An Empty Room

Isaiah 40:3-4

The LORD in Isaiah 40:1-5 highlights the overall means by which He redeems and uses His people. These three stages perfectly correspond with the three New Testament teachings of Christian living. The Lord justifies, sanctifies and glorifies His people. Isaiah 40:3-4 emphasizes the process of sanctification.

B. An Empty Room (Isaiah 40:3-4)

Every major construction effort requires a lot of planning. Fortunately, God has done this behind the scenes of each of our lives, as local churches, families and individuals. We should realize that the plans are done very carefully in love with the express purpose that we can share in His inheritance. These sanctification plans, though, require a lot of work in our lives and therefore a lot of inconveniences.

The goal is always the same: "Clear the way for the LORD." Jehovah Himself desires to live out His glorious self in our lives. The goal is not to just fill in the valleys and tear down the hills. The long term construction equipment and mess from this work might make us feel this, but it is not. Our lives are being transformed for the purpose of making room for the Lord. In essence then, this step can be summarized by a reshaping of our lives.

God works on two major projects as noted below. After this, there is always a long series of minor work characterized by the first two but on a much smaller scale. This work is never comfortable but always necessary. The goal for all projects will be to let God live out His glory in our lives.

Goal: Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.
Major Project #1	Major Project #2	Minor Projects
Let every valley be lifted up	And every mountain and hill be made low	And let the rough ground become a plain, And the rugged terrain a broad valley.
The Lord heals our wounds. These are sins of deficiencies stemming from doubt in God and His good purposes for our lives. Some of these are: worry, stress, fears, indecision, self-hatred, depression, and suicide.	The Lord eliminates our pride. Self-confidence is the belief that one can manipulate circumstances to gain what we want. Some of the sins of self-confidence are: pride, anger, bitterness, looking down upon, immorality, stealing and lying.	Minor work is always needed. Discipleship is for life. The minor work is characterized by holes and ruts or rocks and obstructions. This rough ground still needs to be worked on as the major projects. God's work on our lives make us smoother and smoother. Humility of soul and dependence upon God are constantly needed to be God's effective servant.

Before this work is discussed in more detail, we need to understand that we are not spiritualizing these words. Instead we are applying these words to clear New Testament instructions. This theme is more pronounced than most of us realize.

John the Baptist clearly was the voice crying out in the wilderness (Isaiah 40:3). Jesus Christ was the glory of God that was proclaimed. Jesus "manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him." (John 2:11). The importance and priority of this work is seen in how Isaiah 40:3 is quoted in each Gospel.

This prophecy was fulfilled by Christ's coming. God's glory was fully revealed in Christ (cf. John 1:14-18). It was fulfilled in the sense that John the Baptist preached repentance and forgiveness and the people found their ways to the waters of the Jordan seeking baptism. He knew he was not the Way. He only made a way for the Lord.

”It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” (John 1:27).

”This is He on behalf of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’ (John 1:30).

This goal has not changed. We are to make a way for Christ by preaching the gospel of the kingdom. We are first to be affected by repentance and then call others to be follow Christ. This is exactly what we see in the synoptic gospels. The preparation comes by rightly responding to God in our lives and then encouraging others to do so. Let's read the way the synoptic gospels summarize the Great Commission.

"And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20).

"And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned. (Mark 16:15)

"And that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem." (Luke 24:47)

Like John we are to humble ourselves to God's standards, be baptized and preach the Gospel of repentance. The message of repentance must first affect our own lives. We have to be ready to admit where we have failed and turn to Christ for forgiveness and imitate His life. This humbling of heart is to be permanent. Many Christians think that it is but during the point one is saved. Maturity in Christ comes as we regularly and continually recognize our emptiness and making room for Christ to fill us all and all.

2) Removing the Mountains - Misdirected Faith: Humbling and Redirecting of our Trust

The second major construction work takes place when God takes down the mountains and hills in our lives. Where the first group had a major problem of doubt or lack of faith, these have problems with trust in the wrong thing. They have a misdirected faith. Indeed, we acknowledge that their 'faith' does keep them from the sins mentioned above, they are nevertheless horribly sinful and selfish.

Confidence can be in a number of areas including religion, philosophy, experience or self. In every case pride is associated with this confidence. Their pride gives them the feeling that they are right and do not need to subject what they believe to cross examination. Pride blinds themselves to certain areas of life and therefore is the opposite to humbling. A humble person admits they were wrong and is very open to God's solution.

There is plenty of hope for our areas of defeat and healing for our anger and pride. My son once asked when we were traveling the hilly roads of West Virginia, "Why is it that they need bridges in the mountains?" I pointed out the goal. If you are here and you want to travel there, what is the best way? If you do not have a bridge, how are you going to get there? You have to go up and down those steep slopes. Isn't it much better, I explained, that there is a bridge that makes everything flat and smooth?!

There is a third construction. It is not major but minor. However, this minor construction is ongoing. He doesn't speak of deep valleys or deep mountains but things that get in the way. They characterize problems and temptations that we will face all our lives. Examples including wasting time and money on self, willingness for interpersonal relationships to be troubled, and plain old laziness. God works on these areas too!

”And let the rough ground become a plain, and the rugged terrain a broad valley; (Isaiah 40:4b).

Summary

God will be disrupting the lives of His people until Christ returns. This is what He is doing. We need to understand what work He is doing in our lives so that we can work along with Him. Some people because they do not understand this, remain stubborn so their lives need to go through bigger and more troublesome construction.

In all of this, we need to carefully distinguish the reason God is doing these things. God has a goal higher than making us feel troubled. This is discussed further in the third point.

• Study Questions for Isaiah 40:3-4
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Isaiah 28-33 | Isaiah 34-35 | Isaiah 36-39 | Isaiah 40-66