Isaiah 40: The Sunrise of Mercy

Now, in light of that, we have chapter 40, and that's the other big backdrop to these four servant songs. Chapter 40 is like God throwing open a door and commanding you to come out, and you come out of the deepest, darkest, most hopeless dungeon ever in the history of humanity.

And you're walking out of the dark, and it's been so dark that any light at all is just about unbearable as your eyes are trying to adjust. And God brings you all the way out, and you walk all the way to the surface of the earth, and the doors are thrown open, and you walk out into a Switzerland.

And it's early morning, and on the horizon, you see that the sunrise is coming. And that's what Isaiah 40 is. It's the turning point of the book, 39 chapters of warning and judgment, and what follows is 27 chapters of mercy.

And in this last half of the book, the heart of the mercy is the coming of the Messiah. Well, in chapter 40, verse 9, we find the first of a series of commands for the people of God to behold, or to look.

Now I want to say, they're not always going to be told to look at God. Next week, we're going to talk about chapter 41 and 42, and 41 has to come before 42, because they are being commanded to look at something that is so hopelessly empty, to prepare their hearts to look at something that is so hopeful, Christ.

Now chapter 40, verse 9, after telling them that their sins have been paid for, judgment has come, but God will, in mercy, remove them from Babylon, bring them back. It is God himself that will come and rescue them.

He will come like a shepherd. He will come like a warrior. And you find this statement, get yourself up on a high mountain, Isaiah 40, verse 9. Oh Zion, people of God, oh Zion, bearer of good news, lift up your voice mightily, oh Jerusalem, bearer of good news, lift it up.

Do not fear. Say to the cities of Judah, and here's what they're to say, here is your God. In the Hebrew language, it is the same word as behold. So sometimes it can be tricky with our English translations.

This is the first command in the second half of the book to look. Behold, here comes your God. Now I want us to point out before we go any further, that this command shows up again. It shows up in chapter 41, in verse 24, and then again in verse 29.

Chapter 41 says, behold, you are of no account. He's talking to the idols. So he says to his people, look, idols are empty. Verse 29, behold, look, all of them are false. That's the idol maker. Then chapter 42, verse 1, first song, behold, look, my servant.

The final song begins in chapter 42 and verse 13. Now we say it's chapter 53, but actually in the Hebrew Bible, it's chapter 42, verse 13, is the beginning of the Jewish Bible for chapter 53, we could say.

So let's start there. And it starts with the final command, behold, look, my servant will prosper. So, very simple, four songs about Christ, an opening command, look, here is your God. And then the songs start, look, here's the servant.

And the songs end, look, here's the servant. So very simple way of kind of pulling all that together. Let me say something about the command of looking. It is the look of faith. It's not just intellectual.

We are looking with a complete dependence. I'm looking everywhere else. I have no hope. I'm looking at Christ. So there's a yearning, trusting look. Second, do not mistake this as something that is extra to the Christian life just because it is sweet.

We know that certain commands are clearly part of the Christian life. Do not, you know, think of the 10 commands. You are not to murder, not to lie, not to commit adultery. We know that those are not optional.

But when God gives us a command that is so sweet and so beneficial to our souls as this, look, here comes God, look, here is the servant, the Messiah. It is tempting to believe the lie that you will hear and that because this is sweet and precious and beneficial, it's extra.

It's like dessert. It's not the meat and potatoes. It's the extra. It's wonderful, but it's optional. So let's just settle it right now. When God commands us to look at himself coming in the person of his son, there are aspects of the Christian life you will never enjoy.

You will never understand. You will never live out. There are aspects of the glory of God that you will never be a mirror of if you do not take this as absolutely essential. Thanks for watching the clip.

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