PRIMED TO PREPARE

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

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, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Isaiah 40:1-5

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Today, we hit the pause button on our study of the Great Tribulation and the events triggered by Jesus breaking the seventh seal because we are about to enter the Advent season, a time when we need to prepare our hearts for the coming of Jesus, our Savior.

And so we’re going to do just that and I will share a series of messages to carry us day by day until we reach Christmas Day and then we’ll look at a few more events that followed Jesus’ birth that will take us up to New Year’s Day as we usher in 2025.

Before we enter Advent tomorrow, I thought it would be proper for us to have a message leading into what’s to come and examine how our recent Thanksgiving celebration serves to prime us for the much needed, devoted preparation that starts tomorrow. For there could be no better heart attitude for us to carry into the expectation of Jesus’ birth than the attitude of gratitude, remembering fully that this baby wouldn’t be like any other, past or present. For this baby was born to save mankind from the penalty of eternal damnation of Hell and offer the everlasting glory of life in Heaven to all who would simply believe in Him. It’s the ultimate gift of hope, sent from Heaven to earth by a God who didn’t wish for any person to perish so He created a way to deliver them into eternal life (John 3:16).

So as a lead in to the Advent season which starts tomorrow, let’s look at these words from the opening five verses of Isaiah, chapter 40, as God speaks to His beloved Israelites through His prophet:

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, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

The Book of Isaiah is perhaps one of the most amazing books in all the scriptures because the message within is a mirror image of the overall Bible it is a part of. Maybe this is something you know, maybe it’s something new and amazing. Either way, it’s incredible to me, no matter what.

First of all, Isaiah is composed of 66 chapters and there are 66 books in the Bible.

Then, if you read the book in its entirety, you will find that in the first 39 chapters, God speaks out against the stubborn, rebellious attitude of the Israelites and the judgment He would bring as a result of their blatant sinfulness and disrespect towards Him. This is followed in chapters 40 through 66 by His promise to send a saving Messiah who would redeem His people from their sins and bring hope.

How many books do we find in the Old and New Testaments?

39 books in the Old and 27 in the New.

The Old Testament is predicated on the old covenant grounded in compliance with the Mosaic Law, a law that exposed the sins of the people of Israel and showed that no one could gain salvation on their own merit. The New is grounded in God’s salvation offer to all people, Jew or Gentile, who would simply believe in His Son Jesus as their Savior and the Lamb of God who was a willing atoning sacrifice which took away the sin of the world (John 1:29).

With all this, we shouldn’t be surprised by the tone of the opening five verses of Isaiah 40 as God begins to bring the good news of Jesus’ coming to them. Just as His words sought to comfort His people in the midst of their circumstances about 2,700 years ago through the prophet Isaiah, He speaks consolation and solace to us today. For in a mere 25 days, we will celebrate what God said was coming, a baby born to die a death He didn’t deserve to save a people who didn’t do anything to deserve saving.

As we prepare for Jesus’ birth, let us use the spirit of thanksgiving, cultivated by the recently passed holiday, and apply it to our hearts anew as we prepare the way of our lives to receive the Lord Jesus, readying ourselves to celebrate His birth and then carry on His Gospel work in the year to come.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.