God has given Israel double for all her sins. What feeling does that produce thinking of that? Is it tender comfort? “I’ve given you double payback. I want to comfort you and speak tenderly to you.”

It doesn’t seem to fit. Israel’s punishment was never God’s desire. He wasn’t thrilling in their punishment. He hated it. He wasn’t getting even with a maniacal laugh. He was doing all He could to get His people turned back to Him so that they could be saved. His heart is in the tender comfort, not in the punishment.

Israel is told that her warfare is ended. Why? Her iniquity is pardoned. Her iniquity is the guilt of her sin. When we are forgiven and free from the guilt of our sin, our warfare is ended. There is no more fight. No more striving. The war is over. Jesus won and in Christ we have the victory too! Sin was the enemy and it’s been defeated. Treat it like a defeated foe and trample it down and kick it out.

In fact, the only thing that is going to stand is the word of God. Here’s a plea for Bible memory. Hide His word in your heart. Write it on the tablet of your heart. Isaiah 40 is one of the chapters of the Bible I memorized early on. I have come to see Bible memory as the best Bible study technique I have ever used. It is so much more impactful on my life than just reading and reading, than underlining and highlighting, than writing out verses with their grammatical forms and drawing arrows and making connections and researching and writing out meanings. The Bible doesn’t teach us those things. It teaches us to meditate on God’s word, to keep it in our mouths. Speak God’s word. Have it on your mind. Memorizing is the best way to do it.

You can memorize by faith. Just put it in and trust the Lord to pull it out when you need it. I don’t rely on memory tricks. I rely on the Lord. The one thing I do use is writing out the verses of a chapter in a grid, five verses across and four verses down on full-size paper, by writing out just the first letter of each word. I use that as I recite. Visualizing the page can help me know the reference of the verse.

Isaiah 40 declares the greatness of God. He alone is wise and wonderful! And yet, He uses His greatness and His might to help us if we will look to Him and wait on His salvation.