Isaiah 40:1-5 (ESV)
1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
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.
3 A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
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.
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.”
By the time you get to chapter 40 in the book of Isaiah you find that Israel is in spiritual ruins. As a consequence, there is a remnant of Jews being held captive in Babylon due to their failures and sins. If Isaiah ended his book with chapter 39 we would be left assuming that God didn’t love His chosen people. But in chapter 40 we see what many Jewish rabbis call the Book of Consolation because it is here that we find the comfort, grace and love of God toward His people.
As a matter of fact God, speaking through Isaiah, starts off chapter 40 by saying, “Comfort, comfort my people.” He continued by saying, “speak tenderly” to them and help them understand that their hardship is coming to an end. God wanted them to know that their sins had been forgiven. He wanted them to get ready to experience “the glory of the Lord.”
I am always amazed at the grace, mercy and love of God. All throughout the Old Testament Israel continually sinned against God but God always forgave. The same can be said of us today. We continually sin against God yet we will always find grace and forgiveness at the foot of the cross.
Consider the words of Christ as He hung on the cross dying. He uttered these words in Luke 23, “34 ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’” How could this be? Paul tells us in Romans 8 that, “38 I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
You see we are loved with an eternal love. Nothing, not even our sins and failures, will cause God to love us less. But I want to caution you with this truth – don’t take advantage of God’s love and grace. The bible also teaches us that we shouldn’t INTENTIONALLY sin against God in order to experience His grace and love. (Romans 6:1-4) We also must live with the understanding that those whom God loves will also experience His discipline. (Hebrews 12:6)
Therefore, let us worship God today because of His great grace and everlasting love. But let us also learn from the sins and failures of Israel. God will discipline His children because He loves us too much to let us live lives controlled by sin. Rather God desires for us to “walk in newness of life.” (Romans 8:4)
DBA
Hebrews 12:3-11
3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.
6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
DPOD 