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Text: Isaiah 40:1-11
Title: WE”RE DESTINED FOR CAPTIVITY BUT FREEDOM AWAITS!
Date: December 4, 2005
Revelation 13:10 says, “If anyone is destined for captivity, to captivity he goes…” When reading portions of Isaiah and other books of Scripture, it seems clear that if anyone seemed destined for captivity it was the whole people of Israel. God would remind them of His love, He protected them from one enemy after another and what did Israel do in response to our Lord’s goodness; they acted as if they never really knew their God at all. This rebellion of God’s people is quickly defined within the first few verses of Isaiah chapter 1. In those verses we read, “An ox knows its owner, and a donkey its master’s manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” And because the people of Israel did not understand, it appears God had no other choice than to allow them to endure captivity once again.
CAPTIVITY! Now there’s a word that we do not often associate with on a personal level; not unless you are planning to go to jail any time soon or really truly hate your job. I’ve heard some stories from husbands who feel CAPTIVE to the will of their wife and children. We are familiar with CAPTIVE AUDIENCES and CAPTIVATING PERSONALITIES, but living in CAPTIVITY to where our freedom has been completely abolished is not something we are presently enduring or is it?
Have you ever wondered why God’s People had the need to rebel so often in the first place? What was it that made things so difficult for them to live under God’s protective wing? Why couldn’t they simply allow God to be their God? It appears that God’s people eventually felt as if they were being held captive by God in the same way teenagers might feel they are being held CAPTIVE by their parent’s rules and regulations. Eventually, most of Israel would stretch forth their cry for freedom by embracing the things of this world over God and that duplicitous stretching forth ended up making them destined for CAPTIVITY!
God said of Israel that “Righteousness once lodged in her” (Isaiah 1:21) and it is important that we remember that truth. It is far too easy to believe that God’s people, at least the generations that rebelled against our Lord, never really truly had a relationship with Him. But hearing that these people were at one time considered Righteous before God has to hit a nerve within each and everyone of us, because unless you have been in a shell your entire life, you as my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ have followed the same path as the Israelites. We too have stretched out our rebellious arms toward the world due to feeling a weight of CAPTIVITY under God’s direction for our lives. Born into this world, we too were destined to be under CAPTIVITY!
We have all said, “God’s Will be Done” correct? Isn’t it much easier to say those words on behalf of others than it is to say them to yourself? God’s Will is that we love those who do not love us. Have you ever rebelled against God’s design of love when you just could not let go of your anger? Have you ever been in a situation where everything in your life seemed to be falling apart and you just couldn’t believe that God had what’s best in mind for you during those times? Has there been a time in your life when you knew you needed to get in the Word of God and simply refused to do so because of personal anger or despair? In each one of these examples, as we choose to pull away from our Lord, we are basically saying to God the same thing the Israelites once said, “God offers CAPTIVITY and the world offers freedom, so here’s to freedom”
Freedom, at least worldly freedom, offers the greatest form of CAPTIVITY that can possibly exist. Freedom of the world means CAPTIVITY to sin will also be included. Whenever we choose our own will or whatever is behind the worldly curtain that promises great things or better options, what we are really choosing is to live under CAPTIVITY to sin. Our choice initially does not seem to offer anything negative; like a kid who experiments with one cigarette but has no idea that it can lead to an addiction, so is our choice to turn away from God. The addiction will come eventually. The sorrow will rise up, the despair will lay low and the emptiness will some day come to sap our strength. This is what was taking shape in the lives of God’s people Israel when God’s voice spoke the words of comfort we listened to in Chapter 40.
When God looked upon His CAPTIVE people once more, he saw the makings of enlightened hearts and minds. God’s people were finally coming around to realizing the choice they made for themselves was what truly made placed them in CAPTIVITY. They indeed chose to be held captive by the weight of their own sin and that this weight was made manifest by the presence of the Babylonians that surrounded them every day. They were ready or at least were getting ready to listen to God once more.
What we read in Isaiah chapter 40 is what God says to us everyday and I encourage you to mark your Bibles, highlighting this chapter, so that the next time you wake up from CAPTIVITY to sin you can be readily prepared to listen to God guide you back to His Will once more. As I said, “God speaks these words to us everyday” for they are a direct result of the work of Jesus Christ. Sometimes we are ready and eager to listen thanks to the presence of the Holy Spirit directing our heart and mind to God, yet at other times we are completely oblivious to His Words, when our will and this world hold us CAPTIVE. So thanks be to God that he has our attention today so that He can provide us with Comfort and Direction once more.
What is the first thing God says in Isaiah 40? “Comfort, O Comfort My people” Listening to God now makes it difficult for us to believe that we ever considered Him as the one placing us in Captivity. God desires mercy not sacrifice. Even when we feel like our lives are being sacrificed as a direct result of being His servant, our Lord’s Love and Mercy should convince us that He has our best in mind. Trust me, that is a very difficult truth to swallow but it is the truth.
God says in verse 2, “Speak Kindly to Jerusalem.” This translation is quite difficult but the best interpretation is, “Lay something Tenderly Close to the Heart of Another.” If there is anyone that knows the sorrow we endure it is the Lord God Almighty. He wants to lay something peaceful and kind at the heart of every person that knows sorrow. Like a gentle ointment, God’s Word’s sooth and moisten the troubled and hardened heart. I ask you, can you see any CAPTIVITY underlying God’s Words of Love and Mercy?
Our Lord also tells His Holy People that her term of service has ended and that her guilt is pardoned. To the question we ask time and time again, that being, “HOW LONG O LORD…” God shows us that there is an end to every imprisonment we are placed in or walk into. The harsh reality of battle with worldly CAPTIVITY has an end. We know the ultimate end is when we arrive in Paradise thanks to the shed blood of Jesus but even in life, God will remove the CAPTIVITY that surrounds us.
What we have listened to so far is the Word and Love that God offers to us in abundance day in and day out. But what God speaks of throughout the remaining nine verses of our text is what our Lord wants us to do in response to His kindness. We Lutherans are not always ready to listen to what we have to do as Christians because we know that by Grace we have been saved through Christ and this salvation is not of ourselves.” But God does not want us to simply be hearers of the Word. He wants doers. God wants responders! He wants His people to effectually see His Word rise up within them and manifest all sorts of Holy and Righteous responses to His Word. Responding to God in effect keeps us from falling into further CAPTIVITY to this world. Responding to God Joyfully reassures us that we really are not substituting just one CAPTIVITY for another once God’s Will takes over. When Our Lord rules our life, we sense no CAPTIVITY unless we again miss what the World offers.
So far God has promised His Holy Nation that restoration lies ready for them. Now our Lord lays down the guidelines to ensure that this promised restoration unfolds the way God has intended. First he says that we must remove all obstacles that sin has placed in God’s way. Verse 3-5 clarifies this point saying, “Clear the way for the Lord in the Wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; and let the rough ground become plain, and the rugged terrain a broad valley. Then the Glory of the Lord will be revealed.”
Preparing for anyone to come and visit shows that person our appreciation and expectation for their arrival. As Jesus is promised to return, we are always encouraged to make ourselves ready. Imagine how a guest would feel if we did not bother to make the bed or provide food upon their visit? Yet the One who will return demands more than just outward preparations, He demands inward ones as well. Therefore, clear away from your life all the things that would interfere with His Word and Presence. Whatever hills and mountains or valleys that impede you from seeing and listening to Him must be laid low or filled over, so that from our perception nothing will impede our connection to God.
The second activity God wants us to undertake in preparation for His return is to start building. Verse 6 says, “All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, When the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surly the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades But the word of our God stands forever.” We need greater resources than flesh to build a LASTING WAY to the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. It takes nothing more than a breath from God to bring about the withering of grass and flesh. What we build upon must be the very Word of God. Trusting in that Word and Using that Word will help us to build toward our future, to face the future and to prepare for the Work and Will of our Lord. God’s Word must remain our foundation as we receive and await the fullness of His Comfort.
Finally, God wants us to do a little bit of hiking. So for all of us that increased recently due to some hearty turkey leftovers it’s time to exercise by finding the highest mountain we can find and climbing it. Okay, that’s not really what God is saying, not unless you’ve got good pipes and can yell down from the mountain top that JESUS CHRIST IS LORD OF ALL, so that everyone below can hear you. But what our Lord wants us to do next is to lift up our voice and mightily tell others about the GOOD NEWS OF JESUS CHRIST. Whenever we speak the Word of God we reassure one another, and we help those who are presently in CAPTIVITY to discover that release is at hand.
It is God who leads us first with but a Word and then by way of His Direction. The Greatness of God wants us to have full Comfort and we can have this comfort as we listen to God’s Word, prepare for that Word and for the presence of our Lord and proclaim His Truth to all the world. We are the bearer of this GOOD NEWS and we are invited to LIFT IT UP before all those who are in CAPTIVITY so that true freedom in Christ may be known and loved by all.
We can truly say as God’s people that there is no CAPTIVITY here in our hearts or in this place, for the comfort of our Loving Lord has truly made us free. Amen.
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