Wonderful Counselor

[Read Isaiah 9:6]

One of the worst things that can happen to you is to receive bad advice and then follow it. I had a pretty bad incident occur when I was in high school because I ignored good advice and listened to bad advice. It involved ice fishing. 

My friend and I heard that the fish were biting off of a point at night on one of the local lakes. So, we make plans to go out there and catch fish. My dad’s advice was that I didn’t know the lake well enough to be driving out there at night. My friends advice was that we had three feet of ice and a four-wheel-drive truck, there wasn’t going to be any problems. I listened to his advice, which was not a good idea. After struggling to find our way out to the point and driving through “uncharted” areas of the lake, we finally made out way out to the point. When we got there, I got a really bad feeling. At the time I didn’t know what it was. Now I know it was the Holy Spirit. I stopped driving immediately. Something was going to happen. At this point my friend gave me some more bad advice that was similar to the last advice, “We’ve got four-wheel drive. We’ll be fine.” I didn’t listen this time and began to turn the truck around. The next thing I remember is rolling across the ice, watching my truck sink into the water. Then we had to make a long, cold trek across the lake to a pay phone in order to tell our fathers what happened and apologize for not listening to them in the first place. 

We all need to recognize that we need good advice. We need to be surrounded by good counsel or we’ll end up in messy situations. I think we’ve all found ourselves in situations where we were stuck and didn’t know which way to go. We looked around for someone to help us because we finally realized that we don’t have all the answers and we needed help. We needed someone to guide us. 

For some of us, in that moment, someone with terrible counsel came in and provided direction for us, leading us astray into an extremely messy situation. For others, someone helpful stepped in and lead us in a healthy direction—towards life. 

We all know that terrible counsel is a destructive thing. The terrible counsel I received from my friend led to my truck going through the ice and whole host of trials and difficulties. For some, terrible counsel results in them ruining a relationship, losing a job, going broke, feeling like your life is spiraling out of control. Terrible counsel always has destructive effects. 

Yet, we also know that Wonderful counsel has the opposite effect. It doesn’t lead to destruction but it leads toward health and life. Wonderful counsel pulls us out of the pit and puts our feet back on the rock and points us back on the path of life. Wonderful counsel is life giving. 

This is why it’s so powerful for us to read this name of the Messiah. Our passage says, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6, NIV). This is a promise to a people who are feeling beat down and destroyed. They have been kicked out of their homeland. They have spent years and years watching their leaders make poor decision after poor decision. They have watched one bad king reign after another bad king. They have watched their nation spiral down, down, down, down. They feel helpless and don’t know where to turn. Why would they turn to their leaders for help? They were the ones who got them into this mess in the first place. Where can they turn?

In the midst of this, there is a promise of a child to come. This child will have the government placed upon his shoulders and he will be called Wonderful Counselor. What an amazing promise!

Can you imagine the joy this placed in the heart of the people? Like I mentioned before, their government had been ridiculed with terrible counselor after terrible counselor. Now, there is a promise of one to come, and this child will carry the government on his shoulders as King and he will be a Wonderful Counselor. He will be wise and lead them in paths of righteousness. He will pull them out of the pit and set their feet on the rock. He will help them to get “unstuck” and point them in the right direction. He will lead them from the destruction they are in into life—fullness of life. 

Earlier in Isaiah, he says something similar about the coming Messiah, “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD— and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears…” (Isaiah 11:1–3, NIV). The Messiah will be filled with the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, filled with the Spirit of counsel and power, filled with the knowledge and fear of the Lord. 

I hope this stirs your heart as you hear this. I mean, we should all know how much we need to have Wonderful Counsel in our lives. We should all know that we need someone to lead us and guide us in this world. We should all feel a little lost and in need of guidance. And to hear that we have someone who is a Wonderful Counselor, One who will lead us in the right path, One who will lead us away from destruction to life, that should stir our hearts and get our blood pumping. It should bring us a level of peace too, because we know that we have someone who will lead us in the right path and provide some direction for us. We’re not in this alone. We have a Wonderful Counselor in Jesus Christ—the Messiah. 

Yet, as we read scripture, it repeatedly speaks about the Father as a Wonderful Counselor. In Psalm 33 it says, “The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!” (Psalm 33:10–12, ESV). So, the Lord’s counsel stands and brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. His counsel is higher than the nations and bring blessing to all who follow. He is a wonderful counselor. 

Not only is the Father a Wonderful Counselor, but he has written his counsel down for us. In Paul’s last words to a group of church leaders he says, “Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” (Acts 20:26–27, ESV). What Paul is saying here is that he has preached to these leaders from the entirety of scripture…and he calls the scriptures the counsel of God. 

Take a moment to let that sink in for a moment. This book that we read and preach and study is the counsel of God. This God who created everything, knows all things, and is in control of all things, has written his counsel down in a book for us to read and study. In contrast to that, we are a people who recognize that we need guidance and counsel, we struggle to know what to do on a regular basis. And, right in front of our faces, is the Wonderful Counsel of the all-knowing, all-powerful God. This book is filled with counsel that will lead us from death into life—from the pit onto the path of righteousness. 

Yet, even though the people of God has this book before their eyes, they continued to wander away, following Terrible counsel. We read about it over and over and over again. We see it in our own lives and in the lives of friends and family members. We have God’s Word right in front of us, words that will lead us to life and peace, yet we end up ignoring His counsel and follow the counsel of the world, or the counsel of our own hearts. We end up following terrible counsel and finding ourselves in terrible situations as a result. 

This is why the Father sent Jesus into the world. In speaking about the coming of Jesus, he spoke about a new covenant with his people. This covenant would be different from the covenant of the law. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God said, ““The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”” (Jeremiah 31:31–34, NIV). 

Because God’s people continued to ignore the Wonderful Counsel that he provided for them, because they continued to reject God as their King, something needed to change. The New Covenant is about bringing about forgiveness of sins for those who have repeatedly rejected God’s Wonderful Counsel. Then, once their sins are forgiven, this covenant is about writing that Wonderful Counsel on their hearts so that they will listen and obey His Wonderful Counsel. It’s about renewing the hearts and minds of his people so that they stop listening to the terrible counsel of the world and begin following the Wonderful Counsel of God. 

This is what was accomplished through Jesus Christ. On the one hand, Jesus is the embodiment of God’s Wonderful Counsel—which is why his name is Wonderful Counselor. When you look at Jesus, you see the perfect embodiment of God’s Wonderful Counsel, he perfectly lived this out. He also died on the cross and rose again from the dead so that our sins would be forgiven—so that we would have a clean slate in which God could write his law upon our hearts, and empower us to walk in step with his Wonderful Counsel. One of the ways God accomplishes this is through the work of the Holy Spirit. Right before Jesus was crucified he told his disciples, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (John 14:26, NIV). The Holy Spirit, is also known as a Wonderful Counselor, who teaches us all things and leads us into all truth, who empowers us to walk in step with God’s Wonderful Counsel. 

This is the beauty and power of this Advent season. We look around at a world full of mess and terrible counsel. We look at our own lives and feel the pressure of important decisions that need to be made and feel helpless to make them. Then, we are reminded of a small child in a manger. This child is born with the government of the world upon his shoulders. This child is born with the name Wonderful Counselor. He is born as one who can provide forgiveness to you for the times you wandered away and ignored God’s counsel, but he can also write that counsel on your heart and empower you to walk in it. This child was born into the world to give you hope and life. Look to Him. Trust in Him. Follow Him. Find life and peace in the Wonderful Counselor.