The Everlasting Father

We've been looking at the names of the Lord Jesus in Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6. 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, the King. We have discovered that when the government of our life is on his shoulder, life takes on an altogether different meaning.

He takes care of the dullness of life because his name is wonderful. He takes care of the decisions of life because his name is Counselor. And he takes care of the demands of life because he's the mighty God.

And he takes care of the dimensions of life because he is the everlasting Father, or the Father of eternity. Now we must never confuse God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Often we do this in our praying.

We will thank God the Father that he died for us. Well, really he didn't. God the Son died for us.

Of course, God was in Christ reconciling the world. We must be very careful to distinguish the persons that make up the Godhead. In the Hebrew language, the word Father does not always mean the father of a child.

It also means the originator, the author. When Jesus called Satan the Father of lies, he was using the same expression, the author of lies, the originator of lies. When Jesus Christ is called the everlasting Father, this phrase means the Father of eternity.

This means that eternity is in the hands of Jesus Christ. I'll not do it, but I'm tempted to go on a bit of a detour here to emphasize once again that if he is the Father of eternity, then he himself is eternal and he is God. In fact, the same word that's translated everlasting here in Isaiah 9-6 is translated eternity back in chapter 57 of Isaiah, verse 15.

For thus saith the high and lofty one who inhabiteth eternity. Same word. This means, quite contrary to what the cultists tell us, this means quite contrary to what the liberals tell us, that Jesus Christ is eternal God.

But it means much more than that. It means that Jesus Christ, being the Father of eternity, wants to share eternity with us. Never forget how this verse begins, unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.

And every name that he wears is a blessing that he shares, and he wants to share with us eternity. Now, we want to answer the question tonight, in what ways does Jesus Christ share eternity with ordinary clay vessels such as we are? Well, I would suggest that there are perhaps four or five ways. We'll not expound each of them in great detail, but I do want you to understand them.

First, the Lord Jesus Christ helps us to share in eternity as the Creator. He made us for eternity. There's an interesting statement back in Ecclesiastes.

Most preachers avoid Ecclesiastes. You don't have to. It's as much inspired as Romans.

The record is inspired. In Ecclesiastes 3, verses 1-10, he talks about the different times that we go through. The word time is used twenty-nine times in the first eight verses of Ecclesiastes 3. A time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to pluck up.

He goes right down through life and finally ends up with a time to die, a time to make love, and a time of war, and a time of peace. Now he says in verse 11, he, God, hath made everything beautiful in its time. God balanced his life.

There are times of joy and times of sorrow, times of burden and times of blessing. He makes everything beautiful in its time. Our trouble is we don't want things in their time.

We want them in our time. But he goes on to say this, also he hath set the world in their heart. Now I'm going to change that word world so that it's a good old-fashioned Hebrew word eternity.

He hath set eternity in their heart. Now for what purpose? So that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. Once again, permit me to make a change.

When I do this, it's not because I am dissatisfied with our authorized translation, but as a teacher of the word of God, I want to be as accurate as I can to give you the full meaning of it. He also hath set eternity in their heart, without which no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. You know what he's saying here? He's saying that when Jesus Christ made us, let us make man in our image.

When Jesus Christ made us, he put eternity in our heart. There is in the heart of every man a quest for the eternal. St. Augustine said it so beautifully, thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.

Now, says the writer, when you leave out eternity, nothing in this world makes sense. That's why in the first two chapters of Ecclesiastes, he's so confused. He studies this and he studies that and he examines nature and he examines everything else, and he comes to the conclusion all is vanity, all is vanity.

There's no purpose behind it. You know what lies behind man's quest in science? God put eternity in his heart. Paintings, music, sculpture, the arts.

God put eternity in man's heart, and man is out trying to satisfy that eternal appetite down inside without privilege to tell them that there is one who satisfies that. The thing that lifts man above the beast is the fact that we're made in the image of God and God put eternity in our heart. If I speak tonight to one unsaved person who's here, I want you to know this.

You will never have satisfaction in your heart until the eternal planted there meets the eternal one who planted it there. It's not until you meet the eternal Jesus Christ that you'll have any satisfaction. He made us for eternity.

Now, if there's one thing you and I know, it's that life goes by pretty swiftly. The older we get, the swifter it seems to go. Job had that problem.

I was reading the other day over in the book of Job, in chapters 7, 8, and 9. It's rather interesting that Job, in all of his pain, is painting pictures. He's showing how swiftly life is going by. In chapter 7, verse 6, my days are swifted in a weaver's shuttle.

Now, if they were fast back in Job's day, Job could see the shuttles today. I've watched some of these mechanical looms. You can't see them.

My days are fasted in a weaver's shuttle. Verse 6, verse 7, my life is a breath. Gone.

Verse 9, as a cloud it is consumed. The cloud is here one moment and gone the next. Chapter 8, verse 9, our days upon earth are but a shadow.

It's kind of hard to measure a shadow, isn't it? Chapter 9, verse 25, my days are swifter than a post. He's referring, of course, to the Pony Express riders they had back in that day. The fastest way they had to carry a message was the king's post.

And he'd give the message in a way the fellow would go and nothing would stop him. Not quite like the slow mail delivery we have today. It was rapid.

My days are swifter than a post. They flee away. They see no good.

They are passed away as a swift ship. He could see the ships today. He could see a 747.

As the eagle that hastens to the prey. Why, he should watch the spy planes we have today. What's he saying? Everything goes by so fast.

And there's something in me that craves permanence, that craves the eternal. God put it there. Now, the second way that Jesus Christ puts us in touch with the eternal, he made us for eternity.

And secondly, he came to earth to reveal eternity. We're in the Christmas season. And it would do us good to read what John wrote over in his first letter.

What did he say in his first letter? That which is from the beginning, and that means eternal, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life, for the life was manifested, and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us. Jesus Christ, when he was here on earth, revealed eternity. Now, back before the Lord Jesus came to earth, people knew there was the eternal.

God spoke in creation. God spoke in judgment. God spoke through his law.

God spoke through miracles. God spoke through interventions in history. In the Old Testament, you don't find too many people saying there is no eternal.

Our Communist neighbors tell us that there is no life beyond the grave, that man is just simply a creature, that anything that has to do with religion is certainly a mark of lack of education. But nobody talked that way who had any sense back in the Old Testament. And when Jesus Christ was here on earth, just in the everyday things of life, he revealed eternity.

He stepped out of eternity into time that one day we might step out of time into eternity. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I came into the world. Came from where? From eternity.

You see, God always was. He has no beginning and he has no ending. He's eternal.

Priests have a beginning and an ending. Angels have a beginning, no ending. Human beings have a beginning, no ending.

We are not eternal. We have a beginning. We are immortal.

Your soul is going to live forever, either in heaven or hell. But the amazing thing is this. When Jesus Christ stepped out onto the platform of life, he said, I want to show you how real eternity is.

Of course, this upset everybody. It upset the religious crowd because you can have religion without having eternity. It upset the traditionalists because they didn't know much about eternity.

It upset the sinners. They knew they were missing something. This is why Jesus was crucified.

The religious crowd said he's a liar. He said, I'm here to show you eternal life. What is eternal life? The way I am.

You never found Jesus worrying. Never found him panicky, frustrated. Never found him biting his fingernails, pacing the floor, wondering what to do next.

Never found him at a loss to know what to do or what to say. Eternity stepped into time. His words were words of eternal life.

Never man's faith like this. His works were works of eternity. When Jesus turned water into wine, eternity stepped into that stream.

Now, God's always turning water into wine. But he takes a long time to do it. I drove through some of the Michigan vineyards some weeks ago.

I had no idea there were so many vineyards up in Michigan. God's always turning water into wine. But Jesus, when eternity stepped into time, did it like that.

Our Lord multiplied bread. God's always multiplying bread. You put one little grain of wheat into the ground and you get 50 back.

But God takes a long time to do this. When God built nature, he built into it times and seasons. But when eternity stepped into time, he multiplied the bread instantly.

You see, the eternal is not limited by time. We aren't. In fact, most of you earthly preachers were more limited by time.

Jesus Christ created us to have a desire for eternity. He made us for eternity. And secondly, he came to earth and revealed eternity.

In his daily walk, you could look at him and see eternal life. Now, of course, the third way is the obvious thing. He died to give us eternity.

He died to give to us eternal, abundant life. He said so himself. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

These people who talk about the love of God and yet won't talk about the judgment for sin have a problem with John 3.16. John 3.16 is the great love verse of the Bible, but right in the middle of it you find perish. You can almost hear the hiss of the fires of hell in that word perish. And so the alternatives are these.

Perish, eternal life. Experience God's love or experience God's judgment. When Jesus Christ died that we might have eternal life.

Now, the interesting thing is this, my friends. At the cross of Calvary, time and eternity met. Now, let's sink in.

When Jesus died, he was the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world, before the world was made, before man was made. The Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world, and yet there in time the eternal Lamb of God was slain. And when he died, his sacrifice covered everything for eternity.

Now, you and I couldn't begin to explain. We couldn't begin to comprehend all that was involved in that tremendous transaction. We know that something happened that was just amazing, because the sun refused to shine.

There was darkness upon the earth. When Jesus Christ was made sin for you and me, it was an eternal transaction taking place in time. You and I as Christians were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.

That's eternity. His plan is a great eternal plan, according to Ephesians 3. Please don't ever get the idea that, frustrated, God decided to do something. No, all this is planned for all eternity.

When Jesus Christ died that you and I might share in eternity. You say, but why die? Because the thing, the awful, ghastly, horrible thing that robs men of eternal life is sin. Now, we think of sin as a word or as a deed.

You read your Bible, you discover that sin is a poison. Sin is a force that keeps working in this world, and the wages of sin is still death. And so there on the cross, time and eternity met.

Sin confronted righteousness. Death confronted life. Time confronted eternity.

And Jesus Christ came forth the victor. Now, there's a fourth way that Jesus Christ involves us in eternity, and that's this. He lives to give our lives the touch of eternity.

That's what Isaiah 9-6 is talking about. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given.

His name is Father of Eternity. He wants to give birth in your life and mine to an eternal kind of existence. In other words, he wants us as Christians to be different from other people.

Now, the touch of death is upon every unsaved person. The condemnation of God is upon every unsaved person. You and I have been delivered from death.

We've been delivered from condemnation. We have eternal life. That's an amazing thing.

We have the very life of God. Now, Jesus Christ wants to put the touch of eternity on everything we do. You say, well, now you're talking about something very impossible.

I don't think so. You see, one of our big enemies is time. If I only had time.

Ever say that? Do you ever stop to meet your enemy, time? Your enemy, time, fights you with three great weapons. He fights me with these same weapons. Number one, decay.

Now, there's no decay in eternity, because in eternity there's no time. Time is something we measure, but we can't control it. You say now, but the minute you say now, it's gone.

Time introduces decay. When man began to die, he began to decay. And all around us, we sing in one of our songs, Change and decay all around I see, O thou that changest not, abide with me.

My friend, you're decaying sincerely. Some of us are decaying faster than others, more painfully than others. This is time.

There will be no decay in eternity. The second weapon you find time using against you is the weapon of delay. You can't speed time up.

Sometimes time seems to go so slowly, you say, oh, why? How long, oh, Lord, how long? It's a problem of delay. And the ultimate weapon he uses is death. Now, here are three weapons that time uses against us.

Decay and delay and death. I want you to know that when Jesus Christ has the government of our lives, you don't have to worry about these three. They will work for you and not against you.

Take this matter of decay. What does Paul say over in 2 Corinthians chapters 4 and 5? The outward man is perishing, but the inward man is being renewed day by day. And even though in these bodies we are tasting of decay, this doesn't frustrate us.

This doesn't cause us to want to commit suicide. We just simply look up to the Father and we say, Father, get in closer. Get in closer.

We take this matter of delay. One of the verses in the psalm that has been a great encouragement to me is Psalm 31, 15. My times are in thy hands.

It's a good verse to mark in your Bible when you get frustrated. My times are in thy hands. My friend, when Jesus Christ has the government of our lives, decay it works for us, not against us.

Delay, get in his hands. I feel so sorry for these people who think they have to run the whole world. They miss the bus and the world comes to them.

Mail delivery is delayed and they lose their sanctification. Jesus Christ says, look, give me the government of your life, and he won't worry about delay. Your times will be in my hands.

Death? Why, he's the great I am. I am the resurrection and the life. In fact, it will not dwell on death.

Think for just a moment about Mary and Martha and Lazarus. You got all three of those weapons. Lazarus gets sick and they send a message to Jesus and say, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.

And he waits for four days. Delay. And Martha and Mary are saying, where is he? We prayed, where is he? Where is he? You talk like that.

Delay. When he gets there, death has already been there. And only death but decay.

And so there stands the Lord Jesus Christ. And Martha says, oh, if he'd only been here, he wouldn't have died. Is that the only reason we want Jesus? To keep things from happening that we don't want to happen? Mary said the same thing.

Lord, if only you'd been here, my brother hadn't died. She said, look, I am here. That's all that matters.

Now, just turn the whole thing over to me. Put the government of your life upon my shoulder. Roll away the stones.

Oh, Lord, by now he smells. Roll away the stones. And he who is the resurrection and the life, he who knows no deceit, just simply said, Lazarus, come forth, crying out in the voice of a victor.

And death and decay and delay were conquered. And out came Lazarus. Now, I don't know what particular problem you're facing tonight.

But I suggest you roll away the stones. Let him have access to whatever it is that frustrates him tonight. Put the government on his shoulders.

And he took the touch of eternity in your life. I'd love to dwell upon this, but we must hurry on. Isn't it marvelous the way everything Jesus touched had the touch of eternity? He took ordinary bread and ordinary wine and made them into something eternal.

This morning we had the Lord's supper and reminded us of his marvelous gift of eternal life. Whatever he touched had the touch of eternity about it. But our lives can be this way.

That's what Mr. Moody tried to do. His life verse, 1 John 2.17, He that doeth the will of God abideth forever. Do what God called you to do, and the touch of eternity will be upon it.

Finally, our Lord touches our lives with eternity by coming again to take us to our eternal home. He made us for eternity. He came into this world to reveal eternity.

He died to give us eternity. He lived today to put the touch of eternity upon our lives. To let people around us say, there's something different about you.

And one day he's going to come again to usher us into eternity. I was thinking about this the other evening. It's overwhelming.

I tell you, it's overwhelming. How can you conceive of eternity? Forever and ever and ever and ever. You see, everything that we value, we value because we're going to lose it someday.

We love our parents because someday they'll be gone. We love the children because one day they're going to grow up and be gone. And we say to ourselves, oh, we'd better enjoy this now because it'll be gone someday.

You'll never say that throughout eternity. It's almost inconceivable. It's mind-boggling is what it is.

Eye has not seen, ear has not heard. Neither has entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them that love him. And one of these days our Lord is going to burst into time once again.

And he's going to catch us up to be with him. And Paul uses a beautiful word in 1 Thessalonians 4, forever. And so shall we be forever with the Lord.

Forever. Now do you see how ridiculous it is not to know Jesus Christ? Everything you do is just time. And one day it's gone.

You see how foolish it is for a Christian to live for the world? The world is passing away in the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. You see how foolish it is to use talent and time and treasure and all that God's given us for silly purposes in this earth? How much better it is to take all that we have and just lay it on the altar and say, Dear God, put the touch of eternity on this. I want what I'm doing to last.

I don't want to build my life with wood and hay and stubble. I want to build my life with gold and silver and precious stones. Many years ago when I was ministering in Youth for Christ, there was a chorus we often used with the young people, that perhaps some of you still remember.

With eternity's values in view, Lord. With eternity's values in view. Let me do each day's work for Jesus with eternity's values in view.

That's what it means to have him as the father of eternity. It means that every day in our lives he gives birth to eternity in the way we live. And then no matter how we decay, no matter what may come to us, be it death, it's going to last forever.

And we'll meet it someday. Not to gloat over it, but to give glory to God. If I speak to a Christian here tonight who's wasting his life in that which is foolish, my friend, 30 seconds after Jesus Christ comes back, you'll be ashamed of yourself.

If I speak to an unsaved person here, I want you to know that you're wasting your life, and it'll be wasted throughout all eternity. You better trust Christ. We're thankful, Father, that we can look forward to an eternal weight of glory.

Help us to use that weight of glory in the scales of our lives. To weigh that which we are living for. We fear, Father, that the weight of eternity makes the shallowness of our lives that much more apparent.

Oh, the time that is wasted, the money that is wasted, the energy that is wasted. Father, forgive us. I pray for that unsaved friend tonight that he'll come and trust the Savior.

Step out of time into eternity. Out of corruption into insurrection. Oh, how wonderful.

For that Christian who is playing his life. Oh, I pray that he'll put away childish things and move into the seriousness and the joyfulness of a life that is touched by eternity. Help us as a church in making our decisions to weigh them by eternity.

Do with us and in us what needs to be done in this way. In Jesus' name, amen.