Isaiah 40:3, commentary and pictures

The voice crying in the wilderness is John the Baptist, the Lord's herald sent ahead to prepare the way, who applied the prophecy to himself to show he was not the Christ, Elijah, Moses, or that prophet. He proclaimed repentance in the literal wilderness of Judea, and preparing the way and making a straight highway uses the image of clearing and leveling a road before an eastern king so he may travel without hindrance. That prophecy was fulfilled in a striking, literal way when John called Israel to repent because the kingdom of heaven was at hand, preaching the baptism of repentance for remission of sins and requiring fruits worthy of repentance in a converted character. The same work given to John is the work for these last days before Christ's second appearing, to be proclaimed everywhere as a decided message of repentance because the kingdom is at hand to prepare for revival despite opposition. In the heart this preparation brings low pride, self-exaltation and every thought opposed to God into obedience to Christ while lifting up humility and self-sacrificing love, and outwardly it is accomplished when divine and human agencies unite in consecrated service to invite all who thirst to take the water of life.

Voice, Wilderness and Highway

The voice crying in the wilderness is John the Baptist, who took the prophecy as his own description of himself when questioned about his authority to stir towns and baptize. He used it to declare that he was the herald sent ahead to prepare the people for the Lord by warning and baptizing, and not the Christ, not Elijah, not Moses raised from the dead, and not that prophet. His work was to announce Jesus the Messiah already standing unknown among them, the Lamb of God and promised Saviour whose mission was so exalted that John counted himself unworthy to untie His shoe, seeking no honor for himself but directing all eyes away from himself to Christ. As eastern custom sent men before a monarch on a journey to clear obstructions so the king might travel in safety and without hindrance, so John was to clear and straighten the way for the coming King by calling the people to listen.

He lifted that voice in the literal wilderness of Judea rather than going to men where they were in cities and synagogues. He withdrew there to receive from God the message to bear in preparing the way for the Coming One, studying Scripture, nature, providence and character under heaven's canopy and communing with God without obstruction. That wilderness education apart from the city, apart from Jerusalem's schools and apart from the teachings, maxims, traditions, customs and doctrines of the scribes, Pharisees and rabbis left him open to God's instruction and equipped him to present pure truth. He called people away from temporal scenes and the hurry, bustle, confusion and delusive enchantments of city life, which make men next to impossible to reach, that amid nature the God of nature might imbue him with the Holy Spirit to give a message of mercy and warning to prepare the way for the coming Messiah.

Preparing the way and making straight a highway is the image of a road cleared, leveled and made ready for a king's journey, applied to preparing people for Christ's first coming. It meant calling the people to repent of their sins because God's kingdom was near, exposing self-exaltation, feelings of superiority and national pride, and teaching that natural advantages are worthless without purity, humility and obedience to God's commandments. When God's Spirit awakens the soul, pride and every thought opposed to knowing God are brought low into obedience to Christ, while humility and self-sacrificing love, qualities often undervalued, are lifted up.

The desert where the highway for God is to be made straight is the dark places of the earth where the warning has never been heard, including the neglected Southern field. Fulfilling the call there means arising to build up the work, plowing the field, removing stones and rubbish, and placing no obstruction in the way of those willing to labor. Seen against high rocks and hills, narrow roads, deep precipices, streams and grand views in nature, the wilderness cry fills the mind with serious and solemn thoughts of God's greatness and majesty, humbles human self-estimate, and proves man frail like withering grass and God alone Lord with none else.

The verse stands in a chapter of comfort to God's people and pardon of iniquity, eloquent words to read and study whose great object is the uplifting of fallen humanity. The call to stand in right position before God to receive His blessing is explained by valleys raised, mountains lowered, and crooked and rough places made level and straight through removal of obstacles, so that the Lord's glory is revealed and seen by all flesh. It stands together with the contrast between human life fading like grass and flowers and God's word standing forever, with confirmation of God's sure mercies, grace and glory in a message of faith, hope and assurance, and with God's coming with strong hand to shepherd His flock, gather lambs and gently lead.

Fulfilled in John the Baptist

The prophecy found striking, literal fulfillment in the wilderness ministry of John, the voice preparing the Lord's way and making His paths straight. His call announced that the kingdom of heaven was at hand and summoned Israel to repentance, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Those who confessed were baptized in the Jordan as evidence of repentance, and he required fruits worthy of repentance in a converted and transformed character. That fruit meant reformation and purging of heart and mind and soul, putting away indulged wrong practices, making crooked straight and rough smooth, bringing low self-esteem and pride, and bringing forth generosity to the needy, exact honesty, nonviolence, truthfulness, and contentment.

He came in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God and do the special work of readying them for the world's Redeemer. His message stirred the nation amid political unrest and longing for freedom from Rome, as people flocked to hear him announce the near kingdom. Jesus carried that same message of the near kingdom in His own ministry among the people.

His plain preaching reproved sin and revealed its sinfulness so that sinners under Satan's control trembled and became alarmed. Satan was afraid for his kingdom, feeling his power over many broken when those sinners trembled. Some by repentance found God's favor and gained moral power and strength to resist temptation, breaking Satan's hold over them.

He directed people away from himself toward the mightier One coming after him, already among them, who would baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire. That One was Jesus the Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the promised Messiah and Saviour and great teacher. John's mission was so subordinate that he counted himself unworthy even to untie His shoe, calling people away from false traditions, bringing sins to mind, leading to repentance, and pointing them to look to Jesus and follow Him. He did not seek attention for himself but gladly accepted silence and obscurity so they would turn to Christ, the Light of life, his work being a lesser light preparing the way for the greater light. This preparatory work readied many for Christ's ministry through conviction and baptism.

Those who rejected the light given through him were left in deeper darkness and more deeply hardened. They became less able to receive Jesus' teachings and recognize Him as Messiah, and more ready to reject the evidence that He was the true Christ. The call to prepare the way belonged to the promise that God's glory would be revealed and seen by all flesh, pointing to a future complete restoration for Israel in Christ announced by one coming in the spirit and power of Elijah. That restoration was tied to turning from unrighteousness and obeying God.

Other Heralds and Elijah

The picture of a voice crying in the wilderness describes Elijah's life and vocation as God's chosen messenger to Israel when idolatry and corruption were spreading. He did not come from a high station in life or a city of renown, but was born among the mountains of Gilead east of the Jordan among the abominations of the Amorites. He entered his work with a word of faith and power, with his whole life devoted to reform. His being that voice meant coming to the people as a reprover of sin, rebuking sin, pressing back the tide of moral evil, checking apostasy, and laboring to turn the people from evil to reform. His message was both a call to reform and healing, offering the balm of Gilead to heal the sin-sick souls of all who desired to be healed and were willing to receive and turn from sin.

The same herald pattern of preparing the way for the Lord applies both to John the Baptist preparing for Jesus' first advent and to William Miller and his associates proclaiming the second advent of the Son of God. Wycliffe also carried out a divinely appointed work with a special mission to prepare the way of the Lord, and is compared to John the Baptist as a herald who came before a new era. The preparation of making a highway for God in the desert will be carried forward by converted Jews, who will help prepare for Christ's coming, and their conversion will contribute to a nation being born in a day.

Promise for the Last Days

The same work entrusted to John the Baptist is the work for these last days before Christ's second appearing. It is a decided message to be borne, calling to repent because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The message Isaiah saw is to be proclaimed by God's messengers and heard by churches everywhere, calling people to share in Christ's divine life and work as laborers together with God. Those who know the truth are to proclaim repentance and let their light shine both inside and outside the church. The call is to be given clearly despite difficulties and opposition, to prepare the way for a revival of God's work and for the Lord's glory to be revealed and seen by all.

Every church must prepare the way of the Lord, making the way straight and level so His glory can be revealed and seen by all. That preparation is the worldwide proclamation of Christ's righteousness from one end of the earth to the other. It is the sacred, glorious last message of mercy to a perishing world, the message of the third angel going forth as a lamp that burneth to make known mysteries angels desired to look into and prophets and kings and righteous men desired to know. It sounds the warning to a guilty race and presents the binding claims of God's law, because Satan casts his hellish shadow across the pathway of every soul to eclipse the testing truths for these last days, and men must be made ready so that when Christ comes they will not be found in disloyalty on the side of the Apostate. The same preparation warns the world, upholds obedience to God's commandments, and restores the Sabbath as a witness directing people to their Creator. It calls for studying the Word and for personal action by youth, aged, and middle-aged in preparing their own souls for the second coming of Christ in the clouds of heaven, and by that readiness they reflect light upon many other souls.

John's spirit and power of Elijah make him the representative of people in the last days entrusted with sacred truths to prepare the way for Christ's second appearing. The temperance principles John practiced are to be followed by those warning the world of the coming of the Son of man, as one means of fitting people for this preparatory work. This preparation includes stirring the public mind with reform and presenting self-denial, humility, and temperance in contrast to idolatry, gluttony, extravagance, and health-destroying habits. Health reform helps prepare people to receive Him and can remove prejudice to the third angel's message and make people more receptive to other biblical truths, but it must be presented in a way that does not repel them. Going forth in the spirit of Elijah to prepare that way includes acting on public concern about diseased meat by offering health foods as a substitute for flesh meat.

The chapter gives the correct interpretation of higher education. It was written to comfort true believers amid God's afflicting judgments coming upon the world near the close of earth's history with earthquakes, storms on land and sea, and heavy calamities by sea and railroad, when even sincere, humble, righteous followers of Christ feel decidedly and are themselves afflicted by the judgments on the rebellious. It is a declaration from the Lord, precious and full of assurance and promise, whose word will certainly be fulfilled, so that those in the latter days who fulfill it place themselves where the Lord will surely do all He has promised. God Himself prepares the way before His workers and makes rough places smooth when apparent difficulties threaten to obstruct the pathway in foreign mission fields. He directs them in the right way to work when no plans are laid without His infinite wisdom, when plans of labor are talked over together mingled with earnest prayer, and when they labor in perfect unity with unselfish interest and brotherly love with angels of God with them, because the work in foreign countries can never be done by mortal man unaided by divine wisdom. He also prepares the way and a highway for His great work before the great day of His preparation by entrusting men with talents and inventive genius and using them to fulfil His will, causing the means of rapid travelling to be invented, even when men refuse Christ as Saviour and suppose the inventions spring from humanity without discerning that God is behind all.

God now sends His message to lead men to prepare the way of the Lord before the coming day of judgment in which every man will be judged according to the deeds done in the body. Heeding that message prepares the way and strengthens those who heed it to resist the evil suggestions of the enemy.

Inward Heart Preparation

The gospel prepares the way inside the human heart by bringing low every high thing when the Spirit awakens the soul, laying pride, self-esteem, self-exaltation, feelings of superiority, national pride, and every thought opposed to knowing God into obedience to Christ, while lifting up humility and self-sacrificing love that people often undervalue, exposing the worthlessness of natural advantages without purity and obedience to God's commandments and calling to repent because the kingdom is near. Making crooked places straight and rough places smooth is a thorough reformation and purging of heart, mind, and soul, putting away indulged wrong practices, dishonesty, failures in nonviolence, discontent, transgression, and engrossment in worldly business and gain, and bringing forth fruits worthy of repentance in generosity to the needy, exact honesty, truthfulness, nonviolence, and contentment with wages. This same preparation is needed by all who now profess faith, and when it is done in the experience of believing people salvation will be seen by all.

The King's highway is cleared by prayer and confession of sin that removes obstructions and unconfessed stumbling blocks so the Lord may come among His people and give grace. That clearing means hating sin while loving the sinner, calling sin by its right name, confessing it, forsaking it, resisting the world's influence, and perfecting holiness in a cleansed, converted, united life dedicated to God. Then the Holy Spirit comes with Pentecostal power and energy, salvation is seen, and the glory is revealed.

When self is surrendered and Christ rules the heart the crooked is made straight, godly principles appear, the moral atmosphere of the soul is cleared, and power comes. This includes setting heart and life in order to receive Jesus, putting away self-exaltation, selfishness, and human plans, walking humbly, seeking the Lord with the whole being, bringing thoughts and affections into obedience to His will, consenting to be controlled by Him, and making the whole being a holy temple for His indwelling. The preparation begins in the heart and works outward into character, as God shapes people through Christ's righteousness for the work He calls them to do, sweeping aside barriers that have long shut out heavenly grace, even in earnest labor for the conversion of children.

Preparation requires consecration and holiness in a life distinct from the world in heart, dress, language, and conduct, showing Christ's likeness through self-denial and cross-bearing and using every ability according to God's spiritual pattern in readiness for the day of preparation, the investigative judgment, and the day of God. It means overcoming the world, the flesh, and the devil in Christ's strength, refusing conformity to worldly customs, and becoming truly converted to keep the word in its purity and power. Outward clothing alone does not make a people distinct.

Clearing the way includes taking stumbling blocks out from between brethren through broken-hearted confession of brother to brother with contrite spirits, humbling proud hearts, becoming meek and lowly, and practicing courtesy, love, sympathy, and unity. It puts away domineering power, disrespect, exclusiveness, pride, faultfinding, harsh words, refusal to fellowship, and independent laboring alone, showing respect to fellow ministers, asking them into the stand, uniting in labor, and setting everything in operation to reach a higher standard. At Berrien Springs the way was made ready for such confession and repentance that would have brought blessing and victories to carry worldwide, but men refused to humble themselves and unbend, braced their hearts against the Spirit, left the blocks in place, and lost the battle as Satan worked mightily to prevent surrender, and all who then resisted will one day be awakened either in the time granted for repentance or afterward.

The work is serious and solemn and needs heavenly unction, vigilant waiting and watching and praying with lamps trimmed and lamps filled and burning with the oil of grace, while the warning goes to all peoples, kindreds, tongues, and nations and each acts a consecrated part in lot and place to stand in the last great day. It joins quiet, prayerful meditation apart from bustle with fervent service, personal piety blended with earnest, energetic warnings and appeals pointing from what is to what is soon to follow, like Enoch who walked with God, witnessed by obedient life in an age no more favorable to holiness than the present, and will be like him when Christ comes and His people are caught up to meet Him in the air. It calls for faithful stewardship, daily reconversion, and not fearing truth that tears character in order to rebuild it in sanctified wholeness.

Refusing to humble oneself, repent, and turn from past wrongs obstructs the highway and closes the gates of the Holy City against oneself, while putting every cherished sin out of the way, being converted, and letting sins go beforehand to judgment readies people for the judgment on the borders of the eternal world and for the opening of the city gates. This means a repentant, contrite mind, taking oneself in hand, seeking the Lord, confessing plainly that wrong has been done, following Daniel's example and Israel's confession on the typical day of atonement, putting away self-righteousness and deceptive reasoning, forsaking wicked ways to receive mercy, weeping between porch and altar, following Christ in obeying the Father and keeping His law, putting no stumbling block before others, and bearing fruit that blesses others. God will help those who so clear the way, strengthening the things ready to die instead of leaving them as powers of darkness.

Inward clearing must come first before working for those outside, beginning in the heart and extending outward to towns, cities, and waste places, and it is needed to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit and to give living, earnest testimonies. It includes a renewed experience of praise and thanksgiving in congregational worship and home life, telling of the Lord's works, goodness, and power, with less murmuring and complaint, and using a gentle tone that does not stir quarrels so He may come right to the heart and sanctify it. The verse itself is daily counsel and light to be read, prayed over, and appreciated with unbelief put away, rebuking commercialism woven into religious experience and calling for the refining influence of the Spirit.

Outward Missionary Work

Accomplishing the preparation is a present message to be proclaimed through consecrated service and consecrated effort, calling for making a straight highway for God in the desert, and it is done by divine and human agencies united for one great object, giving a free invitation to all who thirst to come and take the water of life, so that those who turn many to righteousness shine as stars forever. This work calls for wholehearted, unselfish workers who earnestly sound the warning of Christ's coming.

Believers prepare the way by knowing their place in the work and not moving haphazardly but falling into line taking steps with Jesus, studying the Scriptures with humble teachable minds to understand the work they are slow to comprehend. Every talent God has given is to be awakened and every entrusted talent of means and ability consecrated under the influence and guidance of the Holy Spirit, instead of employing powers solely in worldly buying and selling and getting gain or using them selfishly and greedily to make a place in the earth. The work is to be carried out with careful, balanced judgment rather than hasty words or actions that provoke opposition. Human agents are only God's instruments, with the Lord Himself as efficiency and strength, requiring daily conversion as a vessel emptied for the Lord to fill so the oil of truth can be emptied into other prepared vessels, holding Him fast without failing or being discouraged, and trusting Him who is righteousness, grace, and truth. Laborers together with God, in the world but not of the world, bind to His sacred work with no time to lose in inaction, providing facilities for missionary work and teaching old and young, men and women, to lay up treasure beside the throne of God.

Under the overruling guidance of the Holy Spirit for the spread of the gospel in its purity, the preparation deepens and widens the stream of living water in all fields nigh and afar off, calls men from the plow and from common commercial business vocations to be educated together with men of experience who understand the truth, and brings most wonderful workings of God by which mountains of difficulty are removed and cast into the sea by those laboring as those who have experienced the virtue of truth as in Jesus. The highway is made ready in spiritually dark places by opening God's Word and plainly presenting its truth, which removes obstacles to sinners' redemption. It means bearing a clear, decisive message amid the confusion of the world to prepare people for God's kingdom.

Preparing the way is the present duty of those who have the light of present truth to impart it to others with no excuse, serving as God's helping hand and helping voice in cooperation with Him, sounding the message of warning to a guilty race and presenting the binding claims of God's law, because Satan casts his hellish shadow across the pathway of every soul to eclipse testing truths for these last days, and men must be made ready so that when Christ comes they will not be found in disloyalty on the side of the Apostate. The straightening work is needed because paths have become mixed up with worldly science and satanic delusions, and laying hold on Christ brings great grace that enables proclamation and removes that confusion. Those given light are responsible to write all things seen and bear faithful witness, sending the light to all nations, tongues and people, into all byways and highways, with no silence or inaction preventing it, while God's angels prepare the way for this witness and Satan works with masterly power among unbelievers and believers to close the door so this special light shall not do its work.

Fulfilling the verse means taking the message to new fields and bringing spiritual care to people hungry for truth and lacking a shepherd, helping bring truth to places never worked through self-denial and offerings to open new fields and send workers to share the last message of mercy, and spreading the message through literature and other efforts to reach unbelievers with divine and human workers joining in this responsibility. It is a great missionary work of preparation in the last days by churches claiming to believe truth for these last days, with every valley exalted and every mountain and hill made low and the crooked made straight and the rough places plain and the glory of the Lord revealed with all flesh seeing it together, especially by those carrying responsibilities in school and sanitarium enterprises for education and training of youth, who need constantly to seek the Lord. Clearing the way means removing human plans and obstacles that have delayed the work, following divine direction, and letting every ray of light shine widely so people can be warned and led to the path of eternal life.

Clearing the King's highway includes personal labor that prepares the way for gospel work in Washington, Baltimore, and other cities, with teaching and healing joined in proclaiming a clear, decisive message, and arising to build up neglected ground, plowing the field and removing stones and rubbish in the Southern field and other new territories, placing no obstruction before willing workers, and establishing centers, schools, sanitariums, health restaurants and treatment rooms, including in cities, tourist resorts, Washington, Baltimore, Oakland, San Francisco, Berkeley, Nashville and California. Preparing the way is practical service lifting up those who have fallen and making the light of present truth shine clearly and distinctly into the world's darkness, by helping and blessing others, speaking words of comfort and encouragement, showing Christ's saving power, and following Jesus in self-denying, self-sacrificing service carrying the cross amid discouragement through faith. Wealthy people moved by the gospel and faith in God's word, holding the Lord's money, use their entrusted means to open doors for the gospel and make that way ready, especially for advancement of truth in large cities.

The missionary work entrusted to those in positions of responsibility is like this voice preparing the way, with following verses describing obstacles removed and the Lord's glory revealed to all people. Studied in connection with Isaiah 42 and Second Peter, Isaiah 40 sets forth work to be carried forward in deeply spiritual lines, a reformatory work calling for prepared hearts, men of clear understanding, and thorough reformation led by men worked by the Holy Spirit, with no haphazard work. This preparation is carried out under the Holy Spirit's guidance by proclaiming the pure gospel clearly and powerfully, training workers to share truth effectively near and far, so the whole earth is warned and people understand truth before the end. The work of preparing a people for the Lord's coming must be sound and healthful, advancing the final message rather than launching enterprises that weaken the work, including feeding the flock in due season and educating youth for God's work.

Success draws on the whole treasure and treasury of heaven at command and the cooperation of heavenly and holy angels to make it wonderful and glorious, as the work of the church to make ready for the light and glory of God as the time nears for full warfare by principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness against the truth and for Satan's deceptive power to nearly deceive even the elect, requiring discernment sharpened by divine enlightenment so Satan's devices are known. Success seldom results from scattered, individual effort but requires the united influence of every church member with ministers and workers, with every soul claiming to believe in Jesus laid under tribute to take part. Clearing the highway means doing one's own part fully and setting an example in revival of faith, then placing everything in God's hands, declaring belief in His promises and asking Him to give evidence of His working, with assurance He will hear and answer, and it takes place when sons and daughters of God stand in their place and do their appointed work.

Obstacles include selfishness, covetousness, and personal plans that make consecrated channels into hindrances, and unbelief, blindness of mind, hardness of heart, and hidden evil that obstruct Jesus, the source of all power, light and life, and leave no place for the Spirit to rest and manifest God's power. The way is prepared by love and sacred zeal in the heart and by leaders ceasing to obstruct, so the message goes to the world, the missionary spirit revives, the church acts from obligation to God and the world and becomes missionaries in the highest sense, and God's work progresses with mighty works. Every stumbling block is to be removed in thorough preparation, with paths straightened from confusion of worldly science and satanic delusions, and with self kept from coming between Christ and the people by lifting up the risen Savior through words, writing, and speech, reflecting Christ, imparting right principles and grace, preserving what is good, and countering corruption and evil, alongside removal of selfish concentration of resources, human plans, and worldly policy.

The highway for God is the royal path to heaven cast up for the ransomed of the Lord to walk in, illuminated by those placed as beacons of light who illuminate the moral atmosphere around them and by example and life-giving words help other feet tread that path. Preparing His way means coming to Him for instruction, learning His will, and then doing it fully. Clearing the King's highway means following Christ in obeying the Father and keeping His law and putting no stumbling blocks in the way of others, which shapes character and gives a record not shameful when judgment sits and books are opened, including putting Scripture's instruction into practice.

A voice like John's is needed to expose transgressions and sins plainly, applied to the need for preachers and workers to speak plainly when those responsible for God's work give it only what remains of their time and ability and to call them to faithful labor. Philip and Peter are called to clear the King's highway by preparing the Lord's way and making straight paths, and their faithful example can help family members who are spiritually tempted or weak rather than causing them to stumble. Those who accept truth now prepare the way as at the first coming by John in the spirit and power of Elijah, by giving Christ room to work for the sick and afflicted and joining His restoration of God's moral image, by bearing testimony while God uses servants and cleanses people from all defilement, and by active service preparing people for the soon-coming Lord.