Behold Your God! - Isaiah 40

I would like to begin this message today with this prayer: Lord, I understand very well that I am not at all capable of understanding You, or describing You in your greatness to your people in a manner worthy of your stupendous Name.  I am a worm, and You are infinitely beyond the grasp of my feeble little brain.  So I ask that You might have mercy upon us and send your Holy Spirit among us this day so that we all may catch a brief glimpse, like Moses did, of You in Your vast magnificence.  Show us Your glory.  I ask this in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

______________________________________________________

I do not have any scientific research to back up this claim, but just from my personal, extremely limited observation of our culture over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that surely, the most often repeated phrase in America is “Oh my God.”  I’m also convinced that the people who regularly use that phrase have no idea who really God is, or that He is most likely not really their God.  If they knew Him, they would never use that kind of language to refer to Him.

The first and last time I made the mistake of exclaiming “Oh my God!” was in front of my mother.  I  was 10 years old.  I was so naïve that I thought it was a statement of personal piety.  In my 4th grade mind, I was giving public testimony that the only God I was aware of was indeed my God.  When I heard other school children do the same, surely they were expressing their religious convictions as well.

My seriously flawed thinking was corrected by my mother with an exclamation of her own.  It went something like, “What did you say?”, followed by a threat of serious bodily harm if she ever heard me say it again.  I had never understood what it meant to take the Lord’s name in vain.  Until that moment.  And the explanation I received of the 3rd commandment was very, VERY clear.  I have not repeated that phrase, even until this day, except to share some of the trauma of my childhood.  And to explain the great sinfulness of flippantly throwing around the name of God.

I’ve never had the courage to do so, but I have had the inclination to ask people who brainlessly blather their blasphemous exclamations repeatedly, “What about your God?  Who is this God you keep referring to?  And why do you keep saying that?”  Of course, they would look at me with a blank stare and wonder what in the world I was talking about.

It is highly unlikely, but if someone were to ask you about your God, what would be your response?  What would you say?  How would you describe your God to the man on the street?  Would you use the terminology of the day in order to be relevant and contemporary so as not to lose them and confuse them with theological terminology like immensity and omnipresence and tri-unity?  Would you talk about Jesus or God or what?  Would you begin with some prefatory remarks about a “higher power” to try to find some common ground?

The best and safest thing we can do in order to think rightly about God and to explain Him correctly to others is to use the words God uses to describe Himself.  One of the best places you can go to in the Bible for such a description is Isaiah 40.  There the prophet says, “Behold your God.”  So let’s take a look.

[9] Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”

[10] Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.

[11] He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.

Might/Gentleness - vs 10&11

When we behold God here in these verses, what do we see?  What is God like, according to verses 10 and 11?   My God is both mighty and compassionate, a God of justice and mercy.  This is a real quandary for all those who characterize God according to the things they have heard from liberals, rather than reading the text to see what He says about Himself.  According to some, we have in these verses two conflicting characterizations of God.  First, in verse 10 we have the “Old Testament, Vindictive, Spiteful, Hateful, Judgmental, Jealous, War-Mongering God.”  Then in verse 11 we see the “All-Loving, All-Compassionate, Never-Gets-Upset-About-Anything, Wouldn’t Hurt a Flea God”.

Those are two ways liberals try to describe God, and they presumably solve the problem of this apparent contradiction in God’s nature by saying that He changed.  The Old Testament God became more kind and loving after Jesus came into the world.  “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (John 1:17 ESV).  

The problem with that superficial and totally absurd explanation is both of these attributes of God, justice and mercy, are found repeatedly in the Old Testament, and in this instance, they are both found in two consecutive verses.  He is the Judge of all the earth who is also the gentle Shepherd of His flock.  This is the God who spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai and said:

[6] . . . “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, [7] keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”  (Ex 34:6-7 ESV)

Our God is not either loving or just, kind or judging, merciful or holy.  He is all those things.  He always has been merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.  He is merciful and gracious and just.  And because He is God, He cannot change.  For that, we should be extremely grateful.

The One who tends His flock and carries His lambs in His bosom is also the just Judge to whom all the nations of the earth must give an account.  He is both the Judge of all the earth and the Shepherd of His flock.  

What else is our God like, according to verses 12 & 13?  

[12] Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?  [13] Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD, . . .

Finite/Infinite - 12&13

There was a time not too long ago when men thought the oceans extended without end and the world was flat.  Now we know the exact extent of the surface of the oceans, and it is still magnificent to us in it’s scope.  But it is limited.  The oceans have shores, and those shores were created by our God.  God has measured out not only the waters of the earth, but His entire creation.

God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas.  And God saw that it was good.  (Genesis 1:10 ESV)

It is God who gathered together the seas and created the dry land.  We already read this morning in Psalm 104 these words: 

[5] He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved.

[6] You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.

[7] At your rebuke they fled; at the sound of your thunder they took to flight.

[8] The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them.

[9] You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.  (Psalm 104:5-9 ESV)

Listen to the words of Job;

[7] He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing.

[8] He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not split open under them. 

[9] He covers the face of the full moon and spreads over it his cloud.

[10] He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.

[11] The pillars of heaven tremble and are astounded at his rebuke.

[12] By his power he stilled the sea; by his understanding he shattered Rahab.

[13] By his wind the heavens were made fair; his hand pierced the fleeing serpent.

[14] Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him!  But the thunder of his power who can understand?  (Job 26:7-14 ESV)

Indeed!  We see only the outskirts, only the fringes of God’s ways!  The most that we can see is only the smallest tip of the gigantic iceberg of God’s works.  Our God is greater than all.  He is immeasurably great in His extent!  But more than that, we see that our God is all-knowing:

 [13b] . . . what man shows him his counsel?

[14] Whom did he consult, and who made him understand?

Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge,

and showed him the way of understanding?

Bestowed, limited knowledge/Inherent, infinite knowledge - 13&14

Where did God go to school in order to be so learned?  How did God get to be so smart?  We have a large university up the road where semi-educated people go to get degrees in their fields of study so they can become certifiably professionally educated.  So they can get smart.  So they can gain wisdom and understanding and knowledge.  Hoards of students pay absurd amounts of money in order to become educated.  And that is just another example of the infinite difference between God and man.  God always has and always will know and understand everything there is to know.  His understanding of all things is total.

[God] knows everything: everything possible, everything actual; all events and all creatures, of the past, the present, and the future.  He is perfectly acquainted with every detail in the life of every being in heaven, in earth, and in hell.  Nothing escapes His notice, nothing can be hidden from Him, nothing is forgotten by Him.  He never errs, never changes, never overlooks anything.  “And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” (Hebrews 4:13 ESV) 1

Who taught God?  With whom did He consult?  Whose books did He read?  Where did He go to become educated?  What kinds of things is God discovering?  When was the last time God was surprised?  When did God ever ask for an explanation of something?  God possesses full understanding, full knowledge, full wisdom of all things past, present, and future.  Therefore:

 [15] Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the 

scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.

[16] Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.

[17] All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing 

and emptiness.

Greatness/Insignificance - 15-17

How does man compare with God?  The entire human race is not sufficiently able to worship God according to His worth.  Take an entire nation’s animals and sacrifice them on a fire that consumes entire continents of trees.  It would be woefully inadequate.  Mankind is entirely incapable of exhausting his duty to worship his Creator.

On the other hand, given the fallen nature of man, the entire human race is no threat to God.  How ridiculous it is for a single man to shake his fist in defiance against a God like ours!  But in the last days, all the nations will collectively shake their angry little fists in the air with threats and curses against the Lord Jesus:

[7] And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison [8] and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. [9] And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, [10] and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. (Revelation 20:7-10 ESV)

God does not fear the wrath of Satan or men!  God does not quake in His boots when the entire earth rises up in rebellion against Him!  What does God do when His enemies gather together on that final dreadful day of conflict, to destroy the Lord Jesus and His people?  Toast!  Fire comes from Heaven and they are all gone.  They’re done.  At last, the fleas that threatened Omnipotence are exterminated.

God does not fear men!  God is not subject to men!  God does not require the cooperation of men to accomplish His purposes.  God does not recognize what we so often refer to as our inalienable right of free will.  God is not the gentleman stubborn fallen men try to make Him out to be.  There is no mutual respect between God and men.  Men and nations and everything else God has made are completely subject to God’s all-powerful, totally sovereign free will.  He is the Creator, we are the creatures; He is in charge, we are not; He is the center of the universe and worthy of all worship;  Comparatively speaking, we are grasshoppers and worthy of hell.  And that begs the question:

[18] To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?

I like the sarcasm of the ESV in verse 19:

  [19] An idol! A craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains.

  [20] He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skillful craftsman to set

        up an idol that will not move.

God/Idols - 18-20

Yeah!  That’s what we’ll do!  We’ll liken the almighty creator of the ends of the earth who hangs our planet in space on nothing and to whom all the nations are like the dust that is blown off the scales, . . . we’ll make an idol out of gold or wood and hang silver chains on it to remind us what God is like!  Now we need to be careful how we make our idol so it doesn’t fall over.  That would be kind of embarrassing, to have a god that can’t stand up.

What is so bad about idolatry is that it is so insulting to God.  The Lord Jesus condescended, He humbled Himself to become a human being.  But human beings are fearfully and wonderfully made!  Every day, science is finding new reasons to be in awe of the complexity and the genius of design in the human body (even if our professionally educated scientists stubbornly refuse to admit such an obvious truth).  But even though the human body is a magnificently designed creation, our Triune God is unimaginably superior to us in every conceivable way.  

And men make idols to represent such a God as this?  

That would be like comparing a soup can to the space shuttle.  Or comparing a match to a star.  Or comparing dew to Noah’s flood.  There is no comparison!  How can a person seriously compare God to a gold-covered rock, or a gilded piece of wood?  How can men be so stupid as to worship created things formed by their own hands in the place of the One who created those things with nothing but a spoken word?  The idolatrous representation of God is so ludicrous that it prompts Isaiah to say:

[21] Do you not know? Do you not hear?

Has it not been told you from the beginning?

Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

[22] It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;

who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;

[23] who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

[24] Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,

when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

Greatness/Insignificance - 21-24

Are you just ignorant?  Don’t you know anything!  Where have you been?  Have you not been listening?  Did YOU ever go to school?  Did no one teach you?  Do you not recall the stories from days and centuries gone by of the greatness and the power and the awesomeness and the glory and the majesty and the superiority of our Creator God?

Are you not aware that God is a sovereign God?  That He rules over every part of His world and even princes and kings and rulers and all the men of the earth are to Him like chaff that the wind blows away?  We are bugs compared to Him!  Royalty He brings to nothingness and emptiness.  God answers to no one, and no one is like Him.  All of His creation is His to do with as He pleases.  He is the potter and He can make the clay into whatever He chooses.  He is not afraid of us.  But we should greatly fear Him!

So Isaiah asks the question again:

[25] To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

  [26] Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these?

He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name,

by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.

Omnipotence of the Creator/Sustainer - Impotence/Dependence of the Creature - 25 & 26

When the people of Israel lived in Egypt, they saw, and to some degree, they participated in the worship of many gods.  It was believed that all the gods were limited in their influence and power.  There was a god of the Nile, and a god of the sun, and a god of this and that and the other thing.  The nations were polytheistic and henotheistic.  In other words, some nations worshipped many gods, while other nations specialized in one particular god but acknowledged the existence of other god.

The God of Israel is unique.  He is God over all!  He created the entire universe!  He spoke the word and billions of galaxies with billions of stars in each one were instantaneously brought into existence!  And God is so magnificent that He sustains them all by His power.  He calls all the stars by name.  And He sees when the sparrow falls.  He is present at the furthest reaches of His universe, and He knows the hairs of our heads.  He possesses intimate knowledge and full understanding of everything there is!  Therefore, God says to His people:

[27] Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel,

“My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God”?

[28] Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

[29] He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.

[30] Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;

[31] but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.  (Isaiah 40:9-31 ESV)

Grace for those who trust in Him - 27-31

Here we come to the conclusion of the chapter and it ends like it began: Jesus takes care of His own as the Great Shepherd of His sheep.  He sustains His people in their weakness.  He supplies power to the faint and strength to those who falter.  And He asks the question, “Do you not know these things?”

This is an explanation of God’s saving grace.  Nobody, not even youths or young men, have the strength to face the many enemies we have in this life.  We cannot stand against human enemies like the Babylonians.  We cannot stand against the wiles of the Devil.  We cannot stand against the lusts of our own flesh.  Even the strongest of people are incapable of withstanding the power of sin.

God sees this!  He knows these things!  He understands our plight!  He recognizes our powerlessness!  And He supplies all His people need for life and godliness.  He grants to His own, to His sheep, the enabling grace that carries them through this life.

I’ve commented on other occasions about the Footprints poem that is so popular among Christians.  You see the poem and the poster quite often.  The poem is a complaint against God for abandoning the writer when life’s troubles become unbearable.  During those times, the writer assumes that the one set of footprints he sees in the sand is his own.  But the explanation the Lord gives is, “It was then that I carried you.”  The single set of footprints is His, not the writer’s.

I don’t know how you feel about that, but as for me and my journey through life, there has NEVER been two sets of footprints.  The footprints I leave behind are the direct result of God’s grace.  He grants the strength, He gives the power, He infuses the ability to keep going.  Are they my footprints?  Yes.  I’m actually doing the walking and the living of this life.  But it is God who enables me in the journey.

Paul said it this way: 

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”  (Galatians 2:20 ESV)

In Christ, we run this race of faith and we do not become weary to the point of failure.  Of course, we become weary and tired.  But it is Christ who sustains us.  As we wait upon Him and trust in Him, we walk the course of this pilgrimage and we do not faint or fall away.  When we wait upon the Lord, when we trust in Him alone to keep us and carry us, we will indeed be saved unto the end.

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, [4] to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, [5] who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  (1 Peter 1:3-5 ESV)

What is your God like?  Behold your incomparable God.  

----

1. Arthur Pink, The Attributes of God, Baker Books, p. 21.