Isaiah 40:1-8, What Shall I Cry?, Dr. John B. Carpenter

Isaiah’s Comfort for a Devastated People

Isaiah chapter 40 verses 1 to 8 hear the word of the Lord.

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.

A Voice cries in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 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.

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.

The grass withers the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. The Lord had his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word. What do you say at a funeral? Maybe you don't want to go to one or meet the bereaved because you don't know what to say.

What do you say after a tragedy? Someone's house is burned down or their mother died. They're diagnosed with cancer the victim of some crime. What would you say to the mother of those three University of Virginia football players, you know proud mothers.

You know, they got to be really proud mothers proud that their sons had earned an athletic scholarship at a d1 program and are getting A University of Virginia education, but I'll probably for the past couple years now telling everyone who will listen my boy.

Do you see him? He had so many tackles or receptions or yards last Saturday. Do you see him on TV? Do you see my boy and he's and he's on his way to graduate. Did you see him? Only get a call in Tuesday morning.

I'm sorry to inform you What do you say.

What do you say when you look into the eyes of someone and they're weeping uncontrollably? Wailing in pain the emotional and the physical so mixed together they don't know which pain is which and there's blood everywhere.

And a miscarried or stillborn child and. The only thing she can think to say Among all the agony and blood and tears is to ask whether the child was a boy or a girl.

What do you say.

What do you say when you hold someone who is racked at grief and you wish there's something you could do that you'd die a Thousand times if you could stop the grief. What do you say? What do you cry out?

The Assyrian Invasion and the Siege of Jerusalem

Isaiah was an old man. His late 60s are around 70 as he stood on the wall of Jerusalem. He's looking out into the rest of Judah into the countryside. Which has been devastated by a marauding murderous invasion.

Almost all the towns and cities of Judah had been obliterated. Thousands killed most mercifully by a quick sword thrust or a jab at the spear. But many others especially the leading men of towns impaled on stakes alive and left like that to die are literally flailed.

Their skin ripped off alive. The Assyrian army had come through led by Sennacherib the emperor of the Assyrian Empire. Intent on subjugating and just wiping out Judah. Just about 20 years earlier in 721 BC the same Empire the Assyrians had attacked the northern kingdom of Israel with its capital in Samaria and Did just that destroyed it?

The Israelites they didn't kill they dragged off to be exiles to other parts of the Empire. And while they brought in other people pagan people to repopulate the country. So to the people of Judah in the south understand Israel this time has been divided to Israel in the north northern Kingdom of Israel and Judah in the south.

The people of Judah in the south kind of looking out on all this like Isaiah on the wall. That was to them. What 9-eleven is to us? It's a disaster in our memory a warning of what could happen. And then 20 years later It did happen in 701 BC the Assyrian army came for them this time.

Going through all the towns and cities of Judah tearing down walls burning buildings raping and butchering people. The second largest city in Judah was like ish. I believe the pronounce like ish like ish or like ish.

With a it had a wall as fortifications. I would assume an army contingent there to to defend it. But it did no good against the might of the Assyrian Empire when it came to walled cities like Lakish. They were the the Syrian army was methodical and patient and brutal.

They were laid siege to the city so that nothing no one no food could get in. Then they would either build an earthen ramp up to right up to the wall or Tunnel underneath the wall or both and they would build siege towers.

That just kind of mobile towers but say but then when the attack came wheel up near the wall and shoot arrows down in over the wall in down into the city and Then when the big attack came they would bring battering rams to the gate of the wall.

They would come over their ramp through their tunnels shooting down there from their towers and then kill and destroy. Set a fire. They were so proud of how thorough and how vicious their attacks were that they Memorialized them in carvings in the walls of their palaces back home in Nineveh.

Archaeologists uncovered the memorial to it to their destruction of Lakish which shows them throwing people down from the wall. Spears of soldiers impaled people flames engulfing the city. You can find it the archaeologists have it.

It's some museum somewhere. You can look it up in Google and see it for yourself. That was Lakish. Now imagine if an army an invading army had come to America and does that to us? They had done that say like like the series did the Lakish some invader did that to Chicago and now they're heading for Washington DC and there's nothing but a wall.

I know there's really no wall around Washington DC, but you get my point nothing to really slow them down. You're scurrying into the city when you're there for protection. Because the invaders are killing or capturing and hauling away anyone they could catch in the countryside.

But it's just a matter of time before they take the capital city, too. So you're huddled in there.

Hoping for a miracle.

And that was the situation. They had been in just recently. Sennacherib boasted in his own history. This is another thing historians. It's not in the Bible. It's something historians have uncovered. Sennacherib in his own history wrote about his akiya Judas King Trapped in Jerusalem that he said I had hezekiah quote trapped like a bird in the cage.

The emissaries of Sennacherib came to Jerusalem stood outside the wall and the people of Jerusalem are standing on the wall probably Isaiah among them and listening to these emissaries from From Sennacherib as they were shouting to the representatives of Hezekiah Hezekiah's men.

When the people standing in the wall listening to this they they taunted Jerusalem.

Judah.

Hezekiah and they said thus says the great king. You're you're a you're a minor king. You're a nothing king. The great king the king of Assyria thus he says you're next. They're all gonna starve all you people in the wall.

You're gonna starve in the siege. You're gonna be so hungry. You'll be eating your own excrement. They told everyone in Jerusalem listening, you know, don't believe this trust in the Lord stuff. After all did the gods of those other kingdoms that we destroyed did they save them as if the Lord were just another tribal God.

And Then they had the nerve to claim that the Lord sent them there. And Isaiah chapter 36 verse 10 Sennacherib's men boast the Lord said to me Go up against this land and take it.

They're speaking for the Lord.

Hezekiah tore his clothes Put on sackcloth went to the Lord in the temple. He prayed. And so the Lord spoke through Isaiah. In Isaiah chapter 37 verse 23 Whom have you Sennacherib. He's speaking to Sennacherib.

The Lord is through Isaiah. Whom have you Sennacherib mocked and reviled. Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted up your eyes to the heights? Against the Holy One of Israel. And then in verse 26 the Lord asked Sennacherib Have you not heard?

That I.

It's the Lord speaking that I determined it long ago. I Planned from days of old what I bring to pass right now. That you should make fortified cities crash into a heap of ruins. In other words this campaign of destruction.

The Lord says, you know, I planned all this. You're my instrument to do my will those cities. You've destroyed all the cities of the Philistines. They wouldn't they destroyed the cities of the Philistines that even now just recently most recently like each you did it because I the Lord speaking I Planned it and then the Lord concludes in chapter 37 verse 29.

Because you have raged Against me and your arrogance has come to my ears. I will put a hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth. It's kind of the way they treated exiles captives that they caught in other kingdoms.

Lord say I'm gonna do that to you and I will turn you back on the way by which you came. And that's what happened. Isaiah chapter 37 verse 36 and 2nd Kings chapter 19 says in an angel the Lord struck down 185 ,000 Assyrian soldiers and so Sennacherib had to go.

An ancient historian Herodotus says that the plague hit them bubonic plague. Probably both are true. I would imagine an angel used biological warfare. So Sennacherib has to go back to Nineveh. Where he's eventually assassinated by his own sons.

But the people of Judah are shell-shocked the survivors. Sure, they made it in Jerusalem and I assume they're happy to be alive. They're amazed at God's deliverance. But they knew many of their countrymen.

Who hadn't survived? Who were slaughtered who were impaled who were flayed who were brutalized? They had family who had made it. Whom they'd never see again. Jerusalem was intact, but the rest of the country was a smoldering wreck.

It's not like after World War two in China, I would imagine sure some cities some people survived but look at Nanking. Everyone has a story in China would imagine after World War two of some relative machine gun with the rest of.

The people from their own village or some relative beheaded by some sentry for simply not bowing low enough. Untold stories of rape. They got a lot of that in Singapore, too. Like that you're desperately grateful.

You know that I made it. I survived this when it's over, but now you look out on the wake of destruction stunned. Isaiah stands on the wall of Jerusalem looking out on burned-out buildings freshly dug graves the top of walls of other smaller cities and.

What's he say?

What do you say?

At a funeral. To the mourners. To the parents of three University of Virginia football players. To those wrapped with grief who have lost everything. What do you cry out? We see that here. You see three cries.

Notice in verse to cry to her. Then in verse three a voice cries. And then verse six a voice says. Cry, what do you cry? First comfort then prepare and finally Eternity, what should you cry?

Comfort for the Remnant

Comfort Comfort.

That's what God says in verse one. It's a command to you not really to be comforted but to comfort comfort. Comfort a specific people my people says your God. This is not a time for rebuke for correction.

It's not for I told you so. If only you people hadn't been corrupt if you have been unjust to the poor you've yet impressed the powerless. You wouldn't have got this if you hadn't had the high places the altars for unauthorized worship to Lord I.

I told you you were only supposed to worship the Lord at the temple according to his word. But you wouldn't listen and this is what you get. No, it's not a time for that not for chiding. Not at this time.

The first part of Isaiah from chapters 1 to 35 is full of that kind of rebuke. But after the destruction is wrecked by the Assyrian army. Described in chapters 36 to 39 just before this passage. It's comfort.

Comfort.

Remember in Ecclesiastes at the time for everything. The wake of tragedy isn't the time for rebuke. Christians sometimes complain that almost everyone is preached into heaven at their funeral and and that is a problem.

But funerals really aren't places either for. Condemning the faults of the deceased.

Comfort comfort.

Especially if they're God's people. Speak tenderly To Jerusalem in verse 2. Literally is speak to the heart. It's what the word tenderly there means to the heart. The same term is used in the book of Ruth when Ruth first meets Boaz.

Remember the story. He's the landowner. He's rich. He's powerful. And she's just a poor woman. She's not even an Israelite. She's an Immigrant from a pagan people who has to pick up the leftovers from other people's harvest, but he says to her, you know.

She's on her she's on his land picking up the leftovers and he comes up to her and says Listen, my daughter and she might be expecting him to wag her finger. Okay, you have I have to let you have take a little bit.

Only.

Only take what you need go somewhere else get tomorrow. No, he doesn't do that. He said listen my daughter. You don't need to go. You don't need to go to another field. You stay right here. You take whatever you want.

I told my people not to bother you. I've heard about your your steadfast love and Hebrew your head said for your mother-in-law. So may the Lord repay you and give you a full reward. And she responded.

You have comforted me and spoken kindly literally like here to my heart. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem the survivors the remnant. You might think well, they're happy to be alive. Well, you wouldn't tell that to the mothers of those three University of Virginia football players.

Would you know good news? You weren't shot. That would not just be cold comfort. That would be cruel. Here probably many of the survivors I would imagine were family of the men. I would imagine some of the men sent their wives or children to huddle in Jerusalem.

And they stayed behind with in their farms with their animals hoping that the Assyrians would just pass through and wouldn't bother them. But they were wrong. Others had brothers and sisters and cousins and friends who had been butchered even if the whole family had survived.

They'd go back out to Burned out houses and barns to dead or stolen animals. There's nothing left. What do you say you speak to the heart of? Jerusalem that remnant the survivors of the judgment and Hebrews chapter 12 verse 22 that the church he says describes the church As the true heavenly Jerusalem the city of the Living God as we saw in Romans the wrath of God is being revealed against the world, but God has a remnant he calls them in chapter 9 a band of survivors here at here in Isaiah in the actual history of Israel as Jerusalem the city that survived when everything else was destroyed.

The church is that enclave that God has rescued from the judgment that everyone else has suffered. Speak to her heart. Cry to her in the middle of verse 2. Well, what do you say? Her warfare Has ended that Destruction that was unleashed that appeared like it would engulf them, too It was it seemed almost certain they were gonna not die of starvation.

They were gonna be impaled. There were to be stabbed. They're gonna be brutalized, but no they have survived and that war is over. Cry to her and say her iniquity.

Is pardoned?

The sin that brought this horrible judgment that appeared on the verge of overwhelming them for you Has been paid. You don't have to worry about paying it yourself. Now they did those people outside Jerusalem the people who like each the men out in the farms in the countryside who got beheaded or stabbed or impaled.

They weren't pardoned. They had to pay for their own sins, but you don't. The Lord has protected has pardoned.

You.

Cry at the end of verse 2. That Jerusalem has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. First notice that it is from the Lord's hand. He doesn't try to obscure that doesn't try to cover that up, you know, why did this all happen?

There's a good God and bad things happen. How could that be doesn't try to dodge that at all? It is from the Lord's hand. He says this is not the spirituality of the footprints point in which in the hard times of life, you know He's carrying you but it doesn't say anything about who's in control of those hard times.

By the way here Isaiah is looking out on the destruction inflicted on Judah and he says that they've received it. From the Lord's hand. Remember the Lord told Sennacherib through Isaiah I planned your campaign of destruction.

You're my instrument as Isaiah looks out in this devastated country. He sees the catastrophe and he sees it as having come from the Lord's hand. It was his rod that struck them. John Bunyan said Let us learn like Christians to kiss the rod.

Cry to God's people. You've received double for your sins. Our phrase is a little mysterious. Something it means that the judgment has been so harsh. That it feels like more than they deserve. It was like double the punishment.

I don't deserve this much sure. I deserve something but not this. Much this has been too bad. It's been twice as much as we we deserve. That's why they think anyway others point out that the word which is very rare means to fold over like you might fold a sheet of paper and You double it and one side perfectly matches the other and you've to perfectly match sheets of paper.

So they're saying you've gotten exactly the amount of punishment. That your sins deserve the judgment matches the sin. It's probably both. You'll get matching punishment, but it will feel like.

Double.

It's saying that the judgment has been so horrible. But so were your sins. It's comforting here because it's past tense. You have received.

It's over.

You don't have to worry about any more judgment. It is finished. Now people today often don't think that pointing to the cross as where the wrath of God was satisfied. They want to point to it as something.

This is what I deserve. This shows how much I'm worth in the Bible it it's where the wrath of God is satisfied, but people they often think pointing to the cross for that Isn't comforting and they think that because they don't think they deserve judgment.

Judgment comes the wrath of God is revealed the wages of sin is death and they are paying for it. You know every cemetery every funeral their own our own declining health. Tells them that the judgment is rampaging through the world, but they don't see it.

Because they think well, that's just nature. It's kind of all out of God's control. They don't see God's hand in it and even some pious people like in the footprints for him. You know, they want a warm and fuzzy kind of teddy bear God and so to them.

To start to talk like Isaiah here. About how he's in control of marauding armies or whatever is causing the hard times or even worse to tell them. You know, this is what your sins deserved. You deserve this punishment and so you either you either take it and receive the Double the matching amount of punishment for your sins or someone else does that for you now?

They say people today modern people say well that that isn't comforting. That sounds brutal. That sounds barbaric. That's not comforting. They want to hear how they have no sins that there is no judgment and whatever hard times they suffer just kind of random.

It's out of control. The therapeutic God is the is there to carry them through it. You know after all. That's what they pay him for. It's like paying for their insurance. They don't want comfort. They want insurance from judgment, but the Lord offers for his people.

For those who confess their sins who know their need he cries out. He tells us to cry out.

Comfort.

Comfort. The war against you is over.

You've been pardoned. Your sins are paid for.

It is finished. What do you say to someone in distress? To a survivor and so much grief that he or she can only think of what's been lost. Second a voice cries in verse 3.

Prepare the Way of the Lord

Prepare.

The Lord is coming. What that means to you. That he's coming. That's what the voice is crying. Is that you should prepare. Speaking from the point of view of Jerusalem Isaiah on that wall looking out at the ravaged countryside Looking out into the wilderness the rural areas.

He sees the Lord is coming. He hears a voice cry out in the wilderness.

Way out there Prepare the way of the Lord.

Out in the desert make a highway make it straight for our God. He's coming to you. So make his way easy. This is like the Kings in their day. We send out messengers emissaries in front of them. They're traveling along the often called in the Kings highway.

You could use it if he's not on it. But if he's on it, it's the Kings highway. You have to get out of the way. They send out messengers in front prepare the way. You know if there were people camped on the road if there were shops set up.

But there were farmers markets blocking the way if caravans were traveling in the opposite direction.

Move.

Because the king is coming in Verse 4 the preparation for the Lord is supernatural. Every valley should be lifted up coming to Jerusalem from the east from Jericho. You know by the Jordan River as the Lord Jesus did on his last journey there to us to the cross.

Coming that way from the Jordan Valley then climbs up steeply an ascent of three thousand four hundred feet and Here he's saying fill that Valley in. So it's not so low anymore and the mountains in the way.

Well bring them down. Every obstacle to the Lord is removed. Every pothole is filled. So it's smooth. Traveling it's easy for the Lord to get to his people. Of course. God is not really at all concerned about physical obstacles.

He overcomes those. Easily, what are the real obstacles. Are the sins of his people? They're seeking first money or pleasure their idols. Even idols of good things like relationships or family. The valleys God needs filled.

Are the lack of love the depressed love for him in his people? Their lukewarmness about worship that needs to be elevated. The mountains he needs flattened are their idols. The money God their pursuit of wealth overall.

Their pride so that they don't think they need pardon their ego and he should be brought down. But the good thing about this passage the second cry for verses three to five is that it's easy to interpret.

I didn't have to go very far to find a. Good commentaries on it because it's already interpreted for us in the New Testament. Every gospel quotes this passage as applies. It's John the Baptist. Good commentaries in this passage are Matthew Mark Luke and John.

He was a voice. John the Baptist was a voice calling out in the desert to the Lord's people. Make straight. The way of the Lord they make straight the Lord's highway by repenting turning from their sins.

So, what do you say? You say what John the Baptist said at the right time? There is wrath coming. Flee from it. Repent and show your repentance in good fruit and change lives. Share with the poor. Don't be greedy.

Don't live for money. Be content with what you have. Do not trust in your ethnicity. Oh God will accept it because I was born into this family. I was born into this nation. No, God could make people out of stones.

Into your ethnicity if that's what you think is impressive and believe in him who was to come. You know the one who was so great that John said I'm not worthy to to tie shoes. Believe in him. Jesus in other words a voice cries.

Isaiah says he's here on the wall. He hears out from that wilderness the countryside. A voice is crying. Prepare the way for the Lord. How repent and believe in Jesus. That's how you prepare for the coming of the Lord.

Of course, this is written in 701 BC and Isaiah is looking forward to the coming of the Lord. We're looking back, but we're looking at the same thing. Still today the cry is the same. Repent and believe in Jesus because it is with him when he came.

After John the Baptist the verse 5 was fulfilled. Those verse 5 the glory of the Lord was revealed after John. When Jesus came the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory. Glory is that the only Son from the Father full of grace and truth.

John chapter 1 verse 14 says the glory of the Lord was revealed and is now revealed in Jesus. We are now in the time that Isaiah is speaking about from his point of view as future. We're in that time in verse 5.

The glory of the Lord is right now in our day in the process of being revealed in all Flesh. All kinds of people will see it.

Together.

Either now or finally at the final judgment the end of the age the mouth of the Lord has spoken. He said it. So it's being done. What do you say to the devastated? Well versus 6 to 8 tells you a.

The Word of God Will Stand Forever

Voice says.

Cry cry what? Isaiah standing on that wall in Jerusalem 701 BC. Smoldering ruin of a nation in front of him. And a stunned surviving but grieving city behind him. And he asked the Lord in verse 6 What shall I cry.

What do you say. Turn their eyes to the eternal. Look at all this this wreckage of a nation in front of him. Size of relief sure. But also whales of moaning and mourning mixed behind him. What's become of his country?

This leftovers of a nation. But that's the way. Life is under the Sun all flesh is grass and Its beauty the word their beauty literally is steadfast love.

Chesed.

The same thing that Boaz recognized in Ruth. I've heard about your.

Chesed.

Steadfast love here. Beauty. The famous important word in the Old Testament your your beauty. The most beautiful thing that you can have is Steadfast love. We're not told why Ruth looked like but Boaz Praises are for the beauty of her character for steadfast love.

Here.

The.

Beauty of.

The flesh will fade away. It's beauty. Like Judah at his height with his temple and his towns and his farms is.

Beauty.

Like your money your life savings your home your family. Your body whatever it is. You think it's his most beautiful. It's like the flower of the field. The grass withers the flower fades. The nation gets destroyed things fall apart bodies decline.

Inflation diminishes your savings. Buildings need maintenance and one day have to be demolished. Our bodies age and fade. We try to stay in good health. We eat right the exercise we rest we take our medicine.

We get operations and treatments when we need them, but eventually it too is no more. All flesh is Grass and this all happens. The wildflowers fade. He says when the breath or the wind or the spirit, it's the same word in Hebrew It blows on it.

It he withers it all just as we saw in Ecclesiastes. In Romans. He put the creation to bondage to decay to vanity so that we would put our hope in What is eternal what is over the Sun in God. All flesh is grass.

Don't put your hope in it. In your family or your marriage or your money or your business or your pension or your health or the government or the doctors or anything under the Sun. The Spirit of God will blow on it and It will dry up.

And fade away.

What do you say? What do you cry to people? Devastated people who've experienced the fading away what they thought was the most beautiful. Well now.

After they're devastated.

After the beauty has faded away now, they should be able to see it to hear the news that they wouldn't hear before. You know before when they were young and they were determined to succeed. To have the cash the career the cars the house the business the relationship the family the good times.

Well, then they were too full of all that all the grass. Too full of all that to see that it one day all that will one day dry up and blow away like like grass clippings. You couldn't tell the young woman just so full of expectations.

That this relationship this will be the one he will be the one to make me happy. This is the secret to life that there's you couldn't tell her at that time that there's more to life. That the glory comes from elsewhere.

You couldn't tell the man determined to succeed to work every day. Make a success of himself. Give his family all the things they want. He's gonna be rich. He's gonna be he's gonna have the business. He's gonna have it all you couldn't tell him all through his middle-aged life to seek first the kingdom of God.

He was too busy. You wouldn't slow down long enough to hear it. That to be able to give his child a new car that will one day rust and be a scrap. That that isn't as vital as giving him or her. Hope and faith in the Word of God.

If James says about this passage James commenting on this passage the the rich will pass away like a wildflower for the Sun rises with his scorching heat and Withers the grass its flower falls and its beauty perishes.

So also with a rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits in the midst of His pursuits they wouldn't listen when they were in the midst of their pursuits. When they were chasing the dollars or chasing the relationship chasing the good times.

They wouldn't listen then. But then one day. There's a catastrophe the phone call.

Sorry to inform you the diagnosis.

Or they just get old and everything has faded away. The child you thought you were earning all that money for doesn't care. Maybe cares about the money but not about you. And what do you have. A Voice says cry to them.

They need to hear the Word of God. This stands forever the Word of our God. It stands forever. Is that living Word of God. Peter says in first Peter chapter 1 that is the imperishable seed in Paris what doesn't die.

It's a seed it could grow that makes you born again makes you alive. And then he quotes. Peter quotes this passage from Isaiah 40 all flesh is Grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers the flower falls, but the Word of the Lord remains forever.

This word Peter says that Isaiah says will stand forever is The good news that was preached to you. What Peter says the word that stands forever that Isaiah is talking about is the good news. It's the gospel.

It's the gospel the Word of Christ the good news that Jesus has come the Word of God incarnate. Who became flesh and lived with us revealing his glory? His glory. The heaviness the weightiness of the Lord that he's come he's received from the Lord's hand.

He received from the Lord's hand double for not his sins because he didn't have any but for our sins. So that our warfare is over and our iniquity is pardoned that gospel is.

The living Word of God.

This stands forever that never fades in the hot winds of time. What does God say to you? If you're looking out over your life and you see devastation coming. Maybe you can't quite see it yet, but you know, it's out there.

It's over the horizon. Decline and death. You know that all flesh is grass and so now he cries to you. Speaking to your heart What does he cry. Tenderly your iniquities are pardoned your warfare is over.

Hold to the good news That will stand forever. See the glory That Jesus has. Do you hear that tender cry. Are you listening.