The Mouth of the Lord has Spoken

Passage: Isaiah 40:3-5

Well, as we start to take down our Christmas decorations, though probably not just yet, we begin to set our eyes forward to the New Year, to 2021. Hard to believe, right? With 2020 being the kind of year that it was, undoubtedly one none of us will soon forget, many have asserted, and with good intentions, that 2021 will be the year where we get things back to normal, that 2021 is when we can finally put all of this chaos, uncertainty, dread, and disease behind us and get back to life as it was before Covid-19. And I hope that it is. I would love to be able to go to Avenue Bread after church today, sit down at a table inside and order my French Dip sandwich, you know, the one with the house-roasted beef, swiss cheese, caramelized onions, and a side of “au jus”—it’s delicious. However, brothers and sisters, I regret to tell you that I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, so I can’t tell you before God that such will be the case or will not be the case. Nevertheless, this morning as we look back at the words of the prophet Isaiah, I think we’ll find encouragement for today and for the future, whatever it holds, because we’ll learn about the God who has not only spoken truly but has acted powerfully on behalf of His people in tumultuous, uncertain times. In an age where mandates, policies, and plans are changing at a dizzying rate, we’ll find encouragement in the God who never changes, and we’ll find encouragement in His word, which, while ancient, is more relevant to us today than we can imagine. Isaiah will show us that there are many reasons to believe that God is trustworthy, even, or perhaps especially in the complexity of our lives. And this leads us to our first point, our first of three.