Times are troubling. Things just don't seem to be like they used to be. Whatever happened to life just "playing out" like it did for previous generations? Talk of God isn't heard in the public place like it used to be. National leaders seem to be cut from a different cloth than the founding fathers. A new world order seems to be emerging with powers rising in the Orient. These emerging forces challenge and threaten what has been the status quo.

The economy is getting worse, not better, and money doesn't seem to go as far as it used to go. What is a person supposed to do? And to top it off, some are saying it's going to get worse before it gets better! Yeah, call them for what they are—"doom and gloomers." Does this sound like your world? Yes, it probably does.

But it's also the world of the prophet Isaiah around 700 B.C., as God was allowing the "curtain to come down" on the covenant peoples of Israel and Judah, who had increasingly pushed the Ten Commandments out of the marketplace of ideas and values. They wanted to be like everyone else. God granted them their wish. Like every other kingdom, they would be swallowed up by a new world order arising from the city-states of the Mesopotamian plains.

Isaiah seemingly "nails the coffin shut" when he pens in Isaiah 8:22, "Then they will look to the earth, and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish; and they will be driven into darkness." Ouch! Certainly no pardon for severity of punishment or clemency for good behavior is given here. Pretty bleak! You might say, "Where's the love?"

Well, that "love" starts to unfold in chapter 9, which in the scroll of Isaiah's time, would have made for one complete line of thought.

Verse 1 illuminates a future hope in which "the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed." That hope is magnified in verse 2, "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined."

We need to ask, "What is happening and to whom?" Is it only for the people of Israel and Judah or will we, too, recognize that great light? The people of Galilee would be the first to see this light. But the expansive nature of this prophecy includes you and me in the here and now.

The brilliance of God's sustaining entrance onto the earth is given definition in the following verses of Isaiah 9:6-7. It is one of the great messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The titles and attributes of this light do not merely describe the events that Jesus Christ would fulfill during His first coming, but also at His prophesied second coming.

Stepping-stones of faith

The message is even more powerful than the lyrical beauty of Handel's Messiah, for it includes stepping-stones of faith for all peoples of all times in periods of darkness. Its illuminating message of hope was offered by a loving God to fortify our personal faith as this world around us grows increasingly hostile to His ways.

The words speak of a time that was not completely fulfilled at Jesus' birth, because "the yoke of his burden" and "the rod of the oppressor" (verse 4) upon the descendants of Israel, and for that matter humanity as a whole, have not yet been lifted by God's Anointed. Until that age of light comes to pass, our walk of faith is guided by the great light that our Heavenly Father ordained the Messiah to bring to our darkened age.

I sincerely believe that the degree to which we embrace, internalize and exude this message is the degree to which we will be able to stand throughout the upheaval of kingdoms portrayed in Daniel, the sobering events foretold in Jesus' Olivet Prophecy, and the tumultuousness conveyed in Revelation.

A throne of straw

A great light shines in that phrase "for unto us a Child is born." Just imagine—this was pronounced nearly 700 years before the birth of Jesus. Since God foreknew this special birth, He was equally knowledgeable and purposeful about the location of the birth. The Christ child did not land by happenstance in the straw of a manger in a stable converted into a guestroom for an overcrowded inn, but was placed there by divine providence.

God was on target, not out of luck, when there was "no room for them in the inn" (Luke 2:7). His path to ultimately reign over all mankind was inaugurated in the form of a helpless newborn babe on a "throne" of straw. Our faith will be tested and magnified as we reflect on what the One who became Christ brought about as He emptied Himself of His divine position and took on our form (Philippians 2:5-8). It does truly take one to know one, and Christ became one of us so that there might be "a room" for us in His Kingdom.

A great light shines in contemplating the utterance, "unto us a Son is given." God not only proclaimed through Isaiah that the line of man would produce the Messiah, but that the seed of God would be incorporated into the master plan to bring humanity back into alignment with our Creator. Just imagine the mind and love of God who willingly allowed a member of the eternal Godhead, the one known as the Word (John 1:1-3), to become the atoning sacrifice for all humanity's sins.

God sees things as if they already are

A great light is displayed by understanding the depth and breadth of these words: "The government will be upon His shoulder. And His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

For 6,000 years of recorded human history, God has watched and cried as He witnessed the corruption of humanly devised systems, even in those governments that tout that they are the best humanity has produced.

God, who sees things that will be as if they already are, shares that future with us in Isaiah's prophetic writings: "The Spirit of the L ord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the L ord . His delight is in the fear of the L ord , and He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, nor decide by the hearing of His ears; but with righteousness He shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth" (Isaiah 11:2-4).

These marvelous qualities were not only on display at Christ's first coming, but Daniel 2:44 plainly measures the jurisdiction of such needed governance. This passage states, "And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever."

Notice two profound conclusions: 1) Human government will no longer govern the world, as the kingdom shall "not be left to other people" and 2) This new divine government will be ageless, as "it shall stand forever."

At given times in history, rulers or founders of countries have been awarded the title of "father of the nation." In America, George Washington comes to mind. Likewise, Christ is going to be the "Father" or founder of an everlasting spiritual Kingdom. Yes, as Adam Clarke's Commentary renders it, Christ is "the Father of an Everlasting Age."

Taking a moment to imagine

This great light is further defined as the "Prince of Peace." One estimate says that humanity has only experienced 300 years of peace in 6,000 years of known history. Now, imagine a world at peace. No roadside bombings in Iraq. No ambushes in Afghanistan. No tribal warfare in Central Africa. No drive-by shootings in our urban areas. No abductions in Chechnya. No car burnings in France.

No longer will young soldiers eye one another across a "no-man's-land" surrounding some cold, forsaken and forgotten line of demarcation penned by politicians in a back room. No longer a world of "tit for tat," or "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" that leaves all blind and toothless.

You are left with a question

The great question is not whether a great light has shined, but whether we have embraced, internalized and, in turn, displayed that light of hope for others. Can we come to appreciate that prophecy is more than facts? Its purpose is to enhance our faith in a good God.

Such faith is made known by our actions—everyday actions that prove to others and ourselves that we truly do believe that God exists, that He came to this earth in the form of a baby and died for us. Everyday actions in our homes, work places and schools that are defined by wisdom, justice and peace. Everyday actions that are not bound by the moment or what we'll get in return, but bound by our endless desire to be like the one prophesied in Isaiah 9. Everyday actions that are molded by a personal resolve concerning our God, that He has not and never will abandon us.

Like He did for the ancients of Isaiah's time, God always lays out a path of return, if only we will receive it and share it.

The admonishing millennial refrain of Isaiah 30:21 that encourages us, "This is the way, walk in it" is given further breadth by the defining and empowering words of Jesus in John 8:12 as He declares, "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life."

Yes, a great light has been and is shining! It's time to accept and follow.