Well, it's always so good to be with all of you. Hearts are increasingly affectionate for you guys. And we think of you fondly and thankful for the Lord's good providence in leading us down here. And had a wonderful afternoon at the Oberholzer's. It was great. We were talking in the car on the way back here. And we've got this problem, because every house we go to, the kids say, can we go back there again next time? Which means now we've got a handful of houses we're going to have to visit every time we come. So if we could do like a dinner on the run or something like that, because we're in trouble. So had a wonderful time. Well, if you would turn to Isaiah chapter 40, Isaiah 40, verses 3 through 5. Isaiah 40, starting in verse 3. 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. Let's pray. Lord, we come to you and we ask that you would help us this evening as we look at your word to understand it and understand it correctly. Lord, we ask that your spirit would be here working in our minds, working in our hearts, doing that work of helping us to see, enlightening the eyes of our hearts to understand, Lord, that you would then help us to respond and apply what we have in front of us in right ways. Use me as your vessel and your servant. Open the ears and hearts of all of us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. I was reading recently about a man, his name is Jim Quillen. Jim Quillen was a fellow who was imprisoned at Alcatraz Prison, maybe you're familiar with Alcatraz, the rock right outside San Francisco. It's just a notoriously horrible prison and a hard one to get out of. He was imprisoned in this prison in the 1940s. At one point he found himself being imprisoned even further. He was put in solitary confinement there in Alcatraz. They have a name for it. They call it The Hole. And to be thrown in The Hole is horrible. It's a place where there's no light. They turn off all the lights, and you can't see a thing. It's a place where they've soundproofed it so you can't hear anything. Of course, you're by yourself. It's chilly. It's cold. And this man, Jim, got thrown in there for 19 consecutive days. He wrote this, he said, worse than being cold was the feeling of total isolation from the world. Being unable to see or hear is an awful experience for someone who has no physical impairment. He went on to say that it's easy to fall into a state of depression, as you can well imagine. Think about that. 19 days, solitary confinement, you can't even see. You know, there's something about darkness that we don't like. We don't like darkness. We don't like not being able to see. The school building that I used to teach in was an old institutional school. It was more than 100 years old. And my classroom was on the third floor. I can remember one night, I'd forgotten something at the school, and I decided to run by real quickly and pick up whatever it was. And I was hiking up the steps to the third floor, and I'd passed the second floor, and then realized, oh no, the switch for the, this is odd, the switch for the lights on the third floor was on the second floor. I'd missed it, and I thought, I'll just go on. And I'm walking through this old, dark building. Have you ever had this happen, kids? Right? It's dark, and then you start thinking things, and I basically ran to my classroom and threw on the lights. Because I didn't like the darkness. Maybe some of you have had that sort of experience. Kids, do you maybe perhaps not like the darkness? Maybe you like having that nightlight on in your room at night. Something about darkness. I remember talking recently with my wife. We were talking about what it would be like to lose your eyesight. And that fear of going blind, not being able to see. We don't like dark. There's also that darkness that's not literal darkness, but it's still darkness and we don't like it. Have you ever felt that you're in the dark about something? You know what I mean? You're out of the loop. You haven't been filled in. There's knowledge, but you've not been given access to it. You know, you show up at the Christmas party in your shirt and your tie, and then you discover that everybody else is doing that ugly sweater thing. And you're thinking, why was I in the dark on this? Or perhaps it's that time you find out at work that some significant decision has been made, and it's been made in your area of expertise, and they made the decision without you, and you say, why was I out of the loop? Why was I in the dark on this? We don't like being in the dark. And sometimes we are in the dark simply because We don't know everything, right? There's plenty of things we just don't know. And so we look down the road to the future and we wonder, what's my future going to hold? What's going to be my job? Who's going to be my future spouse? Perhaps I'm thinking, is this the best investment for my money? I wish I knew, right? But I'm in the dark. We think about the holidays and we're wondering what we should do. Will my relatives be offended if I don't show up, if I don't visit, if I don't send them a card? Recently, my family has had this experience of not knowing exactly where we're at. We've got one foot in Camp Hill and one foot in Hazleton, and we wish we knew exactly how the timetable was going to unfold, but we're in the dark about that. It's not fun. We don't like being in the dark. And you all know there are other darknesses as well. There's those darknesses of loneliness. That darkness where you're by yourself and perhaps you're around others but you still feel like you're by yourself and you're stuck in a situation that no one understands. Maybe you're suffering and in your suffering it's terribly lonely because no one really knows what it's like to go through that suffering except you and you're alone in that suffering. And there's another darkness. It's a darkness we all know and it's the darkness of living in sin. It's that dark cold feeling that sin gives us and we all know that and really darkness is a Perfect description for life in sin and a life of guilt and the Bible picks up picks up on that imagery doesn't it? Ephesians 5 refers to the unfruitful works of darkness Colossians 1 first Peter to talk about how someone in sin is in the domain of darkness the the the region of darkness first John 2 and Says, if you hate your brother, you're walking in darkness. He says, you've been blinded. Your eyes are blinded. We don't like darkness. Now, when you're in the dark, when you're in that dark place, what is it that you most need? What do you most desire? You're in solitary confinement. You're in the hole. And what is it that you want? Well, you know that what you want, what you need, is light. You want light in your darkness. So if you're in the dark because you don't know what the dress code is for the Christmas party, you want light, you want enlightenment, you want somebody to have filled you in. Or if you're in the darkness of sin, what you need is the glorious light of salvation. If you're in the darkness of loneliness, you want the light of the presence of others, people who can be there with you, someone who understands you. Now I want you to hold on to two of those ideas. I want you to hold on to the idea of light and the idea of presence. And I don't mean like Christmas presents, but like having someone with you and being present with you. Okay, presence. Light and presence. Because in our passage tonight, in Isaiah 40, we're going to focus on a particular word, and this word has to do with both light and presence. I bet if I gave you a moment, you could let your eyes scan over the passage and you can find that word, or you could just look at the sermon title. That word is glory. Glory. And let me tell you right up front what I hope we'll see this evening. It is the glory of God that can radically change your darkness. The glory of God can radically change your darkness. Now, the first thing I want for us to do is to define this word, glory. In verse 5, it says that the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. So what is this glory of the Lord? You'd think that'd be a pretty simple question to answer. Glory is a common word. We use it frequently at Christmas. You see it around us all the time. It's on the cards. It's on the decorations. It's in the Christmas carols that we hear sung. But it's funny. How would you define the glory of God? Turns out, it's actually not super simple. There's difficulty to it. Part of the reason is that the word glory comes out of four different Hebrew words and three different Greek words. And the English translation just translates them all as glory. But then even in the English, it all gets mushed up. And there's different uses of the word glory. So it's complex. One way that glory is used in the Bible is to talk about God's reputation. His worth, His renown, His character. You'll see that sort of thing in Psalm 96. Declare His glory among the nations. That's declare who He is and His worth and His reputation and His renown. Or Psalm 29. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name. Ascribe to Him the worth, the reputation that is due His name. Often when you hear the verb form of glory, which the verb form of glory, kids, is glorify, right? So to glorify someone is often that kind of idea. You're extolling them. You're making known their reputation and their renown. But the word glory is also used in another way in scripture. And the second one is really the one that we want to focus on because it's how it's used here in Isaiah chapter 40. So often in scripture, glory doesn't refer merely to God's reputation, but to the revealed presence of God. refers to the revealed presence of God. And when I say revealed presence of God, by revealed presence I mean actual physical. God is present, God is there, and you can see it. It is revealed. It's this glory surrounding his revelation of himself. And it's it signifies that he's present and he's present there in a in a special way. Often it's seen as a brilliant light, which is who God is, right? God is light and him is no darkness at all. It's this brightness. Sometimes it's a cloud of fire and and light. Sometimes you'll hear it referred to as God's Shekinah glory, and that word Shekinah has to do with dwelling, and it says glory dwelling in a particular place. Now God, of course, is not visible, right? In our children's catechism, we ask this question, what is God? And the answer is God is a spirit. He does not have a body like man. So God is a spirit and you cannot see him, which means that this Shekinah glory of God, this light and brilliance, is not a part of who God is. He's a spirit, but it's rather how he chooses to reveal himself at certain times and in certain methods, in certain ways. And so that in order to show his special presence, and by the way we say special presence because God is omnipresent, God is everywhere, But sometimes he wants to reveal his special presence. And so what he does is he chooses to create a glory that we can see, a glory that is actually visible. You might remember Exodus chapter three. That's the story of Moses. He's out in the wilderness. He's tending the sheep. And what does he come across? He comes across this bush, right? Looks like it's burning, but it's not. It's the this this glory of God. And he's told, take off your sandals. This is holy ground. Or if you can, turn back to Exodus chapter 13. Exodus chapter 13, verse 20. The Israelites have been on the move. Moses has led them out of Israel. And then verse 20, we're told this. I'm sorry, out of Egypt. And in verse 20, we're told this. And they moved on from Sukkoth and encamped at Etham on the edge of the wilderness. And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people." Remember that? That pillar of fire and that pillar of cloud. And we're told that that's God leading them. It's this revealed presence of God. Or flip a little bit further over to chapter 16, and this is the first time in scripture that this glory is referred to with that actual word glory. The Israelites, still Exodus, they're doing what they do so often is complaining, and they're complaining about the lack of food, and they're grumbling. Chapter 16, verse 9, Then Moses said to Aaron, Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, Come near before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling, And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. They could see it, this revealed presence of God, the glory of the Lord. Of course, we could go on throughout scripture and we could talk about God's glory appearing at Mount Sinai when Moses goes up and there's rumblings and cloud and fire, or it appears over the tabernacle or the glory of the Lord appearing over Solomon's temple. We're told in Second Chronicles seven, the glory of the Lord filled the temple and the priests could not enter the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord's house. So the glory of the Lord, it's this revealed presence of God. And most often it's seen in this dazzling display of light and splendor and majesty, because how else would he reveal himself? I want you to notice two elements that are connected with God's glory. There is light and there is presence. There is light and there is the presence of God. It's those very things that we so often feel that we need when we're in the dark. Now let's go back to Isaiah chapter 40, and I want for us to look at these few verses so that we can see the importance of this revealed glory. Really, this is my second point, the importance of this glory, and my first point was defining what this glory is. So what is the importance of this glory? Well, verse 3 begins with these three little words, a voice cries. a voice cries. Everything else that follows is what this voice is crying, but it doesn't tell us who this voice is. Who does this voice belong to? In Isaiah, it's left vague. It's almost as if the point is that it's the message we want to focus on and not the messenger. The message is more important than the messenger. Now, we probably all know that the New Testament is going to come along and it's going to apply this verse to John the Baptist. But if you think about it, even John the Baptist understood that the message is more important than himself as the messenger. He said, Christ must increase. I must decrease. And so the same is true here. It's the message that is important. And this little introduction is saying, listen. Hear this message. It's important. Listen to this voice. And so what's the message? In the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert the highway for our God. These words are spoken by Isaiah, and he is speaking them to Israel. And he's actually looking ahead in time, and he's anticipating that they will one day be taken as captives into Babylon. They're going to be carried off into exile. And he spoke these words long ahead of time in order to comfort them. He's comforting them in a situation that they will one day be in. And he's saying, look, you won't be in captivity forever. If you look back to verse 2, your iniquity is pardoned, your punishment is over. He speaks these words to them. It might be tempting to interpret this highway in verse 3 as a highway that the Israelites will one day get to take back to Jerusalem. They're going to be in Babylon. They're going to be over here. And eventually, they're going to eventually return to Jerusalem, kind of like the Exodus. And they'll travel through the wilderness. And they'll get to the promised land. But look here. In this case, the highway is being prepared not so that they can go somewhere else. Not so that they can get out of the wilderness of exile, which will happen, but here this highway is being prepared so that God can come to them. God can come to them in their wilderness. And so this is not the language of God leading us out of a hard situation. This is the language of God coming to us within our hard situation. Prepare for Him to come into your wilderness. Kind of reminds me of Isaiah 43, where God says, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you, right? And the fire is not going to burn you because I'm going to be with you through that fire, through that water. Well, then if God is coming to be with us, what do we do? Well, I want you to notice in this passage all of the imperatives. Notice all of the commands that are located in this passage. It says, prepare the way, make the highway straight. You do this. You prepare for the coming of our God. Verse 4 gives even more specific imperatives. It says, take the low places and fill them in. Take the high places and cut them down. So make this road smooth and level and easy to travel on. It's a command of preparation. Get things ready. It's kind of like when the guests are coming over and you have to push all the Legos out of the floor, right? So the guests can get through. We ever have that problem, kids? Right? Prepare the way. Make the path ready. Now, you know that this is figurative language. God doesn't actually need mountains to be cleared out of the way so that he can get through. This is God we're talking about. He doesn't need valleys filled in so he can somehow get to us. So what is the way in which we prepare for the coming of God? How do we prepare for the coming of God? Maybe to answer that question, we should look at the New Testament fulfillment of this passage. is quoted in all four of the gospels. Each of the four gospels quote this passage and they quote it in reference to John the Baptist. They point out that the voice crying is John. It's John the Baptist. And he's telling people to prepare. And you know who he's preparing for. He's preparing for Jesus. He's preparing for the Messiah. And how does John want people to prepare? How does John tell people to prepare for the coming of God? He's saying the kingdom of God is at hand, the king is coming, how should people prepare? And John's answer is repent, repent, receive forgiveness of sins, be baptized, repent. Brothers and sisters, that is how we prepare for the coming of God. of the King, of the Messiah, of our God. That's how we prepare. We repent. We identify our sins. We acknowledge their wrongness. We're grieved by their wrongness. We confess them. And then we repent. We turn from them. We say, I want nothing to do with the darkness of sin. And we turn to the light. We turn to the glory of God. A Christmas hymn that we sing so often. We just sang it this evening. joy to the world. The Lord has come. There's this coming of the Lord. Joy. Let earth prepare. Let earth receive her King. Let every heart, what's next? Prepare Him room. Prepare. Let every heart prepare for the coming of God. Back to Isaiah 40. We know that whatever is coming is important. Because look at all the preparation. Look at how everything's been prepared and everything's ready. And then, in verse 5, we find what it is that we've been preparing for. Verse 5 says, And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. How do we know? How certain is this? The mouth of the Lord has spoken. It's a certainty. It's going to happen. But notice, the glory of the Lord will be revealed. That light, that divine presence will be revealed. This is worth preparing for. This is worth the painful work of repentance. This is worth the back-breaking labor of moving mountains and filling entire valleys, because this is God. This is the presence of God. This is the glory of God. And our pastors, look at what happens when you see the glory of God. When you see the glory of God, you're so excited that you want to talk about it. Look at verse 9. You want to tell the world. In verse 9, we've got this herald, this messenger, and he's climbing a mountain. And it says, 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. It's not just Israel. I know here it says it's tell Judah, but it's not just Judah who's going to hear this good news because back in verse 5 we were told that all flesh will see it. All of mankind will see it. The entire world will know that the glory of the Lord is here. Which begs the question, when? When will this be? When will the glory of the Lord be revealed? And so thirdly, let's look at the coming of this glory. The book of Isaiah is a lot of fun to read because he, like so many of the Old Testament prophets, when you look at their prophecies, they have near fulfillments and they have far fulfillments. I've been told if you could kind of picture someone on a vista, on a lookout. And in the distance is a range of mountains. And there's another range of mountains. And there's even more ranges of mountains. And maybe you've experienced this, but sometimes it's hard to even see which mountains are in which range. Which is the second range? Which is the fourth range? And sometimes the prophets themselves were not even really clear on these ranges of mountains. When will this be fulfilled? Which mountain range will it be? Sometimes it even applies to more than one mountain range. And so here, what's Isaiah referring to when he says that the glory of the Lord will be revealed? What are we talking about? Someone might argue that it's a reference to the rebuilding of the temple after the Israelites returned to Jerusalem. Perhaps you remember the story. It's the story of Nehemiah and then Ezra, and they rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Ezra comes along. They begin to rebuild the temple. Was that when God's glory returns to Jerusalem? Well, interestingly, there's no record of God's Shekinah glory falling on that newly built temple. In fact, what we are told is that all the old men that were there, that remembered the old temple, were weeping because the new temple lacked the glory of the old one. So then when? When was this glory of God going to be revealed? And here's the beautiful answer, and you know it. The glory of God was revealed in Jesus Christ, which means that this moment of Christ's entrance into the world, this moment that we think so much about at Christmas. was a hugely important event. The glory of God is coming into the world. In fact, all of the entire timeline of history has been preparation, has been preparing for this coming of Jesus Christ. And all of the Old Testament history leans towards the advent of Jesus Christ. This is the pivotal moment when the glory of God is going to be clearly revealed to all of mankind. Remember, it was in the fullness of time that God sent his Son. It was at just the right moment. And here it is, the Son whose the glory of God has come. Now, how? How is the Son, how is Jesus, the glory of God? And let me show you that in three different ways. How is the Son the glory of God? Well, first, the Son has always and eternally been the glory of God. The Son has always and eternally been the glory of God. 2 Corinthians 4 says that we see the glory of God in the face of Christ. Hebrews 1 says that He, the Son, is the radiance of the glory of God. Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God. It reminds us of that Shekinah glory, that brilliant light. It's saying the sun is the radiance. Those rays, perhaps you've seen them cutting down from the clouds, the rays of the sun. And Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God. Or John chapter 1. Turn to John chapter 1. We'll look at a number of verses in here. John chapter 1 agrees that Christ is the glory and the light of God. I'll start in verse 4. You remember this, verse 1, in the beginning was the Word, and of course that's a reference to Jesus. Verse 4 says, in Him, in Jesus, was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. See, he's the light. He's the light in the darkness. Verse 6, there is a man sent from God whose name was John. There's John the Baptist. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He, John, was not the light, but he came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. Jesus is the light. He is the glory of God. Jesus in his high priestly prayer in John 17 speaks of the glory I had. He's speaking to the Father. The glory I had with you before the world existed. He has eternally and always been the glory of God. Secondly, Jesus is the glory of God in his incarnation. Jesus is the glory of God in his incarnation. Think about it. If glory is God's revealed presence, then the incarnation, this taking on of flesh, the incarnation of Jesus, is the moment at which God's glory was revealed in actual physical presence. So no longer is the glory of God a bright and brilliant light. It's now a man. It is flesh. This glory is one that is approachable. This glory is one that is accessible. Remember that story in Luke chapter 2? We read it tonight. Shepherds are out in the fields. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared to them. And the glory of the Lord shone around them. How did they respond? They were terrified. They were sore afraid. They're covering their eyes because this is the dazzling light and splendor of God's glory, which is the appropriate response. But then as that story goes on, You remember the angels sing glory to God in the highest, angels depart, shepherds turn to one another, and they say, come, let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing of which the angels have spoken. Now think about that. They were sorely afraid of the glory of God revealed from the heavens, but then they eagerly sought the glory of God revealed in a manger. There was the glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ, accessible Approachable. And so this Jesus, who is full of this Shekinah glory, right? We see that in the transfiguration story, right? He allows his brilliant glory to be seen, chooses to veil his glory when he takes on flesh. But is he still the glory of God? Sure thing. He's still the glory of God. Look at verse 14 in John 1. It says, and the Word, that's Jesus, the Word became flesh and He dwelt among us. And does it say, and so we didn't get to see His glory? No. He became flesh, He dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory. Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. This incarnated Son, God with us, is the glory of God. Thirdly, Jesus is the glory of God in his death. Jesus is the glory of God in his death. Now, this one might seem odd. This one might seem out of place. But do you remember what Jesus said? When he referred to his death, he said, the hour has come for the Son of Man, he's talking about his death, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. To be glorified. Now, how does that work? How is Christ on the cross a moment of glory? How is Christ covered in blood and sweat and in agony? How is that a moment of glory for Jesus Christ? Well, think of what glory is. Glory is God's revealed presence. Was God present on the cross? He sure was. Was God revealing who He is on the cross in a remarkable way? He was revealing what kind of God He is. You see, God's desire to reveal His glory meant He was willing to go to the cross so that we might see who He truly is, what kind of God He is, and so that we might see the fullness of His glory. So make a highway for our God. Prepare a way for Him. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh will see it together. Remember that darkness we talked about? None of us like being in the darkness. You know what your darkness is right now. It's cold. It's miserable. And when you're there, what is it that you look for? You look for light and you look for the presence of someone who can understand you. God offers that to you. He offers that to you in His, He offers you His glory and His light and His presence. He offers it to you in the person of Jesus Christ. And so why would you, in your darkness, not want to come to Him? He's offering you His light. He's offering you His presence. There's this passage, it's another one of those passages we love to read at Christmas time. I think it's Handel's Messiah that does this to us, but it's great for Christmas. Isaiah 9, verse 2 says, The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt, you lived there, in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. Why? What's this light? Fast forward to verse 6. For to us a child is born. To us, a son is given. There's the light. There's Jesus. Or Isaiah 60 is just another fabulous passage. Isaiah 60, verse 1. Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples, But the Lord will arise upon you, and His glory will be seen upon you." There's that revealed presence of God. I encourage you, turn to the true light. Turn to true glory. Stop chasing those false glories. Stop chasing those imitation glories, those pretend glories. You know what they are. There are those things that are supposed to help you numb the pain. There are those things that offer you flickers of light, but the light's soon gone, kind of like a firefly. There are those things that promise that they'll release you from the darkness, but they're empty promises. They didn't work last time, and they're not going to work this time. Don't chase those false glories. Jesus Christ is the true glory. He knows how to deal with your darkness Paul Tripp Wrote these words. He was talking about Christmas in the incarnation. He says this he says the incarnation of Jesus is about a glorious Savior coming to give glorious grace to people who have forsaken his glory and for the temporarily satisfying shadow glories of the created world. This glorious savior comes to give glorious grace to people who forsake his glory for pretend glories, for false glories. We're guilty of that, aren't we? We're guilty of chasing after shadow glories. But brothers and sisters, there is a greater glory. There's a greater glory to be pursued. It's been revealed to us. And so let's prepare our hearts for this Lord. Let's make ready for his glory to be revealed in us. Let's pray. Lord, we ask that you would do that. We ask that you would prepare our hearts. But Lord, we know that part of that is our job. You call us to be making the highways level and straight. You call us to the work of preparation. You call us to the work of repentance. So, Lord, make sin grievous to us. Make us uncomfortable, even haters of the darkness that we know in ourselves. Help us to confess it, turn from it, and repent so that, Lord, your glory can be seen and dazzling display to us and in us and through us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.