Turn with me, if you would, in your copy of God's Word to Isaiah chapter 40. Isaiah chapter 40. This morning, it is always a privilege to open up God's Word. And today, it's going to be preaching this morning as well as this evening. And both messages will be from Isaiah chapter 40. On this topic, this comes directly from Isaiah 40. Behold your God. And if we go from here today, just with the Lord just a little more exalted in our thoughts today, then this message will be a success. So that is our goal this morning, as well as this evening. Isaiah chapter 40, behold your God. We will be looking at verses 1 through 11 this morning, so let's pick it up. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 1. Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 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. A voice cries, in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 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. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. A voice says, Cry. And I said, What shall I 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 God will stand forever. 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. Lift it up, fear not. Say to the cities of Judah, behold your God. Behold, the Lord God comes with might and his arm rules for him. Behold, his reward is with him and his recompense before him. 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 that are with young. Beautiful description of our God. Let us go to him now in prayer and ask his blessing this morning. Let us pray. Our dear Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a great God, that you are worthy of our praise, you're worthy of our worship. We pray that today that your name, that your being, your person would be lifted up, would be exalted in our minds, and that we would go from here encouraged as we face another week, encouraged that you're in control, encouraged, that you have a future, a glorious future, that we get to have a part in. We thank you, we praise you, in the name of your son, the Lord Jesus, amen. We live in a world that's full of difficulty, and our lives have just so much in it that can cause us to become anxious, to become concerned, to become worried, our minds so easily become focused on those things that concern us. I know for myself, I have a fiancé up in Vancouver, Canada, and I want to be there with her, but I'm here. Some of you don't mind that part, but I do. No, I love being with you all, don't take me wrong. But I wanna move there, I wanna be with her, and yet I can't just make that happen. I can't just make myself get a job, and the whole process of moving internationally is, it's a bit of work. But I can't make it happen. And it's easy for me to get concerned about that, to start worrying about that, like how am I gonna make this happen? Well, I can't make it happen, that's reality. but it's easy to get caught up in those concerns. And perhaps you're with me this morning, perhaps you're anxious, you're concerned about something. Perhaps, for the senior saints here this morning, maybe you are scared about the future, you're scared about getting older, the pain, the frailty that comes with that. That's a real concern. and I as a relatively young man, healthy young man, I can't really say much to alleviate that fears, can I? But maybe the Lord can say something that can encourage you this morning. And maybe you're not in that category. Maybe your concern is very different. You're not concerned, like me, about finding a job in another country. You're not concerned, yet, about getting old. Maybe your concern is about completing a degree, or finding a spouse, or raising a family, or any number of other things. Maybe it's even simpler than that. Maybe you're anxious about an appointment that you have this week. Or for some of the younger people in here, maybe it's a test coming up, or a sports event coming up, Or maybe, as a member of Calvary Baptist Church, a regular attender here, you're concerned about our need for a pastor. There's a lot of things that we could be concerned about, aren't there? I'm guessing that I said at least something that you relate to this morning. If not, I gave you enough for you to think of something that you're concerned about. There's so many reasons that we might be concerned. We might be anxious. But regardless of what the reason is, I want to show you from God's Word, from Isaiah chapter 40, that each of us can find comfort. We can find encouragement. You notice those first two words there in Isaiah 40. Comfort, comfort, my people. The book of Isaiah is a book that's full of judgment. I don't know if you've ever read through the book of Isaiah. It's a little difficult to read at places. There are chapters and chapters that speak of judgment, judgment on the nations, on Babylon, on Assyria, on Egypt, on Moab, and the list just goes on and on. And the Lord judges each of these nations for their wrongdoing, for their sin. He even pronounces judgment on God's chosen people, the nation of Israel. By this time, Israel has divided into two nations. You've got the northern kingdom of Israel, southern kingdom of Judah. Between the beginning of the book of Isaiah and the end of the book of Isaiah, we've got some history going on. Between the beginning and the end of the book, the northern kingdom of Israel is taken into captivity by the Assyrian Empire. But the southern kingdom, Judah, still remains. And early in the book, Isaiah prophesies that Assyria is going to enter Judah. They're going to come even as close as the capital, Jerusalem. But the Lord is going to protect Jerusalem. He's going to protect Judah. And this comes to pass in the chapters immediately before chapter 40, a few chapters before this. The Syrians come to Jerusalem. They are full of themselves. They've just defeated the Syrians. Notice I said the Assyrians defeated the Syrians, two different groups. The Assyrians defeated the Syrians, they defeated the northern kingdom of Israel, and they come to Jerusalem. We've got this. We're coming. We've defeated the Syrians. We've defeated the Israelites. Their gods couldn't protect them. Who do you think your god is? He can't protect you. But the Lord shows up, and the Lord sends his angel. One angel, identified as the angel of the Lord, to kill 185,000 Assyrian troops. The Lord showed that he is very much able to protect his people when he chooses to. So this was a victory for the Lord, for Judah. But then in the chapter right before Isaiah 40, chapter 39, King Hezekiah, who's the king of Judah, is visited by the ambassadors of a different nation, another foreign nation, Babylon. And Hezekiah shows these ambassadors all the wealth of Jerusalem. He's showing them everything that Judah has. And then Isaiah, the prophet, comes to Hezekiah, and he tells him, I don't know if it's a rebuke or if it's just for information, but Isaiah tells Hezekiah, Those ambassadors from that foreign country, Babylon, the Babylonians are going to come and destroy Judah and Jerusalem within a few generations. So this is still a good 50, 100 years down the road. But this is coming in the future. That's a sobering message. The Lord's just given this great victory. And now we hear, well, okay, maybe the sins of Judah weren't quite as bad as the sins of Israel, so they get another hundred years before their judgment, but the judgment is still coming. The Lord has to judge sin. Somewhere between 50, 100 years later, the prophet Habakkuk, He's going to pray to the Lord in the book of Habakkuk, and he begs the Lord to bring justice against the wickedness that he sees in the nation of Judah. So Judah has progressed, digressed in wickedness to this point, and Habakkuk says, how long, Lord? Why are you not doing something about this wickedness? And the Lord responds to Habakkuk, telling him that he would indeed judge, he would bring judgment on Judah, and he's going to do it, again, by bringing the Babylonians to destroy them. Not completely destroy, but to judge them. And Habakkuk then responds, and this is rightfully so, he says, but the Babylonians are more wicked than the people in Judah. How can you use a more wicked nation to defeat a wicked nation but not as wicked of a nation? And the Lord responds to Habakkuk. It's very interesting to read the conversation between Habakkuk and the Lord in the book of Habakkuk. But Habakkuk responds to the Lord, or sorry, the Lord responds to Habakkuk. I got mixed up there. The Lord responds to Habakkuk by telling him that Babylon too is going to be destroyed. The Lord uses Babylon. to destroy Judah, but then when the Lord's done with Babylon, he can destroy them. Tells us a little bit about how great our God is. It's like he's, we worry about the nations, we'll talk about this this evening, but we worry about what the nations are doing and the Lord's like, I'm gonna use this nation to destroy that nation, when I'm done with that nation, I'll destroy them too. And why do we get so concerned about our international affairs? I think we sometimes forget who's truly on the throne. But no nation, this is the point, no nation escapes the justice of our God. And this is how Habakkuk describes the Lord. You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong. That's the God that we serve, a God of holiness, a God of justice. And the book of Isaiah is full of these pronouncements of judgment on evil. And that's sobering, that's hard. But not only is it full of judgment, The book of Isaiah is also a book that's full of glory, of future glory to look forward to. I mean, when we, the Christmas season, we know a number of different prophecies from the book of Isaiah, right? About a virgin conceiving, about prince of peace, all these prophecies about the suffering servant that would come, all of these prophecies about the Lord Jesus. So there's this glory to come and it's glory for Israel. So how can this be? How can Israel be judged and yet have this glorious future? And it's not just Israel. It is even other nations like Egypt and Assyria. So Isaiah is saying, even though the Lord is judging Israel, He's not forsaking them. He still has a plan. He has a glorious future in store for them. And it's a future, a glorious future for anyone who joins them in following the Lord. This is a lengthier passage. I'm gonna read for you Isaiah chapter 19, beginning in verse 19, down through verse 25. In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at its border. It will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt. When they cry to the Lord because of oppressors, He will send them a savior and defender and deliver them. And the Lord will make Himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day and worship with sacrifice and offering, and they will make vows to the Lord and perform them. And the Lord will strike Egypt, striking and healing, and they will return to the Lord, and He will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them. In that day, there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. In that day, Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, Blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, my inheritance. How many of you knew that passage was in scripture? That's not a very familiar passage, but it speaks of the glory that we have in the future, that the Lord has plans for these nations, not just plans of judgment, but plans of glory. That future glory makes the judgment seem not quite so bad anymore, right? But what is it that gives us this comfort? Why could the Israelites take comfort despite the prophecy of coming judgment? And why can we also take comfort? Here's the big idea I want for us to walk away from here with this morning. We can be comforted because Yahweh is coming. That's the name of our God. The Lord is coming, and that gives us comfort. That gives us encouragement. We all have those difficulties in life, but those difficulties, when compared to the glorious future when Christ comes, when our Lord comes, we have no reason to be anxious. Why? Because Yahweh is coming. But you might be thinking, why should the coming of our Lord bring me comfort today? He's coming in the future. Why should it bring me comfort today? What is so wonderful about His coming that would make me okay with pain and difficulty here until He comes? That'd have to be something pretty amazing, right? To remove my anxiousness. I assure you, the Lord's coming is that amazing. If you this morning will be willing to take your eyes off of your troubles and place them on the coming of the Lord, your anxiety, I'm not going to say it's going to immediately disappear, but it will begin to disappear. Let me give you three reasons from Isaiah chapter 40 why the Lord's coming can give us comfort. Number one this morning, we can take comfort in the coming of the Lord because the Lord pardons our sins. Yahweh pardons. Isaiah begins here in chapter 40, verse 1, is a message of comfort. Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. This is a command from the Lord to Isaiah to bring comfort to the people. And what is this message of comfort? We see in verse 2, So what's the message? It's threefold. Number one, Jerusalem's warfare is ended. Number two, her iniquity is pardoned. And number three, this one's a little bit less clear in the text. She's received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. I think the idea here is that she, instead, that Israel, instead of receiving judgment for her sins, she's going to receive a double portion, a double blessing. from the Lord. That's a wonderful message of comfort. But all you have to do is look at the news and you realize this isn't the case yet. Israel's warfare is not yet ended. So this is something that is yet future. He's speaking of a future day. Remember, we're looking here at poetry. This portion of God's Word is poetry. It might be a little bit looser with its time references than a narrative would be. Because as we speak, Israel is very much in war. The Lord's speaking of a yet future day. when Israel's warfare will be ended, when her sin will be pardoned, and when she will receive this double blessing from the Lord. What a day Israel has to look forward to. But just as her warfare is not yet ended, just as she has not yet received this double blessing from the Lord, so Israel's iniquity, or her sin, is not yet pardoned. There are many religious Jews today, but their religion will not pardon their sin, no more than anyone's religion. The doing of good works will pardon anyone's sin. In Isaiah's day, the people were about to be taken off into exile, but even the judgment would not pardon their sins. There's only one God who pardons sins, and that is our Lord. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 22 says, sorry, I forgot to show you those verses. Isaiah chapter 44, verse 22 says, I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you. We are sinful people. Like Israel, we actively, continually rebel against our God. Isaiah chapter 64 verse 6 says, you may be familiar with this verse, we have all become like one who is unclean and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. How does God pardon someone like that? How does God pardon a sinner? As the book of Romans says, how can God both be just and the justifier? How can he declare wicked people to be righteous and yet still himself be just? The answer, as we well know, is Jesus Christ. Isaiah prophesies about the Lord Jesus, not by name, not by the name Jesus, but he prophesies about him approximately 700 years before Jesus is born. You know this passage as well, Isaiah chapter 53. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely, he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. We're going to celebrate the Lord's table this morning. And what do we remember in that ordinance that the Lord gave us? We remember that the Lord's body was broken, his blood was shed, and he died in our place. Therefore, we stand in his place. He died in our place. Therefore, we stand in his place. That's completely right with God. Sinless and spotless before the Holy God. We have been pardoned. Not by some arbitrary decision that God just decided to pardon us. Not like a presidential pardon, for example. but we are pardoned because Jesus took the punishment. He took the judgment in our place. He died and we are pardoned. It's because of this pardon that the Lord offers us that we can therefore take comfort in his coming. Verse three in Isaiah chapter 40 reads, a voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. A voice is crying. We must make a way for the Lord, for Yahweh. He is coming. Pave the road. Make the highway straight. Prepare His way. Yahweh is coming. In all four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, this voice of one crying is identified as who? It's John the Baptist, right? The forerunner of the Lord Jesus Christ. John 1, verse 19. This is the testimony of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who are you? He confessed and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, what then, are you Elijah? He said, I am not. Are you the prophet? And he answered, no. So they said to him, who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? He said, I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said. So John identified himself as this one crying out to prepare the way of the Lord. But who is it that John prepared the way for? It's Jesus, right? Jesus is Yahweh. Jesus coming to earth began the fulfillment of Isaiah chapter 40, but it by no means completed it. As we already said, Israel's warfare is not yet finished. Israel's pardon is not yet given. She's not yet received a double blessing from the Lord. But we know who it is that brings all this to pass. It is our Savior, the Lord Jesus. Continuing on in Isaiah chapter 40, verse four, every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain and hill be made low, the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. When the Lord comes, when Jesus comes, it will be a day of glory. All people, all flesh will see it. But not all people will benefit or will be comforted by it. The reason that we can take comfort in the coming of the Lord is because we've received his pardon. So the question for us this morning is, Have you been pardoned by the Lord? Have you embraced the death of Jesus Christ as being in your place? Have you embraced his righteousness as your own? If you haven't, Isaiah 40 is not really a message of comfort for you, because the same God who comes in glory is the same God who comes in judgment. It's only comfort for those of us who have been pardoned. We who have been pardoned are comforted, we are encouraged by the coming of our God. For the unpardoned, it will be a day of judgment and terror. So will you today embrace his pardon? That's our invitation, that's our desire for you this morning. So for those of us who have been pardoned, we can take comfort in the coming of the Lord because he has pardoned our sins. No matter what we're facing this morning, may the truth of the Lord's pardon encourage us to continue on, to remain faithful despite whatever difficulties we might face until he comes. So we come then to our second reason that we can take comfort in the coming of the Lord. And that is because the Lord, Yahweh, promises to come. It's assured. He's promised it. His coming wouldn't provide us very much comfort, wouldn't provide us very much encouragement, if it weren't certain. And just this past Tuesday, I had the privilege of going with Jeff and our speaker from last week, Pastor James, and his wife, Angela, down to Pinnacles National Park. And Jeff was our guide. I'm going to throw you under the bus a little, Jeff. Jeff was our guide. He took us out to the balcony caves there at Pinnacles. I'd never been there before, so I didn't know where we were going. Obviously, James and Angela had never been there before. And for most of the hike, Jeff knew where he was going. Most of the hike. There were a few times that he wasn't quite sure, and we had to figure it out. And it worked out fine. There was no issue. We didn't really get lost at all. But, you know, there's some times that you wish you had a little more certainty. But we didn't always have certainty. We kept moving and we figured out where we were eventually. But the point is, we as humans don't always have certainty, right? We don't always know for certain that something is true or something is right. But with the Lord, it's different. When the Lord makes a promise, It is certain. Notice the basis here, verse 5. We already read it, but notice the very last part of verse 5. This is the basis on which we know that the Lord is coming. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. How do we know that? for the mouth of the Lord has spoken." That's the basis. That is our confidence. The Lord has spoken it. Therefore, it is so. And this thought is repeated many times throughout the book of Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 1, verse 19 and 20, if you are willing and obedient, You shall eat the good of the land, but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword. What's the basis? For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. In Isaiah chapter 24, verse 3, the earth shall be utterly empty and utterly plundered. Again, the basis, for the Lord has spoken this word. And lastly, Isaiah 58 verse 14, Then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth. I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. And the basis is for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Clearly, the Lord doesn't have to give us any other guarantee other than his own proven character. Because he has spoken it, it will come to pass. And that ought to give us some comfort and some encouragement this morning. The Lord's coming is certain. And he continues this thought in the next three verses. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 6. A voice says, cry. And I said, what shall I 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 God will stand forever. The Lord compares people here to grass. That's a real compliment there. But grass withers, flowers fade. So do people and their beauty, just the reality of life. But the Lord and what he says stand forever. When he speaks, his word will remain true. If that doesn't encourage you, perhaps it's because you don't believe his word. You don't believe his promise that he's coming. You might believe it in theory. I mean, you might not come out and say, no, I don't believe that. I deny what he says. But do you live your life as if he is not coming, as if his promise is not sure? Are you worried about something in your life? Are you anxious? Again, as we meditate on this truth of the Lord's coming, There's really no reason for us to be anxious. I know there are real concerns in our lives, but when you think about our future and the glory that the Lord will bring, we don't have real reason to be anxious, to be concerned, to be worried. Our minds need to be focused. on the glory, the future of glory that we have with our God. That's where our minds should be. And you know, the irony is that we can't stop being anxious by trying to stop being anxious. The more you try to stop being anxious, the more you think about being anxious, right? The way to stop being anxious is to turn your attention. to the glories, to the God who is coming. The Lord is coming. We can take comfort in the coming of our Lord because he has promised. And third this morning, this is our final reason why we can take comfort. That is because the Lord pastors. It's an interesting word choice, I know. But what does the word pastor mean? It means somebody who shepherds. We're currently without a pastor here at Calvary, or are we? The Lord is our pastor in a greater sense. Psalm 23, verse one, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. So yes, we do not have an earthly man leading us, but we're not left without a shepherd. It is comforting to us that when the Lord comes, he will shepherd his people. He's not only a God of glory, but he's also a God who cares. Look with me at verse nine. Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news. Lift up your voice of strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news. Lift it up, fear not. Say to the cities of Judah, behold your God. The Lord's calling on Zion, which is just another name for Jerusalem. He's calling on Jerusalem to be a herald of good news to the rest of Judah. And the message is to behold your God. The word behold means to look at, to take in, to notice, to drink in the beauty and the glory of your God. Verse 10 reads, Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him. Behold, his reward is with him and his recompense before him. Again, the primary focus here is on the comfort and the encouragement that we receive from the coming of the Lord. But again, let me remind you that his coming in might, his repaying here, his recompense, is only a comfort if we have been pardoned. It's only encouraging if we have a relationship with the Lord. If we don't, that's a scary thought to be recompensed, to be repaid, to be rewarded for what we have done. The Lord, the creator of the universe, is coming, and he's coming not as a baby in a manger. He's coming as the king. He's coming as sovereign. He's coming as the judge. And the question is, are you and I ready for our God to appear? He's not only a God of might and justice and judgment and power. He is also a God of tender love and compassion. He's a shepherd to his people. Look at verse 11 with me. 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 that are with young. Isn't that such a beautiful picture of our Lord? He is the good shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep. He cares for us. He loves us. He shepherds us. He shepherds us now and he will shepherd us forever. So why should we be anxious? It says here that he carries us, he carries the lambs in his arms. Just such a picture of the tender care that our God has for us. He carries us, he holds us close, he gently leads us. We can take comfort because the Lord pastors, he shepherds us. So are you discouraged this morning? Are you anxious about tomorrow, about next year, about 10 years from now? May I encourage you, turn your eyes away from those concerns, cast those concerns on the Lord. 1 Peter 5, 7 says, casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you. Let your mind meditate on the coming of our wonderful Lord. We can be comforted today. because the Lord is coming. He pardons, he promises, and he pastors. Our Lord is coming. Would you go with me to the Lord in prayer?