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Dealing With Discouragement

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

Although the occasions can be many, there are two basic reasons for discouragement—internal and external. The internal occurs when for some reason we have given way to sin, and the external occurs when we are buffeted by circumstances, as Job was, but without sin. And, of course, it is possible to get discouraged in both ways. How are we to understand this? How are we to respond to it?

The Text

“Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God” (Ps. 42:11).

Summary of the Text

We have dealt with this psalm in detail before, and so here we will just consider the implications of this one verse. First, the psalmist presupposes that the condition of peace is normal. He is cast down and disquieted, and he wants to know the reason why. This disturbance of his soul is the thing that requires explanation. “Why are you cast down?” he asks himself (v. 11). Second, the psalmist remonstrates with himself. He talks to himself, which is a good alternative to listening to himself. He preaches to himself, and it is a convicting sermon. Third, he comes to a pointed exhortation, commanding himself to hope in God. Not only this, but he anticipates that he will in fact obey the command, for he will in the future praise God.

False Comfort

When we speak peace to our hearts, we can do it in accordance with the Scriptures, or we can do it in accordance with our own pipe dreams. For example, someone who has become and idolater by turning away from the Lord can speak peace to his own heart, in his own name and on his own authority. “And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst” (Dt. 29:19). What I am declaring here are the words of the gospel, and the gospel does not sew cushions for sin.

Triune Peace

Remember that your salvation has occurred because God has included you in His triune life. The gospel is triune, just like the God who established the gospel. And this is why peace for your distress is triune peace. What do I mean? God the Father has declared that the comfort of peace is to be announced to us (Is. 40:1-2). Christ has become our peace by His own blood (Eph. 2:13-14). And why would the Father not give to us what Christ has purchased for us? And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Christ so that He might comfort those who mourn, that He might bind up the brokenhearted (Luke 4:18). Because Christ died, the executor of His testament is the Holy Spirit. Remember then, when you are struggling with discouragement, that Father, Son, and Spirit, are all engaged on your behalf.

Discouragement in Sin

One reason why Christians are discouraged in their attempts to live the Christian life is that they are attempting to run the race with cords around their feet, and a 150 pound backpack on (Heb. 12:1). And so the way out of discouragement in sin is repentance. Discouragement in such cases is disciplinary, and God’s hand is heavy upon you for a reason. Make sure to repent the sin all the way down to its foundations, and secondly, make sure to repent of the right sin. Don’t go snipe hunting in your conscience.

Discouragement in Afflication

But don’t make the mistake of thinking that hard circumstances mean that you must have sinned. This was the error of Job’s failed comforters (Job 2:11), and it was the error of the disciples concerning the man born blind (John 9:2-3). But at the least, every trial contains a temptation to murmur, an invitation to think that the God of universe has bungled matters when it comes to your case. But God does all things perfectly well (Rom. 8:28).

Two Advocates

When Christians sin, or when they struggle with affliction, there is an accuser of the brethren in heaven who accuses them there. But, thanks to God, we have an Advocate there on our behalf. Christ is our attorney, defending us before the Father (1 Jn. 1:1-2). But the devil does not just accuse you in the heavenly courts—he also accuses you to you. What kind of Christian do you think you are? We have an Advocate on earth, as well as in heaven (John 14:16). The same word describes the office of the Son and the Spirit. Whether you stand accused in heaven or on earth, you have a court-assigned defender. And neither the Son nor the Spirit have ever lost a case. “How could they get me off ?’ you might wonder. “I’m guilty.” They successfully defend sinners like you and me because they never, ever argue from your virtues or mine. Their case presupposes our guilt. They always plead the blood of Christ, shed on earth, and then they plead the blood of Christ, sprinkled on the altar of heaven.

Pictures of Your Peace

The Puritan William Bridge pictured it this way. First, distinguish the money in your bank account, and the money in your wallet. There is your basic, foundational wealth, and there is the money you have on you. If you are mugged, then the thieves can only take what you have on your person. They cannot get at your bank account, which is not on you. In the same way, a hard day can only disturb that day’s peace. You have a fundamental peace that a rainy day cannot touch (Rom. 5:1). Second, distinguish peace in the seed and peace in the flower. Often peace in the seed looks like trouble. When you were converted, you were now troubled over things that never bothered you before. Don’t be troubled over that kind of trouble. And third, distinguish peace from a distance, where you can only see the dancing, and everybody looks crazy, and peace up close, when you can hear the music.

The peace of God is a guardian, a fence, but it does not encircle your vices and sins. Rather, your hearts and minds are protected by the peace of God, which passes all understanding (Phil. 4:7).

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He Only Is Our True God

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Introduction

That we all seek our own happiness is a universal truth. That we all fail to obtain the happiness we all seek is also a universal truth. God alone is our true good: he alone can fill the bottomless well of our longing for happiness.

The ancient rabbis, later Jewish commentators, church fathers, mediaeval and Reformation commentators are all unanimous in agreeing that the Song of Songs belongs in the canon of Scripture because the two lovers in the Song of Songs are the biblical Lord and his people, Yahweh and Israel, for us as Christians, Christ and the church. The church reads spiritually because she reads the whole of Scripture as a single story, unfolding from creation to new creation, written under the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit, a story which directly tells of the Lord’s stormy love affair with Israel and with humanity more broadly, sometimes in precisely those terms. The Song of Songs is a richly-woven tapestry whose lyrics are crafted from the language, imagery, botany, and geography of the Old Testament Scriptures, which tell a significant part of this story. These allusions are meant to inform our understanding of the Song. The formula “something of somethings” in the first verse is rare and almost always occurs in phrases that speak of the supremacy of God. Ancient tradition ascribes the Song to Solomon. 1 Kings 4.32-33 attributes 1,005 songs to Solomon and tells us that he spoke of trees, including the cedar tree that is in Lebanon, and of beasts and birds, all of which feature in the poetic world of this song. Solomon appears as a character and the Song is set in Solomon’s world, describing the land over which he reigned, making references throughout to the furnishings, decorations, and scents of the Temple where God met with his people, Solomon’s greatest achievement. (With the whole Bible story, the Song’s portrayal of God as husband and lover should exorcise once and for all the demon of falsely stereotyping the God of the Old Testament as chiefly an angry judge and vicious warrior.) The Song of Solomon is “a parable of the love of God and His people, in the form of an exotic, erotic, ecstatic love-duet” (J. I. Packer). Right analogies between divine and human characters or acts work both ways: they give us language with which to speak about God, and it is precisely at that point we also see the truth about the human matters called upon to do this, so the Song of Songs does give a theology of love between a man and a woman, once we have understood its allegorical meaning.

1. The Supremacy of Christ’s Love (vv. 2-4)

The woman talks to herself about her longing for her beloved (v. 2a), then she praises the man’s love and fragrance, and describes how she and others feel about him (vv. 2b-3). He is the king and her wish for more than just kisses from him is granted (v. 4a). From the beginning, the man and the woman are husband and wife, enjoying the deepest level of loving union. A chorus joins in singing the man’s praises (v. 4b).
The Old Testament repeatedly affirms that the Lord is king. Throughout the prophets, Israel is called a virgin. The king’s chambers hint at the Temple’s Holy of Holies. The furniture, utensils, and people associated with the Temple were anointed with oil blended with the finest aromatic spices. The words sung by the chorus are lifted from Israel’s corporate worship, praising God for his salvation (Psalm 118.24 and Isaiah 25.9). Remembering what God has done out of love for his people is a theme which runs throughout the Old Testament. The glad and joyful virgin bride brought into the chambers of the fragrant king she loves is Israel at the Temple singing Psalms to her Lord in celebration of his saving acts. The high point of this scene is the Lord’s union of love with his people, which is better than gladdening wine (cf Psalm 104.15). Salvation from the perspective of the Song of Songs is not receiving some benefit from God but union with Christ and thus with the Holy Trinity, being ‘partakers of the divine nature’ (2 St. Peter 1.4), which is what Christ prays for (St. John 17.21-23). This union of love takes shape in the world of touch, scent and sound: his bursting from the spicèd tomb, the touch of bread and wine –
Christ’s body and blood – on our lips in the Lord’s Supper, the Psalms and Easter hymns which the church sings. God in Christ alone gives us the true happiness for which we constantly seek and try but fail to obtain from substitutes. “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you” (Augustine). We are to praise Christ to the complaining, restless world, that it might join us in being united to him as his bride, receiving his love and loving him.

Sexual union broadly considered, from kisses to where those kisses lead in the privacy of the inner chamber, provides an analogy for the Lord’s union with his people, so our bodies and what we do with them matter, and a failure to recognize this is a root cause of so much sexual immorality. We bear witness to this high view of physical love by abstaining from all sexual activity outside marriage. Within marriage, kissing, fragrance, praising one another, the king drawing his queen into the bedchamber are all integral to love. Dependence on one another is not weakness (cf Genesis 2.18).

2. The Unworthiness of Christ’s Bride (vv. 5-6)

The woman is speaking, defending her appearance to the daughters of Jerusalem (v. 5). She has a dark complexion because she has been working outside in the sun and this has given her a tan (v. 6), a mark of low social status. Her brothers have made her work in the family vineyards to punish her for not guarding her own vineyard, her body (cf 8.12): she has not been chaste. Nevertheless, she insists on her beauty, describing it in terms which places her at the pinnacle of high society amidst nobility and royalty: Kedar was a nomadic people renowned for power and splendour, the word for curtain is the same word used for the curtains in the wilderness tabernacle, and the curtain Solomon made is the dark Temple curtain of blue, purple and crimson which hung before the Holy of Holies.

The repeated message of the prophets is that Israel has not guarded her vineyard (a common Biblical metaphor). She has given her fruit to other lovers, building altars to other gods and worshipping idols (Hosea 10.1-2), thus incurring the punishment of exile to labour in another land, another vineyard. Yet in the Lord’s eyes, his bride is beautiful. The nomadic tent of meeting and its successor, the Temple, were the places where Israel’s unfaithfulness was dealt with through animal sacrifice, places which God made beautiful with the cloud of his glory filling them. The prophets’ accusation could equally be levelled at us. We have given the worship and trust that is rightly Christ’s alone to other people, institutions, and lifestyles.

We deserve God’s anger and punishment but in Christ’s sight his church is beautiful because he died in the place of his bride, taking her sin upon himself, facing the punishment that was rightly hers (Ephesians 5.25-27). The church is a holy temple for God to live in by the Spirit (Ephesians 2.21-22), who makes her more beautiful. Despite past sins and their ongoing consequences, we who have turned from our sins and are trusting in Christ can be sure of our standing before him, that we are part of his bride who is lovely in his eyes and whose loveliness is growing.
An unchaste, lower-class woman who is nevertheless considered beautiful is the analogy for the Lord’s bride. Beauty is important, but we should not allow our idea of what is finally beautiful to be determined by what the world thinks. One who imitates Christ’s love embraces in the union of marriage a person with all their imperfections, weaknesses, and stains, gives himself for them and so transforms them into one who is beautiful. Past infidelity – confessed, repented of, and forgiven – should not lessen the loveliness of the one who has been unfaithful in the eyes of the injured party.

3. The Trysting-Place Where Christ Waits (vv. 7-8)

The king is now a shepherd and the girl a shepherdess. She wants to know where he takes his flock to graze and rest so that she may go there to be with him and join her flock to his that it may rest and feed with his flock. She does not want to find herself amongst the flocks of another shepherd because he is the one she loves (v. 7). Her lover sees her beauty and gives her directions to find him: he tells her to follow the tracks his flocks have made and she will come to where his under-shepherds are encamped (v. 8).

“Thou whom my soul loveth” is a significant phrase in the Song of Songs, repeated four more times, and it echoes Deuteronomy 6.4-5. The woman is Israel and the shepherd-king who is the object of her love is the Lord. The first half of verse 7 uses the same phrase and verbs as Ezekiel 34.15, in which the Lord God is the subject. The flock the shepherd already has is the church of previous generations. Christ, the Good Shepherd (St. John 10.11), feeds them and gives them rest. The woman with her flock is the present generation of the church, wanting to join with the generations which have gone before in being with Christ, enjoying his nourishment and rest. The faithful church seeks this from Christ, no rival shepherd, and Christ seeks this too. Israel’s shepherds were the prophets and priests, those who taught the people (cf Jeremiah 23). For the shepherdess to follow the footsteps of her beloved’s flock and feed her kids by his shepherds’ tents is for the church of today to walk in the paths of the church of yesterday and be taught, protected, and nurtured where the church of yesterday was taught, protected, and nurtured, in local congregations under ministers of Christ. We reach our countryside rendezvous with our husband when we are faithful to the teaching, worship, and conduct of the church of previous generations (cf. Jeremiah 7.16) and when we gather with believers under pastors who are ministers of the word and sacrament, shepherds caring for and feeding their flock (means, not merit). A very literal demonstration of this is seen in a church in which successive generations grow up, marry, have children, and worship where their ancestors worshipped. Lord’s Day by Lord’s Day we enter our Sabbath rest and when we gather for worship, we ascend into heaven, where the souls of the faithful departed are themselves at rest, into the presence of the risen and ascended Christ himself (Hebrews 12.22-24).

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Parenting Young People 1

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Introduction

When it comes to parenting, you have often heard me say that our parental responsibility does not consist in getting young people to grit their teeth and conform to the standard. The task before us is to bring up our children in such a way as to love the standard. This is not possible to do with externally driven rules. It is a function of loyalty, and loyalty is based on love and relationship. We should consider what this looks like.

The Texts

“My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: For they shall be a chaplet of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck” (Prov. 1:8-9).

“My son, forget not my law; But let thy heart keep my commandments: For length of days, and years of life, and peace, will they add to thee. Let not kindness and truth forsake thee: Bind them about thy neck; Write them upon the tablet of thy heart: So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man” (Prov. 3:1-4).

“My son, let them not depart from thine eyes; Keep sound wisdom and discretion: So shall they be life unto thy soul, and grace to thy neck” (Prov. 3:21-22).

“My son, keep the commandment of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: Bind them continually upon thy heart; Tie them about thy neck. When thou walkest, it shall lead thee; When thou sleepest, it shall watch over thee; And when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee” (Prov. 6:20-22).

Summary of the Texts

In the texts quoted, there is a great deal of material—more than I am able to address today. What I would like to do is draw out one basic theme. First, the instruction of your father and the law of your mother should be treated as a garland of grace for the head, and as an ornamental chain around the neck (Prov. 1:9). Second, a young person should take care to bind kindness and truth around his neck, and he does this by not forgetting his father’s law, and by cultivating a heart that keeps his commandments (Prov. 3:3). The result is a blessed life. Third, sound wisdom and discretion is life to the soul, and grace around the neck (Prov. 3: 22). And last, take up the commandments of your father, and do not abandon the law of your mother. Tie them onto your heart, and hang them around your neck. These are not a good luck charm, but Solomon almost speaks of them as though they were. But this is blessing, not luck. This is the triune God of all grace, and not some rabbit’s foot.

Obedience and Glory

Obedience to parents is therefore a young person’s glory. What do you do with what your parents have asked? You do not trudge off reluctantly, muttering to yourself. No, the standard set forth in Scripture is to take what you have been asked to do and hang it around your neck like you would do with an Olympic gold medal that you had just won. If an athlete comes in first in the Olympics, he does not stuff the medal into his gym bag and slouch off halfway through the national anthem, No . . . what do you do with your glory?

A High Standard for All

Now this is the point where many parents are elbowing each other, and praying that their little pill of an adolescent is listening. This is the point where some are doing all they can to refrain from looking down their row to see if somebody is paying attention. But this is not a life of ease for parents, and the glory of raw obedience for teenagers, an obedience that drops mysteriously out of the sky. It does not work this way. Obedience, the kind described here, arises from personal loyalty, and this loyalty arises from love. Where does love come from? As always, God models it for us. What He asks us to do, He shows us how to do. And we love Him because He loved us first (1 John 4:19). And if we want our young people to love us, with grace around the neck, then we must show them how it is worn.

Raise the Standard by Lowering It

If you cannot get the kids to love the standard, then lower the standard. I am not talking about God’s commandments, which you have no authority to lower, but rather addressing the questions that surround your house rules. Lower the standard to the point where everyone in the family can pitch in together. This is not simply “lowering standards,” and “why is a preacher telling us to do that?” It is actually raising the parental standard, which is the real reason we don’t like it. Parents must embrace the task of communicating, in a contagious way, love for the standard.

Now some parents might protest that this is impossible. But what does this example teach the young people in the home? It teaches them that nobody around here has to do “impossible” things, and since the requirement to make your bed, or to comb your hair, or to stop texting so much, are all clearly impossible, then they don’t have to be done. If you want your children to be obedient, then show them how.

Apart from a context of love and loyalty, parental discipline is just clobbering a kid. And since clobbering a kid is not what God said to do, the child is learning the fundamental lesson that in this house, we don’t have to do what God says to do. Instead, we learn to be sneaky enough to not get clobbered.

All Together Now

Each member of the family is supposed to understand that the whole family is a unit. All of you are on the same team. If you have drifted into an adversarial set of roles, then the parents have to do something to stop the game, change the rules, do something that works. Let us suppose the whole family is flunking high school calculus. Wouldn’t it be far better to all go back to sixth grade and pass that grade together?

The standard set in the passages from Proverbs is not an impossible standard. That was not written for angels in Heaven. It was written for us. These things are set before us now.

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Tidings Of Comfort And Joy

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Introduction

Last Lord’s Day, the message was brought to us from the conclusion of Isaiah 40, and we learned from that message that there are two kinds of waiting. There is a waiting that causes our strength to dissipate, and there is a waiting that gathers our strength for us. There is a waiting that renews, an anticipation that is full of joy, and there is a waiting that is an emotional corrosive. This week we want to develop this idea further, and to do so from a few verses earlier in that same chapter.

The Text

“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 received of the LORD’S hand double for all her sins. 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. 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. 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” (Is. 40:1-8).

Summary of the Text

The text begins with comfort (v. 1). Godly preparation does not begin with affliction, but such preparation actually ends the affliction. How so? The prophet speaks comfortably to Jerusalem, telling her that her sins are forgiven before the great deliverance arrives (v. 2). The next verse is a prophecy of the ministry of John the Baptist (v. 3; Matt. 3:3; Mark 1:3; John 1:23), who prepared the way for the coming Christ. Every valley is lifted up, and the high places are humbled—for just one example, Zebulon is humbled, and Galilee is exalted (Is. 9:1). Notice that this time of preparation is a time when things are made level, not uneven, when things are made smooth, not rough, when things are made straight, not crooked (v. 4). This time is aiming for a particular result, which is the revelation of the glory of the Lord, which all mankind will see (v. 5; Luke 3:4-6). The prophet is told to cry out—but what is he told to cry? Men are like the grass, and their glory is like the flowers of the field (v. 6)—and as the grass withers and the flowers fades, so men also fade (because of the breath of the Lord). This passage is quoted by the apostle Peter (1 Pet. 1:24-25), to the effect that the Word preached to Christians is the Word that stands forever, and it is the Word by which Christians are born again (1 Pet. 1:23). This means that men who are regenerate are no longer numbered with the withered grass and fading flowers. That Word is preached “by the Holy Spirit” (1 Pet. 1:12), which is of course the same breath that makes the flowers fade.

Two Kinds of Sorrow

Just as there are two kinds of waiting, so also there are two kinds of sorrow—and they parallel the two kinds of waiting. One dissipates strength and the other restores it. One kind of sorrow rakes you over the coals, and the other is the word that speaks comfort. “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death” (2 Cor. 7:10). One sorrow leads to comfort and no regret, and the other leads to sorrow upon sorrow. You can be sorry today, sorry tomorrow, and you can die sorry. That is not what Christ came to do for you.

Repentant or Penitential

Our English words repentance and penitence are obviously related to one another (via the Latin paenitere), and we do have to be careful not to be superstitious about words. But there are different connotations to these words (in English) having to do with their history in our theological debates. Beginning with Tyndale, who translated metanoeiete as repent, instead of do penance, we have had a long history of distinguishing what it means to receive the grace of God, and what it means to try to surreptitiously earn the grace of God. Luther’s 95 Theses began with this whole issue of penitence understood in gospel terms: “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, in saying “Repent ye,” etc., intended that the whole life of believers should be penitence.”

The Real Deal

True repentance should take the time to confess and forsake real sin, and the time should not be wasted through indulgence in nebulous angst about possible sinfulness that is always carefully undefined. “Penitential” seasons can be put to a genuinely good use if they are a time when serious, once-for-all mortification of particular sins occurs— if real sins and real bad habits are uprooted from your life. Pray, practice and pursue Colossians 3:5 and 3:8. Who could possibly be against that? The real problems come in when sin is not really dealt with, and yet the times of squirrel-cage run penitence don’t even slow down, and the penitent daily comes to resemble more closely the policemen in Penzance. “Yes, but you don’t go!”

Glad Tidings

Jesus assumes that such times can be spiritually healthy, but He requires His followers to keep it a secret that they are observing such a time. “Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly” (Matt. 6:16-18). A fast is a time for reflection, personal discipline, and confession, and if you are doing this during a penitential season, Jesus requires that you take reasonable measures to hide what you are doing from others. Why? Because your life should embody the truth that this entire season is a time when we are bringing to the world tidings of comfort and joy.

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Waiting on the Lord (Dr. David Field)

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Sermon Notes

Isaiah 40:27-31
27Why do you say, O Jacob,and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD and my right is disregarded by my God”?
28Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
29He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;
31but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40
Comfort has been announced (prophetically) to the exiled people of God: they’ve done their time, vv.1-2; God’s word of promises stands, vv.3-5; just look at him, vv.9-11; he is sovereign and wise – over the
nations, vv.12-17; the living God (contrast the idols), vv.18-20; the sovereign creator – over the rulers, vv.21-24; incomparably holy – over the powers.

Isaiah 40:27
And yet in the face of this they are despondent and doubting as if the LORD doesn’t care or understand (v.27).

Isaiah 40:28
So the prophet challenges them to remember their creed, their history, and the prophetic word already given. (v.28a)

The LORD is the everlasting God who is sovereign in and over time – there is no doubt that he will keep his promise. (v.28b)

The LORD is the creator of the ends of the earth – his arm can reach there and bring his people back to the centre. (v.28c)

The LORD’s living power is limitless – he is not tired of ruling the universe or exhausted by caring for his people. (v.28d)

The LORD’s wisdom is immeasurable – he knows precisely what is going on and can’t be tricked into missing his purpose. (v.28e)

His rule, his reach, his resources, his regard are boundless and indubitable.

Isaiah 40:29
Perhaps, then, the problem is that he meanly withholds what his people need? No, the LORD is a generous God, tirelessly munificent, abundant in goodness. (v.29)

Isaiah 40:30
Wind it up, Isaiah. Set up the contrast. Young men, choice men have limited resources and fall to the ground.

Isaiah 40:31
Bring it home, Isaiah. But … While they wait and because they wait, those who wait for the LORD to act / those who wait on the LORD in trust exchange one worn-out strength-garment for a new one (v.31a).

Far from falling to the ground, they soar to the sky (v.31b). As the LORD arrives to lead and accompany his people on the journey from exile to home, he energizes those who walk with him.

A couple of summaries:
a) 28-30 are true so stop occupying 27 and occupy 31 instead.
b) the flow:
27 – despondency amongst God’s people is groundless
28-29 – because God is great and wise and generous
30-31 – so wait for the LORD to act and wait on the LORD in trust and you will find strength for the journey

Keep in mind:
You and your circumstances – one trustful step at a time.
You and your sin – “consider Him … so that you may not grow weary” Our persecuted brothers and sisters – pray for them to prove Isaiah 40.31. The church in history – walk upright in bold confidence.

But most of all …
What Jacob-Israel calls out faithlessly (v.27), the Lord Jesus Christ calls out faithfully. Never was a man more faint and weary. Never did a man more wait on the LORD. Surely, surely, he must rise.

And he does.

And we find in him, both the Jacob-Israel who truly looks to the LORD and the LORD whose advent (coming) is renewal and redemption for those who look to him.

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