remain standing for the reading of God's word. Our New Testament lesson comes from the exhortation to the Hebrews, chapter 13, first eight verses. Let brotherly love continue. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing, some have unwittingly entertained angels. Remember the prisoners as if chained with them, those who are mistreated, since you yourselves are in the body also. Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Let your conduct be without covetousness. Be content with such things as you have. For he himself has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you. So we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me? Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. This is the word of the Lord. Let's turn now in our Old Testament scriptures to the prophet Isaiah. as we read another time from Isaiah chapter nine. This evening we'll read both verses six and seven. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. May the Lord bless the reading and proclamation of his holy word, amen. You may be seated. Last time, when we considered the title Mighty God, or as we saw it could be translated God Hero, either the heroic God or the divine hero, I spoke of how people need heroes. Well, if that's true, it's even more true that people need fathers. People need fathers. As some have put it, there is a deep father hunger in the world today, and you can almost feel it. Young women looking for affection and security, sadly, often in the wrong places. Young men looking for affirmation and respect, again, sadly, often in the wrong places. A father hunger only intensified by the reality of absentee fathers and broken homes. People need desperately need hunger and thirst for fathers. Simply by virtue of being a human being, you long for someone to protect you, to provide for you. You have an inbuilt, ingrained father hunger. And that brings us to the fourth of fifth of five messianic titles that belong to Jesus. And that is everlasting father. Congregation, this is actually an unusual turn of phrase. Ordinarily, how do we think of Jesus? Well, we think of the son as a son. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. And if we don't think of him as a son, we perhaps think of him as our elder brother or as the bridegroom who purchased the church by his blood. Yet here, this unique, this one of a kind, this eternally only begotten son is called a father. It's the most unusual and puzzling of all the names of Christ in Isaiah 9-6, but also, I want to convince you, perhaps the most comforting, that in some wondrous sense, Christ the Son is to us a Father figure forever, everlasting Father. Our approach tonight is to do two things. First, consider what this title does not mean, and then second, what it does mean. First, what this title does not mean. Everlasting Father does not in any way imply that God the Son is personally identical to God the Father. That would be a heresy called modalism. No, although the Son is God and the Father is God, the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father. The persons of the Godhead, although inseparable, remain distinct. So whatever Isaiah meant by this title, it in no way undermines the doctrine of the Trinity, that the one God exists eternally in three distinct persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, who are the same in being and equal in power and glory. Everlasting Father does not mean that Jesus is the divine person of the Father. What it doesn't mean, but Isaiah does call him Everlasting Father, so it has to mean something. Well, more extensively, let's consider what this title does mean, positively and constructively. Some argue that it means he is the father of time, the author of eternity. In other words, that he is the creator of time and space. And this is true. In John 1, Colossians 1, we learn of Christ, the eternal word of God. In the beginning was the word. and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. But as we look at this text, I'm not convinced that's the main point of Isaiah 9-6. Instead, let's look at each term in turn. First, let's look at Father, and then let's look at the modifier everlasting. First, father means that Christ is like a father to us in certain respects. Again, not the divine person of the father. There's no confusion of the persons in the Godhead, but he is like a father to us in certain respects. Two ways, in particular, is he rightly called father. First, He is rightly called Father in his revealed character. Sam Storms calls this title, Everlasting Father, a descriptive analogy pointing to Christ's character. He is fatherly, father-like in his treatment of us. For example, Psalm 103, 13. Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear him. When Jesus looked out at the crowds and he had compassion on them as seeing sheep without a shepherd, there was a father-like sympathy from our Lord as he looked at these lost children of Israel. He is a protector. He is a provider. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. As a protector and provider of his people, Jesus is father-like. The son reminds us of the father because he is one with the father, being the brightness of his glory. in the express image of his person. That's why Jesus told his disciples, he who has seen me has seen the Father. So how can you say, show us the Father? Again, not a confusion of the divine persons, but a confession of the divine unity. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. No one comes to the Father except through him. Jesus, as the mediator of the covenant, reveals the Father heart of God. He is like a father in his revealed character. There's a second way in which he is rightly called Father, and that is in his relation to the church, not just in his revealed character, but in his relation to the church in three capacities. First, as a founder to his nation. What do we often call people like George Washington? or Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin. Well, we call them the founding fathers. They're the ones who helped to found our country. Well, even so, Jesus, as the one who has established a new covenant, is to us, who are a holy nation, a chosen people, a kind of founding father, a settler, an establisher of our people. Second, He is a father as a king to his vassal servants. In 2 Kings 16.7, the Bible says, so Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria. saying, I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel who rise up against me. Well, you notice what Ahaz is doing there. He is relating to Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, as a vassal servant to a high king. in a kind of ancient suzerain vassal treaty. And when you do that, the high king stands in the position of a father, and then the vassal servant, like Ahaz, relates to him as a son. Well, Jesus is the high king of his vassal servant people. In relationship to the church, he is as a father king to his servant son. Finally, when it comes to Jesus' relation to the church, he is as a father, as a priest to his congregation. This comes clear in an unusual passage in Judges 17.10, where Micah, who is a very compromised man, is talking to the Levite who's shown up on his front door, and he says, dwell with me and be a father to me. and a priest to me. And I will give you 10 shekels of silver per year, a suit of clothes, and your sustenance. What does Micah say to the Levite? He says, be a father and a priest to me. These are parallel terms. To be a father to someone was also a way of saying be a priest to me. In other respects, the Levite, who is presumably younger than Micah, It says of him, became like one of his sons. So in some sense, he was like a son to Micah. In another sense, when it came to his priestly role, he was as a father to him. So when you hear the title, Everlasting Father, ascribed to Jesus, on the one hand, think about his revealed character, but also think about his relationship to you as the church. He is founder. He is king, he is priest to his people. Important application for us is to answer this question. Who is your father? Who's your father? Who is your founder father, king father, priest father? Because congregation in the economy of salvation, it's either Christ or the devil. When it comes to your covenantal relationship, your father is either the seed of Christ or you're of the evil one. In 1 John 3, we see certain tests that if you live in unrepentant sin, if you practice sin, that is an indicator that you are in a state of sin, that you are of the evil one, the seed of the serpent. And if by God's grace, You repent and believe the gospel and live in repentance, love, and new obedience. If you practice righteousness, that is an indicator that you are in a state of grace, that you are of the seed of the woman, the seed of Christ. Who's your father? It's either the Christ or the devil. So choose you this day whom you will serve. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Well, that's the first aspect of this title, that Christ is like a father to us in his revealed character and in his relation to the church. But father is only half of the equation. We read here of one who is everlasting father. Everlasting father. which means that he is such a founder, father, king, father, and priest, father to us forever. Literally, father of perpetuity, father of duration, father of eternity. E.J. Young says, one who is eternally a father. Perhaps better, one who is everlastingly a father. a father for us forever. And this emphasis on forever is picked up in the following verse when it speaks of his everlasting kingdom. Verse seven, of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgment and justice. From that time forward, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. Or think of Isaiah 57, 15, the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity. That this, this God hero, this wonderful counselor, This everlasting Father. He is the Alpha and the Omega. The beginning and the end. The first and the last. He is the author and the finisher of our faith. The pioneer and perfecter of our faith. The only Redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ who being the eternal Son of God became man and so continueth to be God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. A Father toward us forever. I love how saints of old treasured this title. I'm going to read to you several quotations from some of our fathers in the faith. First, I want to read to you from Matthew Henry, a great commentator. who said this, he was from eternity father of the great work of redemption. His heart was upon it. It was the product of his wisdom as the counselor of his love as the everlasting father. When Matthew Henry considers the eternal decree of God, and he considers the eternal covenant of redemption between the Father and the Son, and he thinks about Jesus and prospect of his incarnation, he says, when it comes to the wisdom that plans this great work, it is as counselor. And when it comes to the love which planned this great work, it is as the everlasting Father. quote another father in the faith, more recent, E.J. Young, who is one of our Orthodox Presbyterian heroes, who defended the historicity of the creation account against theistic evolution and other distortions, who taught at Westminster Seminary. He said this, what tenderness, love, and comfort are here, eternally a father to his people. Those of you who perhaps did not have a father or had a father who failed you, there's great comfort here. Jeremiah 31.3, picking up on a similar theme, says, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Commenting on these verses, Another great Princeton-influenced theologian, Gerhardus Vos, said, the reason God will never stop loving you is that he never began. When you come face to face with the Christ, who is called Everlasting Father, who reveals to you the Father heart of God, it is a reminder that the God who loves you will never stop loving you because his love never began. He loved you with an everlasting love. Finally, I want to read to you from Charles Haddon Spurgeon, that great British Baptist preacher of the 19th century who says, in reference to this title, there is no unfathering of Christ. And there is no unchilding us. You can't remove this title from Jesus. You can't remove the status of child from saints. He is everlastingly a father to those who trust in him. And if I could plead with you concerning one point, it is to say you must trust in him. And if you do trust in him, he will in no wise cast you out. He will in no wise shut the door. No, if you truly trust in Jesus Christ, your childlike status among the family of God cannot be removed. There's no unchilding of you. And if you truly trust in Christ, there is no unfathering of him. This is the gospel, and it is the solution to the radical father hunger of our times. Yes, I call upon those of you who are fathers, that you are called, like Christ, who reveals the character of God, like Christ, who is as a founder, king, priest, father to his people, you are called with sympathy, with love, to look upon your children in your home, to show them something, of the father heart of God, to remind them that Christ is everlasting father. And though you cannot save your children, you can point them to the one who does save. Husbands cannot save their wives, but they can point their wives by their words and deeds to the one who is savior. And so fathers, I urge you, you have a wonderful opportunity. to show something of the fatherliness of Christ to your children. But the deep cure to all of this is Christ himself. This is the cure to our father hunger. And so I urge you congregation, let us come to God the Father Almighty. Let us do so through His Son, who is called, rightly so, Everlasting Father, in His revealed character and in His relation to us forever, by the Spirit of love, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. One God, world without end. Amen. Let us pray.