Isaiah 40 - Comfort My People Series

d. APPLICATION: There are deserts in our lives. They are inevitable. You might be there. Some of us through sin put ourselves into the desolate place of the desert. A herald is calling you out, and like John’s message, it is one of repentance. You must turn away from your sin and choose to walk with Christ. “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling O sinner, come home.” Are you listening? He has provided a smooth road out through the person and work of the Messiah, the Highway of Holiness Himself (Isaiah 35:8), Jesus Christ.

e. Some of us are placed in the desert for testing and empowerment. God put you in that desert – not because he is mean, but because he has high aspirations for you. You have been appointed to display his glory, and the desert is where the dross is burned off so that you can shine. It is the desolation of soul that drives you to crave the living water of the Holy Spirit (John 3) and the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ (John 6). When the desert times come in your Christian life, what do you do? The same thing every sinner does. You get close to Christ. You seek Him. You pursue Him. You abandon all for Him. You are there for the purpose of greater intimacy with the result of greater empowerment for the work he has called you to do for His glory.

f. Isaiah 40:6-9 – The Word. God has a plan, and it will be carried out. Despite man’s brief wisp of a life (Psalm 103:15; Genesis 2:7), the “Word of our God stands” as utterly reliable (40:8; 25:1). It has eternal value. Therefore, the message of salvation can be proclaimed with confidence, from a high mountain (40:9). This mission, entrusted to the people of the Messiah (Genesis 28:14; John 4:22), fully accomplished by the Messiah on the Cross (“It is finished”), is now been given as a Great Commission to the Body of Messiah, the Church (Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15).

g. APPLICATION: In the last generation among Southern Baptists, there was a battle royal over the inerrancy of Scripture, whether the Bible had errors in it. Why was that battle important? Because if we cannot trust the Word of God, then we cannot trust its message of salvation through Christ. If it is not all equally inspired, fully inspired, and inerrantly inspired, it is not inspired to the point for us to trust our eternal destiny on it to point us to Christ.

h. 40:10-11 – Sovereign Lord. The names of God are a key to the second half of Isaiah. Sovereign Lord is ‘adonay YHWH.’ The first word is an intensive form of Master or Lord. In the OT, it is used only of God, and it emphasizes his greatness, ultimate power, and rule (a strong, muscular man (Exodus 6:6; Psalm 79:11). YHWH is the personal name of God, built off the Hebrew word, ‘to be.’ It emphasizes God’s personal presence with his people. These two names put together is significant. They link Power and Love, transcendence and intimacy. What a God we have, so great the universe can hardly reflect some of His glory and so tender and loving toward you and me that he pursues us for a close relationship. Then to emphasize the character of the Messiah, he is not only a strong, muscular Man, but he is a tender Shepherd (Psalm 23; John 10:11), like his father David (1 Samuel 16).