Isaiah's proclamation to behold your God seems strange after he is just a Jerusalem's impending captivity.
So how can God's people find comfort after they've received devastating news? We'll hear the answer today on Truth for Life Weekend as Alistair Begg explains why the message and mission of an ancient prophet remains every Christian's message and mission today. Well, I turned somewhat arbitrarily last Sunday to Isaiah 40, and having done that and having begun to read it and read on through the chapter, which is a familiar chapter to many of us, I said to myself, I think, actually, verses 6 through to 11 provide us with a very helpful passage for the new year, insofar as it provides us with an opportunity to receive a clear reminder of the message that we are to proclaim and of the mission that we are to fulfill. So, our title would simply then be The Message and the Mission. So, with all of that in mind, look, then, at why I say it's a reminder of the message, first of all. A voice says, Cry, and I said, What shall I cry? Remember we said last time that the voice of God says to his messengers, I want you to declare comfort to my people. The people have received this tender message of comfort.
And now the voice comes again, calling out the messenger, What is it that I'm supposed to say? Now, the message that is to be conveyed—let me just give you two observations on it. First of all, it is quite startling.
It is quite startling. Last time, I hope we realized the speed with which God's word of comfort followed upon the pronouncement of doom that was represented back in chapter 39. If your Bible is open, I could just point it out to you. Isaiah 39. And Isaiah is speaking to Hezekiah, and he tells him, Listen, the days are coming, verse 6 of Isaiah 39, when all that is in your house and that which your fathers have stored up till this day shall be carried to Babylon.
Nothing shall be left, says the LORD. And then he goes on to describe the significance of what's going to happen in the exile. That's chapter 39. When you read 39 straight into 40 without a break—because, after all, there were no breaks in the original text—you realize how startling it is. The word of the prophet in relationship to the exile of the people, the word that has declared their great difficulty and the darkness that will befall them, is immediately followed up by the story of God's comfort.
So that's the first observation. It is quite startling, this message, and it is also a serious message. And that is, as you will see back in verse 5, on account of the fact that the mouth of the Lord has spoken. The mouth of the Lord has spoken. Calvin, in his Institutes, has a wonderful sentence when he says, God deigns to consecrate to himself the mouths and tongues of men in order that his voice may resound in them.
God deigns to consecrate to himself the mouths and the tongues of mere men in order that his voice may resound in them. That is the significance of it. That is why it is so unbelievably significant and why it is so serious.
We're not simply dealing here with just any old piece of material. The infallibility of Scripture—we don't believe that Scripture is infallible because we can prove it to be infallible. We can prove it to be infallible. On what basis, then, do we declare the infallibility of the Bible? The answer is that the only ground of witness to the infallibility of Scripture is Scripture itself. Scripture testifies to its own origin, to its own power, to its own character, and to its own authority. For there is nothing higher or stronger than Scripture itself. You can think that out on your own, but we must proceed.
Sticking with that, notice, then, the source of the message is here before us. All flesh is grass, 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. So the Bible is no ordinary book. The Bible is breathed out by God. In Hebrews we read that it is living and active.
It discerns the thoughts of people's hearts and minds and the intentions of people's lives. We don't actually come, as I say to you, to understand the Bible. We don't come to submit to the authority of the Bible by simply human logic or by compelling arguments. You will never, ever come to believe the Bible savingly. You will never, ever come to trust the Bible unreservedly as a result of someone giving you compelling, logical arguments that come from outside the Scriptures themselves.
I guarantee you it will never happen. The only way that a man or a woman will ever come to a convinced view of the Word of God is by the persuasive influence of God himself—that God the Holy Spirit brings God's Word to bear upon one of God's creatures in such a way that they say, I believe it. Now, the Bible makes this clear. The natural person does not receive the things of the Spirit because they're foolishness to them. And we are just left saying, Well, what in the world happened to me?
What happened to me? Well, the Scriptures made you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. You started to read the Bible, and the Bible pointed you to Jesus. And as it pointed you to Jesus, you discovered that life is found in Jesus.
And having discovered that life is found in Jesus, you came to invite Christ to be your life, that his life might be lived in and through you. Now, that is just to say a word concerning the source of this message. Yeah, the source of the message is Scripture itself. What is the substance of the message? Well, I'm not going to reread it, but it is there in these verses before you.
What is the messenger to cry? Coming back to where I was a little earlier—I mean, this is a question I get all the time. People say to me, and I'm sure they say to my colleagues the same thing, How do you come up with something every Sunday?
There's so many Sundays in the year. What do you do? You go away, and you have to stay all by yourself, and then you come back. How do you come up with something? And I always say, You should be very glad that I can't come up with something, that I don't come up with something. God actually warns his people about prophets who come up with something. You can read this in Jeremiah 23. Thus says the Lord of hosts, verse 16, Don't listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. … They speak visions of their own minds. They're not from the mouth of the Lord. They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, It will be well with you. And to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say to them, No disaster shall come upon you. Later on, in the same chapter, he says, Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream.
That's what he wants to do. But let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the Lord. Now, what you have here is not simply the contrast between the frailty and brevity of life. You do have that contrast.
It is there, isn't it? The flesh is like grass. The beauty is like the flower of the field.
There are very few flowers out there at the moment. But I want you to notice that you can get this truth somewhere other than the Bible. I mean, you can get this truth just by existing. You know, as you progress, you begin to fade. Your mental powers fade, your abilities, your physical frame, and everything else that goes along with it. Anybody that just exists can understand that.
Everybody in the world knows that. One out of one dies. But you see, there's a phrase here that is easily passed over, and it's the key phrase, I suggest to you. The grass withers, the flower fades. Why does the grass wither and the flower fade? Well, when the breath of the Lord blows on it. That's the metaphor here, isn't it?
Now, let me just pause with you on this for a moment, as I think I must. Turn, if you have a Bible there, to Psalm 90 for a moment. The expression of the frailty and brevity of life is in the context of God's judgment—in the context of God's judgment. Now, Psalm 90 is usually regarded as the funeral psalm.
That's what people say. Well, they read this psalm at funerals, and you will have been at funerals where they do read it. But, as I've pointed out to you before, almost inevitably they skip verses 7–12, which of course explains the human predicament. Look at verse 7. We are brought to an end by your anger. By your wrath we are dismayed. Death is not the intended lot of God's creation. Death is God's judgment upon sin. In the day that you shall eat of this, you will surely die. And so, verses 9 and 10, if your Bible is open, All our days pass away under your wrath. We bring our years to an end like a sigh.
The years of our life are seventy, Or even by reason of strength eighty. Yet their span is but toil and trouble, They are soon gone, and we all fly away. But who considers the power of your anger And your wrath according to their fear of you? You see, verses 9 and 10, that experience of the demise of our lives, we will never come to without the revealing power of God the Holy Spirit.
We are resistant to this. Romans chapter 8 says that the natural mind is at enmity with God, is actually opposed to God. The idea that as we go amongst our friends, they're all living in some neutral zone. If they want to opt into the believing idea of the Bible, that's possible, but if they want just to remain in the neutral zone in which they find themselves, that is equally possible. The Bible says you're not in a neutral zone. By nature, we have no interest in God. By nature, we're at enmity with God, and we're hastening towards the judgment of God. You see, sin has affected our thinking, all of our thinking, in such a way that we are unwilling to or unable to acknowledge the truth that is plain to see both in creation and in Scripture. You've thought about this, haven't you? I know you have, because people say to me all the time, but I told my friend, and they just don't see it.
Now, why is that? Romans 1 explains it. The things that are obvious that God has revealed, put conscience in the human heart, revealed himself in this way. Why is it that that which is straightforward is then rebelled against, that is denied? Well, you see, although it is plain—plain enough to make us accountable—the message never registers until God brings it home to us. And they say, Well, that would take a miracle, wouldn't it?
That's exactly right. You see, one of the ways you can learn how to teach passages of the Old Testament is to find out what people have done with it in the New Testament. And we're wonderfully helped in this regard, because Peter quotes this exact section when, in his first chapter, he goes on to say, The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the LORD remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you. The good news that was preached to you. The Word of God is not simply there as the contrast to human brevity and frailty but as the cure to our brevity and our frailty. You go back and read 1 Peter yourself. He says, I've been born again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
And this has been brought about not by perishable seed but by imperishable seed. This, my friends, was the message then, and it is the message now. Having spent fairly long on that, let's turn quickly and say something about the mission. Without a message, there is no mission.
That should be fairly straightforward. Everybody that I see—all the advertisements on the television—are all there. They have a message, and then they have a mission to convey it. And that's what is told here. They are heralds of good news. Zion, herald of good news. Jerusalem, herald of good news. I take it that the word of comfort and tenderness that has come by the prophet to the people is then to be taken by those same people to, if you like, the outlying cities and territories of Judah.
If you're perceptive, which includes many of you, you'll realize what is happening here. He says to Jerusalem, Now you go and take this to Judah. Sounds a lot like the word of Jesus a little later on, and you shall take this from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the very ends of the earth. This is the mission. This is the mission.
And you say, Well, I've been tracking with you fairly well. I don't like the stuff about the anger of God, some of you are saying. I don't like the notion of the judgment of God and so on. Well, let me suggest to you that there is absolutely no benefit in hearing good news unless we have first understood the nature of the bad news. For the news that comes of salvation is because of the reality of sin. The news that comes of life and life eternal is because of the reality of death. The news that comes of a miraculous intervention is on account of the fact that we can't fix ourselves. And so, once you have received the message, then you'll want to do what we're told to do here.
And look at what we're told to do. First of all, go up on a high mountain. Go up on a high mountain. Well, are you supposed to go up on a high mountain?
I love it when people say, Well, I'd just like to take the Bible literally. I say, Okay, so where are you heading for? Everest? Or what's your plan? You could go to Ben Nevis.
That's a smaller one. I can point you in that direction. No, obviously, although the literal possibilities of a vantage point on a hillside are clear, it's straightforward. Make sure that you put yourself in a position where the message can be heard. Why don't you broadcast on the radio? That's quite a mountaintop.
Why don't you take it on the internet? That's quite a mountaintop. And so on. Go up. And then lift up. Lift up your voice. Lift up your voice.
Well, don't be going around just mumbling in your beard and whispering and saying, I'm sorry, I don't really like to mention this, but… No, no, no. It doesn't mean bravado. It doesn't mean shouting at people. It doesn't mean calling people down.
It doesn't mean anything like that at all. It means, like, it's a very, very hard day, and you found a van that was moving through the neighborhood, but its bell wasn't working, and you discover that it was selling ice cream. And you got an ice cream, and you say, I gotta let the people know. There's a van around here that has ice cream.
You'll love this ice cream. Trust me, I've already had two. That's the spirit of it. I have discovered that there is comfort, there is joy, there is peace, there is salvation, there is restoration, and I want you to know that there is, and I'd love for you to hear about it.
That's the mission. Lift up your voice. And look, fear not. Fear not. Don't be afraid.
Don't be afraid. Proclaim it fearlessly. We need in our day what was needed in Isaiah's day—people who were prepared to declare the Word of God in the power of the Spirit of God without fear.
And part of the problem is that there is a loss of confidence in the pulpits of our churches where the trumpet sounds somewhat uncertainly, and as a result, very few go out to battle. We've got to realize that the message we have to proclaim is a straightforward message. Look. Behold your God. This is what you're to say. In contrast… Behold your God. In contrast to the gods of the nations, which were absolutely hopeless, as we saw last time.
This is the message. Tell them about God. Tell them two things about God. Number one, his greatness. His greatness.
Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him. His reward is with him, his recompense is with him. He brings his children with him. He brings the fruits of his labors with him. He comes, and the redeemed of the Lord return and come with singing into Zion at the rewards of his work. He's great.
He has no need of support. The flock that he tends, he has worked for, and he now holds in his care. Well, so it goes from his greatness to his gentleness. And there you have it in verse 11.
The same arm that rules is the arm that carries. He will tend his flock like a shepherd. Now, verses 12 and following save verse 11—this is going to sound strange—from itself. And verse 11 saves the sort of transcendent view of God from making us think only of a God who is so far removed and is not involved with us at all. In the one respect, what happens is it all becomes very cozy, and we forget the greatness of God, that he presides over the nations of the world, that the nations of the world are like a drop in a bucket to him.
That's the same thing. You have to keep these two things in tension. God is great, and here is his gentleness. Look how he deals with us. He tends his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms. He actually carries them in his bosom, all wrapped up and close to his heart. And those who are fragile, he doesn't drive, but he leads. Well, of course, it's impossible to read this without coming immediately to Jesus as the Good Shepherd, as the one who seeks us in tenderness, as the one who puts us on his shoulders. Remember, he puts it on his shoulders. He found the sheep that was lost, and he came back, and there was great rejoicing.
What a wonder! So, in actual fact, from verse 1 to verse 11, you get to verse 11, and you've gone full circle. Comfort, comfort, my people, says your God.
All the way through that, and here we come back. And what is this picture we have of him? Look upon his people, intending them in this way. Well, the message is God's Word and not our Word. And the substance of it is the frailty of our lives, God's penalty for sin, and his provision for us in that predicament. Our mission is to go up, to lift up, don't fold up, and be bold, and seize the opportunity of our day in a way that many of us are increasingly fearful to do.
You're listening to Truth for Life weekend. That is Alistair Begg urging us to fearlessly and shamelessly proclaim God's Word. As we heard today, we won't appreciate the Gospel's salvation message until we fully grasp the reality of God's judgment. That's why it's our mission at Truth for Life to teach the Bible every day in a way that is clear and understandable. We're always looking for new ways to get God's Word out to the ends of the earth, like through radio, online, using podcasts, various social media platforms, and streaming platforms.
As Alistair said, we need to put ourselves in a position where the message can be heard. If you enjoyed the solid Bible teaching you hear on Truth for Life, please tell a friend about us, or better yet, share today's message with them. It's free and easy to do using our mobile app or on our website at truthforlife.org.
Just click the three vertical dots next to the message and you can choose how you'd like to share the program. When you visit our website, check out the book we're featuring. It's called The Daily Devotional New Testament. This is a book that offers a reading plan that takes you through two passages from the New Testament each day, along with a few related verses from the Psalms. And following each reading, there is a reflection that provides insight into the passages and helps you apply the teaching to your daily life and prayers. Find out more about The Daily Devotional New Testament when you visit our website at truthforlife.org. Thanks for listening today. Next weekend, we'll learn how we can find security by having a proper view of God and a proper view of ourselves. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
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