Isaiah 40:1-5 English Standard Version
Comfort for God’s People
1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare[hardship] is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
3 A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
I have borrowed the title today from a book by A.W. Pink. That work has many words that should bring comfort to God’s people. If this is the passage that inspired that work, then we can simplify all those words by understanding what God has said here.
“Comfort my people” is a call to us from God. He even tells us how to do that.
“Speak tenderly” is our first instruction. Do not be harsh with one another.
Recognize what troubles others, hardships, and encourage them that in Christ they have found a pardon from their sins and that God is a God of blessings.
Verse 3 points to John the Baptist and yet we are to can talk straight with people and do not try to make things overly difficult. Straight paths get us out of the dry places faster.
Verse 4 says not to make things difficult for others. Keep the truth of God’s word simple and do not complicate the truth.
Do all this by speaking the truth in love and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and that will comfort believers more than anything else we can do for them.