Isaiah 40:4-8 - Homiletics

God's promises sure.

With Isaiah it is enough that "the month of the Lord has spoken" a thing ( Isaiah 1:20 ; Isaiah 40:5 ). "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent" ( Numbers 23:19 ). What he has promised, he will perform; what he has said, he will do, in the sense in which he said it. It is true, his promises are of two kinds

I. GOD 'S UNCONDITIONAL PROMISES ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN OF ACCOMPLISHMENT . God has promised that he will never again destroy mankind by a flood ( Genesis 9:11 ). He has pledged himself that "while the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease" ( Genesis 8:22 ). By his Son he has declared that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against his Church" ( Matthew 16:18 ), that he will send his Son to earth a second time to judge the quick and dead ( Matthew 25:31-45 ), and that then the wicked "shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal" ( Matthew 25:46 ). These are unconditional promises, and are absolutely certain of fulfilment. Nothing can come in their way. God's veracity is pledged to them, and, as he is true, he must and will bring them to pass.

II. GOD 'S CONDITIONAL PROMISES ARE CERTAIN OF ACCOMPLISHMENT , IF THE CONDITION REFULFILLED . The bulk of God's promises to mankind are "covenant promises," and, by the nature of a "covenant promise," they depend on a condition or conditions which have to be fulfilled. The promises to the Israelites that they should possess Canaan, to David that his seed should sit upon his throne, and to captive Israel that it should be restored, were of this nature. So are all promises of temporal and spiritual blessings to individuals. Even where the condition is not expressed, it is understood. A single example will suffice to show the nature of this kind of promise. A covenant was made with David to establish his seed for ever, and set up his throne to all generations ( Psalms 89:3 , Psalms 89:4 ). This covenant was to stand fast, so long as his children walked in his ways. If, however, they forsook God's Law, and walked not in his judgments; if they broke his statutes, and kept not his commandments, then their transgressions were to be visited with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. The Anointed of the Lord was to be cut off and abhorred; the covenant with him was to be made void, and his crown to be cast to the ground ( Psalms 89:30-39 ). In these cases God's part of the covenant remains sure; it is man's which is uncertain. If man fails, then God is, by his very faithfulness, bound to mark his sense of the failure by non-fulfilment of the promises which were made conditional on a certain course of human action. Unless man fails, God's promises remain firm. No one can pretend to point out any case m which the covenant has been observed by man, and God's part in it has been that of a defaulter.