Good Morning!
Today is our last lesson of Immanuel: A 5 Lesson Advent Bible Study.  If you would like to catch up and start this Advent study from the beginning, you can find the first lesson here.  I will be offering an online bible study coming in January 2014.  I hope you will consider being part of the online community that participates in studying God’s Word together.  I will be sharing more details about this study in a couple of weeks.

Immanuel: Lesson #5
Pause and Pray: Father, prepare my heart and mind to receive you today.  Renew in me a hunger and thirst for You and Your righteousness.  Thank you for all that You have done for me.  You are Wonderful and your ways are miraculous.  You are my Counselor that leads and guides me into knowing You and Your truth so that I can walk in Your ways.  You, O Lord, are the Mighty God in my circumstances showing yourself faithful and righteous, just and true.  You are the Everlasting Father who is, was, and will be a father to those who love you and follow you. And Lord, You are my Prince of Peace.  The One who brings completeness and well being to my soul and makes me whole.  In the holy name of Jesus,our Immanuel, Amen.

Read Isaiah 9:2-7
Our last throne name to study is the “Prince of Peace.”  In Hebrew, the word for “prince” used here is “sar”.  This particular word choice means a head person (of any rank or class)* an official, a leader, commander, prince or ruler. **  The word, “peace” is from the Hebrew “shalom” and means safe, well, happy, friendly.*  Shalom has a root that means “to be whole” and therefore, can also mean completeness and be closely associated with welfare or health. **   Our Immanuel is the ruler, the prince of our well-being.  He desires to rule over our hearts and bring us to a place of wholeness.  He knows that “a heart at peace brings life to the body.” {see Proverbs 14:30}  For he is “not a God of disorder but of peace.”  {see 1 Corinthians 14:33}

Sar Shalom, our Prince of Peace

In the New Testament, peace nearly always carries a spiritual connotation*** and typically is used for quietness, rest, peace and by implication, prosperity.*   Peace was seen as God’s gift and a work of the Spirit. {see Galatians 5:22}  How would you define peace?  Have you ever considered peace to be associated with welfare or completeness?  Are you striving, stressing, burdened down by disorder and chaos, externally and internally, in your life?  Jesus says,

“Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
“Peace, I leave with you; my peace I give you.”  John 14:27

He is trustworthy.  He is faithful.  All we need to do is believe Him.

Read Micah 5:2-5
Micah, a contemporary of Isaiah, served as a prophet to Israel {northern kingdom} and Judah {southern kingdom}.  Micah prophesied that relief and restoration from their captivity, suffering, oppression, and constant war would come from the most unlikely of places.  From a small little town and out of a small clan of Judah, a great ruler would rise.   The child born of a virgin {see Isaiah 7:14} to parents of humble means with an ancient pedigree.  He will be a shepherd for his people with the strength and majesty of the Lord.

“And he will be their peace.”  Micah 5:5

Read Isaiah 11:1-3,10
From that remnant in the land, the place where only stumps remained and all around looked hopeless and lost and no ruler would come, a holy seed lay. {see Isaiah 6:13]   A shoot sprouts from that stump of Jesse, from the house of David, the Righteous Branch. {see Jeremiah 23:1-6}  Messiah comes. Immanuel. God with us.
He has come to save and redeem the remnant in the land.  Our Mighty God has not forgotten us. The Wonder will perform the miraculous and He will bring about peace.  He is peace and He can not deny Himself no matter how faithless we are. {see 2 Timothy 2:13}

Does all seem hopeless in your life?  Do you need a sprout to burst forth in your circumstances that seem dead?  He is the Righteous Branch, the One who makes possible the impossible.  Our Mighty God.

Read Ezekiel 34:23-25; 37:24-28
Sixty years after Isaiah, the Lord raised up another prophet, Ezekiel, to speak to the people of Judah {southern kingdom} in their captivity in Babylon.  They had refused to hear and believe the messages sent from God and given by Isaiah and the other prophets to them. They were a people without hope and protection in a land not their own {see Psalm 137} needing a savior.  In this forlorn place, a place of their weeping, Ezekiel brings them the message that from the house of David will come their prince.  A prince that will rule forever.  He will make His dwelling with them, a sanctuary among them forever.  This savior would not only come for Israel but for all who call on the name of the Lord for the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. {see Joel 2:32;  Acts 2:17-21; John 1:14}.

Jehovah Shalom — God of Peace

Read Ephesians 2:4-22
Captives freed from sin and freed from being far from God, our Immanuel has brought us near by His blood.  He is our Peace.

“And in Him {we are} being built together to become a dwelling
in which God lives by his Spirit.” Ephesians 2:22

God. With. Us.

Read Colossians 3:15
We have been called to peace by our Prince of Peace.  Our Wonder. Our Counselor. Our Mighty God. Our Everlasting Father.
How will you respond?
We have a Holy God with a holy purpose who desires to have holy people.
We have been called out of darkness, out of captivity by the Light that pierces the darkness.  Have you seen it?

The angels came to that small little town of Bethlehem, to the town of David and announced the birth of a Savior born to a virgin and with ancient origins that stretched back to God, Himself.  Son of God and Son of Man.  He is Christ, the Lord.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace to men on whom his favor rests.” Luke 2:8-20

Blessings,

Mimi

*The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible
** Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words W.E.Vine
***The New Bible Dictionary