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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadSpurgeon Verse Expositions - Isaiah 40:1 - 40:17
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Isa_40:1-2. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath receiveth of the LORD’S hand double for all her sins.
God would have his people happy. He knows that we are not in strong, vigorous state, neither do we honour his name while we are lacking in holy joy. Let the sinners be uncomfortable. Let them be “like the troubled sea that cannot rest”; but as for God’s people, it is his great joy that they should be happy. He bids his servants again and again to comfort them. Sometimes we are in a condition of warfare, and we are under the chastising rod but now the Lord appears graciously to his servants, and he says, “Your warfare is over: your chastisement is ended.” Now the Lord returns in mercy, and he grants a sense of forgiven sin.
Isa_40:3. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
You know this was John the Baptist coming to proclaim the Saviour. That was the best comfort God’s people could have — the coming of the Lord. So it is now. The joy of the Church is the coming of the Lord, and to each one of us the greatest source of joy is the drawing near to us of our Lord. If he appears to us, our winter is over, our summer’s sun has come. If Christ be with us, the time of the singing of birds has come, and our heart is glad.
Isa_40:4-5. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
Wherever Christ comes, it is so. All things are right at his appearing, and if the Lord do but manifest himself to us tonight, each one, we shall find the crooked things made straight. We shall see the mountains of difficulty leveled, and the deep depressions will all be filled up and there will be a causeway along which the Lord triumphantly shall ride to display the greatness of his power. There is nothing that shall hinder the coming of the Lord to us, and when he comes, there is nothing that shall stand against him
Isa_40:6-8. The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.
Now that is a cry that we all need to hear — the death-cry of all creature-confidence for man at his very best is only like grass in the flower. It will be mown down in due time, but if the scythe comes not near it, yet will it fade in its season, for it is a transient thing, and every hope and confidence which is based upon that which is seen must be temporal and must pass away. All the joy that you have tonight — all the hope and all the confidence you have which is based upon an earthly thing — must by degrees all disappear. Nothing is eternal but that which springs out of the eternal. Unless our hope be in the Lord alone, that hope will at some time or other fail us; and this is a cry we need to hear because, until we are sick of the creature, we shall not turn to the Creator. Till we have done with false confidences, we shall not make God our trust.
Isa_40:9. O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Juda, Behold your God!
Look away from these fading things and behold your God. Look away from the brightest joy you have, though it be, like the meadow, all besprent, with many coloured flowers, and look to your God, and to your God alone. “Behold your God” — your God in Christ; your God who has come through the wilderness, making a highway for himself, that he may come to you, Rejoice in Christ your Saviour, and you shall have a joy that never shall be taken from you.
Isa_40:10-11. Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd:
Do you belong to the flock tonight? Then let this comfort you. Never mind about the fading flowers. “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd.” He has brought you into the pasture tonight. Depend upon it, he has not led you by a wrong way. And now, though your soul be hungry and thirsty, you shall not lack, for “he shall feed his flock like a shepherd.”
Isa_40:11. He shall gather the lambs with his arm,
The feeblest, first. The most care, for those that want most care. “He shall gather the lambs with his arm.”
Isa_40:11. And carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.
Your sorrow is to come, It is to yourself alone known. None can sympathize with you. He will gently lead you. There is no overdriving with Christ. Sometimes his ministers in order to get God’s people right one way, overdrive them another, and it is possible while rebuking the hypocrite, to cause grief to the sincere believer, but our Lord is a better shepherd than the under shepherds are at their very best. “He shall gather the lambs with his arm, carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.” Oh! what a blessed helper we have! Let us rest in him.
Isa_40:12-17. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.
Who would not trust such a God as this — this only God? How well may we be content to turn away from the fading creatures to this eternal Lord and put our trust in him! Indeed, the wonder is that we do trust the creature, and the wonder still is that we do not trust the mighty Creator.
Faith, which seems so difficult, after all, is nothing better than sanctified common-sense. It is the most common-sense thing in all the world to trust in Omnipotence — in infinite, unchanging love — in infallible truth. To trust anywhere else needs a great deal of justification, but to trust in God needs no apology. He well deserves it. O my soul, trust thou in him.
This exposition consisted of readings from Isa_40:1-17; Isaiah 25-31. Joh_1:29-42.