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In the name of Jesus. Amen.

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The words we heard from the end of Isaiah chapter 40 need to be heard

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in the context of the beginning of the chapter.

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The familiar Advent text. Comfort, comfort

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my people says your God.

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Beginning his ministry around 740 BC Isaiah lived and prophesied

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well before the destruction of Jerusalem in 587. The multi-stage

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deportation of its inhabitants to Babylon.

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In doing so he looks ahead generations beyond

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to the return of God's covenant people from those far-off lands with

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the decree of King Cyrus in 538.

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Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.

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And cry to her that her warfare is ended that her iniquity is pardoned

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that she has received from the Lord's hand double

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for all her sins.

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But even that return from Exile didn't exhaust the fullness of God's

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gracious promises through Isaiah.

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The restoration of Jerusalem to mere shadow of its former glory.

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Would one day be superbly eclipsed by the coming of God's servant.

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Who would suffer for the sins of the people.

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And thereby lead all God's people from Exile in a ruined world to the

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New Jerusalem

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and the restored Paradise with God.

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Say to the cities of Judah,

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behold

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the Lord God comes with might.

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He will tend his flock like a Shepherd.

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He will gather the Lambs in his arms. He will carry them in his bosom

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and gently lead those that are with young.

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But Isaiah's here has struggled to believe this incredible promise.

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Whether it was his contemporaries who lived under constant threat from

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Assyria

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or his future readers who tearfully heard his message by the waters

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of Babylon.

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All they could see with their predicament

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They're suffering

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and heavy burden.

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Where was this God who comes with might whose arm rules for him whose

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recompense and reward are before him.

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Where is this God who brings out the host by number calling them all

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by name? Who bring his princess has to nothing and makes the rulers of

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the earth as emptiness?

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They couldn't see it.

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And so they cried out.

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My way is hidden from the Lord.

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And my justice passes by my God.

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They cried out in weakness a faith.

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Fainting in their exilic sojourn,

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weary of feeling alone,

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abandoned,

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unaided in their struggle against powerful forces.

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And what about today's hearers of Isaiah?

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How do we hear and receive God's incredible promises to help us in our

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misery and suffering?

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To lead us out of the Exile of life in this fallen world.

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How well do we trust this God who brings princes to nothing?

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And makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

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I dare say that the hopeless cry Isaiah heard from the lips of Jacob

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and Israel

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is the same faithless cry that often wells up from our own despairing

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Souls.

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My way is hidden from the Lord.

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And my justice passes by my God.

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As a Christian

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who feels more and more persecuted in an increasingly secular nation.

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My way is hidden from the Lord and my justice passes by my God says

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the wife who feels trapped in an abusive relationship.

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With a husband who feels neglected and unappreciated.

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My way is hidden from the Lord.

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In my secret struggles with substance abuse.

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How do you not known?

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Have you not heard?

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The Lord is the Everlasting God.

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The creator of the ends of the Earth.

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He is not faint or grow weary.

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His understanding is unsearchable.

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He gives power to the faint

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and to him who has no might he increases strength.

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Even youths shall faint and become weary and young men shall fall

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exhausted.

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But they who wait for the Lord

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shall renew their strength.

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They shall mount up with wings like eagles.

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They shall run and not be weary.

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They shall walk and not faint.

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They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.

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To wait for the Lord

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is not just about patience.

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Unbelievers can also be patient.

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Situations beyond our control can demand unwilling and resentful

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waiting.

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No,

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to wait for the Lord

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is to trust in the Lord.

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To trust that he will save you with his outstretched arm in his own

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time.

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As one of this seminaries former professors put it.

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This trust of which Isaiah speaks signifies saving Faith and Hope.

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It's the refusal to engage in frantic worry.

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The confidence that Yahweh will ask him justice and Grace at his own

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appointed time just as he has promised.

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This waiting says that professor.

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Is a kind of disciplined reliance on God through faith.

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It's the same waiting the same word

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to which David exhorts us and Psalm 27.

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When he says wait for the Lord.

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Be strong.

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And let your heart take courage.

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Wait for the Lord.

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The object of such saving faith.

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The reason for such confidence and Hope

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is that the Virgin has conceived and born a son whose name is Jesus.

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And this is Jesus is God's own Son who loves you and has absorbed in

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his own body on the cross the full wrath of God that you and I

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deserve.

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So we can have confidence that even seasons of chastening.

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Be they 70 years in Babylon

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or unjust oppression in our own time.

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Even seasons of chastening are for our good.

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And are according to the good and gracious will of our loving and

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all-powerful God.

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When our exile in this vale of tears is over

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our strength shall be renewed once and for all

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in the resurrection to eternal life.

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Because of our baptismal union with Jesus in his resurrection.

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Then we shall triumphantly mount up with wings like eagles to reign

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with Christ forever.

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Then we shall walk in the golden streets of the New Jerusalem and

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never faint again.

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Praise the Lord.

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Who over all things is wondrously raining.

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And as on wings of an eagle uplifting sustaining.

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Have you not seen?

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All that is needful has been sent

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by his gracious ordaining.

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Amen.

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The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and

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minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.