Isaiah 9

The Lord's Day Morning December 9, 2012 “An Ancient Christmas: The Coming of Jesus in the Old Testament — The Child” Isaiah 9:1-7 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Isaiah chapter 9. We’re going to give special attention to verses 6 and 7, but I want to read Isaiah 9:1-7 so that you have an appreciation of the context. Last Sunday morning we began our series, “An Ancient Christmas: The Coming of Jesus in the Old Testament,” by looking at the story of Adam and Eve's fall in Genesis 3. And I think that if you look at Genesis 3 and the passage that we looked at last Lord's Day Evening, Isaiah 7, and then again Isaiah 9 this morning and Isaiah 11 this evening, you’ll begin to see a pattern develop. And I…

Isaiah 9:6 A Child Is Born If you have your Bibles I'd invite you to turn with me to Isaiah 9:6. This morning we began a series on “Getting a Handel on Christmas”–thanks to Derek Thomas for that title–by looking at a promise and prophecy from Isaiah 7:14. And we commented that this part of the Christmas story begins with an invasion, an attempt to conquer Judah, the Southern Kingdom, the kingdom ruled by David's descendants. The Northern Kingdom of Israel–Jacob, Ephraim, along with its ally, Aram–had attempted to take over Judah. And we said that we ought to remember the next time we hear someone singing that beautiful recitative “Behold a Virgin Shall Conceive” that that prophecy originated in the midst of a national crisis, when Israel was being invaded. And in…