Isaiah, 40:15-31

I'd like to bring you back to a point of remembrance. Back in December of 05, we first introduced the book of Isaiah. And this is today we began. That was back then. And we said that the biggest of the Old Testament prophetic books was Isaiah. Last week I said the largest book by chapter count was Isaiah in the Bible. That's not correct. It's the prophetic books. So I need to make that correction here. So, but it is long.

We're 66 chapters total. We're in the 40th chapter, finishing that up here this morning. Just to keep the perspective that we started with, it is in this section that it has some unique characteristics. We're begun in that first chapter of that last section here in chapter 40.

In this section 40 through 48, Isaiah is contrasting the God of Scripture with the pagan idols. And so, in doing so, we understand from these passages the character of God. He continues to come back to who God is, what is God like, and describing that for us for our benefit.

So we'll see that here this morning. One of the things we'll also see, as we pointed out last week, is lots of questions. He continues to ask questions And remember, one of the reasons that he does so is that he asks questions not because God doesn't know the answers, but in order to involve us in the thought process. He wants us to think through what these things are. He could have just said, here's the facts, guys. But he wants us to think through and to consider these things ourselves. and in ourselves saying the answer to the questions, then having it better understood. That's why he's laying out so many questions here. You're going to see more of those here this morning. Starting off with a question.

How about that? 40 verse 18, to whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare with Him? Can you come up with anything that is, oh, God is just like this, or just like that, or yeah, He's just like this other one. No. Incomparable. That's the message that's brought across here. Incomparable. The theme of Isaiah 40 through 48 is the God of Scripture versus the pagan idols. Isaiah is asking these questions here to show that the idols can't even begin to compare, cannot even start to compare with the God of Scripture.

Now, we don't have a lot of these same idols. I don't know about you, but you probably don't have little cast idols in your home, right? And you probably don't have little cast idols in most of your neighbors' homes. There might be some exceptions. Generally, we don't see those things around, and so we might think, oh, this is great, but it's not terribly relevant to me.

But think about this. Have we got idols in our culture? Yes. They just look different. We do have idols. An idol is something that, to use a colloquialism, that calls the shots in our lives instead of God. An idol is something that draws our ultimate attention instead of the Lord. An idol is something that distracts us from beholding Christ. That's what an idol is. Do we have those in our culture? Have we got them today? Oh yeah. Lots of them. Think about it. What are we inclined to be distracted by? What tends to draw our attention away from the Lord? What calls the shots in our lives? All those things. The answers to those questions.

Those are idols, even if they don't look like the same things that Isaiah was talking about. Idols change in appearance, but not in character. They might look different, but they're really no different. The next couple of verses describe how they would make and build idols in those days. Here are some examples of the idols that were used from those times. Thousands of these have been found by archaeologists from around the time of Isaiah. Are you impressed by them? Not so much, huh? Some of them are even bizarre, but the people would worship them. As Isaiah describes these words here, he isn't so much trying to point out that the idols and their worship and their making are sinful.

They are, but that's not his point. The thing that he's trying to point out is how absolutely stupid they are. Just really dumb. Not just that the idols themselves are dumb. You can ask them a question, like the questions we see here, and they don't have any answers. But they're dumb for people to make. If he pours on the irony, that's what he's doing in these verses. Here's this Hebrew poetry pattern. Of course, we never make a big deal of that.

As for the idol, he says, a craftsman casts it. A goldsmith plates it with gold and the silversmith fashions chains of silver. It was done like this. They would make a mold and typically these idols were about four to 10 inches. They would make a mold and cast them out of bronze and then take and put gold around the outside, a gold leaf, and they would put that on the outside. And then they would have a silversmith come along and put chains and various kinds of decorations, so that in the end you'd have this bronze gold covered and then silver decorated idol.

And that's what they would worship. Now, the other part we see here, he was too impoverished for such an offering, selects a tree that does not rot. Don't have enough money to have a cast, gold-covered, silver-decorated idol. That's all right. You can buy yourself an idol made out of wood. And so what they would do is have minimum standards for the idol.

The two criteria is pick one out of wood that won't rot and make it so that it doesn't totter. Isaiah is pouring on the irony Imagine a God that rots. Do you want to worship a God that rots? No. Do you want a God that totters? Oops, I just knocked the idol over. You don't want to do that with God. You don't want a God that's like that. Isaiah is showing how absolutely ridiculous these things are as a replacement for the God of Scripture.

These wooden idols were typically made of a sisu wood, which is a teak like wood. It was a good wood, but the idea is that it wouldn't rot and you could have a good solid base on it and carve it nicely so that it wouldn't totter and rock. One difference between the two verses, of course, is that the cast idol is very expensive. It has expensive materials, takes three different kinds of material specialists to make, costs a lot of money. If you can't afford that, then you go for the minimum cost idol that meets the two quality criteria, one that won't rot, one that won't rock.

And so what does it amount to? What it comes to is with the pagan idols, It really comes down to what price can you pay? What price can you pay for the God that you're going to buy? The God of Scripture, it's a matter of what price He pays for us. How about that? It's His price for us, not our price for the little God that we put off in the corner. The price He paid for us is an incredible price, so big, so phenomenal, none of us could pay it. Only He could. Isn't that amazing? It's not a matter of what God can I afford, but it's a matter of what the God of Scripture afforded for us. Absolutely amazing. He gave the price of His very own Son.

The pagan idols had to be made by human beings out of material things. Oh, pick some good things, you know, make it out of bronze, gold, silver, at least a good wood. Make it out of something that's here on planet Earth. Instead, the God of Scripture made all the things and all the humans, and the idols must be made by a human. The God of Scripture is the God who created everything. That's the God we worship. So the question is, do you worship one of the gods that you or somebody made, or the God who made you? Do you depend on your ability to pay for the God, pick whichever one you want, whichever God, or do you depend upon the one God who has the ability to pay for you, to pay the price for you and I? Later on this morning, we'll share in the Lord's table and we'll remember the price that was paid. Here's the questions.

Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? The do you not know, folks in the Romans class have heard that before, right? It's been a part of the passage that they've been studying. It also is a Hebrew poetry pattern. There's a rhyming here, as well as other patterns, rhyming not of sounds, but of meanings. Okay, have you not heard? Have you not heard? Why? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? You have received the message, you have heard, because it has been declared to you.

But he puts it in the form of a question. Do you not know? If you know, then you've understood, because you've understood from the foundations of the earth. He gets them to think by asking these questions. Do you not know and have you not heard? These are questions that were asked in the culture of something you most certainly should know. Of course you know! You know this, obviously you do. The verbs translated to know and heard are in the perfect tense. What does that mean? These are things that they most certainly already know. Have you not already known? Have you not already heard?

Those are the things that he's communicating to them with these questions. Isaiah's readers had known and had heard. Here is Psalm 19, first couple of verses. The heavens are telling the glory of God. and their expanse is declaring the work of his hands." Have they heard? Have they known? Yes! Day-to-day pours forth speech. Now, are the heavens talking to you? No. You don't go outside and think, my heavens, they're chattering like crazy, right? No. But the heavens are delivering constantly a message.

This is the God of creation. This is a God of immensity beyond what I can cast in a little four-inch statue, beyond what I can put in a little tiny idol. How long has this message been going out? From the very beginning. Adam could look up at the heavens and get this message. Cain, Abel, could look up at the heavens and get this message. From the start, from the beginning, this message has gone out about who God is and his character, his glory, his power, and his majesty. Paul draws upon this message as he writes in the book of Romans to the church at Rome, since the creation of the world is invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made." Ah, there's that word understood and understanding. So that they are without excuse. Of course you know. Of course you've heard.

Then in verse 23, and they exchange the glory of the incorruptible God for an image. Ah, there's the other part of Isaiah's message. The idols. Here you have an obvious declaration of the power and glory and majesty of God, of His eternal deity, and what do you turn to? Let's worship a little four-inch tall wooden thing, and hope it doesn't fall over when we're worshiping. And don't let it rot, and get the dust off of it, and grab it up in case there's a fire. So instead they turn to the idols. Paul addresses that there in the first chapter of Romans. Isaiah answers the question. He doesn't want to leave it to them to answer it wrongly. He answers it.

It is he who sits above the circle of the earth and his inhabitants are like grasshoppers who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. God is the one who has the position and the perspective above the earth.

Think of it in our own culture where we worship, no, typically not these little four inch tall idols, we'll have something else. But what happens is human beings are inclined to have something here on planet earth called the shots. Something here on planet earth draw our attention. Something here on planet earth to be the ultimate thing that we have respect for.

Here, the Lord sits above it all. He sees everything. This Hebrew word here for circle has the idea of sphericity. Isn't it interesting? And you thought that they thought that the world was flat, right? A sphericity. What's the message of this, the inhabitants are like grasshoppers?

God is not wowed by things. What's interesting is we will go to maybe a museum exhibit or go visit different things and we'll be wowed and maybe that's a good thing. That probably is. God is not wowed by anything. He doesn't look at it and say, awesome. God has infinite character and is not in some position of thinking, man, that is really amazing. He instead understands and knows everything. There is nothing into which he does not have complete and ultimate insight.

The universe is awesome to us. We have people looking at various aspects of the universe, everything down to the micro scale. to the astronomical scale. We talked last week about there's something on the order of, you know, 500 billion known galaxies in the universe. And that number has grown since I was, you know, back in college. That number keeps getting bigger in terms of its estimate.

God has no difficulty in handling any of it. None whatsoever. Verse 25, God has no parallel. He is singularly the Creator. Some of the pagan myths actually have God's fighting, and they explain the existence of the mountains. Oh, they say that's a dead God. And so the dead God went and laid here and there, and that's the mountains. None of that here in Scripture. God doesn't go die in order to create some mountain. There isn't a battle between the persons of the Godhead.

He knows and understands everything without exception. All of His qualities are infinite. He is not limited. He is the source of everything. Nothing in this creation, nothing we can make, is His equal. We might be impressed by power of something, or the scale of something, or by the intricacies of something. Boy, that's phenomenally intricate. Even the technology that we have sitting up here is kind of amazing stuff. But, God is not wowed by any of it. God is not overwhelmed by any of it. He understands it all. Verse 26, Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars. the one who leads forth their host by number. Isaiah writes as if the Lord is shepherding the stars, the galaxies.

How about that? To the latest number, and it may grow, 500 billion known galaxies, by estimate. I think somebody may have lost count somewhere in there. 500 billion known galaxies, and the Lord just calls them out by name, leads them as a shepherd, He's not puzzled by any of it or suddenly discovering, oh, that's a galaxy I didn't know about. Instead, no, the Lord shepherds and watches over them all.

He already has them named. He already has it down. Few of the ancient civilizations who had these pagan myths and whatnot have creation accounts for the stars. Isn't that kind of surprising? Very few of them do. Typically, they'll have explanations for things on earth, sometimes the sun. Typically not the stars, that's unusual. What is amazing is what we see described here.

None of the gods have this kind of control and understanding of the heavens. The God of Scripture knows them all by name, the finest detail. Every single one, even if one is missing, He knows it. How does He count that high? I don't think it's a problem. The God of Scripture is portrayed here as having this amazing control and knowledge of everything, and yet he cares about the smallest detail of your life. God isn't so busy taking care of the stars that he looks down and says, Oh heavens, I forgot about Bertha.

None of that surprises him. None of that challenges him to the point where all of a sudden his capacity to comprehend slips a notch. He understands it all. He understands the finest detail. Do you think that there's even the finest detail in your life that he's somehow unaware of or unconcerned about? No. Every little thing. He knows about it. He's concerned about it. He cares. Questions again, okay?

Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert O Israel? My way is hidden from the Lord, and the justice due me escapes the notice of my God. Here is this Hebrew poetry pattern again. The rhyming, because Jacob and Israel, two different names, but the same. My way is hidden from the Lord, the justice due me, that is, I should get in trouble for this, but I won't be caught.

That's the kind of message that this is. So here's this people that Isaiah is writing to, all caught up with the idols. And he's asking, look guys, you think that you're getting away with this. You think that God doesn't know about this. Hey, get a clue. He knows about it all, every little bit. All right.

Why do you say? And the Hebrew there actually has the idea of why do you keep on saying? Why do you keep on saying is the message there. There are those who think they are getting away with something. I'd say there's probably a good number of the people in our own culture have that idea. They're getting away with something.

God is a God of absolute justice. You think God's justice is somehow limited? No. God is a God of absolute, infinite justice. He's a God who knows about everything, every small detail. Nothing is accepted from that. He goes to the heart of the matter and addresses the motives and the thoughts and the assumptions built into the way they think. It's actually, for the believer though, a comforting thought.

The Lord has dealt with every injustice in my life. Maybe even the ones that I've done. The injustices that I've committed. Where have those been dealt with? They've been dealt with on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. He put them there. There's no injustice that will not ultimately be dealt with in my life. I don't have to get fired up angry that I've got to deal with things and somehow this injustice will not be dealt with. It will be. Every single injustice, everything that has happened to me that's unjust, every injustice I've committed, dealt with, ultimately. And we can thank the Lord, but by His amazing, marvelous grace, He's dealt with every injustice that I have committed and will commit.

Do you not know? Have you not heard? We've heard Him say that before, haven't we? The everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. Isaiah starts off this verse just like he did verse 21. Do you not know? Have you not heard? Of course you do. You absolutely have heard this. Certainly you've heard it and know and understand. These are things you certainly should know.

Now what he follows with is descriptions of God. Names of God. Let's take a look at those. The Everlasting God. This is the Everlasting God or the Eternal God in some of your translations. El Olam is the Hebrew there. God is eternal and sovereign over time. God is not stuck in time discovering things at the same time we are. Oh, heavens!

I didn't know Verne would do that. No, that's not his perspective, is it? He knows it all. He knows the end from the beginning. To Him, it is all the present. He looks at your situation right now, and He looks at His Son dying on the cross for your sins, and He looks at what's going to happen a thousand years from now. To Him, it's all at once. He sees it all happening. He's not puzzled or surprised by any of it. He sees it all. We're inside of time. walking down this track. To him, he's outside of it, looking at it, seeing it all in the present. He lives in the eternal present. He is the God of history and of the future.

One of the ways in which that showed up in the Old Testament is in Genesis 21, where this is worked out. Here is Abraham, the one to whom the Lord made promises. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba and there he called on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God. Abraham understood that he wasn't dealing with one of the pagan gods who comes and goes and might die and might get tired. But no, this is the everlasting God. The God who is not challenged by time.

Psalm 90 verse 2, Before the mountains were born or you gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. Romans 8, 28-30. We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son.

Isn't that comforting? Predestination is not something to look at and say, oh, that's some big ominous machine. It is instead God's sovereignty over time that says that, yes, I, the believer, will be conformed to the image of His Son. Are lots of things going to happen in my life? Yeah. Do I know what they are? No. Is any of what's going to happen going to change this? No. It's predestined. It's going to happen. Isn't that neat?

That's a comforting thing. so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren, and those whom he predestined he also called, and when he called he justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified." As far as God's concerned, it's a done deal. It's a done deal.

Here is the Lord, the Hebrew Yahweh. Sometimes you'll hear that kind of restated as Jehovah, but the Hebrew is Yahweh. This is the covenant name of God with Israel. The God who is self-existing. He exists of his own. He's the God who dwells in eternity.

Here at the time where Moses is encountering the Lord at the burning bush, Moses says to God, Behold, I'm going to the sons of Israel, and will say to them, Now the God of your fathers has sent me. Now, they may say to me, what is his name? What shall I say to them? God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent me to you. God furthermore said to Moses, thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever. This is my memorial name, Yahweh, to all generations.

Isaiah calls him the Creator. Isaiah is the book of the Bible that speaks more of creation than any other book. Surprisingly, we think of Genesis and it's a wonderful book about the creation. Isaiah mentions creation almost twice as much as Genesis. By the way, Romans is the second greatest listing and the greatest listing of creation in that topic in the New Testament.

Now, what? Tired, ignorant gods? All right. One of the interesting things is a lot of the pagan gods had accounts where the gods would get tired. They'd get exhausted and overwhelmed. Isn't that interesting? They would have limited strength, limited endurance. The circumstances would overwhelm them.

The pagan gods were also not aware of anything. We have stories where one pagan god would do something in secret and trick another god. One pagan god would be able to hide himself from another one of the pagan gods. They were unaware of everything that happened. The God of Scripture is not like that. He does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. in huge contrast, massive contrast to the pagan gods, the God of Scripture doesn't ever become weary and tired.

By the way, the Hebrew here means overwhelmed by circumstances. Both the words weary and tired imply being overwhelmed by circumstances. The pagan gods get to the point where it's just too much. Have you ever had that happen in your life? Circumstances overwhelm you? God is never overwhelmed by circumstances. the God of Scripture, never overwhelmed. He is infinite and inexhaustible. God's understanding of everything isn't limited. Nothing is hidden from Him. He sees it all.

Here's Jonah. The Lord says, I want you to go to Nineveh. By the way, that's Mosul, modern Mosul. I want you to go to Nineveh. Jonah says, thanks a lot, and starts to take off, heads off to Joppa to pick up a ship. Do you think he's getting away where the Lord can't deal with him? The Lord doesn't know? The Lord can't see him? I guess that's what he was thinking. It didn't work out so good. Talk about having fish breath. Okay.

Now, how does the Lord have this understanding? Does the Lord study and study and study all the time? Does he burn the midnight oil? Does he burn the candle at both ends in order to be able to understand everything? No. The Lord, by character, knows everything.

The last few verses here spell out some really amazing things. Verse 28 speaks of God's untiring eternal character. And in these verses, then, Isaiah shifts into God's character to what the Lord shares with people. We'll see how it applies to us here shortly. Now, verse 29 is a Hebrew poetry pattern too. What do we mean by that?

He gives strength to the weary. Rhymes, not with sound, but with meaning. And to him who lacks might, he increases power. It's a rhyming idea. Alright, God doesn't get tired of himself, but he also has ample strength and power and might to share with us. Now, when God shares His power and might and strength with us, is His power and might and strength diminished? No. He is infinite. His sharing strength and power and might with us does not diminish His at all, because His resources are infinite. Then in verses 30 and 31, this also is a Hebrew poetry pattern.

I won't flash anything in front of you though. How about that? Isaiah refers to young men in their physical prime of life. That's what he's talking about. By the way, the first Olympics had taken place just a few decades before he wrote this. Here are men in their prime of life, and that's what he describes. He says, they get overwhelmed by circumstances. They can get to a point where it's just too much.

But they're no match for God's resources. Take a human being at their best. No comparison with God. God's resources are infinite. The best of human resources and strength, even if we're impressed, every couple of years we'll see in the Olympics and see these guys, especially like the Olympic weightlifters, phenomenal what they pick up. We'll see some Olympic runners and be amazed at their speed or stamina. They don't actually, as impressive as it is, have any part necessarily in fulfilling God's eternal purpose. which is to share His glory. That's a part of what's happening here.

Those who wait on the Lord will gain new strength. This waiting that he wrote about here, what does God have in mind there? Should we just sort of wait around? Now we've got the pews here, you're sitting, I'll take a seat too, let's just wait a few days and see what the Lord does.

Is that the idea? The Hebrew here, translated gain, actually has the idea of exchange. So trade in. Trade it in. You're not going to use it. You don't need it. Trade it in. Instead, take his. It's an exchange. His life, his strength, his power. Trade it in. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not get tired. They will walk and not become weary. So the question is, what does they will mount up with wings like eagles mean? What does that look like? Is there some perception that comes to your mind? Maybe something like this, or this, or that? Probably not. Here's the Hebrew poetry pattern.

They will, those who wait upon the Lord, they will mount up with wings like eagles. One of the things to understand is that in the culture of Isaiah's time, the idea of a bird flying was just miraculous. They could get guys that could flap their wings. It just seemed miraculous. But, what we see here is that this is saying that the Lord's sharing of His strength with us is also miraculous. It is God's miracle to share His strength with us. It is His doing.

Isaiah is saying, those who wait on the Lord, this word wait has a lot built into it. It has the idea of hope, and by the way, hope which is biblical certainty, not just an I hope so. It has the idea of hope, it has the idea of trusting, it has the idea of resting. All those built into that word that's translated wait. Those who put their certain hope in the Lord, those who trust in Him, those who rest in Him, will have God's enabling resources made available to them. So what does this look like?

God's empowering and energizing of us as believers has a specific meaning in the church here. It's given in the New Testament epistles. It's God's power and energizing. It is the very life of Christ. On the outside, it may look like working to the point of exhaustion. Isn't that interesting? On the inside, it is His very life. There is an outside expression and there's an inside expression. In truth, God intends that believers be inexplicable.

Here's Galatians 2.20, I've been crucified with Christ. That sounds like a bad start. Crucified? It's actually an excellent start. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. It's His living, not mine. It's an exchange, isn't it? It's His living. My life, I've been crucified. His life, that's the life I live. My history is no more. I now have His history. His life. I put here and scratched out start here. No, God started you here. We don't need to start there when we put our trust in the Lord. God started us here.

We were crucified, buried, raised, ascended and seated with our Lord. Colossians 3, 1 through 4. Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is. By the way, the if is not doubting, it's inviting you to be thinking through the process yourself. Seated at the right hand of God, set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, you also will be revealed with him in glory. the Lord with whom we have been co-crucified and buried, the one with whom we were raised together, the one with whom we were ascended, the one with whom we are now seated. That's our perspective. That's our history. In Colossians 1, 28 and 29, Paul puts it this way, Him, Christ, we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect that is mature in Christ Jesus.

To this end, I also labor. Now, that's interesting. This is the word kapial. It means to labor to exhaustion. How about that? On the outside, I labor to exhaustion. If you were to look at Paul, at the end of the day, he is spent. That's what it looks like on the outside. Striving. We get our word agony from this same family word agonizomai. It was from the expression of agony on the faces of those who are in athletic efforts. He says, I labor to exhaustion, working with an athletic level of effort and intensity.

But, what's happening on the inside is I am being energized by God. Not my own energy, not my working it up, not my trying to pump up some kind of enthusiasm. His energy from His life. This word works. He works in me, mindily. Energeo. He does the energizing. I'm energized because he does the energizing. And finally, mindily. Dunamis. This inner empowering in the sense of ability. And you know what?

This energy, this power, of course, that's a big topic in our own country, in our own nation, in our own culture. And what do we do? We look at energy as a commodity. This is not a commodity. This is the life of Christ, and it's not gotten because you go and spend some money for it. It's not gotten because we do some mechanical thing. It's gotten through moment-by-moment relationship with Him, beholding Him. It's our intimate relationship with the Lord that brings us about, not some formula. It's our day-to-day walk with Him and beholding Him. That's where the energy comes from.

Not by any magic formula. No incantation will do it. There's no button to press. There's no, like with the idols, there's no certain amount of money you pay. He paid entirely for this. This benefit is all at his expense. But it comes not because we do something in just the right way, but because of relationship with him. That's all. But that's wonderful, because that's all it takes.

Let's pray. Lord, thank you. As we look at this tremendous passage, we see Isaiah describing what you intend for our everyday very lives, that we behold your Son, that we depend upon your energizing through his life as we walk with him, as we day-to-day enjoy intimate fellowship with him. What a marvelous blessing, Lord. How incomprehensible and unfathomable and so wonderful at the same time. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.