Sermon Tone Analysis

40 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

We have finally, at long last, reached .

The Assyrian conflict has been resolved with God’s dramatic deliverance.

The Babylonian envoys have come, and, setting up the remainder of the book, Isaiah prophesied that those same Babylonians would come and overthrow Judah, which we know from our timeline discussion two weeks ago comes in 586 B.C.

Going forward there is major shift in not only the focus of these prophecies but their structure.

Previously there have been these clearly delineated sections, topic shifts, and divisions in the prophecies.

Going forward, the prophecies are in long, unbroken sections.

The message going forward, while still interspersed with visions of God’s wrath, takes a much more hopeful tone.

We will see interspersed throughout many visions of the Messiah, the suffering servant.

We see words of reassurance to God’s people that, no matter how bad things get (and they will get very bad) God is with them, he loves them, he will preserve them, and he will redeem them.

We should be familiar with our text tonight, as we sang it last week, courtesy of Kevin.

It’s also a timely passage, as many of us are facing uncertain, discomforting circumstances.

This is our first week without Clark, who founded this group and has led it faithfully for so many years.

Many of you are facing uncertainty from the Air Force on where you might be going.

Or you know where you’re going but are uncertain what will happen when you get there.

A lot of you go to Meadowbrooke.

You don’t have a pastor currently.

Who will you get and what will he be like?

Over the weekend the United States launched strikes in Syria.

There’s all kinds of uncertainty around us.

Just as God’s word provided comfort to God’s people in Isaiah’s day, it provides comfort to us.

But this passage is not just intended to give us comfort.

It is a call to action, a call to arms.

Because of what God has done and will do for his people, it elicits a necessary response from us.

40 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

The verbs here are plural imperatives.

They are commands from God for some unnamed entity to comfort God’s people.

But because we know that the verbs are plural, we know there are multiples of whomever are coming.

Calvin suggests God is speaking to his prophets, his messengers, preparing them to bring the message of deliverance.

Barnes, being Barnes, wants to tie this to Babylon, saying that they need to comfort God’s people when they conquer them and take them into captivity.

I don’t buy that argument because what comes in verse 2 seems to be describing something that comes after punishment is over.

Regardless, after all the difficulty they have gone through and are yet to go through, they are still to take heart in God’s care for them.

“The remnant shall return” as the name of Isaiah’s first son reminds us.

We do know that one of the ways God comforts his people is by raising up shepherds.

Pastors, elders, Bible study teachers who preach the word.

2  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and cry to her

that her warfare is ended,

that her iniquity is pardoned,

that she has received from the LORD’s hand

double for all her sins.

The messengers are told to speak tenderly.

This isn’t the tone we’ve seen in most of Isaiah, which has been one of warning, of judgement.

It has been rather stern.

This is a soft, reassuring tone.

The “everything is going to be OK,” voice

Here, three assurances are made:

Warfare is ended.

The people that had been continually invaded, oppressed, conquered, and enslaved will someday no longer be.

There will come a day where there will no longer be any Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Turks, or ISIS to come and make war against God’s people.

Iniquity is pardoned.

Even more important than the temporal peace, peace will be made with God through the forgiveness of sins.

She has received double for her sins.

There is no punishment remaining to give.

The debt has been satisfied.

3  A voice cries:

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD;

make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

There’s an interesting translational issue here.

ESV says “A voice cries” then proceeds with the quote, making “in the wilderness” part of the quote.

NKJV says “The voice of one crying in the wilderness” then begins the quote.

So is the cry in the wilderness or the preparation in the wilderness.

I don’t know Hebrew, so I couldn’t tell you.

The fact that it is in the wilderness indicates the state God’s people will be in by the time this comes to pass.

The wilderness is not a good, healthy, prosperous place.

We talked back in chapters 34 and 35 about the wilderness, and how it was desolate, haunted by wild animals, and uninhabitable.

Yet, from death, from emptiness, from the void, God himself will come.

The command is to prepare a way for the LORD, and a highway for God.

Though there have been these times of trial and struggle, God himself will come and dwell among his people.

God comforts his people through sending a message and messengers as we saw in verse 1, but he also comforts them by sending himself.

God the Father decrees from the foundations of the earth to create us and save us and redeem us.

God the Son enters into creation and dwells with his people then lays himself down as a sacrifice for sins.

Then God the Holy Spirit enters into us personally to enable us to understand God’s word and to enable us to live as we ought.

4  Every valley shall be lifted up,

and every mountain and hill be made low;

the uneven ground shall become level,

and the rough places a plain.

This shows us a few things.

First, the degree of transformation that will occur at the Lord’s coming.

Mountains falling down and valleys being lifted up is not a normal type occurrence.

Also, it means that the way by which God is coming is certain, and to him, effortless.

This is set, determined, and will not be thwarted.

5  And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,

and all flesh shall see it together,

for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

Why do we know this will happen?

Because God says so.

His words cannot fail.

His plans cannot be stopped.

God says, it will be.

And all flesh will see it together.

This isn’t just a promise to Israel.

This is a promise to everyone.

This prophecy is cool, because we get to see in the Bible how it is ultimately fulfilled in

3 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

3 And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight.

5  Every valley shall be filled,