“God’s Promise Delivered”
Isaiah 40:1-11
Chapter 40 begins the fourth section of the Book of Isaiah, entitled, “The Vocation of Servanthood.” The first three sections answered the question of how trustworthy the LORD is, now the questions turn to His people.
What are His people going to do in response to His faithfulness?
What will motivate the people of God to actually trust him?
What will be done with the sin that alienates humans from God in the first place?
This is where we have the privilege of having read the end of the book and know the ending. We’ve met the Messiah.
So we need to take ourselves back in time, to around 700 B.C., and imagine what it would have been like to have been an Israelite, at that time. The system for removal of your sins was to recognize the sin, obtain a correct perfect animal and go through the ritual of sacrificing that animal with a priest.
Isaiah was writing this to the Israelites prior to their Babylonian exile, and he was addressing the questions he knew would arise because of it. Such as,
“Where was God when Babylon took over?”
“Was God defeated?”
“Has our sin separated us from God forever?”
In some ways, don’t we still ask those questions today?
“Where is God, in what is happening in our country today?”
“Is God dead?”
We have preconceived notions of what this world should look like and since we don’t see the answers that we think would demonstrate that God is control, we wonder, if God really cares, or worse, does God really exist?
Isaiah reminds us today, that God uses humanity to demonstrate He remains in control. It is the evidence of what is happening in our lives that shows others around us that God cares and desires to have a relationship with His people.
The Israelites were then, and
we are now,
God’s witnesses
in His case against the idols of this world.
Isaiah knew that Israel would be captured, and he also knew that the sins of Israel had caught up to them and being captured by the Babylonians was their consequence.
One would think, as a prophet Isaiah would begin with gloom and doom. Woe as me. Instead, our chapter begins with comfort, not judgment.
I want to stop here and remind each of you of this representation of God. Somehow, we often picture God up in heaven, sitting on a throne, pounding His fist on the arm of this throne, and delivering judgment. Maybe it is because deep down in our hearts we realize that judgment is what we deserve. Yet, that is completely opposite of who God is.
Isaiah proclaimed doom and gloom when it was needed, but here, we get a realistic picture of who God is. Isaiah reminds the Israelites that it was not about them, it was about God. God’s plan requires consequences, however, God also has the ability to deliver them from their consequences. Then the Israelites would be in a position to declare how incomparable God was to all of the other gods around them.
The nations around the Israelites may look mighty on the outside, but in reality, they were nothing to God. Therefore, Isaiah reminded them that they did not need to fear, they were not being abandoned.
Isaiah gives us a beautiful reminder of the dominant theme of not only his book, but of the entire Bible, and that is of the undeserved grace of God.
Today’s Scripture is one of hope.
Isaiah gave it all he had to guide God’s people from their poor choices and their sin, by pointing out their sin and its consequences. He was spot on, as our Scripture reminds us, they were like withered and fallen dried grass because of their sins. Yet, just as Isaiah predicted that judgment would come,
and it had,
now he claims restoration,
and that too will come.
The word “comfort” that begins this passage, and “speak tenderly” are best translated as “encourage.” Isaiah knew what the Israelites would feel like as they are crushed to the ground under the burden of their sins. They would think that all was lost and that any promise they would remember was nullified due to their rebellion. But Isaiah wanted to inform them that they were not going to be destroyed. They were to receive the consequences for their bad actions, but even through the consequences they should never give up hope. God was with them.
The first stanza speaks of a highway, similar to what was written in chapter 35. However, this highway was not for the people, but for God Himself. God will come to helpless Zion and there will be nothing that can stop Him, neither mountains or valleys. This will be a level and straight highway which will allow God to come quickly. A reminder that God was their only deliverer. At this point, their deliverance could only come from a direct intervention of God. There was no other hope.
In the next stanza Isaiah details this fact, with a voice that cries and claims that ALL humans are but grass. He was reminding them that although the Israelites were like grass, so were the Babylonians. This meant that if the Isaelites were to be delivered, God would have to be the one to do it. And should He decide to do so, there was nothing the Babylonians could do to stop Him.
There is no permanence to anything human. Nothing on earth has the ability to change what God speaks and what God does.
Next, Isaiah gives the nation of Israel a job. They were to be a messenger of good tidings. Not only were they to be a recipient of God’s grace, they were also being asked to be a messenger of that grace to the surrounding world.
I am going to step out of today’s Scripture and have you read the red letters on your bulletin.
GOD’S GRACE RECEIVED ~ GOD’S GRACE SHARED
The very vision, we as a congregation have created for Damariscotta Baptist Church at this time.
Back to Isaiah,
The good news, which will be stated later in Chapter 52, verse 7, is the intervention of God in our world.
God comes!
The Creator breaks into the world He created and does two things:
He breaks the power of evil with His “strong arm”
And, “like a shepherd” He will gather up His broken children, in His gentle “arms.”
Now back to today. Jesus is the Good News. Jesus is God incarnate, come to earth to experience what His creation experiences and to pay the price of humanity’s sin.
Jesus is God and man at the same time. The gospels reveal this and Paul claims this principle in unequivocal terms in Philippians 2:6-11:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Isaiah reminds us that God exists outside our systems of time and space. God has the ability to intervene in them at will and change them any time, any way He seems fit. The amazing thing is that although God is outside these systems, He is not limited by them. He recognizes our distresses and captivities, our joys and our accomplishments and is able
to come to us,
share in them with us, and
deliver us when needed.
He is great enough to help us, and near enough to want to help.
God has indeed come to us, in both humility and power. And not only is He with us, He knows our condition, He is moved by it, He even entered into it, and has conquered it.
So, what are you going to do in response to God’s faithfulness?
May Isaiah’s words motivate you to be delivered.
Trust God,
repent of your sins,
receive God’s free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ, and then
become like Christ, and
become a servant to all.
Let’s pray.
