Isaiah 40:3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
Over the next 10 days, we are going to open up Isaiah 40:3-5. It’s a small snippet of scripture but the instructions for life as one ushering in the Messiah are incredible. This phrase is super-common to most believers but it turns out that it holds a wealth of information and I hope to unpack it a piece at a time.
To get started, we’ll go backwards in this statement in order to get our legs up under us. A seemingly low impact beginning carries with it the launching point for all that's to come:
Why the wilderness? Shouldn't an announcement be made in the city so more people hear? Practically speaking, why would someone go out into the middle of nowhere to cry out on Abba’s behalf? What is going on out there that makes that destination effective (as opposed to a major city or even small town)?
We are given many instances where the wilderness is the proving ground and sets the stage for what’s to come:
Genesis 21:14 Avraham got up early in the morning, took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child; then he sent her away. After leaving, she wandered in the desert (midbar) around Be’er-Sheva. 15 When the water in the skin was gone, she left the child under a bush, 16 and went and sat down, looking the other way, about a bow-shot’s distance from him; because she said, “I can’t bear to watch my child die.” So she sat there, looking the other way, crying out and weeping. 17 God heard the boy’s voice, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What’s wrong with you, Hagar? Don’t be afraid, because God has heard the voice of the boy in his present situation. 18 Get up, lift the boy up, and hold him tightly in your hand, because I am going to make him a great nation.” 19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. So she went, filled the skin with water and gave the boy water to drink.
Genesis 37:18 They spotted him in the distance, and before he had arrived where they were, they had already plotted to kill him. 19 They said to each other, “Look, this dreamer is coming! 20 So come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these water cisterns here. Then we’ll say some wild animal devoured him. We’ll see then what becomes of his dreams!” 21 But when Re’uven heard this, he saved him from being destroyed by them. He said, “We shouldn’t take his life. 22 Don’t shed blood,” Re’uven added. “Throw him into this cistern here in the wilds (midbar), but don’t lay hands on him yourselves.” He intended to rescue him from them later and restore him to his father.
Exodus 3:1 Now Moshe was tending the sheep of Yitro his father-in-law, the priest of Midyan. Leading the flock to the far side of the desert (midbar), he came to the mountain of God, to Horev. 2 The angel of YHVH appeared to him in a fire blazing from the middle of a bush. He looked and saw that although the bush was flaming with fire, yet the bush was not being burned up.
Exodus 3:16 Go, gather the leaders of Isra’el together, and say to them, ‘YHVH, the God of your fathers, the God of Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov, has appeared to me and said, “I have been paying close attention to you and have seen what is being done to you in Egypt; 17 and I have said that I will lead you up out of the misery of Egypt to the land of the Kena‘ani, Hitti, Emori, P’rizi, Hivi and Y’vusi, to a land flowing with milk and honey.”’ 18 They will heed what you say. Then you will come, you and the leaders of Isra’el, before the king of Egypt; and you will tell him, ‘YHVH, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now, please, let us go three days’ journey into the desert (midbar); so that we can sacrifice to YHVH our God.’
Matthew 3:1 It was during those days that Yochanan the Immerser arrived in the desert of Y’hudah and began proclaiming the message, 2 “Turn from your sins to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near!” 3 This is the man Yesha‘yahu was talking about when he said,
“The voice of someone crying out: ‘In the desert prepare the way of YHVH! Make straight paths for him!’”
He arrived in the desert of Judah, not Jerusalem. This was the place of immersion. This was the place people went to get their lives in order.
Yeshua then went into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights where He was tempted:
Matthew 4:1 Then the Spirit led Yeshua up into the wilderness to be tempted by the Adversary. 2 After Yeshua had fasted forty days and nights, he was hungry.
Why is it in this place the pivot points in Abba’s plan come forth? Perhaps we need to understand the wilderness.
Time for a few definitions (see: AHLB). The word for wilderness is midbar (H4057) and it literally means:
The root of midbar is dabar and has the broad meaning of:
The verb form means:
And the noun form means:
Note: The Book of Numbers is literally Midbar (Wilderness) and the Book of Deuteronomy is Dabarim (Words).
The Wilderness is a place of order. This is the place where things get set in order. It’s in the wilderness that our lives begin to be set in order. It’s in this place a voice is needed -- and the voice is of the one crying out. It’s a voice of desperation. It’s a voice that must be heard.
Most of us enjoy the bustling of the city. Never slowing down enough to listen to the voice. If we never hear, we have plausible deniability. But Abba’s voice is not there.
It’s someplace else.
We learn something interesting from Elijah’s experience in the cave:
1 Kings 19:11 He said, “Go outside, and stand on the mountain before YHVH”; and right then and there, YHVH went past. A mighty blast of wind tore the mountains apart and broke the rocks in pieces before YHVH, but YHVH was not in the wind. After the wind came an earthquake, but YHVH was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake, fire broke out; but YHVH was not in the fire. And after the fire came a quiet, subdued voice. 13 When Eliyahu heard it, he covered his face with his cloak, stepped out and stood at the entrance to the cave. Then a voice came to him and said, “What are you doing here, Eliyahu?”
What if Abba decided to speak from the heavens over the entire earth. His loud and commanding voice could shake all of humanity in one fell swoop. So why doesn’t He? He did it at Sinai. This seems like the simple large-scale solution to bringing people into repentance (or forcing them further into rebellion).
But if He did this, people would turn to Him out of fear instead of a personal desire to connect with Him. It would be like a father that continually yells and exercises his power over the children in a commanding way. Sure, the children would be obedient but there would be no intimacy.
No, it’s in the small voice that He speaks. It’s in the silence that we can hear.
And what smaller voice is there than someone with no culturally-imparted authority that goes out into the wilderness to cry out. They must be pretty stupid to go where there’s no one to cry out for people to listen, right?
But this principle is huge. The only real authority given is given by God. And the only place to speak is in the silence of the wilderness. If it were up to you, you would build a huge social media following to get His message out. Or reserve a Super Bowl commercial to spread the word. Or get into a position of supreme authority in the earth and use that as a platform to speak truth.
But these don’t (and won’t) work.
So if you don’t have cultural authority, how are you going to get that desperate message out?
Without that authority, you’ll feel muzzled, right?
And if you can’t gain cultural approval, you won’t have much legitimacy in this space anyway, right?
It seems your only option is to go to seminary and gradually work your way up through a denomination so you can finally reach a position of supreme religious authority. But how are these voices working out for the Kingdom? Is the world any better off now that we have mega-churches with huge social media outreach? It seems the further up you go, the more watered down your message has to be.
Calling financial contributors into repentance doesn’t work well long term. Sinners don’t appreciate being called sinners, and people don’t like to pay for information that convicts them. No, we like to buy information that tickles our ears.
From what I see, despite the advent of social media outreach utilized by the church today, things are getting worse. Ridiculously worse.
Where on earth can we hear the call back to God? Where on earth is true authority?
I was recently listening to Arthur Burk speak on the concept of legitimacy in light of this verse. Here is a brief paraphrase of what he shared:
The Voice of One Crying -- this is the authority that comes from legitimacy. Those that are building the Kingdom do not need the credentials of the world but you must have authority before you can speak into the world. You have to be anchored into legitimacy in order to have authority.
In the world, whoever gives authority can take it away. Legitimacy from the culture can be revoked whenever they choose. Legitimacy from the culture is slavery.
Instead, we need legitimacy around our design and that comes from God.
Notice that Jesus did not gain legitimacy from the established religious leaders. His legitimacy was established through His Father.
Matthew 7:29 for he was not instructing them like their Torah-teachers but as one who had authority himself.
Let’s look at our snippet, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, in the context of its full meaning:
This is one whose legitimacy has been established by Abba and is crying out from the place of order.
John the Baptist was quizzed on his legitimacy. They asked if he was the Messiah, Elijah, or the Prophet they were expecting. These people were trying to determine by what authority John could do what he was doing and he was not fazed a bit. He knew by what authority he was baptizing and he didn’t hesitate to share:
John 1:19 Here is Yochanan’s testimony: when the Judeans sent cohanim and L’vi’im from Yerushalayim to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 he was very straightforward and stated clearly, “I am not the Messiah.” 21 “Then who are you?” they asked him. “Are you Eliyahu?” “No, I am not,” he said. “Are you ‘the prophet,’ the one we’re expecting?” “No,” he replied. 22 So they said to him, “Who are you? — so that we can give an answer to the people who sent us. What do you have to say about yourself?” 23 He answered in the words of Yesha‘yahu the prophet, “I am
The voice of someone crying out:
‘In the desert make the way of YHVH straight!’”
24 Some of those who had been sent were P’rushim. 25 They asked him, “If you are neither the Messiah nor Eliyahu nor ‘the prophet,’ then why are you immersing people?” 26 To them Yochanan replied, “I am immersing people in water, but among you is standing someone whom you don’t know. 27 He is the one coming after me — I’m not good enough even to untie his sandal!” 28 All this took place in Beit-Anyah, east of the Yarden, where Yochanan was immersing.
He was not sanctioned by the Pharisees or Sadducees to perform any kind of action like this and yet here he was -- east of the Jordan, in the Wilderness. Not in Jerusalem. In fact, he was a full day’s walk away from Jerusalem. Not a simple trek. It was only for those that wanted to experience a complete reset of their lives. These people were eager to go into the place of order. Because they needed their lives to be put in order.
The religious leaders of that day (well, today also) did not recognize anyone that operated outside of their organization and they came to John to bring correction. And he ignored them all. The one crying out in the wilderness is not legitimate because men said so. He’s legitimate because he sought his legitimacy in God.
And Abba established that authority within him.
Do you spend all of your time in the bustling city where no one can hear you (and you subsequently can’t hear)?
If you claim to be a voice crying out, it’s time to head to the wilderness. There is no need to wait for man to establish you with any sort of authority. In fact, you may want to flee from what they have to offer. What man gives, man takes away. And yet what God gives, no man can take away.
But you can surrender it.
Man will demand an account of your authority. He will challenge it and try to convince you that there is no authority within you at all. And they may be right.
But if Abba has given it to you, then you must stand tall. Ignore the fear of man and walk boldly in the light.
If you want to step into the role of calling forth the return of the Messiah, it’s time to abandon the busyness of life that is drowning out your voice and ability to hear. Pack a bag and head on out into the wilderness. And while you’re there, why not become the voice of one crying out.
Full Series:
Day 1 - A Voice Cries Out in the Wilderness
Day 3 - Make Straight in the Desert a Highway
Day 6 - Make the Crooked Places Straight
Day 7 - Make the Rough Ground Smooth
Day 8 - The Glory of YHVH Revealed