of the factious people [and other sinners] will repent; they will come to recognize the mighty arm of the Lord in this storm and turn back to Him.) Rev.2:5 Remember therefore whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I come to thee, and will move thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent. (We have received dreams of individuals repenting because of judgment.) When I got back to my house (God's house), a man with his entire family was sitting on my front porch. The father stood up when he saw me and came up to me and asked if he and his family could stay with me, as their home had been damaged by the storm and wasn't safe. (Their house had not been built upon “the Rock”, Jesus). Mat.7:24 Every one therefore that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, who built his house upon the rock, 25 and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and if fell not: for it was founded upon the rock. (This represents a group of people who will repent through this chastening.) They noticed that my house had not been damaged by the storm. Heb.12:27 And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain. Not so much as a shingle had been disturbed on my house. They knew there had to be something special about my house. (She was representing the Bride.) It was the only house in the neighborhood that had no damage whatsoever. (Abiding in the secret place of the Most High, where are found all the promises of safety and provision. Psa.121:7 Jehovah will keep thee from all evil; He will keep thy soul.) The true people of God will be easy to recognize by people who are truly seeking after the truth. You won't see any evidence of the curse on them. Mat.7:20 Therefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Mat.5:14 Ye are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. ... 16 Even so let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. I knew the Lord had specifically sent this family to me to care for them, as they were survivors of the storm. Praise the Lord! (The Lord is restoring His family and the firstfruits will play a large role in this restoration process.) My heart felt such compassion for this family. I eagerly invited them into my home and gave them food and some fresh, clean water. After they had all eaten, I drew each of them a bath and gave them all clean clothes, and prepared a place for them to sleep. (This represents giving them the cure: the food, water and washing of the Word and the clothes of obedience to it and the rest of faith in God.)   Printer-friendly version     © 2017 UBM | Unleavened Bread Ministries. All rights reserved.    [ Fair Use Notice ]

There was a time when I could not stand the idea of exercise. I was tired of being on cholesterol and blood pressure medicine, and finally got to the place where I became desperate enough to get healthy. One of the first things I chose to do was join a gym, hire a trainer, and sign up for a 5K because I thought that if I did not train for it, I would die. So, I began running twice a week while I trained at the gym three times a week. What I learned soon after I started running was how important it was to have the right shoes. Because I grew up just outside of Philadelphia, we called anything that you could run around and play in: sneakers.Depending on where you grew up, you may know them as tennis shoes. Before I started running, I did not know that there were all types of sneakers depending on the kind of thing you liked to do. For those who like to run, you can pay to have your foot analyzed to determine if you need a neutral shoe (for those with a stable foot and normal or high arch). If you are a runner whose outer edge of your heel hits the ground first or Vis versa, then you might need to choose a more stable shoe. If you participate in track and field, you may need a shoe with spikes designed to be more lightweight. If you want a bit more cushion while running, there are cushioned running shoes. If you do not like the cushion and want to feel more of the ground while running, there is the minimalist running shoe. If you like running on trails, there is the trail running shoe. If you are an avid runner, and do not have the right shoes, you will develop pain in your knees, feet, thighs, etc. Needless to say, wearing the right shoes are important if you are a runner. Wearing the right shoes while hiking is important if you hike. Wearing the right shoes doing anything is important. Wearing the right shoes as a soldier is especially important for combat readiness, and the third piece of equipment belonging to Gods armor that we are told to put on is the shoes of the gospel of peace. What are the Shoes of Gospel Peace? Most translations insert the word shoe to make sense of the Greek. Shoes are assumed and the way it is translated in the NASB is the most literal of all the versions: ...and having strapped on your feet the preparation of the gospel of peace (v. 15). The English Standard Version translates the Greek in a way that really gets at the heart of the point that I believe Paul is attempting to make: as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. The question we need to answer is, for what purpose do the shoes of the gospel of peace serve? The Roman soldier was fitted with a type of sandal that was heavier than what civilians wore. The sole of the sandal was made with several layers of leather that were about of an inch thick with hollow-headed hobnail spikes on the bottom of the sole. The sandals a soldier of Rome wore were not designed for running but did allow him to keep his footing while standing against his enemy. The shoes Paul had in mind are the type that allowed a soldier to establish himself so that the enemy would not push him back. Now with that in mind, consider Ephesians 6:10-13, Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. So, if the shoes Paul had in mind are the type that allowed a soldier to firm up his stance before the enemy, what does it mean to put on the shoes of the gospel of peace for the Christian? I have read in a number of commentaries that to put on the shoes of the gospel of peace is Pauls way of saying that believers should always be ready to share the gospel.[1] I definitely believe that sharing the gospel is what Paul assumed would be the motive and desire of the Christian who has put on the full armor of God. After all, he was very much aware of Isaiah 52:7, which states: How delightful on the mountains are the feet of one who brings good news, who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation, and says to Zion, Your God reigns (Isa. 52:7). Jesus did say of His followers: You are the salt of the earth.... You are the light of the world (Matt. 5:13, 14). It is true that the only way people will hear of the gospel of Jesus Christ is if Christians everywhere tell them: But how are they to preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things (Rom. 10:15). However, is this the main point the apostle is making in Ephesians 6:15? I do not believe that it is. The shoes of the gospel of peace are the good news of Jesus Christ, but the good news of Jesus Christ is not only that he died for our sins and rose from the grave for the salvation of our souls. The good news that we are to strap onto our feet, includes Jesus death and resurrection; but it much more than that! How so? you ask. For starters, you need to consider the context of the shoes of the gospel of peace within Ephesians 6:10-18. Does Paul mean that we are to put on the shoes of the gospel of peace so that we can be ready and prepared to tell people about Jesus (see also Matt. 28:19-20; 1 Pet. 3:15)? If he did mean this, dont you think he would have written instead: strap upon your feet the preparation so that you can make known the gospel of peace? Instead, Paul tells us to put on the shoes of the gospel of peace so that we would be prepared... but prepared for what? Remember that the shoes of the Gospel of peace belong to the armor of God, and by wearing them, they prepare us for something. What is it that they prepare us for? This is where the context of a particular passage is so important! The gospel shoes of peace prepare us to stand firm against the devils schemes, they prepare us to resist on the evil day, the shoes of the gospel of peace prepare us to stand firm in the strength of the Lord! I think the New Living Translation is helpful on this point: For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared. What we are to strap onto our feet is the whole gospel and it is the shoes of the whole gospel that prepares us to stand firm as a Christian who has put on the full armor of God. Why are the Shoes of the Gospel of Peace Needed? Permit me answer why the shoes of the gospel of peace are needed and then I will unpack my answer for you. You must have the shoes of the gospel of peace securely fitted upon your feet because if you get the gospel wrong, your belt of truth and breastplate of righteousness will be compromised, and you will therefore be vulnerable when you stand before the enemy. So, what is the gospel? It is the good news that Jesus Christ, as the perfectly righteous Son of God, lived a perfectly obedient life to the Law of God on our behalf. That He died for our sins, triumphantly conquered the grave through His resurrection on the third day, and now stands victoriously as creations redeemer. Jesus is the Son of God If you get Jesus wrong, you will get the gospel wrong. There is no room for error when it comes to who Jesus is in relationship to what it means to trust and believe in Him! As the Son of God, Jesus had no beginning, and He will have no end. He is not a creature like us because He was and forever is eternally begotten of the Father in the sense He existed with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Of Jesus, the scriptures testify: 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 came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of mankind. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it (John 1:15). Jesus was sent by the Father to become fully human while remaining fully God by immaculate conception through Mary while she was a virgin, through whom the Son of God was born: And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). He is the One of whom the prophets spoke: For a Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us... and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6). By being born of a virgin, He became the righteous descendant of David who bears the name: The Lord Our Righteousness (see Jer. 23:5-6). If Jesus is not fully God and if He did not become also fully human, then there would not have been a fully qualified and fully capable redeemer for mankind and the rest of creation. Jesus is Our Redeemer As the Son of God, Jesus was the only One qualified to save sinners and reverse the curse of sin over all creation. Jesus is the Kinsmen-redeemer who met the three requirements to redeem what was lost when Adam and Eve rebelled against God on behalf of all humanity. The three requirements a kinsmen-redeemer was required to meet were that he had to be related to Adams race, he had to be willing to redeem what was lost by Adams race, and he had to have the means to redeem what was lost, which was not only humanity but all of creation under Adams headship. The only qualified kinsmen-redeemer who could provide what was needed for redemption had to be One who was both fully God and fully human. This is why Jesus took on flesh to become our kinsmen redeemer, and as our Kinsmen Redeemer, God, put all things in subjection under His feet, and made Him head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Eph. 1:22-23). Jesus is our Triumphant King Who is making all things new! The Bible says that Jesus is Gods Yes to all of His promises (2 Cor. 1:20), and His promises from Genesis through Revelation include not only the promise of redemption for sinful man, but the reversal of the curse of sin (Jer. 23:5-6; ), the defeat and destruction of the devil (Gen. 3:15; Rev. 20:1-10), and the resurrection and restoration of all things (2 Pet. 3:10-13). The gospel of peace that belongs to the armor of God is the gospel Peter wrote about to encourage suffering Christians to stand firm: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Pet. 1:35).Jerry Bridges was absolutely correct when he wrote in his magnificent book, The Discipline of Grace: The gospel is not only the most important message in all of history; it is the only essential message in all of history.[2] Listen, when you stand in the shoes of the gospel of peace, you stand in the reality and truth of all that the gospel is, and when you have strapped on your feet the preparation of the gospel of peace, you stand firm in all that the gospel is for you as one who has been redeemed by the blood of the perfect Lamb of God! When we stand with the gospel of peace securely strapped to our feet, we can say with Job in the midst of great suffering: Yet as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last, He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I will see God, whom I, on my part, shall behold for myself, and whom my eyes will see, and not another (Job 19:2527). When your feet are fitted with the gospel of the peace, you can respond to the uncertainties of life as the apostle Paul did: For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Phil. 1:21). When you put on the shoes of the gospel of peace, you can stand against the devils schemes knowing that because of Jesus, The Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will rejoice over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy (Zeph. 3:17). The gospel brings peace because not only does it promise our redemption, but it is the promise that Jesus is coming back and when He does, He will judge between the nations, and will mediate for many peoples; and they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning knives. Nation will not lift up a sword against nation, and never again will they learn war (Isa. 2:4). The gospel brings peace because we have Jesus, we can stand in the promise of knowing that whether in life or death, we who are the redeemed, will enter into the presence of God, with joyful shouting, and everlasting joy will be on our heads. We will obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away (Isa. 51:11). This is why the gospel is not something you leave and move onto deeper and better doctrines! You will never outgrow your need for the gospel. To take on the armor of God is to stand in the gospel, to walk in light of the gospel, to march to the drumbeat of the gospel, and to fight the fight of faith while standing in the reality and truth of all that the gospel is for you... the redeemed! This is why Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong (1 Cor. 16:13). When you put on the shoes of the gospel of peace, you will be compelled to proclaim all that the gospel is to you to the world around you because of the peace that it brings in preparing you to stand firm in the evil day. So, I leave you with the following questions in light of my sermon today: What shoes are you standing in right now? Are you standing in the full gospel of peace, firmly secured around your feet? How tight are your laces and are they tight enough so that you will not lose your footing as you, walking in a manor worthy of your calling (4:1)? Who do you know that really needs to hear about the peace that you have in Jesus? [1] Tony Merida, Exalting Jesus in Ephesians (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2014), 180. [2] Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress; 2006), p. 45.

There was a time when I could not stand the idea of exercise. I was tired of being on cholesterol and blood pressure medicine, and finally got to the place where I became desperate enough to get healthy. One of the first things I chose to do was join a gym, hire a trainer, and sign up for a 5K because I thought that if I did not train for it, I would die. So, I began running twice a week while I trained at the gym three times a week. What I learned soon after I started running was how important it was to have the right shoes. Because I grew up just outside of Philadelphia, we called anything that you could run around and play in: sneakers.Depending on where you grew up, you may know them as tennis shoes. Before I started running, I did not know that there were all types of sneakers depending on the kind of thing you liked to do. For those who like to run, you can pay to have your foot analyzed to determine if you need a neutral shoe (for those with a stable foot and normal or high arch). If you are a runner whose outer edge of your heel hits the ground first or Vis versa, then you might need to choose a more stable shoe. If you participate in track and field, you may need a shoe with spikes designed to be more lightweight. If you want a bit more cushion while running, there are cushioned running shoes. If you do not like the cushion and want to feel more of the ground while running, there is the minimalist running shoe. If you like running on trails, there is the trail running shoe. If you are an avid runner, and do not have the right shoes, you will develop pain in your knees, feet, thighs, etc. Needless to say, wearing the right shoes are important if you are a runner. Wearing the right shoes while hiking is important if you hike. Wearing the right shoes doing anything is important. Wearing the right shoes as a soldier is especially important for combat readiness, and the third piece of equipment belonging to Gods armor that we are told to put on is the shoes of the gospel of peace. What are the Shoes of Gospel Peace? Most translations insert the word shoe to make sense of the Greek. Shoes are assumed and the way it is translated in the NASB is the most literal of all the versions: ...and having strapped on your feet the preparation of the gospel of peace (v. 15). The English Standard Version translates the Greek in a way that really gets at the heart of the point that I believe Paul is attempting to make: as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. The question we need to answer is, for what purpose do the shoes of the gospel of peace serve? The Roman soldier was fitted with a type of sandal that was heavier than what civilians wore. The sole of the sandal was made with several layers of leather that were about of an inch thick with hollow-headed hobnail spikes on the bottom of the sole. The sandals a soldier of Rome wore were not designed for running but did allow him to keep his footing while standing against his enemy. The shoes Paul had in mind are the type that allowed a soldier to establish himself so that the enemy would not push him back. Now with that in mind, consider Ephesians 6:10-13, Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. So, if the shoes Paul had in mind are the type that allowed a soldier to firm up his stance before the enemy, what does it mean to put on the shoes of the gospel of peace for the Christian? I have read in a number of commentaries that to put on the shoes of the gospel of peace is Pauls way of saying that believers should always be ready to share the gospel.[1] I definitely believe that sharing the gospel is what Paul assumed would be the motive and desire of the Christian who has put on the full armor of God. After all, he was very much aware of Isaiah 52:7, which states: How delightful on the mountains are the feet of one who brings good news, who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation, and says to Zion, Your God reigns (Isa. 52:7). Jesus did say of His followers: You are the salt of the earth.... You are the light of the world (Matt. 5:13, 14). It is true that the only way people will hear of the gospel of Jesus Christ is if Christians everywhere tell them: But how are they to preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things (Rom. 10:15). However, is this the main point the apostle is making in Ephesians 6:15? I do not believe that it is. The shoes of the gospel of peace are the good news of Jesus Christ, but the good news of Jesus Christ is not only that he died for our sins and rose from the grave for the salvation of our souls. The good news that we are to strap onto our feet, includes Jesus death and resurrection; but it much more than that! How so? you ask. For starters, you need to consider the context of the shoes of the gospel of peace within Ephesians 6:10-18. Does Paul mean that we are to put on the shoes of the gospel of peace so that we can be ready and prepared to tell people about Jesus (see also Matt. 28:19-20; 1 Pet. 3:15)? If he did mean this, dont you think he would have written instead: strap upon your feet the preparation so that you can make known the gospel of peace? Instead, Paul tells us to put on the shoes of the gospel of peace so that we would be prepared... but prepared for what? Remember that the shoes of the Gospel of peace belong to the armor of God, and by wearing them, they prepare us for something. What is it that they prepare us for? This is where the context of a particular passage is so important! The gospel shoes of peace prepare us to stand firm against the devils schemes, they prepare us to resist on the evil day, the shoes of the gospel of peace prepare us to stand firm in the strength of the Lord! I think the New Living Translation is helpful on this point: For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared. What we are to strap onto our feet is the whole gospel and it is the shoes of the whole gospel that prepares us to stand firm as a Christian who has put on the full armor of God. Why are the Shoes of the Gospel of Peace Needed? Permit me answer why the shoes of the gospel of peace are needed and then I will unpack my answer for you. You must have the shoes of the gospel of peace securely fitted upon your feet because if you get the gospel wrong, your belt of truth and breastplate of righteousness will be compromised, and you will therefore be vulnerable when you stand before the enemy. So, what is the gospel? It is the good news that Jesus Christ, as the perfectly righteous Son of God, lived a perfectly obedient life to the Law of God on our behalf. That He died for our sins, triumphantly conquered the grave through His resurrection on the third day, and now stands victoriously as creations redeemer. Jesus is the Son of God If you get Jesus wrong, you will get the gospel wrong. There is no room for error when it comes to who Jesus is in relationship to what it means to trust and believe in Him! As the Son of God, Jesus had no beginning, and He will have no end. He is not a creature like us because He was and forever is eternally begotten of the Father in the sense He existed with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Of Jesus, the scriptures testify: 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 came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of mankind. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it (John 1:15). Jesus was sent by the Father to become fully human while remaining fully God by immaculate conception through Mary while she was a virgin, through whom the Son of God was born: And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). He is the One of whom the prophets spoke: For a Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us... and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6). By being born of a virgin, He became the righteous descendant of David who bears the name: The Lord Our Righteousness (see Jer. 23:5-6). If Jesus is not fully God and if He did not become also fully human, then there would not have been a fully qualified and fully capable redeemer for mankind and the rest of creation. Jesus is Our Redeemer As the Son of God, Jesus was the only One qualified to save sinners and reverse the curse of sin over all creation. Jesus is the Kinsmen-redeemer who met the three requirements to redeem what was lost when Adam and Eve rebelled against God on behalf of all humanity. The three requirements a kinsmen-redeemer was required to meet were that he had to be related to Adams race, he had to be willing to redeem what was lost by Adams race, and he had to have the means to redeem what was lost, which was not only humanity but all of creation under Adams headship. The only qualified kinsmen-redeemer who could provide what was needed for redemption had to be One who was both fully God and fully human. This is why Jesus took on flesh to become our kinsmen redeemer, and as our Kinsmen Redeemer, God, put all things in subjection under His feet, and made Him head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Eph. 1:22-23). Jesus is our Triumphant King Who is making all things new! The Bible says that Jesus is Gods Yes to all of His promises (2 Cor. 1:20), and His promises from Genesis through Revelation include not only the promise of redemption for sinful man, but the reversal of the curse of sin (Jer. 23:5-6; ), the defeat and destruction of the devil (Gen. 3:15; Rev. 20:1-10), and the resurrection and restoration of all things (2 Pet. 3:10-13). The gospel of peace that belongs to the armor of God is the gospel Peter wrote about to encourage suffering Christians to stand firm: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Pet. 1:35).Jerry Bridges was absolutely correct when he wrote in his magnificent book, The Discipline of Grace: The gospel is not only the most important message in all of history; it is the only essential message in all of history.[2] Listen, when you stand in the shoes of the gospel of peace, you stand in the reality and truth of all that the gospel is, and when you have strapped on your feet the preparation of the gospel of peace, you stand firm in all that the gospel is for you as one who has been redeemed by the blood of the perfect Lamb of God! When we stand with the gospel of peace securely strapped to our feet, we can say with Job in the midst of great suffering: Yet as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last, He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I will see God, whom I, on my part, shall behold for myself, and whom my eyes will see, and not another (Job 19:2527). When your feet are fitted with the gospel of the peace, you can respond to the uncertainties of life as the apostle Paul did: For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Phil. 1:21). When you put on the shoes of the gospel of peace, you can stand against the devils schemes knowing that because of Jesus, The Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will rejoice over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy (Zeph. 3:17). The gospel brings peace because not only does it promise our redemption, but it is the promise that Jesus is coming back and when He does, He will judge between the nations, and will mediate for many peoples; and they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning knives. Nation will not lift up a sword against nation, and never again will they learn war (Isa. 2:4). The gospel brings peace because we have Jesus, we can stand in the promise of knowing that whether in life or death, we who are the redeemed, will enter into the presence of God, with joyful shouting, and everlasting joy will be on our heads. We will obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away (Isa. 51:11). This is why the gospel is not something you leave and move onto deeper and better doctrines! You will never outgrow your need for the gospel. To take on the armor of God is to stand in the gospel, to walk in light of the gospel, to march to the drumbeat of the gospel, and to fight the fight of faith while standing in the reality and truth of all that the gospel is for you... the redeemed! This is why Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong (1 Cor. 16:13). When you put on the shoes of the gospel of peace, you will be compelled to proclaim all that the gospel is to you to the world around you because of the peace that it brings in preparing you to stand firm in the evil day. So, I leave you with the following questions in light of my sermon today: What shoes are you standing in right now? Are you standing in the full gospel of peace, firmly secured around your feet? How tight are your laces and are they tight enough so that you will not lose your footing as you, walking in a manor worthy of your calling (4:1)? Who do you know that really needs to hear about the peace that you have in Jesus? [1] Tony Merida, Exalting Jesus in Ephesians (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2014), 180. [2] Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress; 2006), p. 45.

Comparing the Hebrew of Isaiah 9.6 to most popular English translations results in some serious questions. Why have our translations changed the tense of the verbs from past to future? Why is this child called “Mighty God” and “Eternal Father”? In this presentation I work through Isaiah 9.6 line by line to help you understand the Hebrew. Next I look at interpretive options for the child as well as his complicated name. Not only will this presentation strengthen your understanding of Isaiah 9.6, but it will also equip you to explain it to others. Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts —— Links —— See my other articles here Check out my class: One God Over All Get the transcript of this episode Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read Sean’s bio here Below is the paper presented on October 18, 2024 in Little Rock, Arkansas at the 4th annual UCA Conference. Access this paper on Academia.edu to get the pdf. Full text is below, including bibliography and end notes. Abstract Working through the grammar and syntax, I present the case that Isaiah 9:6 is the birth announcement of a historical child. After carefully analyzing the name given to the child and the major interpretive options, I make a case that the name is theophoric. Like the named children of Isaiah 7 and 8, the sign-child of Isaiah 9 prophecies what God, not the child, will do. Although I argue for Hezekiah as the original fulfillment, I also see Isaiah 9:6 as a messianic prophecy of the true and better Hezekiah through whom God will bring eternal deliverance and peace. Introduction Paul D. Wegner called Isaiah 9:6[1] “one of the most difficult problems in the study of the Old Testament.”[2] To get an initial handle on the complexities of this text, let's begin briefly by comparing the Hebrew to a typical translation. Isaiah 9:6 (BHS[3]) כִּי־יֶ֣לֶד יֻלַּד־לָ֗נוּ בֵּ֚ן נִתַּן־לָ֔נוּ וַתְּהִ֥י הַמִּשְׂרָ֖ה עַל־שִׁכְמ֑וֹ וַיִּקְרָ֨א שְׁמ֜וֹ פֶּ֠לֶא יוֹעֵץ֙ אֵ֣ל גִּבּ֔וֹר אֲבִיעַ֖ד שַׂר־שָׁלֽוֹם׃ Isaiah 9:6 (ESV) 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. Curiosities abound in the differences between these two. The first two clauses in English, “For to us a child is born” and “to us a son is given,” employ the present tense while the Hebrew uses the perfect tense, i.e. “to us a child has been born.”[4] This has a significant bearing on whether we take the prophecy as a statement about a child already born in Isaiah's time or someone yet to come (or both). The ESV renders the phrase,וַיִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ  (vayikra sh'mo), as “and his name shall be called,” but the words literally mean “and he called his name” where the “he” is unspecified. This leaves room for the possibility of identifying the subject of the verb in the subsequent phrase, i.e. “And the wonderful counselor, the mighty God called his name…” as many Jewish translations take it.  Questions further abound regardingאֵל גִּבּוֹר (el gibbor), which finds translations as disparate as the traditional “Mighty God”[5] to “divine warrior”[6] to “in battle God-like”[7] to “Mighty chief”[8] to “Godlike hero,”[9] to Luther's truncated “Held.”[10]  Another phrase that elicits a multiplicity of translations is אֲבִיעַד (aviad). Although most versions read “Eternal Father,”[11] others render the word, “Father-Forever,”[12] “Father for all time,”[13] “Father of perpetuity,”[14] “Father of the Eternal Age,”[15] and “Father of Future.”[16] Translators from a range of backgrounds struggle with these two phrases. Some refuse to translate them at all, preferring clunky transliterations.[17] Still, as I will show below, there's a better way forward. If we understand that the child had a theophoric name—a name that is not about him, but about God—our problems dissipate like morning fog before the rising sun. Taking the four pairs of words this way yields a two-part sentence name. As we'll see this last approach is not only the best contextual option, but it also allows us to take the Hebrew vocabulary, grammar, and syntax at face value, rather than succumbing to strained translations and interpretational gymnastics. In the end, we're left with a text literally rendered and hermeneutically robust. Called or Will Call His Name? Nearly all the major Christian versions translate וַיִּקְרָא (vayikra), “he has called,” as “he will be called.” This takes an active past tense verb as a passive future tense.[18] What is going on here? Since parents typically give names at birth or shortly thereafter, it wouldn't make sense to suggest the child was already born (as the beginning of Isa 9:6 clearly states), but then say he was not yet named. Additionally, וַיִּקְרָא (vayikra) is a vav-conversive plus imperfect construction that continues the same timing sequence of the preceding perfect tense verbs.[19] If the word were passive (niphal binyan) we would read וַיִּקָּרֵא (vayikarey) instead of וַיִּקְרָא (vayikra). Although some have suggested an emendation of the Masoretic vowels to make this change, Hugh Williamson notes, “there is no overriding need to prefer it.”[20] Translators may justify rendering the perfect tense as imperfect due to the idiom called a prophetic past tense (perfectum propheticum). Wilhelm Gesenius notes the possibility that a prophet “so transports himself in imagination into the future that he describes the future event as if it had been already seen or heard by him.”[21] Bruce Waltke recognizes the phenomenon, calling it an accidental perfective in which “a speaker vividly and dramatically represents a future situation both as complete and independent.”[22] Still, it's up to the interpreter to determine if Isaiah employs this idiom or not. The verbs of verse 6 seem quite clear: “a child has been born for us … and the government was on his shoulder … and he has called his name…” When Isaiah uttered this prophecy, the child had already been born and named and the government rested on his shoulders. This is the straightforward reading of the grammar and therefore should be our starting point.[23] Hezekiah as the Referent One of the generally accepted principles of hermeneutics is to first ask the question, “What did this text mean in its original context?” before asking, “What does this text mean to us today?” When we examine the immediate context of Isa 9:6, we move beyond the birth announcement of a child with an exalted name to a larger prophecy of breaking the yoke of an oppressor (v4) and the ushering in of a lasting peace for the throne of David (v7). Isaiah lived in a tumultuous time. He saw the northern kingdom—the nation of Israel—uprooted from her land and carried off by the powerful and cruel Assyrian Empire. He prophesied about a child whose birth had signaled the coming freedom God would bring from the yoke of Assyria. As Jewish interpreters have long pointed out, Hezekiah nicely fits this expectation.[24] In the shadow of this looming storm, Hezekiah became king and instituted major religious reforms,[25] removing idolatry and turning the people to Yahweh. The author of kings gave him high marks: “He trusted in Yahweh, the God of Israel. After him there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah nor among those who were before him” (2 Kgs 18:5).[26] Then, during Hezekiah's reign, Sennacherib sent a large army against Judea and laid siege to Jerusalem. Hezekiah appropriately responded to the threatening Assyrian army by tearing his clothes, covering himself with sackcloth, and entering the temple to pray (2 Kings 19:1). He sent word to Isaiah, requesting prayer for the dire situation. Ultimately God brought miraculous deliverance, killing 185,000 Assyrians, which precipitated a retreat. There had not been such an acute military deliverance since the destruction of Pharaoh's army in the sea. Indeed, Hezekiah's birth did signal God's coming deliverance. In opposition to Hezekiah as the referent for Isa 9:6, Christian interpreters have pointed out that Hezekiah did not fulfill this prophecy en toto. Specifically, Hezekiah did not usher in “an endless peace” with justice and righteousness “from this time onward and forevermore” (Isa. 9:7). But, as John Roberts points out, the problem only persists if we ignore prophetic hyperbole. Here's what he says: If Hezekiah was the new king idealized in this oracle, how could Isaiah claim he would reign forever? How could Isaiah so ignore Israel's long historical experience as to expect no new source of oppression would ever arise? The language, as is typical of royal ideology, is hyperbolic, and perhaps neither Isaiah nor his original audience would have pushed it to its limits, beyond its conventional frames of reference, but the language itself invites such exploitation. If one accepts God's providential direction of history, it is hard to complain about the exegetical development this exploitation produced.[27] Evangelical scholar Ben Witherington III likewise sees a reference to both Hezekiah and a future deliverer. He writes, “[T]he use of the deliberately hyperbolic language that the prophet knew would not be fulfilled in Hezekiah left open the door quite deliberately to look for an eschatological fulfillment later.”[28] Thus, even if Isaiah's prophecy had an original referent, it left the door open for a true and better Hezekiah, who would not just defeat Assyria, but all evil, and not just for a generation, but forever. For this reason, it makes sense to take a “both-and” approach to Isa 9:6. Who Called His Name? Before going on to consider the actual name given to the child, we must consider the subject of the word וַיִּקְרָא (vayikra), “and he called.” Jewish interpreters have and continue to take אֵל גִבּוֹר (el gibbor), “Mighty God,” as the subject of this verb. Here are a few examples of this rendering: Targum Jonathan (2nd century) And his name has been called from before the One Who Causes Wonderful Counsel, God the Warrior, the Eternally Existing One—the Messiah who will increase peace upon us in his days.[29] Shlomo Yitzchaki (11th century) The Holy One, blessed be He, Who gives wondrous counsel, is a mighty God and an everlasting Father, called Hezekiah's name, “the prince of peace,” since peace and truth will be in his days.[30] Jacob ben Isaac Ashkenazi (16th century) “For a child is born to us.” A son will be born and this is Hezekiah. Though Ahaz is an evildoer, his son Hezekiah will be a righteous king. He will be strong in his service of the Holy One. He will study Torah and the Holy One will call him, “eternal father, peaceful ruler.” In his days there will be peace and truth.[31] The Stone Edition of the Tanach (20th century) The Wondrous Adviser, Mighty God, Eternal Father, called his name Sar-shalom [Prince of Peace][32] Although sometimes Christian commentators blithely accuse Jewish scholars of avoiding the implications of calling the child “Mighty God” and “Eternal Father,” the grammar does allow multiple options here. The main question is whether Isaiah specified the subject of the verb וַיִקְרָ (vayikra) or not. If he has, then the subject must be אֵל גִבּוֹר (el gibbor). If he has not, then the subject must be indefinite (i.e. “he” or “one”). What's more, the Masoretic punctuation of the Hebrew suggests the translation, “and the Wonderful Adviser, the Mighty God called his name, ‘Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace'”[33] However, Keil and Delitzsch point out problems with this view on both grammatical and contextual grounds. They write: [I]t is impossible to conceive for what precise reason such a periphrastic description of God should be employed in connection with the naming of this child, as is not only altogether different from Isaiah's usual custom, but altogether unparalleled in itself, especially without the definite article. The names of God should at least have been defined thus, הַיּוֹעֵץ פֵּלֶא הַגִּבּוֹר, so as to distinguish them from the two names of the child.”[34] Thus, though the Masoretic markings favor the Jewish translation, the grammar doesn't favor taking “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God” as the subject. It's certainly not impossible, but it is a strained reading without parallels in Isaiah and without justification in the immediate context. Let's consider another possibility. His Name Has Been Called Instead of taking אֵל גִּבּוֹר (el gibbor) as the subject, we can posit an indefinite subject for וַיִקְרָ (vayikra): “one has called.” Examples of this outside of Isaiah 9:6 include Gen 11:9; 25:26; Exod 15:23; and 2 Sam 2:16. The phenomenon appears in Gesenius (§144d) and Joüon and Muraoka (§155e), both of which include our text as examples. However, the translation “one has called his name” is awkward in English due to our lack of a generic pronoun like on in French or man in German. Accordingly, most translations employ the passive construction: “his name has been called,” omitting the subject.[35] This is apparently also how those who produced the Septuagint (LXX) took the Hebrew text, employing a passive rather than an active verb.[36] In conclusion, the translation “his name has been called” works best in English. Mighty Hero Now we broach the question of how to render אֵל גִּבּוֹר el gibbor. As I've already noted, a few translations prefer “mighty hero.” But this reading is problematic since it takes the two words in reverse order. Although in English we typically put an adjective before the noun it modifies, in Hebrew the noun comes first and then any adjectives that act upon it. Taking the phrase as אֵל גִּבּוֹר (gibbor el) makes “mighty” the noun and “God” the adjective. Now since the inner meaning of אֵל (el) is “strong” or “mighty,” and גִּבּוֹר gibbor means “warrior” or “hero,” we can see how translators end up with “mighty warrior” or “divine hero.” Robert Alter offers the following explanation: The most challenging epithet in this sequence is ‘el gibor [sic], which appears to say “warrior-god.” The prophet would be violating all biblical usage if he called the Davidic king “God,” and that term is best construed here as some sort of intensifier. In fact, the two words could conceivably be a scribal reversal of gibor ‘el, in which case the second word would clearly function as a suffix of intensification as it occasionally does elsewhere in the Bible.[37] Please note that Alter's motive for reversing the two words is that the text, as it stands, would violate all biblical usage by calling the Davidic king “God.” But Alter is incorrect. We have another biblical usage calling the Davidic king “God” in Psalm 45:6. We must allow the text to determine interpretation. Changing translation for the sake of theology is allowing the tail to wag the dog. Another reason to doubt “divine warrior” as a translation is that “Wherever ʾēl gibbôr occurs elsewhere in the Bible there is no doubt that the term refers to God (10:21; cf. also Deut. 10:17; Jer. 32:18),” notes John Oswalt.[38] Keil and Delitzsch likewise see Isa 10:21 as the rock upon which these translations suffer shipwreck.[39] “A remnant will return,” says Isa 10:21, “the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.” The previous verse makes it clear that “mighty God” refers to none other than “Yahweh, the holy one of Israel.” Without counter examples elsewhere in the Bible, we lack the basis to defy the traditional ordering of “God” as the noun and “mighty” or “warrior” as the adjective.[40] Mighty God-Man Did Isaiah foresee a human child who would also be the mighty God? Did he suddenly get “a glimpse of the fact that in the fullness of the Godhead there is a plurality of Persons,” as Edward Young thought?[41] Although apologists seeking to prove the deity of Christ routinely push for this reading, other evangelical scholars have expressed doubts about such a bold interpretation.[42] Even Keil and Delitzsch, after zealously batting away Jewish alternatives, admit Isaiah's language would not have suggested an incarnate deity in its original context.[43] Still, it would not be anachronistic to regard a king as a deity in the context of the ancient Near East. We find such exalted language in parallels from Egypt and Assyria in their accession oracles (proclamations given at the time a new king ascends the throne). Taking their cue from the Egyptian practices of bestowing divine throne names upon the Pharaoh's accession to the throne, G. von Rad and A. Alt envisioned a similar practice in Jerusalem. Although quite influential, Wegner has pointed out several major problems with this way of looking at our text: (1) the announcement is to the people in Isa 9:6, not the king; (2) Isa 9:6 does not use adoption language nor call the child God's son; (3) יֶלֶד (yeled), “child,” is never used in accession oracles; (4) the Egyptian parallels have five titles not four as in Isa 9:6; (5) Egyptians employ a different structure for accession oracles than Isa 9:6; and (6) we have no evidence elsewhere that Judean kings imitated the Egyptian custom of bestowing divine titles.[44] Another possibility, argued by R. A. Carlson, is to see the names as anti-Assyrian polemic.[45] Keeping in mind that Assyria was constantly threatening Judah in the lifetime of Isaiah and that the child born was to signal deliverance, it would be no surprise that Isaiah would cast the child as a deliberate counter-Assyrian hero. Still, as Oswalt points out, “[T]he Hebrews did not believe this [that their kings were gods]. They denied that the king was anything more than the representative of God.”[46] Owing to a lack of parallels within Israel and Isaiah's own penchant for strict monotheism,[47] interpreting Isa 9:6 as presenting a God-man is ad hoc at best and outright eisegesis at worst. Furthermore, as I've already noted, the grammar of the passage indicates a historical child who was already born. Thus, if Isaiah meant to teach the deity of the child, we'd have two God-men: Hezekiah and Jesus. Far from a courtly scene of coronation, Wegner makes the case that our text is really a birth announcement in form. Birth announcements have (1) a declaration of the birth, (2) an announcement of the child's name, (3) an explanation of what the name means, and (4) a further prophecy about the child's future.[48] These elements are all present in Isa 9:6, making it a much better candidate for a birth announcement than an accession or coronation oracle. As a result, we should not expect divine titles given to the king like when the Pharaohs or Assyrian kings ascended the throne; instead, we ought to look for names that somehow relate to the child's career. We will delve more into this when we broach the topic of theophoric names. Mighty God's Agent Another possibility is to retain the traditional translation of “mighty God” and see the child as God's agent who bears the title. In fact, the Bible calls Moses[49] and the judges[50] of Israel אֱלֹהִים (elohim), “god(s),” due to their role in representing God. Likewise, as I've already mentioned, the court poet called the Davidic King “god” in Ps 45:6. Additionally, the word אֵל (el), “god,” refers to representatives of Yahweh whether divine (Ps 82:1, 6) or human (John 10.34ff).[51] Thus, Isa 9:6 could be another case in which a deputized human acting as God's agent is referred to as God. The NET nicely explains: [H]aving read the NT, we might in retrospect interpret this title as indicating the coming king's deity, but it is unlikely that Isaiah or his audience would have understood the title in such a bold way. Ps 45:6 addresses the Davidic king as “God” because he ruled and fought as God's representative on earth. …When the king's enemies oppose him on the battlefield, they are, as it were, fighting against God himself.[52] Raymond Brown admits that this “may have been looked on simply as a royal title.”[53] Likewise Williamson sees this possibility as “perfectly acceptable,” though he prefers the theophoric approach.[54] Even the incarnation-affirming Keil and Delitzsch recognize that calling the child אֵל גִּבּוֹר (el gibbor) is “nothing further…than this, that the Messiah would be the image of God as no other man ever had been (cf., El, Ps. 82:1), and that He would have God dwelling within Him (cf., Jer. 33:16).”[55] Edward L. Curtis similarly points out that had Isaiah meant to teach that the child would be an incarnation of Yahweh, he would have “further unfolded and made central this thought” throughout his book.[56] He likewise sees Isa 9:6 not as teaching “the incarnation of a deity” but as a case “not foreign to Hebrew usage to apply divine names to men of exalted position,” citing Exod 21:6 and Ps 82:6 as parallels.[57] Notwithstanding the lexical and scholarly support for this view, not to mention my own previous position[58] on Isa 9:6, I'm no longer convinced that this is the best explanation. It's certainly possible to call people “Gods” because they are his agents, but it is also rare. We'll come to my current view shortly, but for now, let's approach the second controversial title. Eternal Father The word אֲבִיעַד (aviad), “Eternal Father,” is another recognizable appellative for Yahweh. As I mentioned in the introduction, translators have occasionally watered down the phrase, unwilling to accept that a human could receive such a title. But humans who pioneer an activity or invent something new are fathers.[59] Walking in someone's footsteps is metaphorically recognizing him as one's father.[60] Caring for others like a father is yet another way to think about it.[61] Perhaps the child is a father in one of these figurative senses. If we follow Jerome and translate אֲבִיעַד (aviad) as Pater futuri saeculi, “Father of the future age,” we can reconfigure the title, “Eternal Father,” from eternal without beginning to eternal with a beginning but without an end. However, notes Williamson, “There is no parallel to calling the king ‘Father,' rather the king is more usually designated as God's son.”[62] Although we find Yahweh referred to as “Father” twice in Isaiah (Isa 63:16; 64:7), and several more times throughout the Old Testament,[63] the Messiah is not so called. Even in the New Testament we don't see the title applied to Jesus. Although not impossible to be taken as Jesus's fatherly role to play in the age to come, the most natural way to take אֲבִיעַד (aviad) is as a reference to Yahweh. In conclusion, both “mighty God” and “eternal Father” most naturally refer to Yahweh and not the child. If this is so, why is the child named with such divine designations? A Theophoric Name Finally, we are ready to consider the solution to our translation and interpretation woes. Israelites were fond of naming their kids with theophoric names (names that “carry God”). William Holladay explains: Israelite personal names were in general of two sorts. Some of them were descriptive names… But most Israelite personal names were theophoric; that is, they involve a name or title or designation of God, with a verb or adjective or noun which expresses a theological affirmation. Thus “Hezekiah” is a name which means “Yah (= Yahweh) is my strength,” and “Isaiah” is a name which means “Yah (= Yahweh) has brought salvation.” It is obvious that Isaiah is not called “Yahweh”; he bears a name which says something about Yahweh.[64] As Holladay demonstrates, when translating a theophoric name, it is customary to supplement the literal phrase with the verb, “to be.” Hezekiah = “Yah (is) my strength”; Isaiah = “Yah (is) salvation.” Similarly, Elijah means “My God (is) Yah” and Eliab, “My God (is the) Father.” Theophoric names are not about the child; they are about the God of the parents. When we imagine Elijah's mother calling him for dinner, she's literally saying “My God (is) Yah(weh), it's time for dinner.” The child's name served to remind her who her God was. Similarly, these other names spoke of God's strength, salvation, and fatherhood. To interpret the named child of Isa 9:6 correctly, we must look at the previously named children in Isa 7 and 8. In chapter 7 the boy is called “Immanuel,” meaning “God (is) with us” (Isa 7:14). This was a historical child who signaled prophecy. Isaiah said, “For before the boy knows to reject evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be abandoned” (Isa 7:16). In Isa 8:1 we encounter “Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz,” or “The spoil speeds, the prey hastens.”[65] This child has a two-sentence name with an attached prophecy: “For before the boy calls, ‘my father' or ‘my mother,' the strength of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off before the king of Assyria” (Isa 8:4). Both children's sign names did not describe them nor what they would do, but what God would do for his people. Immanuel is a statement of faith. The name means God has not abandoned his people; they can confidently say, “God is with us” (Isa 8:10). Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz does not mean that the child would become a warrior to sack Damascus and seize her spoils, but that God would bring about the despoiling of Judah's enemy. When we encounter a third sign-named child in as many chapters, we are on solid contextual grounds to see this new, longer name in the same light. Isaiah prophecies that this child has the government upon his shoulder, sits on the throne of David, and will establish a lasting period of justice and righteousness (Isa 9:5, 7). This child bears the name “Pele-Yoets-El-Gibbor-Aviad-Sar-Shalom.” The name describes his parents' God, the mighty God, the eternal Father. Although this perspective has not yet won the day, it is well attested in a surprising breadth of resources. Already in 1867, Samuel David Luzzatto put forward this position.[66] The Jewish Publication Society concurred in their 2014 study Bible: Semitic names often consist of sentences that describe God … These names do not describe that person who holds them but the god whom the parents worship. Similarly, the name given to the child in this v. does not describe that child or attribute divinity to him, but describes God's actions.[67] The New Oxford Annotated Bible (NRSV) footnote on Isa. 9:6 says, “As in many Israelite personal names, the deity, not the person named, is being described.”[68] Additional scholars advocating the view also include Holladay (1978), Wegner (1992), Goldingay (1999, 2015), and Williamson (2018). Even so, Keil and Delitzsch eschew “such a sesquipedalian name,” calling it “unskillful,” and arguing that it would be impractical “to be uttered in one breath.”[69] But this is to take the idea too literally. No one is going to actually call the child by this name. John Goldingay helpfully explains: So he has that complicated name, “An-extraordinary-counselor-is-the-warrior-God, the-everlasting-Father-is-an-officer-for-well-being.” Like earlier names in Isaiah (God-is-with-us, Remains-Will-Return, Plunder-hurries-loot-rushes), the name is a sentence. None of these names are the person's everyday name—as when the New Testament says that Jesus will be called Immanuel, “God [is] with us,” without meaning this expression is Jesus' name. Rather, the person somehow stands for whatever the “name” says. God gives him a sign of the truth of the expression attached to him. The names don't mean that the person is God with us, or is the remains, or is the plunder, and likewise this new name doesn't mean the child is what the name says. Rather he is a sign and guarantee of it. It's as if he goes around bearing a billboard with that message and with the reminder that God commissioned the billboard.[70] Still, there's the question of identifying Yahweh as שַׂר־שָׁלוֹם (sar shalom). Since most of our translations render the phrase “Prince of Peace,” and the common meaning of a prince is someone inferior to the king, we turn away from labeling God with this title. Although HALOT mentions “representative of the king, official” for the first definition their second is “person of note, commander.”[71] The BDB glosses “chieftain, chief, ruler, official, captain, prince” as their first entry.[72] Wegner adds: “The book of Isaiah also appears to use the word sar in the general sense of “ruler.””[73] Still, we must ask, is it reasonable to think of Yahweh as a שַׂר (sar)? We find the phrase שַׂר־הַצָּבָא (sar-hatsava), “prince of hosts,” in Daniel 8:11 and שַׂר־שָׂרִים (sar-sarim), “prince of princes,” in verse 25, where both refer to God.[74]  The UBS Translators' Handbook recommends “God, the chief of the heavenly army” for verse 11 and “the greatest of all kings” for verse 25.[75] The handbook discourages using “prince,” since “the English word ‘prince' does not mean the ruler himself but rather the son of the ruler, while the Hebrew term always designates a ruler, not at all implying son of a ruler.”[76] I suggest applying this same logic to Isa 9:6. Rather than translating שַׂר־שָׁלוֹם (sar shalom) as “Prince of Peace,” we can render it, “Ruler of Peace” or “Ruler who brings peace.” Translating the Name Sentences Now that I've laid out the case for the theophoric approach, let's consider translation possibilities. Wegner writes, “the whole name should be divided into two parallel units each containing one theophoric element.”[77] This makes sense considering the structure of Maher-shalal-hash-baz, which translates two parallel name sentences: “The spoil speeds, the prey hastens.” Here are a few options for translating the name. Jewish Publication Society (1917) Wonderful in counsel is God the Mighty, the Everlasting Father, the Ruler of peace[78] William Holladay (1978) Planner of wonders; God the war hero (is) Father forever; prince of well-being[79] New Jewish Publication Society (1985) The Mighty God is planning grace; The Eternal Father, a peaceable ruler[80] John Goldingay (1999) One who plans a wonder is the warrior God; the father for ever is a commander who brings peace[81] John Goldingay (2015) An-extraordinary-counselor-is-the-warrior-God, the-everlasting-Fathers-is-an-official-for-well-being[82] Hugh Williamson (2018) A Wonderful Planner is the Mighty God, An Eternal Father is the Prince of Peace[83] My Translation (2024) The warrior God is a miraculous strategist; the eternal Father is the ruler who brings peace[84] I prefer to translate אֵל גִּבּוֹר (el gibbor) as “warrior God” rather than “mighty God” because the context is martial, and  גִּבּוֹר(gibbor) often refers to those fighting in war.[85] “Mighty God” is ambiguous, and easily decontextualized from the setting of Isa 9:6. After all, Isa 9:4-5 tells a great victory “as on the day of Midian”—a victory so complete that they burn “all the boots of the tramping warriors” in the fire. The word פֶּלֶא (pele), though often translated “wonderful,” is actually the word for “miracle,” and יוֹעֵץ (yoets) is a participle meaning “adviser” or “planner.” Since the context is war, this “miracle of an adviser” or “miraculous planner” refers to military plans—what we call strategy, hence, “miraculous strategist.” Amazingly, the tactic God employed in the time of Hezekiah was to send out an angel during the night who “struck down one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians” (Isa 37:36). This was evidently the warrior God's miraculous plan to remove the threat of Assyria from Jerusalem's doorstep. Prophecies about the coming day of God when he sends Jesus Christ—the true and better Hezekiah—likewise foretell of an even greater victory over the nations.[86] In fact, just two chapters later we find a messianic prophecy of one who will “strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked” (Isa 11:4). The next phrase, “The eternal Father,” needs little comment since God's eternality and fatherhood are both noncontroversial and multiply attested. Literally translated, שַׂר־שָׁלוֹם (sar-shalom) is “Ruler of peace,” but I take the word pair as a genitive of product.[87] Williamson unpacks this meaning as “the one who is able to initiate and maintain Peace.”[88] That his actions in the time of Hezekiah brought peace is a matter of history. After a huge portion of the Assyrian army died, King Sennacherib went back to Nineveh, where his sons murdered him (Isa 37:37-38). For decades, Judah continued to live in her homeland. Thus, this child's birth signaled the beginning of the end for Assyria. In fact, the empire itself eventually imploded, a fate that, at Hezekiah's birth, must have seemed utterly unthinkable. Of course, the ultimate peace God will bring through his Messiah will far outshine what Hezekiah achieved.[89] Conclusion We began by considering the phraseוַיִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ  (vayikra sh'mo). We noted that the tense is perfect, which justifies a past-tense interpretation of the child who had already been born by the time of the birth announcement. I presented the case for Hezekiah as the initial referent of Isa 9:6 based on the fact that Hezekiah’s life overlapped with Isaiah’s, that he sat on the throne of David (v7), and that his reign saw the miraculous deliverance from Assyria's army. Furthermore, I noted that identifying the child of Isa 9:6 as Hezekiah does not preclude a true and better one to come. Although Isa 9:6 does not show up in the New Testament, I agree with the majority of Christians who recognize this text as a messianic prophecy, especially when combined with verse 7. Next we puzzled over the subject for phraseוַיִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ  (vayikra sh'mo.) Two options are that the phrase פֶּלֶא יוֹעֵץ אֵל גִּבּוֹר (pele yoets el gibbor) functions as the subject or else the subject is indefinite. Although the Jewish interpreters overwhelmingly favor the former, the lack of definite articles and parallel constructions in Isaiah make me think the latter is more likely. Still, the Jewish approach to translation is a legitimate possibility. I explained how a passive voice makes sense in English since it hides the subject, and settled on “his name has been called,” as the best translation. Then we looked at the phrase אֵל גִּבּוֹר (el gibbor) and considered the option of switching the order of the words and taking the first as the modifier of the second as in “mighty hero” or “divine warrior.” We explored the possibility that Isaiah was ascribing deity to the newborn child. We looked at the idea of Isaiah calling the boy “Mighty God” because he represented God. In the end we concluded that these all are less likely than taking God as the referent, especially in light of the identical phrase in Isa 10:21 where it unambiguously refers to Yahweh. Moving on to אֲבִיעַד (aviad), we considered the possibility that “father” could refer to someone who started something significant and “eternal” could merely designate a coming age. Once again, though these are both possible readings, they are strained and ad hoc, lacking any indication in the text to signal a non-straightforward reading. So, as with “Mighty God,” I also take “Eternal Father” as simple references to God and not the child. Finally, we explored the notion of theophoric names. Leaning on two mainstream Bible translations and five scholars, from Luzzatto to Williamson, we saw that this lesser-known approach is quite attractive. Not only does it take the grammar at face value, it also explains how a human being could be named “Mighty God” and “Eternal Father.” The name describes God and not the child who bears it. Lastly, drawing on the work of the Jewish Publication Society, Goldingay, and Williamson, I proposed the translation: “The warrior God is a miraculous strategist; the eternal Father is the ruler who brings peace.” This rendering preserves the martial context of Isa 9:6 and glosses each word according to its most common definition. I added in the verb “is” twice as is customary when translating theophoric names. The result is a translation that recognizes God as the focus and not the child. This fits best in the immediate context, assuming Hezekiah is the original referent. After all, his greatest moment was not charging out ahead of a column of soldiers, but his entering the house of Yahweh and praying for salvation. God took care of everything else. Likewise, the ultimate Son of David will have God's spirit influencing him: a spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and fear of God (Isa 11:2). The eternal Father will so direct his anointed that he will “not judge by what his eyes see or decide by what his ears hear” (Isa 11:3). In his days God will bring about a shalom so deep that even the animals will become peaceful (Isa 11:6-8). An advantage of this reading of Isa 9:6 is that it is compatible with the full range of christological positions Christians hold. Secondly, this approach nicely fits with the original meaning in Isaiah’s day, and it works for the prophecy’s ultimate referent in Christ Jesus. Additionally, it is the interpretation with the least amount of special pleading. Finally, it puts everything into the correct order, allowing exegesis to drive theology rather than the other way around. Bibliography Kohlenberger/Mounce Concise Hebrew-Aramaic Dictionary of the Old Testament. Altamonte Springs: OakTree Software, 2012. The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text: A New Translation. Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society, 1917. The Jewish Study Bible. Edited by Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler. Second ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Net Bible, Full Notes Edition. Edited by W. Hall Harris III James Davis, and Michael H. Burer. 2nd ed. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2019. The New Oxford Annotated Bible. Edited by Carol A. Newsom Marc Z. Brettler, Pheme Perkins. Third ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. The Stone Edition of the Tanach. Edited by Nosson Scherman and Meir Zlotowitz. Brooklyn, NY: Artscroll, 1996. Tanakh, the Holy Scriptures: The New Jps Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text. 4th, Reprint. Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society, 1985. Translation of Targum Onkelos and Jonathan. Translated by Eidon Clem. Altamonte Springs, FL: OakTree Software, 2015. Alter, Rober. The Hebrew Bible: Prophets, Nevi’im. Vol. 2. 3 vols. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2019. Ashkenazi, Jacob ben Isaac. Tze’enah Ure’enah: A Critical Translation into English. Translated by Morris M. Faierstein. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017. https://www.sefaria.org/Tze’enah_Ure’enah%2C_Haftarot%2C_Yitro.31?lang=bi&with=About&lang2=en. Baumgartner, Ludwig Koehler and Walter. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Edited by M. E. J. Richardson. Leiden: Brill, 2000. Brown, Raymond E. Jesus: God and Man, edited by 3. New York: Macmillan, 1967. Carlson, R. A. “The Anti-Assyrian Character of the Oracle in Is. Ix, 1-6.” Vetus Testamentum, no. 24 (1974): 130-5. Curtis, Edward L. “The Prophecy Concerning the Child of the Four Names: Isaiah Ix., 6, 7.” The Old and New Testament Student 11, no. 6 (1890): 336-41. Delitzsch, C. F. Keil and F. Commentary on the Old Testament. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996. Finnegan, Sean. “Jesus Is God: Exploring the Notion of Representational Deity.” Paper presented at the One God Seminar, Seattle, WA, 2008, https://restitutio.org/2016/01/11/explanations-to-verses-commonly-used-to-teach-that-jesus-is-god/. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996. Gesenius, Wilhelm. Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar. Edited by E. Kautzsch and A. E. Cowley. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910. Goldingay, John. “The Compound Name in Isaiah 9:5(6).” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61, no. 2 (1999): 239-44. Goldingay, John. Isaiah for Everyone. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015. Holladay, William L. Isaiah: Scroll of Prophetic Heritage. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1978. III, Ben Witherington. Isaiah Old and New. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1ggjhbz.7. Luzzatto, Samuel David. Shi’ur Komah. Padua, IT: Antonio Bianchi, 1867. O’Connor, Bruce K. Waltke and Michael P. An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. Winona Lake, IN: Esenbrauns, 1990. Ogden, Graham S., and Jan Sterk. A Handbook on Isaiah. Ubs Translator's Handbooks. New York: United Bible Societies, 2011. Oswalt, John. The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 1-39. Nicot. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1986. Péter-Contesse, René and John Ellington. A Handbook on Daniel. Ubs Translator’s Handbooks. New York, NY: United Bible Societies, 1993. Roberts, J. J. M. First Isaiah. Vol. 23A. Hermeneia, edited by Peter Machinist. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2001. Thayer, Joseph Henry. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996. Walter Bauer, Frederick W. Danker, William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Wegner, Paul D. “A Re-Examination of Isaiah Ix 1-6.” Vetus Testamentum 42, no. 1 (1992): 103-12. Williamson, H. G. M. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 1-27. Vol. 2. International Critical Commentary, edited by G. I. Davies and C. M. Tuckett. New York: Bloomsbury, 2018. Yitzchaki, Shlomo. Complete Tanach with Rashi. Translated by A. J. Rosenberg. Chicago, IL: Davka Corp, 1998. https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Isaiah.9.5.2?lang=bi&with=About&lang2=en. Young, Edward J. The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 1-18. Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1965. End Notes [1] Throughout I'll refer to Isaiah 9:6 based on the versification used in English translations. Hebrew Bibles shift the count by one, so the same verse is Isaiah 9:5. [2] Paul D. Wegner, “A Re-Examination of Isaiah Ix 1-6,” Vetus Testamentum 42, no. 1 (1992): 103. [3] BHS is the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, the standard Hebrew text based on the Leningrad Codex, a medieval Masoretic text. [4] In Hebrew the perfect tense roughly maps onto English past tense and the imperfect tense to future tense. [5] See NRSVUE, ESV, NASB20, NIV, NET, LSB, NLT, NKJ, ASV, KJV. [6] See translations by Robert Alter, James Moffat, and Duncan Heaster.  Also see Westminster Commentary, Cambridge Bible Commentary, New Century Bible Commentary, and The Daily Study Bible. [7] See New English Bible. [8] See Ibn Ezra. [9] See An American Testament. [10] “Held” means “hero” in German. In the Luther Bible (1545), he translated the phrase as “und er heißt Wunderbar, Rat, Kraft, Held, Ewig -Vater, Friedefürst,” separating power (Kraft = El) and hero (Held = Gibbor) whereas in the 1912 revision we read, “er heißt Wunderbar, Rat, Held, Ewig-Vater Friedefürst,” which reduced el gibbor to “Held” (hero). [11] See fn 4 above. [12] See New American Bible Revised Edition and An American Testament. [13] See New English Bible and James Moffatt's translation. [14] See Ibn Ezra. [15] See Duncan Heaster's New European Version. [16] See Word Biblical Commentary. [17] See Jewish Publication Society translation of 1917, the Koren Jerusalem Bible, and the Complete Jewish Bible. [18] In the Dead Sea Scrolls, 1QIsaa 8.24 reads “וקרא,” the vav-conversed form of “קרא,” translated “he will call,” an active future tense. This reading is implausible considering the unambiguous past tense of the two initial clauses that began verse 6: “a child has been born…a son has been given.” [19] “Here the Hebrew begins to use imperfect verb forms with the conjunction often rendered “and.” These verbs continue the tense of the perfect verb forms used in the previous lines. They refer to a state or situation that now exists, so they may be rendered with the present tense in English. Some translations continue to use a perfect tense here (so NJB, NJPSV, FRCL), which is better.” Graham S. Ogden, and Jan Sterk, A Handbook on Isaiah, Ubs Translator's Handbooks (New York: United Bible Societies, 2011). [20] H. G. M. Williamson, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 1-27, vol. 2, International Critical Commentary, ed. G. I. Davies and C. M. Tuckett (New York: Bloomsbury, 2018), 371. [21] Wilhelm Gesenius, Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, ed. E. Kautzsch and A. E. Cowley, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910), §106n. [22] Bruce K. Waltke and Michael P. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Esenbrauns, 1990), §30.5.1e. [23] John Goldingay takes a “both-and” position, recognizing that Isaiah was speaking by faith of what God would do in the future, but also seeing the birth of the son to the king as having already happened by the time of the prophecy. John Goldingay, Isaiah for Everyone (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), 42. [24] Jewish authors include Rashi, A. E. Kimchi, Abravanel, Malbim, and Luzzatto. [25] See 2 Kings 18:3-7. [26] Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. [27] J. J. M. Roberts, First Isaiah, vol. 23A, Hermeneia, ed. Peter Machinist (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2001), 153. [28] Ben Witherington III, Isaiah Old and New (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017), 95-6, 99-100. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1ggjhbz.7. [29] Translation of Targum Onkelos and Jonathan, trans. Eidon Clem (Altamonte Springs, FL: OakTree Software, 2015). [30] Shlomo Yitzchaki, Complete Tanach with Rashi, trans. A. J. Rosenberg (Chicago, IL: Davka Corp, 1998). https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Isaiah.9.5.2?lang=bi&with=About&lang2=en. [31] Jacob ben Isaac Ashkenazi, Tze’enah Ure’enah: A Critical Translation into English, trans. Morris M. Faierstein (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017). https://www.sefaria.org/Tze’enah_Ure’enah%2C_Haftarot%2C_Yitro.31?lang=bi&with=About&lang2=en. [32] Square brackets in original. The Stone Edition of the Tanach, ed. Nosson Scherman and Meir Zlotowitz (Brooklyn, NY: Artscroll, 1996). [33] Net Bible, Full Notes Edition, ed. W. Hall Harris III James Davis, and Michael H. Burer, 2nd ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2019), 1266. [34] C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), 249-50. [35] As mentioned above, the Hebrew is not actually passive. [36] The LXX reads “καὶ καλεῖται τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ” (kai kaleitai to onoma autou), which means “and his name is called.” [37] Rober Alter, The Hebrew Bible: Prophets, Nevi’im, vol. 2, 3 vols. (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2019), 651. [38] John Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 1-39, Nicot (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1986), 247. [39] Delitzsch, 252. [40] The אֵלֵי גִבּוֹרִים (eley gibborim) of Ezek 32.21 although morphologically suggestive of a plural form of el gibbor, is not a suitable parallel to Isa 9:6 since אֵלֵי (eley) is the plural of אַיִל (ayil), meaning “chief” not אֵל (el). Thus, the translation “mighty chiefs” or “warrior rulers” takes eley as the noun and gibborim as the adjective and does not actually reverse them. [41] Edward J. Young, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 1-18, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1965), 338. [42] Translator's note A on Isa 9:6 in the NET states, “[I]t is unlikely that Isaiah or his audience would have understood the title in such a bold way.” Net Bible, Full Notes Edition, 1267. [43] “The Messiah is the corporeal presence of this mighty God; for He is with Him, He is in Him, and in Him He is with Israel. The expression did not preclude the fact that the Messiah would be God and man in one person; but it did not penetrate to this depth, so far as the Old Testament consciousness was concerned.” Delitzsch, 253. [44] See Wegner 104-5. [45] See R. A. Carlson, “The Anti-Assyrian Character of the Oracle in Is. Ix, 1-6,” Vetus Testamentum, no. 24 (1974). [46] Oswalt, 246. [47] Isa 43:10-11; 44:6, 8; 45:5-6, 18, 21-22; 46:9. Deut 17:14-20 lays out the expectations for an Israelite king, many of which limit his power and restrict his exaltation, making deification untenable. [48] Wegner 108. [49] See Exod 4:16; 7:1. The word “God” can apply to “any person characterized by greatness or power: mighty one, great one, judge,” s.v. “אֱלֹהִים” in Kohlenberger/Mounce Concise Hebrew-Aramaic Dictionary of the Old Testament.. The BDAG concurs, adding that a God is “that which is nontranscendent but considered worthy of special reverence or respect… of humans θεοί (as אֱלֹהִים) J[ohn] 10:34f (Ps 81:6; humans are called θ. in the OT also Ex 7:1; 22:27,” s.v. “θεός” in A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. [50] See Exod 21.6; 22:8-9. The BDB includes the definition, “rulers, judges, either as divine representatives at sacred places or as reflecting divine majesty and power,” s.v. “אֱלֹהִים” in The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon [51] Thayer points this out in his lexicon: “Hebraistically, equivalent to God’s representative or vicegerent, of magistrates and judges, John 10:34f after Ps. 81:6 (Ps. 82:6)” s.v. “θέος” in A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. [52] Net Bible, Full Notes Edition, 1267. [53] Raymond E. Brown, Jesus: God and Man, ed. 3 (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 25. [54] Williamson, 397. [55] Delitzsch, 253. See also fn 40 above. [56] Edward L. Curtis, “The Prophecy Concerning the Child of the Four Names: Isaiah Ix., 6, 7,” The Old and New Testament Student 11, no. 6 (1890): 339. [57] Ibid. [58] Sean Finnegan, “Jesus Is God: Exploring the Notion of Representational Deity” (paper presented at the One God Seminar, Seattle, WA2008), https://restitutio.org/2016/01/11/explanations-to-verses-commonly-used-to-teach-that-jesus-is-god/. [59] Jabal was the father of those who live in tents and have livestock (Gen 4:20) and Jubal was the father of those who play the lyre and the pipe (Gen 4:21). [60] Jesus told his critics, “You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father's desires” (John 8:44). [61] Job called himself “a father to the needy” (Job 29:16) and Isaiah prophesied that Eliakim would be “a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem” (Isa 22:21). [62] Williamson, 397. [63] For references to Yahweh as father to the people see Deut 32:6; Ps 103:13; Prov 3:12; Jer 3:4; 31.9; Mal 1.6; 2:10. For Yahweh as father to the messiah see 2 Sam 7:14; 1 Chron 7:13; 28:6; Ps 89:27. [64] William L. Holladay, Isaiah: Scroll of Prophetic Heritage (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1978), 108. [65] See NRSVUE fn on Isa 8:1. [66] והנה המכוון במאמר פלא יועץ וגו’ הוא כי האל הגבור שהוא אבי עד ואדון השלום, הוא יועץ וגוזר לעשות פלא לישראל בזמן ממלכת הילד הנולד היום, ואח”כ מפרש למרבה המשרה וגו’. ולפי הפירוש הזה לא לחנם האריך כאן בתארי האל, כי כוונת הנביא לרמוז כי בבוא הפלא שהאל יועץ וגוזר עתה, יוודע שהוא אל גבור ובעל היכולת ושהוא אב לעד, ולא יפר בריתו עם בניו בני ישראל, ולא ישכח את ברית אבותם. ושהוא אדון השלום ואוהב השלום, ולא יאהב העריצים אשר כל חפצם לנתוש ולנתוץ ולהאביד ולהרוס, אבל הוא משפילם עד עפר, ונותן שלום בארץ, כמו שראינו בכל הדורות. Chat GPT translation: “And behold, the intention in the phrase ‘Wonderful Counselor’ and so on is that the mighty God, who is the Eternal Father and the Prince of Peace, is the Counselor and decrees to perform a wonder for Israel at the time of the reign of the child born today. Afterwards, it is explained as ‘to increase the dominion’ and so on. According to this interpretation, it is not in vain that the prophet elaborates on the attributes of God here, for the prophet’s intention is to hint that when the wonder that God now advises and decrees comes about, it will be known that He is the Mighty God and possesses the ability and that He is the Eternal Father. He will not break His covenant with His sons, the children of Israel, nor forget the covenant of their ancestors. He is the Prince of Peace and loves peace, and He will not favor the oppressors whose every desire is to tear apart, destroy, and obliterate, but He will humble them to the dust and grant peace to the land, as we have seen throughout the generations.” Samuel David Luzzatto, Shi’ur Komah (Padua, IT: Antonio Bianchi, 1867). Accessible at Sefaria and the National Library of Israel. [67]The Jewish Study Bible, ed. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, Second ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 784. [68] The New Oxford Annotated Bible, ed. Carol A. Newsom Marc Z. Brettler, Pheme Perkins, Third ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 991. [69] Delitzsch, 249. [70] Goldingay, 42-3. [71] Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, ed. M. E. J. Richardson (Leiden: Brill, 2000). [72] See s.v. “שַׂר” in The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon [73] Wegner 112. [74] Keil and Delitzsch say the sar of Dan 8:11 refers to “the God of heaven and the King of Israel, the Prince of princes, as He is called in v. 25,” Delitzsch, 297. [75] René and John Ellington Péter-Contesse, A Handbook on Daniel, Ubs Translator’s Handbooks (New York, NY: United Bible Societies, 1993). [76] Ibid. [77] Wegner 110-1. [78] The main text transliterates “Pele-joez-el-gibbor-/Abi-ad-sar-shalom,” while the footnote translates as indicated above. The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text: A New Translation (Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society, 1917), 575. [79] Holladay, 109. [80] Tanakh, the Holy Scriptures: The New Jps Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text (4th: repr., Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society, 1985), 634. [81] John Goldingay, “The Compound Name in Isaiah 9:5(6),” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61, no. 2 (1999): 243. [82] Goldingay, Isaiah for Everyone, 40. [83] Williamson, 355. [84] An alternative is “The warrior God is planning a miracle; the eternal Father is the ruler of peace.” [85] For גִּבּוֹר in a military context, see 1 Sam 17:51; 2 Sam 20.7; 2 Kgs 24:16; Isa 21.17; Jer 48:41; Eze 39:20; and Joel 2:7; 3:9. [86] See 2 Thess 2:8 and Rev 19:11-21 (cp. Dan 7:13-14). [87] See Gesenius § 128q, which describes a genitive of “statements of the purpose for which something is intended.” [88] Williamson, 401. [89] Isaiah tells of a time when God will “judge between nations,” resulting in the conversion of the weapons of war into the tools of agriculture and a lasting era when “nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more” (Isa 2:4).

The Author displays for us once again, worship. All of Scripture is potential of worship, one of the most emotive passages in the Bible comes from Isaiah led by the Holy Spirit confessing: “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6 Worship now, we have seen the coming of the Lord: “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6 Worship future looking: “And the government will rest on His shoulders”…”Prince of Peace.” “Ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name; Bring an offering, and come before Him; Worship the LORD in holy array.” 1 Chronicles 16:29 "What a man is on his knees before God, that he is and nothing more"" Robert MurrayM'Cheynee Donation link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=G9JGGR5W97D64 Or go to www.freerangepreacheronprayer.com and use the Donations tab. Assistant Editor: Seven Jefferson Gossard and French Jonah Gossard. Many Thanks for your help. www.freerangepreacheronprayer.com freerangeprayer@gmail.com Facebook - Free Range Preacher Ministries Instagram: freerangeministries All our Scripture quotes are drawn from the NASB 1977 edition. For access to the Voice Over services of Richard Durrington, please visit RichardDurrington.com or email him at Durringtonr@gmail.com Our podcast art was designed by @sammmmmmmmm23 Instagram Season 006 Episode 097

As he finishes the Tanakh portion of Darkness & Light, Rabbi Steve Berkson takes you to Proverbs 6:20-25 and makes the comparison of parental instruction and instruction from the Eternal Father. The way the author worded phrases in Proverbs was as a father talking to his son, but should be interpreted for you today as your heavenly Father talking to you. Rabbi Berkson also points out that the Torah not only functions as a light instructionally, but it also has a nurturing aspect as would a mother's role in giving instruction to her children, giving comfort and encouragement. • What is meant by a “flattering tongue”? • How many different ways can you attach the Torah to yourself? • How is “deep” darkness defined? Moving into the Brit Chadasha (New Testament), Rabbi Berkson expounds Matthew 4:13-17 as this passage includes a quote from Isaiah as a Messianic proof of Yeshua being the light. The people who were living in that area at that time were sitting in gloom and darkness, not only under the oppression of Rome, but also under the religious system of that time who's leaders were hiding light from them. Then staying within the context of Matthew 4, Yeshua the Light, Rabbi Berkson expounds further as he moves us into chapter 5 where we see Yeshua sitting on a hillside instructing his disciples along with the multitude about what it takes to also become a Light to the world. • In what way are you today “like the prophets of old”? • How do you “lay up treasure in Heaven”? • Why is the ‘so' in the phrase, (Matt 5:16) “Let your light so shine before men”? What are the good works? • Is the definition of the English word ‘fulfill' or ‘complete' in Matthew 5:17, ‘to terminate' or ‘do away with'? Once again, Rabbi Steve Berkson delves deeper into scripture to uncover even more dimensions of Darkness and Light. To learn more about MTOI, visit our website, https://mtoi.org. https://www.facebook.com/mtoiworldwide https://www.instagram.com/mtoi_worldwide You can contact MTOI by emailing us at admin@mtoi.org or calling 423-250-3020. Join us for Shabbat Services and Torah Study LIVE, streamed on our YouTube and Rumble channels every Saturday at 1:15 p.m. and every Friday for Torah Study Live Stream at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time.

Read OnlineOnce when Jesus was praying in solitude, and the disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” Luke 9:18It's interesting that Jesus was both “praying in solitude” and that “the disciples were with him.” Saint Bede explains this apparent contradiction by stating that “the Son alone is able to penetrate the incomprehensible secrets of the Father's will.” Therefore, our Lord was always alone with the Father in the sense that only Jesus knew the Father fully and intimately. This is because He is the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Eternal Son of the Father.With that fact clearly understood, it's also important to understand that as Jesus prayed to the Father within His human nature, something new took place. Though Jesus was eternally with the Father, His human nature was not eternally with the Father. Therefore, as the Eternal Son of God communed with the Eternal Father while living in human flesh, human nature was suddenly elevated to a height that it had never been before. Not only was the Eternal Son living in perfect union with the Father, but now the Eternal Son, fully human, brought His human nature into this oneness.Though this may seem a bit philosophical to some, it points to a very important reality that affects us all. Through our Lord's human prayer to the Father, we are all invited to join with Jesus and share in this divine oneness. The Son of God, as a human being, made it possible for us as humans to share in the elevation of our very lives to oneness with God the Father. And though the Son of God will always retain a unique union with the Father, we are, nonetheless, by participation, invited to share in their life.So why is this important? One reason is that there is no greater human fulfillment we could ever achieve than to share in the prayer of the Son to the Father. Throughout our lives, we are constantly looking for fulfillment in one form or another. We want to be happy. We want enjoyment in life. We have a natural desire for happiness that we are constantly seeking to fulfill. What's important to understand is that the greatest happiness comes by sharing in the deep human prayer of the Son to the Father. Prayer, true prayer, is the answer to our deepest desire.Reflect, today, upon whether or not you regularly engage in deep prayer. Can you point to times when you, like our Lord, were alone with God, communing with Him in the depths of your human soul, being drawn to Him through prayer? There are many levels of prayer, as is attested to by many saints. Make the choice to deepen your prayer. Go before our Lord today and pour out your heart to Him, asking Him to draw you into the holy solitude of His prayer to the Father. Doing so will bring forth in you the deepest human satisfaction possible in life. My praying Lord, as You spent time alone with the Father, You united Your human nature with Him, thus elevating our nature to a glorious degree. Please draw me to You, dear Lord, so that I may know You and the Father through true, deep and sustaining prayer. May this oneness with You be the cause of my deepest fulfillment in life. Jesus, I trust in You.Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2024 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.Featured image above: The Exhortation to the Apostles By James Tissot, via Wikimedia Commons

Hello Friends! I love to hear from you! Please send me a text message by clicking on this link! Blessings to You!In this episode, Jori discusses with her listeners Isaiah's prophecy concerning the Son who would be given and His name would be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. JOIN DR. JORI IN JOURNALING IN 2024! Check out this 9 min YouTube Video outlining her journaling strategy! Don't Forget to subscribe to the YouTube Channel! https://youtu.be/lqe9TO7RSz4 BOOKS OF BIBLE COLOR CHARTI made this chart as a helpful tool for grouping the collections of books or letters  in the Holy Bible.  The colors in the different sections are the ones that I use in my journals.  Books of Bible Chart (color) (4).pdf - Google Drive    CHECK OUT DR. JORI'S JOURNALS! Sermon Notes, Reflections and Applications Journal/Notebooks by Dr. Jori. Click the links below to be directed to amazon.com for purchase. Or search “Dr. Jori Shaffer” on Amazon to bring these up.  https://a.co/d/9B5krQlhttps://a.co/d/iycFlnNHere is a brief YouTube video that tells about the Journal/Notebooks as well:https://youtu.be/aXpQNYUEzds Scripture translation used is the Legacy Standard Bible.  “Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com  DR. JORI mentioned the conferences by Answers in Genesis.  The link below will take you to the website showing their schedule and upcoming conferences. https://answersingenesis.org/outreach/ Scripture References:Isaiah 9:62 Timothy 3:16-17Isaiah 1:1-20Isaiah 6Isaiah 8:19-9:7John 1:3-5Colossians 1:15   Email: awordforthisday@gmail.comPodcast website:  https://awordforthisday.buzzsprout.com Support the show

Friends of the Rosary, We have to be united as a country and as a human family. The division is the hallmark of the Evil One, who is always messing with us to separate us from Christ and one another. We continue reflecting on our path after the providential failed attempt on the former president's life. That's an invitation to examine our conscience and recognize our reality. And what's the practical answer? Repentance. We must confess our sins and seek forgiveness from the Almighty. He is delighted when we humbly invoke Him. The Eternal Father will forgive us as we forgive others. We are all imperfect and sinners, but we are children of God, created by Him and for Him. We are created to be holy and perfect in the Spirit of Truth with the spouse, the Virgin Mary, all the angels, archangels, and saints. A final note: first and foremost, we must love the Lord Christ. The love toward our families, friends, and people we admire comes as a consequence. As we read today (MT 10:34-11:1), on the feast day of St. Bonaventure, Jesus said to His disciples: "Whoever does not take up his crossand follow after me is not worthy of me.Whoever finds his life will lose it,and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Ave Maria!Jesus, I Trust In You! Come, Holy Spirit, come! To Jesus through Mary! • ⁠July 15, 2024, Today's Rosary on YouTube | Daily broadcast at 7:30 pm ET

Happy (Belated) Independence Day! To celebrate in a very "Lutheran Lady" way, we're revisiting a favorite episode from 2022 all about hymns for the nation. Hymns for the Nation, or Patriotic Songs? Or both? As Americans are celebrating Independence Day, Lutherans once again consider the worth of hymns and songs that focus on God's gift of land and government. Within the context of our Two Realms (or Two Kingdoms) theology, Sarah considers the hymns found in the “Nation and National Songs” section of the Lutheran Service Book, along with some popular American favorites.  Hymns featured in this episode include “God Bless Our Native Land,” “Before You, Lord, We Bow,” “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” “God of Our Fathers, Whose Almighty Arm,” plus a few American songs you'll likely know.  The third hymn in the Nation and National Songs section, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was featured in the Hymns Sing with Sarah episode for Black History Month.  Read all 101 additional verses for “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” in this PDF from alliedmerchantnavy.com.  To learn more about these and other hymns in Lutheran Service Book, check out CPH's two-volume set Lutheran Service Book: Companion to the Hymns.  Connect with the Lutheran Ladies on social media in The Lutheran Ladies' Lounge Facebook discussion group (facebook.com/groups/LutheranLadiesLounge) and on Instagram @lutheranladieslounge. Follow Sarah (@hymnnerd), Rachel (@rachbomberger), and Erin (@erinaltered) on Instagram! Sign up for the Lutheran Ladies' Lounge monthly e-newsletter here, and email the Ladies at lutheranladies@kfuo.org.

This episode was a LOVEFEST in the best way possible! I loved talking to Leif Hetland. His sweet revelations about being a son of God were so tangible that he teared up MULTIPLE times! There is a call for orphans to come back to their Eternal Father, and I hope that this episode is just another nudge.

Isaiah 9:6 describes the Messiah, Jesus, as a child born to us, with the government resting on his shoulders, named “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace,” and his everlasting reign will bring justice and righteousness. Watch the whole series and more on our Youtube channel:youtube.com/@drjamestour If you would like to support us in creating more content across our different media platforms, we would greatly appreciate any support you can give. Visit give.jesusandscience.org to learn more. God bless

Isaiah 9:6 describes the Messiah, Jesus, as a child born to us, with the government resting on his shoulders, named “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace,” and his everlasting reign will bring justice and righteousness. Watch the whole series and more on our Youtube channel:youtube.com/@drjamestour If you would like to support us […]

How did the disciples recognize Jesus as the Messiah foretold in Isaiah? How could a Jewish carpenter from Galilee be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, and Prince of Peace when he was a man? Watch the whole series and more on our Youtube channel:youtube.com/@drjamestour If you would like to support us in creating […]

How did the disciples recognize Jesus as the Messiah foretold in Isaiah? How could a Jewish carpenter from Galilee be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, and Prince of Peace when he was a man? Watch the whole series and more on our Youtube channel:youtube.com/@drjamestour If you would like to support us in creating more content across our different media platforms, we would greatly appreciate any support you can give. Visit give.jesusandscience.org to learn more. God bless

“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.” John 6:40Do you believe in Jesus? Unquestionably the answer is “Yes.” However, to believe in our Lord is something that must deepen with every passing day. Therefore, if you do have faith in Jesus, you can also admit that you do not have faith enough. In this Gospel passage in which the “Bread of Life Discourse” is continued, Jesus calls us to do two things. First, we must see Him. Second, we must believe. Let's start with the first.When Jesus first spoke these words to the crowd, they did see His physical presence. But many of them did not see beyond the surface. They saw His miracles, heard His teaching, but very few saw the deeper reality of Jesus as the Son of the Eternal Father and the Savior of the World.If you are to believe in our Lord and all that He is, then you must first see Him. One of the best ways to foster this “holy sight” of our Lord is to gaze at Him in the Most Holy Eucharist. When you attend Mass or spend time in adoration and look upon the Most Holy Eucharist, what do you see? Do you see the Eternal Son? Do you see His holy divinity? Do you see your God and the Lord of all?As we stand or kneel before our Lord, present in the Most Holy Eucharist, it's easy to become distracted. It's easy to allow our minds to wander to the many other aspects of our daily lives and to fail to see the eternal Son of God as He is present to us.Reflect, today, upon the way you look at our Lord. If you want to deepen your faith, your belief, then start with your sight. Start by considering how you look at Jesus, present in the Most Holy Eucharist. If you are blessed to be with Him this day at the Holy Mass or in adoration, examine the way to see Him. Gaze at Him. Make an intentional act of faith in His divine presence. Acknowledge His Godhead, His glory, His holiness and His sacred presence. If you can look beyond the surface and lift the veil that covers His glory, then this holy gift of sight will give way, also, to the gift of profound faith. My ever-present Lord, I thank You profoundly for the way You come to me in the Most Holy Eucharist. I thank You for Your divine presence and glory. Help me to see beyond the veil of the appearance of bread and wine so that I can see more clearly Your divinity. As I see Your divine presence, dear Lord, help me to profess my belief in You with greater certitude and faith. Jesus, I trust in You. Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2024 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.