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Isaiah 40:1-11
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
If you
Speaker 2:would open your bibles to Isaiah chapter 40, we're gonna begin reading in verse 1 and read through verse 11. Comfort comfort my people says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem double for all her sins. A voice cries, in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:Every
Speaker 2:The uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Voice says, cry. And I said, what shall I cry? 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.
Speaker 2:Surely, the people are grass. Surely, the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news. Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news.
Speaker 2:Lift it up. Fear not. Say to the cities of Judah, behold your God. Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him. Behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.
Speaker 2:He will tend his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms. He will carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with the young. It's the word of the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for an opportunity to come together with other believers, to hear the reading of your word, to sing songs to you in worship, to remind one another of the gospel, to be an encouragement to one another, to speak to one another. The the high calling that we have as your children. And Father, I ask that you would startle us with Your truth tonight, that we would be sober minded, that you would challenge us, and change us, that we might look more like Your son or savior. And father we we ask these things not only for ourselves, but that we would go from this place, and we would be heralds of good news, that we would cry out in this Advent season, the good news of the living Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:So teach us now Lord, please through your Spirit instruct our hearts and our minds. Lord we desperately need to hear from you. So we ask that you would teach us. We pray these things in and for the name of Christ among the nations. Amen.
Jeffrey Heine:So I'm not sure which is more intimidating The fact that Doctor Bray is here or that this is the first sermon that my daughter will ever hear. I know that my daughter will forget it and I know that Doctor. Bray will not. And so that's that's kind of That's a bit of a challenge to me here. But I'm so thankful to be with you here on the second, the second week of Advent.
Jeffrey Heine:It's a very special time in the church. And last week, in introducing this time of Advent, I, I mentioned about how we're called to stand in 2 places at the same time in salvation history. We we are called 1st to enter a time where we await the Christ child. And we join in the study of the prophets who said, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign, behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and he shall, he shall be called Emmanuel. And we participate in this anticipation of Emmanuel.
Jeffrey Heine:We long for his birth to the virgin in the line of David, the stump of Jesse, his name Emmanuel, God with us. We long for that. The one who would rescue God's people from their sins and their suffering. The one whom the prophet wrote, to us a child is born, to us a son is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace.
Jeffrey Heine:We stand in that place awaiting the messiah. And secondly, we stand in this modern context today, as the church. Those who have been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance, but we long for the fullness of the coming of the kingdom of God. We stand as those who long for the Messiah to return and come in power, who wait for the heavens to be opened and behold a white horse, the one sitting on it called faithful and true. We long for that messiah.
Jeffrey Heine:You know that have you ever stood in 2 states at the same time? Like, I'm in Alabama and Florida at the same time. Those awesome experiences or or maybe yeah. I mean, that oh, to stand in Alabama and Florida at the same time. But we do that, during Advent.
Jeffrey Heine:We stand in these two places, awaiting the Christ child and awaiting Christ the King. And sometimes it's hard to imagine, hard to fathom a world without a messiah, this first foothold. To long like that, and then it's also just hard to long now. To do it rightly at least. You know, when someone dies, and it's sad, and it hurts, we'll we will long for resurrection then.
Jeffrey Heine:Or when we're confronted with some particular strife in life, that we we we will look and we will long for wrongs to be righted. But just every day, every day life, sometimes it's hard to long. And so we go during the Advent season to places like Isaiah. You know, in Handels Messiah, the opening words Isaiah 40. But why Isaiah?
Jeffrey Heine:Why do we go there during Christmas? Now, I remember Advent a couple years ago, we sent out the Advent readings and a couple people sent Emails back and they're like, are we sure that we're reading the right things here? Because it's just, it's difficult. Like there's, there's not a baby in a manger. Like it's what, like what's happening here?
Jeffrey Heine:And it's because old testament prophecy can be very difficult to understand. I mean, it's it can be a challenge to see the connecting points with Jesus in the manger, and Mary and Joseph, like, it's hard to connect those dots. And so, why do we go to Isaiah during Advent? To understand the message of Isaiah, that is what he is writing and who he's writing it to. We have to understand a little bit of the history of Israel.
Jeffrey Heine:When when Israel entered into the promised land after the Exodus, all 12 of Jacob's sons were given a portion of land. Now these 12 tribes, were ruled by judges until eventually they succeeded in setting up a king for themselves. In about 10 50 BC they made Saul a king to rule over the 12 tribes. And Saul was succeeded by David, David by Solomon, and when Solomon died, Solomon's son Rehoboam became king. But the 10 northern tribes of Israel, they revolted against him and made another one of Solomon's sons king, Jeroboam.
Jeffrey Heine:And Rehoboam fled to Judah in the south and the tribes of Judah and Benjamin and Rayo had Rehoboam to rule over them. So in the south, we have this southern kingdom, we have this northern kingdom. This is known as the divided kingdom. And so when we see this divide and there's little Judah and then there's Israel, different kings. And and as they had different kings and throughout those years some some were wicked, mostly wicked, terrible, awful, kings.
Jeffrey Heine:But and some were good and some had seasons of good and even in their wickedness and and in all of this and in this wickedness that even the people had as they. Revolted and as they were angry towards God and as they distrusted Him, God judged them. God's judgment on both kingdoms, in forms of defeat and being conquered and deportation and exile to outside nations. See the the Northern Kingdom was the first to be conquered by the ancient superpower, Assyria. And they were defeated and exiled in 722 BC.
Jeffrey Heine:And little Judah avoided defeat at that time, but lived under that constant threat, that constant threat of exile. Until eventually, it came by the Babylonians who exiled Judah and Jerusalem, the main city within Judah, in 586 BC. And at that time, both Israel and Judah had been captured and they were living in exile in foreign lands. Now they were warned about the consequences. They were warned that something like that would happen if they kept distrusting God.
Jeffrey Heine:See, God had set up that that they would trust Him, that He would be their protector. But you see they they look to other powers, They they tried to make alliances in hopes of gaining some stability, some confidence, rather than having confidence in the Lord. And so prophets were sent to them. The prophets of scripture are are those prophets those mouthpieces of the Lord that were sent to the northern Kingdom and to the southern Kingdom. To the northern Kingdom Israel, they had Hosea and Amos.
Jeffrey Heine:But Isaiah was a prophet in the Southern Kingdom, in Judah. He prophesied around 700 BC and Assyria had just captured and driven Israel into that exile, and they were determined to do the same to Judah. Isaiah begins his prophecy in this situation where Judah is facing threat. And Judah won't be conquered for another 120 years but Isaiah is given this voice and he's given this vision to see that they will be deported, that they will be exiled. And he's given a vision even further beyond than that, where he is speaking to them in that exile.
Jeffrey Heine:And so for 39 chapters, he's been laying out this indictment against Israel, against Judah, the the Jews there in the southern kingdom. He's he's been laying out how they have been heartless in their worship. How they have ignored their God. How they have, distrusted him. And as they made these alliances, they're they were officially just saying, we don't trust you, Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:And Isaiah stands at this place, seeing into the future, speaking prophecy into this immediate context, but having ultimate consequences, having ultimate fulfillment. At many points in the book of Isaiah, he offers such a clarity of vision, prophecies of what's to come that would be in decades and centuries later. And so in modern times now where when people go back and and criticize the the book and they look at it critically, like how in the world could he even know these things? There there has to be multiple people writing this because how could, how could one person have these kinds of visions? Well, I mean these are visions from God, right?
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, God is giving him this vision into the future and what is to come, and he's declaring it to the people. And tonight's reading gives us this multi application vision, an immediate and an ultimate context. An immediate and an ultimate application. So he's given this vision of Judah trampled, Jerusalem destroyed, the temple of the Lord destroyed. God called Isaiah to declare this vision to the people, who were not in captivity yet, but feared it.
Jeffrey Heine:Many of the people listening, they wouldn't even set foot in Babylon. But he is called to declare the destruction to them. And so, chapter after chapter as this indictment is laid out against them, he describes their unfaithfulness, this heartless worship, this neglect of God, and this destruction. 586. The Babylonian army comes in and destroys Jerusalem, takes them into captivity.
Jeffrey Heine:And Isaiah speaks, in Isaiah 40, further into that captivity, to those people that are in exile, that are apart from their temple, apart from that presence of God that dwelt in the temple. And he says these words, and this is why we come here at Advent, comfort. Comfort my people, says your God. In the midst of hardship and exile, Isaiah speaks to the captives and declares comfort. God calls on the prophet to declare comfort to his people in captivity.
Jeffrey Heine:Look at it again verse 1. Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak to Jerusalem's heart. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service, her warfare is complete, and that he has paid for her sins, and that she has received double from the hand of the lord, double for all her sins. God does not merely give Israel comfort.
Jeffrey Heine:He does not merely give the captives comfort. He is comfort. That can be confusing to us. Often we want comfort, or hope, or love, or joy, or peace, especially at Christmas, we'll wish this kind of back and forth, you know, a Kmart holiday greeting, a Walmart greeting. It's just kind of this generic, just pass it back and forth.
Jeffrey Heine:But that's not what we're talking about here. This isn't generic comfort. This isn't Sam's Club bulk comfort that we can just buy in these huge packages and just distribute freely. Comfort my people, says your God. He doesn't simply give comfort, He is comfort.
Jeffrey Heine:And this means the most in captivity. Comfort to his people. Not a worldwide good cheer, not just this peace on earth goodwill towards everyone. This is the offensively particular and exclusive comfort of God for his people. His people, still after their sin and neglect, after failure and after unfaithfulness, after distrust and offense, his people.
Jeffrey Heine:At the initiation of God, not the people, God calls for comfort to be proclaimed. Comfort to the people in exile in captivity because their warfare, their hard service has ended. His coming and his presence is comfort. He has not forgotten his people. You see, we need to hear this.
Jeffrey Heine:We need to hear this because sometimes and and this This is a challenge for us, church folk. We get so focused upon developing our own faith enough that we forget about the faithfulness of God. We get so worked up about did you do your devotion enough or did you go to enough church services or did you do, do, do, did you do enough? And we lose sight of the faithfulness of God. And this is what Isaiah is calling the people of Israel.
Jeffrey Heine:God's people. He's calling their attention to God bringing comfort. And declaring his faithfulness to them. His comfort brings 2 particular benefits here. He has paid for their sins in full.
Jeffrey Heine:And he has declared that their warfare, their hard service is over. You see the fullness of God's blessing of paying for their sins, he's not forgotten them or dismissing them, he has paid them. He didn't just say, I'm gonna set those aside, you know, let's just let's pretend it never happened. No, he has paid them at a cost. What an image of the coming Christ and his cross.
Jeffrey Heine:That God would declare comfort to his people, real comfort And in doing so, give the blessing and benefit of paying for his people's sins. This is the comfort spoken tenderly to the people in captivity. This is salvation. In 1943, when Dietrich Bonhoeffer was held captive in a Nazi prison, he wrote these words during Advent. A prison cell in which one waits and hopes, where one is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside.
Jeffrey Heine:That is not a bad picture of Advent. End quote. Captivity waiting longing. These are sobering reminders of our anticipation for the return of Christ. And this is the disposition.
Jeffrey Heine:This is the posture of Advent. And after this proclamation of comfort, God declares to Isaiah more good news. Look at verse 3. A voice cries, in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Jeffrey Heine:Every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain and hill be made low. The uneven ground shall become level and the rough places a plain. When Jess and I were in London this past summer, we walked from Covent Garden tube stop down to Trafalgar Square and we could hear this noise. It wasn't necessarily a good noise, it was just this loud clanging noise and there, in the square, there there was a set up like a battle of the bands of sorts, but a simultaneous battle of the bands, like, they were all 6 different groups playing at the same time, and they weren't just playing regular instruments. They were playing oil drums, which on its own can be a nice sound.
Jeffrey Heine:But when you have 6 different groups with multiple oil drums all going at the same time, it's it's this big loud ruckus and as we made our way down there, what they were doing is they were, beginning celebrations for the coming Olympics, coming in 2 years. And as we walked down and we walked by the river and we, we noticed all these roads being blocked off because they were doing construction on very old roads. But they were widening the lanes and they were widening sidewalks And they have now established VIP lanes, where athletes, can get make sure that they can get to the different stadiums on time. And so you can't drive in the VIP lanes, and there's they're doing all this the transit system, Blackfriars, the the, tube stop there, that station, under so much construction because they are preparing the way for the Olympics 2 years from now. You see, that's what they did for royalty.
Jeffrey Heine:They would make sure that rocks and debris, all that stuff was moved out of the way so that they could make their way into their land to visit their subjects, their people. And that's what's being discussed here. In a sense, in the modern times, we see this as the red carpet being rolled out for heads of state. The king is coming, make straight his path. You see, this means to the people that heard this prophecy that God would dwell with them again.
Jeffrey Heine:See, at the time when they were still in Judah, before they were taken off into captivity, before they were overthrown, they had the temple. This place where they would worship God, they would commune with God, where his glory would dwell. And that was all taken away from them. And so there they were without a temple, without a place, a point of worship, a place that showed and pointed to the power and presence of God taken away from them. And here is this promise.
Jeffrey Heine:Prepare the way because the Lord will dwell with you again. Prepare a highway for our God. He is coming, and his presence brings comfort and relief from suffering. Low place places will be brought up, high places will be brought low, and it will be a plain, and he will come. This is a royal pronouncement, the coming of the king.
Jeffrey Heine:And we see this applied in immediate context to the people in captivity. You see, they would be rescued from exile. They, they would have deliverance from King Cyrus, King of Persia, when Persia overthrows Babylon. He would be used by God to send the exiles back to Judah. But ultimately, ultimately, we see the fulfillment here in the coming of Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:And how do we do this? Is this how do we just all of a sudden bring Jesus into this? Well, we see at the beginning of every gospel, in Matthew 3, Mark 1, Luke 3, John 1, all of these gospel accounts, the voice crying out in Isaiah 40, prepare the way of the Lord, That is applied to John the Baptist. In his pronouncement, his preparing the way of the Lord is the preparation for Jesus. John the Baptist cries out, the coming of the kingdom is at hand.
Jeffrey Heine:This is the end breaking of the kingdom. The kingdom, the coming king. What we have longed for, what we have awaited is here. With the king comes comfort and the blessing of salvation. Sins paid for, warfare ended.
Jeffrey Heine:And the prophet goes on, verse 5. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. What is this glory? The glory of God, the manifestation of his holiness.
Jeffrey Heine:And we see this in scripture where god's his glory is present with his covenant people. We see it in Exodus 16, in the cloud leading the people in the wilderness. In Exodus 40, filling the tabernacle. In 1st Kings 8, filling the temple. God's holiness on display.
Jeffrey Heine:His infinite worth made manifest before his people. And Isaiah is prophesying that one day, all flesh, not just a few people, but all flesh will see the glory of God. This was fulfilled in the birth of Christ And it will be ultimately fulfilled in his return. We see the glory of God in Jesus Christ, and it's testified to in places like John 114. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Jeffrey Heine:And we have seen his glory, glory as the the only son from the father full of grace and truth. Hebrews 1:3. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power. And in Revelation 21, John's vision.
Jeffrey Heine:Revelation 21 22, and I saw no temple in the city for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it for the glory of God gives it light and its lamp is the lamb. See, where Judah had no temple that was destroyed, 586 BC. The temple was rebuilt and and in John 2, Jesus. Jesus says, destroy the temple and I will build it back in 3 days.
Jeffrey Heine:And they said, do you have any idea how long it took to build this temple back? And he wasn't talking about a building, he was talking about his body. See his body as the temple of God, meaning the place where God's glory would dwell. Dwelling in Christ himself. God's immeasurable glory on display for all flesh to see.
Jeffrey Heine:We see this long forward throughout the Psalms, and this desire for the earth to be the sanctuary of the Lord, that his glory would fill it. We see this in Isaiah's calling, in Isaiah 6. The whole earth is full of his glory. This manifestation of God's holiness, his otherness, his perfection, tangibly dwelling amongst us. This is embodied in Christ himself.
Jeffrey Heine:This baby. This baby. And I and I, you know, I We have a 2 week old, and and as I hold her, I've said to her numerous times, usually at 3 o'clock in the morning when we're hanging out, I can't believe that Jesus was like you. I can't believe it. And she depends on us for everything.
Jeffrey Heine:And that God would condescend, that he would lower himself in such a manner And to bring and speak tenderly to his people. Comfort. Comfort in the form of a baby. And that this baby would grow in wisdom and in strength. And he would stand before rulers and say destroy the temple and he's talking about himself, the audacity.
Jeffrey Heine:That he would point to himself as the place, the point where God's glory would dwell amongst us. God with us, Emmanuel. But do we trust this? For some of you, you've been celebrating Christmas for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years and year after year after year, you sing these songs. You sing these songs of promise and hope, the coming of Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:And year after year, you hope for his return and you declare that, you proclaim that. But why do you keep saying that he will return? Do you really believe that one day all flesh will see his glory? And will you proclaim this another year? Why?
Jeffrey Heine:We can stand firm on this promise because the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Look at verse 5, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. But why can we trust the mouth of the Lord? Verse 6, a voice says, cry. And I said, what shall I cry?
Jeffrey Heine:And here's the answer. All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers and 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.
Jeffrey Heine:The voice tells Isaiah to cry out, to call out, to proclaim something. And Isaiah responds asking, what should I proclaim? And that voice responds that all flesh is grass. That all of us, all of us in here are fleeting. We wither and we fade when the breath of the Lord blows on us.
Jeffrey Heine:Just like the grass in the field and the flower in the field. But the word of our God is not like our flesh. Man will fade and die but God's word will not. Do not look at the passing days and the passing people as a reason to doubt God's word. Don't think that the passing years and the passing Christmases are reasons to doubt God's word.
Jeffrey Heine:His word will stand. And as the seasons turn, and as the years go by, and as another Christmas comes and goes, His word is still standing. We can trust that He brings comfort, that he is coming in fullness and that he has paid for our sins, that he declares our hard service is over, that all flesh will see his glory and that he will bring the fullness of his kingdom to reign. We can believe this at Christmas. We can proclaim this at Christmas because His word stands.
Jeffrey Heine:We don't really know what that's like though. Because our word doesn't stand. I mean it's so hard to even fathom what faithfulness is like because all we have known is grass. All we have known are people that make promises and then fade. People that make promises and and and say things and then wither.
Jeffrey Heine:All we have known is the fleeting, transient flesh. But God is not like our flesh. His word stands. And we can believe that and proclaim that this Christmas. The prophecy continues and and the Lord tells his people to go up on mountains to declare this good news.
Jeffrey Heine:They are given a mission, be heralds of good news, proclaim it from the high places, declare God's promises, declare his covenant faithfulness. This is their mission and indeed it is our mission. A friend of mine, a pastor in Kentucky, he's been writing about the difficulty of observing Advent. He's he's listed these different reasons like it's hard to celebrate advent because christmas is all around us. It's hard to celebrate advent because we have to imagine this world without a messiah waiting and longing for him.
Jeffrey Heine:And and one thing that he brought up because he's been accepting questions about advent and somebody said, it's hard for me to to to long for the second coming of Jesus because no one else in my family believes in him. No one in my family confesses Christ but me. So how am I supposed to long for his return when I look at them? And he he brought up this point and I wanted to close with this. When looking at our mission And that is that our mission should reflect our anticipation.
Jeffrey Heine:Indeed, what we believe at Christmas, what we cry out, our belief that Christ has come and that he will come again. This belief should inform and cultivate our anticipation. And as our belief and anticipation grow, our mission should grow and mature. We are heralds of good news and we have heard the cry of comfort from our God. We have heard of the coming of the Christ child.
Jeffrey Heine:We have heard of his life and his sacrifice. We have heard of his resurrection and his payment for our sins. And we have heard of the promise of his return. In the fullness of his kingdom, We have heard that his promises are forever. We must cultivate an anticipation.
Jeffrey Heine:Cultivate a longing because from our longing, comes our mission. You see, we have our our belief which informs our hope, and our hope informs our anticipation, and our anticipation forms and reflects our mission. Why do we go? Why do we declare? Why do we go to the high mountains and the high places and declare the good news?
Jeffrey Heine:Why? Because we anticipate the coming of the Lord. We need this call of comfort. We need to hear this cry of comfort. Because if you're anything like me, you're not okay.
Jeffrey Heine:You don't have it all together. And at Christmas, sometimes this comes out in very profound ways. Around the table with family that you purposefully only spend once a year with, or, as you look at difficult circumstances of others, You see excess and you see poverty and you wonder how do you reconcile this? How do you stand in line at these department stores and buy and buy and buy? When there are people out there that need so much.
Jeffrey Heine:How do you reconcile this? Some of you right now are being confronted with very hard things and you need to hear the cry of comfort Because things are not okay. This is why we long for the second advent. The second coming. The coming in fullness of the King.
Jeffrey Heine:This is the message of comfort and this is our cry at Christmas. Come Lord Jesus. Let's pray. Oh lord, we need your comfort because we need your presence. We need you.
Jeffrey Heine:Father, grow in us, cultivate in us a longing, an anticipation. Father, it's hard. It's hard with our our jobs that we go to and our families that we're trying to take care of and the bills we're trying to pay. It's it's it's hard because the danger of distraction is all around us. The danger of neglect, the danger of just something else to take care of is all around us.
Jeffrey Heine:So Lord, I pray that you would grow in our hearts at the very core of us. A longing for the return of Christ. That that it would be on our lips, that it would be on our minds. And that maybe as foreign as that even sounds that it would become consistent in our hearts and minds. Teach us what to cry out, what to proclaim, to go to the high places and to declare your faithfulness and your goodness that you would give us faith to believe.
Jeffrey Heine:And that we would trust in Christ. Father, I thank you that your word stands, and it can be preached and proclaimed today with full confidence because your word will stand forever. Pray that you would grow these truths deep in our hearts. Amen.