Comfort For Your Crisis

COMFORT FOR YOUR CRISIS

Preached by:

Rev. Kelvin L. Parks

at Maine Street Baptist Church

Brunswick, Maine on

24 April 2005

- Prayer

- Text: Isaiah 40:27-31

[v.27] Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?

[v.28] Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.

[v.29] He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.

[v.30] Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

[v.31] But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

You may be seated ...

This is one of my favorite passages of scripture. In fact, the book of Isaiah is one of my favorite books in the Old Testament, the other one being the book of the weeping prophet Jeremiah, and most notably Joshua, hence why the name of Sunday school class that I lead is not called Kelvin Parks Class, but Joshua Men. Joshua told the children of Israel in 24:15 “And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. (KJV)” We are a group of men striving to do what right in our families, for our church and our community.

If you do a character study on the men of the Old Testament, you will discover that the name Isaiah means “Salvation of Jehovah”. In fact, Isaiah’s name is an excellent summary of the contents of his book. The word Salvation appears twenty-six times in Isaiah ... now that may seen insignificant but the contrast is that it only appears seven times in all the other prophets combined. So, I think it safe to say that the theme and purpose of the Book of Isaiah is found in Isaiah name “salvation is of the Lord.”

I don’t know if you ever noticed it ... but the book of Isaiah is like a miniature Bible. The first 39 chapters are like the 39 books of the Old Testament, which stress the righteousness, holiness, and justice of God. Each one of those chapters is filled with God’s judgments upon immoral and idolatrous men.

The first 39 chapters also portray man’s great need for salvation. As Isaiah’s name portrays ... Salvation is of the Lord, not man and we will discover in our text that God is seen as the supreme Ruler, the sovereign Lord of history and the only Savior.

In the first 39 chapters of this book, Isaiah solemnly warned Judah of approaching judgment because of their moral depravity, political corruption, social injustice, and especially their spiritual idolatry.

But my question to you this morning: doesn’t this sound like the America we live in today.

I think that this message preached in 740 B.C. is still relevant today in 2005 A.D. I think that America had better wake up, and learn from the lessons of old, and turn away from its sinful practices ... because God cannot and will not allow such blatant sin to go unpunished forever.

Now, I did not come this morning to preach a message of doom but a message of hope and there is hope this morning found in our text, for someone who might be feeling a little discouraged.

This week read the book of Isaiah and you will discover that ... the final 27 chapters are like the 27 books of the New Testament, which declare a message of God’s glory, compassion, and undeserved favor.

So, let of look again at our text. Isaiah 40:27-31. We see here ... Isaiah prophesying about events that will occur after Judah’s 70-year captivity in Babylon.

[v.27] Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?

You see ... the children of Israel are pretty down in the mouth right about now. So much so ... that they had lost their hope.

Now ... keep in mind that the first 39 chapters dealt with Judah’s approaching judgment. Can you imagine, every time a preacher stands up ... he has something negative to say. I can imagine the children of Israel saying every time they saw Isaiah coming ... Oh Lord, here he come. What does he have to say now ... can somebody please shut this man up!