Now, the scripture we just read,
Isaiah 40, verses 3 through 5, is a prophecy concerning John
the Baptist, that he would come as the forerunner of the Lord.
He would prepare the way for the Lord, that is, the road.
His ministry started about six months before the Lord's ministry,
and I don't think that it lasted much longer than that. It was
probably not long after our Lord began his itinerant preaching
ministry that John the Baptist got on the wrong side of King
Herod and was put in prison. But that is as it was supposed
to be, because the herald announcing the arrival of the king, well,
whether it's by words or if he plays one of those herald trumpets
or whatever, once his song is over, he steps aside. In fact,
There was a time when some of his disciples, John's followers,
saw that many people were going to the Lord Jesus and even leaving
the group of followers of John and going to Jesus. And they
said, you know, this isn't good. He said, no, it's exactly what's
supposed to happen. I must decrease, he must increase. But John was sent with a specific
kind of ministry, a ministry that had a particular effect. It was to raise up every mountain. It was to, excuse me, raise up
every valley, cut down every mountain. make the rugged places smooth
and the rough ground level. Now, this was said to prepare
the way for the Lord. That is, it was a road made for
the Lord to come among his people. But we also find places in scriptures
where this road is also the road by which the people get to their
Lord. In Hebrews chapter 12 verse 13,
as the writer of Hebrews is both rebuking and encouraging the
people, they were getting wobbly, they were getting weak in the
knees and weak in the ankles because they were suffering persecution
over the gospel of Christ, they were being tempted to go back
to the old covenant, and he said, now you strengthen your knees,
strengthen your ankles, and he goes, make level paths for your
feet. Quit walking that rough, up and
down, rocky road of law. Don't go back to that from which
the Lord saved you. Don't take that difficult path. Now the way of a believer in
the world is difficult, but the way to God is not. It's a level path. Not many people find it. They're
much more fond of the broad way that leads to destruction. It's
a narrow path, but it's a level one. No obstacles. God has put no obstacle between
Him and the sinner. He has put a mediator between
Him and the sinner, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the only thing
that keeps a sinner away from Jesus Christ is their own stubborn
will. They say, well, don't you believe
in a sovereign God? Yes, I do. Because if I did not believe
that, or if God, well, It doesn't matter whether I believe it or
not. If God were not sovereign, none of us stubborn sinners would
ever come to him, though the way be paved and smooth as can
be. It is only the sovereignty of
grace that is able to enter into the heart of a man and change
what he thinks and causes the stubborn rebel to bow the knee
and confess Christ. It's only the sovereign grace
of the Lord that can reach onto that broad way that leads into
destruction and grab someone by the scruff of the neck and
said, this is the wrong way. Here's the right way. Walk ye
in it. And they do. We preach the gospel indiscriminately. We'll preach it to anybody. They'll
sit and listen to it. But we know this, the only ones
who will believe it to the saving of their souls are the ones in whom God has done a sovereign
work of grace. Because apart from that, a man
left to himself, he will never come. And so here we are told, make
level paths and walk on them. Quit troubling yourselves with
all the rules and the regulations and the laws that men write up
as things that you must do in order to make yourself acceptable
to God. Quit pursuing any acceptance
with God based upon your own doing. That's a hard uphill climb
that you're incapable of. Get on that level road. Now, what is the context in which
this prophecy of John the Baptist comes about? Well, look at this
first part, and this is a very familiar portion of scripture
to us. But notice that this prophecy
of the coming of John the Baptist to prepare the way for the Lord
Jesus Christ is mentioned right after these words, comfort ye,
or comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly
to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has
been completed, that her sin has been paid for, and that she
has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sin. Now, who is this? exhortation
directed to? Well, you could say it was directed
to Isaiah. After all, he's the prophet receiving
these words. You could say, in some sense,
it's directed to everyone who preaches the gospel, because
in the gospel, comfort for God's people is declared. The forgiveness
of their sins is declared. But I think that we would do
best or get the greatest sense of what is being prophesied here
when these words are seen as declared to the Lord Jesus Christ
himself. When he came into this world,
he came not to judge. He came not to destroy. He came
to find God's sheep, God's people, and comfort them. and to pay
the price for their sins, and in doing so, declare to them
their sins are forgiven, they're gone. The burden of judgment
is no longer upon them. Well, how's this going to be?
Well, I'm going to send someone ahead of you, and he's going to make a road
for you to walk on. And the way that he does this,
the Bible says he preached a message of repentance. Now, most people
don't understand repentance because they associate repentance mostly
with feeling bad about sin or stopping some sin. I can't imagine a person repenting
without feeling bad about the sins that they've done. And I
would imagine if they feel bad about those sins, they would
try to stop doing them. But the essence of repentance
is a change of mind, a change in the way you think,
change in the way you perceive things. And that would be a change
in the way you perceive sin, Oh, in your flesh, that doesn't
change. But from the spirit within you that's
been reborn by the Spirit of God, there is seen in sin the
awfulest of things. We don't look merely at this
transgression and say, well, I'm not that bad of a sinner.
You know, I never killed anybody, that kind of thing. We see that
everything about us is tainted with sin, that everything we
do and we think is polluted with corruption. And lying at the
base of all of it is this horrible thing called unbelief, which
makes even our righteousnesses to be filthy rags. We see our sin as not just transgressions
against the law, but as transgressions against the God who gave the
law, of personal offenses toward him. And we see, like Brother Henry
Mahan used to say, there are no little sins because there's
no little God to sin against. All we need comfort with regard
to sin like that. And so John was called calling
people to repentance, and it was to change their mind, to
change their mind about their sin and about God. First of all, it says that the
result of his ministry in making this level path for the Lord
to walk upon is that every valley shall be raised up. and every mountain and hill made
low. And that is how you build level
roads. You take the top of the mountain
off and dump it in the valley. But who are the hills and who
are the valleys? Well, both are unbelievers. And
both are unbelievers in the same way, but they express it differently. Both of them are unbelievers
because both the hill guys and the valley guys, they believe
that the way to God, the level path, you know, the good path
or whatever, is by works of righteousness which we have done. The hilltop
people are the ones who think they did it, who think they accomplished
it. And they're up on the hilltop
all the time, and they're boasting in themselves. And we call them
self-righteous, and that's true. That's what they are. They are
trusting in their own righteousness. And the valley people, they also
believe that it's by works of righteousness, which they must
do, that will enable them to find acceptance and favor with
God. It's just that they believe they failed. and that there is no way for
them. You see, proud self-righteousness is the same thing as despairing
self-righteousness. It just depends upon the person's
attitude about whether or not they have met the standard. both
of them are looking at themselves and depending on themselves and
one says I did it and the other says I can't do it. That's why there's absolutely
no value in anyone when they go moping around talking about
how great a sinner they are and thinking that by such humble
statements God is going to take some kind of pity on them. Whether you're unbelief expresses
itself in thinking you're good enough or if your unbelief expresses
itself in thinking you could never be good enough is still
just unbelief and you cannot put a good name on unbelief. And so when the truth concerning
God is preached and the truth concerning what we are what does
that do? Well it scrapes off the heights of the mountains.
It lays them low. When John preached right away,
the Pharisees came out and they said, well, you know, what do
we got to do to repent? You know, I kind of wonder if
their attitude wasn't, what do you mean repent? You got nothing
to repent of. They didn't understand, did they? They would eventually, but they
didn't. Yet there were some who heard
what he said, and the Spirit of God worked in them as he preached,
and it unhorsed them, as it were. It knocked them down off of their
heights. And then there were those to
whom he spoke who were lowly, who were despairing. They're
still unbelievers. They're still thinking their hope is in their
righteousness, but they've been beaten down. They've been beaten
down by the people up on the mountaintop. And what does he
do? He lifts them up, not lifting
them up saying, you're not so bad. He lifts them up saying,
it's not about you. You see, The same message, the
message of the grace of God in Christ Jesus, that's the appropriate
message for everyone, whether they're way up at the top of
the hill or way down in the valley. Because the message of the gospel
says, among other things, it's not about you. Even if you have
lived what man would call a good life, it's not good enough. It never was about you anyway. And if you're down here thinking,
oh, I'm so miserable, I've done so awful, God can never forgive
me. He won't take a person who's done like that. You're forgetting
something here. You're not catching on to the basic principle of
the gospel that it's not about you. It's about Christ. It's not about what you've done.
It's about what Christ has done. And believe me. I was talking
to some of the brethren the other night. We were talking about
how long I've been here. Do you realize I still struggle with that very
thing? Here I am a preacher of this
gospel. I know what it is. I'm telling you about it right
now. And yet within my own mind, I keep looking at me. At one
time, I think, hey, I've made some progress. And then the gospel
comes along and cuts me down. And then I'm down in a valley.
My sin comes up before me. wretched, awful things, and I
think, how can it be that I'm a believer, much less a preacher?
Then I'm reminded it's not about me. I don't preach because I'm good.
I preach because he's good. So he abases the proud and lifts
up the despairing. Telling them it's not about them,
neither their works of righteousness haven't helped them, their works
of iniquity will not hinder them. The rough ground we made level,
rugged places a plain. That's what the preaching of
the gospel is, it's making a smooth level path
ahead of the Lord, and one upon which his people can walk." Well, it says in verse 6 then,
a voice says, cry out. I skipped a verse, hang on a
minute. Verse 5, when he preaches this, speaking specifically of
John, What's the result now? He's blasted the mountains, filled
in the valleys, and the glory of the Lord will be revealed. And what was that? Our Lord Jesus
Christ is called the radiance of the glory of God. by radiance,
the beams that shine out. God is this glorious being, so
glorious we dare not look upon him. And yet those beams, picturing
them as light beams, they go out and that is Christ. God's
glory is shown upon this world and that shining was our Lord
Jesus Christ. Light has come into the world
and the darkness has not been able to overcome it because it
is the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. If we preach such things and
doing so in love, you know, it's not that we go out and beat people
about how sinful they are because then it makes it look like we're
saying we're better than them. We're not any better than them.
We're saying we know what they are because we are like them.
But we go out and by the preaching of what man is and what God is,
we blast away the tops of the mountains and fill in those deep
valleys. When we do this, what happens
then, the glory of man has just been set aside and destroyed
and the glory of the Lord is revealed. And this is what is
needful, is it not, for you and me? This is what's needful for
our neighbors if they are ever to believe the gospel. It's not
going to be because we got them to follow some four-step plan
or three-step plan or, you know, the ABCs of salvation. It will
be that through the preaching of the gospel, the glory of the
Lord was revealed to them. Moses wanted to see the glory
of God. God said, we can't do that, you can't see my face and
live. And then God found a way for that to happen. His glory
revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. Now he did not look like
what people thought God's glory would be, but that's exactly what it was.
In Christ Jesus. All the glory of God is manifested
to us. All the glory we can take anyway. The glory of the Lord will be
revealed. It's no longer to be supposed as that bright ball
of energy or whatever it was that God caused to dwell between
the cherubim as a representation of his presence among them. And
that glory never could be looked at. Even when the high priest
would go in there on the day of atonement, he'd put the censer
in with smoke ahead of him, fill that room with smoke, so that
when he went in there, he did not see God clearly. And that
was just a token representation of God. No, under the old covenant, the
glory of God could not be revealed. But under the new covenant, under
the gospel, God reveals his glory, and he says, all mankind together
will see it. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ came,
and nearly everyone that saw him was a Jew. But there were
Gentiles. And when that glory was manifested
in its, what's the right word to use
here? Well, when it's manifest on the cross, And here is the
glory of God. That God, who is of purer eyes
than to behold iniquity, sent his own beloved son into the
world to die in the place of sinners. That when sinners couldn't
climb out of the valley or were too proud to come off of the
mountain, God made a level path. God bore the iniquities of His
people in Jesus Christ, and never was the glory of God more evident
than it was when our Lord was crucified. The prophet said,
who is a pardoning God like you? You think of the gods that men
invent. They're ferocious. They're vicious. They're petty. They're like other men. Think of this, brethren, we worship
a God of untold mercy and grace, who has it in His power to open
up hell right now and dump every one of us in it, and He doesn't. Instead, He sent His Son to prepare
a place for us in His household. I was thinking today about, maybe it was yesterday, I can't
remember, but how would I feel about someone who ruthlessly
murdered one of my children? I cannot imagine any set of circumstances
under which I could ever be reconciled to that person. If I came upon
the scene and had weapons in my hands, I'd kill them. And yet we killed God's son. Can you imagine God beholding
that scene? It's those men who thought they
were so righteous and so powerful. God was giving them breath and
life, and they used that breath and life to lay their hands on
God's own Son and torture Him and nail Him to a tree and stand
there and mock Him. And the Lord Jesus said, Father,
forgive them. They don't know what they're
doing. And I know this, the Lord Jesus gets everything He asks
for. And they were not held responsible
for that. If I were God, that would have
been the end of the world. All the glory of our God is in
His grace. Moses said, show me your glory. And God said, I will cause all
my goodness to pass before you. In this path, it is manufactured, it is built on the authority of the Lord
Himself, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. You look at the news these days,
and it's all about what one person says. And usually, it's about
what one person says about another person. And I'm thinking, what
do I care what people say about each other? It has nothing to
do with truth anyway. They're very powerful men. Well, the president today said,
OK, maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't. the mouth of the Lord. What mouth is this? This is the
mouth that said, let there be light. And there was light. This is the mouth that commanded
and the universe came into being. He spoke, and it was. He commanded. It stood firm. This is the mouth
of one. Whatever he speaks, that's what
is. And it is simply because he spoke
it. And so therefore, this wonderful
way spoken of here that brings comfort to God's people, that
brings a declaration of forgiveness of sins, this tearing down of
this high and mighty and the building up of the lowly. All
of this comes from the mouth of the Lord, which means it's
not something that might happen. It's something that will happen. In fact, it did happen. Voice says cry. Verse six. A voice says, cry out, and I
said, what shall I cry? All men are like grass, and all
their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers
and the flowers fall because the breath of the Lord blows
on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and
the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever. You
say, that doesn't sound very comforting. Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people.
Yeah, OK, what should I tell them? You're all like grass.
And the glory that you think you have, it's just like those
little flowers in the field. But they come up, and for a couple
of days, they look kind of pretty. But you let the wind change.
They just wither up. I've got a tree in the backyard.
It exists for one reason only, because it's a fruitless tree. About three or four days every
spring, it just blossoms, these little white blossoms all over
it. And I sit there in my screened-in porch drinking my coffee just
looking at that. It'll maybe take two or three
days to fill up with blossoms and then another two or three
days they're turning brown and falling off. So out of 365 days
a year, about 360 of them, it's pretty much just something I
gotta mow around. That's us. We think we're something. We
put out those blossoms. Ooh, look at me, I'm pretty.
The breath of the Lord blows on us and it's just Grass withers, the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them. When the Spirit
of God begins to work with a person, bringing them to an understanding
of their need of Christ, oh, it's a withering experience. Surely the people are grass.
Now, notice this. Didn't say surely the whole world
is grass. That's true. But his concern is not with the
whole world. His concern is with his people. And you know, you
and I are his people. If we are believers, we are his
people. But you know what? We're grass. That's it. That is all we can
aspire to, grass. The grass withers and the flowers
fall, don't they? But the Word of our God stands
forever, the Word of grace, the Word who is the person of Jesus
Christ. And Peter said this, he quoted
this verse, and then he said, and this is the Word which by
the gospel is preached to you. I'm sure many of the Jews read
this and they thought the word of the Lord as spoken from Sinai
with the thunder, oh yeah, that endures forever. No, that had
its time. Here's the word of the Lord that
endures forever, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. How do
we know it endures forever? Because it started before ever
got started. Before there ever was such a
thing as ever. Jesus Christ is the lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. Before the Lord created the heavens
and the earth, he had in place a savior. And time comes along, and things
happen in time. It doesn't change what happened
in the timeless eternity of God's existence. His word comes from
eternity, and nothing in time changes it. Think for a minute how wonderful
that is for us. It's good that the word of His
grace is never withdrawn. Have you heard that word in your
heart? That's a word that'll never be
taken away. It endures. And I like it that it says it
endures or stands. Enduring means that it's able
to withstand attacks. Everlasting. Well, if something
never had anything destructive done
to it, you wouldn't know whether it had any lasting power or not.
But the grace of God continually suffers abuse. We abuse it. You say, well, I wouldn't abuse
the grace of God. Yeah, you would. Not only would
you, you do. We all do. We say we love the Lord Jesus
Christ, and yet how little of that love gets shown. We say
we love the ways of Christ, yet how little of that, of his ways,
do we walk. We say we believe, but what a
weak and Fleeting faith our faith is. But for all of that, the word
of God's grace in the gospel has not been withdrawn in the
least. God is not worn out with the
work of saving. He's never said, OK, that is
just it. I saved you 10 years ago, and I thought you were going
to really try, but you're not even giving it. You're all here
now. Is there comfort in knowing that
all men are grass? There is for me. Because you
know what? Before the Bible said I was grass,
I knew that's what I was. And I'm glad that God knows that
and says there's a way of salvation for withering grass and falling
flowers. I love the honesty of scriptures. And then it says this, verse
9, you who bring good tidings to Zion. Go up on a high mountain,
you who bring good tidings to Jerusalem. Lift up your voice
with a shout. Lift it up. Don't be afraid.
Say to the towns of Judah, here is your God. Now, who are they
talking about? The Lord Jesus Christ. Who do
we worship here? The Lord Jesus Christ. Who is
our God here? The Lord Jesus Christ. Behold
your God. He didn't come the way people
thought he would. They were looking for the kind
of glory that men gather to themselves. He came with a different kind
of glory. And notice what it is. It says
in verse 10, see the sovereign Lord comes with power. Jesus
Christ looked weak, but he wasn't. It says his arm rules for him. I'm sure that the the Pharisees, the Sadducees,
all the religious leaders, the high priest and all that, that
had conspired to get Christ crucified, and they maneuvered their way,
and then they pulled a fast one on Pilate, brought him there,
and Pilate says, well, I don't find any fault in this man. I
mean, he hadn't done anything worthy of crucifixion, you know,
and he said, well, he claimed to be the king of the Jews. He
asked Jesus, are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus said,
you said it. But I'm sure Pilate looked at
him and said, he can say it if he wanted, but it ain't so. This
man is no threat to me. He's no threat to the Roman Empire.
So he said, there's no reason to crucify this man. And the
response of the people was, we have no king but Caesar. And
if you let this man live, you're no friend of Caesar. And suddenly
they've got Pilate, a checkmate, and oh, they think they're in
control. And Pilate says, don't you realize I have authority
to do this, that, and the other to you? And he says, you have
no authority but whatever heaven gives you. Who is in charge on
that day? Not the man wearing the purple
robe of Rome's power. Not the high priest in all his
regalia. Not the Pharisees with their
broad phylacteries and their wide fringes. None of them. The one standing there with his
back beaten to a pulp, with a crown of thorns on his head. He was
in charge of the whole thing. They couldn't lay a finger on
him without his permission. And so it was for the remainder
of that scene. His arm was ruling for him. His
reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. Why is that? Because he is the reward. And then verse 11, and we'll
finish with this. He tends his flock like a shepherd.
He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his
heart. He gently leads those that have
young. I've come across a good many
pastors in my day, come to know a good many of them. And you
know, some of them drive the sheep. They're not shepherds,
they're goat herds. And they get behind the sheep
and force them this way. They make them run. They wear
them out. The ewes, who are pregnant with
lambs, makes them do too much. People become exhausted. Here's our Savior. He tends His
flock like a shepherd does. He says, I am the good shepherd.
The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. If the wolf comes,
the shepherd puts himself between the wolf and the sheep. He says, the Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not be in need. He leads me in the green pastures
and beside still waters. That's a good shepherd. He gathers
the lambs in his arms. Them little ones, they've just
come out of the womb, you know, and they don't take as long to
learn to walk as we humans do, but still, they're not ready
for long walks. They get tired, he picks them
up, carries them close to his heart. Comfort ye. Comfort my people. make a level
path for them to walk on. Their shepherd comes, their God
comes, and He's full of grace and mercy for them. Don't put
any obstacles in that way, in their way. He is the sovereign
Lord, and there's nothing that anyone
can do to harm the smallest of his sheep. Are you walking a level path
or are you walking a rough path? Are you walking behind, following
a shepherd who takes the easy way? and lead you to places of rest. When you're on the right road, what if every day it's get up
and do this and do that and run here and watch out for that? I know our flesh can interject
things, but if that's your common way of your approach to God,
you're just worried you're never doing the right thing the right
way, you're on the wrong path. Get down off your high hill or
climb up out of your despairing valley, get on that level road,
and with joy and confidence, follow your shepherd. May the
Lord grant his blessing to his word.