Week Three Advent Isaiah 35:1-10

Be Not Afraid

Isaiah 35:3-4

Someone once noted that some 365 times God’s word says, Do Not Be Afraid. I’ve never counted them, so I’ll take their word for the number.

The phrase is common before, during, and after the events that we celebrate as Christmas.

When Zechariah, a Jewish priest carrying out his duties in the temple sees an angel the first words of the angel: ‘Do not be afraid...” (Luke 1:13)

The same angel speaks to a young, engaged woman named Mary. He pronounces her as one favored by God. She was ‘deeply troubled’ by this statement to which the angel replied, ‘Do not be afraid....’ (Luke 1:30).

When she told Joseph, her betrothed, his response was to secretly divorce her and put the whole episode behind him. The angel spoke to him in a dream and said, ‘Don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 1:20).

The night Jesus was born there were shepherds watching over the flock. Luke tells us Luke 2:9-10

Luke 2:9–10 (HCSB)

Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people...

Don’t be afraid.

Fear is a normal and even healthy response in most circumstances.

It is fear that prompts us to fight. freeze, or flee when unexpected circumstances occur. In each of the above passages the individuals were not anticipating an angelic encounter.

None of them ran, but they did respond - unbelief in Zechariah’s case;

uncertainty and confusion in both Joseph and Mary’s experience.

Luke tells us simply that the shepherds were ‘terrified - to be afraid.’

Some seven hundred years before the events surrounding the birth of Jesus a prophet named Isaiah wrote to his own people - a people who had been devastated by fear. They had seen an invading army destroy their towns, villages, their temple and their very life. This invading army then forcibly moved them to a land radically different from the one they and their ancestors had known.

Babylon had so devastated the promised land that it became a wasteland, a barren wilderness.

Isaiah, looking forward to events he’d never live to see offers tools we can use to overcome the fear that so often rules our lives.

Our God is Able: Isaiah 35:1-2

Genesis 1:2–3 HCSB

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Out of the formless, empty darkness God spoke and the universe exploded into being - including this planet we call home.

Generations later an elderly couple named Abraham and Sara were promised a child of their own - even though Sarah was well past child-bearing years.

More time passes and God speaks to His people who had found themselves enslaved to a foreign power that was immoveable and unrelenting. You will be free was God’s promise.

After 40 years in a wilderness God promised His people a homeland - a land possessed by nations stronger, bigger, and more powerful.

Isaiah writes to a people enslaved once again to a foreign power over whom they have no influence and says - You will return home to a land that though barren for 70 years will blossom and bloom again.

Over and over God reminds His people: I am able!

That which appears to be hopeless, that which seems to be lost can be and will be recovered.

God’s Promises are Certain: Isaiah 35:3-4

One scholar writes,

Hands means strength for personal action (as we speak of ‘putting our hands to the task’); knees suggests stability and persistence, the durability to stick with the pilgrimage; hearts need nourishing in those convictions that keep us going with mental, emotional and spiritual commitment. In this last matter especially we must minister encouragement to each other (say … ‘Be strong, do not fear …’; cf. Heb. 10:24–25).

J. Alec Motyer, Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 20, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 245.

God is able. God keeps His promises.

One Christian counselor offers the following words:

God’s promises are meant to blow your mind and settle your heart. They are his gifts of grace to you. In your heart of hearts, you know you could never have earned the riches that he pours down on you. His promises are meant to leave you in awe of him and in wonder at the glory of his grace. His promises are designed to be the way that you interpret and make sense of your life. I am amazed at the numbers of believers I meet who are in some state of spiritual paralysis because they no longer believe the promises of God.

Tripp, Paul David. Awe: Why It Matters for Everything We Think, Say, and Do (p. 102). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

God Is In Control: Isaiah 35:5-7

Earlier you heard from Matthew 11 where John the Baptist, languishing in prison, sent disciples to ask Jesus ‘Are you the One?’

Jesus’ answer:

Matthew 11:4–6 HCSB

Jesus replied to them, “Go and report to John what you hear and see: the blind see, the lame walk, those with skin diseases are healed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor are told the good news. And if anyone is not offended because of Me, he is blessed.”

You may say, we see no evidence of God’s ability, of God’s promises, of God’s control. You my friend are looking in all the wrong places!

If you are to look for signs of God’s ability to control human life look on your own past - how has God protected you?

How has God made Himself real to you?

Spiritual blindness and deafness is as frightening and dangerous as physical blindness.

Spiritual paralysis can be as damaging and limiting as physical paralysis.

God is able, God is reversing these challenges in lives all around us.

God Cares: Isaiah 35:8-10

Listen to Paul Tripp, whom I quoted earlier:

Does God care about me? Perhaps this is the question we’re most conscious of. It’s the question that the bullied teenager asks. It’s the question asked by the wife who has watched her marriage go sour. It’s the question the exhausted parent asks at the end of a very hard day with children. It’s the question asked by the lonely single woman. The man who has just lost his job asks this question. It’s what’s asked by the person who with sadness has left the church that has lost its way. It’s what the person suffering the weaknesses of old age asks. It’s what the person asks who is struggling through a long illness. It’s what you wonder about as you watch the surrounding culture coarsen and worsen.

Tripp, Paul David. Awe: Why It Matters for Everything We Think, Say, and Do (p. 104). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

Does God care?

Isaiah’ answer is a resounding YES -

John the Baptist comes...

Matthew 3:2–3 HCSB

and saying, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near!” For he is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, who said: A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make His paths straight!

Make His paths straight!

The highway of which Isaiah wrote hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus and the path which John proclaims runs in both directions!’

God comes toward us and we are freed to move towards Him.

Jesus is the One through whom mountains can be moved, the One through whom sin can be erased, the One in whom guilt and fear are obliterated.

As the world around us focuses on the birth of a child, we who know Him should be looking not just at an infant in a manger but at a King whose reign knows no ends.

We don’t just see a child born in an unusual way. We see a “light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory to [the] people [of] Israel” (Luke 2:32).

We don’t just gather to celebrate the birth of a baby. We proclaim the very redemption of God’s people (see Luke 2:38)

For those removed from their homeland these words must have birthed a new sense of hope - a way is being prepared by which God’s people will return to the land that He had promised!

Charles Spurgeon, an English Baptist preacher of the mid-1800’s noted

This is no roundabout way, or broken route, or blind alley. Let your faith abide in it, and it will receive its reward. To quit this road for another is to despise the wisdom and grace of God in Christ Jesus...

Spurgeon Study Bible, 931.

Reflect and Respond

Jesus asks of His disciples and the crowds, “Why are you so afraid?” almost forty times throughout the Gospels...

White Jr., Dan. Love over Fear (p. 24). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

We typically focus on an infant when we celebrate Christmas. Mangers, animal stalls, shepherds, and yes we fast forward to the visit of the Magi.

Look again though at that infant in the manger:

do you see that God is able?

What Mary and Jospeh couldn’t comprehend, God did!

God promised Joseph and Mary that their son would grow and become the Messiah, the One would save His people from their sins. In spite of all Herod tried to do, Jesus survived!

God’s story is always His to unfold as He alone can do. That infant sleeping in His mother’s arms will be the salvation for God’s people - Simeon saw it…and we can to if we will just open the eyes of faith and receive Him!

In the birth of this baby that is the story we tell at Christmas every year is the ultimate demonstration of God’s compassion and care for us. The apostle Paul explains

Romans 5:8–10 (HCSB)

But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!

Much more then, since we have now been declared righteous by His blood, we will be saved through Him from wrath.

For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by His life!

Today - of what are you afraid of? Take that fear and examine it through the lens of these questions:

Is God able?

Are God’s promises certain?

Is God in control?

Does God care?

He is able, His promises are certain, He never ceases His work of sustaining and providing for His creation, His compassion is clear - even in this infant Jesus!

Replace your fear with the certainty of God’s ability, God’s promises, God’s provision and providence, and God’s compassion.