I. Introduction
A. This advent: Isaiah 40
1. I said last advent that Psalm 2 was one of those highlight chapters of the Bible every Christian should know well.
2. The same is true about Isaiah 40. It is worthy of the five Sundays we’re going to give it, and my hope is that none of you will ever forget it – not the sermon series but the passage and its important place in the Bible.
B. But before we read Isaiah 40, let’s learn about Isaiah the man, and the book which bears his name.
1. Isaiah was one of the most prominent prophets in the OT.
a. Before the Israelites entered into the promised land, Moses warned them that if they forsook the Lord their God and followed after the gods of the nations around them, He would bring a foreign army against them and they would be uprooted from the land God had given them. Well, the people of Israel did increasingly fall into idolatry over the centuries.
b. But during the final century of this spiritual decline, God called Isaiah to be a prophet. Isaiah had a long prophetic ministry (probably over 40 years), and the written record of his prophecies fill the longest prophetical book in the Bible.
c. Eventually, of course, God brought the great Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, to Judah. He basically leveled the place and carried all the people back to Babylon where they lived in exile.
2. Isaiah the book
a. It has 66 chapters with two major sections: ch.1-39 and 40-66.
b. It is by far the most quoted OT book in NT. The NT has 56 direct quotes and 296 allusions just to the second part of the book.
c. The second part is quite different than the first part, such that some scholars suggest (I think wrongly) that Isaiah didn’t write the second part.
d. But there is something very strange about the second part of Isaiah. It is written as if Isaiah is suddenly transported 150 years into the future, near the end of the time of Judah's Babylonian exile.
(1) It is like he sees the people of God in exile in Babylon. They are in deep distress, the chosen people of God living as captives in a foreign land.
(2) They are grieving not only over their own present condition but over the condition of their promised land; their homeland lies in ruins: God's own holy city desolated and abandoned.
(3) And in response, Isaiah prophesies about a day coming when God would end the anguish of His people and restore their fortunes in full measure, and he gives encouragement to God's people to hold on until this promised day of restoration comes.
(4) And, in doing so, this second part of Isaiah points to a coming redeemer, “the Servant of the Lord,” who is obedient, who endures undeserved suffering even unto death, as a means of taking away the sin of His people. This includes, of course, Isaiah 52-53, the famous prophecy about Christ: "He was pierced for our transgressions."
e. And the very beginning of this second part of Isaiah is Isaiah 40:1-5, our passage this morning.
C. Isaiah 40:1–5 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins. 3 A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. 5 And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
D. Handel’s Messiah: Why would it begin with Isaiah 40:1-5?
II. Explanation Summary of Isaiah 40:1-5
A. The exile led God’s people to ask themselves some very difficult questions:
1. Doesn’t the exile prove that God had forsaken his people?
2. Or maybe that He wasn’t the Lord of history after all?
3. Doesn’t the exile mean that God had been unable to defend His people from the pagan nations?
4. And even if He is the One who sent Babylon to judge Judah, doesn’t this mean that God had been defeated by his people’s own sinfulness?
5. Does God even want to deliver Judah? Has he given up on them because of their persistent sin?
B. And God gives Isaiah the assignment to begin to answer those questions.
C. Isaiah begins with words of comfort in v.1-2a. “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem...”
1. This is the appropriate way to speak to someone who has been traumatized. You want to comfort and heal with your words, but you also need to do so with your tone.
2. And God is very aware that His people have experienced trauma at the hands of the ruthless Babylonians, for He is the One who raised up Babylon to discipline His people for their persistent idolatry (Jer.25:8-14).
D. Then God tells Isaiah to announce to God’s people that the time of their discipline is now over: “cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.”
1. The war is over! This is vivid language to describe the significance of what he is saying.
2. It’s like when a parent announces to their child that their restriction is over: “your iniquity is pardoned.”
3. “double for all her sins” should not be taken as the justice of God meted out, but as the discipline of the Lord being plenty, more than enough.
4. Again, this makes clear that whatever sins God’s people have committed, and however severe the punishments they have suffered, God has not forgotten His promises. And His promises are not defeated by human sin. Whatever may lie ahead for the people of Judah and Jerusalem, God’s purpose for them is not destruction but redemption, not death but life.
E. And then suddenly, the prophet hears a voice: 3 A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
1. What will bring about this great change of fortune, this great reversal, this great restoration?
2. Do God’s people somehow save themselves? Not at all!
3. It is the Lord Himself who is coming to do it. And somehow God’s people are supposed to prepare the way for His arrival.
4. Now Isaiah doesn’t say explicitly that the Lord is coming until v.9-10 (which we’ll cover next week), but He definitely implies it when he says to prepare the way of the LORD and make a highway for Him, and the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it.
F. But what is this voice Isaiah hears?
1. Well, Matthew 3:3 answers this question when it says of John the Baptist: For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet, saying: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, `Make ready the way for the Lord, make His paths straight.'" (Cf. Mark 1:3; Luke 1:17, 3:2-6)
2. God sent John the Baptist just before Jesus came to tell the people that the Lord Himself was coming and that they ought to prepare for His coming.
G. And then v.4 tells us that His coming which would completely change the landscape and rearrange the whole world: “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.”
1. This isn’t talking about geography, of course, but about society.
2. Jesus came to humble the proud and to exalt the humble. (Cf. Luke 1:46-55.)
H. And then our final verse, v.5, goes on to say, “And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
1. In the Bible there are many times when it is said that God comes. And there are many times when it is said that God’s glory was revealed.
2. But this coming is different. The coming of the Lord which Isaiah refers to here is not just God unleashing His power to rescue His people from an enemy or give them some message.
3. God has done many miracles during the course of human history. C. S. Lewis calls this coming, The Grand Miracle. For in this coming, God not only visits and shows Himself, but He moves in with us, He comes to our world, but more importantly He takes on our flesh; He becomes human; He comes into our humanness; He becomes part of our race.
4. It’s also about what the Lord comes to do. He doesn’t just come to help, He doesn’t just come to answer, He doesn’t just come to rescue from some earthly circumstance. He comes to give eternal life; He comes to deliver from sin; He comes to save from eternal punishment for sin.
5. This coming wasn’t necessarily visually superior, though a case can be made for that.
6. But it was glorious because its effect was larger and farther reaching than previous comings.
7. But something even greater is in store: He not only wants to restore them, He wants to redeem the whole world through them. This is another thing which is so unique about the revealing of God’s glory in this coming of the Lord: all flesh will see it together.
a. Now when we hear that God’s glory is to be revealed to all flesh, we envision some moment when something so spectacular and noticeable happens that all the people on the earth will stop and be witnesses of it.
b. But that’s not what is meant here. The “all flesh” here is in contrast to just the people of the Jews.
c. Ordinarily when God shows us in the Bible, His glory is revealed to His people – the children of Abraham, Isaac and Israel – but not to all the other peoples on earth.
d. But this coming will be so significant that it all flesh will see it.
e. THIS coming will generate the song we sing about:
(1) It's the song of the redeemed Rising from the African plain
(2) It's the song of the forgiven Drowning out the Amazon rain
(3) The song of Asian believers Filled with God's holy fire
(4) It's every tribe, every tongue, every nation A love song born of a grateful choir
(5) (Steven V. Taylor / Peter Furler)
f. Jew & Gentile, young & old, male & female, slave & free: His coming encompassed them all.
I. So, in the midst of the suffering and humiliation and rejection of the exile, Isaiah speaks of a time in the future when God would come in such a way that would make their present misery look like nothing in comparison. And it isn’t just a possibility, or an optimistic wish, it was a certainly, “for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
J. All of this, of course, was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus into the world.
1. As Paul says, "All the promises God has made are `Yes' in Christ." 2Cor.1:20
2. Peter tells us that even Isaiah himself didn’t grasp the meaning or significance of what the Holy Spirit was saying through him: “Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, 11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. 12 It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you.” 1Peter 1:10–12
3. So, even though in this prophecy there was much fuel for encouragement for those exiles in Babylon, the fact is that primarily, prophecies like this were written for us, not for them. We who know about Christ and know Christ are the ones who have been graciously given eyes to see what all this means, even more than the prophet himself.
4. As Jesus said, “Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. 17 For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” Matthew 13:16–17
5. His coming is the reason we should be comforted (1). In Him our iniquity is pardoned (2). He is the One who brings down the mighty from their high estates and exalts those who are humble (v.4, cf. Luke 1:46–55). He is the radiance of the glory of God (v.5, cf. Heb.1:3). He is the One who unites people from every nation, tribe, people and language to see Him and know Him (5).
III. So what are we supposed to do?
A. Well, verse 3 is the only verse in this passage which tells us to do anything: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
B. If the Lord is coming, it makes sense to make sure that He has easy access to be able to get here.
C. As the son of a highway engineer, I think a lot about roads and highways.
D. When John the Baptist first declared these words of Isaiah in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord and make a highway in the desert, he wasn’t talking about a new construction project, he was telling the people that they needed to prepare their hearts to receive the Lord when He comes.
E. The Lord wants not only to come into your land, He wants to come into your heart. So, remove all the obstacles, pave the road so its smooth.
F. They’ve just finished the new toll lanes on 66, and boy are they smooth. That’s what v.3 is talking about. That’s the way we should be so that the Lord has easy access to our hearts.
G. We’ve all driven on difficult roads: potholes, bumps, washboarding. Some of us have driven on roads which don’t really even deserve the name.
H. Is that the way you want it to be for the Lord to come to you? Of course not!
I. So, remove any obstacles that block the road: remove your pride; throw aside your idols. Put up a welcoming center.
J. You know even after a nice smooth highway is completed, there is still a need for maintenance. Trash gets dropped in the road and needs to be removed. Things fall out of moving vehicles which block easy passage. There are accidents which leave pieces of cars or dead animals. There is wear-and-tear which causes potholes or cracks, requiring repair and resurfacing.
K. And so it is with us. even after we have welcomed and received the Lord into our lives, we still need to maintain the highway, so that He always has easy access to come to us.
L. It’s easy to complain about the condition of a road you’re driving on, but are we that alert to the condition of the road we have prepared for the Lord to enter our lives?
M. When one of the roads in our community is in bad shape, it is a public matter. But there is really only one person who knows the condition of the road in your heart, and that’s the Lord.
N. Other people may suffer the consequences of your heart not being right, but no one can really see what it’s like.
O. Whether you have been a Christian your whole life or you have never received Jesus into your life, it’s time to ask yourself this question: Is there an open highway in my heart for God to come in, or is my road impassible.
P. Impassible – that’s the word which we use to describe a road which is for one reason or another in such bad shape that vehicles can’t even get by.
Q. Is your road impassible?
R. Like some of you, I have driven on some very difficult roads. I remember driving on roads in the bush in Kenya with Robert Carr. And it took so much strength to hold on that after a while my arms were limp and I could not hold on any longer.
S. I remember driving with Ben Price and having to swerve around dead camels and donkeys left to bake in the hot Saharan sun.
T. What’s it like for Jesus to drive to your house or my house? What’s it like for Him to come to us for a visit?
U. Honestly, sometimes my heart is more like a war zone than it is like a highway.
V. I remember being woken up by Mary Ann at 4am on February 22, 1983. The roads were covered with 22 inches of fresh snow and she was in labor. It was only a few miles to the hospital, but there was no way our car was going to be able to get there. The story of how we got there is a part of Lash lore, but the point is that a way had to be made. I wasn’t going to deliver that baby myself.
W. And each of us ought to feel that same sense of desperation to make a way for Jesus to have passage into our hearts. It’s a matter of life and death.
X. “Prepare the way of the LORD; make straight a highway for our God!”
Y. Let every heart prepare Him room!
IV. Prayer: Come fix my road! Level the uneven ground, smooth out our rough places. Come here now to meet us in the sacrament.