GOD IS OUR SOURCE OF COMFORT
Isaiah 39:1-8, "At that time Merodachbaladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah: for he had heard that he had been sick, and was recovered. And Hezekiah was glad of them, and shewed them the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armour, and all that was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah shewed them not. Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah said, They are come from a far country unto me, even from Babylon. Then said he, What have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, All that is in mine house have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shewed them. Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the LORD of hosts: Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the LORD. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days."
In this chapter of Isaiah Israel is left without hope. God had determined that their debt of sin must be paid in full and so He had decided to send King Baladan and the Babylonian army upon them to take them away as slaves and to destroy their cities, towns and farms. All of this had been triggered by a foolish act of King Hezekiah.
Hezekiah had fallen ill and the word of his sickness and recovery had spread through the surrounding nations. Baladan had sent his son Merodach-baladan as an emissary to Israel to bring King Hezekiah letters and gifts in an effort to make Israel his ally against one of his most powerful enemies, the Assyrians.
King Hezekiah was so enamored with these visitors from Babylon that he decided not only to be their ally and friend, but he decided that he wanted to brag about the wealth of his kingdom. He showed his guests from Babylon all of his treasures, opened every door and showed them every hiding place where they were kept, and revealed to them everything that they wanted to see.
Trust is a wonderful thing, provided that trust is placed in the right thing, the right man, and most of all, provided that your ultimate trust is in God. It doesn’t take long, living in this world of sinful people to find out that there are some people who cannot be trusted. Sadly we find the problem even among those who are supposed to be a part of God’s family of saved, sanctified, blood-washed and born again Christians.
Jesus warned us of being careless with those things that are valuable to us in Matthew 7:6 when he said, "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you."
When you, as a Christian, swing wide the doors of your heart and open the windows of your mind, to allow anything that the enemy sends your way to enter in and see what is in you, you are opening the path to your own destruction. We must ever be aware that Satan is seeking for ways to destroy our souls and we should never give him place to discover ways that he can destroy us.
I don’t know about you but I have a hard enough time overcoming the devil and his temptations without giving him more ammunition and an open door to come into my life and steal my victory.
HOW CAN YOU OPEN THAT DOOR OF YOUR HEART? Just by simply allowing the things of this world to take the place of God in your life.
-Walk into the door of a dance hall or night club, and you are opening the door to your heart at the same time.
-Open your mouth to be a gluttonous person or to receive what the world likes to refer to as “adult beverages”, wine, beer, and any other drink that will cause you to become senseless or out of control of your own body and mind, and you have opened the door to the treasures of your soul.
-Put those cigarettes, pipes, cigars, chewing tobacco and all sorts of filth into your mount, swallow and/or breath in those poisoning fumes to defile the temple of the Holy Ghost in you, and you have swung wide the windows of your soul and allowed the enemies of your soul to rain in and flood their vile filth into your life.
-Push those needles filled with drugs, take them in by mouth, breathe them in through your nose, or anyway that you want to take them, and you have taken the doors of your heart, swung them wide open and given an invitation to the powers of hell to come right on in and they are quick to accept your invitation.
-Open your eyes to read all kinds of perverted books, watch things on the screen that will poison your mind, and allow your thoughts to dwell on things are not good and you have opened the door once again to allow the devil to discover your weakness and to know better how to destroy your soul.
Hezekiah did not know it, or chose to ignore the fact that these visitors from Babylon were not impressed by Hezekiah’s charisma, or his power as a king, but they were certainly impressed by the wealth of Israel. There is no doubt that as they were given the grand tour of all the wealth of Israel, that they were taking note of exactly what was there and where all these treasures were hidden. Hezekiah was opening the door to his mortal enemies and giving them every reason to invade and conquer Israel – and that’s just what they had already planned to do.
The temptation to conquer Israel and steal all the wealth of the temple and of the kingdom, including the people who would make their lives easier by serving as slaves in Babylon, was more than King Baladan could resist. His plans were being formulated to conquer Hezekiah and all of Israel would be his like a ripe plum, ready for picking.
Understand this, that it was God who was setting this whole scene and working everything to accomplish his ultimate goal. That goal was the punishment of Israel for sin. God was going to throw Israel into captivity like a ball being tossed across a fence.
In fact, God had spoken those very words in Isaiah 22:17-18, "Behold, the LORD will carry thee away with a mighty captivity, and will surely cover thee. He will surely violently turn and toss thee like a ball into a large country: there shalt thou die…"
I don’t think I would like to be God’s basketball! Somehow that ball game doesn’t sound like fun to me. I don’t think I would want to play a game of one-on-one against God either. I can’t help but think that if I were to try to play against God I would be better off being the ball. No matter how I might play, I would still be caught in His net.
The ultimate of Hezekiah’s self-centered attitude in seen the very last verse of Isaiah chapter 39 when, after Isaiah has spoken God’s judgment against Israel, and declared that all of Hezekiah’s children would be taken as slaves, and that Israel’s treasure would be taken and all the kingdom of Israel destroyed, all that Hezekiah had to say was, "...Good …for there shall be peace and truth in my days." How self-centered and uncaring can you get?
You might say to yourself, well, so what if I have allowed the enemy to come into my life and take over? It’s my life and I can do with it what I want and I don’t need some preacher telling me that I’m doing wrong. I already know that, but right now I just don’t care. I’m not hurting anyone else, so leave me alone to enjoy my life the way I want to.”
That’s a self-centered attitude just like the one Hezekiah had.
-So what if my sin brings judgment upon my family?
-So what if my children suffer because their mom or dad are in jail because of drug abuse?
-So what if my spouse suffers and falls to sleep at night crying upon their bed because I am unfaithful?
-So what if my parents, my brothers and sisters, even my friends in the world and at the church are spending sleepless nights and are trying everything in their power to help and I won’t listen and don’t care? So what!
-So what if I lose everything I own because of my habit?
-So what if I wind up in divorce court and the love in my family grows cold and dead?
-So what if I wind up in bankruptcy court because I refuse to be a good steward of God’s financial blessings?
-So what if my kids follow my example and for the rest of my life I have to bail them out of jail or try to overcome the things I did in these years I’m living right now? So what! --So what if I am unfaithful to God’s house, and I am uncommitted to the call of God in my life?
-So what if my children, my grandchildren, and even my great, great, great grandchildren are lost without God and spend eternity in hell because I started our family down the path to hell? So what!
-So what if I do come back to God and make things right, but then I have to spend years in tearful anguish and prayer because my children don’t respect me as a Christian anymore?
-So what if they live in sin and rebellion and no one can reach them anymore because they saw me, and my Christian life, as nothing more than hypocritical? SO WHAT!
That’s the attitude that many of those who claim to love the Lord have right now! They are swinging wide the windows of their mind, opening the doors to their heart, opening the doors to their soul and Satan is moving in, destroying everything that is good, eating away their victory in Jesus, confusing their minds and killing their soul. And while he is in that process of killing us, he perverts the gospel that we hear and the Word of God that we hear preached to make us believe that we can live any way we want to and still be saved.
Such is the power of his deception that whole faiths believe that it’s okay to sin and still make Heaven your home. Such is the power of his deception that he will convince us that all paths lead to God. Yes they do lead to god, but which god? Is your god the ONE TRUE GOD or is it an idol of your own making?
Israel was headed for judgment because of their sin and that of Hezekiah. The Babylonian Captivity was just a short time away, but they were blind and deaf to God’s pleading and his warnings! They were rushing headlong into judgment and God was already at work, setting the scene for that judgment to come to it’s fullest extent!
Was there no hope for Israel now? Could they have fallen down in repentance, turned back to God and stayed the Hand of Judgment from the Lord? I believe that they could have just as I believe we can right now. God takes no pleasure in bringing judgment, but His love demands it. We take no pleasure in correcting our wayward and disobedient children, but our love for them demands it or they will grow to become unruly, disobedient, shameful adults that are a parasite upon society. None of us want our kids to be criminals and prisoners in a man-made jail. How much more does God not want that for us?
Israel wouldn’t turn from their rebellious ways, just as so many of God’s people refuse to change today. So God had no choice but to bring down his judgment. It seemed that God’s plan for his Chosen People were at end. Would this be the end of God’s Covenant with Abraham?
AS I look as the church world, I often wonder, God what will it take to turn people around? Is there ho hope for the church? Is their any way that we can be turned back to you?
Then I read the 40th chapter of Isaiah!
Immediately after Hezekiah’s foolishness and sin of ignorance, comes God’s promise for deliverance. Isn’t that just like our God? He is the God of mercy; the God of Grace; the God of Love; and the God of our salvation, and He will make a way where there is no way.
Israel would pay a price for their sin, just as Christians who willfully live in rebellion will pay for theirs. The wages of sin must be paid and we are forced to make small down payments on that debt through sufferings, pain, separation from God and despair while still in this life. But there is a final balloon payment coming. There is coming a day when that debt will be paid in full for eternity. The debt for sin can never be paid in full by man, no matter how much he suffers. That’s why those who refuse God’s provision for their salvation will be continually paying on that debt forever and ever.
Have you ever had a credit card or charge account debt that seemed to only grow because the interest was so high? It seemed that no matter how much you sent, and most could only pay the minimum payment, the larger the debt would grow. You could pay on a $1000 loan for 20 years at 18% interest, making the minimum payment and at the end of that time your principal is still due.
That’s the way our payment for sin in hell will be. The debt is so very large, and the payments that we can make in our own suffering and punishment will be so miniscule, and the interest will be accruing second by second throughout eternity, so that no amount of suffering will pay our debt for sin and thus our debt will grow ever larger forever.
But God in His mercy provides payment in full for that debt that we could never pay.
Isaiah 40:1-5, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD’S hand double for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it."
In God’s plan, Israel’s deliverance from captivity was already accomplished. Just as the plan for our salvation was already accomplished in the mind of God from before the fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden, the plan for Israel’s deliverance was finished as well.
God’s great promise to Israel is not just for deliverance from the hand of their enemy in Babylon though. God’s promise to Israel was for a deliverance from Babylon, yes, but it was an even greater promise for deliverance from their greatest enemy – Satan!
In the mind of God the battle was won! In the mind of God and in his plan, a way back to fellowship was already formulated and finished. Yes Israel would suffer greatly. She would suffer doubly for sin at the hand of Baladan. Many would die, some would remain in captivity and never experience freedom, never see home again, but there would be a remnant who would return to their homeland because God’s promise is true and he will have a people who will return to inherit the promise that God had made to Abraham.
God always has a remnant. In the world of Christianity today, there are multitudes who are walking in ways of their own making that seem to lead to life but really lead to death. We have watered down the truth of the Word of God and made people, who are living in sin, feel comfortable while they sit in the sanctuaries of our churches. How can that be? It’s that way because there is no conviction of the Holy Spirit in the service, there is no anointing of the Holy Ghost upon the minister as he speaks, Ichabod )meaning, the Spirit has departed) is written across the door and God is nowhere in sight. They are given over to a reprobate mind and a hard heart.
But God still has a remnant! Straight is the way and narrow is the gate that leads to life and there are a few that find it. I praise God that I am among those few! I praise God that there are a lot of God’s people, though few in number compared to the whole who claim to know Him, who are counted among those few!
God promised Israel that there would come one, “crying in the wilderness”. He was talking about John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, who would eat locusts and wild honey, live on the backside of the desert, and wear clothes made of animal skins. He would not be easily accepted into society. His cry fro repentance would not be heard by the majority of the people. His appearance would be foolish, repulsive and unacceptable by most standards of the world about him, and yet his cry would signal the coming of Israel’s true hope, their only hope and OUR ONLY HOPE!
The cry that comes to us this morning – the cry that comes to you this morning is this:
“PREPARE THE WAY OF THE LORD”
Get ready! Be prepared! Jesus is coming! Your Messiah is on the way! Lift up your heads, the Redeemer draweth night! Lift up your eyes to the hills for your redemption draws closer every day! Open the doors to your heart! Swing wide the windows into your mind! Clear out a pathway to your soul! The King is coming! The King is coming! Get ready!
Every valley – every low place in your life. Every sin debt that is higher than you can pay; every rut of sin that you can’t climb out of – will be made flat by the power of God so that you can break free from that valley.
Every mountain and hill – obstacles that you can’t climb over, things in your life that you can’t break free from, things that block your way back to God – will all be brought down so that your way back to God is easy to walk.
Every crooked path – all the endless wandering in your life looking for answers that are nowhere to be found, all the confusion that clouds your vision and your judgment – all of that will be made straight so that there is a shorter distance back to God than you could ever image. God was never far away but we could never get to Him because we were constantly going back or from side to side and could not get closer to Him. Now that path is made straight.
The rough places – things that you didn’t think God could bring you through, places where it caused you much pain and distress even to remember what has come into your life, all the hardness in your life – would be made bearable and God would make them easy to bear because He would carry the load.
God’s glory was coming to Israel and it has come to us! JESUS CHRIST, GOD’S OWN SON, CAME DOWN AND HAS PURCHASED OUR SALVATION, PAID OUR DEBT IN FULL FOR SIN AND MADE A WAY THAT IS OPEN BACK TO OUR GOD!
The Comforter has come. Jesus has made a way. The path is wide open and straight, and you can be delivered. Will you walk that path? Have you walked that path?
Today you can! God is your source of comfort!
Disclaimer:
Due to the large amount of sermons and topics that appear on this site I feel it is necessary to post this disclaimer on all sermons posted. These sermons are original to the author and the leading of the Holy Spirit. While ideas and illustrations are often gleaned from many sources including those at Sermoncentral.com, any similarities and wording, including sermon titles, that may appear to be the same as any other sermon are purely coincidental. In instances where other minister’s wording is used, due recognition will be given. These sermons are not copyrighted and may be used or preached freely. May God richly bless you as you read these sermons. It is my sincere desire that all who read them may be enriched. All scriptures quoted in these sermons are copied and/or quoted from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible.
Pastor James May
