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Isaiah: Book of Good News!

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Alright, turning your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 40, 40 to 42 today, we're going to focus on chapter 40.
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But since February of this year, so what is that now, about nine months, eight months?
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Since February, since the invasion of Ukraine, there have been six million people at least.
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I've seen different figures. I saw one figure 5 .6 million. I saw another figure of almost 7 million, but anywhere, anyway, somewhere around 6 million people have fled
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Ukraine, and they've left their home, and they are now refugees in some other country,
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Poland, or some even have come to the United States. And you know, it's one thing when you know a conflict is coming, when you know this kind of invasion is coming, and you can anticipate it, and then you see it start to happen.
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And to flee ahead of it before it ever gets to you, that's bad enough, and that's certainly very troubling for those millions of people.
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But imagine this scenario that was described by Tim Chester in his book
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I'm using for this series in Isaiah. He says, you live in a comfortable home.
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You have a decent job that's sufficient to pay for your family, its needs, and so forth.
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You're in a pleasant town, a pleasant community, and you know, life is okay.
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Life is pretty good. You've got what you need. You're relatively comfortable, and everything's going pretty well.
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Sounds like the average person in our country today, right? But then one day, all of a sudden, the soldiers arrive.
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There's shouts in the streets, cries of alarm, and then all of a sudden your door bursts open and men with weapons spill into your living room, and they tell you, you can take whatever you can carry, but you've got 30 minutes to grab it, and we're leaving.
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You're leaving. What would you do? I mean, can you imagine that kind of scenario?
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And then to realize that whatever you carry, whatever you take to carry, you're going to have to carry it on a 700 -mile journey through the desert on foot, and then you're going to be there till you die, wherever there is.
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That's kind of a hard thing to fathom, but that's exactly what the people that Isaiah is writing to in chapters 40 to 55, that's exactly what they went through.
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Now, they hadn't gone through it yet, because Isaiah is writing this prophetically.
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He's looking off into the future. We'll say more about that in just a few minutes. There is a psalm that refers to this experience,
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Psalm 137, of the refugees, the exiles.
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The first four verses say this, By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered
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Zion. We hung our harps upon the willows in the midst of it. For there those who carried us away captive asked of us a song, and those who plundered us requested mirth, saying,
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Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?
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These refugees are obviously completely and terribly displaced. They've been carried off from their homeland in Judah and Jerusalem and carried to Babylon.
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They are in exiles, and they sang that song of Psalm 137.
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So as I mentioned, Isaiah is writing these chapters, 40 to 55, in the 8th century
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B .C. But the chapters that he's referring to, and the exiles to whom he's writing, didn't actually...
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the exiles didn't experience their exile until 200 years almost into the future.
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And how does he begin this message to these distraught refugees, who say we can't even sing the songs of Zion?
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What does he say? He begins chapter 40 with this. Comfort, yes, comfort my people, says the
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Lord God. What comfort is there for refugees? What is
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Isaiah's good news that he's offering to these refugees?
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The answer comes in verse 9. It says, O Zion, you who bring good tidings, you who bring good news, get up into the high mountain,
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O Jerusalem, you who bring good tidings, lift up your voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid, say to the cities of Judah, behold your
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God. What is the good news? What is it that can bring comfort to these refugees? Say to the cities of Judah, behold your
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God, or see your God, or here is your God.
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Let's do a little bit of an overview of chapters 40 to 42, and then we're going to come back and zero in on chapter 40.
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So the background to this prophecy is in 587, 586
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BC, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians, and the people of Judah are carried off into exile, exactly as Isaiah had prophesied.
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So chapters 40 to 55 look forward to addressing these exiles into the future, and it begins with this call of comfort, this word of comfort.
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And the good news is that God is going to bring His people home. Look at verse 11. It says,
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He will feed His flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs with His arm and carry them in His bosom and gently lead the those who are with young.
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He will bring His people home. It's a prediction of the end of the
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Babylonian exile. But it's also, this section, chapter 40, is also pointing forward to an end to humanity's exile from God, and we'll say more about that in just a few minutes.
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And why can God do this? God can do this because He's greater than the nations. Look at verse 15.
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Behold, the nations are as a drop in the bucket. Let's keep that perspective in mind in our world, right?
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The nations are as a drop in a bucket and are counted as the small dust on the scales.
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What is the small dust on the scales? It is so insignificant that it doesn't even register on the scale.
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This is in relation to God. Look, God lifts up the aisles as a very little thing.
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So God can do what He says He's going to do because He's greater than all of the nations combined. In chapter 41,
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God calls someone from the east to defeat Babylon. We read of that in verses 1 through 4.
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So look at the beginning of verse 2. Who raised up one from the east, who in righteousness called him to his feet?
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And the last part of verse 4, I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last
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I am He. He is the one who calls the one from the east. And who is that?
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That one that comes from the east that the Lord is going to raise up? We learn later his identity is
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Cyrus. We read, look over a few chapters to chapter 44, and the last verse, 28, and then into chapter 45.
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He says, who says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd, and he shall perform all my pleasure, saying to Jerusalem, you shall be built, and to the temple your foundation shall be laid.
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Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held, to subdue nations before him and loose the armor of the kings, to open before him the double doors so that the gates will not be shut.
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I will go before you and make the crooked places straight. I will break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron.
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So the Lord prophesies to Isaiah that he's going to raise up this ruler, this leader,
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Cyrus, who is going to defeat the Babylonians. Again, keep in mind this is two centuries into the future, and the prophecy specifies an individual by name who is going to do this.
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The nations, in verse 5, chapter 41, verse 5, the nations respond with fear.
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The coastlands sought and feared, but God's people don't need to fear. Verses 8 to 10 explain why, and verse 14, because God is going to renew his people.
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Look at verses 17 and 18 of chapter 41, it says, the poor and needy seek water, but there is none.
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Their tongues fail for thirst. I, the Lord, will hear them. I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
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I will open rivers and desolate heights and fountains in the midst of the valleys, and I will make the wilderness a pool of water and the dry land springs of water.
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And verse 20, that they may see and know and consider and understand together that the hand of the
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Lord has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it.
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God is going to renew his people. Chapter 41 begins, and then it picks up the theme later in verses 21 to 24, that God calls the nations and their gods to account.
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Look at verse 1 of chapter 41. Keep silence before me, O coastlands, and let the people renew their strength.
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Let them come near, let them speak, let us come near together for judgment. In other words,
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God's calling them to court and telling them to go ahead, make your argument, make your best argument that you can.
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But in verse 25, the Lord raises up one who will bring judgment.
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He says, I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come from the rising of the sun. He shall call on my name.
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He shall come against princes as though mortar, as the potter treads the clay.
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And only God, verse 26 says, only God can make these kinds of predictions.
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Who has declared from the beginning that we may know? And former things that we may say, he is righteous.
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Surely there is no one who shows, there is no one who declares, there is no one who hears your words.
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Only the Lord can make this kind of prediction. Chapter 42 begins with an introduction to the servant of the
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Lord. Behold, my servant whom I uphold, my elect one in whom my soul delights.
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And ultimately, this first nine verses refer to the servant of the Lord. Ultimately, of course, this is
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Jesus. And Isaiah in this chapter invites everyone from across the earth to praise
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God. Look at verse 10, for example, sing to the Lord a new song and his praise from the ends of the earth, you who go down to the sea and all that is in it, you coastlands and you inhabitants of them.
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Everybody sing praise to the Lord. Everybody do this.
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Why? Because God himself is going to march like a warrior to rescue.
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Look at verse 13, the Lord shall go forth like a mighty man. He shall stir up his zeal like a man of war.
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He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud. He shall prevail against his enemies.
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And this is ultimately, of course, fulfilled when Jesus marches from heaven to rescue us as wicked sinners.
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And in spite of all of this, we read at the end of chapter 42, like in verse 18, people continue to be deaf and blind to Isaiah's message.
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Hear you deaf and look you blind that you may see, he says in verse 25. In verse 23, that was verse 18, verse 23, he says, who among you will give ear to this?
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Who will listen and hear for the time to come? And unfortunately, too many people will not do so.
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So what Isaiah's readers, these 200 years into the future, what these readers faced was not just a political crisis.
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That's how you might think of refugee status. You have been taken captive by a foreign power.
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That is a political crisis. But this isn't just a political crisis, this is a spiritual crisis that God's people face.
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It's a crisis of faith. It's a crisis of faith. It's the same kind of crisis that people in our day face.
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Questions like, perhaps God in whom we trusted is actually powerless to do anything about our refugee condition.
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Perhaps the forces of international politics, as we hear about them and read about them in our newspapers and see the reports on the news, perhaps we see, as we see these powerful nations firing their missiles and threatening nuclear stuff and so on and so forth, perhaps the forces of international politics are simply beyond God's control.
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Again, we're talking about the crises of faith that people have even in this day and age.
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Perhaps, and the refugees in Babylon might wonder this, perhaps God has abandoned us.
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We're hundreds of miles away from our home and from the promised land.
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And perhaps all this distance away, God has abandoned us. And perhaps
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God is, you know, like maybe you've seen some of those old movies of the mythical gods who are in their place somewhere else and they look into a glass and they see what's going on in different places on the earth.
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They can speak to their glass and their glass will show them some place, but all they do is just look.
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All they do is just look. They don't do anything about what they see. Perhaps God is simply looking at us from afar, but He's too aloof to be bothered with us.
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In other words, the crisis of faith is, where is God?
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And to that question, Isaiah says in chapter 40, verse 9,
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Behold your God, or literally, see your God.
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And that word seeing is repeated two times in verse 10. Behold, or see, the
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Lord God shall come with a strong hand and His arm shall rule for Him. Behold, or see,
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His reward is with Him and His work before Him. So this word's repeated a couple of different times.
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In other words, verses 10 and 11 explain why God is good news, why
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God's, the announcement of this good news is something that can give comfort to God's people.
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In effect, Isaiah is saying this. He says, look to God and let me tell you what
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He is going to do. See God and see Him in action.
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And what he declares is that God is good news because God comes,
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God rewards, and God gathers. And these things are developed here in chapter 42.
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First part of verse 10, God comes, behold, the Lord God shall come with a strong hand.
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Could be translated this way, see, the sovereign Lord comes with power and He rules with a mighty arm.
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Now, to the refugee in Babylon, it might look like the gods of Babylon are stronger.
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After all, the Babylonians came in and completely wiped out Jerusalem, destroyed the temple of God, took captive and as plunder from the temple the instruments of worship in the temple, in God's house.
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And what has God done about it? What did God do about it? So to the refugee in this situation, it can look like the gods of Babylon are stronger.
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How does the average person in our culture, how does he view the
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God that you and I worship? Does the average person in our culture give any thought whatsoever to the possibility that the
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God we worship has even the slightest bit of power and is doing anything whatsoever?
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And I think you know the answer to that. It was a rhetorical question. To the world in which we live and to the average person living within it, it seems that today's secularism or religious, radical, violent
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Islam or even atheistic communism is more powerful than the God we worship.
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But Isaiah's message is God is coming and He is coming with power.
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So verse 10 serves as a summary of verses 3 and 4.
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So you go back to verses 3 and 4. Verses 3 and 4 record a voice calling for a construction project.
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The voice of one crying in the wilderness. And here's what he cries. Prepare the way of the
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Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low.
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The crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth.
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This is a construction project that's called for here, right? This is a massive civil engineering project that's called for in a mountainous region.
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Think for example, some of you have, a few of you have been on that glorious highway in Glacier National Park, the highway to the sun.
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I haven't been. It's on the bucket list. But what a feat of engineering skill to develop such a highway.
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What was required in such a highway? Well, there had to be tunnels drilled through the mountain,
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I think. I can't speak to that. But they had to raise some places.
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They had to lower some places just to make a highway that was smooth enough and efficient enough for people to get from point
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A to point B. This is what's called for in this construction project.
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But who is the traveler on this highway? Prepare the way of the
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Lord. A highway for our God. The traveler on this highway is
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God. And what is He traveling to do? What is He coming to do?
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He's coming to rescue His people. Remember, this is a message to refugees in exile.
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He is coming to rescue His people. In verse 5, He's coming to reveal
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His glory. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.
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When the Lord God of Israel arrives, people will know that God is with us.
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God has come. Hang on to that truth. Hang on to that idea. And verse 10,
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He is coming. So He's coming to rescue His people. He's coming to reveal His glory. And verse 10 elaborates that He is coming to rule
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His people with authority. He's going to come with a strong hand and His arm shall rule for Him.
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The traveler on the highway is God. And for the exiles in Babylon, verse 9 tells us, this is good news.
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This is good news. Oh, Zion, you who bring good tidings, get up into the high mountain.
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Oh, Jerusalem, you who bring good tidings, lift up your voice with strength.
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Lift it up. Be not afraid. Say to the cities of Judah, our God has come.
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But this passage, it does point to and does refer to these exiles in Babylon, but it also points to humanity's exile from God.
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Remember what happened at the end of Genesis 3, right? After the fall, what did
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God do? Where were Adam and Eve? They were in paradise. They were in a place of where there could be ongoing, unended, unhindered, unfettered communion with God.
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But they disobeyed. And what did God do? He expelled them from the garden.
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He exiled them from the garden. And man has been in exile from God ever since, exiled from the paradise of Eden.
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What this passage is pointing to is God's rescue of sinners who are in exile.
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You recognize verses 3 through 5. You recognize that those same verses are quoted in the
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New Testament, right? This is how the gospel of Mark begins. We've been studying
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Mark forever on Sunday evenings, and we forget. It's been so long since we were in chapter 1.
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But chapter 1 begins in verse 3, verses 2 and 3. As it's written in the prophets,
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Behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way before you, the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
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Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. John the Baptist is that voice crying in the wilderness.
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So back in Isaiah 40, when verse 10 says,
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The sovereign Lord shall come. And verses 3 and 4 speak of preparing the way of this sovereign
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Lord who will come to make straight in the desert a highway for our
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God. That sovereign Lord who is coming that Isaiah is prophesying about is none other than the
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Lord Jesus. And that's Mark's point when he applies this to John the
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Baptist. Mark's big point is that the God who comes with power to rule, the
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God who comes to rescue his people, the God who comes to reveal his glory is
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Jesus. It is Jesus. Tim Chester summarizes it this way.
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He says, This is the good news we preach. God is not impotent, nor is he indifferent.
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For God has come in the person of Jesus, his Son, to lead us home.
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God comes. Secondly, back in Isaiah 40, verse 10, the second half of the verse tells us that God rewards.
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He rewards. The New King James translates it this way. It says, Behold, his reward is with him and his work before him.
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That word work in the New King James could be better translated, recompense.
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His reward is with him and his recompense before him. His recompense accompanies him.
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Both of those words, reward and recompense, they are used in Hebrew to speak of wages, of wages, that which is earned.
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And Chester's point, he makes the point here regarding the use of that terminology, is that Jesus will receive from God, or now listen,
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Jesus will receive from God the reward his work deserves, and he is, listen, he is coming to share that reward with his people.
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In chapter 53 of Isaiah, that famous passage that we even read last
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Sunday, last Lord's Day, in verse 12, it says that Jesus, the servant, says,
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I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.
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Jesus, the servant, will divide the spoils of victory with his people.
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So the last part of verse 10 echoes the reward and payment referred to in verses 1 and 2.
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Go back to Isaiah 1 and 2, chapter 40, 1 and 2. Comfort, comfort, yes, comfort my people, says your
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God. Look at verse 2. Speak comfort to Jerusalem and cry out to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, for she has received from the
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Lord's hand double for all her sins. These two verses, especially verse 2, has these three parallel statements.
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Her punishment, her punishment is complete. It's translated this way, her warfare is ended, her punishment is complete.
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Second statement, her iniquity is pardoned, or it is paid, her iniquity is pardoned.
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And the third statement, she has received double, she has received double.
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Now does that throw you? She has received double from the
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Lord's hand, double for all her sins. When I've read that, I had to stop and think, wait a minute, wait a minute, this doesn't sound fair.
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To get double punishment for your sins, double the punishment your sins deserve.
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Fortunately, that's not what it means. God does not give double the punishment that our sins deserve.
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The word double, it doesn't mean that God's demanding two times what is owed.
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Instead, the word has to do with the idea of matching or mirroring or a twin.
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You could think of it this way, the debt has its twin. The debt has its twin.
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In other words, the debt has been matched by the payment made.
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The payment rendered matches the debt required.
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So the point is this, as Chester explains, he says the sin of God's people has been paid for, the punishment is complete, it is finished.
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Now this prophecy had an initial, I don't know, superficial is not the right word, but it had an initial fulfillment with these refugees, because God said that Israel would spend 70 years in exile for her sin, and that 70 years of exile was mirroring the sin that had been committed.
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God then promised that those 70 years would end, and they did.
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But you know your history of Israel, right? What was the condition of Israel as a nation, as a people, when
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Jesus came? I mean, you had religious leaders that were corrupt, they had distorted the law, they had distorted salvation, they distorted grace.
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Theologically and practically, the nation was a mess.
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The nation of Israel was still dealing with a problem of sin. So while on the one hand, there was an initial fulfillment of this promise, the 70 years of punishment is ended, and the people are released from exile, this prophecy has a deeper and fuller fulfillment, a fulfillment where the problem of iniquity is solved by Jesus.
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Again, verse 2, her iniquity is pardoned, and you know
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Isaiah 53, right? So look at verses 5 and 6 in Isaiah 53.
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He, Jesus, the servant, was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
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The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.
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All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned, every one of us, to his own way.
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And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
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So the reason that Isaiah could speak comfort to the exiles was that God was coming in the person of his
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Son to pay the price for our sin, and this is comfort indeed.
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So the problem of iniquity has been solved by Jesus. And the wages, notice, again, the end of verse 10, his reward is with him and his recompense before him or accompanies him.
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The wages are received and shared by Jesus.
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Back at verse 2, Isaiah 40, verse 2. In verse 2, notice how
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Jesus receives the wages that our sin deserve.
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Our iniquity is pardoned. How so? He receives the wages our sin deserves.
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What are the wages that our sin deserves? You know the verse, right?
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Romans 6, 23. The paycheck of sin is death.
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And what do we read in Isaiah 53? That the servant of the Lord, he has died in our place.
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He receives the wages that our sin deserves. But then in verse 10, he shares the wages that his obedience deserves.
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What is the reward? What is the paycheck that his perfect obedience deserves?
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What is it? Life. Life. Yes, life.
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And what does he do with that? With that reward that his perfect obedience deserves?
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What does he do with that? Chester says this, he says, we receive his reward of life because he received our reward of death.
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We get what he deserves, life, because he took what we deserve, which is death.
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And here's the conclusion of the matter, as Chester writes in a quote. He says, the comfort promised in Isaiah 41 is fulfilled in Jesus.
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The sovereign Lord has come in the person of Jesus to pay the price of sin through his death.
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And he has come to share the spoils of victory through his resurrection.
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God comes, God rewards, and then lastly, in verse 11,
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God gathers. God gathers. There is a remarkable contrast between verses 10 and 11.
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In verse 10, you read about the arm of the Lord who comes, right?
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The Lord shall come with a strong hand and his arm shall rule for him.
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In verse 10, the arm of the Lord is a picture of power. It reflects his ability to reign, to rule, to reign.
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But look at his arm in verse 11. He will gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom.
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Here, his arm is a picture of gathering. It's reflecting not his power and authority to rule and to reign, but it is instead reflecting his tenderness and his care.
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Both arms are in the same person. He gathers.
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And verse 11 provides a full -orbed description of this shepherd's gracious provision.
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Look at four verbs. Look at what he does. He feeds his flock.
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He gathers up his lambs. He carries them in his bosom.
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He gently leads. Do we need to turn to John chapter 10?
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Should we not turn to John chapter 10? What is Jesus' self -description in John 10?
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I am the good shepherd. And what does he do? He gathers his sheep to himself.
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And how does he do that in verses 3 and 4? He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
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He gathers them by his call. To them. When he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them.
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The sheep follow him for they know his voice. He gathers them by his call.
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In verse 9, he feeds them. He feeds them. I am the door.
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If anyone enters by me, he shall be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. He feeds them.
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In verse 27, he leads them by his voice. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.
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He leads them with his voice. And in verse 28, he carries them into eternal life.
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I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. And how does he do this?
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Look, neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. He carries his sheep into eternal life.
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And he does so even though they may wander from him, right?
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Remember the parable Jesus told in Luke 15 about the ninety and nine safe in the sheepfold, but the one has wandered.
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And what does that shepherd do? He goes out and he gathers up that sheep in his arms and brings him home.
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So, in chapter 40, notice that the prophet is repeatedly commanded to use his voice.
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In verse 1, he's told, comfort my people. In verse 2, he's told to comfort, speak comfort and to cry out to his people.
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In verse 6, the voice told him, cry out. So the prophet is repeatedly commanded to use his voice.
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And God's people are too. Lift up your voice, lift up your voice, the prophet says, and say.
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And what's the basic message? What's the basic message? Verse 9, good news.
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You who bring good news. Jesus has come. Jesus rewards.
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Jesus gathers his sheep. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for our
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Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank you for the good, the good news message that we have that is centered in and is all around, is all about him.
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The one who has come, who rewards and gathers. Thank you and praise you for our