Voices of Comfort
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Where do you find comfort when the going gets tough?
Or more to the point, how do you find comfort when it’s clear that God is directly causing your suffering?
We’re entering into a section of Isaiah that does just that, speaking to a people who are going to suffer the punishment of God for their continued rebellion.
They were going to be under seige, starve, be militarily defeated, their city destroyed, their temple torn down, their wealth plundered, their people kidnapped and settled in Babylon, their princes castrated, the ark of the covenant lost.
How can they ever find hope in the midst of such devestation? How could they ever consider themselves “The people of God” when he did this to them?
After our narrative section (ch36-39) we’re returning to prophecy
But distinct shift in the tone, less about Assyria and the issues of that day, more about encouraging GOd’s people with a hope that will endure through their downfall & exile.
God tells Isaiah to start “comfort my people”
Take Comfort (v1-2)
Take Comfort (v1-2)
This is like a title, setting the theme for the next several chapters.
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 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.
The hard words of judgment must be said, but there are comforting words of restoration that must also be said.
There is hope beyond the impending struggles.
She does not literally receive “double,” that would be unjust. We’re specifically told when Jerusalem goes into exile it is for 70 years, for the sabbaths that they did not give the land.
The “double” is a poetic emphasis - their punishment will be complete, full, and no more is needed.
There will be a future day where there is peace and where guilt is pardoned.
Has this day come? Yes & No.
There was an end to exile after 70 years, but they came home to more warfare and more sin. Then down through the ages Jerusalem has suffered countless wars and incursions. Even today it is a divided city that is one bad decisions away from warfare on the temple mount.
This comfort looks to a fullness that is yet to be completed.
Yet we can still speak comfort to God’s people, comfort, peace and pardon are in store for God’s people, if not now, in God’s timing.
God had a special plan to bring this comfort, peace and pardon to his people, in fact it is something that we now enjoy in Jesus Christ.
But from Isaiah’s vantage point, he’s looking ahead to the unfoling of that plan through a Voice Crying in the Wilderness!
A Voice in The Wilderness (v3-5)
A Voice in The Wilderness (v3-5)
If you read the Gospels, the records of Jesus life, then this next verse will be familiar to you. It is quoted in each Gospel. What does it say?
A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
This prophesies a prophetic voice who would call people to prepare for the coming of God
This is fulfilled in John the Baptist - he came calling people to get ready for God
The imagery is of roadway constuction - make the road so that God can come to town.
When we’re doing the Olympics or hosting some other event with international dignitaries, we make preparations. We build the roads and infrastructure to receive our guests, to honour them.
This voice calls people to get ready.
How did J the B do this?
Built anticipation for the Messaiah
Called people to repentance - remove the impediments.
Smooth out the way:
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. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Working in places like PNG or the Mountain Province in the Philipines, or Nepal is incredibly difficult because of teh terrain. Making easy access opens up a place for greater things.
Accessability
This prophecy talks of a great opening up of access where God comes to his people. All the impediments shall be removed.
But all flesh shall see this revealing of God’s glory
This I beleive is s refrence to the coming of Jeus Christ, who is born in human flesh and lived a perfect life. Then in public he is crucified, buried and rose again from the dead, publically. Through Jesus the glory of God is revealed.
But if that were not enough, the day is coming when Christ shall return again and all flesh shall see him. Every eye behold him.
A Voice of Human Frailty (v6-8)
A Voice of Human Frailty (v6-8)
We hear another voice crying, this time it is a call for Isaiah to reflect on the frailty and brevity of human existance:
A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass.
Life is fleeting and fragile
We’re like dafodils, growing up so briefly, then when the wind blows we are gone.
All of this happens under the watchful eye of God, in his time and purpose.
We have short lives. We are weak. We have been reminded of the frailty of life this week with Dale’s accident.
We have myriad ways of saving and extending lives now, but even so, life is usually less that 100 years, and there are any number of things that could kill you along the way. You’re here then you’re gone.
But not everything is subject to the futility of temporal existance. Not everything ends,
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
God’s word endures
It is unchanging
A Voice of Good News (v9-11)
A Voice of Good News (v9-11)
A third call to lift up a voice.
Knowing that God is coming to reveal his glory,
Knowing that humanity is frail and weak,
We’re now ready to receive God!
That’s the good news that the voice is calling:
Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!” Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.
The Good News is that God is coming. God is coming to rescue you!
He comes with strength! He comes with justice!
We have an aversion to might and stregth. Some people have used it sinfully to abuse people. But that does not make strength and might is inherantly evil.
We want strength to cover the vulnerable. An infant needs the stregth of their parents to carry and sustain them.
The community needs stregth and might in their police force and defence force to protect them. We need strength and might in the law to defend the weak and punish evil.
We need stregth and might for us frail humans, we longingly look for God’s might to come and sort out all the issues that we face. We’re weak, we need his strength.
We need him to watch over us and care for us because we are like sheep:
He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.
Despite the diffculty that Judah will face, God is coming to care for his people, to pastor them, to gently lead them.
This has been fulfilled in part in Jesus Christ - God has come, he has come with slavation. He has come to shepherd his flock, the great Shepherd of the Sheep.
We look forward to judgment day because that’s when the might of God will sort everything out once for all. He will reward the good, punish evil.
The Incomparable God (v12-26)
The Incomparable God (v12-26)
Now the passage turns to reflect on the greatness of God!
It’s a large section, but lets take some samples:
To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? An idol! A craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains.
In their day the alternitve to worshiping YHWH was idol worship
The beleived that if they set up an image of a god and bowed down to it that the god would inhabit the idol and bless them.
The Bible mocks this kind of behaviour as rediculous, as demostrated here.
How can you compare the living God with worshiping bits of wood or stone covered in gold? Really?
GOd is beyond comparison with bits of stone and gold shaped by human hands.
But what is God like, if he can’t be compared with phyiscal objects?
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.
God is so great and big that we’re like grasshopper to Him.
Like you flung open the curtains this morning, God stretches out one side of the universe to the other.
It seems impossible for folk like us to overthrow the wicked rulers that we have, but it’s nothing for God. He could depose Albo like that <click fingers>
Our God is beyond comparison, so great and lofty. This is a comfort to his people and a terror to enemies of God.
The Strength of the LORD (v27-31)
The Strength of the LORD (v27-31)
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
So What?
So What?
