The sermon by Scott Brown, titled 'The Voice Crying in the Wilderness,' centers on Isaiah 40:3-8, emphasizing the transformative power of the voice of God. This voice, symbolized by John the Baptist, calls for preparation and repentance, paving the way for salvation. The sermon highlights God's double blessing of comfort and the necessity of a voice to initiate salvation. It dismantles wrong ideas about God, emphasizing His role as a source of blessing, not deprivation. The voice leads to moral transformation, raising the lowly and humbling the proud, making crooked paths straight, and smoothing rough places. This transformation is a manifestation of God's glory and holiness. The sermon underscores the permanence of God's word compared to the transitory nature of human life. It calls for a life centered on God's word, which stands forever, and challenges believers to be evangelistic messengers, proclaiming the enduring word of God. The sermon concludes by applying these principles to personal, familial, and communal contexts, urging believers to cry out the message of God's eternal word.

Good morning. This morning's sermon text is Isaiah chapter 40 verses 3 through 8. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare 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 brought low. The crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough places smooth.

The glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together For the mouth of the Lord has spoken The voice said cry out and he said what shall I cry? All flesh is grass and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades because the breath of the Lord blows upon it. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this portion of scripture from the prophet Isaiah many, many years ago, but it's, it's applicability today, Lord, and your preservation of it. We thank you for that. We ask now that you be with Scott Brown, our brother, Pastor Elder, as he comes to exposit this portion of scripture, Lord, enable them through your Holy Spirit to teach us through this thank you Lord God for ordaining this day for us here in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ amen. As we find ourselves in verse three of one of the greatest passages of scripture in the Bible, Isaiah 40, we should remember that in the previous two verses of Isaiah 40, the prophet has been explaining what is the true heart of Christianity, and he uses several terms to describe the miracle of salvation.

And it's a double message of comfort. Comfort, yes comfort. Double comfort for the people of God. And it's an announcement that warfare has ended, the enmity with God has ceased, that iniquity is pardoned, and that double has been received for sins. Double what?

Double blessing. Nobody ever received double for their sins, but they have received double blessing. But how does this happen? And what is necessary for this to be accomplished? Because something needs to take place before this comfort can come.

Something needs to be introduced that wasn't there before. There must be a voice calling and that brings us to verse 3. There's a voice that's crying in the wilderness. This is what's necessary to begin the work of salvation in the human heart. And so what God does in order to save sinners is that he sends a voice.

He sends a prophet. And how will the people know unless they hear a voice? How will they hear unless there's a preacher who will come and bring the Word of God to people because There won't be any comfort Unless the Word of God first comes that there would be a voice crying in the wilderness that would declare The way of the Lord. So the heart of this passage is a voice the voice It's the voice of Jesus Christ himself, which expresses itself in the voice of the prophet, and particularly the prophet Isaiah, but absolutely the prophet by the name of John the Baptist, who is making straight the way of the Lord. But I think what we should just saturate our thinking in this morning is just what a blessed thing it is to hear the voice, to hear the sound of the voice of God, what a wonderful thing it is to be able to hear the voice from heaven.

David said, blessed are the people who know the joyful sound. They walk in the light of your countenance in your name they rejoice all day long and in your righteousness they are exalted for you are the glory of their strength and in your favor our horn is exalted That's a picture of a person who hears a voice and David says blessed are they who hear the joyful sound. And so this is a voice that's crying in the wilderness out of out of out of parched ground and the the beautiful truth of this passage that is brought out in different ways is that the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ comes to those who are in parched ground. The flowers that are fading, the grass that is withering. God sends his Son with his voice to bring the nourishment, the refreshment to the soul.

In the book of Revelation we learn that the Lord Jesus Christ's voice was like the sound of many waters. Isn't that wonderful? The sound of many waters you know, coming down upon the parched ground and saturating the things that we're getting ready to die. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ does. This is why Isaiah in chapter 55 he says, ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the water.

And then in verse 10 of Isaiah 55 he says for as the rain comes down and the snow from heaven and Do not return there but water the earth and make it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it." And the thing for which the Lord has sent his word is to bring nourishment and refreshment, to bring life to the things that are dying. And I believe God does that in the soul of the sinner, unrepentant, who's dying. But at the same time, to the soul of the repentant person who continually seeks the voice of the Lord, He's constantly being nourished.

The sound of many waters just keeps coming down and those parched dry areas of their souls are blessed. They're refreshed again and again and again. Now this is a really important passage of scripture. One way we know that is that it's quoted in every single of the four gospel writers. You'll find it in Matthew chapter 3, you'll find it in Mark chapter 1, in Luke chapter 3, and in John chapter 1.

And we know exactly who Isaiah is talking about. He's talking about John the Baptist and the announcement that he brings to the people in their sins. That there will be a day of reckoning, that repentance is required, and as a result the warfare will end, the iniquity will be pardoned, and there will be double blessing for all the sin. Now, I'd like to take a step back here as we look at this passage and I want to give you a sense of what Isaiah is doing here. He's dismantling many wrong ideas and I'm going to give you three ideas that he's dismantling in this passage.

You'll see it as we get to it. He's dismantling wrong ideas about God. He's clarifying who God is. We often misunderstand who God is. We think that God is going to take away good things from us.

We think that if we hear and obey his word, somehow we'll be deprived of something, some experience, some feeling, some relationship, some kind of prosperity. But Isaiah is telling us that God is not like that at all, but he comes to save us, he comes to comfort us, he comes to lift us up out of the wreckage of our lives. And we'll see specifically how he speaks of it in this passage. You know, how we've made a ruin of so many things, and God has come in our ruined state in order to rescue us. He doesn't come to drown your happiness, he comes to shower you with blessings and give you comfort which is why David said in your presence is fullness of joy at your right hand, our pleasures forevermore.

I think Isaiah is trying to correct wrong ideas about God, And he's doing it in many, many ways here in this entire chapter of chapter 40. And you know, people think that God is going to be hard on them and take away some good thing, But this is not the case. God is the source of every blessing. And what we read here is that he has such a blessing that he's willing to go down and take the downtrodden in the valley and lift them up. He's willing to take the proud and bring them down.

He's willing to do so many things in people's lives. You know, we sing that song, "'Come thou fount of every blessing, "'toon my heart to sing thy grace.'" I think this is one of the things that Isaiah is contradicting is a wrong view of God. Second thing is a wrong view of the glory of God. That this love, this generosity, this benefit is a manifestation of the glory of God. Actually glory and holiness are synonymous terms in the Bible and so the glory, the holiness of God is so often misunderstood.

People think of holiness as something that they don't want to have any part of. And of course, when you see the holiness of God, you find yourself undone because it's so beautiful. It's so other you and me. And yet, it's what we need so much. But This idea of the glory of God is presented here in this text.

But what we just have to recognize is that so many of our sins, so many of our disappointments, they come from a single source. And that is that we don't love the glory of God. And we don't think that His ways are truly the most wonderful and the most beneficial. And so God comes to us here in this passage and he declares to us that the beauty of his glory and Isaiah is correcting a view of the glory of God and you'll see it in this passage how he shows you what it is to see his glory. When you look upon his glory, what is it?

And you'll see it right here in this text. And then thirdly, Isaiah is contradicting wrong views of man. And The wrong view of man is that man stands alone, and man is the force of his own change. But here what we find a picture of is that men change. Men change, but God does not change.

That man is either changed by the unchanging word of God or he is blown away like the flower of the field with a breath. God will blow man away and yet unless that man turns to God and he receives in his soul what is eternal. Man's only hope is to turn to the unchanging God lest he be blown away. Man will change one way or another. But this just corrects a wrong view of man.

Now, in this wider context that we have here in Isaiah chapter 40, you know, we find ourselves in this very small section of scripture, but I think we should understand where we are in the prophet Isaiah. We're in the second part of the prophet Isaiah. The first part declares the coming judgment, explaining why the wrath of God comes. It declares what sinful, reprehensible behavior looks like to God. God shows us how he chastises his people to get his people to turn from their sin.

He says, the whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint. Why don't you turn to me? Why should I strike you again? You're not turning to me. And what God does in His love is He strikes His people to get them to turn back.

He fills them with problems so that they'll turn back. Maybe He fills them with terrors and loathing of themselves because of the sins they've engaged in. Perhaps some of you here have engaged in sin in this last week and your heart is broken before you. God has chastised you because of your sin. He's trying to turn you back And God is loving enough that he'll send many things into our lives to turn us back.

Trials, calamities, threats, various things in order to turn our hearts back to him. So that's the first section summarized. And then when one turns from the 39th chapter to the 40th chapter, it's as if one has turned from a picture of darkness and clouds and judgment and the chastisement of God into the light of his glory, the beauty of holiness, the greatness of his love, just the fantastic, refreshing magnificence of the rivers of living water and the voice, the voice of many waters that comes and refreshes the soul. And so these are the two parts. Now, you'll see this later, but just a little bit of a window into the future here.

In chapters 40 through 48, there are nine messages. And at the end, the phrase appears, there is no peace for the wicked. That's the next section. And then in the next section, chapters 49 through 56, it ends with the very same phrase, for there is no peace for the wicked. And then in chapters 58 to 66, again, we end up with that same concept.

There is no peace. Their worm does not die. There is no peace anywhere for the wicked and in and there's this contrast that you find in Isaiah 40 through 66 that is so clear The rivers of living water are yours or there will be no peace for you." That's the message of Isaiah 40 through 66, and that Jesus Christ has come, the voice has come, to deliver you out of all of your darkness and to rescue you and convey you into his kingdom of light. Now also too, Isaiah 40 begins with a voice of one crying in the wilderness. The New Testament opens with a voice crying in the wilderness.

Isaiah 40 ends with the new heavens and the new earth and the final judgment. The New Testament ends with the final judgment and the new heavens and the new earth. And so there are tremendous thematic parallels that you find when you compare the entire prophecy of Isaiah to the whole Bible and Isaiah 40 through 66 to the New Testament itself. There are many parallels to it. Now this prophecy is also given in a real historical context where there are real events that are happening.

They are both physical in near terms of history and also spiritual and actual literal and historical for later times as well. The prophecy from Isaiah 40-66 exists for two reasons. To proclaim the Babylonian captivity so that when the people enter into Babylonian captivity and when they exit the Babylonian captivity, they will be able to interpret their experience according to God's Word. And God is giving these to the people of Judah to interpret their experience. And at the same time, he's given this to help the New Testament believer who has come in the time of the New Covenant by the Messiah to experience their, to interpret their own experience.

Their own experience with sin, the dryness, their, the, the, the, the, the, the withering that was happening in their lives and how they turned to God from idols. And God began to make a garden out of their lives again. So this passage is given for these two purposes. Now, getting closer to our text here, notice there are two quotations in this text. The first quotation is found in verses 3 through 5, and the second quotation is found in verses 6 through 8.

So let's begin with these quotations. You'll see in your outline we begin with the voice of one crying in the wilderness. And the word that Isaiah uses for cry is the same word that he uses in verse 2, cry out to her. Now the Lord comes to his people through a voice. The way that sinners and saints are sanctified is through the voice of God.

There's only one way for a person to enter in the kingdom of heaven and that is to hear the voice of God, the voice of one crying in the wilderness. The voice in the wilderness is symbolic, the wilderness is symbolic of deprivation and desolation and judgment. I think it's also a parallel of the wilderness of the children of Israel we're traveling in and Isaiah is saying out of your desolation and out of your difficulty comes a voice and this is how God works in every person's life. They find themselves in the midst of their life. And a voice comes and it interrupts everything.

And it changes absolutely everything. And John the Baptist is announcing this transformational voice. It's radical, it's seismic, it's cataclysmic, and it speaks about the changes that true Christianity brings into a person's life. Because when God sent John the Baptist into the wilderness, and he preached there, There were earthquakes of the soul. People were coming out into the wilderness to see him, and they were repenting of their sins, and they were being baptized.

They were going one way, and then they repented, and they turned another way. This voice of one crying in the wilderness was after a 400-year silence. Imagine what the true people of God experienced when they heard this voice. There hadn't been a voice for so long. That's the way it is in our lives as well.

You go through these long dry seasons and then God sends you his voice and then you're saved. And everything is different after that. And so the ministry of John the Baptist was the ministry of preaching. He was a herald. He was preaching and lives were changing.

And he did it in the wilderness of Judea, you know, which is about 20 miles from Jerusalem. And this voice of one crying in the wilderness just speaks of the remoteness, the privation that exists in the desert. And yet, how there's a voice of the water of life, the sound of many waters that comes down to bring a rescue to the people of God. And it was the voice that said, prepare The way of the Lord, make straight in a desert the highway for our God. Now this is a command, prepare.

Prepare and make straight a highway for our God. God makes a highway for all those who listen to him. It's the highway of holiness. By the way, you know, the language here really speaks of a way out. You know, like when the children of Israel were in the desert, they found a way out of the desert.

And this voice cries out for the way out, the way out of your darkness, the way out of the deprivation of the wilderness. And this is sort of a second Exodus that we're speaking of here. The verb here that he uses refers to the way that God leads his people onto a highway. It's that highway of holiness that we've read about before. And we see this word prepare, prepare the way of the Lord.

And it speaks of how critical it is that a person is prepared. How is a person prepared? Well something must happen in order to prepare for this change that takes place. Preparation is necessary when the dignitaries arrive. Often ancient monarchs would prepare the roads before them.

They would go out and sometimes send hundreds or thousands of workers to prepare the road. Roads weren't like they are today where you have asphalt and concrete. And they had to be prepared, particularly if they were traveling in times where it was the rainy season and the roads were absolutely horrible. So ancient monarchs would send out preparers of the roads. And Sometimes they would even make completely new roads, if you can imagine that.

A monarch was going to go visit a city, and he would have a completely new road made. This is the type of thing that is being pictured here, that the road must be prepared, free of obstacles. And the obstacles are removed through repentance. That was the message of John the Baptist. All the obstacles of our lives are removed through repentance.

We often think that Seeing our sins and admitting our sins is a hard and disappointing thing. It's completely the opposite. It moves away all the obstacles that we're experiencing at that time. And so there's this making straight in the desert. It's the highway of holiness.

I think that Isaiah is referring again to Isaiah 35 which speaks of the highway of holiness and Isaiah 11. 11.16 says there will be a highway for the remnant of his people who will be left from Assyria. This is the highway. God makes a highway. He takes the people out of the dryness of the desert, the brokenness of it, and he puts them on a highway.

And he takes them in a direction. This is the beauty of salvation. And then in verses four and five you see the impact of the voice and the transformation that takes place. And this language, you know, Every valley shall be exalted, every mountain and hill brought low." This is figurative language about what happens to a person. He's talking about people.

He's using valleys and mountains and crooked paths to talk about people. He's talking about you and I. When he talks about the valley, he's talking about you and you and you. When he's talking about the mountain, he's talking about you and you and you. All of us are very different in many ways.

And yet here, the common denominator is that there are these great changes that take place and no category of person is left out. He's talking about moral transformations of people's lives and how the whole topography of your thinking and your life is changed as a result of your repentance. Because here's one guarantee, the topography of your life will not change without repentance. Got that? If you want your life to change, You have to understand how God changes lives.

The topography of your life will not change without repentance. And that's the voice of one crying in the wilderness to all of us here. Now I want to take each one of these images here and just speak about how they seem to fit our lives. He says every valley shall be exalted. This is the impact of the voice.

The very first impact of the voice is to those who are in the valley. And I believe he's speaking about those who just feel themselves so absolutely unworthy, they are depressed. Maybe You might say that they're the kinds of people who just have an absolutely terrible self-image. I don't want to try to unpack this whole idea of self-image, but you know what I'm talking about. People who just feel that they are so despicable and unworthy, and they're the kind of people that are inclined toward depression.

They're inclined to having dark feelings about themselves and everybody else around them and life and everything. And he speaks to people who are in the valley. It's interesting that the Lord, the Lord is so kind and tender-hearted toward those who are depressed. You know, God is the God who comforts the depressed, and God comes to those who are in the valley. You know, often you think of Christians and you think, Christians are so strange.

You know, some of them are, they're just, you know, They've just had these terrible lives. Well, this is a great picture of it right here. The people who've just found themselves, they've just gone from one pain pill to another. They've gone from one solution to their depression to another. And then the Lord Jesus Christ comes to them and they hear the voice and they're never the same.

And God puts them on a highway where the valley is raised up. He brings them up. He takes up the depressed and he gives them a happiness that they never had before. It's such a marvelous thing. I think one of the chief remembrances of my own conversion was happiness.

I had a happiness that I never had before because every valley will be exalted. You know, people so misunderstand the gospel, they don't really understand what God wants to do for his people but this is one of the things. And then and every mountain and hill brought low. This refers to the proud and the self-confident. You know the the great successful people who have everything together, the self-sufficient here, the high-minded, they'll be brought down.

They must be brought down because they have no idea how insufficient they really are and in all their pride and high-mindedness it needs to come down or they'll never be happy. The proudest people in the world are never the happiest people in the world. And God has come to come and bring the beauty and the happiness that comes from holiness and from pride being brought down. And then the third, the crooked places shall be made straight, verse four. Here Isaiah, I believe, is speaking of those who are trapped in sin, crooked.

Their ways have been crooked, so crooked, trapped in their iniquity, their patterns, their whole thinking has been crooked, they're perverse in their thoughts. This is what they've been like their whole life. And God takes the most perverse, and He takes their crookedness, and He straightens it out for them. And He does it by degrees. He works by straightening it out.

It's such a marvelous thing. This is iniquity that is bent and twisted and crooked. Earlier we read, for their iniquity is pardoned. He's talking about crookedness, things that are bent. And here, I believe that Isaiah is playing off of that whole idea of the crookedness of iniquity.

He's saying, no, No, the crooked will be made straight. What a wonderful thing to have your whole morality, your whole sense of everything being straightened up. Your view of sexuality, your view of manhood and womanhood, your view of money, Your view of relationships, your view of everything has been so crooked, it's been so poisoned by sin. And haven't you ever thought so many times in your life just how much needs to be straightened out in your thinking, This is the power of the gospel. Man walks in darkness and crooked paths and God puts him up on the highway of holiness.

And then the rough place is smooth there in verse four. The actual word that Isaiah uses here for rough places has the imagery of a journey and a rough road, a really hard way to be made. In other words, There's enormous resistance. You love a road that's just flat and straight. There's no resistance.

Your car can go faster, and there's no bumps. But in a rough road, it's not like that. You can't go so fast. You're restrained. You've got to be very careful.

I drove down a road here very recently. There were so many potholes. I was swerving all over the place to keep my wheels from going into these deep holes. Well, This is a picture of a rough place being made smooth, an uneven, irregular, impassable place. Because I think this is referring to people, it refers to people who are difficult.

They're resistant. They're unsophisticated. They're unrefined. They're rough. And there are just so many obstacles about them.

And God comes and He makes the rough places smooth. He takes the very rough and difficult and irregular and uneven people and he makes them smooth. And then the glory of the Lord will be revealed. This is the next result of the hearing of the voice. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

Now I said at the beginning that Isaiah is is dismantling a wrong view of the glory of God. And here we find that all of this, all of these changes in people's lives are the glory of God. You know, how do you see the glory of God? You see it in the transformations that God makes in his people. Well, it's not the only way that you see the glory of God, but it's one of the ways.

When you see the crooked being made straight, when you see the depressed being lifted out of their depression. When you see the proud admitting their pride and turning from their pride, you are seeing the glory of God. This is how God expresses his glory. You know, there's a song I used to sing to my children and there is this line I love to sing, I can see in you the glory of my King. I can see in you the glory of my King.

And this is the picture that is here. In fact, I think you can see this in Luke chapter 3. This glory is the glory of the salvation of God. These changes, all these changes, the valley being exalted, the mountain being brought low, the crooked places straight, the rough places smooth, all of these are evidences of the glorious wisdom of God. Whenever you see the depressed and the incapable being lifted up and given strength, it's an evidence of the glorious compassion of God.

And whenever you see the perverse person who's been ruined by impurity and are forgiven and purified, It's an evidence of the mercies of God. Whenever you see a proud person and he changes and he sees how proud he is, you see the glory of God. And when the resistant and the abrasive and the rough people are stilled and they're quieted in their souls, it's the evidence of the glory of God. Now this word glory is very important to focus on. I said earlier that glory and holiness are synonymous and we learn that from this passage because the word for glory that Isaiah uses is kavod, Kavod.

It's also translated holy. Isaiah, Isaiah uses this word in Isaiah 6. Holy, holy, holy, kavod, kavod, Kavod is the Lord God. And here he uses the same word Kavod for glory. So whenever you read holy or glory, recognize it may be the same word that he's using.

And that is the case here. It has to do with what is heavy, what is honorable, what is glorious, what should be honored. Now, it's interesting that this word is also used in the fifth commandment. Did you know that? When Moses said honor your father and mother he uses the word Kavod.

Honor. And The glory of God is seen through these wonderful transformations. You know, the glory of the Lord is the best thing that you've ever seen. It's the most life-giving thing that you'll ever observe, is the glory of God. You know, we should always Somehow have a hunger in our hearts for the glory of God What would happen to us if God would reign upon this church and give us such a hunger for his glory?

For his holiness what would happen? What would you see? Well, you would see the depressed being lifted up, you'd see the proud being brought low, you'd see the perverse being made straight, you would see the rough being made smooth, that's what you would see. It's such a beneficial thing to have the glory of God. You know, our whole destiny really depends on this.

It depends on the glory of God. You know, the whole doctrine of sanctification, I think, is laid in summary form in verses four and five. And what it says is that the new birth launches a person into a new beauty that they never had before. You know, Jonathan Edwards' doctrine of sanctification was really very simple, and that is when you are born again, you are born alive to beauty. You're born to see beauty like you never saw it before and because you observe the beauty of the Lord, He beautifies you and He lifts you up in your depression.

He brings you down in your pride. He straightens out your crookedness and He smooths you out. The glory of God is a beautifying force. This is why you find the work of the Holy Spirit being such a beautiful thing. It's such a beautifying thing to have the Holy Spirit.

That's why the fruit of the Spirit happens to be the most beautiful things in life. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Can you ever get enough of love? Have you ever gotten enough of joy? Have you ever gotten enough of peace?

Well these are the things that are the results of the glory of God. And the glory of God is a beautiful thing. The greatest and purest and most delightful beauty comes from the glory of God. The closer to God, the more glorious. I had a conversation with a young man yesterday and he came to me with several questions.

I was so grateful for it. I'm always grateful when young men come to me with questions. And he asked me what he should focus on in the next years of his life. He's in his late teens. And I said the most important thing for you between your age now and your age 20 when you get there is that you see the glory of God, that you know God.

The knowledge of God is the foundation of everything Everything everything in your life actually is built from that foundation if you have a wrong view of God You'll have many things built on that foundation that that will be wrong And so my recommendation to him was to saturate his mind in the sovereignty of God, the glory of God, the nature of God that he would see God because when he exits his 20th year he will need to know God. Every single situation that will come to him will be handled on the basis of his view of God. Everything that happens to him he'll interpret from his understanding of God. And I recommended that he would read three books and just get to know them very well. That he would read Knowing God by J.I.

Packer, that he would read A Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by Bruce Ware, and he would read The Sovereignty of God by A.W. Pink. Don't leave your teens without knowing God. Know who God is, because I guarantee you, the winds will blow and you need to know God. He will be your only hope.

And he is the one who will always be the one who will lift you out of the valley, who will bring you down from your pride, who will straighten your crookedness and he'll smooth out your roughness. This is the glory of God. You know as a pastor in this church, I'll just have to tell you, I've seen the glory of God. I've seen the glory of my King in the lives of the people here. I've seen the preached Word of God actually change the way people think and the way they live.

You know, we just had a remarkable thing happen in our church. We haven't really talked about it very much. We just changed from grape juice to wine in the Lord's Supper. And over a period of a couple of years, God by His Word just changed people's minds. And I view that as a sign of the glory of God, because people desired to replace their own understanding with the understanding that's communicated in the Word of God.

To me it was such a remarkable day to make that change. And there really was no significant difficulty. Even though I know people struggled with it in different ways. But the bottom line was people wanted the glory of God more than they wanted their own cherished opinions that they've been built up for their whole life long. It might seem like a small thing, you know, to just flip from grape juice to wine.

But it's a sign of how God glorifies himself through his word. It's such a good word, such a beneficial word. It's like water. His voice is like the sound of many waters refreshing everything in its way. And so there's this beauty of holiness.

And then we read this very last phrase in this first section, verse 5, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. The voice, the word of God. And who is this voice? It is the voice of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the word.

Read John chapter 1, you'll know exactly why Isaiah phrased it the way he did. Because the Lord Jesus Christ is the living word who was being proclaimed by the voice, John the Baptist. And then there's a command in verse 6, cry out. The voice said, cry out. Now, so he's shifted from what the voice does you know the effect of the voice the valleys and the mountains all these cataclysmic seismic changes in the soul.

He turns from that to the message of the voice. And so there's first is this command. And the voice said, cry out. And he said, what shall I cry? This is one of the most amazing questions.

I've thought about this question all week long. What shall I cry? What shall I cry? You know, what should I use my voice for? What should be the message of my life?

When people think about me or you or us as a church, what do they think we're saying? What is our message? What shall I cry? What should be the voice of this church? What should be the voice of this family?

What should be the voice of this of this individual? This is the most important question in life When I cry out what am I crying and The answer is right here and that is that you really have the voice of a missionary, that you're crying out for the glory of God, that you speak of Jesus Christ, you know, that every Christian here in this text is a missionary, and every person is a mission field. The mission field of your home, the mission field of your neighborhood, the mission field of your workplace, and in your community, There is a command to cry out with a certain message, and here is the message. All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is as the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades because the word, because the breath of the Lord blows upon it.

Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever." So what's the message? Well, he tells us what our message is. This is our message. It was the message of John the Baptist, and it also is the message of the Christian in the world.

And notice there are two categories that are here. Categories of things. The first category has one thing in common and that is that, And there are four things in this category. Flesh, grass, flowers, and people. There's this one category.

Flesh, grass, flowers, people. He's talking about this one thing over here. And then He sets it over against another thing, the word of God, which stands forever. So those are the two things he's talking about. The message of the Christian is that there are two things.

There's what is transitory and there's what lasts and does not change. And so these are contrasted here. He says all flesh is grass. Flesh is a metaphor representing the weaknesses of mankind. Flesh comes and goes.

The grass and the flowers, they come and go. People come and go, but God and his word stands forever. And the whole idea is If you're not standing with God and His word, you will be blown away. First Peter chapter 1 verse 24 makes this very clear. In verse 22 he says, since you have purified your souls and obeying the truth through the spirit with insincere love of the brethren Love one another fervently with a pure heart having been born again not of corruptible seed but incorruptible through the word of God Which lives and abides forever because all flesh is as grass And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass.

The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. Now this is the word by which the gospel was preached to you. So this is a representation of the gospel that all flesh is is grass But the word of God stands forever. This is part of the message of the gospel. The people are grass as well.

The Lord Jesus Christ spoke of this as well in the Sermon on the Mount, that the grass and the flower fades. In Psalm 103 verse 15 we find the very same idea. What Isaiah has in mind when he's talking about the grass and the flower fading, he has in mind a hot, dry wind from the east. It's called in that region the hamshin, and it can dry up fields within a day or two of its blowing and he's just speaking of how how transitory mankind is how our days are like a shadow that that we are like we are like a breath And here what Isaiah is saying is that everything that is temporal, that is not identified with the Word of God, everything that is not identified with the Word of God will pass away. This is why you should build your life on the Word of God.

You build your life on anything else that becomes wood, hay, and stubble, that it gets blown away, it gets burned up in the fire. And so Isaiah is making these comparisons. He says the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. He's saying that the Word of God is eternal, that it's everlasting, that it's enduring, it's perpetual. It's the only perpetual thing.

You know, all of us, as real as we appear today, the flesh, the flesh will die. Everything of the flesh will die. So we might as well get rid of it as soon as we can. And I think there's a double meaning here for the unbeliever, a warning that the breath of the Lord will blow upon it and completely destroy at the same time there is this whole idea that those works of wood hay and stubble not of the Word of God will also be burned up on that last day. The Bible says that Scripture cannot be broken, that nothing can stop His Word, that the Word of God is the only thing left standing, that it will not return void, that it is the sound of many waters, it refreshes, it waters, but it will stand.

This is why Psalm 1 is written the way it is. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the paths of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful." He says that because those who do not meditate on the word of God will be blown away like the chaff of the wind. And that's the whole idea that he has here. The gospel is being proclaimed here. The breath of God blows it away.

So the Word of God is the most important thing. It changes people. And God will burn up everything unprofitable by His Word. So that's what we have here. Now I want to bring three applications.

Three applications for us as a church. And I want to speak about the voice. I hope there's been adequate comfort in the beauty of the gospel in what we've just gone through, just how marvelous God is, how kind He is to take us from where we are. I just I pray that somehow we sense the beauty of the Lord and are attracted to His beauty, I'm pretty confident that there's really not much hope for us in dealing with our sins unless we see the beauty of the Lord you can't. You have got to see something more beautiful.

The anger that you prefer over forgiveness, you cannot experience the freedom from your anger until you see how much more beautiful God is in his forgiveness than you are in your holding everybody accountable. This works on almost every level of life. The beauty of the Lord, the beauty of the Lord, the beauty of the Lord. And then I'd like to also, by way of application, talk about the voice, our voice, the use of our voice in our community. What shall I cry?

What shall I cry? Here's what you should cry. All flesh is grass, but the Word of God stands forever. There's your evangelistic message right there. It's very simple and very powerful and profound.

I think most of us Are really crying out to God to give us a greater love for the lost and a greater hunger For dealing with those who are lost in our community. Where are they? Where are they amongst us? One of the reasons they're not here is that we we've not loved the lost I read something this week by a pastor named John Drescher that I think speaks to this issue. It's called, Fishermen Who Do Not Fish.

Now it came to pass that a group existed who called themselves fishermen. And lo, there were many fish in the waters all around. In fact, the whole area was surrounded by streams and lakes filled with fish. And the fish were hungry. Week after week, month after month, and year after year, those who called themselves fishermen met in meetings and talked about their call to fish.

The abundance of the fish and how they might go about fishing. Year after year, they carefully defined what fishing means, defended fishing as an occupation, and declared that fishing is always to be the primary task of fishermen. Continually, they searched for new and better methods of fishing and for new and better definitions of fishing. They created witty slogans and displayed them on beautiful banners. These fishermen built large, beautiful buildings called fishing headquarters.

The plea was that everyone should be a fisherman and that every fisherman should fish. One thing they didn't do, however, they did not fish. In addition to meeting regularly, they organized a board to send out fishermen to other places where there were many fish. The board hired staffs and appointed committees and held many meetings to define fishing, to defend fishing, and to decide what new streams should be thought about. But the staff and the committee members did not fish.

Large and elaborate and expensive training centers were built whose original and primary purpose was to teach fishermen how to fish. Over the years, courses were offered on the needs of the fish, the nature of the fish, where to find the fish, the psychological reactions of the fish, and how to approach and feed fish. Those who taught had doctorates on fishology, and the teachers did not fish. They only taught fishing. Year after year, after tedious training, many were graduated and were given fishing licenses.

They were sent to do full-time fishing, some to distant waters, which were filled with fish. Many who felt the call to be fishermen responded. They were commissioned and sent to fish. But the fishermen back home, they never fished. They engaged in all kinds of other occupations.

Some felt their job was to relate to the fish in a good way so the fish would know the difference between good and bad fishermen. Others felt that simply letting the fish know they were nice, land-loving neighbors and how loving and kind they were was enough. Now it's true that many of the fishermen sacrificed and put up with all kinds of difficulties. Some lived near the water and bore the smell of dead fish every day. They received the ridicule of some who made fun of fishermen's clubs and the fact that they claimed to be fishermen, yet they never fished.

Imagine how hurt some of them were one day when a person suggested that those who don't fish were really not fishermen, no matter how much they claimed to be. Yet it didn't sound correct. Is a person a fisherman if year after year he never fishes is one really following if he isn't fishing? So there you have it. The voice, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, declare the way of the Lord.

One of the great purposes for which we've been put in this world. Here's another application. The use of your voice to cry out in your home. My experience is that there are a lot of people, there are a lot of men who used to be family shepherds. They got all excited about it for a few years, they did that, but it's kind of fallen out of use.

You know, this year we're encouraging everybody in the congregation to read an article a month on family worship that's out of this new book we just published, The Theology of the Family. And this month is A.W. Pink's article on family worship. And he speaks about Abraham, you know, where God says, I've known him that he will command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord. He brings up Joshua, who said, as for me and my house, he brings up Job who cried out daily for his children.

He seemed to meet with them. He talks about Eunice and Lois, these two single women as far as we know, who taught young Timothy the word of God. And in that article, he makes three recommendations First of all when you do that you pray Invoking God's presence secondly you read the Word of God and speak about it and he recommends singing a song and then he recommends praying, committing yourselves into the hands of God. It's very, very simple. And he says, you know, it will restrain sin, it will give a sense of the majesty of God, it will set truth before the minds of everybody in the household.

It's so important that we have that our homes are houses of worship where we're crying out, where we're saying all flesh is grass and all its loveliness is the flower of the field. Children need to understand that, but they need to understand that it's true that it's real And God has called for homes to be places to cry out What shall I cry? Fathers, What shall you cry? Cry all flesh is grass and all its loveliness is the flower the field go and tell your children how bankrupt and unprofitable and unsatisfying the world is How its transitory that it'll be blown away, but there's only one thing that will stand, God and his Word. Identify with God, identify with his Word, and you will stand.

Identify with this world and you will be blown away. Make sure everyone in your house knows that. Who are you identifying with? The grass or the voice? And then lastly, the voice, listen to the voice of one crying out the Word of God in your heart, giving attention to his voice personally, listening to the voice, heeding the voice.

You know, what is the voice that's in your head? Is it the voice of the flesh that you love to hear? Or is it the voice of one crying in the wilderness? The voice that raises up the depressed From the bottom the one that brings down your pride the one that That straightens out your crookedness the one that smooths out your rough spots. What a blessing it is to have the voice of God.

That's why David said, blessed are the people who know the joyful sound. They walk in the light of your countenance. His voice is like the voice of many waters and with those waters he waters the earth, he waters his people. He takes those flowers that are wilting and he brings them to life. He takes the grass and he makes it succulent and rich as the dew comes down on the tender grass and the herbs.

This is the voice of God. It's such a beautiful voice. Here's one thing I know about everybody here in this room in our church. Unless the voice of God is the center of everything, then we will find ourselves with much grass and much wilted flowers. But here there's such a great promise of the power of the gospel.

You see how Isaiah is correcting the wrong ideas of God, the wrong ideas of the glory of God, The wrong ideas of life and what really makes life worth living. The wrong ideas of the mercy of God. How He lifts up the brokenhearted. Well, here we are. What a great chapter.

Let's pray. Oh Lord, we thank you for the beauty of these words that help us to see who we are, who you are, see our great need, see your great beauty. Lord, I praise you for how beneficial you always are. I pray that you would use these words here to rescue all of us from the flesh and the seeking of it. For your glory.

Amen.