Episode Transcript
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If you're able to remain standing,
please do. If not, feel free
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to have a seat. And we're
going to give our attention to Isaiah chapter
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forty. Right across the page in
your hymnal. We just saying one hundred
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and ninety eight. I think it's
one hundred and ninety seven. Comfort.
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Comfort E my people is a hymn
based here on Isaaiah forty, the EJ
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young commentator on Isaiah, Old Testament, professor and Orthodox Presbyterian Minister. He
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wrote when one turns from the thirty
nine to the forty chapter, it is
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as though he steps out of the
darkness of judgment and into the light of
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salvation. Let's step into that light
together now and hear God's word from Isaiah
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Forty. I'm going to read verses
one through eleven. Comfort Comfort my people
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says, your God, speak tenderly
to Jerusalem and cry to her that her
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warfare is ended, that her iniquity
is pardoned, that she has received from
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the Lord's hand double for all her
sins. A voice cries in the wilderness.
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Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert, a
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highway for our God. Every valley
shall be lifted up and every mountain and
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hill be made low. The uneven
ground shall become level, the rough places
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a plane, and the glory of
the Lord shall be revealed, and all
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flesh shall see it together. For
the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
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A voice says cry, and I
said, what shall I cry? All
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flesh is grass and all its beauty
is like the flower of the field.
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The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the Lord blows on
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it. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades,
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but the word of our God will
stand forever. Go on up to
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a high mountain. O Zion,
Harold of Good News, lift up your
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voice with strength. Oh Jerusalem,
Harold of good news, lift it up.
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Fear not, say to the cities
of Judah, behold your God,
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behold the Lord comes with might and
his arm rules for him. Behold is
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reward is with him and his recompense
before him. He will tend his flock
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like a shepherd. He will gather
the lambs in his arms, he will
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carry them in his bosom and gently
lead those that are with young amen.
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There are two kinds of comfort in
the world. One is temporary and the
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other is lasting. The temporary kind
is much easier to obtain. You might
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share a funny video with a friend, take a quick walk outside, maybe
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enjoy an afternoon nap, and these
things can genuinely help when you're feeling bad.
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They can help you to feel better, and for minor problems they sometimes
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do the trick. But more often
than not the things that we face in
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this world can't be solved with an
afternoon nap. These things might soothe for
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a moment, they might distract us
from our problems, give us a little
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bit of a diversion, which can
be nice, but for our most serious
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problems we don't need distraction, but
healing. But of course that kind of
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healing is often much harder to obtain. As the weather dries things out here.
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If your hands get a little dry, you put on some motion,
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typically problem solved, but if you
have a tumor, putting hand lotion on
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isn't going to help you at all. Finding healing for big problems usually requires
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some invasiveness, facing them directly and
honestly finding comfort, as this passage of
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scripture begins, comfort comfort my people. Finding that kind of deep and lasting
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comfort often requires us to also look
at the realities of our lives, at
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the ugliness, but also at the
glories of God's grace. This morning,
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in this hymn that we will sing
after I bring you this message from the
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Lord Him One hundred and ninety seven
comfort, comfort my people. In this
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hymn, in this prophecy, I
want to help you to do that,
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to face the darkness of this world, but to do so with confidence,
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knowing of the Lord's Great Light,
to face the confidence not with fear and
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trembling and uncertainty, but with joy
and with glorying in the God of our
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salvation. I could distract you,
I could instead to give you a Sunday
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morning diversion. We could entertain mean, we could have a nice time and
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go home. But because I love
you, I genuinely love you, I
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want to speak true comfort for you. It's what has been given to me
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and all those who have been called
to speak the word of the Lord,
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as Isaiah is told. Comfort,
comfort my people, says your God,
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bring them true and lasting comforts being
speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her
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that her warfare is ended, that
her iniquity is pardoned, that she is
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received from the Lord's hand double for
all her sins. That either meaning that
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the Lord has fully completed all suffering
necessary or that he has given us more
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than we have asked. Either way
you interpret it, it's good news for
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you. It means that judgment is
complete and blessing and glory is at hand.
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This is what God tells the messengers
of the kingdom to do, whether
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they are Isaiah or John or me, all speaking those words of our Savior,
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who brings the Kingdom of God into
this world, a kingdom of comfort.
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These are the first words of the
Hymn Comfort, comfort, E.
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my people speak ye peace. Thus
saith our God. Comfort those that sit
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in darkness, mourning neath their sorrows
load. Speak Ye to Jerusalem of that
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peace that waits for them. Tell
her, tell her that her sins I
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cover and that her warfare now is
over. It doesn't matter who you are,
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what your experiences are in this world. The same is true for every
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single one of us here. We
are all born carrying this load of sorrow.
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We're all born into a world that
has been poisoned by sin, that
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sits under a curse of judgment,
and we know this from our own experiences
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as well. As from the word
of God. Babies die, marriages fall
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apart, children rebel, hard earned
money is stolen, big dreams die for
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lack of support. Great and wonderful
projects are mismanaged to death. There's pride
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and lust and greed, theft,
idolatry, not just outward attacking us,
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but spilling out of our hearts.
Even is Jesus told us these things that
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defile us. We recognize this,
we recognize this sorrow, sorrows load that
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we are under, and we of
course try to reverse them sometimes, sometimes
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we try to play Nice, sometimes
we try to live by the rules,
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but we continually find ourselves in a
constant state of warfare with each other,
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with ourselves and, of course,
most of all, with God. Is
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David said in Psalm, fifty one
against you, and you only have I
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sinned. Let me just say what
we all know. Obedience does not come
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naturally, somebody said in a podcast
I was listening to this week. Dogs
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are great with law based preaching.
You teach a dog a thing, don't
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go near the fence, you discipline
the dog, you show the dog that
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you go this far and you get
hurt and the dog doesn't go that far
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anymore. Might take a little bit
of training, but usually it works and
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it lasts for life. We humans
aren't like this, are we? We
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seem to be naturally inclined to go
past the fence and under the fence and
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around the fence and clip the fence
and create a new fence and move the
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boundaries and whatever we can do,
and we might get shocked or beaten or
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yelled at or any number of things, and we keep doing it again and
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again and again again. Not only
does obedience not come naturally, but it
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seems like training doesn't either. No
matter how strict the law is, no
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matter how powerful the consequences are,
we find ourselves still stuck in sin,
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underneath a sorrow's load. Even the
best of us, the most obedient of
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us, often live our lives for
the wrong reasons. We obey for the
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wrong motivations. We do the right
thing, but for the wrong motivations.
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Today is the day before Christmas and
there are many great joys all around us,
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things big and small, to be
grateful for, but I want to
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remind you today is, as the
word of God does, of the darkness
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that is here as well. I
don't want to remind you of the darkness,
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to ruin your joy, but to
increase it, not to take it
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away, but to give you more. Because the darkness that we find ourselves
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in, the sorrow that weighs us
down, it's true that we can't remove
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it on our own, but the
message of God's Word is that comes through
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his prophets, his messengers, is
to cope, to declare to you that
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you don't have to remove it,
that you can't remove it, but that
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he can and that he has comfort. Comfort. My people cry to her.
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Her warfare is ended, her iniquity
is pardoned. So let us prepare
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a way for the Lord. Verse
Two of the him, coming from this
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passage, says Yeay, her sins
are God will pardon, blotting out each
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darknessdeed, all that well deserved anger. He no more will see or heed.
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She that is Jerusalem, the people
of God. She hath suffered many
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a day. Now her griefs have
passed away, God will change her pining
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sadness into ever springing gladness. You
see the promise there. The promise is
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that God is doing as God is
doing and has done something great. As
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verse five of Isaiah Forty says,
the glory of the Lord shall be revealed
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and all flesh shall see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has
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spoken. This strength of God's word, whether it comes in the declaration of
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his kingdom in general, in the
words of pardon for your sins, I
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forgive you. He says. These
words, these promises, these announcements,
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are our life. The comparison in
comes in Isaiah of forty, verses six
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through eight. The voice says cry, the Prophet says, what Shall I
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cry? Here is what you say. All flesh that is us is grass,
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and it's beauty is like the flower
of the field. The grass withers,
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the flower fades, but the word
the War Lord, of the Lord,
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the Declaration of the Lord, the
pardon of the Lord, that stands
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forever. Cry, Christ, Be
Comfort to my people. Speak tenderly to
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Jerusalem, tell her this good news. What happens when God speaks to his
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people? His people are changed.
There's power in the word. Notice what
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happens here in Isaiah forty, verse
one. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, right,
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tell her, tell the people of
God this good news. But then
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what happens in verse nine? Notice
who's speaking now. I'll read it.
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Go Up to a high mountain.
Oz Ion, harald of good news,
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lift up your voice with strength.
Oh Jerusalem, Harold of good news,
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lifted up, fear not, say
to the cities of Judah, behold your
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God, Jerusalem begins as the one
who has spoken to and becomes the one
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who is speaking. Do you see
that something changes in God's people when he
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speaks to us? A change happens
in which we are no longer weighed down
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by sins, no longer overcome by
darkness, but become a people that can
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speak the very word that we have
heard and we speak to the world that
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same word. Behold your God.
All your fears, all the darkness,
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is changed when he comes, because
of verse ten behold them. With might
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in his arm rules for him.
His reward is with him, his recompense
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before him. He comes with this
great and mighty power. That's how he
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can change overwhelming darkness into ever springing
gladness, how he can chains the depth
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of our sins into a wound that
is healed, sin that defiles us and
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makes us as black as coal,
into people that are forgiven and as white
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as snow. Because he comes in
strength and in might, but as he
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comes in all that strength and might, he also comes with great tendernesses,
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to tenderness. Isaiah forty begins speak
tenderly to Jerusalem, and here, in
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verse eleven, we read that he
will tend his flock like a shepherd.
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This precious image. He will gather
the lambs in his arms, he will
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carry them in his bosom. He
holds them close to him. They we
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can feel the warmth of God as
he carries us through this world. You
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gently leads not just the little ones
but those that are with young to nice
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first, to remember mom's the Lord
is good to us. He comes with
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power, power that is destructive,
power that clears the way, a power
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that raises the mountains down and lifts
up the valley and makes everything ready and
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new and straight. But he also
comes with mercy and grace and love and
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tenderness and comfort for you. Do
you feel the weight of sin in Your
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Life? Do you feel sorrows load? Then hear the words of God,
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comfort, tenderness, power of salvation
that is capable of overcoming the things that
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we are unable to solve. Verse
Three, for the Harald's voices crying in
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the desert far and near, bidding
all men to repentance, since the kingdom
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now is here. All that warning, cry obey. Now, prepare for
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God away, let the valleys rise
to meet him and the hills bow down
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to greet him. Make Ye Straight, what long was crooked. Make the
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rougher places plain. Let your hearts
be true and humble, as befits his
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holy reign, for the glory of
the Lord now, or Earth over Earth,
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is shed abroad, and all flesh
shall see the token, the promise
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that his word is never broken.
These are the words that are ascribed to
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John the Baptist when he declares that
the lamb of God has come into the
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world, that light shines in the
darkness and the darkness is not overcome.
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It that one, he says,
comes to me, who I am unworthy
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to untie the straps of his sandals. This word that has been spoken becomes
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the word incarnate, the word the
God speaks through the sun, comes into
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the world in a fleshly way,
not in sin but in humanity. He
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becomes man. God becomes man so
that his promise would be fulfilled, so
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that his powerful whirl word would not
be broken. And how does he do
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that? He does it by coming
into the world in all tenderness and all
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humility and all meekness. He comes
is a human child, born in humble
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circumstances, under the threat of death
from the very beginning and ultimately dying at
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the hands of humanity, but also
at the hands of God, so that
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all of our all of our unrighteousness, all of our sin, all of
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our darkness, all of our misdeeds, would be placed on him, so
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that he could serve as a sacrifice
for our sins, so that Jesus could
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be that great mediator between us and
God, so that our sins could be
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forgiven by the power of Jesus,
who went to the cross, who went
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to the grave and rose again from
the dead. The word of God was
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fulfilled, the heralding of that good
news was fulfilled. The power of the
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Kingdom of God was not just at
hand, it came into the world and
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is Jesus ascended to the right hand
of God, the Father Almighty, from
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where he now rules and reigns over
us. We stand as those who have
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been forgiven. We stand as those
who now have been changed and can call
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to others to repent and to believe
this Gospel. The glory of the Lord
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is over all the earth. The
message of the Gospel has been shed over
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all the world and continues to go
forth. Will you believe? And,
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if you believe, will you continue
to walk in that faith? When you
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find yourselves facing the sorrows of this
world, the sins and your own souls,
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what will you do? Will you
go looking for glitter and lights and
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bows, or will you find eternal
comfort, ever springing gladness in the good
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news of Jesus? Christ? Beloved
Jesus came into this world to save us
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from this world, to save our
save us from our sins and to usher
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us into a new creation, one
that is eternal and unshakable, a kingdom
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that will last forever. Celebrate that, find comfort in that, here the
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tender words of your God, not
just today and tomorrow, but every day
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and even for all eternity. Amen. Let's pray
