The tender God (Is. 40:1-11)

 

Your problem is not so much that you don’t love God (although none of us love Him as we should), but that you don’t know how much He loves you.  He calls people to be free.  He wants to bury our guilt in the sea of His love.  He wants to change us.  He wants us to feel secure and at home with Him.

We are going to look at an amazing few verses in Isaiah 40, and point out that:

1.       God wants you to know that you are forgiven.

2.       God enables us to change.

3.       God’s promises are forever sure.

God wants you to know that you are forgiven (1-2)

Look at the emotional intensity of these words.  The word ‘comfort’ is repeated for emphasis.  Speak tenderly (lit. ‘to the heart) of my people.  The kindness of God leads to repentance (Rom. 2:4).  ‘God’s deepest intention towards us is comfort’ (Ortland).  ‘Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who comforts us in our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God’ (2 Cor. 1:3-4).

Notice that God addresses them as ‘my people’ and that He is ‘your God.’  This is amazing grace.  At the end of the last chapter judgement was announced.  Because of the people’s persistent idolatry and injustices, they were going to go into exile under the Babylonians.  These verses are addressed to people a hundred years after Isaiah’s time, who are in exile.  Yet despite their wickedness God has not given up on them.  They may have abandoned Him, but He has not forgotten them.

God says that their iniquity has been pardoned and that they have received a double for all their sins.  There is a bit of debate about it, but it would seem that the double portion refers to a folding over.  Like you might fold over a piece of paper on itself (see Exodus 26:9).  The point is being made that God, in His justice, has punished them with an exact correspondence for their sin.  Our God does not ignore sin and He does not sweep it under the carpet.  He deals with it!

But who has He dealt with our sin?  He deals with it Himself.  In a few chapters we will be introduced to a servant, who we know is Jesus, who is pierced for our transgressions, and crushed for our iniquities’ (Is. 53:5).  Jesus is the one who has taken the exact payment for all our guilt.

God changes us (3-5)

God Himself did come to those in exile and bring them home.  Verse three is used in the New Testament to talk of John the Baptist.  Note that the one in wilderness prepares the way of the LORD.  That is YHWH, God.  Yet in the New Testament the one who comes is Jesus.  That is because Jesus is God the Son, He is Immanuel (7:14), ‘God with us.’

How do we prepare the way for His coming?  The valleys have to be lifted up and the mountains smoothed.  It is a metaphor for repentance.  For example, we flatten our pride and admit, ‘nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling.’  Repentance is an attitude that not only wants sins to be forgiven, repentance wants to know and love God. 

But my love for God is so shallow!  I have been helped by something the great Welsh preacher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, said: ‘the desire to love God is love for God.’  Ask Him to increase your love.  How do we change?  We change as we look at Jesus and the Holy Spirit transforms us (2 Cor. 3:18). 

‘And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.’  ‘And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly places in the Lord Jesus, in order that he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus’ (Eph. 2:6-7).  Imagine, in heaven people will look at you, with all the messes and moral failures of your life, and declare ‘isn’t God so kind that he would forgive someone like that, and someone like me.’

For all eternity heaven will be full of songs of the glory of God.  His perfect justice will have been seen in how He brought judgement on those who refused to turn and be forgiven; His perfect love, justice and mercy in how He dealt with the sins of those who allowed themselves to be swallowed up in His love.

God’s promises are certain (6-11)  

Remember that these words have in view those in exile.  We don’t know who these individuals are.  They lived, died and were forgotten.  But over two-and-a-half thousand years later we still have the promises made to them.  ‘The word of the LORD stands for ever’ (8).

Martyn Lloyd-Jones explained that as a pastor people would often come to him about ‘that one sin’ that they were scared God had not forgiven.  He would get then to read First John one verse nine: ‘If we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’  Then he would ask, ‘where are the exceptions?’  There are none!  ‘As big as your sin is, that promise is as big.’  He would explain, ‘your problem is not that sin you have committed, your problem is that you are refusing to take God at His word.’  Think of the great promises of the Bible.  Jesus will never drive away anyone who comes to Him (John 6:37).  He will never leave you nor forsake you (Heb. 13:5).

Our passage ends by telling us of the God whom we are to behold.  He is a mighty king, a generous benefactor and a kind shepherd.  ‘He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those who have young’ (11).  Jesus is the good shepherd who laid down His life for His sheep (John 10:14-15).

Conclusion

How do you feel?  Look at verse twenty-seven.  The people in exile, who were suffering the consequences of their sin, felt that their way was hidden from God.  But He still addresses them as my people.  God has not forgotten you.  He wants you to know the blessing of knowing His forgiveness.  He wants you to know he loves you.  He wants you to know that there is no sin he cannot forgive.

So, what do we do if we struggle to feel God’s promises?  ‘Wait/hope’ in the Lord (31).  Look to Him with eager expectation.  Preach this gospel to yourself—ask God for the strength to believe God’s promises.  Confess your sins to each other (James 5:16)—not the same sin over and over, but share your struggles with someone you trust, and then allow them remind you that our God is a God who delights to show mercy.