Rev. David Holwick ZP Book of Isaiah series
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
December 12, 1993
Isaiah 40:1-9,28-31
|
I. In search of leveled roads.
A. Our lives are often filled with frustration.
Going to Grandma's for Thanksgiving.
Took newly opened route 287 to New York Turnpike.
Beautiful, clean highway.
Only problem: not quite done yet.
A few miles short of the Turnpike it dumped us onto a single
lane detour.
1) Ledgewood Circle at rush hour.
2) As discouraged as we can be with circumstances, we can be
more discouraged with our own weaknesses.
a) Personal failure to live up to our standards.
b) So many demands on us, and so little strength.
1> Celeste has to clean up 4 times a day.
3) The discouragement of growing old.
a) Corwin Decker, bright and eager to come home, then
straining for each breath in hospital bed.
b) Gus Schnetzer, checking which door he just came out of.
And forgetting it immediately.
B. Where is God at such times?
1) God is there, and he offers hope and encouragement.
2) God can make the hard paths easier.
II. Sometimes it takes a change in perspective.
A. Does Isaiah break at chapter 40?
1) Liberal scholarship sees a break in Isaiah here.
a) Vocabulary and style changes.
b) Perspective changes. Exile is past, not future.
c) Author(s) called Second Isaiah, or Deutero-Isaiah.
1> (There is also a Third Isaiah, and groups, etc.)
2) Evangelicals defend the integrity of whole book.
a) Jesus and others quote from all sections, sometimes in
same breath.
b) The oldest manuscripts, included in the Dead Sea Scrolls,
have no break between Isaiah 39 and 40.
c) Perspective does change, because prophet wants to reassure
the people in the face of imminent catastrophe.
B. Isaiah 40 is about comfort to a broken people.
1) They couldn't even see how broken they would become, but
the prophet did.
2) He also saw how God would come through in the end.
a) Repetition of "comfort" points to emotional emphasis.
b) "Hard service" of exile is going to end. 40:2
1> Atoning purpose.
2> "Double" is probably their perspective, not God's.
A> Like we say to child: "Sit in that chair 15
minutes - no, make that 30 minutes."
3) Tough times come to an end.
a) We may know exactly why we are suffering (and deserve
every lash) but it doesn't go on forever.
b) God always disciplines for a reason, and for a season.
III. Preparation of the way.
A. It takes work to make things easier.
1) Highways move millions of tons of rock to ease an incline.
2) In the Near East even today, when a king or president visits
they prepare the highway and erect a welcome station.
3) God prepares his own way when he comes to us.
a) This has a special fulfillment in N.T. when John the
Baptist prepared the people for Jesus. Mt 3:3; Lk 1:76
B. When God comes, it is glorious.
1) Most contemporary visions don't do it justice.
2) In comparison to God's glory, humans are just flowers.
a) Beautiful, but only for an instant.
b) Fading sets it and then we blow away.
c) (Rock and roll stars who are almost ready for Soc. Sec.)
3) Our limitations as people:
a) We have limited power to change things.
b) We cannot see the long view, apart from faith.
c) We cannot change where we have come from - we can only
change where we are going.
4) Only Word of God lasts.
a) God's Word is stronger than Soviet Union.
b) God's Word is stronger than our stubbornness.
At the 1992 Gideon Bible banquet Rudy Schober told the
testimony of a man in Canada.
This man was a devout Christian and had the habit of reading
Gideon Bibles in hotels he stayed in.
On one trip to the majestic Windsor Hotel in Montreal,
Canada, he felt moved of God to write his spiritual
thoughts in the margins.
His greatest concern was the salvation of his son, who
rejected the Christian faith.
At the end of his devotions, the man knelt by the bed in
prayer.
Three years later, that very same son visited Montreal.
He stayed in the huge Windsor Hotel.
Feeling depressed, he did something uncharacteristic - he
picked up the Gideon Bible from the night table.
Leafing through it, he noticed handwritten notes and
recognized them as the writing of his own father.
The outpouring of his father's heart for the son's salvation
so moved the young man he knelt down beside the bed and
accepted Christ as his Savior.
#2026
IV. God is bigger. 40:25
A. This passage uses many images of God, from warrior (40:10) to
gentle shepherd (40:11).
B. The overall theme is that God is bigger than we are.
1) We still like to think we can figure Him out.
David Heller wrote a humorous book called, "Dear God, What
Religion were the Dinosaurs?"
The book contains questions contained in letters young
people wrote to God.
One of them said:
Dear God,
I read somewhere that you know what we are going to do
before we do it.
How much advance notice do you get?
Sheila, age 10
#2136
2) Even more sophisticated thinkers believe they can reduce
God to an equation. 40:13
Stephen Hawking has been called the Einstein of our day.
He has Lou Gerig's Disease but functions with computers.
In one of his books he writes about the quest of physicists
to explain every force of nature with one equation:
"If we do discover a complete theory (of everything) ... we
shall all, philosophers, scientists and just ordinary
people, be able to take part in the discussion of why
it is that we and the universe exist.
If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate
triumph of human reason ...
For then we would truly know the mind of God."
#1754
Don't hold your breath.
C. Every age has tried to reduce God to something manageable. 40:19
1) The Bible calls this idolatry.
2) Modern idolatry is to claim knowledge about everything.
a) Purpose of Hubble Space Telescope is to discover
beginning of universe.
b) Christmas gift - a universe of your own.
Or at least a solar system.
For $30.00 you can buy a star and have your name attached
to it.
They take photos through telescopes and pick out one out
of billions for you.
But only you - and the promoter - know about it.
3) God made everything, so don't think we can "make" him.
a) His ways are higher than our ways. 40:28
b) When the going gets rough, we have to remember this
and trust in his care and guidance.
V. God doesn't get tired... but we do. 40:28-31
A television documentary pointed out that the cheetah survives on
the African plains by running down its prey.
The big cat can sprint seventy miles per hour.
But the cheetah cannot sustain that pace for long.
Within its long, sleek body is a disproportionately small heart,
which causes the cheetah to tire quickly.
Unless the cheetah catches its prey in the first flurry, it must
abandon the chase.
Sometimes Christians seem to have the cheetah's approach to life.
We speed into projects with great energy.
But lacking the heart for sustained effort, we fizzle before we
finish.
We vow to start faster and run harder, when what we need may be not
more speed but more staying power.
Stamina comes only from a bigger heart.
Motion and busyness, no matter how great, yield nothing unless we
allow God to give us the heart.
#1937
A. God gives the strength to go on.
B. God gives the strength to soar.
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
Created with the Freeware Edition of HelpNDoc: Easily create CHM Help documents