The Cure for Giant Despair - Isaiah 40:1-2

I was recently reminded of one of the mottoes of Despair.com.  I was looking at their Demotivational posters, and one of their trademark statements is that they are “The Cure for Hope.”  Much of what we have read in the first 39 chapters of Isaiah could be labeled the same way.  Great bleakness with a few scattered pinpoints of hope, for 39 very long chapters.  Lot’s of despair, with the occasional promise of deliverance . . . someday.  And that lasts for thirty-nine chapters.  It’s like Romans 1 and 2 repeated over and over and over again.  Judgment, judgment, and some more judgment.  It seems to have been written for the purpose of annihilating hope among the Jews during Isaiah’s day.

But today we arrive at chapter 40.  Here, at last, we step out of judgment and wrath and bleakness and despair, and we step into great tidings of comfort and joy.  Chapter 40 is the Cure for Despair!  

In the last verses of chapter 39, we read these words:

[5] Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD of hosts: [6] Behold, the days are coming, 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. [7] And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”  (Isaiah 39:5-7 ESV)

That dark and gloomy prophecy about Jerusalem’s future is immediately followed by these words:

1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 

2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. (Isaiah 40:1-2 ESV)

I want to ask a question of you.  Think along with me about this.  We’ve seen over the last two weeks in chapters 38 and 39 how Hezekiah’s life was spared by the Lord, and that he took comfort in knowing that there would be peace and security the next fifteen years of his life, and that he would not suffer at the hand of the Assyrians.  But Isaiah then informs the king that Jerusalem will eventually be invaded, looted, and destroyed by the Babylonians  Hezekiah’s own sons will serve as eunuchs in the court of the Babylonian king.  They will take everything.  Nothing shall be left.  Jerusalem and the nation of Israel will cease to exist.  Gone.

Then immediately, in the first verse of the next chapter, chapter 40, we read this:

“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.”  

This word of encouragement is obviously applies to another future day.  The assumption is that this comfort is to be spoken to the Jews returning to rebuild Jerusalem after 70 years of exile in Babylon.  At that time, God’s warfare against His people will have ended.  He will bring an end to judgment and wrath.  

So my question is this: How does a word concerning the future comfort of the Jews help in dealing with their present troubles?  If I need comfort now, how helpful is it to hear that things will be better 200 years from now?  Is there any real present consolation in promised future comfort?  

If you were suffering with cancer, your marriage was on the rocks, your kids were far from God and living in rebellion, you were unemployed and living in poverty, and your country was under attack by foreign invaders, how much comfort would you find in the knowledge that in 200 years everything would be much, much better?  “Be encouraged!  God’s gonna fix it all, 150 years after you’re dead!”

The troubles that come with sin in general, and with our own sin in particular, cause us to be disheartened.  When as followers of the Lord Jesus stray from God’s ways, when we indulge the desires of our own flesh, our sinfulness brings us such sorrow and grief and despair and doubt and depression and hopelessness that, in some cases, the Christian can sometimes even entertain thoughts of suicide.  It is in that kind of deep spiritual and emotional darkness that words of genuine comfort are most urgently needed.

The best description I know of that helps us understand the preciousness of the comfort we have in God when we’ve sinned and fallen into discouragement, comes from the adventures of Christian and Hopeful in the book, Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan  For the sake of illustrating my point, I want to read to you from this delightful and extremely helpful book.  

Christian and his companion Hopeful are on their pilgrimage through this life, traveling along the King’s Highway to the Celestial City.  At one point, the going gets rough, their feet are tired from all the rocks in the way, and they come upon a very pleasant meadow just on the other side of the fence that runs along their path.  The name of that place is called By-Path Meadow.  Christian convinces Hopeful that the By-Path leads in the same direction as the Narrow Way in which they are traveling, so they climb over the steps in the wall and continue their journey.  Climbing over the wall into another path is a picture of sin.  We sin against God and our own souls when we leave the way in which we should go, and follow what is easier and more pleasing to the flesh, and contrary to the will of God.

Soon, after a dreadful night spent in great darkness and a terrible storm, Christian and Hopeful realize they have made a grave mistake.  They are suddenly awakened by the owner of By-Path Meadow upon which they have trespassed . . .

Read from Pilgrim’s Progress, pp. 150-155.  The Pilgrim's Progress in Modern English, Bridge-Logos Publishers. Amazon #B001TBN04M

Sin leads the believer to guilt.  Guilt leads us to doubt God's word, to doubt God Himself, and to doubt our own salvation.  "How could such a sinner as I am really be a Christian?"  Despair then beats upon us and causes us to wonder if death wouldn’t be better than life.  Doubt becomes a castle, a fortress, a prison from which we cannot escape.  Despair becomes an insurmountable, gigantic killer of hope.  And we suffer greatly at their hands, sometimes so much so, that wicked thoughts of suicide are entertained.

But we also suffer needlessly.  It is by means of the sure promises of God that we are perpetually comforted.  God’s promises set us free from despair and doubt and guilt and fear and hopelessness.  

1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 

2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. (Isaiah 40:1-2 ESV)

Here in chapter 40 and verses 1 & 2, Isaiah is not merely speaking of a promise of future deliverance of the Jews from captivity in Babylon.  He is speaking of eternal life for all who believe. Our ultimate hope is not in being delivered from this world’s troubles.  We’re not looking for an eternal, all expense paid cruise in an oil-less Caribbean where the sun always shines.  Our hope transcends this world and all of its woes.  

The comfort God sends our way is an eternal comfort that comes from sins forgiven and reconciliation with a God who was justifiably angry with us.  It is a comfort in this life, here and now.  God has dealt with our deserved condemnation, He has justified us in His sight by the work of Christ on our behalf.  Because the promises of God are actually true and not some pie-in-the-sky dream, we are greatly, GREATLY comforted even in the midst of our worst earthly sufferings.  

Comfort (v) - To strengthen the mind when depressed or enfeebled; to console; to give new vigor to the spirits; to cheer, or relieve from depression, or trouble. (Noah Webster 1828 definition)

Is. 12:1 - You will say in that day:

“I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me,

your anger turned away, that you might comfort me.

49:13 - Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing!

For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted.

51:3 - For the Lord comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places

and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord;

joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.

51:12 - “I, I am he who comforts you;

who are you that you are afraid of man who dies,

of the son of man who is made like grass,

52:9 - Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem,

for the Lord has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem.

61:1-2 - The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor; 

he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 

2 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God;

to comfort all who mourn;

66:13 - As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you;

you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

That is God’s word to the people of Judah in the last half of the book of Isaiah.  And it is reiterated in the New Testament for us who believe today:

2Corinthians 1:3-4  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God

For God’s people, He is our greatest comfort.  His promises erase our fears and instill hope and confidence and peace and joy into our hearts.  However bad it may be, the Lord Jesus is our hope of glory, and the Holy Spirit who dwells within is our Comforter.

It may interest you to know that John Bunyan wrote about Christian and Hopeful and Giant Despair and Doubting Castle, from prison.  He spent twelve years of his life there for preaching and holding worship services that did not conform to the Church of England’s standards.  I think this man knows whereof he speaks when he writes about the dungeon of Doubting Castle and the abuse suffered from Giant Despair.

Are you discouraged because of your sin?  Or are you disappointed because of the circumstances in which you are suffering?  Are you tempted to doubt that you belong to the Lord Jesus at all?  Do you ever become so weary of this life, and your sin, and the fallenness of everything around you that you despair of life itself?

1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 

2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. (Isaiah 40:1-2 ESV)

[18] For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. [19] For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. [20] For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope [21] that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. [22] For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. [23] And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. [24] For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? [25] But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:18-25 ESV)