“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, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).

The child is born unto us. The whole nature around us, angels above us, and the saints of God who knew Him had been expecting the Son. When a kingdom is awaiting a child to be born in the royal family and when a son is born, the whole kingdom is filled with joy. There is a spirit of triumph abroad because an heir apparent is born.

Here also the prophet sees that a time of triumph for God’s kingdom has come. The Hebrew prophet says, “the government shall be upon His shoulder”. He will be called “Wonderful” and “Counsellor” and the mighty God.

The Son who [was] going to be born [would] be far greater than any wise man or any great king that was born on this earth. He [would] be the second Adam with the innocence of the first Adam before he was deceived.

When Jesus was born, the greatness of the event was fully understood only by Heaven. Nature seemed to understand it, and a new star appeared in the sky. The magi or the wise men understood this, and the extremely simple folk, the shepherds, understood this. The whole universe had been looking forward to this great event. “[T]he whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22). Sin not only affects humanity but also affects nature. When sin came, thorns came (Genesis 3:18). In the first home, murder between brothers was committed. Animals that were friendly to man became inimical to him. The human heart became desperately wicked, producing poisonous thoughts and making the imaginations of man a source of untold trouble to him; untimely rains, floods, storms, failure of crops, and allied natural calamities began to occur.

A King came into the world who can restore order again. He is the Prince of Peace. There were dangerous forces at work to destroy humanity and to wipe out all peace and safety in this world. But this King has power to quell all these things. He demonstrated His power on the sea. For instance, He ordered the roaring sea with the fiat “Peace be still” (literally “muzzled”), and the winds and the sea obeyed. The disciples saw for the first time the Almighty God in Him. When He rose from the dead, He was completely crowned as the Lord of Heaven and Earth.

Not only the troubled sea but also the troubled heart with so much agitation, commotion, and disturbance can be restored to peace—the peace that passes all understanding. Only those that have believed in Him understand the supernatural or superhuman influence of this newborn Babe. The world and its philosophers have been seeking for peace. Here comes the Prince of Peace who can touch human nature and transform it into divine nature. The sin of mankind is nailed to the Cross, and the resurrection victory ransoms us from the power of the grave, redeeming us from death (Hosea 13:14).

Only those who are born of the Spirit can understand the significance of the great events of our Lord’s birth. A Son is born to be the King of the whole universe by virtue of His holy life, having been tempted like any one of us yet always above sin (Hebrews 4:15). He proved that the prerogatives that were given to the first Adam were sufficient to make him triumph over the evil one. This same Jesus, having been tempted in all points like as we are, was without sin, and then He took upon Himself the sin of humanity. He took it into the grave and buried it there. Thus He befitted Himself to be the King. 

Even nature recognised Him when the earth trembled and the sun became dark and the grave delivered up some of the saints, who arose and appeared before men. He walked on the earth as a king. Death yielded and the dead were raised to life. The grave had to give up Lazarus when He stood before its mouth and made Lazarus walk out a live man.

Greater than that, several sinful men and women who were “dead in trespasses and sins” went from Him completely changed. In an hour’s conversation, the harlot of Sychar became the missionary of the same place. He became the King who conquered the depraved human nature and restored man back to his near-angelic position.

The very name of Jesus makes the underworld tremble. The devil and his angels have been holding complete sway over the world, filling the human mind with sophistry and misguided philosophy, which have missed the way of salvation. When men began to worship idols, these evil spirits entered the idols and created in deluded men and women a kind of false reality. But the depraved human nature is never bettered by this kind of idol worship. All the so-called “avatars” are a human fabrication, and some persons even philosophise over the sinful lives of these “avatars”.

But this Jesus, after two thousand years, remains unspotted, and no one can ascribe any kind of impurity, sin, or selfishness to Him. He is the selfless Deity who took upon Himself our sickness, sin, and sorrow. Our sicknesses and sorrows produced in Him those wounds while He willingly gave His life for humanity. Jesus, by virtue of His character, stands supreme in Heaven and on Earth. Nobody can dethrone Him, and those that follow this great Saviour also share His greatness. They stand supreme, not by human support nor by patriotic sentiment but by sheer virtue [that] gives them the highest place in humanity. The grave has no power over them. There is no fear of death in them—Jesus allays all fears. They become the stars that shine forever in the firmament of God’s kingdom.

Of the increase of Jesus’ government and peace there shall be no end, and the throne of David will overflow with judgement and justice forever. He is known as “the rod of the stem of Jesse”, “a branch” that should grow out of His stem. He came from the family of Abraham. God’s promise that all the nations of the world [would] be blessed through Abraham’s family is being fulfilled. A prophecy about Jesus was that He would be a person “of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His ears” (Isaiah 11:3).

He is the “Wonderful Counsellor” who, with transcendental wisdom, guides His people. There is no wisdom above the wisdom that comes from Jesus. All the philosophers of the world have become dwarfs before Him. He lived what He preached. His philosophy was translated into holy living. The world wants to see a great philosophy or a revealed philosophy in concrete form and that is personified in Jesus. God made it possible for man to look at His own image in the flesh. On the Cross we see the broken and the bleeding heart of God, the heart that was broken for sin-ridden humanity. Finally we see Him enthroned in Heaven above all principality and power.

Is this great and matchless Saviour and Lord the undisputed ruler of your whole personality and all that you have this Christmas?

—N. Daniel

“And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38).

The first tidings of Christmas [that] came to Mary, the mother of Jesus, left her stunned and breathless with wonder. She surely knew the promise that the great Redeemer, whose coming was foretold in the Scriptures, was to be born of a virgin. Being devoid of all self-consciousness and beautiful in her purity, Mary found it impossible to believe that she was to be God’s choice of the ages, to be the mother of His son.

Simple in her sincerity, she asked the angel who brought the tidings to her: “You know that I am a virgin, how can these things be?” Not that she disbelieved God, but for one stunning moment, she lost sight of God’s promise that Jesus was to be virgin-born and gave way to natural reasoning.

The beauty [that] is invested in purity becomes an enduring beauty. Despite all the cosmetics and face-lifts of today, most beauty queens have a very short beauty span. How quickly their charm vanishes! But the beauty of a clean woman and a praying mother grows with her increasing years. Even her grey hair is so pleasing to behold.

But the torment of an unclean conscience can shatter nerves of steel, etch lines and wrinkles on your face, and make your beauty disgusting and hateful. That is why many young people today appear to be many years older than they are.

While the revelation of the angel came to Mary as a bolt from the blue, completely unsettling the even tenor of her life, . . . she received the tidings with joyful anticipation and submission with those timeless words, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord!”

Christmas—the beautiful story of God’s love for rebellious sinners—comes to us as a breath from Heaven. It is not at all the annual spree of buying and the uninhibited binge of beer, alcohol, and gorging of prodigious piles of food.

Christmas is a forceful reminder to all mankind that we are not merely cut adrift to float aimlessly in the sea of life. “Unto you is born this day a Saviour!” Who needs a Saviour? Those who are lost. Who is more lost than we who live on this planet today? We hold in our hands weapons of self-destruction, which promise a carnage so uniform that there will be no victor or vanquished.

At the heart of the Christmas story is the Saviour. Without Him Christmas has no meaning. Like Mary of old, it could be that we are slightly puzzled as to what this should mean. Is God going to do such a wonderful thing for me? It seems incredible, but let us say: “I do believe it, God will not deceive me, He will do the impossible for me.”

Yes, Christmas makes a lot of impossibilities actual realities. God’s promise to send the Saviour has come to pass; everyone who trusts in Him is going to see a glorious deliverance from sin.

Christmas brings to us God in very flesh. How many are the sages who almost despaired that their earnest seeking of God was all in vain—they felt they could never meet the Eternal One! Oh what a thrill to see Jesus, God in very flesh, God’s holiness, God’s love, God’s tender compassion for the suffering, all put into flesh and blood before us! Not in marble, not in gold, but in Flesh and Blood.

There He comes and stands before us—Immaculately beautiful, Peerless, Perfect—all that God should be! Can you turn your gaze away from Him? No, He grips you, He fills you, and He thrills you until you cry: “Jesus is all to me; I cannot live without Him.” Yes, that is true Christmas—the coming of Jesus into your life.

—Joshua Daniel

A young man was more or less interested about his soul's salvation. One afternoon, in his office, he said, "I will accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour."

He went home and told his wife, who was a nominal professor of religion, that he had made up his mind to serve Christ; and he added, "After supper to-night I am going to take the company into the drawing-room and erect the family altar."

"Well," said his wife, "you know some of the gentlemen who are coming to tea are sceptics, and they are older than you are, so don't you think you had better wait until after they have gone, or else go out in the kitchen and have your first prayer with the servants?"

The young man thought for a few moments, and then he said, "I have asked Jesus Christ into my house for the first time, and I shall take Him into the best room, and not into the kitchen."

So he called his friends into the drawing-room. There was a little sneering, but he read and prayed. That man afterward became Chief Justice of the United States Court.

Never be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; it is the power of God unto salvation.

The above stories are from Anecdotes, Incidents and Illustrations-D L Moody (1898)

I remember hearing of a Sabbath-school teacher who had led every one of her children to Christ. She was a faithful teacher. Then she tried to get her children to go out and bring other children into the school. One day one of them came and said she had been trying to get the children of a family to come to the school, but the father was an infidel [a word that was formerly used for “atheist”], and he wouldn't allow it. "What is an infidel?" asked the child. ... The teacher went on to tell her ... and she was perfectly shocked. A few mornings after, the girl happened to be going past the post office on her way to school, and she saw the ... father coming out. She went up to him and said, "Why don't you love Jesus?" If it had been a man who had said that to him probably he would have knocked him down. He looked at her and walked on. A second time she put the question, "Why don't you love Jesus?" He put out his hand to put her gently away from him, when, on looking down, he saw her tears. "Please, sir, tell me why you don't love Jesus?" He pushed her aside and away he went. When he got to his office he couldn't get this question out of his mind. All the letters seemed to read, "Why don't you love Jesus?" All men in his place of business seemed to say, "Why don't you love Jesus?" When he tried to write his pen seemed to shape the words, "Why don't you love Jesus?" He couldn't rest, and on the street he went to mingle with the businessmen, but he seemed to hear a voice continually asking him, "Why don't you love Jesus?" He thought when night came and he got home with his family, he would forget it; but he couldn't. He complained that he wasn't well, and went to bed. But when he laid his head on the pillow that voice kept whispering, "Why don't you love Jesus?" He couldn't sleep. By and by, about midnight, he got up and said, "I will get a Bible and find where Christ contradicts himself, and then I'll have a reason," and he turned to the book of John. My friends, if you want a reason for not loving Christ, don't turn to John. He knew Him too long. I don't believe a man can read the gospel of John without being turned to Christ. Well, he read through, and found no reason why he shouldn't love Him, but he found many reasons why he should. He read this book, and before morning he was on his knees, and that question put by that little child led to his conversion.