NIV Isaiah 35:1 The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, 2 it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God. 3 Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; 4 say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you." 5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. 6 Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. 7 The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow. 8 And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it. 9 No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there, 10 and the ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
Introduction: We did it. We found the perfect tree. We cut down a live tree this year to be our Christmas tree. My wife was busy, so I said I would set up the tree while she was gone shopping with the children. When I got it home and put it into the stand I noticed the worst thing possible: the trunk was crooked. No matter how much pressure and whatever angle I chose the tree was obviously crooked. AS I pushed and pulled, my hand slipped and my elbow smashed a hole in the drywall. After wrestling with the treeI gave up. I thought maybe if I strung the lights just right it would look acceptable. As I am holding the lights, I plug them in one by one to make sure they work. When I plugged the first string of lights into the socket they short out bursting the bulb that I am holding in my hand. My finger is now bleeding from the cut. I bandage up the singed and cut finger and place the rest of the lights and ornaments on the tree. Just as I finish my wife comes in with the kids, sits down on the couch and simply begins to sob. The tree is just plain ugly. - Crooked tree - Busted Lights –– Bleeding finger – Crying child and wife. This is what Christmas is all about? If you feel a little disenchanted with Christmas celebrating this year, you are not alone. The Lord has given us some encouragme3nt through Isaiah to help us celebrate Christmas in this world of sin! Be strong and courageous! Your God Comes! He comes to give life to his people. He comes to make a highway for his people.
In the first half of the book of Isaiah, God’s Words about the future of His people, the overriding theme is one of judgment of the Assyrians for their wicked sins as well as judgment of the Israelites for turning their back on God by calling on other Gods for help and ignoring the words of their Savior-God. Now in chapter 35, the second half of Isaiah starts. A radical change is seen in the second half of His prophecy – rejoicing, blessings, mercy, grace and life for God’s people. To picture this radical change among God’s people, Isaiah uses the picture of a desert. A desert has some plants and animals, but it is not a hot bed for life. The desert is a harsh place to live. The sun scorches the land until it cracks. The night sky freezes the land because of the little plant life that can survive. The desert is a harsh and barren place to live, if something can survive at all. Isaiah says look again at the desert. The desert is bursting forth with life! The smell of Cedar trees fills the desert, like it was Lebanon. The huge branches of oak trees cover the desert with cool shade during the day. Acres of roses and crocus cover the desert floor with color. How is this possible? God has given the beauty of nature to the desert. True enough the desert does bloom with some types of cactus, but mighty oak trees, cedar woods and sweet smelling roses? The desert would have unnatural beauty in this radical change! How is this possible? The Lord, God Almighty is how this is possible. Isiah just says it will be given to it. All the this beauty and lush life would be given to the desert.
Isaiah gives us a hint at the true meaning of these words when he says 4 times in the first two verses that the desert is rejoicing and shouting for joy! The desert is shouting for joy? I suppose if you were a desert that was given all the plant life and cool refreshing water of the world you would sing for joy too, right? Well you are! You see this is a metaphor. A metaphor is A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison, as in “a sea of troubles” or “All the world’s a stage” The beauty of nature is only a metaphor for the beauty of God’s grace and love he has for his people. God’s grace is cooler than the shade of the mighty oak tree or sweeter to smell than any rose bud. As parched and dry, God’s people were, the Lord would remember his promises. He would give them unnatural beauty in a radical change! He would alter their fortunes by grace! Where they could not bring forth beauty or even life on their own, God would graciously bring life and beauty.
When is this radical change going to take place among God’s people, when we will be given unnatural beauty that we could not have on our own? When will we be changed from dried out prunes to mouth watering grapes bursting with sweet juice? Look at v 3-4. In the O.T. the coming of the Lord always refers to salvation. Here the promise is explicit: When your God comes your enemies will get what they deserve. Justice will be served. It will be payback time for His enemies. Now don’t think that God is far away now and that some time he will come to defeat his enemies. No, God is present here at all times, but to the naked eye it appears that God is distant. Isaiah is merely stating here in a forceful way that God will be here, at just right the right time, when he is needed, to defeat the enemy. What a great comfort to us in the time of trouble. Our Savior God will come and save us. In the last phrase Isaiah sums up the comfort we have as Christians – He will come to save you. Save us from what? Christmas is when our Savior came. He came to establish peace on earth the angels sang. In order to solidify peace forever between God and man, the wall of sin must be destroyed. Jesus, which means ---? Destroyed that dividing wall of hostility between God and man: sin. That is why Jesus donned human flesh and blood. That’s why Jesus was born of a virgin woman. That’s why Jesus started as a fetus and grew through the stages of adolescence, to adulthood. He lived a life of perfection. A perfect life is the only weapon that could topple the wall of sin. Jesus did it. He broke down our sin walls and brought us out of death into life. He brought us out of the gloomy dungeon into the glorious and glad life in His family of Christians.
What a great promise! He will come to save you. Oh wait a second, that’s more than just a promise from God. I mean a promise from God is as good as gold, signed sealed and delivered, but know for certain that God did keet his promise. He did come. He did save his people. He did bring life to his parched and dry nation. He did save his people. He has brought us life! We will not die but live! So what should we do?
NIV Isaiah 35:3 Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you."
Have you ever had a nightmare? I mean a nightmare that was so terrifying that all you could do was to shake? I mean a nightmare that was so scary that you couldn’t even defend yourself against the monster or move out of the way of the danger? Isaiah pictures for us what happens in the lives of God’s people when they are worried and afraid: They become immobile. Hands become feeble and knees can’t support your own weight. To me the picture is of a person so afraid they are at the point of feinting or shaking uncontrollably. Sadly we have experienced this phenomenon more than you think. Fear and worry are yes natural reactions to the harsh wilderness we live in. The devil and his henchmen of angels are all around us. Yes, sin is crouching at our door waiting to strike us. Yes the devil himself lies in the tall g4rass waiting to devour us when we least expect it. Yes, the finger of death is only a touch away. Yes, we live in a dangerous world. Being afraid and worrying to the point where you do not act like Christians is unbelief. You are right, though. I do not see any of you shaking uncontrollably or feinting because you are afraid of death or the devil. But I do sometimes see you become negative and pessimistic when it comes to God’s Kingdom and His Christians. I do see you go limp in your life of fighting for the Promises of the Lord. I do see you become sad and hopeless. I know that you are afraid to talk to your family members about their sins, about their Savior and about their future. I know you are afraid of the reactions of people. I know you are afraid of ruining your family relationships. Please look at your feeble hands and your shaking knees,; you are a basket case Christian. Is this faith? Is this a parched desert that has been brought all the beauties of nature to flourish and grow? Is this a dead person brought to life? Isaiah hints at another sinful reaction of God’s people, he says say to the fearful at heart or in the Hebrew it says , “Say to the hasty at heart.” Hasty at heart reminds me of impatience. How can we become impatient with our God? Very easily, right? We become fed up with God’s timetable and God’s plans. We become disenchanted with the Word of truth. We second-guess the truth of God’s Word, whether it is about divorce, the Lord’s supper, the one way into heaven, baptism, the anti-Christ. I guess you could sum up this hasty heart by saying whenever we become dissatisfied with God’s ways. The hasty heart is sometimes hard to see. Maybe it starts out by just being bored in church. Bored with the reading of scriptures. Then maybe the next stage is a lack of joy and desire in giving a portion of offerings to the Lord, coupled with complaints against the leaders of a congregation being lazy and making wrong decisions. With those things the stage is set for a refusal of regular public worship and regular bible study because it is not necessary. Is this faith? Is this the actions of a person that have been saved from sin, death and the devil? Is this the vision of a desert that has become filled with life? No, Paul says that Christians are to always be rejoicing, always thankful always hopeful. That’s impossible you say? On this earth we are under pressure we are under attack, We need to bolster each other’s confidence we need to comfort each other in the dark days of pain and sadness. Sadness, depression or just a down day, is not OK. Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way! Our God comes to bring us life! Be strong! Be courageous! Your God comes! NIV Joshua 1:8 Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." 10 So Joshua ordered the officers of the people:
Our God not only comes to give life to his people, but also to protect them on the way to paradise. He comes to make a highway for His people. NIV Isaiah 35:8 And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it. 9 No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there, 10 and the ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
Hmmm let’s see… roads in a desert? Not usually, right? Maybe there could be a path that an experienced guide can get you across, but a super highway across the desert? Not likely. In Isaiah’s day especially there was no such thing as a road through the desert, even the roads they did have were more like winding paths full of potholes and fallen rocks. Isaiah many times uses the picture of s super highway to illustrate that in the Christian Church, we are not traveling on a winding path filled with robbers thieves and man-eating beasts. But we are on a great smooth highway prepared by our Savior, Jesus Christ.
You see in God’s Church, his family, the church is happy, joyful, safe from all the temptations of Satan. Those who enter the Way to life find no cause for alarm. Their fears subside. Their consciences are not burdened with guilt, doubt and sin. Instead this way that leads to eternal paradise is the Way of Holiness This highweay is paved with the blood of Christ that runs pure and perfect into God’s kingdom. All those on this Way of Holiness will enter Zion with singing. There is not doubt, no if clause, no conditional statement. All on the way of Holinesss will enter Zion.
Now remember here we are not looking at a visible church like Living Hope Lutheran or Our Lady of Guadalupe, we are looking at the invisible church. God does tell us that there will be wolves in sheep’s clothing in the visible groups of Christians, like Living hope. But not a single one in the Holy Christian Church the family of God on earth. Believers know that though we are sinful, sin Satan and the law can not keep us from entering paradise. Jesus Christ has paved our way into heaven,. It is not our effort, our desire or commitment but the blood of Christ that guarantees us a place in paradise. Because of this the redeemed go on happily along the road to heaven and will one day have eternal life.
Isaiah even says that this highway is so easy to travel on that even a fool could make it to Zion on this highway. In the desert if I tried to make it across alone I would not make it very far. Doing so would be foolish for me. I can’t over estimate the greatness of this picture to you. How many people do you know that have wondered why they are here on this earth? How many people do you know ask themselves, Why arer they on this earth? How many people wonder about the meaning of their lives and worry if they will have life after death? Do you know someone this Christmas who doesn’t know where they are going or who are just wandering from one relationship to the next? Let them know the super highway paved by God’s holy and precious blood. How blessed are we that we know the Way, the Truth and the Life, who through God’s grace are on the Highway that leads with certainty to the City where the Holy one reigns forever with His people in glory.
Christmas brings with it many fears, worries and pressures on our Christian families. Be strong and Courageous, saying with Joshua, “As for me and my household we will serve the Lord.” Be aware of the opportunities to share the Way of Holiness, the Highway that Jesus made for us by his blood. Thank God this Christmas for coming and bringing life to you and your family, by strengthening your feeble hands and steadying your shaking knees! Your God Comes to Save his people! Merry Christmas!
The peace of God that surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
