Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Welcome to Truth for Life Weekend where we are beginning a short series titled Behold Your God. Whether the new year is off to an amazing start or a rocky one, Alistair Begg directs our gaze to the one who can bring comfort and joy to all of our days.

We're studying the opening verses of Isaiah chapter 40. Well, you may come to this and say it's a strange text for the Sunday after Christmas, and I hope by the time we've finished it will not appear to be so strange. It was a text that came to my mind just really quite out of the blue as I was thinking about this Sunday. And the title for our study this morning comes from the line of the refrain of one of the earliest carols that I don't think we ever sing here, and that is God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Let Nothing You Dismay, Remember Christ Our Savior Was Born on Christmas Day, To Save Us All From Satan's Power When We Had Gone Astray, O Tidings of Comfort and Joy, O Tidings of Comfort and Joy. And it is that phrase, comfort and joy, or tidings of comfort and joy, that is our heading for this morning. Now, long before the carol, an assignment was given by God to the messengers. And the assignment was very straightforward, and you have it there in the verses before you—"Comfort, comfort my people," or, Comfort ye, comfort ye, in the King James Version, and those of you who perhaps this Christmas have been enjoying again listening to the Messiah. Now, the message of comfort is extended to those people of God who find themselves in the doldrums.

The short background to it, because we come to the fortieth chapter with thirty-nine chapters preceding it, so the context is really fairly straightforward. God's people were in exile, they were isolated, they were oppressed, and they were despondent. And the reason they found themselves in that position was essentially because they had stopped listening to God. They had stopped listening to his servants, they had stopped trusting the word that they brought, and instead of obeying him, they decided that they would try it on their own.

And instead of acknowledging him, they rebelled against him. And in the middle of all of that, finding themselves in this predicament, they began to suggest that the problem did not lie in the fact that they were giving up on God. But no, no, no, they said, God must be giving up on us. And, you see, that's the significance of verse 27, if your Bible is open. Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel? What is it that the people are saying? They're saying, My way is hidden from the Lord. My right is disregarded by my God. Well, the story is, of course, that God has not given up on them.

And that is the basis of the comfort. Now, I have four points, and they're these. First of all, proclamation. You will see in your text there in verse 2, the verb that is used is the verb to cry. In the NIV, which I've spent most of my time since the King James Version in, the verb is proclaim.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her. Now, you see, what is happening here is that God is not speaking, as it were, directly to the people. He is speaking through his messengers.

And comfort, comfort is a plural. Hence, in the King James, comfort ye. All you, all you messengers, all the messengers have the same responsibility to proclaim God's good news. Now, as you can see in verse 5, the real messenger is, of course, the Lord himself. The mouth of the Lord has spoken. So, you have this strange duality, this wonderful reality that the message comes from God, ultimately the messenger is God, and yet God chooses to convey his message through human instruments. Now, what is it that is to be conveyed that is the basis of the comfort?

Well, you can see it here. Tell her that her warfare or her hard service is ended or is completed, that her iniquity or her sin is pardoned, and that she has received from the Lord's hand all the suffering that is necessary. In other words, what God is saying is, this exile-wandering, this exile reality, this sense of failure and disappointment and despondency that has come about as a result of your attitude towards me, God says, that has gone on long enough. Now, this is a prophetic word, and the reality of it still lies in the future. They had sinned, they had suffered for it, but that is not the end of the story.

Now, let me just pause on that for a minute and say, let's personalize this. Because some of us will be here on the final Sunday of this year, and if the truth were told of us, it's time for us to come home. That our lives have been marked by patterns that are not pleasing to God. We have found ourselves saying, Perhaps God has disregarded me.

Perhaps he's taken me off his list, as it were. And what is the message of God to the person who comes to that kind of conclusion? I have sinned. I have suffered for it.

Yes, but it's not the end of the story. Because as you read, for example, around this section in Isaiah, the message comes again and again. This is chapter 43 and verse 25. God says, I am he who blots out your transgression for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. In 44, same thing.

44, 22. I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like a mist. Now, of course, how was this to work? How do we understand such a statement in these chapters in the 40s of Isaiah? The answer is, we understand them in light of what is about to come in the fifty-third chapter. How is it that God would then forgive sin? How is it that God would no longer remember his people's rebellion against him and so on? And that is because there was one who was coming, the one who has borne our sins and carried our sorrows, the one who in himself is the basis of comfort and joy.

Well, we could spend much longer on that, but we won't. That is essentially what is to be conveyed. What is to be proclaimed is just that. How is it to be proclaimed?

Well, look at how it's to be proclaimed. There is to be a tenderness in the tone. Comfort, comfort my people, says God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. What does it mean? To speak to a city?

No, Jerusalem personifies the people of God. So, comfort my people. Speak tenderly to them. Because it is important that they hear this message, especially because they're in exile, especially because they're beginning to feel that they're at the end of the line. Comfort! Discouraged by our enemies, ashamed of our rebellions, tempted to believe that we've passed the point of no return, and God sends his messengers out, and he says, This is what I want you to say to my people.

Say, Comfort them, comfort them. Oh, for the wonderful love he has promised, promised to you and to me. It's an important thing to remember that God's kindness does not lead us to indulgence but leads us to repentance. The fact that he is kind and when we deserve punishment he extends comfort should not cause the person who grasps it to go out and say, Well, then that's good.

I should just do as bad as I possibly can. After all, he's such a comforting God. No, when the comfort of God is made available to us, it doesn't create indulgence. It causes us to say sorry. Well, there you have it.

That's the first point. Proclamation. Speak to them. Cry to them. Proclaim to them.

And then the next part is the task of preparation. Now, one of these messengers' voices is now heard. Verse 3, a voice cries, one of the messengers, In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD. Now, it wasn't so much that these people were in the wilderness as it was that their lives had actually become a barren landscape. Now, you will notice—I hope you do—that the pathway is not a pathway for them to go out, but it is a pathway for God to come in. I think that's very, very important. I think it would be very possible for us to misunderstand this entirely.

And we say, Oh yes, I see what it is. We're supposed to try and get out of our problem, try and get out of here. Make a way to get out. Cut through the jungle and the underbrush of all our rebellion and all our stupidity. And if we could hack our way out of it, perhaps we could make a few New Year's resolutions and get on. No, nothing at all.

No. Make a way for God to come in. Make a way for God to come in to the sadness, to the emptiness.

Yes, to the silence. Wherein will we hear from God? That's how they lived their lives, waiting and hoping. And do you see, it is then, and only then, that in coming to the text of the New Testament, we realize what a drama is contained. And in the story that Luke records for us, and how Zechariah, you remember, and his wife—he's old, his wife's advanced—and Gabriel comes and says, You know, you're going to have a child.

And you know that story, how Zechariah ends up having to write on a tablet for a while. And he was completely overwhelmed by it all. And the people, when the news got out to them, they wondered about what was being said, and they said, Well, what will this child be?

What will he be? And the reason they said that is because clearly the hand of the Lord was with him. This is, of course, John the Baptist. Prepare the way for God to come. That was a message. What does John the Baptist do? Exactly that. He prepares a way for God to come.

You read on a couple of chapters, and that is exactly what he does. People came to him from all around the region, out into the place where he was preaching. And what was he saying?

Prepare. God is coming. And someone said, Well, where is he?

And he said, Well, if you look over here, you will see him. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Well, you say, What has that got to do with me? I'll tell you what it's got to do with you.

And me too. There is a certain respect in which we are all in the line of John the Baptist. If you are a Christian today, you are a messenger. Whoever you are and wherever you are, the significance of our task is not in the significance of our person but is in the wonder of our message.

Prepare to meet God. People say, Oh, how strange is that? What an unbelievable thing for people to say.

No, no, it's the right thing to say. It's the role that is given to the messengers. Proclamation.

Comfort for those who don't deserve it. And prepare to meet God. Well, in verse 4, we move from the part that the messengers can play to the part that only God can play.

What do we do with this? Every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain and hill be made low. Well, in other words, when God comes, he's going to deal with the obstacles.

At least we can say that, can't we? What are the obstacles that stood in the way? Well, all the obstacles that were present then are present still today—the obstacles of unbelief, the obstacle of just natural skepticism.

In our case of relativism, of pluralism, there's no one way, there's no one truth, and so on. Now, here's the problem as a preacher. These challenges seem insurmountable. The people say to me all the time, Well, how are you going to argue against that? How are you going to be able to convince them? How are you going to be able to break down all these barriers—the disinterest of people, the decline of religion in America, the fact that people don't want to listen to sermons, the fact that this and this and this and this? How are you going to do this?

The answer is, I'm not, and neither is anyone else. Only God is able to break down the hindrances. Only God is the one who is able to make a straight-at-the-level path.

Let me personalize it before I go to my final point. What about the hindrances in our own lives? What about the idea that we are unable personally to deal with the mountains, with the heights of our pride, with the heights of our self-assertion, with the heights of our self-esteem? When I was waiting in the prompt care, the television was on, and there was a lady there, and she was explaining about yoga. And I listened for a little time and saw some of the exercises, which looked downright scary to me, but she was explaining that the thing about yoga is, it is for absolutely everyone. Yoga is about just the love of everyone, no matter of your gender, no matter your size, no matter your intelligence, no matter your thing. And so, this is it.

Come to yoga. And then the camera focuses in on her, and they said, So what is it that makes this so special? She said, What makes this so special is that we're able to say to ourselves, I am wonderful. I am awesome. I am. I am.

Well, only one is able to say, I am. Go. And what shall I say to the people, said Moses, when they asked me? What will I say to Pharaoh? Pharaoh is mighty. He's a mountain that cannot be brought down. What shall I say to him?

Tell him that I am sent you. You see, when we understand the I am who provides to us the comfort for which we long, then our own little I am is not irrelevant. It's just diminished to the point of helpfulness. And that brings us to our final point, the proclamation that is the task of the messenger, the preparation that is ultimately there in this great messenger who goes before Jesus, the transformation in the bringing down of the mountains, whatever they might be, the raising up of the valleys, whatever they might be. And in it all the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. What does that mean, the glory of the Lord will be revealed? What is God's glory? God's glory is essentially his self-disclosure. It is his making known, all that he is—all that makes him the only true and living God. The revelation of the fact of his creation, the fact that he is a redeemer, that he is merciful, that he is gracious, that he is holy, that he is abounding in love, and in steadfast mercy, and in faithfulness—all of these things. And the prophet says, and this is what's going to happen, God's glory will be made known so that people will be able to see all flesh.

It doesn't matter where they come from. It's always fascinating to me that, for example, the message of God's unbelievable love to all, irrespective of gender and so on, which is the message of the lady, the yoga messenger. It's a falsehood, because there's nothing there. It takes you into yourself. And if you have been in yourself lately, you know that there is no reason to jump up and down and have a party about how significant or how good you are. Even the children that are here this morning, they know that sometimes they go in their bedrooms, and they say to themselves, I am a naughty boy. I am a naughty boy. My father said, I'm a naughty boy. I am a naughty boy. Well, you see, God loves naughty boys. He loves naughty girls. If he didn't, none of us could ever know him. If he only loved good boys and good girls and good moms and good dads, what chance would there be?

You know what my task is, ultimately? The task of my colleagues is, by the help of the Holy Spirit, to convince the listener of God's abounding love. Of God's abounding love. Calvin, in his Institutes, says this, No one will ever reverence God but he or she who is confident that God is favorable toward them. In other words, you are never going to run to God unless you are convinced that he is favorable toward you.

How can he be favorable towards the rebellious, the exiles, the oppressed, the ones who are saying it's God's fault? Well, because of his glory being finally revealed in Jesus. You see, it is in light of this that after all this time passes, once the exile is over, the silence descends, the darkness prevails, and then all of a sudden, on a routine night in the fields, the shepherd's fields around Bethlehem, the angel appeared, and the glory of the Lord shone around. And they went off, and they said, Let's go into Bethlehem and see this thing that we've been told about.

And what did they discover? Well, they discovered that the hopes and the fears of all the years had been met in this Jesus. When John writes about it in his program, as we had in one of our readings the other night—Friday night, was it?

No, Thursday, it must have been. Yeah. And we have beheld his glory. We've seen his glory. When the writer of the Hebrews puts it, he says that he is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature, upholding the universe by the word of his power. In other words, Jesus is the full and definitive representation of God.

All that may be known of God in human form is found in Jesus. Comfort. Where is this comfort? In whom is this comfort? The true answer to our deepest longings. Joy. What is joy? Joy is peace dancing. Romans 5.2. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God.

Record dealt with, sin pardoned, coast clear, relationship established. Well, let's dance. Joy is peace dancing, and peace is joy resting. Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with joy into Zion, and everlasting joy will be upon their heads. Everlasting joy! No, I don't want joy that lasts for five minutes. I don't want joy to get me through my teenage years. I don't want to get joy that simply gets me to the edge of eternity. I want everlasting joy—the everlasting joy that is found in the one who speaks to his rebellious people and says, my message to you is comfort.

It is comfort. You're listening to Truth for Life weekend. That is Alistair Begg with a message titled Comfort and Joy. As Alistair just explained, no one turns to God unless they're convinced of his love. At Truth for Life, we're passionate about helping people everywhere understand the gospel, what it means, why it matters to you personally.

We believe the Bible is God-breathed, and as a result, it's able to comfort and direct you through the crises you face in life, as well as through your normal daily routines. That's why we want to encourage you to set aside time every day to pray and to get to know God through his word and to help you establish a habit of regularly meeting with God. We're recommending to you volume two of Alistair's daily devotional titled Truth for Life, 365 Daily Devotions. Find out more about the Truth for Life daily devotional, visit our website truthforlife.org.

I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for taking time out of your weekend to study the Bible with us. Next weekend, we'll find out why both the message and mission of an ancient prophet remains our message and mission today. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.