The Wonder of Waiting - Isaiah 40:31

Did you ever wonder?

I do. Did you ever wonder? Why the sun always rises but the stars never fall?

Why dry land is never satisfied by water? And why fire never says enough? The wonder of comfort and statutes and hearing God's voice. So, yesterday I was at our Christian Businessmen's Committee and the lady there, Jan, was quoting one of her favorite—I forget—pastors and talking about how the Holy Spirit bears us up like, you know, wings on eagles. And I couldn't help but think of Isaiah 40 and, you know, that whole idea of the wings of eagles.

And I have for years marveled at the word that says, you know, wait on the Lord in Isaiah 40, the last verse, which is verse 31, that they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles, and they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not grow faint, right? And so that idea of eagles we talked about in previous podcasts is this netzer, which begins with a nun, which has to do with this great faith, and then a shin and a reish. And it's like this reish is telling us that this is the faith in the fire king, so to speak, or the number one in that. And the idea of that eagle's wings, of course, comes from Exodus 19 as well, and it's certainly in Revelation. And we see that all over the place, but I didn't help but note that the beginning of the chapter 40 is comfort ye, right? Comfort ye, my people. And so I see there's certainly a connection to the beginning and the end of the verse.

I mean, excuse me, the chapter. And when you look at that word comfort, which is our first wonder today, it is essentially pronounced Nahum, which sounds kind of like a prophet, doesn't it? But anyway, the idea is, again, that letter nun, which has to do with the great faith, and then a het, which would be our marriage, our union with God, and then a mem, which is, you know, essentially water or the Word or Jesus, all of the above. So you put them together and you get this idea is, man, when you have faith, right, and you're united with Jesus, right, that's complete comfort. I mean, in his presence is fullness of joy, and of course. And so it's mentioned twice, like, comfort ye, comfort ye, okay?

And interestingly, I haven't had a chance to do this podcast, but I'm gonna do it when God tells me to do it, and he told me to do this one today. I've been translating the Gospel of John into Hebrew, and John in Hebrew is Yohanan, and the idea is John's name, both John the Baptist and John, of course, the apostle, it ends with a double nun, okay? And so when you get this comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, there's a double nun there, and I just wanted to note that, oh my goodness, and the voice of the one crying out in the desert, right? It's all kind of connected, and certainly in Isaiah 40, and the idea of John, and the idea of the book of John, and, you know, really, it's kind of amazing stuff, but you can see this comfort, and then this idea of rising on the netzer, on the wings of eagles, off the ground, which is cursed, which is a spectacular thing, but the thing I wanted to hone in after the idea of comfort, which just has to do with what do you believe? I mean, if you believe God has this and God is who He is, like, you have no reason to worry about anything.

I mean, He's got it completely under control. So comfort and the idea of John, I see, you know, come close, but then, you know, the idea of statutes and the beginning of Isaiah 40, 31, it says, those who wait upon the Lord. Well, that word has fascinated me for years, because the word is kava, and kava is the word that is used in Genesis 1, when God wanted to make the dry land appear, and He gathered the waters together, and that idea of gathering is the same idea that's exactly here, that as you wait on the Lord, you're kind of drawing near to Him, and we've studied this kuff. Kava, as you can hear, starts with a letter kuff, and then a vuv, which you can hear the v sound, and then a hey, and so it's kind of like here's a long extension of the idea of the kuff itself, which is to draw in, you know, to come into close proximity with His Holiness, come in close proximity with His love, and essentially you're bringing down His light from that relationship. And so as we are kava, as we're drawing near to Him, as we're waiting on Him, right, He's gonna rise us up with our faith, right, because that netzer is this idea of faith, which is really, even the Holy Spirit is what's gonna bore you up on wings, as my friend Jan was saying.

And that idea of the Holy Spirit that hovered over the surface of the deep back in Genesis as well, that idea of hovering, you know, is very much connected to this idea of the wings of eagles, in my opinion. And so I'm wondering, of course, as we're talking about, of how this idea of waiting, of kava, of gathering is connected to the word statutes. Well, here's what I know is that the word statutes only has two letters in it, which are very much connected to what we're talking about today, because we've been talking about the letter het, which is, you know, that being united with Christ, it's in the word comfort, right? And so you have a het, and that's the first letter in statutes, and the second letter is a kuff, okay? And so, you know, I was talking to the Lord and trying to see, you know, how does these things fit together?

And how do these things fit together? And so as I was reading Isaiah 40, right, and it says, speak ye comfortably to your people and cry unto her, right? And so who wouldn't want that for the Lord to speak? And that word is debar, which is interestingly the word that in the beginning was the word, right? John 1, 1 is that idea, and very much debar. I actually found yesterday some documents that had been found in the Vatican of an ancient Hebrew text, of a Hebrew translation of the Gospel of John, that was kind of found in a junk pile.