The First Voice of Comfort

Many have attacked the book of Isaiah and said that Isaiah could not have written Isaiah 40-66. Why? Mostly because Isaiah identifies BY NAME the King who would function as God’s servant to command Israel’s return to their land and rebuild their temple. This king was Cyrus, Isaiah 44:28; Isaiah 45:1. Rationalistic religionists say Isaiah could not have written this because he lived 170 years before Cyrus. How could Isaiah have known about Cyrus? Well, this objection holds no water, for why would it be impossible for Isaiah to prophesy of Cyrus when he prophesies also of John the Baptist and yes, of the Lord Jesus Christ? Isaiah wrote the entire book of Isaiah. There are many phrases that tie the book together. One is the name of God: The Holy One of Israel. Another phrase in Isaiah 40:5b, “the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.” See Isaiah 1:20; 21:17; 22:25; 24:3; 25:8; 58:14.
Isaiah 40-66 begins where the New Testament begins and it ends where the New Testament ends. It begins with a voice crying in the wilderness and it ends with a new heaven and a new earth.
The theme of this section is COMFORT!
Isaiah 40:1,2 is the prologue of the prologue. There are three promises:
1. Your Time is Come: This relates to the first voice and the first section of Isaiah 40:12-Isaiah 48
2. Your Iniquity is Cleansed: This relates to the second voice and the second section of Isaiah 49-57
3. Your Joy is Complete: This relates to the third voice and the third section of Isaiah 58-66.
Today we will consider the first of three voices of comfort in Isaiah 40:3-11.
Can one prophecy accurately describe two entirely separate events? Yes. Isaiah’s prophecy does! It describes an event that would take place 170 years after Isaiah: the return of Israel out of Babylonian captivity. It also describes the first and Second Coming of the Messiah.
The First Voice: The Glory of God will be REVEALED, v.3-5 God is glorified by redeeming His people.
1. God Redeems His people from: CAPTIVITY
These verses describe how God Himself was going to COME to His people in order to LEAD his people out of the pathless wilderness into the land of Promise. God will come again to His people in Babylon and deliver them out of Babylon. Look at Isaiah 48:20-22. Whatever it takes to prepare the way for the coming of God is worth it! Jehovah God Himself will redeem his people from Babylonian captivity! This passage pictures God as a King PRESENT among His people, marching at the head of His army, leading them through all the obstructions they would face. The main thing to notice here is not that the people of Israel were going to return to Jerusalem but GOD HIMSELF was going to return. He would redeem them out of Babylon so that they would return to Jerusalem (See also Is. 51:11).
You say, “How could God leave Jerusalem? How could God leave ANYWHERE? I thought God was omnipresent?” Yes, God is of course omnipresent. However, the real sense of His presence where His presence is experienced personally can depart. Ezekiel pictures how the glory cloud of God’s experienced presence did depart from Jerusalem. Now the glory of God would once again return and be revealed. The glory of God is something experienced. See Exodus 24:16,17.
Here we see the people going forth out of captivity, facing all kinds of serious obstacles. They overcome these obstacles because God is with them. Isaiah 51:3.
A. The Desert of Drought: The desert speaks of dryness times. The desert speaks of times of thirst that is not quenched.
How can they make it through the desert? Isaiah 43:19,20: “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert… I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.” God will provide them rivers in the desert! He provides drink for His people! See also Isaiah 44:3,4. Yes, there can be a revival in the desert when God is with us and working! If God could do this in the desert surely He can do it for us in New York City.
B. The Valley of Discouragement: How will they overcome the valley? Valleys in the Bible could be places for death and trouble. Achan was stoned in the valley of Achor, which means trouble. David talked about the valley of the shadow of death. God can make the Valley of Achor, a place of trouble, a door of hope. God has a door of hope in the trouble filled valley! Israel would face waterless valleys with dry, gaping holes in areas of burning heat. In Isaiah 41:18,19, God says, “I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together.” Here is a description of seven kinds of trees that picture beauty and luxury. The valley shines with a sevenfold glory of manifold manifestations of divine grace! God’s presence can make a garden of discouragement a Garden of Eden of beauty! God will transform the dry valley into a beautiful lake with streams and trees.
C. The Mountains of Difficulty: How could they overcome high mountains of amazing difficulty? Remember that fire came from Mt. Carmel, and Jesus became white with light on the Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus bore the sins of the world on Mount Calvary! Then realize that God himself has weighed the mountain in a scale. God made the mountain and it is nothing to Him! (Isaiah 40:12) God says that he will provide his people with an instrument to cut the mountains down to size, Is.41:14-16. “Worms” can cut down mountains! God has given us weapons of warfare “having teeth” (see Isaiah 41:15) that can cut down the mountain: prayer, the Holy Spirit, and the power of Jesus’ blood! The mountains speak of irresistible powers that stand in their way. The way to face mountains is to praise the Lord. Get to the top of the mountain and praise the LORD! God can level the mountain.
Is. 42:11: “Let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains.”
Then, God can make the mountains to praise him. Isaiah 44:23: “Break forth into singing, ye mountains… for the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel.”
D. The Crooked Ways of Depravity: The crooked ways speak of the twisted ways of our world. Our culture is twisted and crooked. God is pictured here as leading his people who are blind and deaf through a way they have never gone along crooked paths! Yet, look at what God can do: he can make the blind to see and the crooked way straight!
Isaiah 42:16: And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.
Isaiah 45:2; Here God would lead Cyrus, the King of Persia to overcome the mighty nation of Babylon which had a hundred gates around her walls, all of bronze. God would go before Cyrus for the sake of the humanly insignificant nation of Israel!
E. The Rough Ways of Danger: The rough ways speak of areas where you can fall and get cut. Impassable areas. This is the area where you say, NO WAY, JOSE. You want to quit and turn back. God says that He can make these ways smooth.
2. God Redeems Whosoever From: Sin!
Whereas the first fulfullment emphasizes how God will Redeem His people by LEADING them, the New Testament fulfillment emphasizes how God will redeem His people by COMING to them.
This passage in Isaiah 40:3-5 is applied to John the Baptist in all four Gospel accounts. Now, how are these verses fulfilled in the New Testament? John the Baptist is said to be this messenger in the wilderness. What is interesting is that Israel was in the land during the days of John the Baptist. They were not in captivity in a strange land, but they were in a sort of captivity of sin within their own land. They were political captives to Rome and spiritual captives to a religious system overrun with tradition and corruption. John was a plain and powerful voice in the desert. John’s voice of comfort was a voice that intensely and emotionally introduced the Messiah to the people. See Luke 1:16,17.
Luke 1:17: And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
Luke 1:76,77
Spurgeon says in his sermon on Luke 1:17: “He was not only to make the road ready for the Lord, but he was also “to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” That was a great work, a task in which he would require strength and wisdom greater than his own. He would need that the Spirit of God, who was to be given without measure to the coming One, should also be in a measure within himself, if he should really “make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
He prepared the hearts of the people to WAKE THEM UP to repent, receive and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled first by the Lord coming to Babylon and then leading His people out of Babylonian captivity. Here we see that John was sent before the Lord to prepare the road for the Lord Jesus (truly He is Jehovah!) to come to His people and then to lead them out of a religion long dead with tradition. John assured that the road Jesus would travel would have all the hindrances removed. In Bible days a coming king would send ahead of him a representative to assure that the roads had been adequately prepared. John was sent to remove the hindrances in the hearts of the people so that they would be ready to receive the Messiah.
Luke 3:1-7. God’s Word did not go to the powerful political rulers nor to the religious leaders at the time, but to John so that
[Matthew 3:1-3; Prepare = hetoimazo: to prepare, make ready, Luke 9:52. To get your home ready for a guest. You clean and dust! Jesus is preparing a place in heaven for us, we ought to prepare our hearts to receive the Lord!
Mark 1:2; Prepare = kataskeuazo: To prepare, make ready. Used in Matthew 11:10 and Luke 1:16,17. This word contains the idea of to build or make in Heb. 9:2, the Tabernacle, and 1 Peter 3:20, Noah’s ark.]
John came to thoroughly equip those in Israel to receive the Messiah and believe on Him. There were many obstacles in the people’s path that John had to preach in order to prepare the people for the Lord.
Luke 3:1-6
There it was God with His people leading them out of Babylon. He was with them in His Divine Presence. Here the voice of John prepares the people to receive the coming King. How did John prepare them to receive Jesus? By challenging them to repent of their sin.
John preached in the power of the Holy Spirit the necessity of deliverance from their desert of religious formalism.
John said, REPENT. The people had to see that the religious formalism of Judaism in their day was no different than Babylonian captivity. Just as God had come to the people in Babylon and led them out, so God would redeem them from their vain traditions and set them free by the blood of Jesus Christ.
John prepared the people to believe in Messiah by preaching repentance. Their religion had not saved them. John woke them up with that word, REPENT! They were still in the desert of traditions. The word “repentance” is a word of great comfort to a world that has many obstacles in coming to Christ. Repentance is a radical change of mind as a gift of God on account of His grace. Repentance is accompanied by a sorrow for sin and a faith in Jesus Christ. Repentance is the word that shows that I can change. It speaks of a change in mind, an inner change, that will lead to a change in my behavior. Change must begin on the inside. Yea, God can work a change in me. I do not have to stay the same. The obstacles that are many in my life can be removed so that I can see the glory of God and experience His salvation.
John baptized those who came to him and demonstrated a heart of repentance. This is amazing, because the Jews baptized Gentiles who desired to become followers of Judaism. Gentiles were considered unclean and needed to be cleansed. John, however, baptizes Jews! Jews also were filthy and unclean! None needed to repent more than the Pharisees and Saducees, the two most powerful religious groups in Israel at that time. They were unclean and needed to repent!
A. John filled in the valley of ignorance toward who the Messiah is.
Behold the Lamb of God, this messenger said. What a word of comfort: BEHOLD! If ever you will be led out of the wilderness of sin, you must know that Jesus is the Lamb of God. Behold your God! All have sinned and need that Sinless One who was our perfect substitute. John declared the grace and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. John preached how to have REMISSION of sins through faith in the coming Messiah.
B. John leveled the mountain of arrogance toward God and His Word that prevailed in his day.
A word that John uses to level the mountains of religious pride is REMISSION! Remember that this is the voice of comfort. These two words are words of fulfillment and great comfort. Remission means forgiveness. What can be more encouraging than the proclamation of repentance that leads to forgiveness of sins? This is ULTIMATE REDEMPTION!
C. John straightened out their crooked ways of hypocrisy.
A word that John used to straighten out the crooked ways was VIPERS! He called them a generation of vipers. Their righteousness was as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). Their motto was, “I am holier than thou” (Isaiah 65:5) yet they were hypocritical vipers. John would have been accused of being a bigot and unloving in the Jerusalem Times. Nevertheless, Israel was a nation of “Rich Young Rulers” who when confronted with the commandments said, “All these have I kept from my youth up.” Their self-righteous pride deceived themselves into saying, “Oh we have Abraham as our Father” had to be repented of. They were trusting in their ancestry and their religious background.
These things will always keep Christ from coming in salvation power and would keep them from saving faith in Jesus.
E. John smoothed out their rough ways of deceitfulness for they were like graves full of dead men’s bones had to be straightened out. John got their attention and awakened their consciences to their sin.
Before the Lord can come and do His work of redemption, the way into the heart, like a desert wilderness, must have a highway built. He must work in your heart a sense of need. If you have all of these obstacles, you will never see your need of His so great salvation. This also is the work of God. You must respond to His working and convicting. By the grace of God, every obstacle that stands in the way of God coming to your and you receiving Him so He can lead you to salvation must be removed!
Some here are not saved because you have too much crookedness in your way, you cannot see the Lord. The mountains of pride are shielding you from beholding His glorious salvation. The valleys of trouble are keeping Him from seeing His love.
Spurgeon also said this: “I believe, as I have often said, that there is no sewing with silk thread alone; you must have a needle as well. You need a sharp needle to go first to draw the thread through the material; so you must preach the law, you must denounce sin, and you must individualize, and condemn special sins; and you must be personal, and pointed, or else men will not feel in their consciences what you say to them. Conscience is very apt to get seared as with a hot iron, to lose sensitiveness, so as to be no use at all as a conscience. The preacher who would “make ready a people prepared for the Lord” must come out with his axe, and lay it to the root of the trees; he must be definite and distinct in indicating this sin and that sin, and crying to all men, “Repent of these sins. Give them up. Get clear from them. Be washed from them; or else, as God lives, when the Christ himself comes, it will not be to save you, but to blow you away with his winnowing fan as the chaff is blown into the fire.”
John’s voice brought the people to repentance. The nation of Israel was living in the spiritual desert of legalism and ceremonialism. They were in the valley of discouragement under the rule of Rome. They were a nation of servants. There were mountains and hills of unbelief in Israel that prevented the people from being able to see the salvation and glory of the Messiah. There was crookedness and corruption that were keeping the nation from seeing that Jesus is the truth. John preached so that all flesh shall see the SALVATION of God. The word salvation is substituted for GLORY from Isaiah 40:5. God’s salvation shows forth His glory. God’s glory is His salvation and God’s salvation and glory are all found in the Messiah, the Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, Jesus the Christ!
John preached repentance. The way to salvation is repentance. Change your thoughts! Do not trust your cultural heritage! John preached against multi-culturalism! Do not trust your religious profession. The axe is laid to the root of the trees. John was to prepare the people to receive the Messiah and then he presented the Messiah to them.
This shows that the Messiah is the LORD.
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the LORD shall be saved. God is not willing that you perish in your sin. Come to Christ! Believe on Him! This is the command of God to all of His creation. Surely you can exercise your will to do what God has commanded all men to do. What you are, what you have done do not have to keep you from Christ and His Glorious Salvation. The first voice of comfort is God can save and redeem you.