Gods Promise In My Life - Isaiah 40

 

Gods Promise In My Life
Isaiah 40

 

A few years from “Messages from God" began appearing on billboards alongside the highways all around the country. 

They were developed by Andy Smith and his Ft. Lauderdale advertising firm.  They were funded by an anonymous benefactor.

We need to talk - God

Will the road you're on get you to my place? - God

You know that "love thy neighbor" thing? I meant that - God

Keep using my name in vain, I'll make rush hour longer - God

What part of "Thou Shalt Not..." didn't you understand? - God

Big bang theory, you've got to be kidding - God

My way is the highway - God

You think it's hot here? -God

Don't make me come down there -God

Have you read my #1 best seller?  There will be a test - God

Now I liked seeing those billboards and thought our country needed to read them, but they weren’t really from God, nor or they up anymore. And today more than ever we do need to hear from God. I’m glad that God still speaks to us, that He has sent and secured forever His messages to us in the Bible? Here are the real signs from God and they will always be with us.

The Message of God in Isaiah

The people of Isaiah’s time also needed to hear from God and God used Isaiah to be the channel by which those messages were sent. Isaiah recorded them in the book that bears his name.

The prophesies of Isaiah collected in the book of Isaiah can be divided into to sections, chapters 1-39 are God’s judgments upon Israel and Judah, the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel. Chapters 40-66 all contain God’s comfort for his people. The chapters of judgment told Israel they would be punished for their idolatry and forsaken of God, but that punishment was not permanent, and chapters 40-66 tell them that they are not forgotten and one day will return to the promised land.

Irving Jensen in his Old Testament Survey categorizes the first half of the book as God’s Government and the second half as God’s Grace. The first half foretells the coming of the pagan kings who God would use to judge His people, but the second half foretells the coming of the Righteous King who would save his people.

The Hope of Comfort – Isaiah 40:1

The 40th chapter of Isaiah begins with this command from God, Isaiah 40:1-2 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. 2 Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD's hand double for all her sins.

The word comfort is the Hebrew word naham and it’s literal meaning is to cause to breathe again. The first half of Isaiah’s prophecies have the remnant of God’s people holding their breath wondering what terrible punishment will happen next then God commands, “Comfort them, yes, their sins will be punished but there is hope and a future under my protection and power.”

The Way Prepared – Isaiah 40:3-5

God’s comfort, His hope for Israel, was that He make a way for reconciliation, for redemption and bring them back to Himself and to the Promised Land.

Isaiah 40:3-5 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: 5 And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

We know that prophecy was partially fulfilled in John the Baptist and would be ultimately fulfilled by the Messiah John came to prepare the way for.

The Message Proclaimed - Isaiah 40:6-8

The message of the Voice crying in the wilderness is found in Isaiah 40:6-8 The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: 7 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.
8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

Man could not bring Israel back to God or back to the land, because man’s life is like grass that withers or a flower that fades away. But what man could not do,  God’s eternal Word will do. God had declared the promise, and His word was the guaranty, the assurance of his promise.

The Promise Given 

From chapter 40 to the end of the book, God is telling Israel, “I am your God, you are me people and no matter how terrible and hard life is or may become, I will be with you and one day I will bring you home.”

That is God’s promise for all situations, for all ages, and for all of God’s people.

Isaiah, in chapter 6, saw God in the temple, high and lifted up. When Isaiah needed to hear from God, he, the prophet of God, was given a vision. Now we are not prophets, but we still need to hear and see God especially when our times are hard.

But we don’t need to settle for billboards along the freeway that can only remind us of God. No, we have something much more powerful, more real and more eternal. We have the word of God. When I’m doubting, discouraged, depressed, downtrodden or despairing, what God said to them then, He says to me now. “There is comfort, and there is hope.”

The questions that God asks in chapter 40, are the reason for that hope. The answer to the questions is that is God himself. Look at the question in vs. 18, 25 and later in vs. 27

Three Challenges Given

The challenges are in

vs. 18 To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?

Vs. 25 To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.

Vs. 27 Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD

First Challenge:  God is incomparable

Now let’s look at the first challenge that God asks of Israel in vss. 18 Isaiah 40:18 To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?

The reason that Israel could have hope was because of their God. He cannot be compared to a worthless idol. He cannot be rendered in metal that can be stolen or melted or wood that can be infested with insects or rot away.

He continues in His challenge Isaiah 40:21-22 Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22 It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.

God is incomparable. You can’t reduce Him to something as pitiful, puny, paltry or  possessable as an idol. He is God and He oversees the entire earth, the entire universe.

Second Challenge: God is Unequaled

The 2nd question flows from the answer to the first, in Isaiah 40:25 To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.

His answer is no one. You can’t compare God to anything or anyone else so you must …

Isaiah 40:26 Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.

Look upward to the heavens and see the things God has made. He has numbered them and named them by the greatness of His might. He is strong in power and in that power the elements of the universe will not fail.

The Final Challenge: Israel, Don’t You Know – Isaiah 40:27-31

The final question and challenge is in vs 27 and with it is the wonderful promise of God’s comfort and strength for Israel. Isaiah 40:27 Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?

Israel, Your Hope Is In Me

God asks his people, “Why do you say your way is hidden from the Lord? Why do you say, “my judgment is overlooked by my God?” Israel was asking, “Where is God and where is justice?”

God answers by repeating part of the challenge He asked of Israel earlier, “Have you not know? Have you not heard?

He reminds them, that they should know this. You have been told,  “Isaiah 40:28-31 … that the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. 29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.

God tells them, this truth is recorded in your history of your nation, it has been experienced in your lives, it is being proclaimed by my prophets and it is recorded in scriptures. God, the creator of all, does not faint, he does not grow tired. His knowledge is infinite. His power is unlimited, and it is given to those who are stumbling and to those who are exhausted. To them God says, I will power and strength from an unending source.

Man’s Strength Will Fail, God’s Cannot Fail

Isaiah 40:30-31 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: 31 But they that wait upon the LORD 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.

Even the strongest youth run out of strength, they will grow weary and they will fail, but they that wait upon the Lord shall have their strength restored and renewed. Then, they shall soar upward with wings as eagles. When the run they won’t stagger to a stop, and when they walk, they will walk on and not faint in the journey.

I believe He is especially encouraging Israel about how they will come back to Jerusalem to the promised land. Some will fly back like eagles; some will run back like athletes, and some will walk back like pilgrims whose hope will not let them quit. It may be different times, different speed and different ways but Israel will come back in the power of God’s strength.

Will We Answer The Challenge?

We are also God’s people; Israel was under the Abrahamic Covenant but we are under the New Covenant of Jesus Christ. And just like the people of God in all ages, we will face difficult, hard, soul breaking, heart rendering times.

At those times I believe we will hear the challenges of God. Who is like our God? No one and no thing. He is incomparable. He and He alone is God, above and beyond all.

Who is equal to Him? None, None can equal His power, None can grasp his knowledge, None can measure the depths of His love or the purity of His Holiness.

God, our God stands incomparable and unequaled. That is why He and He alone is our hope, our comfort, our assurance.

I know that sometimes we feel that God has overlooked us, or that He is not treating us justly. The terrible troubles of this wicked world will make us wonder, even doubt.

We ask these things because we are human, we are weak, and our strength is not up to the task. We ask God, where are you when I am going through the hard times of this world. Lord if you cared wouldn’t you spare me from the pain, sorrow and loss?

God where are you when a drunk driver kills a family? Or my child become addicted to alcohol or drugs? Where are you God when immoral, evil, corrupt people become the leaders of our nation and bring it to the brink of ruin? Where are you God when unborn babies are legally murdered each year by abortion? Where are you God when teachers, counselors and doctors tell our children they can destroy their lives with homosexuality, transsexuality or multi-sexuality? Where are you God when a bitter, hate-filled, drugged-up killer enters a church, a school, or a mall and shoots innocent men, women and children?

Where are you God? Do you see what is happening?

The questions, doubts and fears are the same and praise His name the answer is also the same.  

To these things God then asks us, He challenges us,  “Have you not known. Have you not heard? Open your eyes, look back at what God has done. What God has revealed. What God has recorded in His word, and you will know God has not abandoned you. Listen to others who have gone through even tougher times, harder circumstances, and more devastating loss. They will tell you, yes God was there and His strength did not fail me.

Paul in Romans 8 wrote a passage with the same sense of God’s love and strength for us in vss. Romans 8:35-39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Does Jesus Care

When we come to those hard times, we may question God and He is more than able to answer our questions. I heard the hymn, “Does Jesus Care.” Not to long ago, it states in a different way what we are talking about this morning.

Does Jesus care when my heart is pained
Too deeply for mirth or song,
As the burdens press, and the cares distress,
And the way grows weary and long?

Does Jesus care when my way is dark
With a nameless dread and fear?
As the daylight fades into deep night shades,
Does He care enough to be near?

Does Jesus care when I’ve said “goodbye”
To the dearest on earth to me,
And my sad heart aches till it nearly breaks—
Is it aught to Him? Does He see?

And then the answer rings out in the refrain:
Oh, yes, He cares, I know He cares,
His heart is touched with my grief;
When the days are weary, the long nights dreary,
I know my Savior cares.

 Conclusion:

Yes, He cares. His love is not lacking and His power is all sufficient. Sometimes you may be enduring the pain of this life, look and you’ll find God is there and He will lift you up on eagles wings. There will be times when we struggle under the burdens of sin or sorrow, listen, you’ll hear God speak and you’ll break away and run, never growing weary. And yes, there will be those times when our circumstance are nothing but hardship, hurt, and hopelessness, but our incomparable, unequaled God has promised that we are not hidden from His eyes and in the midst of our tears and fears, God is there and we will stand us on our feet and we will walk and not faint.

Our walking may take us far away, but God walks with us. Our running may seem unending, but God runs beside us and one day we will  soar on those eagle’s wings onto the shores of heaven and God will welcome us home.

And we will know the wait was worth it.