Episode 344: Prepare the Way! | Dave Sloop

Introduction

Good morning. We are going to be looking today at Isaiah chapter 40, verses one through 11. But before we jump into that text, I wanted to tell you a story from my personal life that I think will set the tone and maybe get our hearts into the posture that I think will be appropriate and helpful for us to read this text the way that we should.

When I was in my early twenties, about 22 years old, I went out west to Washington State on a ski trip with some of my best friends. I'd never skied before because I grew up in a family that didn't value adventure and fun. I'm just teasing. My dad is actually here today. We grew up in a wonderful family, but we just weren't a skiing family. Right, dad? But my friends assured me that would be no problem.

We get out to Washington State, to Mount Baker, and when you get there, when you're learning how to ski, they take you to a place that instantly makes you feel more like a man, the Bunny Slope, and you're surrounded by little children who can effortlessly do what you cannot seem to figure out. I was just helpless on these skis. I could not control my direction. I could only hope to control my speed by turning my skis inward. But if you were in my pass, you were going down, and that happened quite a few times. I was wiping out left and right.

By the way, if you've ever been skiing out West, it’s not like going to Wintergreen or Snowshoe or Massanutten. It is a different ballgame out there. For the story, it's important for you to know that.

Within the first twenty to thirty minutes of being at this mountain, I get separated from my friends, who were patiently teaching me on the bunny slope, but then at some point, I think they conspired. They’re like, let’s just go. Let's get out of here. This is boring. And so they go off to some other ski lift, and I didn't know. And I'm stranded. This is before cell phones, and so I think, well, I gotta go find these guys. And so I climb onto a lift, and I follow signs to some black diamonds, and I thought, I’ll go there. And so I get to the top of this ski slope. I get off the lift, and I feel like I’m looking over what looks like a cliff. Like, that’s the only way I could describe it, but there's only one way down, and so I was like, I just kind of hoisted myself over this cliff, and it went about how you would imagine, someone that doesn't know how to ski on a Black Diamond out west, and I was just wiping out left and right, face planting. I would fall down, ski for about five feet, and then slide for about 30. And sometimes when you wipe out, your ski stays where you originally fell, and some of you know, you have to do the walk of shame back up the hill as people are just skiing by, laughing at you. It was the worst, humiliating, and it was painful. It took me an hour and a half to get down one time, and I still didn't find my friends, so I climbed back on the ski lift, and I went, and I did it again. Another hour and a half. At this point, it’s been like three and a half hours. I have no idea where my friends are. I'm miserable.

I'm in the ski lift, and I'm going up for a third time, and I heard the sweetest sound in the world. Sloop. My friends were down below. They saw me in the lift, and I said, wait right there. I'm coming. And I get back up to the top of the lift, and I was like I skied over one more time, and I got a little overzealous in my eagerness to be reunited with my friends, and I started heading towards kind of the edge of the slope. If you've ever been to a really dangerous mountain, they'll put up this orange tape because that's a really good barrier to stop people who—it's like this orange tape is like certain death past this point, but I didn't know how to change directions, and so I went through that thing like I finished a race. That orange tape was just flying behind me, first place, down into the ravine, and I'm up to my armpits in snow. I literally could not move. This is a completely true story. My friends who’d been waiting thought, guess Dave made other plans. So, they hopped into the ski lift, and they started going up, and wouldn’t you know that on the way up, they had a perfect bird's eye view of some idiot who was stuck and couldn’t move, and this was the best day of their life. They started shouting out things like, looking good, Sloop. How’s it going? I’m like a pot that's about to boil over. I was so angry at this point, but helpless and stuck.

I thought to myself, if they say one more thing, I’m going to lose it. About that time, my friend Hunter shouts out, you're the man, Sloop. I was just like, I just lost it, and these two words came flying out of my mouth that I can’t repeat today, this morning. One of them was you, and so angry, and it echoed across the mountain so loud that one of my other friends who wasn't with them was like, I think it’s Sloop. He came over to where I was, and he rescued me.

Here’s the point. I was stuck that day. I could not fix my circumstances. They certainly weren't circumstances that I had bargained for, but I had no one to blame for where I was but me. There was a straight line between my present circumstances and some choices that I had made, some warnings that I had completely ignored.

What a metaphor. Have you ever been stuck like that? In some circumstances that you would not have chosen for yourself, but for which you alone are to blame. See, this is a picture of sin and failure. And moments like this in our life can become fertile ground for feelings of shame and self-hatred.

What was I thinking? I'm such a loser. This is what I always do. I'm never going to change. In fact, we might even begin wondering, what would God say in this moment? Or perhaps we don't wonder because deep down we already know.

See, so often, our shame and our self-hatred become the lens through which we imagine God sees us. In psychology, this is called projection. It is the mental process by which we attribute to other people what is in our thoughts. We do it with other people, and we do it with God.

The problem is if God doesn’t speak into our shame and our failure, I will, and it will shape the narrative, and it will distort my view of God. Now some of you are thinking, gosh, Dave, you seem to know quite a lot about this cycle of shame and failure. I have a lot of friends that struggle with sin. This is my story, and it's your story more than any of us would like to admit.

We are entering into the season of Advent. This is the second week, and Advent is the time of year where we prepare for God to come. The question that I have for us this morning is, who is it that you imagine is coming? What is he like? And if all your stuff, all your secrets and sin and shame were unearthed and laid bare in front of him, what would he say? What would he think?

And I’m not just talking about the stuff from your past. I’m talking about the stuff from yesterday, the stuff from our now. Isaiah 40, verses one through 11, is the answer to that question.

The Context of the Passage

The first 39 chapters of Isaiah, if you were to put a word over those chapters, it would be judgment. In other words, Israel was experiencing the natural consequence of rebellion, wickedness, and idolatry. The nations they looked to and the gods they served, from those nations, instead of saving them and delivering them, had enslaved them, and now they were in captivity. They were stuck in circumstances they would not have chosen for themselves, but for which they were completely responsible.

And in the midst of that brokenness, shame, and failure, God speaks. And listen to what he says in verse 40.

Comfort, comfort, my people, says your God.
Comfort.

In the middle of their greatest failure, in the middle of the circumstances that they earned and deserved because of their choices, God still looks at them and it's like Jesus on the cross saying, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.

See, God was the one offended here, and he still looks at them, and his heart breaks. And out of that ache, God speaks comfort. That word in the Hebrew just means to exhale, to breathe heavily. That is what God longs for his people to experience even in the worst moment.

He says it twice, comfort, comfort, for emphasis so they wouldn't miss it. And then listen to the covenant language that God invokes here. He says, comfort, comfort, my people, says your God. You're still mine. Your bad behavior has not disqualified you from your unique identity as my kids. But not just that, I am your God. I've made some promises to which you can cling boldly.

Do you know why? Because your obedience was never a contingency for those promises. They were unilateral, unconditional. I will be your God. You will be my people. Not if, you will.

He continues in verse 2. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. That word tender just means to their heart. And cry to her. Don't whisper.

Three things, that her warfare is ended. Historically, this context is that Isaiah prophetically was looking forward to a season where the Babylonian exile was coming to an end. He said, your captivity, your bondage is coming to an end. The sun is setting on that time.

Number two, he says, her iniquity is pardoned. The debt that her sin had created, canceled.

And number three, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

Now, what does that mean? That she had received double. When you read this, it almost sounds like it’s saying, I’m going to give her a double punishment, an extra severe punishment for her sin, and that’s why I’m satisfied because she was doubly punished.

There are some problems with that interpretation, however. There are many problems, but one of the main ones is that the first two words of this chapter were, what, comfort, comfort. Is there anything less comforting than a double punishment for your mistakes? That’s not what it means.

Others suggest, and I agree with them, that what this means is that God— it says that Israel has received from the Lord's hand more than enough to cover the debt that her sin had created. She had not received a double punishment, but rather a double payment for her sin.

See, she had been pardoned but more. When you pardon someone, they're absolved. They're dismissed from the courtroom. They're not guilty, but it was more than that. They weren’t just dismissed. They were invited. They were welcomed. They weren’t just forgiven. They were restored. This is the gospel. Not just merely that your sins have been forgiven—praise God that is true. But it’s not just that. It’s that you've been clothed with his righteousness. You've been given a new identity, not just acquitted, adopted.

You're mine, he says. And then beginning in verse 3, we're going to learn about the means by which this rescue would take place. You see, God has said in the first two verses already, you're about to get set free from your bondage. I’m going to forgive your sin and restore your identity. Now he's going to tell them the means by which that deliverance would happen, how the rescue would happen, and more importantly, the identity of the rescuer and the character of that rescuer.

Listen to verse 3. He says, a voice cries in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

These are the most familiar words in this passage and it's probably not because we've read Isaiah 40 so many times but probably because we've heard those words repeated in Matthew and Mark and Luke and John. Who is this unnamed voice that cries out? It’s John the Baptist. And listen to what John the Baptist says about himself. He nods to this prophecy. In John's gospel, we'll put it up on the screen.

When asked, oh, is someone okay? When asked, who are you?
I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, quote, make straight the way of the Lord, end quote, as the prophet Isaiah said.
John said, do you remember seven hundred years ago when Isaiah said a voice is crying out, and that voice is saying, God is coming? He says, I’m that voice, and he's almost here. Get ready.

John was that voice. But what John says here, how this is written in the gospels, is not exactly what Isaiah said. Without getting too deep into the weeds on why there's a discrepancy here, let me just say a couple things.

Number one, there is no contradiction. The way that the Gospels write this and what Isaiah writes, they're not in contradiction with one another. They say the same message, but it's important that we look at what Isaiah actually writes so that we understand his intended emphasis.

Look again at what Isaiah says. A voice cries, colon,

in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.

Do you hear the difference? See, the emphasis is not on where the voice is crying. The emphasis is on where God is going, and that's significant. It's a point that's made even clearer if we continue to read,

make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

He is going to the wilderness. Why is that significant? The wilderness had tremendous significance for the people of Israel.

I mean, it’s originally where God called them out from Egypt, and they were in the wilderness. And the wilderness signified to Israel the place of their deep need. He filled every single one of their needs in the wilderness. Every morning, they woke up to bread on the ground. Water came from the rock. He passed through the sea. They passed through the sea at his hand. From their enemies, they were delivered. Pillar of cloud by day to provide comfort and shade. Pillar of fire by night for protection, for guidance. Every need was met in their God.

It pointed to their need, but not just their physical need. In Psalm 63, David says, my soul longs for you. Where? In a dry and weary land where there is no water. You see, God was not only the one to meet their physical needs, but their deepest spiritual hunger and thirst, their deepest longing.

The wilderness points to the need. But then also, the wilderness signals their sin and their failure and their captivity. Wilderness language is used in the Bible by God to point to a judgment that was coming.

In Hosea, we read in verse 2 that Israel had utterly forsaken God. She had chased after other lovers as they’re described. And in verse 13, God says, but me, she forgot, declares the Lord. And in verse 14, it says, therefore now, I will allure her. I will lead her into the wilderness, and there, I will speak tenderly to her.

Same language here. The wilderness was a prophecy where God was saying, you're about to go into captivity. The gods in the nations that you look up to and the gods that you worship, I'm going to hand you over. I'm going to give you the logical consequence of your idolatry, and they went into captivity under the nation of Assyria.

See, wilderness points to our need. It points to our sin and our bondage that we are enslaved to another. And third, the wilderness points to where they just happen to be right now. They're in captivity. They cannot save themselves. They're stuck in circumstances they wouldn’t have chosen for themselves, but for which they alone are responsible.

God says, I’m coming to that place because you cannot save yourself. I’m on the way, and all you need to do is prepare. That word in the Hebrew just means to turn. It’s why John will say later, seven hundred years, repent. It’s the same idea. Turn around. All we need to do, our job, to prepare, is to turn and watch and wait, receive. He's gonna do the rest.

The first reading through this almost sounds like it's our job to prepare the road, to build the road, to build the highway because that is the image they’re giving here. When a king comes to town, the people would build a road. They would smooth it out so the king would have safe passage to where he had announced he was coming.

But listen to this language in verse 4. Every valley shall be lifted up. Every mountain and hill be made low, and the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. See, this is not a command. This is a promise. I’m doing it. I don’t need your help. You turn around and watch. I shall do it. I’m going to do it. I’m coming to you.

What God was saying here is nothing is going to stop me. There is no obstacle that will prevent me from getting to my kids.

Some years ago, I was at Lake Champion Young Life Camp. I was there on assignment with my family, and in the mornings, as a staff team, we would gather. We would have a Bible study together, and there was this huge oak door that was on a swinging hinge, and the bedrooms were back down that wing. And someone had come out of that door, and my daughter, Libby, who was about, I don’t know, three or four at the time, she was playing, and that door swung open, and she put her hand on the jam on the backside of the door. And I was about 25 feet away. It’s a huge great room at the staff housing, and I had my Bible and my coffee. There were two couches, a coffee table, and a dining table, and about 10 more feet in between me and Libby. And I saw that door start to close, and I set my Bible and coffee down in a single bound. I mean, I got to where my girl was because I saw what was coming, and I meant to save her from it. And nothing was going to stop this dad, Superman. This is what God is saying. I am coming to my people. Try to stop me.

Verse 5, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. When I come, you will see me for who I really am. You’re going to know what I’m like. And just to make sure that we understand, he’s not speaking symbolically. He says, all flesh will see it together.

All flesh will see it. — Isaiah 40:5

See, this is not symbolic. This is actual. I’m really coming. All flesh will see it. In other words, I’m coming in the flesh. John 1:14 says, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. Colossians 1:15, he's the image of the invisible God. In Hebrews, the exact representation of his glory. God says, the rescuer is me, and I’m coming in the flesh, in the person of Jesus. That is what is promised here.

And then he ends verse 5 by saying this, the mouth of the Lord has spoken. In other words, you can take that to the bank. I’m going to do it. But knowing that this promise would have come at a time when Israel was in captivity, and knowing that they would have heard this promise and then looked around and said, you know what? It does not feel like our God is winning. It does not feel like we are winning. We're slaves.

And knowing that there was a gap between the promise and their present circumstances, God speaks into that anticipated doubt. And listen to what he says in verse 6.

A voice says, cry.
And I said, what shall I cry?

And here’s what Isaiah was told to cry.

All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades.
When the breath of the Lord blows on it, surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our Lord stands forever. — Isaiah 40:6-8

What Isaiah is saying to the people, or what God is speaking through him, is this: humanity, while there is beauty and greatness to humanity because it reflects my image, don’t get overly concerned with humans. They may look great to you. They may look like they have tremendous power and influence and might, but don’t worry about civilization, culture. God says, I’m not threatened by that. Later in this chapter, he's going to say, culture, civilization, other nations— they’re like dust on the scale. They are literally, it says, less than nothing to him.

God would say, Egypt will fall, Assyria will fall, Persia will fall, Babylon will fall, Rome will fall, America someday will fall, but the word of the Lord stands through it all, stands forever. He ends verse 5 by saying the mouth of the Lord has spoken, and then in verse 8, he repeats, the word of the Lord stands.

Israel, you hang on to the promise. I’m going to do it. And it’s unilateral. It is a one-way. I am going to do it. I don’t need your help. You just turn and watch.

Application

And so what does he want them to do? Verse 9, go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news. Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news. That word in the Hebrew, good news, it’s the Hebrew word for the gospel. You herald of the gospel. You evangelist.

I have a message that I want you to get to where your voice can carry because I have a message I want you to speak, and I have an audience that needs to hear it. Listen to who the audience is first. He says, say to the cities of Judah. You catch that? Judah, speak to Judah. Jerusalem, speak to Jerusalem. He said, I want you to preach to yourself.

One of my heroes in Young Life, a guy named Steve Chesney, probably learned more during my time on Young Life staff about communicating and speaking from him than anyone else, both from watching him do it, but also from being taught by him. He said some awesome stuff to me that I’ve hung on to. One of the things he said was, prepare in a sanctuary, not a laboratory. In other words, when you’re studying, you’re worshiping. You’re not doing the lab work.

Another thing that he said to us was, when you speak, preach to an audience of one or maybe two. And when he first said that, I thought, I know what he means. He means when you preach, preach to please God, not sinful men. That’s not what he meant. He said, when you preach, preach to an audience of one. And then he would say, or maybe two. In other words, preach to yourself and let other people listen in.

I’ll never forget that. And that is what he says God says to his people here. This message that I’m about to give you to preach, it is for you. You need to evangelize yourself every day with this message. Most important person you and I will ever win to Christ is the one you look at in the mirror every single day. It’s yourself.

Here’s the message he gives them to preach. Behold your God. That’s the message. Behold your God. That word behold, it is a literary finger. It is a pointing. Look. And he means it in two ways here. Look with anticipation because something very tangible and specific has been promised. You look out on the horizon because he's coming. But then secondly, he's going to say, look at who he is. Look at his character.

We’re going to hear that word behold three times in these two verses. That was the first.

Listen to what he says next. He says, behold, the Lord God comes with might. He's strong. This is a mighty king, a strong warrior, and he’s coming. He says, and his arm rules for him. His arm is a symbol of his strength, of his leadership, of his rule, and his reign.

He says, look at your strong king. He's coming. Secondly, he says, behold again, behold, his reward is with him. His recompense is before him. We've already been told that this king that’s coming, it’s God himself. Says his reward is with him. What reward does God need? Everything is his already. His reward is with him. His recompense is before him.

What is his reward? Read verse 11.

He will tend his flock like a shepherd.
He will gather the lambs in his arms.
He will carry them in his bosom.

The same arm that rules is the arm that gathers the sheep and holds them to his chest. He will carry them in his bosom. The mighty king is a gentle shepherd, and his reward is you and me.

You know that word recompense? Do you know what that means? I had to look it up. Recompense is compensation for services rendered or damages incurred. What was his compensation? What was the service rendered and the damage incurred to cause us to be his payment, prize, and reward? Hebrews would put it this way: for the joy set before him, the reward set before him, he endured the cross, scorning a shame.

Where did the strength of our king and the gentleness of our shepherd meet perfectly? It was at his cross.

Behold your God. Behold he's king. Behold he's a gentle shepherd. Behold, you're his reward. And then seven hundred years later, John the Baptist would say, behold the Lamb. Behold the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. In other words, the mighty king and the gentle shepherd gets his reward only when the shepherd himself becomes the sheep and stretches himself out and lays his life down.

He lives the life you never could have lived, and he takes the punishment that you deserved. Why? To set you free from your bondage, to forgive your iniquity, and to confer a new identity. Behold your God.

Do you know that God? Have you forgotten him? Are you wallowing in some self-hatred and shame for stuff that you've been stuffing down? Stop. You do not need to. He set you free. Comfort, comfort is what he would say to you. Remember the truth.

See, this was often the future for Israel. This has already happened. It’s already been secured. And perhaps some of you are here today, and you've never known this God. You know, Israel was able to cling to some covenant promises because God made promises to Israel. Do you know that you can come under that covenant today? If you've never known him, and do know all you have to do is this: turn. Turn, wait, watch, and receive. And he will wipe away your sin. He will clean the slate. He will clothe you in his righteousness and call you his son or his daughter.

Conclusion

Behold your God.