[0:00] As we turn to Isaiah 40, I also like to thank Pastor Robert. We heard thunder this tonight when he preached the psalm, but also heard this morning when he preached. I heard from God, and he spoke through his word.
[0:11] And for 13 years, our pastor has been faithfully in the word, and we've been through many books. And that's a wonderful thing because when he preaches the Bible, he believes that God is speaking. But something that makes this church, I believe, unique and wonderful is that when you come to hear from the Bible, you believe that you're hearing God's word.
[0:26] So he's a good preacher, but you guys are also good listeners, and it takes both, right? It takes both of those things happening here tonight because when we teach the Bible, we want people to know that we really believe that it's God speaking through his word here.
[0:39] And that happens all throughout our church in different ways and in your different life groups and then outside of the church that should be happening that we open the Bible. And when we speak, we want to represent God properly.
[0:51] We want to say what he would say about a matter. We want to be able to share not only the truth of God's word, but we also want to be able to share his heart and his character that is there.
[1:01] We want to represent here him. So you might have been in a situation before, and most of you probably have been if you've been around any amount of time. Some, Pastor Robert asked us if y'all remember the flood, and a few of you said yes, so that's been a while there.
[1:16] But maybe you've been in a situation before where you are sitting down with somebody, and the person that you're meeting with as somebody that's been through a difficult season in life. And it's not just the type of season where maybe they were coming through cancer or where they were coming through the loss of someone or a financial problem, but you've sat down with somebody before when they were coming through a difficult season of life because of the fact that they made decisions, and then they dealt with the consequences of the decision, and now they're coming out of that, and they have questions.
[1:47] And you know what those questions are because you've sat in this seat as well. And the kind of questions that we ask ourselves are, is God finished with me? Am I so far outside of God's will that I'm just going to be living in plan B the rest of my life?
[2:01] How do I view myself, and how does God view me now moving forward? And so we've sat in both of these seats here, if we were to be honest before. If you've been to help people before, you've sat in this seat and communicated God's word.
[2:13] And also, if you'd be honest, you've been in this seat before too as well. When you've been through a season of life, you've sinned. I asked the teenagers today in high school, we were talking about a rebellion. And I said, how many of you have somebody in your life that if you were to start headed down the wrong road, headed towards rebellion, would be in your face with a Bible?
[2:32] And they all raised their hands. A few of the girls screamed velvet like in fear, like she would be there instantly if they started to do that. And I thought that was a great testimony, and some other names were said. But I hope they know that.
[2:42] I hope they would know that as a church, we would love them enough that we would be there in front of them, pleading with them for God's word. And isn't that what we heard this morning, God pleading with us to hate the things that will hurt us here?
[2:53] That was God speaking to us today, doing that. So here in Isaiah chapter number 40, Isaiah is sitting in the seat with the children of Israel. But what's different in his story is that he's doing it in advance of their exile.
[3:08] He's sitting down with them before they will even go into captivity and then come back out of captivity and have all of those questions. And so in some sense, we end chapter number 39 and we go 150 years in chapter number 40 because that's the time that he's talking about.
[3:24] What kind of questions are they going to have when everything comes apart, the house of cards falls down upon them, they live in captivity, and then it gets us to where we've been as a church on many Sunday mornings in Ezra and Nehemiah, and we get to a place of rebuilding.
[3:39] How does God feel towards them? What does God think towards them? And what should they think towards themselves? And we're going to find wonderful comfort here. Like when you discipline your children, you tell them this is what you've done, this is the consequence of it, and then you reassure them afterwards that you still love them and that relationship is still strong.
[3:58] And we shouldn't be surprised that in this passage that's intended to bring us comfort, he spends the majority of his time talking about the greatness of our God and how he's unchangeable here.
[4:09] Let me read the first 11 verses before I pray. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, for she has received the Lord's hand double for all her sins.
[4:26] The voice of him that cries in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight the desert, a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and rough places plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
[4:43] For the mouth the Lord has spoken in, the voice said, cry, and he said, who shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is a flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fadeth, because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon him.
[4:55] Surely the people is grass. The grass withers, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever. O Zion that bringeth good tidings, get thee up into the high mountains.
[5:06] O Jerusalem that bringeth good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength. Lift up, be not afraid. Say unto the cities of Judah, behold your God. Behold the Lord God who will come with strong hand, and his arms shall rule for him.
[5:18] Behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.
[5:30] Heavenly Father, Lord, I thank you for the truth of your word here. Lord, it has brought comfort in my life now as it has in times past. And Lord, I am aware that that is its intended purpose today, and the life of your children is to bring comfort.
[5:47] And Father, with everything in me, Lord, that's what I ask that you would allow me to do. Lord, is communicate the truth of this word to your people. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen.
[5:58] First thing I'd like to say, I'd like to go ahead and give you all three main points of this, the three different truths that we'd see here in Isaiah chapter number 40 here. The first thing that we see in the first 11 verses here, if there's to be deliverance for God's people, it must come from God's direct intervention.
[6:14] First 11 verses. If it doesn't come from God, it's not going to come at all. The second thing that we will see here together is that our God is uniquely qualified to bring deliverance to his people.
[6:26] They question if he's able to do this. A lot of questions take place in this chapter here. We could ask, why couldn't he have protected me before? Why are things differently here? God, why can you do this when other people couldn't do this?
[6:37] We've never seen anybody go into exile and come back out of exile. Why are you uniquely equipped to do this? And then lastly, we will talk about waiting upon the Lord and he shall renew your strength.
[6:48] The famous passage there about mounting upon wings like eagles there. First thing that we see here, though, is that deliverance for God's people, it must come from God's direct intervention.
[7:00] Is there any comfort to be found? It says, comfort ye, comfort ye, saith your God. The exile is over. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished. I told you we're 150 years now as he is prophesying here.
[7:13] And you have been pardoned. Your iniquity is pardoned. And the price of your sin has been completely paid. It says, she has received of the Lord's hand double for all of her sins. And this isn't speaking about God being harsh and charging double for sin.
[7:28] What it's talking about is that it's just been completely paid. Like in Exodus, when you stole something from your neighbor, you had to repay it twofold. And when you repaid it twofold, you completely paid for what you had taken.
[7:40] Isn't that a wonderful thing about our pardon from God? Is that when he gives us our pardon for sin and we go to him and repent, it's been completely paid. It's not one of those, we're okay for now, but come back and see me next week, right?
[7:52] Maybe like he'd be a mob boss, right? Where it's continually going, where he would blackmail you with it. Where he would say, okay, we're good now, but I'm going to call you back up if I ever need anything. He says it's been double paid here, completely here, paid for.
[8:06] And he's telling them about his relationship. And God will send many comforters to his people. Comfort ye, comfort ye. He's calling upon many people to bring comfort. Ezra and Nehemiah and Zechariah will.
[8:17] And then now today we get involved in a similar work. It's a wonderful thing when you talk to people. Sometimes you talk to people that come from a religious background and their view of God is not what it should be.
[8:29] And they just see him as a God that is hateful and vengeful. And all they can imagine is that because they knew so much when they were little and then they rebelled against God, that there's no way that he would ever care for them again. Isn't it a wonderful thing to get to take the word of God and let God speak for himself and to comfort people?
[8:44] That's the kind of people we should be known for. I love what Charles Spurgeon said. It says, God never gives his children a duty to do without giving them the means to do it. He never bids them to make bricks without straw.
[8:56] And when he tells us to comfort God's people, we may be certain there are many means whereby they may be comforted. You see somebody that needs comforting, you're able to do it. We have the means to bring comfort to these people.
[9:09] And we're going to find many opportunities in life to help people and to bring comfort to them here. So how are they going to be delivered? Verse 3, the voice of him, the Christ in the wilderness, a deliverer is coming and nothing should be in his way.
[9:22] Every valley should be exalted and every mountain and he will be made low here. You're familiar with it because we talked about this as we went through John the Baptist and you read about it. But that was one of the ways that showed the power of that king or queen in the time that was coming is that instead of them being inconvenienced by having to go over the hills and that, but the road was made clean for them so they could get there quickly.
[9:42] And so our God can overcome and he can overcome mountains, but he's made a way that we can get to him there. And so this is happening here. Our God had no trouble being prepared, but he came. You know, there's a newer song and it says there's no shadow you won't light up, mountain you won't climb up coming after me.
[9:58] There's no wall you won't kick down, lie you won't tear down coming after me. That's an exciting thought because it's God pursuing and going after you. But it's not as great as what we have here.
[10:10] The truth of God's word here that this path would be made. You see the picture of the father, the prodigal in there. It's not only just the prodigal son running towards the father, but it's the father running towards the son.
[10:21] And I don't need to add to the Bible because it's great enough as it is, but I can just imagine that father planning his path there to a son. And so God is making clear the path there that his people can return to him and we will see that good news is coming.
[10:35] We have on the title, we say the gospel according to Isaiah. And maybe in the first 39 chapters, you wondered if that was necessarily the case. There was blessings and there was hope, but there was a lot of cursings upon the people.
[10:47] There was a lot of punishment for what was being happened. But we change here when we get to chapter number 40. Imagine most of you know this, but it's fascinating that the first 39 chapters of Isaiah, they seem to be many of the themes of the Old Testament.
[11:01] And then the last 27 books where we just started resembles that of the New Testament. And it's divided that same way. And it feels like we're kind of in the book of Matthew right here. And it's given a prophecy that the New Testament writers believed were John the Baptist here.
[11:15] And that's what we're talking about is him restoring that relationship with them here. And it's so different between the two that some people say that there's a different writer for chapter 40 on than the chapters before.
[11:30] But there's a better known author that you may know of that says that's not the case. And that's Jesus, okay? And Jesus in the New Testament, when he quotes from the first part of Isaiah and the latter part of Isaiah, he says, Isaiah wrote it and I'm going to go with him.
[11:42] As some people said, those involved in higher criticism are usually from lower places, meaning they normally want to pick apart the Bible for no reason at all here. But he quotes from both sides.
[11:53] And then we get to a military example in the Bible. So he is talking about the mountains being brought down. But in Isaiah chapter number 52, 7 and 8, That anticipation there that the deliverer is coming and nothing is going to get in his way here.
[12:26] So the question is, hasn't everything changed for us here? I mean, we were your people before, but God, you warned us and we still walked into that sin.
[12:37] And then now we've been living in captivity and our identity hasn't been found by being in the place we're supposed to be and doing the things that we're supposed to be doing, Lord. Hasn't everything changed? Verse 6, And all the changes that took place, the word of our God, it stood like the kids sung, right?
[13:09] The Bible stands. Everything else. There's no permanence in anything human. The enemies are like grass there, but James 1, 10 tells us, But the rich in that he is made low because of the flower of the grass, he shall pass away.
[13:21] So our enemies are as grass, but we're as the grass as well. We just, we last for a short time and the circumstances have changed. People have died. Nothing seems to be the same, but the word of God.
[13:34] John 10, 35 tells us, If he called them gods unto him, the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken here. I read a story. It took place. It was told about a few hundred years ago.
[13:46] And all the little kids that sung, I really want you to pay attention to this story because you sung about the Bible of standing there. But the story goes about a little kid. He grew up in a small farm with his family, and he hadn't visited the big city, okay?
[13:59] He hadn't visited where everything takes place. Well, he went there with his dad, and when he was walking through the city, he heard this hammering over and over again. Metal hitting over and over again.
[14:10] And he became curious. And so he goes around to the corner, and he looks in, and he sees this big, strong guy with a huge hammer, okay? Like Thor's hammer, okay? Big hammer there. And he's hitting this anvil over and over.
[14:23] And so he sees the metal. He sees that it's hot, and that hammer just keeps hitting it and hitting it. And the kid is just, he just can't imagine what's taking place. I mean, here's this grown man with a hammer hitting this thing over and over again.
[14:35] And he's trying to figure out what's going on. And he looks at it, and the blacksmith looks up, and he sees the kid, and he pauses. And the little kid says, isn't the anvil going to break?
[14:47] And the guy paused, and he says, this anvil has outlasted hundreds of hammers. This anvil has been around for 100 years, and it has wore out hundreds of hammers.
[14:59] And just in the same way that the Word of God lasts. And no matter how much it gets questioned, and no matter how much people don't like it, and no matter how many times people try to get rid of the Bible in history, it lasts.
[15:10] And it always has. And no matter how much we disobey it, and no matter how much we know, but we still don't obey it, and we try to twist it in our lives, it remains the same. And the promises remain the same.
[15:21] So when the children of Israel think that everything has changed in their life after going through all this captivity, is God, can things still be the same? And he says, the Bible stands. The Bible has not changed.
[15:33] Our God has not changed. Our relationship, it has not changed here. He has not forgotten us. Verse 10, behold, the Lord God will come with a strong hand, and His arm shall rule. Behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him.
[15:46] And verse 11, He will feed like a shepherd. He still wants to be a shepherd to them here. And it is His pleasure to be our Father and our King and our shepherd here.
[15:58] And so we can see why there is such a message of comfort, and it's repeated time and time again. This idea of comfort ye, comfort ye, it was a way of telling these people, catch your breath.
[16:10] Catch your breath. It's going to be okay. A few years ago, I had a wreck on 285, and when I hit the wall, the airbags came out.
[16:21] And by the time that I caught my breath, I had these two guys outside of my window there, and they were just staring at me. And I was staring at them, and I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what was wrong. And what was wrong was I wasn't breathing yet, right?
[16:33] And so when I finally caught my breath, they started jumping up and down, shouting hallelujah and high-fiving. It was like the greatest little church service right there on 285. But it was that catch-your-breath moment that needed to happen.
[16:46] And that's what He's saying to bring comfort. He says, yes, you've sinned. Yes, you've been in captivity. Yes, you've sinned against the Holy God. But He has forgiven you, and He wants to restore that relationship with you.
[16:57] So there's comfort there in the breathe here. Now, in verses 12 through 26, we see how our God is uniquely qualified to bring deliverance to His people and why He is different than all of the other gods of this world here.
[17:11] So one of the questions that might be asked here is, why, God, could you restore our relationship? How are you going to be strong enough to do anything with us now because you weren't strong enough to keep us from captivity? So how are we going to expect that you can get us out of captivity and restore our lives here?
[17:26] And that might have been an objection that they made. God was making a large claim because they didn't see people go into Babylonian captivity and come back out. And Isaiah was telling them, you're going to go into captivity, but He's going to bring you out of it here.
[17:40] But we have to remember all the warnings that were given to them there. Jeremiah warns them. Different people have warned them. But God has always, as He was warning them, they chose to go that way.
[17:52] Our God has always been strong enough there. It was never His desire for them to go into captivity. And as He was powerful to deliver them from captivity, He was also powerful to keep them from captivity if they would have turned to Him.
[18:04] So because of the fact that we sinned and because we turned our back on Him and that we lived with the consequences of our sin, it doesn't mean anything against His ability. It doesn't take anything away from His power and His ability.
[18:17] Why would we question Him for the decisions that we had made that had brought this upon our lives there? Habakkuk 3, 17 and 18 says it like this.
[18:28] Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines. The labor of the oil shall fail, and the field shall not yield no meat. The flock shall be cut off from the fold. There shall not be herd in the stalls.
[18:39] Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. Even though everything around you is a mess and the circumstances aren't what they should be, you can rejoice in the fact that our God has not changed here.
[18:52] And then He goes on to explain how incomprehensible His power is. He says that He would weigh mountains on a scale, that He would pour out the water of this world.
[19:03] They estimate that the water is 326 million trillion. I didn't know you could put those words together. I thought only little kids did that, all right? 326 million trillion gallons of water.
[19:15] And you think, how is that even possible? But those of you that had little kids and they tried to make their own cereal, how much water they can, how much milk they can spill, you can figure out. It's very possible to have 326 million trillion.
[19:26] I'm still not sure that's a word there. But there's all this amount of water in all of the world. Our God, He pours it out. He measures the universe with His hand.
[19:36] If you want more information about this, you can talk to Thatcher, okay? We studied this together, and He got way more excited about it than I did. But if I was to take a basketball to represent the sun here, and I was to take a mother hand to represent the earth, the next nearest star would be in Dawsonville, if it was in this proportion here.
[19:55] Sun and earth on this proportion, the next nearest star, 40 miles away from here. God measures it with His hand here. Talks about the greatness of our God here.
[20:06] No prince has anything that would compare Him. None of the princes of the world had anything to compare Him with. In regard to His enemies, the nations, in verse number 15, are as a drop in the bucket, and they will just be thrown around like the grass, kind of like a tumbleweed going there, verse number 24.
[20:25] And so verse 25, And then so he tells his resume what he's able to do.
[20:40] Then he goes on and says, He begins to talk about the gods of this world that are being built here.
[20:51] And we should know in Acts 17, 29, it tells us, For as much then we are the offspring of God, we ought to not think that the God has His liken to gold or silver or stone, graven by art and man's devices.
[21:02] What he said, You humans, mankind, why in the world would you think that if you're not graven image, if you're not this kind of lesser thing, why would you think that God would be less than? If you were able to create me, then why would you think that I would be greater than you if you were creating me here?
[21:19] And he's contrasting the gods of this world. Some people worship graven image. 2 Kings talks about worshiping the host of heavens. And so you don't represent, you don't worship lesser gods in the fact that you worship graven image.
[21:32] You don't look at the horoscopes and look at the stars here. But what are you, if you don't put your faith in the one true God, where are you placing it? Then he goes on to ask a series of five rhetorical questions, and he's going to do this many times in the rest of Isaiah here.
[21:47] He says this, he says, With whom took he counsel and instructed me and taught him in the path of judgment and taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding? Have you not known?
[21:58] Have you not heard? Have you not been told from the beginning? Have you not understood the foundation of the earth? Where were you, Tyler, when God formed this earth?
[22:08] Did he take counsel with you? So when God tells you that he can restore your life and that he can offer forgiveness to you and that he can use your life, who are you to believe that he's done with you?
[22:20] That's the question they asked in verse number 27, is how in the world can God still do anything with our lives? And he says, Where were you when I created this world? Who do you think that you are?
[22:30] With whom took he counsel and instructed him and taught him the path of judgment? Who is it that thinks he can give counsel to God? And if every one of us were honest in here, we'd have to say, I am somebody who thinks they can give counsel to God.
[22:42] Have you ever done that? Have you ever given counsel to God? Have you ever told him what you think he should be doing in his life? Have you ever told him why you disagree with him and why he's not able to do the things that he said that he's able to do here?
[22:54] You think you know your circumstances in this world better than some far distant God, but that is not the case. He is very near to us. In the verses 27 through 31, we get here where it talks about us renewing our strength.
[23:06] The question I'd ask is, how have we let our circumstances instead of the word of God change our perspective? We believe God doesn't see or care about us anymore. Verse 27, Why saith there, O Jacob, and speaketh, O Israel, my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from God?
[23:25] Has thou not known? Has thou not heard? Were you not there when I created the universe? Don't you know that I'm more powerful? Isaiah responds to thinking this way is to have much too low of a view of God.
[23:38] If you think God is finished with you, then you have way too low of a God to use you. Go back to the story of Adam and Eve in chapter number 3 of Genesis, when Satan had to believe he's done with mankind.
[23:50] They really messed it up. But before God even tells Adam and Eve what the punishment for their sin is, he says in 315 that he has a plan, that he was not done with us as his image bearers.
[24:00] We remain the image bearers of God. And he doesn't get rid of us and start all over. We still can be restored to that time of fellowship with him here. And we have too low of you of God.
[24:12] I know this isn't Bible, but this is something that passes around Facebook. And some of you think that's Bible, but it isn't. And it says this. Have you ever heard this before? If you think you've blown God's plan for your life, rest in this, you, my beautiful friend, you are not that powerful.
[24:26] That's pretty good right there. I like that one. All right. When you think you have blown it all away and God's completely done with you, you are not that powerful. Like God can restore and he can do that there.
[24:38] I preached as a teenager a message that I'm pretty much ashamed of. There are probably a few of those that I was to be honest about it. And one of them is where there's a bunch of teenagers in the room. And I took these different vessels and they had different values.
[24:50] Some were used for cooking and cleaning. Some were used for cleaning things. And I pretty much told the room full of teenagers that some of them had already messed their lives up to a point, that God couldn't use them to the same level that he could use somebody that would keep their lives completely blameless and without spot and all that.
[25:06] And I used guilt and manipulation to say some of you will never be used of God in the same way because of decisions you made. And I'm embarrassed by that because I didn't properly reflect the teaching of who God is.
[25:17] I told people that they are strong enough to ruin God's plan for their life. He still has a plan. Have you not heard verse 28? He is not weary. He is willing to help. Has thou not known? Has thou not heard? He doesn't get weary.
[25:28] He giveth power to the faith of them that the might increases. It talks about young men. Young men should have enough energy to keep going. Some of you would know about the Energizer Bunny. How many of you know about the Energizer Bunny?
[25:39] Okay. Little kids, it's just a little bunny that's kept going and going. Okay. Young people can't do that. We can't renew that. But God can. His strength is from himself here.
[25:49] And so, have you ever been without strength? And have you ever ran ahead of God by not trusting him? Well, when we do this, we always fail. I've been there and I've done that.
[26:00] So, when we wait upon the Lord, we shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. And they shall walk and not faint. To wait on God is not simply to mark time. Rather, it's to live in confident expectation on his action on our behalf.
[26:15] A confident expectation of his action on our behalf. God is still for us. God still wants to use our lives. Waiting sounds boring, doesn't it?
[26:26] The waiting room sounds like the most boring place in all of the world to be in. But in waiting, it is saying, God, I'm going to let you renew my strength. I'm going to let you use my life here.
[26:36] And just as Isaiah had called on the people of his day to trust God, to solve their problems, he calls on the exiles today to come to do the same thing here. And so, you may know he is great enough to measure the universe, but you wonder today, does he care enough for you?
[26:52] We know that he's strong and he's powerful here. But do we know the mind of Christ? And the Bible tells us that we can. We do know the mind of Christ. And it's right here, right? We weren't there when he formed the universe.
[27:03] We don't know how he did many things. But I know how he feels about you today. If you feel like he's not wanting to use you, or he's not able to do anything with your life here. And this is what he says.
[27:13] If we know he's strong, he measures the world, he pours out the water, you know that. But now the question is, a God that is that powerful and is that strong, does he want to enter into my life to make any difference?
[27:24] Here, Philippians 2, 5, and 8. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but he made himself of no reputation.
[27:36] The one that measures the world with his hand, that pours out everything, that names the stars. He made himself of no reputation and took on the form of a servant who was made in his likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man.
[27:47] He humbled himself and became obedient in the death, even the death of the cross. How could we ever wonder if this amazing, all-powerful God, who has the power to do anything that he wants to do, he has the power to use anybody's life, how could we ever question if he wanted to be involved in our small lives when he left heaven and came here to die for you?
[28:11] He most certainly wants to be involved in your life. He most certainly wants to render your strength. He most certainly wants you to glorify him with your life. Our God is powerful, and he is not finished with you.
[28:22] I'm speaking to some of you that might be sitting on that right now, teenagers and other people, I might be talking to you before the exile. I might be talking to you in the captivity. I might be preaching to a 28-year-old version of you that has left our church out of high school and that you really felt like you messed up your life, and you don't want to walk back into this church because you don't know if the God of your childhood still wants to use your life because you think you have blown it.
[28:47] And I tell you, you're not that powerful. Our God wants to use your life, and he has entered into our world, and now he wants to use us in a big way.