The book of Isaiah is divided into two parts. The first 39 chapters deal with impending judgment, and the second part deals with forgiveness and deliverance. The first 39 chapters deal with sin, but the last 27 chapters deal with a Savior — 66 chapters in all. Many people see Isaiah as a small Bible, for there are 39 chapters in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament — 66 books in all. The Old Testament often deals with the sin of the people of Israel, and the New Testament deals with the Savior which came from Israel. There is a distinctly different tone and message beginning here in chapter 40. The first 39 chapters had warned of the destruction of the nation and the deportment of the people to foreign lands. The people had abandoned their God and he would now abandon them. The first part of the book is heavy and plodding, but beginning with this chapter the language soars with majestic eloquence and wondrous hope. As Isaiah wrote the first part of his book, disaster had not yet come to the nation. People had grown tired of Isaiah’s warnings and his constant talk of their need of repentance and a return to God. But Isaiah wrote the second half of his book to the people of Israel and Judah who would be in exile — they would be taken away to Babylon. He was prophesying about a time that was yet to come when the nation would be destroyed. Jerusalem and its beautiful temple would be laying in ruins, and the people would be in captivity. In captivity they would not need to hear about pending judgment, because they would be living it. They would not need to be reminded of their sins; they would be experiencing the consequences of them on a daily basis.
There were three things which Isaiah would have to say to the people, and the first was: Isaiah spoke of an everlasting comfort. What they would need as captive slaves in Babylon was comfort. They did not need Isaiah to shake the finger at that point and say, “I told you so”; they needed to hear that God still cared for them and that there was hope. And that is the word that came from God to Isaiah, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins” (Isaiah 40:1-2). It is interesting that the Hebrew word Isaiah uses for comfort is also a word which can be translated “repent.” The word is nâham, and its root has the idea of breathing deeply. It can therefore mean to breathe deeply with sorrow for your sin, or to breathe deeply as you comfort and console someone. The idea is that God’s comfort comes as a result the people’s repentance. Because they have breathed deeply in repentance, God has breathed deeply as he consoled and comforted them.
Isaiah had said to them, “in repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength,” and now they were finally ready to receive it. Their sins had been paid for and deliverance was in the air. But this was not the result of what the people had done. This was the work of God. It was undeserved, unmerited favor. God was coming to them to deliver them, but first the way had to be prepared. In his vision, Isaiah heard a voice calling and saying, “A voice of one calling: ‘In the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken’” (Isaiah 40:3-5). God was coming to them, and the call was going out to prepare his way.
In ancient times, when there were no superhighways, history tells us that months before a king’s entourage would set out on a journey, the call would go before him: “Prepare the way for the king. Make a straight way in the wilderness and a highway for the king.” The people would run before the king to remove any obstacles and fill in the rough places in his path. They would build a road and fill in small valleys and dig through the hills so the king’s progress would be smooth and unhindered. Their reward was to see the king coming in all his royal splendor. In this passage, God is on his way to his people who are now in slavery to a foreign nation. He will come to them and deliver them from captivity — bringing them home on the highway which has been prepared for him. The picture is one of God coming in glory from Jerusalem to bring his people back to himself and to their home. This was the great comfort the people longed for.
However, the idea of comfort here is not like the comfort we usually think of. When we think of comfort, we think of sitting on a beach watching the waves, and drinking something cold and delicious while someone rubs oil all over our body. Or if it is winter we see ourselves sitting in a Lazy Boy recliner before a roaring fire. There is a comforter spread over us while we sip hot cocoa and read a book, or watch our favorite movie. But the idea of comfort comes from the two Latin words: com fortis – literally translated it means “with strength.” God’s way of giving comfort is to give us the strength to do what needs to be done. As his strength comes, grief and sorrow go. The situation may not have changed, but we have a new ability to face it and deal with it. The people to whom Isaiah was speaking needed strength to face the journey home, and once there they had the huge job of rebuilding the temple and the city. They were going to need a lot of strength and encouragement. The word encouragement has much the same idea: it means to be in courage. If you are encouraged you have the courage to do what needs to be done. God was comforting and encouraging the people so they would be able to carry out his will. Sometimes God’s comfort comes by forcing us to change and grow. Someone has said that the Spirit of God comes to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Someone once asked a paratrooper how many times he had jumped out of the plane while he was in the military. He said, “None.” His friend said, “What do you mean, ‘none,’ I thought you were a paratrooper?” He said, “I was, but I never jumped. I was pushed several times... but I never jumped.” That is what the military calls encouragement. Sometimes we need a little shove. But along with the shove, God gives us renewed courage and strength to do what he is calling us to do. In the end, it becomes something we want to do.
The other way that God comforted the people was by letting them know he would take care of their enemies. The kingdom of Babylon looked so formidable. No one would be able to get through their walls or defeat their army. The splendor of Babylon was breathtaking with its magnificent buildings and hanging gardens. No one could imagine the possibility of Babylon being destroyed. But God assured them, “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever” (Isaiah 40:6-8). God was saying that no matter how powerful the Babylonians appeared, they were but grass. He determined their time and place, and when he blew upon them it would be like the hot desert wind blowing on the desert flowers. They would wither and fall, but he would remain.
And that is exactly what happened. The Babylonians who seemed so powerful were actually defeated without much of a fight. They thought nothing could happen to them. They were so sure they were safe that they did not even post a guard on the wall. But while their rulers drank themselves into oblivion, the Persian army simply diverted the flow of the Euphrates River, which flowed under the walls and through the great city. Then they marched right into Babylon on the empty riverbed (Daniel 5). The great kingdom of Babylon collapsed in a night. God proved that the people were like grass and that only he remains.
This is Isaiah’s second point. Not only did Isaiah speak of an everlasting comfort, Isaiah spoke of the everlasting Word of God. When all other claims to truth have had their say, the Word of God will stand alone in the end. Everything else changes. Philosophies come and go, but God’s Word remains the abiding Truth. The lie of the Nazi’s came and died. The lie of godless communism came and died. My son-in-law Jeremy was a missionary for a year in Russia. One of the training areas for the co-mission team was the Hotel Gorbachev. In the convention room the team held worship services with the backdrop of a huge mural with pictures of Marx, Lenin and the other communist leaders who denigrated the Christian faith and the Word of God. But now communism has fallen, and in the place where young communists were trained on the tenets of atheism, Christians are worshiping together and being trained in evangelistic techniques — at the invitation of the Russian government.
When I was in seminary, many philosophers and theologians were saying that God was dead, and predicting the death of the church. Today almost no one can remember the names of those who made those predictions, let alone the titles of their books, but the church of Jesus Christ is thriving and God is still very much alive.
A young musician once went to see his old music teacher. During the visit, his elderly mentor took a tuning fork and struck it on the end of the table. He said. “That is ‘A.’” From the floor above them they could hear the voice of a singer rehearsing. “She sings sharp,” the old teacher said with a smile. He struck the tuning fork again and paused as he lifted it and said, “She is sharp, but this ‘A’ — always has been, always will be — 440 vibrations per second. It will still be ‘A’ 5,000 years from now.”
This is God’s Word. It was God’s Word yesterday; it is God’s Word today, and it will be God’s Word 5000 years from now. Kingdoms will rise and fall. Ideas will come and go. The values of the world will change, but God’s Word will remain the one constant in a world of change and confusion. The emperor Diocletian tried to revive the old pagan religions of Rome by persecuting and killing Christians. He set up a stone pillar in his honor, inscribed with the words that he wanted to describe his legacy: “For Having Exterminated The Name Christian From the Earth.” If only he knew how far short of his goal he fell! His monument was more of a tribute to the endurance of Christianity than it was to him. Another Roman leader made a coffin, symbolizing his intention “to bury the Galilean” by killing Christ’s followers. He eventually admitted that he could not put the Master in his coffin. The Waldensians represented the history of the church with a picture of an anvil with many worn-out hammers lying all around it. At the bottom of the picture these words are inscribed: “One Anvil — Many Hammers.”
Isaiah told of an everlasting comfort, and he told of the everlasting Word of God, but thirdly: Isaiah spoke of an everlasting strength. Isaiah wrote: “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:28-31). Those who were in exile lost hope, and because of that they lost their strength and desire to go on. Even the young were beaten down, weary and defeated. But those who placed their hope and trust in God did not lose heart, and they did not lose strength — regardless of their age. Their hearts and minds soared as they thought about what God was going to do. As new strength and courage entered their hearts it began to affect their bodies. They gained a new enthusiasm for life and a new strength to go on. But you never gain that strength unless you are willing to wait on the Lord.
We would all like to mount up with wings like eagles, but as someone has said, “It’s hard to soar with the eagles when you are surrounded by turkeys.” Actually, that is just a cop out. When God shows up it doesn’t matter who is around you. I read about a young boy who spent the summer with his grandfather. As he and his grandfather were out in the field one day they found a small bird. It was strange looking and they didn’t know what it was at first. They named him Ernie and took him home to show to grandma. Grandma put him with a mother hen and her brood of chicks. As it turned out, Ernie was an Eaglet. It wasn’t long until Ernie was larger than the chickens, and it was apparent he was different — even though he had picked up some of the mannerisms of the chickens. But one sunny afternoon the father eagle saw Ernie eating corn down on the farm with some strange white birds. The father eagle began to soar in circles above the farm, and then began to spiral downward while calling out for Ernie. Ernie’s head lifted as he heard something that resonated deep within him. Instinctively he began to spread his wings. Suddenly he was flying, and he began to soar in response to his father’s call. Ernie had within him the spirit of an eagle. The chicks heard the father eagle’s call as well, but they only chirped in response and continued to eat their corn on the ground. But Ernie had a higher calling. He was destined to soar.
Chickens and turkeys can fly, but they rarely do because they are most comfortable on the ground. Sparrows and other small birds fly, but they mostly use their wings to get from one tree to another. But eagles soar. They have great power and freedom. They are destined for the skies. Like them, we have a different Spirit in us than those who are content to be ground dwellers. We have a higher calling. We are destined for the skies. God’s Spirit is in us and he is calling to us to soar with him. Just because we are Christians does not mean we are using our wings. We may still be more comfortable on the ground than soaring in the sky. We may even flit from one place to another, but God is calling us to soar. We do so by waiting on him. Responding to his call. Trusting him. Spreading our wings and using the strength he has given us.
Someone has said, “There are two lasting bequests we can give to our children. One is roots; the other is wings.” We can teach our children that there is a strength that comes from God that is greater than our own. We can teach them to wait on him and trust him, even when everything looks hopeless. We can teach them that Isaiah wrote about an everlasting strength, an everlasting hope, an everlasting comfort, an everlasting truth, an everlasting kingdom, and an everlasting God. But the best thing we can do is to show them the reality of God’s faithfulness as we model it in our lives. We can be living examples of hope. Living sources of comfort. Living proof of the reliability of God’s Word. Living examples of a strength that comes from God. We can mount up with wings like eagles.
Rodney J. Buchanan
July 30, 2000
THE COMFORT OF GOD
Isaiah 40:1-11, 28-31
“Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31).
1. Isaiah spoke of __________________________________.
2. Isaiah spoke of __________________________________.
3. Isaiah spoke of __________________________________.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION (July 30, 2000)
1. According to Isaiah, what are three everlasting promises we have from God? Can you find others in this scripture?
2. Read 2 Corinthians 1: 3-5. According to these verses, why have we been comforted?
3. What are the root definitions of the words “comfort” and “encouragement”? How does this affect your understanding of the words?
4. How have you experienced this kind of “comfort” from God?
5. Read some of the beatitudes in Matthew 5:1-10. Is this how you normally think about being blessed by God? How does your thinking need to change?
6. Read Hebrews 4:12 and 2 Timothy 3:14-17. What do these verses tell us our view of Scripture should be?
7. Read Isaiah 55:11. What confidence does this give you? In light of this verse, are you as familiar with the Word of God as you should be?
8. Read 2 Corinthians 4:7-11. How are Christians able to endure these difficulties? What part does hope and meaning play in endurance?
9. Read 1 Peter 3:14-16. How does the church measure up to this admonition?
10. What can you do to live up to your potential as a child of God?
