All right, if you open your Bibles with me
back to Isaiah chapter number 40.
Isaiah chapter number 40 will read verses one
through 11. And this will be a continuation
of the message I did a month ago. Isaiah 41
through 11. Our passage will be three through
11.
God's word says, "Comfort, O comfort my people
," says your God. Speak kindly to Jerusalem and
call
out to her that her warfare has ended, that
her iniquity has been removed, that she has
received
the Lord's hand double for all her sins. A
voice is calling. Clear the way for the Lord
and the
wilderness. Make smooth in the desert a
highway for our God. Let every valley be
lifted up and
every mountain and hill be made low and let
the rough ground become a plane and the rugged
terrain
into a broad valley. And the glory of the Lord
will be revealed and all flesh will see it
together
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. A voice
says, "Call out." Then he answered, "What
shall I call
out?" All flesh is grass and all its lovel
iness is like the flower of the field. The
grass withers,
the flower fades. When the breath of the Lord
blows upon it, surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the
word of our God stands forever. Get yourself
up on a high
mountain, O Zion. Bear of good news. Lift up
your voice mightily, O Jerusalem. Bear of good
news.
Lift it up. Do not fear. Say to the cities of
Judah, "Here is your God." Behold, the Lord
God
will come with might with his arm ruling for
him. Behold, his reward is with him and his
recompense before him. Like a shepherd, he
will tend his flock. In his arm, he will
gather the
lambs and carry them in his bosom. He will
gently lead the nursing youths. Let's pray.
Great say, Father. Thank you for your mercy on
us today. I pray that you'd have mercy on me
as I
preach your word. I pray that you bless our
minds and our hearts to your truth and you
bless your
message in spite of the messenger for your
glory in Christ's name. Amen. So last night,
like I said,
we looked at her last night. Last month, it
feels like last night, we looked at the first
two verses
of Isaiah chapter number 40 and a bunch of
stuff, a bunch of life has happened since then
. And I know
that sometimes it's hard for me to remember
last week's sermon much less, you know, three
or four
or five sermons ago. So we'll do a little
refresher. And we talked last time about how
these
sermons build on each other. That's the
intention is that they build on the things
that happen
in our lives and in our hearts. And as we go
through books, we build on those,
that knowledge that we go, we learn more about
the books. And that helps us over a period of
time to
grow and be transformed by the word. And this
is how we are made to learn. Our great God who
created us made our minds to think this way
and to act, to understand and learn this way.
But that being said, I want to build upon what
we looked at last month about the comfort
of our God. And Isaiah chapter number 40 is a
transition chapter in the book of
Isaiah. It's different. It goes from the first
part and begins the second part of the book.
For the previous 39 chapters of the 66
chapters in the book of Isaiah, for the most
part, Isaiah
has spoken about judgment on the people of
Israel and the people of Judah because of
their sin,
because they forsook the worship of the one
true God. And God had specially chosen a
people.
God had picked them out through Abraham and he
had brought them and given them
so many physical blessings. They were a
wealthy nation and then spiritual blessings
that no other
nation in the world had, especially at that
time. They were a nation that he, by the power
of his
mighty arm, brought out of Egypt miraculously.
He rescued them from slavery. He gave them
after
that after he protected them through the
wilderness, he gave them their own land and
Canaan and gave
them victory over the other nations there to
have the land that he promised them. And many
times
when he did that, all through that saga of
their lives, he did that miraculously. There
was no
mistaking that it was Jehovah God who was
working in their nation. They were given
prophets, seers,
as they were called earlier in the Old
Testament, that would hear his voice and tell
his will
to the kings and to the leaders and to the
people of their time. And then they were given
his word
in the Pentateuch, in the books of that Moses
wrote down. He wrote down the law of God. He
wrote
down how this special God who was unique out
of all the other false gods and the other
nations
wanted to be worshiped. If you have a true God
and he desires to be worshiped in a certain
way,
and there's a separation between true worship
and false worship, and all the other nations
worshiped falsely. And Israel was the only
nation that was able to worship truly because
they were
the only nation given the revelation of God in
his word and through his prophets. And in
spite
of all that, over and over again, they failed
to live up to those things that they promised
they
would do. They promised God they would obey
his law and they would worship him in the
correct way,
and they failed over and over and over again.
And they went after other gods and other idols
that the nations had around them. Back in
Isaiah chapter 3 verse 13, Isaiah early in the
chapter
shows us that God is going to judge his people
for their sins. He said, "The Lord arises to
contend and stands to judge the people. The
Lord enters into judgment with the elders and
princes
of his people. It is you who have devoured the
vineyard. The plunder of the poor is in your
houses. What do you mean by crushing my people
and grinding the face of the poor?" declares
the
Lord God of hosts. And this is in the middle
of a chapter's long tirade of God speaking
judgment
to the people of Israel for their sins. And
this goes on pretty much for 39 chapters.
And then, like we saw last month in the first
verse of chapter 40, immediately after God
pronounces judgment on King Hezekiah, God
tells Isaiah to proclaim comfort, to comfort
his people,
to comfort Jerusalem, because he will not
forget them. The message after chapter 40
turns to a message of comfort and rescue and
salvation. And as we saw, it was a message
that
directly into that time, they could look at
them going into the judgment of God and exiled
by the
Assyrians and looking to a future time where
they would come back, but also through that
prophecy
that Isaiah did. We could look into the future
and see the ultimate rescue and salvation in
Jesus
Christ. And so there's kind of a dual view
going on in this passage. And that message
changes so
drastically from the negative message of
judgment to the positive message of comfort
and rescue
and salvation that many scholars, and I'm not
talking about scholars that we like, but many
scholars say this is second Isaiah. In other
words, that there is a different author than
the
first Isaiah. There was one man named Isaiah,
or so-called, that wrote the first 39 chapters
,
and this is so different that this is a
separate man. And not only do they think it's
a second
author, because it was words of comfort, but
they also thought it was a second author,
because he was writing things about things
that wouldn't happen for another 150 years.
And we know that that can't happen, so it has
to be a separate author, right? But no,
it didn't just write things that came
specifically true, including the names of
emperors that weren't even born yet, hundreds
of years before they happened. He wrote about
things
for hundreds more years about Jesus Christ and
who the Messiah would be born, where he would
be born,
to whom he would be born, what he would do,
and what he would look like. Read Isaiah 53
and see if you don't see Christ in Isaiah 53.
And on top of all that, he wrote about things
that
haven't even happened yet. So, in the very end
of times, when all things come to an end, as
we'll
see a little bit today, he's prophesying about
things that happen at the very end, or the
lion
and a lamb will lay down together. Chapter 11
verse 8 says, "The nursing child will play
by the hole of the cobra, and the wean child
will put his hand on the viper's den.
They will not hurt or destroy in all my holy
mountain, for the earth will be full of the
knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the
sea. Then in that day, the nations will resort
to the
root of Jesse, who will stand as his signal
for the peoples, and his resting will be
glorious."
So, he's prophesying about Christ, the root of
Jesse, who would come several hundred years
after
this, and about the very end of all times,
when God will rule and reign and bring
complete and
full salvation, rescue, and comfort to us. Now
, I guess when that day happens, there might be
a
scholar that says this was a third or fourth
Isaiah, because he could have known about that
before
it happened. But no, his prophecies were given
to him by the God who was arranging for all
this to happen. He has orchestrated all of
history for his glory and for his purpose.
And so, when the Jews, the Hebrews, were
looking at all the judgment coming down the
pike, and now he says, "Comfort, my people,"
as in verse number one, they can say, "Well,
he is in control of everything." And so, we
can go through this exile, through this
judgment,
with that in mind. And so, those two verses
that we looked at last time were very simple
to understand. God is saying, "Just have
comfort, have peace, rescue will come." But
Isaiah is a
prophet, and the Holy Spirit is riding through
him, and he's going to expand on that
understanding,
and that concept of comfort in a very
beautiful and a very dramatic way. And we're
looking at
verses three through eleven, but all of the
rest of this chapter, he's going to expand on
this idea
of the comfort that God will give, and the God
who gives comfort. And so, today in these
verses,
we're going to look at the three-fold comfort.
There's three, this comfort is not just an
easy
comfort, it's just not pat on the back. God is
promising in three ways that he is going to
comfort his people, the three-fold comfort of
God. And we can look at the comforts that were
promised to the Hebrew people, God's people in
the Old Testament, and then apply those,
and look at their lives, and apply those to
our lives, especially through Isaiah, as he's
looking
through the immediate future, and then into
our future as well. So, they were the modern
men,
and the modern women of their time, like we
are. They were, at one point, they were strong
, and
they were wealthy, and the land of the Kingdom
of Judah lived, and they saw that the northern
Kingdom of Israel had been taken into exile by
the Assyrians. The Assyrians came in and took
the
northern kingdom into slavery and exile. So,
Isaiah prophesied that Judah would also go
into exiles, and they would also be taken as
slaves into another nation because of their
sin,
just like the northern kingdom. So, they got a
preview of what was going to happen to them
by looking at their brothers, their tribes,
their other tribes of Israel, to the north.
And so, they didn't have the 24/7 news like we
do. Well, we know what's going on on the other
side of the world immediately as it happens,
or the story that they tell us. We have
terrible
instances of murder, and even terrorism, in
the past couple of weeks, that we were able to
know
about. We're in the past. They didn't come to
us. Now, East Baton Rouge Parish and Living
ston
Parish don't have those direct threats to us,
but even so, we see them on our TVs, and we
know
that it causes us fear, and it causes us
trouble, and it causes us tribulation. And so,
the Judahites looked up at Israel and said, "
Israel took them, Assyria took them,
and they're also going to come take us." We
don't live under that direct threat. We live
pretty nice, cushy lives, but there is a
direct threat that we will all face, the same
as them,
and the same as every other person. The direct
threat that one day, all of us, every single
one
of us will close our eyes in death under this
sun, and most assuredly, without a doubt and
without
fail, when our eyes close in this plane of
existence, we will open them in another plane
of existence
before a holy God who will judge us for every
deed that we have done, and we'll have to give
an
answer for our lives to that holy judge. And
when that happens, what will we say? What will
we say
to that judge? The Hebrew people thought that
they would say to that judge, "Well, of course
,
I'm good. I'm Hebrew. I was born into the
people of Abraham. Of course, I'm fine." And
so now,
the Hebrew people who were so proud of their
Hebrewness, God would punish and bring into
exile, and then God would rescue and bring
back. And you would think that after that
great punishment,
that they would wake up and that they would
turn, but they didn't. So in Jesus' time, this
is post
exile, those Jews still believed that they
would be justified based upon their birth
as children of Abraham, as Hebrew people, John
8.31. So Jesus was saying to those Jews who
had
believed him, "If you continue in my word,
then you are truly disciples of mine, and you
will
know the truth, and the truth will make you
free." They answered him, "We are Abraham's
descendants
and have never yet been enslaved to anyone.
How is it that you say you will become free?
What do you mean, Jesus? We're Jews by birth.
We are free by birth, even though we've been
enslaved
by everybody around us in judgment for our
sins. We've never been really enslaved,
but they were enslaved. They were enslaved to
sin, and they couldn't see it because they
thought that
they were justified by their birth as Hebrew
people. Well, today, we're under a similar
notion,
but it's slightly reversed. In the American
culture, in the American cultural religion,
we believe that we're justified by death, that
everyone who dies goes to a better place. Oh,
he's in a much better place than he would be
here. And so they're both incorrect. Both of
the
ideas are not true. And so these Jews, put
yourselves into their sandals. When they saw
the dust
coming from the Assyrian armies, the horses
picking up the dust in the desert far off,
God through Isaiah is letting them know that
they are not okay just because they have the
temple.
That was about to be destroyed. They're not
okay because they were given the word of God.
They
completely ignored that, and for the most part
, will be taken away. They're not okay just
because
the Abraham was their ancestor. They were
about to be taken into a foreign land as
slaves.
They would be okay because God was their God,
and his word can be trusted forever, that his
comfort
is forever, that he makes covenants, and he
keeps his covenants. And so they take comfort
even
in the midst of that foreign land under a
foreign leader because God would protect them,
and he would provide for them, and that he
would save them and rescue them with what he
calls
a mighty arm. So these news channels that we
have, these podcasts, the X, all these sources
that we
have for our immediate news, in their time,
they didn't have all those things. They had
heralds.
They had men who would run from city to city
and stand in the marketplace and cry out in
the
marketplace the news of the king. You want to
talk about propaganda. They had some
propaganda back
then too, but the herald that God uses never
speaks a word of propaganda. He only speaks of
truth,
and his message is a message of good news, of
tidings of great joy that we have in God's
word,
and the fact that God keeps his word, his
promises, and his covenants. He did back then
that we can look back and see in history, and
he will for us today and into the future.
Judgment is coming for us. We will all face
God on his judgment seat, but when we do face
him,
what will you say? Will we say that we were
our children of Abraham? Will we say, well,
we're going to go into a better place? No. We
're going to say that I have the promise
of the comfort of Jesus Christ, and therefore
I am justified because of him. Isaiah is
telling us
that everybody, every single person, must hear
the true call of comfort from God, this three-
fold
message of comfort. The first message of
comfort is that the Lord is coming in glory in
verses three
through five. A voice is calling. Clear the
way for the Lord in the wilderness. Make
smooth
in the desert a highway for our God. Let every
valley be lifted up, and every mountain and
hill
be made low, and let the rough ground become a
plain, and the rugged terrain a broad valley.
Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
and all flesh will see it together. For the
mouth of
the Lord has spoken. This is the first part of
the news. The herald of God is to call out
that the King is coming. That the King will
come to his people, and when he does, he
brings his
comfort to his people with him because he
comes to rescue his people. The Old Testament
people
are waiting for God's first coming, and they
got it in Jesus Christ, the Messiah. We are
waiting
in the same way that they are with more
information, praise God, before his second
coming. When he
comes to make everything new again, when he
comes to rule and reign in the fullness of his
glory
and forever, that is what we are waiting for.
We're waiting for his mighty arm of justice
and peace to rule over all the world. Psalm 97
.1 said, "Well, the Lord reigns. Let the earth
rejoice.
Let the many islands be glad. Clouds and thick
darknesses surround him. Righteousness and
justice
are the foundation of his throne. Fire goes
before him and burns up his adversaries round
about.
His lightnings lit up the world. The earth saw
and trembled. The mountains melted like wax at
the
presence of the Lord, at the presence of the
Lord of the whole earth. The heavens declare
his
righteousness, and all the peoples have seen
his glory." And so the Herald is going before
God and
telling all the people to prepare the way for
the King of Glory to come, the King of Glory
to come
and to rescue us, to save us from all this
judgment. And there to clear the way for the
Lord. This is
such an interesting passage. It was accustomed
that the royal person's path, his way, his
journey,
would be cleared and made easier for them
before they came to visit a city. And
sometimes they would
do this physically and literally. And other
times they would do it spiritually. So
physically they
would literally, they would go and have men
clean up the city like the mayor of San
Francisco did
before the Chinese dictator came and visited
there. They cleaned all the garbage off the
streets to
make it look good for the royal person. And
sometimes they would go farther than that
depending
on the status of that royal person. In the
manners and customs of the Bible, it's a great
reference book that you should all have on
your shelves. He speaks of an Assyrian queen
named
Samu Ramat. I do pretty good with Hebrew names
. I never did Assyrian names before.
Not only did her subjects clean the litter
from the road and take the stones off her road
and
they made her road straight. They actually
leveled hills and filled in valleys so there
wouldn't be
any arduous path on her journey. That is what
they did. That is what the Isaiah is
referencing here.
Clear the way for the Lord. Make the ravines
level. Make the rough paths smooth. And this
would be
building the Chafalaya Basin Bridge for just a
visit from the president to go from Baton
Rouge
to Lafayette. It was done symbolically in
situations like Princess Ali Ababwa when he
came to be
introduced to Princess Jasmine. Everybody
remember that? The genie made up a big parade
for him to
come and they cleared the way. They cleared
all the riffraff out of the road so the big
parade could
come in with Princess Ali Ababwa. And this is
the same thing that Christ had on his triumph
al
entry. He rode on the foal of a donkey and
they put palm branches down. It was a triumph
al entry
of a king entering a city. Listen to how again
in verses three to four how they're commanded
to
clear the way. Voice is calling. Clear the way
for the Lord and the wilderness. Make smooth
in the
desert a highway for our God. Let every valley
be lifted up and every mountain and hill be
made low
and let the rough ground become a plain and
the rugged terrain a broad valley. Does this
sound familiar
to anyone? Does this sound like something that
we know about that we've heard before? Maybe
in the
book of John the Jewish leaders in Christ time
heard about a man in the wilderness that all
the
people were flocking to. And so they sent
priests to interrogate him because there was
many people
who claimed to be Messiah at that time. So
they wanted to see is this man claiming to be
another
Messiah that we're going to have to deal with
politically and everything? So John the
Baptist
said when they asked him about who he was in
John chapter one verse 20, he said, and he
confessed
and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the
Christ. Then after they asked him, well, look,
are you Elijah? Are you the prophet that is
coming? Or he frustratingly to them answered,
no. Then who
are you, John the Baptist? He said in verse 22
, or they said to him in verse 22, who are you?
So we
may give an answer to those who sent us. What
do you say about yourself? He said, I am the
voice
of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight
the way of the Lord. As Isaiah the prophet
said,
John the Baptist was the fulfillment of this
prophecy made by Isaiah all the way back in
his
time in chapter number 40. He was calling for
them to break up the hills and to fill the
valleys,
to make, to get the stones and the rocks out
of the way, to make the path clear because the
Messiah
is coming to rescue and to bring comfort, to
look to him for a rescue and comfort.
By verse five says, then the glory of the Lord
will be revealed and all flesh will see it
together
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. In Jesus
, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, the glory of the
Lord
would be revealed. And that's who John the
Baptist was pointing to. Until that point,
God revealed his glory in awesome acts. He
performed miracles in their lives. He rescued
them from Egypt with twelve great plagues that
no one else could have performed. He did great
miracles in the wilderness, made the water to
come from the rock, and he brought fire down
from heaven
on Elijah's offering. But this revealing that
God is promising in chapter five is not just
about an
awesome act of deliverance that he's going to
do. He is going to manifest. He is going to
reveal the
full glory of himself in his Son, in invisible
, in touchable, in feelable, real presence in
Jesus
Christ. The fullness of who Christ is is the
fullness of who God is. God revealed himself
in complete fullness in Jesus Christ. So that
is the first call. The first herald is coming
that
to clear the way. God is coming. The King is
coming. And John the Baptist fulfilled that
prophecy
by pointing to the King that came in Jesus
Christ. And we also look forward to Jesus
coming again,
clear the way for the King. That is the first
coming that God will reveal himself to his
people
in power. Secondly, we can find comfort even
in the face of this life. Because the word of
God will stand forever. Verse number six for
verse number eight. So the voice says, "Call
out."
Then he answered, "What shall I call out?" "
All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is
like the
flower of the field. The grass withers. The
flower fades. When the breath of the Lord
blows upon it,
surely the people are grass. The grass withers
. The flower fades. But the word of our God
stands
forever." Have you ever been in a situation
where a friend or a family member was really
sick
or had something really bad happen to them and
you wanted to be there for them? So the next
time
that happens, I want you to go up to them and
put your hand on their shoulder and look them
right
in the eye and say, "Don't worry. Your
troubles will soon be over." Life's really
short. We're like
grass that burns up anyway, right? That's not
exactly what you would want to put on a hall
mark
card because somebody would say, "Well, don't
worry. Life is short anyway. You're going to
die
soon and you won't be in pain." So why is God
telling the herald of his comfort, the herald
of his rescue, for him to say that, "Here ye
hear ye. Everyone's life is short like the
grass.
Everyone's life is short like the flower whose
bud falls off and doesn't last very long."
So put yourself into the sandals again of
these Old Testament believers and let's say
that you're
one of the remnant of them at the time that
didn't bow your knee to Baal, the false gods
that many
times they worship. You look around at the sin
of the people around you, the sin of your
nation,
and you completely understand why God is
bringing judgment on them. But you remember
the promises
to Abraham that God made in Genesis 13, 14,
and 15. He says, "The Lord said to Abram,
after a lot had separated from him, now lift
up your eyes and look from the place where you
are,
northward and southward and eastward and west
ward, for all the land which you see,
I will give it to you and to your descendants
forever." God made a promise to Abram who
would
be Abraham. And that was supposed to be our
land, the Hebrew's land forever. God promised
it, right?
And then he remembered that God made a promise
to David. And he told David in 2 Samuel 7, 12,
"When your days are complete, you lie down
with your fathers, I will raise up your
descendants
after you, who will come forth from you, and I
will establish his kingdom. He shall build a
house
for my name, and I will establish the throne
of his kingdom forever." So if we go into this
other
land, if we're taken in judgment into this
other land, well, this land won't be ours. And
we won't
have a king on the throne. We're going to be
slaves of a foreign king. And God answers back
here in
verse number seven of our passage. So that
question that you would ask as the Hebrew,
he said, "The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the Lord blows upon it,
surely the people are grass. But the word
doesn't just end with the shortness and fra
ilty of our
life." Look at verse number eight, "The grass
withers, the flower fades, but the word of our
God
stands forever." So now this makes more sense.
Alec Mottier calls this the marvelous contrast
.
He is using the shortness of our lives as a
great comparison to the eternity
that his promises, that his word stands firm.
So I can know, as that faithful Hebrew who's
getting
swung up or caught up in the judgment going
into Assyria, that if God promised to Abraham
that this was going to be our land forever, if
God promised to David that his son will sit on
a throne forever, I know I must be coming back
. God's going to rescue me. God's going to save
me
even though my life is a blip. Because I know
my life is short. I know that God's word is
eternal.
God makes promises. God speaks with his
almighty power. And when he speaks in his
power, the universe
is created. There is no accidental syllable
that comes out of his mouth. He makes promises
and
he keeps them. And that is our ultimate
comfort, especially to us when so many times
and so many
of our words are useless, are wasted, they're
frail, weak, and powerless. Many times are inc
onsequential,
but God's words aren't. We constantly break
our promises and our word. And sometimes it's
not even
on purpose. Sometimes simply, things are just
out of our control, but nothing is out of the
control
of God. If he speaks a promise, if he speaks a
covenant, if he speaks his word, worlds and
stars
and universes are created and every promise he
says will be kept. Now this is also good news
to us
in this time, because you have me up here and
I am a man. I am Simon Justus at Pecator. I'm
a
simultaneously saved and still a sinner. And
then there are many people in our lives. Many
of you
have been hurt by people in church. We look at
, in a very public case, Stephen Lawson and
what
happened with him and how much pain he caused
us and hundreds of believers around the world.
But because we know that God's word doesn't
fail, even when Stephen Lawson fails, even if
I would
were to fail, God's word is forever, even if I
mess up. You can believe the truth in spite of
the
sinful messenger. You should absolutely look
to God for comfort, because every word he says
,
every word he says, if he's promised to save
you to the uttermost, then he will eventually
save you to the uttermost. He's saved you in
justification. He's saving you in sanct
ification
as he's promised. He's changing you every day.
And then one day, finally and fully,
he will save us in complete glorification
before him. And what a comfort that is when
our lives
are so short. And finally, we can take comfort
by beholding your God. Verses 9 through 11.
Get
yourself up on a high mountain o' Zion. Bear
of good news. Lift up your voice mindily. O
Jerusalem,
bear of good news. Lift it up. Do not fear.
Say to the cities of Judah, here is your God.
Behold,
the Lord God will come with might, with his
arm ruling for him. Behold, his reward is with
him,
and his recompense before him. Like a shepherd
, he will tend his flock. In his arm, he will
gather
the lambs and carry them in his bosom. He will
gently lead the nursing youth. What greater
announcement can be made when there is a
Savior, when there is a rescuer? The herald
that brings the comfort of God has the
greatest message, the greatest job that any
herald could
see. And you know, this isn't a secret. We
haven't been given a secret message. Like all
the other
churches have got the Bible wrong for hundreds
of years, and we just got the secret message
from
God. They've all been doing it wrong, and we
've got it right. No, this message of the
gospel is to
be to be standing on a mountain top and to be
screamed out so everyone in the valleys can
hear
this message of comfort. It's to be announced
in the most clearest way possible. Verse
number nine,
"Get yourself up on a high mountain, O Zion.
Bearer of good news. Lift up your voice might
ily,
O Jerusalem. Bearer of good news. Lift it up.
Do not fear. Say to the cities of Judah,
Here is your God." And there's quickly two
things that I wanted to bring out about this
one verse.
The first thing is for the grammar nerds.
Hebrew is a gendered language. In other words,
the grammar and spell are changed, depending
on if it's a masculine that they're talking
about,
or a feminine that they're talking about.
Spanish is the same way. There's a Latino pop
culture news,
like E, or whatever the news show, called El G
ordo y la Flaca. In English, you translate that
as the
fat and the skinny. But it's El Gordo, which
is masculine, and La Flaca, which is feminine.
So
you could say it's the fat men, man, and the
skinny woman. And the two hosts, that's what
that's
about. So the phrase here, the bearer of good
news is in the feminine. So he's referring to
women
bearers of good news. Much of the war, much of
the thing that they were looking at,
when they saw that dust of the Assyrians
coming over the clouds, who were the ones that
had to
worry the most, the women and the children in
these great wars that we have today that we
hear
about on the news, all the stuff that is
happening to the women that they're doing to
the women is
absolutely horrible and just grotesque. And it
's one thing to have a war and to fight a
soldier
to soldier. You both know what you're getting
into and you've both trained for this and
there's
rules and stuff that go with that. But the
women and the children bear the biggest brunt
of war.
So in the middle of wartime, the women go into
safe places. They hide in caves. They hide in
shelters in their cities and the men try to
take care of them as best they can because
they can't
fight the battles like the men can. So when
the battles were over, when the war was done,
it was the women who would finally be able to
come out of the safe places, come out from the
caves,
finally take a nice bath and dress nice and
they would celebrate and they would sing and
they would
dance at the the times. This is what happened
when David killed Goliath of the Philistine.
And in 1 Samuel 1860, it happened as they were
coming when David returned from killing the
Philistine
that the women came out of all the cities of
Israel singing and dancing to meet King Saul
with
tambourines with joy and with musical
instruments. David wrote a psalm that mentions
this fact as
well, Psalm 6811, "The Lord gives the command,
the women who proclaim the good tidings are a
great
host. Kings of armies flee." This is what they
're singing. "They flee, and she who remains at
home
will divide the spoil." When the women would
be most afraid facing them, now at the end of
it,
he is prophesying the end of the war that the
rescue of God would come and the women can
come
out of hiding and celebrate and bear the good
news that a rescuer has come. The second one
is much quicker. In the end of our verse, it
says, "Here is your God." We're more familiar
with the
King's James translation and the ESV used it
as well where it says, "Behold your God." This
is the
news that the women heralds are going up on
the mountaintops and singing and dancing. "Be
hold your
God who comes to rescue his people." This is
the song that they sing in verses 10 and 11.
Verse 10,
"Behold, the Lord God will come with might,
with his arm ruling for him. Behold, his
reward is with
him and his recompense before him. To his
enemies, he comes with a strong arm. To his
enemies, he comes
with an almighty arm." There is no defeating
the Lord God Almighty, Almighty. Yahweh Saba
oth,
or the Lord of Hosts as it's translated, is
the Lord of Armies. He comes with the power to
destroy
all of his enemies and all the things that are
set up against them. All those who stand up
before
but shake their fists and say, "No, he will
wipe them out with a single word." Revelation
1911 says,
"And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white
horse, and he who sat on it is called faithful
and
true, and in righteousness he judges and wages
war. His eyes are a flaming of fire, and on
his head
are many diadems, and he has a name written on
it which no one knows except himself. He is
clothed
with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is
called the Word of God. And the armies which
are in heaven,
clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were
following him on white horses. From his mouth
comes a sharp sword so that with it he may
strike down the nations, and he will rule them
with a
rod of iron, and he treads the wine press of
the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on
his robe
and on his thigh he has a name written, King
of Kings and Lord of Lords. No enemy will
stand
against the Lord God Almighty." Verse 10, the
song that we sing of comfort is, "God is
strong
and none of our enemies can stand up against
him." But the second part is in verse 11 where
he talks
about how he is towards his own. Verse 11, "
Like a shepherd he will tend his flock. In his
arm he
will gather the lambs and carry them in his
bosom. He will gently lead the nursing youths.
To his
own he doesn't come with an arm of wrath and
an Almighty strong arm. He comes gentle and
lowly
as a shepherd who loves his flock. Christ the
shepherd has taken all of our pain and all of
our
sin on himself." And how often does the Bible
compare us to sheep? And it's such a fitting
comparison. And I know you've heard many
messages on this, but I just think it's
amazing that when
God was creating everything and he created the
sheep, he said, "I'm going to make an
illustration
and I'm going to use it a bunch when I write
my Bible." But this is going to be perfect,
right?
So in our day we don't shepherd sheep very
much. There's some people that kind of do it
for a hobby,
especially here it's kind of hot for them. But
the Hebrews did, they all knew, they all saw
these illustrations and were able to
immediately grasp what they were talking about
. My
brother's wife's mother or my sister, my
brother's mother-in-law, my mother-in-law-in-
law,
however you say that. Her name is Julie and
she's from Scotland and she is one of the
sweetest
people you ever meet. I just love, listen, she
could just read the back of a menu to a
Chinese
restaurant and I just love to hear her accent.
But she just got back from Scotland and we
were
talking yesterday, there's still a bunch of
wool production in Scotland. There's a bunch
of shepherds
and we were talking about sheep and how the
Bible uses them as an illustration and sheep
are not
bright, they're not smart at all and they are
absolutely incapable of taking care of
themselves
without a shepherd. And they're an animal so
they need to drink water but they will die to
third,
of thirst before they drink water from a
moving stream because they're scared of the
water.
Their reflection shakes and it just makes them
scared. So the shepherd has to bring them to
still
water like Psalm 232 says, "He makes me lie
down in green pastures. He leaves me beside
quiet waters because otherwise the sheep
wouldn't drink. They would die before they
drink."
And here this illustration is perfect and God
continues it into the New Testament
with Jesus Christ, John 10, 11, "I am the good
shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life
for the sheep." The sheep couldn't protect
themselves from their enemies but the shepherd
with a strong and mighty arm will for them and
he'll protect them and he'll guide them and do
everything for their benefit, for their
survival because he loves them. His arm g
athers the scared
lost lambs in our last verse here and brings
them back to the mother who will feed them.
Revelation
7, 16 says, "They will hunger no longer, no
thirst any more, nor will the sun beat down on
them nor
any heat. For lamb in the center of the throne
will be their shepherd and will guide them to
the
springs of the water of life and God will wipe
away every tear from their eyes." This is the
message of comfort of the great shepherd, that
message that is given to all of us who are in
Christ, that threefold message of comfort that
comes right after judgment. But you know what,
we can go through whatever happens in this
life and the next because of who God is and
what he's
done through his Son, Jesus Christ. We're to
take comfort in that almighty arm of God who
will defeat
all of his enemies in the end. We're to take
comfort in that God whose word is eternal and
lasts forever no matter how short our lives
are. The benefit to that is, the shorter our
life is,
the shorter the pain is. And then we're to
take comfort in that one day that God with the
almighty
arm who keeps every promise will come back in
glory. And if you're here today, he will hold
you in
his arms as a good shepherd no matter what you
're going through on this earth. And ultimately
,
at the end of this world, at the end of this
age, at the end of everything in his glorious
day, we'll
live before him in eternal glory because all
that Christ has done, all these promises that
we're
reading in Isaiah 40, and there's more down as
you read the rest of the chapter, have came
true
in Jesus Christ or will come true in Jesus
Christ one day. But if you don't know Christ
savingly,
if your family member doesn't know who Christ
is in a saving way, who hasn't come to Christ
in faith,
hasn't come to Christ in biblical repentance,
these are not words of comfort to you.
Isaiah later calls to those who haven't come
to God for his mercy in chapter 55-6. He says,
"Seek the Lord while he may be found, call
upon him while he is near, let the wicked fors
ake his
way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and
let him return to the Lord, and he will have
compassion on him, and to our God, for he will
abundantly pardon. Consider the power and the
holiness of our God, but also the amazing
grace and that amazing love that he's given us
in Jesus
Christ to comfort us, not just now,
temporarily, before ever in him." Let's pray.
Heavenly Father,
we love you and thank you for the words you've
given us in Isaiah and how often we need to be
reminded of this truth. As we go through life,
I pray that we would always look forward to
the
time of your coming when all of your promises
will most assuredly be made true in Christ.
And we
thank you for that. I pray you bless us as we
finish up here for your glory. In Christ's
name, amen.