For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6 (740-680 B.C.)
On the eve before the traditionally recognized birth of Christ, I am admittedly in a melancholy mood. Everything and everybody in the world seems to be hell-bent on insanity, immorality and self-destruction, yet I hear the words of Isaiah incessantly ringing in my ears, words George Frederick Handel intoned in music for the ages in his oratorio, “Messiah”:
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
How can this be? How can a little Jewish baby born, according to astronomers, on April 17, 6 B.C. in Judea, a backwater province of the awesome Roman Empire, be called, “The mighty God, The everlasting Father, and The Prince of Peace”? As the world sits poised on the brink of self-annihilation where good men, wise women, courageous leaders appear virtually extinct, it seems that the words the great prophet Isaiah uttered 2,750 years ago are mocking us with his message of faith, hope and redemption.
Yet, I am compelled to believe even in the face of utter despair. Despite the odds, despite the present world conditions, despite the rise of new dictators rattling sabers bolstered by resurrected dictators and evil ideologies of the past – China, North Korea, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, the Muslim nations and our world leaders like Bush, Obama, Sarkozy, Merkle, Gordon Brown – our international organizations like NATO, the U.N., the EU, the IMF, the G-8, the G-20 and all parts of Western Europe are either mired in socialism or too stupid to read the handwriting of destiny on the wall.
Indeed, the prophet was right who said, “God has used the foolish things of this world to confound the wise.”
British Historian Paul Johnson, a modern-day prophet in his own right, in his prescient book, “A History of Christianity” (1976), wrote of these perilous times before the Second Coming of the Lord:
Certainly, mankind without Christianity conjures up a dismal prospect. The record of mankind with Christianity is daunting enough. … The dynamism it has unleashed has brought massacre and torture, intolerance and destructive pride on a huge scale, for there is a cruel and pitiless nature in man which is sometimes impervious to Christian restraints and encouragements. But without these restraints [Christianity], bereft of these encouragements, how much more horrific the history of these last 2,000 years must have been! … In the past generation, with public Christianity in headlong retreat, we have caught our first, distant view of a de-Christianized world, and it is not encouraging.
 “The Sistine Madonna” by Raphael, circa 1512-1514 |
As a Christian who has dedicated his entire career, meager as it is, to propagating a Judeo-Christian worldview in all that I say, do or write, I believe with all my heart that during these last days the forces of darkness (Communism, Islam, paganism) will unite with the forces of good intentions and stupidity (humanism, socialism, liberalism, secularism, moral relativism, Bush, Obama, et. al.) to engage in one more grand push in their perverted minds to prove God and the Bible wrong. How?
By foolishly supporting geopolitical policies rooted in anti-Semitism and moral relativism, but for God’s intervention, the so-called “Two-State Solution” would lead to the annihilation of God’s chosen people, the Jews; to once and for all “wipe Israel off the map” as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has often promised to do once he secures a nuclear arsenal for Iran. There is a demonic, driving force behind why the forces of darkness throughout history have irrationally chosen tiny Israel to vent their insatiable wrath.
In response, what does the civilized world do at this critical juncture of history where all of humanity stands at the precipice of the abyss in the face of this evil against God and his only begotten Son?
- Israel keeps giving land for peace, yet the more land they give to the Arabs, the less peace and defensible land they have – yet Bush, Dr. Rice and Obama want a “Two State Solution”;
- Israel repeatedly threatens to bomb Iranian nuclear sites today, yet on June 7, 1981, it had the prescience to bomb the Iraqi nuclear sites of Saddam Hussein;
- President Bush, during his “legacy tour,” is humiliated at a press conference in Iraq when an obscure Iraqi journalist has time to throw two shoes at the so-called leader of the free world, while his stupefied Secret Service agents stand in frozen amazement;
- A ragtag band of Somali pirates on rickety speed boats has brought international shipping in the Gulf of Aden almost to a stand still while reaping over $100 million and counting in ransom payments;
- Bernard Madoff, a Jewish billionaire, for years ran an “affinity fraud” – an unregulated Ponzi scheme against his own wealthy Jewish brothers and sisters, costing them $50 billion, thus fulfilling the words of the ancient prophet as those who put faith in Caesar (money, government) and not God – Judges 10:13-14: Yet ye have forsaken me, and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more. Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation;
- The Constitution is treated as toilet paper by the president, Congress and the courts as the private industries that help made America the greatest country in the history of the world are systematically nationalized by the federal government, while “We the People,” like sheep to the slaughter, foolishly give away our liberty to become wards of the Marxist socialist State.
Dear reader, during this blessed holiday season when we give tribute to God’s ultimate gift of his Son, Jesus Christ, as our redeemer from sin, do not fall into despair as you watch what is going on around you in this crazy world, but look unto the innocent babe in the manger about whom 750 years before his birth Isaiah eloquently prophesied, declaring his glorious coming with these immortal words of comfort, hope and redemption:
For unto a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting father, The Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
