His Name Is Wonderful

T. DeWitt Talmage


The prophet lived in a dark time. For some three thousand years the world had been getting worse. Kingdoms had arisen and perished. As the captain of a vessel in distress sees relief coming across the water, so the prophet, amid the stormy times in which he lived, put the telescope of prophecy to his eye, and saw, seven hundred and fifty years ahead, one Jesus advancing to the rescue.

I want to show that when Isaiah called Christ the Wonderful, he spoke wisely.

In most houses there is a, picture of Christ. Sometimes it represents him with face effeminate; sometimes with a face despotic. I have seen West's grand sketch of the rejection of Christ; I hare seen the face of Christ as cut on an emerald, said to be by command of Julius Caesar; and yet I am convinced that I shall never know how Jesus looked until, on that sweet Sabbath morning, I shall wash the last sleep from my eves in the cool river of heaven. I take up this book of divine photographs, and I look at Luke’s sketch, at Mark's sketch, at John's sketch, and at Paul’s sketch, and I say, with Isaiah, "Wonderful!"

I think that you are all interested in the story of Christ. You feel that he is the only one who can help you. You have unbounded admiration for the commander who helped his passengers ashore when he himself perished, but have you no admiration for him who rescued our souls, himself falling back into the waters from which he had saved us?

Christ was wonderful in the magnetism of his person.