Summary
Those Who Wait
Waiting is one of the hardest things God asks of his people. We resist it by nature—nobody enjoys the stop sign, the line, the long silence between promise and fulfillment. Yet Scripture again and again calls the faithful to wait, and the closing verses of Isaiah 40 give us one of the richest pictures in the Bible of what that waiting actually means and what it produces. The teaching "Those Who Wait" Isaiah 40:28-31 opens these verses for a people who, like the original hearers, often find themselves in seasons they cannot control.
A Word Spoken Into Exile
Isaiah prophesied across roughly fifty years (739–686 B.C.) and four kings, and the sweep of his message covers some two centuries of Israel's history. Judah had drifted into idolatry and empty ritual, and Isaiah foretold that the Babylonians would conquer the people and carry them into exile Isaiah 39:6. With chapter 40 the book turns: "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God" Isaiah 40:1. These are words written ahead of time for a people who would one day read them in Babylon, far from home, in a long season of waiting for God to act.
Who God Is for Those Who Wait
Before Isaiah tells the people how to wait, he tells them who they are waiting for. "Have you not known? Have you not heard?" Isaiah 40:28 sends us back to the Scriptures themselves to learn God's character. Four things stand out:
- He is the everlasting God. There has never been a moment when God did not exist.
- He is the Creator of the ends of the earth. He spoke, and it was. His power is absolute John 1:3.
- He does not faint or grow weary. He never tires, never sleeps, never steps away Psalm 121:4.
- His understanding is unsearchable. "My thoughts are not your thoughts" Isaiah 55:8. We know him truly only insofar as he reveals himself.
Who We Are
Then comes the contrast. "Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted" Isaiah 40:29-30. We are creatures, fallen and finite. Problems pummel, troubles tire, disappointments lead to despair. Waiting itself exposes our limits: it reminds us how little we actually control, and that we are not God. That is not a cruelty; it is honest ground from which faith grows.
Waiting as Hope
"But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength" Isaiah 40:31. The Hebrew word translated "wait" shares its root with the word for "hope." To wait on the Lord, biblically, is not to kill time. It is to look expectantly to the everlasting Creator whose thoughts and timing are higher than ours, trusting that he will act. Other passages echo this same posture: "Blessed are all those who wait for him" Isaiah 30:18; "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him" Psalm 37:7.
The exiles had every reason to wait this way. Isaiah had even named, more than 150 years in advance, the king who would release them. And the greater promise—the Messiah himself—would come "when the fullness of time had come" Galatians 4:4, "at the right time" Christ dying for the ungodly Romans 5:6. Isaiah had foretold his suffering, death, and resurrection centuries before Calvary—you could preach the entire Easter story from the Old Testament alone. God's timing has never failed.
Renewed Strength
The promise is concrete: those who wait will mount up with wings like eagles, run and not be weary, walk and not faint Isaiah 40:31. Strength does not come from gritting our teeth and outlasting the hardship; it comes from the One on whom we wait. We wait for the everlasting God, the Creator, the unwearied, the faithful keeper of his promises. We wait not by passing time but by trusting—joyfully, confidently—that the chapter we are living through will be brought to its conclusion in his perfect time, by his mercy and grace. That is how God teaches his people to be strong.
Video citations
- "Those Who Wait" Isaiah 40:28-31 — Let's open our Bibles, please, to the 40th chapter of the book of Isaiah for our study this morning. Isaiah the 40th chapter. A recent survey was done. Research was done and it came to these…