Two Journeys

Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 44:1-28. The main subject of the sermon is how God holds rebellious nations in derision and uses them to fulfill His prophecies.

So the story I'm about to tell you is in no way commending a strategy for discipleship, but I'm just going to tell you something that happened to me, alright? Shortly after I came to faith in Christ, I was discipled very well by a guy at MIT. We met together really almost, I wouldn't say daily, but every couple of days we got together and he did a phenomenal job, Tim Shuman. And one day in particular though, I'll never forget this day. We were at the dining hall there on-campus, and it was Friday, and we were meeting together and having a meal. Now, like many Catholics growing up, I abstained from eating meat on Fridays. That put me into an immediate problem because I hate fish. So I was eating grilled cheeses especially during Lent, every Friday. So we were sitting down at the table and he got the usual, a cheeseburger and all that, and fries, and there I was with my grilled cheese, he said, "I thought you like cheeseburgers." I said, "I love them." He said, "Why didn't you get one?" I explained to him that I don't eat meat on Fridays. This is after I'd come to faith in Christ. He paused, and then he laughed in my face.

He just laughed at me, and he actually had trouble composing himself. It took a while. I'm like, "What?" And he said, "Look, that's not in the Bible. You're free to eat whatever you want on Fridays." And it's only been in the recent years as I've studied church history and found out where all that came from, but that was a superstition, really, that was part of my upbringing, but was no part of the Bible. But what I want to tell you is, there was an impact to that laugh, that mocking laugh. I think it was a mocking laugh. And as we come to Isaiah 44, I think we're going to hear God, God's mocking laughter concerning idolatry.

This is a humorous chapter about something that's actually not funny at all. And God's laughter is meant to get in our face, and make us realize how ridiculous it is to worship anything but the God of the Bible. How utterly foolish it is to think that we can concoct a god out of our own imagination and then our hands can skillfully shape and craft that god and then we can bow down and worship. The whole thing is ridiculous, and foolish. And yet, how many people do exactly that? We Americans may not struggle with shrines, and statues and altars, but I can assure you, millions of people around the world do precisely the things that are described in this chapter. They shape and craft idols and they bow down and worship them. But we Americans we have our idols too.

And so today what we're going to do is we're going to follow the Prophet Isaiah into the workshop of the idol maker, and we're going to hear from Heaven, the laughter of our Sovereign God concerning all of it, the mocking laughter about idolatry. But we're not going to stop in the workshop, we're going to go from the workshop to the hospital, spiritual hospital. And we're going to have the spiritual physician, Christ, sit down with each of us and tell us what our idols are and how serious they are, and then we're going to go to the operating room God willing and have them addressed. So that's the journey that's in front of us today, in Isaiah 44. John Calvin said, "The human heart is an idol factory." And we're going to have a chance today to look at that factory, we're going to look in our own hearts. And as I've said again and again in Isaiah, it is dangerous for us to say, "Oh those sinners out there, how they do that," etcetera. We are meant to be humbled by this, we're meant to be convicted by it and we're meant to be transformed by it.

Now, the idea of idolatry is going to hold this whole chapter together. Isaiah is a challenge because he goes it seems from one topic to the next, to the next. And finding a cohesive theme isn't always easy to do. But I think in this chapter, it's pretty easy to see that idolatry really holds the entire chapter together. The chapter begins in verses 1-5 with God's promise to pour out His spirit and create his children.

Now again, the immediate context of Isaiah the Prophet, 7th century BC, 700 BC. I think by then we can understand that the Assyrian threat was gone, Sennacherib had taken what was left of his army, and after 185,000 of his soldiers had been killed in one night, by the Angel of the Lord, he's gone, the Assyrian threat is gone, it's over.

But now, he's facing the future and the new threat is the idolatry that's going to come in under Hezekiah's son Manasseh, and then God's inevitable judgment on Judah and on Jerusalem for that idolatry. He's going to bring the Babylonians and the Babylonians are going to come in and they're going to destroy Judah and Jerusalem. They're going to raze the temple, they're going to level it, and they are going to kill most of the people in the land and a small remnant of the Jews are going to be brought into exile into Babylon. But then in the providence of God beyond that 70-year exile to Babylon, God is going to raise up an individual whom he names, by name identifies a century and a half before it happens, more than that probably before it happens. Cyrus the Great, identified in this chapter by name as the one who would allow a small remnant of Jews to come back from exile to Babylon and rebuild Judah and Jerusalem, to lay the foundations of the temple. All of this in the future.

And so, the idolatry that would cause this exile is yet in the future, and the remedy to it, yet in the future. And God's ability to predict the future so specifically sets him apart from the gods, all the counterfeit gods, as Tim Keller calls it, that there are. He's the only one who can do it. And so, as we look at his prophetic ability, we are going to see that only God can do this.

Now, in verses 1-5, God promises to raise up that remnant of His children to be eventually a large nation who will populate the desolated Judah and Jerusalem. And God is going to do that by His Spirit. So that's the context here immediately, but I believe there's a larger context. And that these verses, in verse 1-5, speak also about God's sovereign ability to pour out His Spirit on Jews and gentiles alike who are dead in their transgressions and sins, and bring them to faith in Christ so that they can be the children of the living God. And God is able by His spirit to raise up eternal children, children of the living God, by his spirit. I think that's in view as well. So look at verses one and two, God softly calls Jacob to listen to him. He says, "But now, listen O Jacob, my servant. Israel, whom I have chosen, this is what the Lord says, He who made you, who formed you in the womb, and who will help you. Do not be afraid O Jacob, my servant, Jeshurun [that means my righteous one] whom I have chosen."

So he's calling to His chosen people. And we know that faith comes by hearing, he says, "Listen to me, listen to what I'm saying, he wants you to hear God's word so that your faith can be strengthened." Then in verse three the Lord promises to pour out His Spirit on the dusty ground. He says, "For I will pour water on the thirsty land and I will pour streams on the dry ground, and I will pour out my spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants."

Now, again and again in these 10 chapters of Isaiah 40 to 49, in this we get this image of a dry and thirsty land, a desert land that then suddenly flourishes and buds and blossoms and has rivers of water flowing through it. And I believe that we can take a physical side to that. There is a cursing that's happened on the earth because of Adam's sin, because of the Jews sin there was a cursing on the Promised Land and that's fine. And I believe in the new heaven and the new earth, we will see this world as it was meant to be. And how beautiful will that renewed almost resurrected earth be, the new Heavens and the new Earth.

But in verse three, we have some Hebrew parallelism. You see Hebrew parallelism a lot in the prophets, in the Psalms, in Proverbs where the same thing is said twice in slightly different words so you get an idea they... The verse interprets itself. So Isaiah 44:3 is a very important verse for me that says this streams and the wasteland image really has to do with the spirit of God. It has to do with the spirit's work on his people. Look what it says, "I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground, I will pour out my spirit on your offspring and my blessings on your descendants." So the idea of the pouring of the spirit, as I've mentioned before, the Spirit frequently likened to water. Like rain flowing from... Flowing down from the clouds or springs that you can drink from or rivers. Again, and the verb frequently used with the Spirit is "pour."

So the Spirit is poured out on us, we get this on the day of Pentecost. Remember when Peter quoting Joel two is explaining what's happened when the Holy Spirit has come on the church. And they are... They have just streamed out into the streets and he's trying to explain what's happening there and he quotes Joel two, in the last days he says, God says, "I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days." And in verse 21 there, in Acts 2:21, it says, "And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." That's Acts 2:21. But that image of pouring and when the Spirit is poured down from above, people cry out to God from below up. And we call on the name of the Lord and we are saved.

And so I think not only is God promising to restore a remnant of Jews and populate biologically The Promised Land, so that there will be children running in the streets like Zechariah talks about, there will be people there. Yes, yes, yes. But more than that, that God is going to send forth His Spirit in every generation, and he's going to raise up children for the living God. And that's an awesome thing, isn't it? He's going to populate the New Jerusalem, he's going to populate heaven with his spirit and his children are going to spring up. Remember how John the Baptist said that God is able out of these stones to raise up children for Abraham. And we are, are we not the stones that were brought to life? Are we not children of Abraham, who have believed in Jesus?

As it says in John 1:12-13, "As many as did receive Him, [Jesus] to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." And in that same book, in John 3, we find out we're born of the Spirit. Amen. So the Spirit comes, and He makes us children of the living God and I think that's what's going on here in verses 1-5. We are going to be in verse five among those Gentiles who say, "Hey I belong, I'm included. We'll, we'll like outdo each other to say how Jewish we are by we're honorary Jews."

Look at verse five, "One will say 'I belong to the Lord.' Another will call himself by the name of Jacob, still another will write on his hand, the Lord's, and will take the name Israel." I think this is talking about outsiders who become spiritually children of Abraham, that's us. And so God is going to pour out His Spirit and He's going to raise up children. Now biologically yes, through the remnant and that's important but the bigger picture has to do with the spread of the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

Now, in verses six through eight, God sets aside some verses to talk about his own greatness because he's about to address the issue of idolatry and he wants to say that he alone can explain life. He's the only one that can explain history. Look what he says in verse six, "This is what the Lord says, Israel's king and redeemer, the Lord Almighty. 'I am the first and I am the last. Apart from me, there is no God.'" First and last, that language is that language of the sequence of events. He is the Alpha and the Omega, He is the first and the last, the beginning and the end of what really? Of all of human history, of redemptive history.

You know, in the beginning, God created heavens and earth. So there's a beginning. God is the beginning, He is the first and he is the last. And there's a story unfolding here. He alone understands history, he alone controls history. He says, "I am the first and I am the last. Apart from me, there is no God. Who then is like me, let him proclaim it, let him declare and lay out before me. What has happened since I established my ancient people in the past and what is yet to come? Yes, let him foretell what will come." So he's saying, "Look, you don't even know the past. You don't know what's happened since I established my ancient people, from the very beginning. You don't even know the sequence of events that's led to the day you're at right now."

Historians will tell you how hard it is to know the past. It's actually very difficult. Professional historians can spend years and years studying a single event, a battle, Battle of Waterloo or The Battle of Gettysburg or something like that, and understand all the forces that went into it and what actually happened. And even if there's an eyewitness, he only has a small slice of the truth. Historians talk about the fog of war, and it's hard to see really what's going on. So he says, "You don't even know the past, you don't know what's happened up to this point. But now let's talk about what you definitely don't know, what you definitely cannot do, O idols, O gods of the nations. Let your idols come in, let your gods come in and let them predict the future, let them do what I'm about to do in this chapter. Let them name some ruler who's going to come 150 years from now by name and let it happen, let's see if your god can do something like that." And so, He's setting Himself apart as the great God who alone can do these things.

Now, look at verse eight. Here, he identifies his chosen people as his witnesses in this idolatrous world. In this god and goddess soldered world, we are the witnesses of the true God. Look at verse eight, he says, "Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other rock. I know not one." Now, you may ask, "What is he talking about?" At the end of the chapter, He's going to name Cyrus, by name. We've talked about this already for weeks. But this, and the next chapter, these are the two Cyrus chapters in which He is identified by name. Now we're going to do more with Cyrus God willing, next week. But it's at the very end that in Isaiah 44:28, he identifies Cyrus, and he says, he is the very one who's going to say, of the towns of Jew to let them be rebuilt. And of Jerusalem, let it be inhabited. And of the temple, that its foundations be laid. And so he does all of this. This is mind-boggling. He predicts the future and he says he's going to do this.

Now again, you think about the perspective. By then, there weren't any threats. People were back in their towns and Judah and Jerusalem was doing well and thriving under Hezekiah and none of these things had even happened, yet. And you're hearing from Isaiah the Prophet, "Oh, don't worry, God's going to allow Judah to be rebuilt. And the cities, the ruin of Jerusalem will be restored and it will be repopulated" and this is the clincher "of the temple, its foundations will be laid and there'll be a new temple build so don't worry." It's like, "Whoa, wait a minute now, we have a good temple, we have a really good temple. Solomon built us a good temple. What are you saying?" "I'll tell you what I'm saying, it's going to be destroyed. It's going to be destroyed. And the towns of Judah are going to be leveled. And Jerusalem is going to be stripped of all people. But through Cyrus, through this man Cyrus, all of that is going to be reversed and I'm going to re-populate this land." It's staggering what God is doing in this chapter, it's amazing. 100 plus years before Cyrus would have been born, 150, 160 years or more before these things would be fulfilled. That's what he's saying, and God alone can do this.

Now, in verses 9-20, he takes us into the workshop of the idol makers, the idolaters, the idol manufacturers, and he shows us this process by which idols are actually made. Look at verse 9-11, idol makers and idol worshippers alike will be shamed. He says there, "All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind, they are ignorant to their own shame. Who shapes a God, who casts an idol which can profit him nothing? He and his kind will be put to shame. Craftsmen are nothing but men. Let them all come together and take their stand, they will be brought down to terror and infamy." So God here highlights the worthlessness of both the idols and the idolaters. "They're both worthless," He says.

Now you may think that is harsh but here's the thing, there's a basic principle here at work. You become like what you worship. You become like what you worship. We have an old saying, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." Well, the greatest form of flattery there could be, would be worship. And so therefore, it makes perfect sense that what you worship is going to have an effect on who you are, it's going to shape who you are. Now, for us as Christians, we worship Jesus Christ as God and we are being transformed. We're being conformed to the image of Christ by that, do you see? We're being transformed by the Spirit, little by little, made more and more like Christ, we're being conformed to Christ by worshipping Him. But idolaters gradually become more and more like the idols they worship which means in this text, more and more worthless. More and more worthless. Idols are worthless and if you worship them, you become worthless too.

That's what the text is saying. And the end result of that downward journey is wrath on the day of judgment, God's wrath against the idolaters on the day of judgment. He says they will be brought down to terror and infamy, they'll be stripped and shamed on that day for their idolatry. And so, in Verse 12-17, He ridicules the actual process by which idols are made.

Look at verse 12 and follow me. It says, "The blacksmith takes a tool and works with it in the coals; he shapes an idol with hammers, he forges it with the might of his arm. He gets hungry and loses his strength; he drinks no water and grows faint. The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker; he roughs it out with chisels and marks it with compasses. He shapes it in the form of man, of man in all his glory, that it may dwell in a shrine. He cut down cedars, or perhaps took a cypress or oak. He let it grow among the trees of the forest, or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow. It is man's fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it. Half of the wood he burns in the fire; over it he prepares his meal, he roasts his meat and eats his fill. He also warms himself and says, 'Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.' From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, 'Save me; you are my god.'"

So, we're led here into the workshop of the idol maker. The first idol is made out of metal, so it's a metal worker. You get the picture of this blacksmith in a blacksmith shop, and he's pounding away on the anvil and heating the thing up and pounding it some more. And he's sweaty, this man and he's getting weak as he works, and that's kind of a big feature here in the ridicule. He gets weaker, and weaker, and maybe he forgets to drink some water. He doesn't have a lunch, and so he's getting weaker and weaker as he makes his god. And what a contrast that is from Isaiah 40, where we're told God never gets weary ever. God's like a raging fire that can ignite infinite numbers of logs or trees and burn them to ashes and he doesn't get diminished at all by that, he never gets tired. But here's this god-maker, and he gets weary in the heat as he goes on, as he's making this. And at the end of the day, you can see him mopping his brow and feeling satisfied he's made a good god that can now sell well. It'll sell. Or he himself, maybe he made it for himself, and he'll bow down and worship it.

Or then we're led into the carpenter shop and we're given some different techniques some different tools, same thing though. He's working with... He's a wood worker, skilled craftsman. And it's funny, I read this once, I don't remember where it was or even who it was, but it was a famous sculptor and he was asked how he could make such a magnificent sculpture of a horse? And he said, "Well I choose a block of marble and then I carve away everything that doesn't look like a horse."

Or it's like Bach saying, "Music is easy, you just hit the right note at the right time. What's so hard about that?" But here's this skilled craftsman and he just carves away everything. Now, here's the catch. That doesn't look like a god. What is it that? What do you mean? Oh, so you get an idea in your head first of a god or goddess and you think of it, and then your hands move out and execute your internal vision and thoughts. Do you not see the hubris, the arrogance to that? Scripture tells us that we are shaped and created by God in his image. But now we've got an idol maker who's getting an idea of a god in his mind, and he shapes and makes it. Who's in control of that process? He is, and he's making the god. Do you see the wickedness of it and the evil of it?

And so that's what is going on here. The idol maker then makes this... And he ridicules the whole process. He says, he goes out, maybe he's got a grove of trees specially designed like you know chosen hardwoods. The hardwoods are harder to work, but they're going to be worth more money. And so you can make a better god or goddess out of it, sell a little bit better. So he's an expert at wood. And I love how it says he plants a tree and listen to this "the rain makes it grow." Do you love that? It's like, "Yeah, I made that grow," God's saying, "I give life to everything." But he's blind to that. And so, up comes this tree after some decades it gets big enough, round enough, and he says, "Okay, this is a good one," and chops it down. And he's got this log and I picture him having a hard time getting on the ox cart or whatever, rolling it somewhere. It's too big for the god he has in mind. The god he has in mind about that big, maybe. So I'm like, "How do you decide how big your god should be?" But that's about it.

"So actually I have some extra wood left over, fine. I'll make a fire and eat from it and warm myself."  God is ridiculing all this. And he's very detailed, he says, "Okay, let's go back over what we talked about. Remember, half of it he used for the fire, half of it he used to make his bread or roast his meat and warm himself." And he says, he even says, "I'm warm, I see the fire," he's saying. But from the other half, he made a god, which he says bow down... He bows down and says, "Save me, you're my god." Absolutely ridiculous. Half for the fire, which he sees and enjoys. Half for a god, which he bows down and trusts. You know what I wonder? Imagine he had a helper who'd come in and clean up the shop and he only got like half-way done carving the thing. And the guy accidentally threw it in the fire, the god in the fire. And he comes in, and he's like, "No, no!" And he runs and grabs it and beats the fire. He's like, "That's my god, he's burning. Don't do that." So what is he really worshipping? What's the difference between that and the log he did burn? His own skill, his own ingenuity, his own craftsmanship. That's what he's worshipping.

God Exposes the Mindlessness of Idolatry

And so in verses 18-20, God exposes the mindlessness of idolatry. "They know nothing, they understand nothing, their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see. Their minds closed, so they cannot understand." You don't really know who he's talking about here. Is he talking about the idol or the idolater? Dear friends, he's talking about both. Don't you see it? Both the idol and the idolater, they're the same, they're blind, they're dead, they're motionless, they don't see anything, they don't hear anything. Their minds are closed so they cannot understand. No one stops to think, no one has the knowledge or understanding to say, "Half of it I use for fuel. I even bake bread over its coals, I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make a de-testable thing from what is left? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?" He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him.

Now that's right there in that verse, in verse 20, that's the key for us Americans. The essence of idolatry is in a deluded heart that misleads us, and we're going to come back to that at the end of the message. He doesn't have the ability to save himself. Do you know that? No idolater can save him or herself. They can't, they're trapped, they're in prison. And only Jesus can save them. Only Christ crucified, resurrected can save them. Only the blood of Jesus applied by the sovereign Spirit of God can rescue people and turn idolaters into children of the living God. They can't save themselves, they are becoming like what they worship.

Now, in verses 21-23, we have the incredible good news of God sweeping away our sins like a mist so rejoice. Verse 21, "Remember these things O Jacob, for you are my servant. O Israel, I have made you, you are my servant. O Israel, I will not forget you." So he says, "Look I'm committed to remembering you, I'll never forget you, would you please remember me? Would you remember who I am? Remember that I am the living God, remember to worship me? Remember these things?" Again, Isiah, at that moment most of the wickedness and the idolatry was yet to come, it hadn't happened yet. "So as you're going through it, remember me. And then when you're in exile, remember me. When you're trapped in sin, remember me for I will never forget you."

And in verse 22, he says, "I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you." Oh, friends, what an incredibly gracious God we serve. Amen. He can take our sins, did you see? I thought it was interesting. We had a morning mist this morning. It was kind of out where we were in Bahama, it was kind of swirling around and kind of misty, nasty and all that. And I was like, I was thinking about this exact verse, and I was thinking how it was such a block between us and the sunshine of a bright pleasant day which we had yesterday. And how it's a picture of how our sins separate us from God. And you can't get at them, there's nothing... Suppose you said, "I don't like this mist, I'm going to get rid of it." What are you going to do, how are you going to get rid of your morning mist? You cannot do it. And we don't tend to think of our sins like that, our sins seem massive, like mountain ranges. But to God, through Christ, they're like a morning mist. And he can burn it off with the bright sunshine, the heat of the glory of Christ at the cross. He can burn off our sins and we are free at last from all of our idolatry.

And so it seems reasonable for us that we should celebrate. Look at verse 23, "Sing for joy O heavens! For the Lord has done this. Shout aloud, O earth beneath. Burst into song you mountains, you forests and all you trees for the Lord has redeemed Jacob, he displays his glory, in Israel." We should celebrate and not only us, but all of creation is going to celebrate. What is... How is the Earth going to sing when at last, the sons and daughters of the living God are fully revealed in resurrection glory? How beautiful will the new Heaven and new Earth be. And how much will it sing in some mysterious way, under our feet as we walked on it, and we see the beauty of this world, we should yearn for it, it's going to be magnificent. So all of this is amazing. God's, cele... We should celebrate God's ability to take our idolatries and our sins and wickedness and move them away like the morning mist, that we can celebrate his grace and his glory forever.

Now, in verses 24-28, we have this section. I've already touched on it, I'm not going to do much with it now. Next week, we'll talk more about Cyrus, but go ahead and look at it briefly. In Verse 24, God says, He alone created all things. "This is what the Lord says, your redeemer who formed you in the womb. 'I am the Lord who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the Earth by myself.'" So God is the alone creator and He is the alone savior. By the way, this is a great, great verse to parallel with the verses in the New Testament that teach that God created everything through Jesus. "Through him, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made," John 1:3. Hebrews 1:2 says that God created all things through the Son. Colossians 1 teaches that it was Christ, who created all things. So if you get the fierce monotheism of this verse saying, "I am the only God there is, there is no one like me." And then Jesus comes in as the co-creator with the Father, you get the deity of Christ, the doctrine of the trinity very plainly from that.

But God says, He's the only one who creates, the only one who can redeem. And in verse 25-26, He foils false prophecies and fulfills true ones. Who foils the signs of false prophets, who makes fools of diviners, who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense, who carries out the words of his servants and fulfills the predictions of his messengers, like Isaiah and Jeremiah, and Hosea, and Habakkuk and all of the true prophets, God fulfills what they said but the false prophets go away.

And what is he specifically talking about? Well, Jerusalem shall be inhabited, the towns of Judah, shall be built, the ruins will be restored, he's going to have the foundation of the temple laid, that's what he says he's going to do. Verse 27, "He says of the watery deep, 'Be dry. And I will dry up your streams,' who says of Cyrus, 'he is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please.' He will say of Jerusalem, 'let it be rebuilt. And of the temple, let its foundations be laid.'"

Alright, so as we look at this chapter, what applications can we take from this? Well, I want to go immediately now to the issue of idolatry. Now, I've been in nations in which the idolatry was open and obvious and visible. I've been to India for example, there is no nation that I've ever been to in which the gods and goddesses are so plainly on display. But I lived in Japan for two years, same thing, same kind of thing.

So there are nations in which there are actual statues and statuettes and gods and things like that, the people bow down, they actually do bow down and worship. This goes on all over the world. But for us Americans, it's more the idols of the heart, and no one I think has thought so clearly and so well about idols of the heart as Tim Keller. He wrote a book called "Counterfeit Gods." He's a pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City, and wrote a book called "Counterfeit Gods." I would commend it to you. But you've already heard Daniel give this definition, what is an idol? It's anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give. An idol is whatever you look at and say in your heart of hearts, "If I have that, then I will feel that my life has meaning. Then I'll know I have value, then I'll feel significant and secure." That's what an idol is. Well, how can you identify it? Sometimes when you have a splinter, have you ever felt that? And you're trying to find it, you take your fingernail and you drag it, it's like, "There it is, feel it. It's right there. I know it's there," you can feel it. And so I want you to do that now over the next couple of minutes, I want you to hear some of the things that Keller says and says, "Maybe I have that kind of an idol at work in my life."

Can I just tell you a big picture? Remember I said we're going from the workshop to the hospital? We're in the hospital now, and the physician is going to talk to you about your aches and pains. He's going to ask you some questions and he's going to talk to you so he can find out. Now, is there anyone here who isn't laboring under idolatry? Do you think so? Do you think there's anybody here that isn't in some way being pulled by idolatry? I can't imagine that, I hope you know, this is something we all struggle with, all of us. It says in 1 John 5:21, "Dear children, keep yourselves from idols." It's a problem for all of us. So how do I identify it? Well, Keller recommends four ways. First of all, look at your imagination. "The true God of your heart," he says, "Is what your thoughts effortlessly go to when there's nothing else demanding your attention."

When your mind's relaxed, what do you go to? What do you enjoy daydreaming about? What is it that occupies your mind when you have nothing else to think about? Do you develop potential scenarios about career advancement or material goods, like a dream home, or a relationship with a specific person maybe? Now, he says that one or two daydreams doesn't mean it's an idol, but it may be indicating some of that.

Secondly, how about your money, how do you spend your money? I think the way the money goes can show what's got a hold on your heart. Jesus said, "Where your treasure is there, your heart will be also." Your money flows most effortlessly toward your heart's greatest love. In fact, the mark of an idol is that you spend too much money on it. So it could be a hobby, it could be vacations, it could be cars, it could be a home, as he said, or home improvement, it could be any one of those things, but just look at how you spend your money.

Thirdly, he says, for the religious, what is it that frustrates you about God? What do you do when your prayers aren't answered. Frustrated hopes and unanswered prayers can show idols sometimes. Some of you if you don't get your prayers answered the way you want, you just go on, you trust God with that and you go on, it's not an idol. It's something you want, you desire, you're praying for, but it's not an idol, but others of you just can't move on and start to charge God with wrong-doing because he's not answering your prayer the way you want Him to. Its an indication of an idol, says Tim Keller.

And how about fourthly, your uncontrollable emotions, uncontrollable emotions like anger. Is there something... As you get... If you lose your temper with a family member, a spouse, or with a co-worker, or road rage, or any of that, is there an idol down below that? He would say there probably is. What about feeling strong feelings of fear or despair or guilt? Those feelings can be indicators of idols. And then he gives a list, and this is really helpful. I'm not going to give them all to you, we're almost out of time. But he has this saying, "Life only has meaning or I only have worth if this is happening for me," that's a language of idolatry. For example, life only has meaning or I only have worth, if I have power and influence over other people. I'm in charge, I'm in control. "Well, you have a power idolatry," he would say. Or life only has meaning or I only have worth, if I'm loved and respected by this person or this group, that's approval idolatry in that way. Or life only has meaning or I only have worth, if I have this kind of pleasure experience, like your team winning the National Championship. "Don't touch that kind of thing." Hey, I'm touching everything. May everything be touched.

Is it possible that some spectator sports in the US is idolatry? Is it even possible that there are 60,000, 70,000 idolaters gathering even this very day, in various places for whom, if their team doesn't win, they will display extreme negative emotions, thus revealing idolatry? Is it possible there are some Christians there too? Or any other pleasure experience? It could be a trip, again, it could be a lake home, it could be a vacation, it could be any... A pleasure experience, good gift of God, but so addictive you can't let it go. There are so many, he's listed 20 of them. I don't have time, look it up online. Tim Keller, 20 questions to probe idolatry. But it could be an individual, you could be single, struggling, not accepting that maybe there's an individual, but he or she hasn't... You haven't got their eye yet. And it's like the language of our songs, it's like, "If I don't have that person I can't live, I can't go on living if I don't have that person." You might even be married to that individual or they might be your son or daughter, they might be someone in your family. But, "If I lost my children, I couldn't go on living." That language is the language of idolatry.

I think in general, if you're a Christian and you are characterized by irritability or anger, or frustration, or fear, or depression, there's got to be idolatry at the heart of it, something is amiss. Christ crucified and resurrected is not enough for you. And this is a question I've asked my kids for years and myself, "Is Christ crucified and resurrected enough for you to be joyful today, no matter what happens?" Should be.

Alright, so we've been to the hospital, we've been diagnosed. Is there a cure? Yes, there is a cure. Is there a balm in Gilead? Yes, there is. The cross of Christ is the only remedy there is to idolatry. We can't save ourselves. Did you see that right in the text? He cannot save himself. We can't save ourselves, go to Christ crucified and resurrected. Trust in Jesus, and if you're a Christian, you have idolatries identified, take them to the cross, so he can kill them by the Spirit. Don't just accept these idols, don't just accept idolatry, let God by His Grace put it to death in your life, close with me in prayer.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Isaiah 43:1-28. The main subject of the sermon is how God glories Himself through the giving of salvation to His people.

I've said before a number of times that, for me, as I look across redemptive history, I look across all the incredible actions and works of God in history, the most visually spectacular for me is the Red Sea crossing, the idea that the Lord could open a way through the Red Sea, a corridor through the darkened sea, open up a way and two to three million Jews could pass across on dry ground while their enemies, held at bay, could not pursue until the right time. And then their enemies followed and they were destroyed by the same waters. The most visually spectacular, that I've said. I don't think I'm going to say that again, because this week, as I looked again at Exodus 14, I saw something there that I hadn't properly noticed before. I'd never seen it before, but it's emphasized in four different verses in Exodus 14. And that is, that they made that crossing at night, so I'm not sure what kind of visual spectacle there would have been. And I thought, huh, I'm disappointed. And the Lord immediately convicted me: You're disappointed at what I did? Don't be disappointed. You haven't yet seen fully the implications of their crossing at night.

Full implication's that this is a spectacular picture of our battle with our final enemy, death, and that we will come through it on the other side at the dawn of the new day. It's dawn when at last, the waters come crashing down on Pharaoh and his chariots and horses, and they are destroyed, never to be seen again. That we will come through on the other side, our final test, death, we will be resurrected and all of our enemies will be gone forever. And that, that crossing, it makes perfect sense that it would be at night because it's a picture of how we should feel and do feel at that battle, that journey that's still ahead of us, that none of us that's sitting here now has faced. That I believe all of the trials that you are going through now, and they are many, are mere dress rehearsals for the final great trial you have yet to face, and that is your own journey through death into eternal life is yet to come.

And I wondered to myself, how did they see? Are you wondering that? Well, the text makes it very clear... And believe me, I know, I'm preaching on Isaiah 43, not Exodus 14, but still. We have plenty of time, don't we?  How did they see? Well, the pillar of cloud and fire moved from ahead of them, the angel of the Lord moving in a pillar, to behind them, separating out the Jews from the Egyptians. And it says very clearly that all that night, he gave light to the one side and darkness to the other. And so, you could imagine the light radiating down through a dark corridor through to the other side.

Now, why are we even talking about this? Well, because in Isaiah 43 the Lord does something amazing through the prophet. He calls to their remembrance the Red Sea crossing in verses 16 and following, and then tells them to forget about it. And we're going to talk about that, but it's a very interesting two-step that he does. Remember, now forget it. Why would you ever forget the Red Sea crossing? "Well, because," the Lord says, "I am doing something greater, something better. I am working a deliverance so great that it will just dwarf what happened at the Red Sea crossing." Now, for me, this is the interpretive key to the whole chapter. Home base for most commentators in Isaiah 43 is to go to verse 14 and see there the reference to Babylon, and there the clear prediction that the Babylonians would be destroyed. And then also see the way through the desert and all that, and so they generally go this path. They say that here the Lord, is predicting in very poetic terms, the restoration of the Jews from exile to Babylon back to Jerusalem to rebuild and resume their time in the Promised Land.

Friends, let me tell you something. I think it is predicting that. But I think that that's not all that this chapter is about, because honestly, if you look at it, if you look at what happened at the restoration, you're talking about 42,000 Jews that came back under Ezra and began to rebuild in that destroyed city of Jerusalem, began to clear away the rubble and hack out a very, very difficult life there in the Promised Land, still under Gentile domination. And as a matter of fact, that work was so slow and difficult that sometime later, Nehemiah's brother wrote him saying how terrible it was for the remnant that was living there in Jerusalem, and how downtrodden they were, and how weak and vulnerable because the wall was nothing but rubble. And he... Nehemiah wept at the condition of the remnant that was there in Jerusalem, and he went back, and the great work of his life is to see the wall built out of rubble, an incredible work in such a remarkably short time. And then they would lay the foundation of a temple and build it, but it was nothing in glory compared to Solomon's temple. And as a matter of fact, the old-timers that remembered how glorious was Solomon's temple wept, not out of joy but out of sadness, at what they had been brought down to.

In Zechariah chapter 4, the prophet has to say not to despise the day of small things, something bigger is coming. So it can't just be the restoration. I would ask, in redemptive history, why did the restoration even happen? What was God doing? And so here is the interpretation key to the whole chapter. God was working a salvation far greater than the Red Sea crossing, and it can't just be the restoration of the Jews to Israel. Two to three million Jews were saved through the Red Sea crossing; 42,000 went back under Ezra and were there under Nehemiah. And so God is doing something greater. What is it? What could it be but the salvation offered for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And how is that greater? I'll tell you how it's greater. The Jews that went through as on dry ground, Paul tells us in Corinthians, most of them never made it to the Promised Land, their bodies were scattered throughout the desert.

But those that go through the true Exodus that Jesus is doing, the true spiritual Exodus, and that's the word used in Luke's Gospel, the true Exodus that He is working will never die, and they will never see their enemies again. Hallelujah. And so therefore this whole chapter is ultimately about God's saving purpose through Christ, and specifically giving you the strength so that you do not fear when you go through lesser rivers and lesser fires until you get to the final test of your life, and it's coming. I don't know when, none of you does.

But all of you are dying and I'm dying too. And if the Lord doesn't return in our lifetime, you will die, and that is the great trial of your life. Nothing that you face in life compares to that, not even the death of a loved one compares to that. This time, it'll be you. And you'll be in some bed perhaps, if God gives you grace to realize your day is coming, or is it even has come and that there's nothing more than medical science can do and maybe God will give you an insight and you will know that you are going to die from this, you will not recover. And then your faith will be put at its greatest test and you'll look ahead to a corridor, a dark corridor, and from behind you will shine the light of something that happened 2000 years ago, and it's going to shine through a dark quarter that you have never traveled before. And you will make it through, and the resurrection glory of Jesus will shine through that path you have never traveled before. And you will make it in Christ, by faith in Christ, you'll make it to the other side.

Now, I think the reason the chapter was given is so that we go through that journey well. Amen? We go through it not fearing. We go through it filled with hope and confidence in what Jesus is doing in us and through us. Does that matter? Does it matter that we die well? Does it matter that we live well? It does. And so God is speaking through Isaiah 43 words of hope, and promise, and strength to you. Some of the most beautiful there are in all the Bible, and we've already sung them. And Daniel, thank you for singing that, I love that song. That was just beautiful.

A number of weeks ago, I said, "Daniel, there are some great songs coming up that really line up with the text," and he's like, "I know, I'm on it, I got it."  We got some great songs and they are magnificent, aren't they? And they're beautiful. And so, you look at verse 1 and 2, and you say, "Wow, what comfort there is for us, what encouragement." And so we're going to make our way through this whole chapter.  How in the world? I haven't even began the sermon yet. This is all intro. How in the world are we going to do this? Do you know what this is? This is a clock, I get to look at it every week and lament over it. It's a weird clock too, because it runs differently than any other clock I look at the rest of the week, it runs at double time. So, it's a strange thing.

But we're going to get through this whole chapter, and if you may ask, Why are you hurrying? Well, here's the thing, I understand that there's only so much that one can hear, even from a certain genre of Scripture and I'm hurrying so to speak, because I want you to get to Isaiah 50s and the Isaiah 60s. I want you to get to all of it. And so, if what I do frustrates you, and you're like, "Man, there was more there," there is definitely more there. So go back and read Isaiah 43 and do a better job.  You have all week. Preach lots of sermons to yourself from Isaiah 43, amen? Alright, let's move on.

Alright, we begin in verse 1-7 with this section, God glorified by rescuing his children through fire and through water. In verse 1, God claims his children as his own. Just a marvelous, marvelous statement. He says, "This is what the Lord says, He created you O Jacob, he formed you Israel, 'Fear not, I am with you. I have summoned you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. When you pass through the fire, they will not set you ablaze." God is giving us amazing promises here and he begins by claiming his children as his own. He says, "Fear not for I have redeemed you. I have summoned you by name, you are mine." And he gives three reasons why he can say that to us. First, he created us. Second, he redeemed us. And third, he summons us by name. Do you see that?

So first, he has created us, God has created us. Now you could say this is talking about the Jewish nation. Of course. We see the words Israel and Jacob, and we know that God created, out of a barren couple, a whole nation, Abraham and Sarah had no children, they couldn't have children. And God works sovereignly and supernaturally in Sarah's womb and through a man whose body was as good as dead, and they had a miracle baby, Isaac. And in the course of time, God incredibly blessed that nation so they became as numerous as the stars in the sky, and as countless as the sand by the seashore. And so God created them. But even more individually and particularly, we know that God knit each one of us together in our mother's wombs. And so, as he speaks to us individually as believers in Christ, he says very plainly, he says very clearly, "I knit you together in your mother's womb. You are mine because I created you." And then he goes beyond that, "I have redeemed you."

And for me as a Christian, I know I can't see this, I can't understand it any other way than by the blood of Jesus Christ. There is no other redeeming sacrifice, there is no other way that sins like mine can be addressed. And so, he has redeemed us by the blood of Christ. And then thirdly, he has called us or summoned us by name. We know in John 10, Jesus, the good shepherd says that he calls his own sheep by name and they follow him. How does he do that? Well, by the sovereign Spirit. That the Sovereign Spirit takes the finished work of Jesus Christ, and the cross, and the empty tomb, and applies it to you, he brings it right to you. If you are today a child of God, it's because the Sovereign Spirit of God brought the finished work of Christ to you and applied it to you, he summoned you by name. And so then the Lord makes this incredible statement, "You are mine." And that's a beautiful and a powerful thing, he is saying, "I will protect you, I will care for you."

God Promises Protection for His Children through the Fire and Water

Look at verse 2, he says, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. When you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned and the flames will not set you ablaze." Now, these words must be metaphorical. In any case, no matter how you interpret them, he's not saying literally. Now I would not deny that there are some people who physically go through floods, physically go through fires, maybe they escape from a house fire, something like that. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego certainly this was directly and physically fulfilled for them. But I think we all know our instinct as we read this, this is this metaphorical language. But what then are these rivers? What then are these waters? What is the fire? I think we all know they are adverse circumstances, trials, and afflictions, and difficulties that the people of God are called to go through. Now, the immediate context of course, and then rightly so, we would consider it to be the exile to Babylon. In effect, he is saying, before it ever even happened, the prophet, God is speaking through the prophet, saying to his remnant that will be there in Babylon, "You are going through an extreme time of testing, extreme time of trial. You will not be wiped out, you'll still be a nation. You'll pass through the fires. You'll pass through the waters, and you'll survive." He is saying that.

But I think we can go beyond that, can't we? Can't we go beyond that? Can we take these promises personally as speaking to us? You may say, on what basis can we do that, we 21st century Christians? How can we read this? But now this is what the Lord says, "He who created you O Jacob, he who formed you O Israel," how can I take these for myself? How can I write Isaiah 43:2 on a card and put it up on a mirror somewhere or put it somewhere and just take personal solace that when I go through my trials, when I go through my cancer diagnosis, or when I go through the death of a spouse or a loved one, when I go through the trials I'm facing, that God will be with me? How do I know Isaiah 43:2 is speaking to me?

Well, praise God. We have just finished going through the Book of Galatians and we know from Galatians 3:29 that all of us who are in Christ Jesus, we are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Amen? So that means all of the promises made to Abraham and to his seed come to us through Christ. Furthermore, it says in Romans 11, doesn't it that we are wild olive shoots cut off of a wild olive tree somewhere and grafted in to a cultivated olive tree? And this cultivated olive tree is the Jewish nation with its heritage of promises made and encouraging words and warning spoken through the prophets, this nourishing root system and we're grafted in and we receive life-giving sap from the promises of God. Amen? And so, we can drink in that sap and say, "That's speaking to me."

So, so much for hermeneutics now, interpretation. We are able to read these promises and say, "I belong here as a spiritual son or daughter of Abraham, I can read these promises." And so, what is it speaking of? It says that God is going to bring you through trials. Notice, it does not say, "If you should happen to pass through the rivers." It doesn't say, "If per chance, you might go through the waters. Maybe you might have to go through the fire." He doesn't say that at all, he says you're going to go through them. As a matter of fact, we learned from 1 Peter that you must go through these fiery trials, it says in 1 Peter 4:12. These fiery trials have come like in 1 Peter 1:6 and 7, "so that your faith, of greater worth than gold which perishes, even though refined by fire, may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." You must be refined.

Now, isn't it amazing, fire and water, fire and water, those two things are used for two different purposes in the Bible, spiritually, as we look at it spiritually, both fire and water are symbolic of God's wrath and just judgment against the wicked to the end of their total destruction. You say, "How is that?" Well, think of the waters of Noah's flood. The flood waters are pictures of God's just wrath against the wicked to the end of their total destruction. And what about fire? Well, think of the fire of Sodom and Gomorrah, how God poured down fire from heaven on that wicked city, or even more clearly, of course, the fire of hell itself.

And Peter says in 2 Peter 3 that just as the original world was deluged and destroyed by the flood, waters of Noah's flood, so the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire and for the judgment of ungodly men. And so, both fire and water have, first, a picture of total destruction under the sovereign just justice of God for the wicked to the end of their total destruction. But God has delivered his elect people, his chosen people, from his own sovereign wrath. Jesus Christ died in our place under the wrath of God so that we would not suffer the fire of God's wrath to the end of our total destruction. So then, water and fire have a different image or use in the Bible as well, and that's the image of purification.

It says in the Book of Numbers, speaking to the Israelites, when you win a battle, a victory battle, and all of these articles of gold and silver, and copper, and bronze, and different other things and other things you win in that battle, they can be yours but you have to clean them first. Whatever can stand the fire, put it through the fire, and everything must be put through the waters so that they may be cleansed.

I was excited that there was one verse that had both fire and water as cleansing agent. Ain't that cool? But then, over and over, we have the same image: Water as cleanser or fire as cleanser. That's what's going on here in Isaiah 43:2, he's bringing his people through the fire and through the water to purify us and to cleanse us from all of our sins. And so God has said He will do this, He is glorified greatly by the salvation of His people through various trials into final salvation.

God Gives Up the Non-Elect for the Sake of His Elect

Now, when we get to verses three and four, we have some of the more challenging and surprising verses here. He says in verses 3-4, "For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior, I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead since you are precious in my sight and since you are honored. I give men exchange for you and people in exchange for your life." Now, what is this talking about? Well, again, notice as I mentioned in Exodus 14, we have the Jewish nation as a picture of the children of God being saved out of bondage and into the Promised Land, a picture of it. And then you have the Egyptians, the most powerful military nation on earth, chasing them down. Now this is after the 10 plagues, this is after the plague on the firstborn. God hardened Pharaoh's heart and the hearts of all of his officials and they pursued them one last time so as to wipe them out entirely. They found themselves trapped up against the Red Sea.

Why didn't Pharaoh's army finished them off? Well, they couldn't get to them because the pillar, the angel of the Lord came and stood between the Egyptians and the Jews and would not let them get close. And as I said, this one verse, it's so fascinating. The same pillar, pillar of cloud, pillar of fire, the same pillar gave darkness to the one side and light to the other. And at the end of the day, the Israelite sinners were saved and the Egyptian sinners were destroyed. Now, I put it that way. The whole final section of this chapter is how Israel has wearied God with their sins. We should not imagine that God saved the Israelites because they were more righteous than the Egyptians. The Bible consistently closes that out as an option, that is not true. Why then did he save the Israelites and not the Egyptians? Well, these verses, if you look at them, verse three and four, He gives the one in exchange for the other. He said, "I'm going to trade, I'm going to give... In exchange for your life, I'm going to give the Egyptians. I'm going to give Cush and Seba in your stead."

Now obviously the only full final exchange that saves our souls is that of Jesus Christ taking our sins on him and dying on the cross, that exchange, that transfer. That's the exchange that saves our souls, but this is talking horizontal, this is talking human to human now. Why does He do that? Why does He give one nation or one group of people in exchange for the other? Here friends, we get to some of the meatiest meat there is in the Bible. Not easy to understand these things, but these verses are talking about how God makes a distinction between His people and those that are not His people. Now, we already saw that if you know anything about the 10 plagues. God openly says it through Moses, "I want you to know that in the land of Goshen, there's going to be this and it's going to be different than it is in your land so you will know I am making a distinction between my people and you." He says this again and again.

But now if we're talking about the metaphor, the ultimate picture of salvation that this chapter is talking about, which I would say the pathway through the water, and this is a picture of death and as we go through and some make it through and live forever, but then others, the water crashes down and God does it all, it's not an accident, it's not like the water accidentally was walled up and then at a certain accidental time, it just couldn't hold anymore and then fell back down. That's not what's going on. So in order to fully understand this, you have to read Romans 9, and there in Romans 9, he makes it very plain what he's doing.

Speaking about God's sovereign purpose, He says this in Romans 9:22-24, "What if God choosing to show His wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of wrath prepared for destruction? What if He did this to make the riches of His glory known to the objects of His mercy, whom He prepared in advance for glory, even us whom He saved not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?" So, we are every bit as sinful as the Egyptians that died that day. You understand that, I hope you know that. But God gave them up to show what we deserved, that we deserved condemnation, we deserved wrath, we deserved to suffer, but we got mercy instead.

Now, I believe you're going to spend eternity reasoning through that and trying to understand that, but this is the clear teaching that we have here in verse three and four. "I'm going to give this nation in exchange for you and these people in exchange for your life."

God Glorified by Calling His Children from the Ends of the Earth

In verses five through seven, He says that He is plainly glorified by calling His children from the ends of the earth. Verse five through seven, "Do not be afraid for I am with you, I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, 'Give them up,' and to the south, 'Do not hold them back. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who is called by my name whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.'" So God has already said, "I have summoned you by name, you're mine." Now He speaks about the assembling of these people together in one place. He wants them all together. He wants them to gather around and praise His glory.

So He's going to assemble His chosen people from the ends of the earth. He's going to gather them up. He's going to say to the north, "Give them up," and to the south, "Do not hold them back." He's going to bring them from the east and the west, His sons and daughters. Now, of course, immediate context, it's right for us to see the assembling of the Jews from the diaspora of two exiles: The Assyrian exile first, the northern kingdom, they're scattered throughout the area of the Assyrian empire, and then number of years later, the southern kingdom, Judah, Jerusalem exile to Babylon. After the fall of Babylon, he's going to be assembling together and bringing together Jews back to the Promised Land. And I think we should see that. But again, I think it's right for us to say, "Look, that's too small a thing. There's more here going on than that."

How do I know that? Well, Jesus uses gathering, scattering language when He comes, right? He's come down from heaven to Earth for what purpose? The number of purpose times, purpose statements He makes, but listen to this, Matthew 12:30, He says, "He who is not with me is against me," and listen, "whoever does not gather with me, scatters." Jesus came from heaven to earth to gather, to gather the children of God. Listen to this, this is even clear in John 11:51 and 52, it says there that "Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not for that nation only, but for the scattered children of God to bring them together and make them one." Wow, is that powerful. That's like a Blue Ribbon verse, by the way. [chuckle] He has come to gather the chosen people from every tribe, language, people, and nation; gather them together from the Jews too, but also from the Gentiles and make them one.

So friends, what could this be talking about except evangelism and missions, Amen? That God is going to send out messages to the ends of the earth and gather His people and saying, "Don't hold them back," four ends of the compass, four points of the compass: North, south, east, and west. Let them all come and let them make what I would call a spiritual pilgrimage, a spiritual journey to faith in Christ into heaven ultimately.

Created For His Glory

Now we get to verse seven where it says plainly that we were created for His glory. Now, I already mentioned that but Isaiah 43:7 is a unique verse in all the Bible. Perhaps you didn't realize that, but this is the only verse that I can find, and I've studied this, I've asked for others to help me with this. I've done work on Bible works and all that, I've tried to find... This is the only verse I can find in the entire Bible that says that we were originally created by God for His glory. Now, how important a theme is that? Any thoughts on that? Is that an important idea that we were created for the glory of God? It's so important that the Westminster Shorter Catechism said that's the reason why you were made, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. You were created for that. So if you were going to ask the question, "Why am I even here? Why do I exist?" Isaiah 43:7 answers your question. You were created for the glory of God. I just think it's interesting. I think a theme that big, you would think would have 47 verses that support it. But this is the only one I could find that just clearly teaches it all the way across, and yet the themes are there again and again. What does it mean that we were created for His glory? To enjoy it, to bask in it, to drink it in, to live for the glory of God? That's why we were made. But we sinned, we fell into wickedness, we became idolaters. And so we also had to be not only created for his glory, but what? Redeemed for His glory as well.

And so by the blood of Jesus, we were saved. And there are many verses that teach that. For example, in Isaiah 1:4-6, it says, "In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with His pleasure and will, to the praise of the glory of His grace." So, we were redeemed, we were saved to praise His glory. But this verse, Isaiah 43:7 says we are created for it as well.

Now the next section, verses eight through 15, it says that God's people are His witnesses that there is no other God. Look at verses 8-9. first, God puts the other gods and goddesses on trial. All the little G gods and goddesses are put on trial here as God has already done a number of times in Isaiah. Isaiah 43:8-9, "Lead out those who have eyes but are blind, who have ears but are deaf. All the nations gather together and the peoples assemble. Which of them foretold this and proclaimed to us the former things? Let them bring in their witnesses to prove they were right, so that others may hear and say, 'It is true.'"

So God summons the spiritually blind, they have eyes but they can't see, they have ears but they cannot hear, spiritually blind and deaf, the idolaters to assemble and say, "Okay, bring in your witnesses, bring in your case, and tell us which of your gods predicted these things that are happening now. Tell us. Any of you knew the future? Any of you spoke through prophets like I have done?" And he's challenging them. None of them has done that. So then God turns the tables and speaks to us.  We are his chosen people and he tells us what we are. You are my witnesses. In this godless, idolatrous, wicked age, you are the light shining in the dark place. You are my witnesses. Look at verses 10 through 13, "'You are my witnesses,' declares the Lord, 'and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He. Before me, no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.'"

By the way, and I say this tenderly, I think Isaiah 43:10 is one of the greatest anti-Jehovah's Witnesses verses there is in the Bible, because it's even got Jehovah and witness right in the same verse and said "There was no God formed after me." So, so much for that. There is one God and there is only one God, there's only ever been one God, and we are, let's put it this way, the Lord's witnesses, let's just call it that because the other name has already been taken, but we are the Lord's witnesses in this world to proclaim that there is no God but the God of the Bible.

And he's the only one he says that revealed and saved and proclaimed, those three things. He revealed through the prophets. He's the only one that's done it. He saved by His providential control of history. He's acted in history and done it, and then He proclaimed it through evangelists and missionaries, saying what God has already done. We are His witnesses, that's what we're called to do.

God Will Redeem Israel by Destroying Babylon

Then God says in verse 14 and 15, He will redeem Israel by destroying Babylon. "This is what the Lord says, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, 'For your sake, I will send to Babylon and bring down as fugitives all the Babylonians and the ships in which they took pride. I am the Lord, your Holy One Israel's creator, your king.'"

So that verse definitely tells us that we have to stay kind of nailed in the historical context and still give it honor. It was a great thing to bring down Babylon, not a small thing, it was a great achievement to crush the Babylonian empire, and then to sovereignly orchestrate through Cyrus the Great the release for Jews to go back and resume Jewish history. That was a great thing. And He says here, the Babylonians are going to be fleeing in the same ships that enriched them, the ones that went up from the Persian Gulf, through the Euphrates River and brought gold and silver and spices and all trade stuff, they're going to turn around and go fast down the river as these fugitives run for their lives. So that's just a poetical way of saying Babylon is going to be destroyed, and these refugees will be all that's left of the Babylonian empire. So Babylon is going to be destroyed.

Now, in verse 16 through 21, we get what I've called the interpretive key to the whole chapter; God working a new salvation greater than the old. How can I know as a 21st century Christian that Isaiah 43 is speaking to me? How can I know that these promises are bigger than just the restoration of the Jews to Israel? These verses tell us how. Now as I said, God does a fascinating two-step; first he says, "Remember the past," in effect, then He says secondly, "Forget the past." How does he do that? Well, first, remember the past; God saved Israel at the Red Sea, verses 16 and 17. This is what the Lord says, "He who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there never to rise again extinguished, snuffed out like a wick."

This is a clear reference to the Red Sea crossing. Now last week, you remember we spoke of a savior so gentle that remember what we said about Him, a bruised reed, He will what? Not break. What's the second part? The smoldering wick He will not snuff out. Well, apparently, according to this verse, there are some wicks He does snuff out. There are some wicks He will snuff out. It's the exact same verb here. And again, that goes back to the earlier teaching that God makes a distinction, He doesn't do the same with everyone. And so these are Israel's enemies and they lay along the shore of the Red Sea, extinguished, dead, never to rise again. Well, anyway, He says, by just going over those details, chariots horsemen, Red Sea, all that, He's saying in effect, "Remember the past, remember it." Now, what does He say? "Forget it. Forget it."

Look at the verse 18 and 19, "Forget the former things. Do not dwell on the past. Behold, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it?" So, how do we understand that? Remember the past, now forget the past? Well, this is the way I understand it. The past of what God has done in history will always shine. We should always celebrate the Red Sea crossing. We should always celebrate the lesser things that God's done. We should think about them and marvel about them. How then do we forget the past? Because something bigger, something greater has come along, and it just so dwarfs that, that it's in effect, forget it, something bigger is happening. You know what? I think this is exactly how the omniscient God forgets your sin and mine.

He doesn't forget anything. Then he would no longer be omniscient. Why then does he say that he forgets our sins? Like in verse 25, He cancels out our sins, He makes them go away. Look at verse 25, very plainly and encouragingly, He says, "I even I am He who blots out your transgressions." Did you see that? How does He forget our sins and still be omniscient? Well, this is how it works, something bigger, something greater, has eclipsed His remembrance of our sins. What is that? You know what it is. It's the blood of Jesus shed on the cross, it's the sacrifice of His only begotten son, is so much greater that His eyes will see that and your sin covered. That's how the omniscient God forgets your sin and mine. So in the same way, by comparison, we're going to forget the Red Sea crossing because the work of what God is doing now is so much greater. Well, what could that be but salvation in Christ. Now He uses this language here, verses 19 through 21. "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. 20 The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the desert and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, 21 the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise."

Now here, the image shifts a bit to the crossing of the desert toward the Promised Land, the moving of the desert. Again, we can see the streaming of exiles coming from Babylon, going back to the Promised Land, and he is going to cause that dry place to spring up and be fresh and beautiful again. That idea of the new heavens and the new earth and the enriching of the earth, he's going to make it beautiful. But ultimately, this is that journey that we travel from dead in our transgressions and sins to heaven. There's a journey that we're traveling here. Yes, there was a physical journey the exiles traveled, that's a picture of the real journey that we are making from dead in transgressions and sins to heaven.

Now, final section here. God's people weary him with their sins. We must know... And I've already said this, we could not imagine the sins of the Egyptians were greater than the sins of the Israelites. I mean, take a common foot soldier or chariot driver in Pharaoh's army, what did he do? Probably already buried his first born. But he was in Pharaoh's army, he was in Pharaoh's service, and so, you say in your heart, "Well, he got what he deserved." Friends, we were in Satan's service. We were serving a wicked king, all of us were. The whole human race fell in Adam, we were born in Satan's kingdom. And we are not getting what we deserve for that service, isn't that amazing? It's not going to be said to us, depart from me you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for, who? The devil and his angels. But we joined the devil and his angels in rebellion against God. Yes, but he has saved us.

So this section reminds us that God's people are sinners too. Look at Verse 22 and 23, "Yet you have not called upon me O Jacob. You have not wearied yourselves for me O Israel. You have not brought me sheep for burnt offerings nor honored me with your sacrifices. I haven't burdened you with grain offerings or wearied you with demands for incense." I didn't ask fragrant calamus of you, something expensive that you couldn't afford. I didn't ask that of you." Now, literally, you could say that that was during their exile in Babylon, they couldn't offer animal sacrifices, so God didn't lay that burden on them. But just in generally saying, look at the principle of sacrifice in your life, you're not calling on me in righteousness, you're not bringing me anything, you're not putting yourselves out for me in any way, God is saying. You're not sacrificing much for me at all, you don't seem to love me, and you don't seem to be living for me O Israel.

I haven't wearied you, but you have wearied me with your sins. That's what God is saying through the prophet here. You have wearied me with your sins. Now, that's amazing, because in Isaiah 40, we're told that he doesn't grow weary or get tired. So this is that human type language ascribed to God where He says, "If anything could weary me, it would be your sins." And so, he uses that language, "You have wearied me with your sins. Burdened me with your sins and wearied me with your offenses." But God has covered his people's many sins for his own name's sake. Verse 25-28, "I, even I am He, who blots out your transgressions for my own sake and remembers your sins no more." How sweet is that Verse to you today? How sweet is that, that God has blotted out your sins for his own name sake, and remembers them no more? And then he says in Verse 26 and following, "Review the past for me, let's argue the matter together, state the case for your innocence." Go ahead, tell me. Tell me how innocent you are. Let's go over your history O Israel, O Jacob. How innocent are you? Well, you're not. Your first father sinned."

Now, I don't know who that is, it might be Adam, it might be Abraham, those are the two options, it doesn't matter. Whoever the originator of your race is, he's sinned. And even your best people, your spokesman, your prophets, your best people rebelled against me. All of you have sinned. Verse 28, "So I'll disgrace the dignitaries of your temple and consign Jacob to destruction and Israel to scorn." Now why does he say that? Well, keep in mind when Isaiah said these words. During the days of Hezekiah, Assyria gone, everything's looking good and he, Isaiah, is predicting the restoration of the remnant of Jews back to destroyed Jerusalem. So he has to explain why is that even going to happen, why is the exile even going to happen? Why does the city of Jerusalem even going to be destroyed? Because of this. You have wearied me, and you don't love me, and you don't sacrifice for me, and so I'm going to destroy this city and reduce you down to a remnant chosen by grace.

Alright, so what applications can we take from this, this incredible chapter? Well, go to Verse 25 and ask yourself, "Has this happened for me? Has God blotted out my transgressions? Am I forgiven?" It says in this chapter, "When I act, who can reverse it? Who can deliver out of my hand?" Who can deliver out of my hand? Christ alone can deliver you out of the hand of God's justice. So, I have prayed already and I will continue to pray in my heart for any of you that are here in a lost state, in an unregenerate state. Flee to Christ. Christ is the fulfillment of the images of this chapter. Trust in him. Lay hold of him by faith. Don't let him go until he gives you assurance that your sins are forgiven through faith in his death and resurrection. And then he... Even he is the one who will blot out your transgressions and will remember them no more because of the work of Christ.

Secondly, dear saints, brothers and sisters, get ready to pass through the fire and the water. Get ready for it. And when it starts to happen, don't act like you had no idea this was going to come. He said in Isaiah 43:2, when you pass through the waters, when you pass through the rivers. You will. So get ready for it, and understand all of the lesser trials that you're going through could be the trial of caring for a very sick relative. It could be the trial of a burial, a funeral, someone has died and you're... It could be the trial of a suicide of a good friend or a relative. It could be the trial of ongoing financial burdens and unemployment. It could be the trial of just crushing loneliness and a sense of people not caring. It could be the trial, the extreme trial of knowing that your grown son or daughter is not walking with Jesus, they're outside of grace. All of these trials and many others are going on to members of our church right now. All of them for you personally are going through it are like dress rehearsals for the final trial you're going to face when you are dying.

Look down that dark corridor, and get ready for resurrection. And go through the fire and the water well, go through it well, trusting in the promises of God, knowing He will never leave you or forsake you, He will be with you right through. So prepare for the fire and the water, and when you go through lesser trials, getting ready for the final one, which is death, just see it by the light of Christ and by the light of these promises.

Thirdly, Verse 7 says you were created for the glory of God. Live for the glory of God. Just every day be God-centered. Say, "God show me who you are, show me your glory in a sunrise, in a sunset. Show me your glory in every bite of food I eat. Show me your glory in everything that I experience. I want to know you." And just live for the glory of God and then reveal the glory of God, live in such a way that people can see the greatness of God in you.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Isaiah 42:1-25. The main subject of the sermon is the gentle way God goes about establishing His earthly kingdom.

I would Like to ask that you turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 42. And as we continue to go through Isaiah, I want to urge you every week to take the Scriptures and look at the word of God and feed on it. I just move systematically through these chapters, and try to explain what these phrases say. So I'm really very easy to follow, in that regard. Like a very slow-moving target. You know exactly where I'm going, God willing, next week Isaiah 43. So just get ready for it, but we're just going to try to walk through Isaiah 42 today and just feed on the amazing array of images and words, the rich array of words that the Lord has given us here specifically, I believe describing the ministry of Jesus Christ and building a kingdom through astonishing gentleness. And so that's what we're going to see today.

Twenty-five centuries ago, the Prophet Daniel had visions at night and recorded for us in Daniel 7. And in his vision at night, he stood on the shore of the sea and he saw the deep sea stirred and churned up by the four winds of heaven. And up out of this churning sea, came four great beasts, one after the other. And each of these beasts were ravenous and powerful and two of them in particular, specifically depicted as ripping their enemies to shred and devouring flesh. Though we would imagine that all four had that tendency and that nature. And these four beasts represented four great empires that came up out of the churning mass of humanity and took center stage for a while in succession, one after the other. The Babylonian Empire, and then the Medo-Persian Empire, and then the Greek Empire and then the Roman Empire. We've seen since that time over the twenty-five centuries, the exact same patterns. Empires that have been built by viciousness and wickedness and by the pride and arrogance of man and hatred for neighbor, and murder and pillage. This is the way that the world builds its kingdoms, this is the way the world builds its empires.

But about five centuries after Daniel, another king stood in front of a representative of the Roman Empire. This gentle, humble Jewish carpenter, Jesus of Nazareth on trial for his life before Pontius Pilate, was being charged with insurrection, with being a king to challenge Caesar. And Jesus said this: "My kingdom is not of this world." I think what he meant by that is, "My kingdom has nothing of the nature of the kingdoms of this world, it doesn't derive its origin from the world, it's other worldly, it's supernatural, it's a different kind of kingdom." And you look at the next statement he makes there in John's Gospel, He says, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest from the Jews." So, the nature of the kingdoms of this world is this fighting and this conquest but now my kingdom is from another place.

Pilate said, "You are a King, then!" Jesus said, "You are right in saying that I'm a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. And everyone on the side of truth, listens to me." Now, that is how Jesus Christ builds a whole different kind of kingdom in this world and he's been building it for centuries now for millennia, a gentle, irresistible advance of a kingdom that's built by Jesus speaking the truth to people who desperately need to hear it. And they having ears of faith opened by the Holy Spirit, able to hear the saving gospel repenting of their sins entering into, that's the language, entering the Kingdom of Heaven and then thriving in it forever. That's the way this gentle king builds, irresistibly builds his empire. And how radically different is it from what we see in world history?

So we come now in Isaiah 42, to the first of four significant prophecies in this section of Isaiah. And we're introduced to this character known as, the servant of the Lord. "Behold my servant," we're going to see that right from verse one, and the servant passage is so-called by those that study Isaiah are very famous, they're well-known, the servant of the Lord is portrayed. And then as things unfold over these chapters, you're going to see the servant of the Lord in Isaiah 42, we're going to see him in Isaiah 49, and then again in Isaiah 50. And then most famously of all in Isaiah 52 and 53, culminating in what's known as clearly the suffering servant who builds an empire by his own suffering, by his own death. Now, the interpretive challenge comes for us, even in this very chapter, in Isaiah 42, when he uses the term "servant" also to refer to Israel, to Jacob and Israel, etcetera, to the nation of Israel. So we're going to have to face that. He calls his servant in this chapter, "Blind and deaf." And said, "Who is blind and deaf, like my servant." Well, I would never use the phrase blind and deaf to refer to Jesus, who I believe the suffering servant definitely is, so we have a challenge.

So I think this is how I harmonize all of this. Israel was called on to be God's servant to witness to the glory of God in this world, but failed through their wickedness and idolatry. Jesus is the personification of everything Israel was supposed to be as the Son of God. He said, "Israel is my first born son," he said that to Pharaoh, "and you wouldn't let him go so I'm going to kill your first born son." He calls him his first born son. Israel is God's first-born son on Earth but that servant, the Jewish nation sinned. And so God sent His own son into the world to embody and fulfill everything Israel was meant to be and do as the servant of the Lord in the world. So that's how I harmonize it. We're going to begin as we just walk through this, Isaiah 42.

By looking in verses 1-7, at a gentle King and his irresistibly advancing kingdom. And in verse one, the Lord presents his chosen servant. Look at verse one. "Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight, I will put my spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations." So, the prophecy begins in every translation but the NIV, with the word "behold." Now, I love the NIV, been memorizing the NIV84 for years. They just don't like the word "behold," I don't know why but I love the word behold. You're saying, "But it's a bit archaic." That's why I love it. It's kind of like "behold." We're having something unveiled here, something dramatic, something unusual. So we don't use the word very much. I challenge you, later today to use the word "behold" in a regular sentence. Find some way to use the word "behold", it's a great word. "Behold, lunch is ready," something like that.

But it's a greater unveiling, it's an unveiling of this servant of the Lord. He's unveiling a mystery, something that we have not seen before. And he is chosen by the Lord, he was chosen or elect. And the fuller revelation of Scripture is that Jesus was chosen by God the Father for the role as our Messiah, our Savior, before the foundation of the world, before the beginning of time. Isn't that amazing? Think about that. 1 Peter 120, it says, "He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was now revealed in these last times for your sake." So He is chosen and then revealed, so we had the same kind of rhythm here. Chosen but revealed. Again, Revelation 13:8 speaks of Jesus as the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world. So in other words, his death on the cross was in some sense a done deal before God said, "Let there be light." And so, here is the servant of the Lord, "Behold my servant, whom I have chosen." And he is anointed by the Holy Spirit, he says, "I will put my Spirit on Him." He's anointed by the Holy Spirit to do the will of God in ways that no one ever has before, since. The word Messiah or Christ, means Anointed One. He is anointed with the Holy Spirit.

Now the relationship within the Trinity, Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, the relationship between the second and the third person of the Trinity, between Jesus and the Spirit is an infinite mystery. It's something we cannot fully understand but the New Testament presents some amazing insights for us. Though we would think and we should think that God the Son is omnipotent, omnipotent and needs no help to do anything. Yet, it seems he did nothing apart from the expressed will of his Father and apparently also did nothing except by the power of the Holy Spirit. So now if you're going to push me and say, "Could Jesus have done a miracle without the Holy Spirit?" I would say, "The question makes no sense to me, that's not the way the Trinity works." He would not have done anything apart from the power of the Spirit anymore than he would have done anything apart from the will of His Father. There's no "apart from" in the Trinity, that's the perfect unity, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. But it's by the Spirit that Jesus spoke every word he spoke and it's by the Spirit that He did every miracle he ever did.

And so we have this language here in Acts 10:38, Peter speaking to Cornelius and said, "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him." It was by the Spirit that Jesus was presented to Israel as Messiah. At his own baptism, John the Baptist, baptized him and the Holy Spirit came down as a dove. And it was by the Spirit that Jesus was led into the desert to be tempted by the devil, and it was by the Spirit he was led out of the desert holy after his temptations ready to do his public ministry. Jesus did everything by the power of the Spirit.

The Father’s Delight in the Son

Now, it says also, in verse one, "Here is my servant, whom I have chosen, in whom I delight." Isn't that beautiful? Think about this, meditate on how much the father loves the son, how much the Father delights in the son. It's a sweet meditation. But the "Father loves the son," Jesus said, "and shows him everything he is doing" and he reveals this very powerfully. John Piper wrote a book called "The Pleasures of God," I would commend it to you. It's... He called it a prequel that was written after "Desiring God," but it's basically the pleasure of God in being God. And one of the great pleasures of God the Father is in the perfect reflection or radiance of God's glory through God the Son. The Father loves the Son with an infinitely passionate love and the beautiful thing is our salvation is a subset of that. He loves us in Christ, isn't that amazing? And Jesus could say, "As the Father has loved me, even so I love you." And so that's a powerful love that he has. And so this voice came from heaven at the baptism of Jesus saying, "This is my Son whom I love, with him I am well pleased." Isn't that powerful? The Father delights in the son, he loves him, he's well pleased with him.

And Jesus himself said, in John 8:29, "The one who sent me is with me, he has not left me alone for," listen to this, "I always do what pleases Him." Wouldn't you love to be able to say that to your Heavenly Father? "Father, you know that today throughout the day, at every moment, I always did what pleased you." Well, that's a goal for us in sanctification, but it's a finished fact for Jesus. He always did what pleased the Father. And so, "Here is my servant in whom I delight. He's my chosen one and all my delight is in him."

Jesus Brings Justice to the Nations

And so it says, Jesus "will bring justice to the nations." It says it twice. He's going to bring justice. The nations are languishing, under the boot of injustice now. Those empires that came up out of the sea, those four beasts, they made their way through the world by crushing tyranny and injustice. It's what the human heart does as puppets of Satan, the puppet master. And Satan's the dragon, in Revelation 13, behind the beast coming up out of the sea, he's the puppet master and he makes his satanic human servants do wicked, evil things. He's a murderer, they're murderers. He's a liar, they are liars. And there's this oppression and injustice at the root of all of these human governments and empires.

This injustice. And you just think of the history of it. We can just think about literature, think about famous books like "The Count of Monte Cristo." I think that's an interesting story. You remember how Edmond Dantes was arrested on trumped-up charges by a corrupt official who's trying to protect his own reputation, ships him off to the Chateau d'if on the charges of being a Bonapartes. He's trying to get Napoleon back from exile and back in power again. When he gets there, he meets this godly man, the Abbe Faria who's at the Chateau d'if and has been there for decades under charges of being opposed to Napoleon. So here's this man who's opposed to Napoleon from decades ago while Napoleon was in power, in prison with a man who's opposed to him. And they're both there and they can't get out. So, how many people are languishing in prisons all over the world because of injustice, crimes they didn't commit? Or things that they're accused of that aren't wrong, like being a Christian? Injustice all over the world.

Or think about Ben-Hur, for example. His boyhood friend charges him wrongly with assaulting the governor and just wipes away his whole family and puts him on a slave galley, injustice. Recently, my family, we've watched "To Kill a Mocking Bird." You know, that famous story of racial injustice and a crime that this individual didn't commit. Godly, African-American man charged with a crime that he didn't commit, and evidence is so clear he didn't do it and then he's convicted and found guilty. There is injustice all over the world.

And frankly, we know as Christians, the only answer to this is not that you would be in power instead of that person.  No, I hope you know yourself. I hope you know that if you or your group were in power, it would be just about the same thing. Give it a little time and the corruption of your own heart will float to the surface, that's not it. We need a perfectly incorruptible king, amen. And we need one who will speak only words of truth and that is only Jesus, the King of kings. And he is the only hope for the islands, for the distant coastlands, he's the only one that can bring justice to this world. And oh, are we crying for it. We're yearning for it.

The Bruised Reed

Now, as we look at this king, I tell you, verses two and three are some of the sweetest verses in the whole Bible. Some of the sweetest verses in the whole Bible, quoted in Matthew 12. That's the first time, perhaps, you came across them, as the Apostle Matthew ascribed them to Jesus. So I'm just going to go right to this is Jesus, because Matthew gives us the permission to do that, he is describing the servant of the Lord Jesus and it says of him in verse two and three, "He will not shout or cry out in the street or raise his voice in the streets, a bruised reed he will not break and a smoldering wick, he will not snuff out." Now, these are verses that you could read in Matthew 12, and just read right over and not really know what it's saying. It wasn't until I read a Puritan writer named Richard Sibbes, on the bruised reed. And I would commend that to you, you can read it online for free. That I had my eyes opened to what was being depicted here, what is being depicted here is the astonishing gentleness of Jesus in His ministry. The supernatural gentleness of Jesus dealing with broken and frail sinners like you and me, that's what it's talking about. Jesus builds his kingdom differently than all of these empires or emperors of the world, he builds it systematically and gently. Through gentleness, he builds his kingdom.

Now it says that he doesn't shout or quarrel, perhaps, or cry out or raise his voice in the streets. You think about in the 1930s and '40s as the Nazis would be seizing control first of Germany and then of a better part of Europe. I mean, you think about these jack-booted Nazis running through the streets at night and is screaming and you hear, "Schnell, Schnell," and all that, and pounding on doors and it's just loud and boisterous and terrifying. Jesus is not like that, he doesn't build his kingdom by a frothy harangue, by some dictator into a microphone. Or a street proclaimer of communism, let say in St. Petersburg in 1917, something like that, standing up on a wall and whipping people up into revolutionary frenzy. That's not what he does. Or perhaps during the Middle Ages, Herald of the King going out to announce to these down-trodden and crushed peasants that there's yet another raft of taxes that's going to crush them even further. This is not what Jesus does. He doesn't build his kingdom that way, no such harsh cries needed by Jesus or by his messengers.

"How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news" who what? Proclaim peace. We are peace-loving and we bring a peaceful message. So He doesn't quarrel or cry out or raise his voice in the streets. The kingdom advances quietly, it advances like yeast hidden in a large amount of flour. It just permeates little by little, that's how it advances. And now it comes to this incredible description, "A bruised reed he will not break and a smoldering wick, he will not snuff out." I believe the only time that Jesus ever describes himself directly with an adjective, he uses the word "gentle."

Remember in Matthew 11, he says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart." Jesus describes himself as gentle or meek and humble in heart, that's His nature. He is a meek or a gentle Savior.

So now we have two questions in front of us, two sets of questions. Question number one: What is a bruised reed and what does it mean that Jesus will not break it? And what is a smoldering wick? And what does it mean that he will not snuff it out? First, the bruised reed. Picture a piece of marsh grass, broad-bladed green grass growing up by the side of a pond. That's how I picture it. And it's growing up tall but fragile, it sways to and fro in the wind. Picture it's just weakness, it's not a mighty oak or a seed or anything like that but it's just a piece of grass, barely noticeable. But this grass beyond its fragility is bruised, okay? In some way, it's become damaged. You could imagine it trampled by a cow or a horse or something like that or perhaps, just creased. You could imagine a crease going, it's hanging down, maybe by a slender, green thread. It's just about, just about severed. Just about ready to fall off. This has got to be a person, a human being going through extreme agony of soul. Going through extreme trial and difficulty, frail and weak, just about to die perhaps, or just about to give up. It might be a Christian who's going through severe tests and trials of various sorts. It might be a non-Christian who just is about ready to give up in this world, it's a human being though. And what does it say about Jesus? He will not break that bruised reed. He is able to take a fragile broken-hearted sinner and bind them back up again, supernaturally. It's amazing, the skill that he has. It's amazing the gentleness he displays with fragile sinners like you and me.

And you think about the little tubules, xylem and phloem. I had to look that up, forgot my biology. But these little tubes that feed, that their circulatory system of the grass and Jesus is able somehow to bind that back up again. So it's not just gentleness, but exceptional skill at putting together a human soul. That's what I think of when I think of a bruised reed, he will not break. Think of the gentleness Jesus displayed in dealing with sinners. Think about that paralyzed man and his friends are digging through the roof and the first thing Jesus sees, their faith. And says, "Take heart son, your sins are forgiven." I don't think he fully realized the significance, the magnitude of the judge of all the Earth saying those words to him. Take heart son, your sins are forgiven. Or to that woman with the flow of blood that just wouldn't stop and she touches him and then Jesus has that interaction with her and says, "Daughter, your faith has head you. Go in peace." Same kind of thing.

I love the encounter in Luke's Gospel where the widow of Nain is burying her only son, and the grief is just immeasurable. And the entire community is grieving with this woman and Jesus comes up and stops the funeral procession, as only he can.  Don't you wish you could do what he can do? But he stopped that funeral procession but before doing anything, he goes up to the woman and says, "Don't cry." I mean it's amazing, his first priority is he wants to minister to her, this widow who's losing her only son now and says, "Don't cry." Do you see the gentleness of Jesus, the incredible gentleness? And then he raises his son from the dead. Like I said, don't you wish you could minister like Jesus? But Jesus knows what he's doing. And for us, the promise of final resurrection should be enough. Amen. It's going to come. The Lord will raise him up or her up, it's going to come. Those were just signs of the future resurrection.

But Jesus has astonishing gentleness, he knows how to draw us through amazingly painful trials, things we thought we could never endure. And he knows more about what you can endure than you do, and he'll pull you way beyond what you thought you can handle. And it's not because you can handle it, it's because he will never no never, no never forsake you. And He sustains you and feeds you and the inner man, and he won't let you die. So that's what I think it means, a bruised reed he will not break.

The Smoldering Wick

What does it mean, a smoldering wick he will not snuff out? Well in Hebrew parables, it's about the same thing, but a slightly different image. Again, it's Jesus' gentleness in dealing with weak, frail sinners. Only this time, we're pictured like a flame. You blow a candle out and it's still glowing but lots of smoke, so you got the glowing ember there on the wick. But there's a lot of smoke and it's just a fraction of a second away from going out entirely. And you know when it does, then lots of smoke comes and then it's gone. We're like that, we are not raging bonfires of piety and faith and godliness, that's not who we are. We are fragile flickering flames. And he knows even when you're down to just an ember, a glowing ember, he knows how to nurse you back into a strong raging flame again of piety and godliness and love for God. He knows how to do that, how to breathe on you. Just the slightest too much breath and it's gone, it's out. But Jesus will not snuff out that flickering ember, he knows how to nurse you back to spiritual health.

So the overall message is that Christ is the gentle, skillful physician of the soul. He's able to deal gently with weak and wounded sinners by that amazing, supernaturally, wise, astonishingly gentle power. By that, he builds his empire one broken-hearted sinner at a time. Isn't that beautiful? That's how this empire is getting built by this gentle Savior.

The Irresistible Advance of His Kingdom

And in this, we also see the irresistible advance of the kingdom in verses three and four. Bruised reed he will not break, smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness, He will bring forth justice. Verse four, "He will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. And in His law, the islands will put their hope." So the advance of this gentle kingdom is irresistible, it can't be stopped, there's nothing Satan can do to stop it. He will build His Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. It's going to advance despite its meekness and gentleness and apparent fragility and weakness. And it says here in this text that he is definitely going to bring forth justice. The thing the islands yearn for, the ends of the earth yearn for, he's going to bring forth this justice. He's going to establish justice on earth. And what does this mean?

Well, I think justice means. That we will be righteous in our relationship with God and with others, first with God. He will justify us through faith in Christ. He's going to bring forth justice between us and God by taking our wickedness and sins on Himself and dying on the cross for us. So we will be justified by faith in Christ. Made right with God, that justice he establishes first. Then he establishes horizontal justice person-to-person, the Golden Rule flourishes in his kingdom. We will do to others what has been done to us. God's been gracious to us, we'll be gracious toward others. It's a different kind of kingdom. And governing forces, governing rulers will use their position humbly like Jesus who is a servant King and it's going to be a just kingdom.

And notice that it says that, "He will not falter or be discouraged." I think that's put in there because this kingdom advances against all odds, against entrenched forces of evil. A number of months ago, I mentioned something I heard from Kevin Deyoung in a sermon, and I had mentioned it here. Sometimes we who are messengers of the Gospel feel like all we've got are spitballs against a reinforced concrete bunker. Do you ever feel that way? It's like, how can this beat that? You look at the world with all of its wickedness and power and big issues are going on and we just have these words that we're believing and preaching and talking about, it doesn't seem powerful enough. And so, there's going to be a temptation for the workers of this kingdom to falter and be discouraged because it seems like it could never happen. But it says here, Jesus "will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his law, the islands will put their hope."

The Sovereign Power of Almighty God Guarantees this Success

Now, how do we know that this is going to happen? Well, look at verses five through seven, the sovereign power of almighty God guarantees this success. Look at verse 5-7. "This is what God the Lord says, He who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the Earth, and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people and life to those who walk on it. 'I the Lord have called you in righteousness. I will take hold of your hand, I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles. To open eyes that are blind and to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.'" So the reason this kingdom is going to advance and will never fail is because omnipotent God is behind it. Verse five gives God's credentials. "I the Lord who created heaven and earth. I spread them out, I created the earth. And not only that, I give breath to everyone who walks on the Earth. Their hearts are in my hand, their life is in my hand, I can build my kingdom." And so this powerful God is behind this kingdom, He who gives breath to every person who walks on the face of the earth. But now, we're ushered here into the councils of the Trinity. An inter-trinitarian conversation is happening here, the father is speaking to the son. That's the way I read it. So often when good things are said to you in the text, its like, "That's me." Friends, that's not you. Unless you are the light for the Gentiles and a covenant for the people. Okay?  It's not you.

So, who's being addressed and who's speaking? The son is being addressed by the Father. The Father is saying to the Son, in verses six and seven, how it's going to go. "I am God. I am the creator of the ends of the Earth." "I have called you in righteousness." He says in verse six. "I will take hold of your right hand. I will keep you and will make you [Jesus] to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles." "That's what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to, through you, open eyes that are blind. I'm going to, through you, free captives from prison. And through you, I'm going to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness." The Father's giving him his marching orders. This command I received from the Father, this is where it comes. Isn't that powerful? Think about that, this inter-trinitarian conversation. Now how is Jesus a covenant for the peoples? Remember at the last supper, Jesus held up the cup and said, "This cup is the blood of the New Covenant in my blood." Jesus's death on the cross is the new covenant, His death in our place is the New Covenant. God the Father made it so. I will make you to be a covenant for the peoples and a light for the Gentiles and you're going to open blind eyes." This is Jesus's marching orders.

Now, in verses eight through 12, we see the message of the kingdom resulting in joyful praise. So there is this message that's going out to the ends of the earth and it's going to result in the ends of the earth, praising Him. Now, it begins in verse eight, with the centrality of God. Look at verse eight, "I am the Lord," he says, "That is my name, I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols." So God is exclusive here. He's saying he's the only God, "There is no other God. I am the Lord, I am Yahweh. That is my name. It's my special covenant name and I will not give My glory to another or My praise to idols." God makes his claim to exclusivity here against the idols of the nations. He's the only God there is and His glory as God, he will not share with another but he does share it with Jesus. Now, think about that. He will not give His glory to another, but he's going to share it with Jesus. What does that make Jesus other than God? The fierce monotheism of Isaiah rules out the Jehovah's Witness lie. Do you see it? There's no way that Jesus can be a god, but not the God. There's just no way because very plainly, God shares His glory with Jesus. You know what it says in Hebrews 1:3, "The Son Jesus is the radiance of," what, "God's glory."

The radiance of God's glory. And yet, he says here, "I will not give my glory to another." Jesus prayed in John 17:5, "And now Father, glorify me with the glory I had with you," what, "before the world began." "I had a glory with you, we shared it." Glory as what? As God. "Now, give it back. The radiant display of my position as God, give it back. You laid it down in the incarnation. But make me obviously, apparently glorious now that I finished all the work you gave me to do." It's an awesome thing that he's saying there.

The Credibility of the Messenger: A Track Record of Fulfillment

So then the Father establishes his credibility as a messenger, he should be listened to because of his track record. Look what he says in Verse nine, "Behold the former things have taken place and new things I declare before they spring into being. I announce them to you." So what's he saying there? Fulfilled prophecy. "I have a good track record of predicting the future and making it happen. Been doing it for centuries. I predicted the flood to Noah. What happened? Flood. I predicted that a childless couple, Abram and Sarai would have a son and they did. And not only that, I predicted that Abraham through Him, he would have descendants as numerous as the stars of the sky and as sandy as the seashore, and it happened." And he predicted that his descendants would be enslaved in a country not their own for 400 years, and it happened. And he said, he would punish that nation and bring them out powerfully to live in this place in the Promise Land, and it happened. He has an incredible track record of predicting the future, making it happen.

Even in the book of Isaiah, he predicts that the Assyrians will invade and go right up to the neck of Judah in Jerusalem, but not conquer the city of Jerusalem. He actually said very specifically, they wouldn't enter the city, or even shoot an arrow there. He didn't have time. They were all dead. God, sovereignly predicted what would happen and made it happen. Now, He's predicting new things. Now, I don't think the new thing is the Babylonian exile, and the recovery. That's part of it, but that's small potatoes. Why do I say that? Because the real thing is the suffering servant, and the salvation that Jesus brings to the ends of the earth. He said, "I'm going to make it happen. I'm going to predict this new thing that's happening, how all we like sheep have gone astray and each of us has turned to his own way." I'm going to tell you all about that. "He was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities." I'm going to tell you new things you haven't heard before. And they're going to happen. So that's his track record. God should be listened to because he knows the end.

The Joyful Response to the Message

And all of this results in joyful praise. "Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the ends of the earth. You who go down to the sea and all that is in it. You islands and all who live in them. Let the desert and its towns raise their voices, let the settlements where Kedar lives rejoice. Let the people of Sela sing for joy, let them shout from the mountain tops. Let them give glory to the Lord and proclaim His praise in the islands." You know the result of all of this, of all of this gentle Savior, building a kingdom, advancing is praise, it's worship. When we were singing, when Daniel was leading us and we're singing, that's what God was getting after. And more beyond that, when you in your quiet time tomorrow, when you kneel down and you, and then you sing or you just say, "God, thank you for saving me I worship you and I praise you," just... Or middle of the day, that's what God was doing, turning you from an idolater to a worshipper of the living and true God.

And so in Verses 10-12, he's saying, "Sing to the Lord," what does he call it, "a new song." We hear about that in the book of Revelation. Let's sing a new song celebrating salvation through Jesus, His praise from the ends of the Earth. And he says, "You who go down to the sea," sailors, let the sailors, the ones that go down in boats and ships on the sea, let them go to distant places, that's the only way you can reach the islands. So let them get on boats and let them go to those distant islands, and let them tell of this God and His suffering servant. And let the distant islands hear of this gospel and let them give forth praise to Almighty God. That's what it's saying. Verse 11 is so sweet, "Let the desert and its towns raise their voices, let the settlements where Kedar lives rejoice." Well, what's that? Well, that's what Bible search software is for. Kedar.

Alright, so type it in. And up comes Genesis 25:13, the first born son of Ishmael. Ishmael, you remember Ishmael, the other son of Abraham, the one by Hagar, the slave, talked about her... About them in the book of Galatians, "Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son." and all that. Yeah, but when he was cast out remember, Abraham's heart went after his son. And he prayed, "Oh, that you would protect Ishmael and watch over and bless him." God heard his prayer and allowed him to thrive, and multiply and have 12 sons and they are the desert dwelling Arabs. The sons of Ishmael living in the desert, Kedar is their first born. And there will be representatives of Kedar at the throne of grace in heaven, Amen. There will be Ismael-ites through faith in Jesus Christ, not by Islam, Islam's a lie. But by repentance and faith in Christ, they will be there and they will worship Jesus Christ. Isn't that awesome? And let it happen when God says, "Let the settlements of Kedar rejoice." It's like him saying, what, "Let there be light." And there's nothing that can stop it. By His sovereign grace, some of Ishmael's descendants will come to faith in Christ. There'll be a representative there.

Same thing with Sela, which is connected to Edom, ever heard of Edom? Again, rejected like Ishmael. Rejected. And yet, some of his descendants will be there around the throne worshipping Christ. It's an incredible thing, God is able to step into emptiness and brokenness and create something where there was nothing before.

Now, in verses 13-17, the zeal of the warrior God moves out to rescue his captive people. One of the biggest problems we have in life, the things we struggle, if the God of the Bible, the God of Isaiah 40 is so powerful, why doesn't he do X?" Have you ever struggled with that? "If God is so powerful, why won't he heal my husband or my wife or my child? If God's so powerful, why won't he save my mother? Why won't he save my co-worker? If God is so powerful, why do things like ISIS happen with little children. Damming the name of Christ... Christians getting beheaded. Why does that happen if God is so powerful? Why is God silent? And we struggle with that. Well, God addresses his silence here, look at verses 13 through 15. It says there, "The Lord will march out like a mighty man. Like a warrior, he will stir up his zeal. With a shout, He will raise the battle cry and will triumph over his enemies." Verse 14, "For a long time, I have kept silent. I've been quiet and held myself back." See that? That's the silence of God, he's holding Himself back. "But now like a woman in child birth, I cry out, I gasp and pant. I will lay waste the mountains and hills and dry up all their vegetation, I will turn rivers into islands and dry up the pools." So in the middle of verse 14, we have the silent God waiting a long time. Why does he do it?

Well, he says in Second Peter, he does it to give time for repentance. He allows people time to repent, he also does it because he's got a fullness of time, he's got his perfect time when he's going to move out. Then he uses two really amazing images to describe himself. A mighty warrior going forth to battle, which he's going to win, and a pregnant woman about to give birth crying out in her labor pains. So I meditated on this, this is what you get to do in Isaiah. Interesting images. How do they relate? Noise and victory, that's how I put them together. Mighty warrior with a battle cry, going out and wins the battle. The woman writhing in pain and crying out giving birth to the healthy baby. So up to this point, God's been quiet and nothing it seems is going on. But he's going to move and when God moves, suddenly things happen. So do not wonder about it, do not lament. Pray, be patient, wait on God for his timing but there'll come a time when He will move out like a warrior.

Now, isn't it amazing? We have these different images. Now, I'm not talking about the pregnant woman now, the images of the bruised reed and the smoldering wick plus a mighty warrior crying out in battle and crushing His enemies. How do you put that together? That's Jesus' Lion and Lamb, do you see that? He is very tender-hearted to his children, but he is terrifying to His enemies. And when He goes out like a warrior he cries out, and he wins. And he will go out, and He will defend his people. He will rescue them, Verse 16, "I will lead blind by ways they have not known along unfamiliar paths, I will guide them. I will turn the darkness into light before them, and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do, I will not forsake them." This is Jesus saying he's going to save us. He's going to bring us along the path that leads to heaven. Now, the immediate context could be the exiles going back to Jerusalem and that's fine. But again, small potatoes compared to a multitude from every nation on a road that leads to eternal life in heaven. He's going to lead the blind by these roads and he's going to rescue the captives and He will never leave us nor will He forsake us. How sweet is that?

And yet, verse 17, they are still going to be some who trust in idols. Who say to images, "You are gods." They will be turned back in utter shame. There's a warning to any who will not repent and believe in this great Jesus the Savior, that if you'd cling to idols, you will be turned back in utter shame.

Now, the final section of this, we'll deal with quickly and then get to application. The shameful condition of God's sinful people. So the chapter ends with a powerful explanation of why God's chosen people are going to be in exile to begin with. Why are they even going? Why is Israel going to get carted off by the Babylonians? Now, God must do this because it's going to be easy to misunderstand. People are going to think that the reason that happened was that God lost in battle to the Babylonian gods, Tammuz, or Bel or Nebo, or whatever their gods were. That is not the case.

God actually says in Deuteronomy, he's afraid of people thinking that…That's an interesting thing, God afraid of people coming to misunderstandings. So He sends His prophets, ahead of time to say what he's going to do. They're going... Also the Jews are going to misunderstand and say, "We're the oppressed, we're the crushed, we're the ones that are being beaten down unjustly," and all that. It's not unjust. They're getting punished for their sins, and that's what he's dealing with here. Look at the verses, verse 18 and following. "Hear, you deaf. Look, you blind and see." So call to the blind and the deaf. Verse 19, "Who is blind but my servant and deaf like the messenger I send. Who is blind, like the one committed to me. Blind like the servant of the Lord." Verse 20, "You have seen many things, but you pay no attention, your ears are open, but you hear nothing." This is language that Isaiah consistently uses for the idolatrous Jews. Be ever-hearing, but never understanding. Be ever seeing, but never perceiving. Make their eyes closed and their ears dull, so that they cannot understand.

So the Jews should have been God serving in the world, but they're blind. And who is blind like them? Their blindness was unlike anyone else's blindness. Now, here's the thing, the whole world was blind. How then was the blindness of the Jews worse? Well, look at verse 21, "It pleased the Lord for the sake of His righteousness to make his law great and glorious, glorious means bright and shining." Let's say you have two blind men, one of them is in a pitch-black cave and the other one's in a brilliantly lit room. Which of the two has a more obvious clear blindness? Isn't it the one in the brightly lit room? The one in the dark cave, it's not so clear the nature of his blindness 'cause there's no light to see. And so here, the Jews surrounded by the brilliance of God's Word, the brilliance of his law shining and radiant and they couldn't see it. They couldn't see the glory of God in the writings of Moses and the prophets.

Psalm 19, "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul, the statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart." Listen to this, "The commands of the lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes." They should have been able to see the glory of God in the commandments of God. But they couldn't, they're blind. So who's blind, like Israel and deaf like the messenger I send. And so because of that, they're going to be plundered for their sins.

The Plundering of Jacob God's Just Punishment for Sin

Verses 22 through 25, "This is a people, plundered and looted all them trapped in pits or hidden away in prisons. They've become plunder with no one to rescue them. They've been made loot with no one to say 'send them back.'" That's what's going to happen to the Jews. "Which of you will listen to this or pay attention in time to come? Who handed Jacob over to become loot and Israel to the plunderers?" Who did this? God has not along for the ride, God actually sent the Babylonians. He sent them for they would not follow his ways, they did not obey His law, so He poured out on them His burning anger, the violence of war, it enveloped them in flames yet they did not understand it, it consumed them but they did not take it to heart.

I wonder if even today, the Jews that go down to the wailing wall and they bow and pray before the wailing wall, do they take to heart and understand why that building was destroyed? Do they understand what God is saying here in Isaiah 42? It's because of the sins of the nation, the idolatry of the nation that all of this happened.

Application. Well, central application of this has got to be this: "Come to me, all you who are wary and burdened and I'll give you rest." Come to Christ, trust in this gentle Savior. Do you feel like this, sometimes, do you feel like a bruised reed, smoldering wick? Do you feel like you're at the end of your rope? You might be lost, you might be a non-Christian, you might be on the outside, but you're like, "How can I get my sins forgiven?" Come to Christ, He's gracious and merciful and will forgive sins, His blood shed on the cross, His resurrection on the third day, everything you need for salvation as a sinner. Everything.

And then once you've come to Christ, he's going to bring you through severe trials. We're going to talk about it, God willing, next week. He's going to bring you through the fire and the water, but He will never leave you or forsake you. What are you going through? It's amazing the number of people in our church that are struggling with cancer right now, it's amazing to me. And struggling, well. For the glory of God going through severe trials. Maybe you feel bruised by all of this, bruised reed. Maybe you're like, "I don't want any more medical procedures to me, no more." And you're feeling bruised, even it might be literally bruised by yet another attempt to get blood out of your right arm or your left arm. You're just at the end of it. Or maybe you're just beaten and down-trodden by the trials you're going through. Understand verse two and three, "A bruised reed, He will not break, he will bind you up." Ultimately, set your heart... Your hope, your heart on the resurrection and the glory to be given to you in Christ returns and that's where he's going to set everything right. In the meantime, He will sustain you and strengthen you.

Secondly, friends at the horizontal level, can we not be gentle with each other? Can we not be arrogant, self-righteous sinners who act like we would never sin like this person? Can we not remember how much God's forgiven us, can we not be mindful of the 10,000 talents of forgiveness you've gotten and not choke someone else who owes you 100 Denarius? Let me speak plainly. Can we not be as forgiving to one another as God has been forgiving to us? And then when God brings broken-hearted people into our lives, can we not set aside our business and just sit down and pour out love, and prayer, and ministry on one another? Can we not draw together and just look around and say, "What's going on in this person's life, or that person's life? We're going to watch over one another in brotherly love." We've got to be like this, we've got to be like Christ. A bruised reed He will not break, I'm not going to break it either. A smoldering wick he'll not snuff out. I want to learn how to kindle someone's heart back into flame in Christ. I want to be like that. I think we need to be a community like that. And you need to pray for your elders to be good shepherds like that. That's a special skill that the Lord needs to increase in us so that we can shepherd people with this kind of gentleness.

Can I commend to you to go online and look up Richard Sibbes, S-I-B-B-E-S, Bruised Reed, and read it. It's unbelievably encouraging. It will bless you. Worship Jesus, this chapter says to sing to him, from the ends of the earth. Guys, do you realize that's us? We are the ends of the earth when it comes to Jerusalem. What do you think, if you could have described North Carolina to someone who lived in Jerusalem in the first century, they'd say, "Ends of the Earth." Only way to get there is going down to the sea in a boat. We're it, we're the ends of the earth. Let's praise him, Amen. Let's sing to him a new song. When Daniel has us get up to worship, let's worship like never before next week. Okay, how was that sound? Good? Amen. Energy, passion. Let's sing to him a new song like we've been saved because we have been. Let's praise Him. And let's not underestimate how much power Christ exerts every day as a mighty warrior to destroy His enemies. He is so gentle with us but he is with a shout, going to go out and destroy His enemies. So let's not wonder why God's silent and waiting, and all that. Let's know the time will come, we'll hear Christ shout in the heavens. And he'll come down to Earth.

And then finally, let's be excited about unreached people group ministry. Today, let's say especially for the settlements of Kedar. Look up Ishmael-ite descendants, Arab... Go online, joshuaproject.net or some other place and find some Arab settlement that hasn't heard, some Bedouin tribe and pray in light of Isaiah 42. Let the settlements of Kedar rejoice, and pray that that ends of the earth will hear the gospel and believe. Close with me in prayer.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 41:1-29. The main subject of the sermon is how God governs all of human history.

I'd like to commend to you that you open your Bibles to Isaiah 41. I think, especially as we move out of Isaiah 40, which is very familiar I think to any that are regularly reading the Bible and we go ahead now into Isaiah 41 and beyond that into other chapters, I guarantee we're going to go into some unfamiliar territory. And just because it's unfamiliar, doesn't mean that it's not a rich blessing. Actually in some ways it's even better that way, isn't it? We're going to be discovering some incredible things in the word of God, but I just am following section by section through the chapters. And so, it'll just mean more to you, if you're able to see it right on the page and be able to link the things I'm saying to what you're reading in the text, so I just commend that to you. Before I begin, I just want to summarize the message in a simple word right now, just a simple summary. What we're going to find in Isaiah 41 is that God who takes on the idols on a specific issue, what you just heard, read for us, he's going to take on the idols and say, He can do something that no one else can do. He is able to foretell the future.

And we're going to see the reason He's able to do that is because He has decreed the future, He is the King over the universe, and He is able to predict the future not only at a smaller detailed level of Cyrus coming and destroying the Babylonian Empire, and allowing the Jews to return, but bigger than that he has decreed a savior, who for us now is in the past, but in Isaiah's day was in the future and His fulfillment of all of that points to a bright and glorious future for all of us. And so, my final application is not just to marvel that God knows the future and can predict it, and no one else can. But in verse 10, that this same God wants to comfort you in your own fears about the future, because you don't know what's around the next corner, and it's so easy to be afraid. You are wise enough and old enough to see the kinds of tragedies that suddenly befall people, even brothers and sisters in Christ, and you may be shrinking back from that and wondering, "What is my future, what's going to happen to me?"

I'm going to kind of end up at Isaiah 41:10. Do not be afraid. I am with you. I have already been to the future. More than I have just been to the future, I've decreed it, and it is a good place for you. So be filled with hope and I'm going to get you there. I'm going to hold you by my righteous right hand, and I'm going to bring you straight through to a glorious end. So there it is. So now you may wonder why even do all the details? I'll tell you why, because the details are glorious, and so, I yearn to just unfold Isaiah 41 for you and we're going to have to keep a strong pace.

Okay, I'm going to just take a minute now and tell you something that happens regularly at my kitchen sink, alright? You may wonder what in the world does this have to do with anything? I'm not even sure why I'm telling you this, but we have a little soap dispenser there of kitchen soap. And I regularly make the same mistake over and over, I pour too much of the liquid in there and it just pours out and gets wasted. I have a feeling that my wife may be talking to me about this, that probably never happens to you, but I just... It just pours out and I have to rake it in the sink, and it goes down the drain.

Don't let that happen to you today. I'm going to be pouring out Isaiah 41 in you. Expand your capacity and let's take the whole chapter in. Let's not waste any of all that God wants to tell us. So just pick up with me and track. And now, as I begin, I want to tell you I... My initial thought on this, I go to the end of the chapter, and you've already heard beautifully in Isaiah 41 how God boasts over the idols his ability to predict the future. And he says, he's the only one that can do it. This is something that sets him apart from the idols.

Now, many of us wonder, as we stand at this place in time in this pluralistic country of ours, a country that embraces and loves all kinds of diversity, some of it is good diversity that God made, some isn't. As we stand here at this juncture of time, we are again and again being asked to make a defense for Christianity from the unbelieving, the skeptical, the culture despisers of Christianity saying, "How do you know that your religion is any better, any different than anyone else's? How do you know that Christianity is the one true religion in the world? How can you tell?"

We are called on by God to be the light of the world, we're called on to shine radiantly in a dark place. Peter tells us that we should always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asked us to give a reason for the hope that we have. So, my desire is to preach towards that hope. So, you're radiant and hope start there, but now I want to go beyond that and give reasons for it. I want you to be able to give a reason defense for Christianity to skeptics and atheists and other people who may ask, "What makes Christianity different?" And even more importantly, "How do you know that Jesus Christ is truly the Savior of the world, the only savior there is?" For me, personally, ultimately, it all comes down to this book, the Bible, the uniqueness of the Bible as it testifies to the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, that's the difference between Christianity and every other world religion. Now, skeptics may claim other religions have sacred writings, other religions have their sacred books.

For example, Buddhism has various collected sayings of Buddha called the Buddhavacana. Hinduism has the Vedas and the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita, and different holy writings. Of course, Islam has the Quran. Shintoism has the Kojiki. Scientology even has a book Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard. Mormonism of course, has the Book of Mormon, so how do we know that Christianity is different? How can we know the Bible is unique in this crowded field of spiritual writings, holy books revered by millions of people around the world? Now, there are many answers to this as I've already said, the greatest answer is the way the Bible testifies to Jesus Christ and Jesus of the Bible is utterly unique and could not have been concocted by human ingenuity. The person and work of Jesus Christ claiming to be God incarnate, sinless, claiming to be sinless, teaching in ways that no one had ever taught before or has taught since, doing astonishing signs and wonders and miracles, raising the dead, cleansing those that had leprosy, speaking to the wind and the waves and it obeyed Him. And then of course, the greatest miracle of all, His own resurrection from the dead on the third day.

Focused, especially on Christ, His atoning death and His bodily resurrection witnessed by over 500 people. But along with this, is the Bible's testimony to Christ, especially in the issue of prophecy, things that were written about Jesus and about the world long before they happened. The Bible contains dozens of prophets who speak with amazing clarity about future events. One scholar has counted, listen to this, over 2000 prophecies in the Bible covering every nation within 1000 miles of Jerusalem. In Isaiah alone, there are dozens of very specific prophecies about the nations of His day, Israel, Judah, Egypt, the Philistines, Moab, Ammon, Syria, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, etcetera, specific prophecies, about the nations of his day, and what was going on in that time. But not only Isaiah, Jeremiah, specifically predicted the fall of Babylon, exactly when it would happen, and exactly how it would happen, by the diversion of a river enabling soldiers to crawl under a wall and then slay those who were drunk in their sleep and then open the doors, the gates of Babylon so the city could be destroyed, that specific 70 years before it happened.

The Book of Daniel very specifically predicts the coming of Alexander the Great, the king of Greece, who with astonishing speed destroys the Persian Empire, and reaches a height of power scarcely to be imagined, but at the height of his power, cut off, his kingdom divided and broken into four sections, exactly what happened to Alexander the Great. The Book of Ezekiel describes the destruction of the City of Tyre, a prosperous port city by a series of conquests, one after the other, including Alexander the Great, centuries before any of it happened. And even more amazingly that the city of Tyre would never be rebuilt, though, it was just perfectly situated as a port city. But the most overwhelming body of prophecy in the Bible focuses on the person and work of Christ, that same scholar accounted over 500 specific prophecies focused on Jesus. And I believe all of it ultimately points to Christ, ultimately. God isn't ultimately wanting us to be amazed that Cyrus the Great was predicted a century and a half before he was even born and just be amazed that Cyrus had some kind of a kingdom at some point, that's all gone, it's dust. Nobody even... Barely even knows him.

And the Medo-Persian Empire is gone. Was that the whole point? No, that was not the whole point. Rather that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world, and his kingdom will never pass away. That's the whole point that we're moving towards. Now, by contrast, I went with the kind of confidence that comes from a Bible believer, reading the themes of Isaiah 41 and later in this section of Isaiah, clearly God saying, He's the only one that can predict the future and make it come to pass. I went with great confidence to Google and searched phrases like Islamic prophecies and had a wonderful time. My very biased conclusion is, there are none.  Now, you can read. There's one website where they talk about how in the Quran, the use of fingerprints and fighting crime is predicted, then you go to the Quran  and read it, just have a good time with it, because there just aren't any Islamic prophecies. There were some immediate oracles about some of the nations that surrounded during Muhammad's time. Go ahead and read and come to your own conclusion.

Buddhism and Hinduism doesn't even try. It's kind of like floating above all of the earthly events and just up there in enlightenment-ville. And so, they're not trying to make predictions about the nations, it's just not what they do. There are a few of them that talk about general sinfulness of the human race, but it just is not compelling at all. Any prophecies there are in some of the cults are borrowed, I think, from the Bible. And so ultimately, there just aren't any fulfilled prophecy, and we shouldn't be surprised, because God's the only one that can do this. So let's dig in and look.

And in this chapter what we're going to see is that God specifically is challenging idols and defeating them. In Isaiah 40, we've already seen the awesome God of Isaiah 40, now He's moving out in Isaiah 41, to comfort and strengthen and save His people. That's what's happening as we move from Isaiah 40 to 41. Isaiah 40, what a great chapter, how from the beginning, God comforts His people with the message that their sins are forgiven by an ample atonement, ultimately in Christ.

The same God who moves out over a desert road and levels the mountains and raises the valleys and no obstacle can stop Him. The God who reveals His glory to all mankind and the entire human race will be able to see the glory of the Lord. The God who declares that all humanity is flesh and all their glories, like the flowers in the field and the grass withers, and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God stands forever. This is the God who proclaims a message of good news to Zion and to the ends of the Earth. And the center piece of that good news is, behold your God. The astonishing range of this God who tends His people like a gentle shepherd with His lambs. But at the same time, holds the waters of the Earth in His cupped hand, and with the breadth of His hand marks off the heavens. The God who says of the nations, they are a drop from the bucket and dust on the scales. The God who sits enthroned above the circle of the Earth, and all of its people are like grasshoppers, this God rules over all of human history, He is sovereign over the nations.

Now why does God take on idols and idolatry which He clearly does in this chapter? You look at verse 7, and it talks there about the idol maker, who is smoothing gold with his hammer and nailing it down, so it won't topple. He's dealing with idolatry and idols here. Well, it's because of idolatry that the exile to Babylon, which hasn't even come yet is going to come. And so, God is challenging the idolatry of His people. But let's go above the immediate circumstances, because every single human being struggles with a choice between worshipping idols or worshipping the true and living God. So we struggle with idols every bit as much as they did. And so God is challenging the idols of our hearts in every generation. Now, Israel's punishment would be exile to Babylon, God's remedy then is to challenge the idols, take them on, fight them. He wants to control history and use his sovereign control of history to orchestrate a salvation for His people. So God takes on the idols. And we're going to see this again and again in these 10 chapters, Isaiah 40 to 49, God is going to take on the idols, he's going to challenge them. And we see in this the jealousy of God. God is jealous over our hearts, he's jealous like a husband over the affections of his wife. The church is called the bride of Christ. Israel was portrayed in similar language as the wife of Yahweh. And so, he is jealous. He even says His name is jealous.

He says in the 10 Commandments, "Do not make any idols, for I the Lord, your God, am a jealous God." The Psalmist said, they made idols and so provoked God to jealousy by what their hands have made. So God is jealous and He's going after our heart affections and He's challenging His rivals, He's taking on His rivals, see what they can do. And He's going to defeat them. And so, the battle ground he chooses here. [chuckle] So let's do this, bring in your idols and let's see if you can foretell the future, and that's going to be the challenge. Let's see if you can do that. So ultimately He's going to win. And so, God is challenging the issue of the foretelling of the future. Now, in order to understand that, we have to understand what we know already basic facts of nature of the physics of the world we live in. And the linear progression of time, the sequencing of events is basic to the world we live in. Look at verse 4, it says, "Who has done this and carried it through calling forth the generations from the beginning." I mean, that should recall even the very beginning of the Bible. In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth.

So there's a beginning, that means there's a beginning, a middle, and an end. There's a linear view of history being taught in the Bible, not the big circular thing with karma and all that being taught by Eastern religions. But there's a linear view beginning, middle, end. It's Biblical, a linear view of history. First this, then that, then the other. A then B, then C, then D. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, there's a linear sequencing here. One, two, three, four. You see it in Genesis 1. There was evening and there was morning, the first day. There was evening and morning, the second day. There's a sequencing here and the thing builds on it, you can't have beasts and people made of the dust of the Earth if there is no dust or Earth yet. And so, first you have to have Earth with dust and then you can have beasts and people made from it. So there's a sequencing here and it makes sense to us. So it is in redemptive history. First, you have the promise to Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky when he was just a solitary man at that point.

That must precede the Exodus, don't you see that? It must precede his numerous descendants being rescued out of Egypt. And so, the sequencing of those things they must become slaves in Egypt before the Exodus can happen. There's a sequencing in redemptive history. God has ordered all the details of human history before He created the universe, the Bible tells us that God had, and let's use a very human expression, figured all this out before the world began. Now, don't go there, because God doesn't figure anything out, He knows. It's not like God ever said, "Aha, I got it." That means a moment before that, He didn't get it yet. So God doesn't figure anything out. I'm just saying, He knew everything about history before the world began. But more than that, the Bible teaches He decrees that history, He decrees it, like a sovereign king, He chooses that history. Then beyond that he sends forth special individuals, prophets, who declare certain details of that history... Is it still there? No, it fell.  Sorry about that. I don't move around much. Should I? Is this better? Over here? No, I'm not doing that.

God then declares certain details of that redemptive history that he had predicted in the Prophets. He declares it before it comes to pass, then he executes His plan down to the tiniest detail to achieve His final ends. And the centerpiece of all of this, is the saving work of God in Christ for sinners like you and me. That's what He's doing. And so, we are looking today at the astonishing power of predictive prophecy. No created being really knows the future. None of us. No human being and no angel or demon. No one. Why is that? Because God decides what finally is going to happen? Think about what it says in Proverbs 19:21, "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it's the Lord's purpose that prevails." You make all your plans, all the plans you want, but if God says no, that's it. So a king may say, "I'm going to invade my neighboring countries." If God says, "No, you won't." He doesn't. Read about it in Isaiah 7, when one king decided they're going to come into Judah and topple the Davidic King and God said, "No, you won't, it will not take place." And so, it didn't take place.

Satan may say, "I'm going to ascend to Assyria and Assyria is going to wipe out Jerusalem," and God says, "No, you won't." And so, Satan doesn't know the future, he's got to wait on God to find out what He'll permit, because God is the sovereign King. So the ability the prophets have to declare the future shows that they're speaking for Almighty God. We should not imagine therefore that God is just a good guesser or a very astute student of the human heart. None of the above. God's not a good guesser, God doesn't do any guessing. God decrees and makes it happen. It's the ultimate, as I've said, self-fulfilling prophecy. He makes the prophecy and then He fulfills it.

And His ability to do this sets Him apart from all the Gods of the nations. In this chapter therefore, in several places in the series of chapters, we're going to see this again and again, God highlights his ability to predict the future events. Look at Verses 26-27. "Who told of this from the beginning, so we could know or beforehand, so we could say he was right? No one told of this. No one foretold it, no one heard any words from you [Speaking to the idols]. I was the first to tell Zion, look, here they are. I gave to Jerusalem a messenger of good tidings." And along with that He exposed the idols for the false Gods they are. Look at verse 24, speaking to the idols again. "You are less than nothing, and your works are utterly worthless. He who chooses you is detestable." In Verse 29, "Behold, they are all false. Their deeds amount to nothing, their images are but wind and confusion." Now, the specific focus here, the immediate focus of this prediction is the rise of Cyrus the Great, one from the east, we're going to see in verse 2, one from the east. He's not mentioned here, there's lots of debates about this one from the east. But by the time we get to Isaiah 44-45, he's mentioned by name Cyrus.

In those chapters, Isaiah 44-45 are clear, and so therefore, I think it's reasonable to see the actions of this same Cyrus here, why is he important? Because Cyrus is the one who's going to destroy Babylon and allow the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild it. But that's just the detail. Big picture is, God can do this all the time, this is what God does. And so, as I said, I'm bringing you ultimately to verse 10, saying, "Do not be afraid of the future for God is with you. He's already seen the future, he's already decreed the future, he knows that for you in Christ it's bright." And he wants to encourage you about that. So this is just evidence of the stunning uniqueness of Christianity, the uniqueness of the Bible, this issue of predictive prophecy. No other religion has it. So when you're on the college campus, when you're in the workplace, when you're talking to unsaved relatives and they say kind of, this kind of thing to you, "How do you know that Christianity, your religion is different than any other religion in the world?" Now you have an answer. You've already had it before, perhaps, but focus on this.

Fulfilled prophecy specifically, as it points to Christ, that's the difference. That's why... How we know that Christianity is different than any other religion there is in the world, this is something they cannot do.

Now, let's look at the chapter section by section, first verses 1-7. The Lord stirs up a conqueror to do his bidding. In verses 1-7, he begins by giving a summons to all the Earth. Verse 1, "Be silent before me you islands. Let the nations renew their strength, let them come forward and speak, let us meet together at the place of judgment." Well, you heard Ira say this so beautifully. "The God of the Bible is not just the God of the west, he's the God of the whole world." Wasn't that beautiful when you heard that? I was so blessed by that. This is the God of all the Earth, even the distant coast lands, or the distant islands, and he has the authority, the power to summon them to a place of judgment. So here it's metaphorical, for, let's bring them together and let's have a debate, a discussion on me versus the idols. But it's foretaste of the real assembling of the nations that's going to happen at the end of the world, what the Bible calls Judgment Day.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only God there is, and He's the God of all the Earth, and He is going to summon all nations, and they will all be gathered before Jesus and Jesus, the judge of all the Earth will separate the people into two categories, the sheep and the goats, believers and unbelievers, the righteous and the wicked. This is coming. And at that time, on that day, we'll have to give an account to God, the judge for every careless word we have spoken, Judgment Day is coming. So, verse 1 is a foretaste of the time when the judge of all the Earth will assemble all the nations, and they will have to give an account to Him, so He brings them together.

God’s Claim: He Orchestrates Human History

Now God makes a claim in verses 2-4 that He orchestrates history, He rules it, he runs it. It's not random, it's not an accident. Things are going according to God's plan. Look at verses 2-4, "Who has stirred up one from the East? Calling Him in righteousness to his service, he hands nations over to Him and subdues kings before him. He turns them to dust with his sword to wind blown chaff with his bow. He pursues them and moves on unscathed by a path his feet have not traveled before. Who has done this, and carried it through calling forth the generations from the beginning? I the Lord with the first of them and with the last."

That's a huge statement. I am He. God is the God of every generation. This Isaiah prophecy is a prophecy for every generation. God will be with every generation right to the end of time, with every one of them. But more specifically, He's with every massive powerful conqueror who builds an empire on Earth. He's with the first of them, and He's with the last. He's the one that does it. This one from the East as I say I think is Cyrus, he's coming from the east and God says, who stirred him up to do it? The implication is that God did that. God stirred up Cyrus and moved him out. Well, how did you do that? Well, God controls human history by controlling human minds and hearts. He has the power to do that. God actually has the right to invade your mind and do what He wills with. It doesn't make us robots, that's way too simplistic.

What it means is that God controls people's hearts and the king's heart is like a water coursing, the hands of the Lord, he directs it whichever way he pleases. God can do that. Well, He doesn't just direct kings' hearts, he also directs common people's hearts and all that. So how does an individual become king in his tribe among his nation? How does he rise up above his brothers, the competing princes? How does one of them get identified as the leader of his own nation first? That's long before anybody ever heard of Cyrus. But the Meads and Persians identified him and began to follow him. Why? More intelligence, better leadership qualities, certain breaks along the way, it's God that orchestrates all of these things. Who did this? Who raised him up and called him in righteousness to his service. Now, it's interesting that individual in most cases, doesn't even acknowledge the God who's doing all these things, doesn't even know that He exists, but God's doing it. There's not a square inch in God's world that He's not ruling over actively. He doesn't... He's not an absentee ruler and so, He's doing this on nations all over the Earth, all the time. And he raises them up.

And He does it in righteousness. You see, the man's motives may be thoroughly wicked and corrupt and God will judge him for those motives. But God's motives are righteous. He knows what he's doing in redemptive history, and he's raising up guys, like Cyrus and giving them kingdoms for his own purposes. He is one from the east, and he's given a gift of military conquest. By his sword and his bow, he turns his enemies into dust. But he himself moves on unscathed it says. He's not touched, he's not wounded, he's certainly not killed. Great leaders frequently expose themselves to great danger on the battlefield. They do so with an arrogant sense of their own immortality, or invincibility, for that attitude God will judge them. But it happens time and time again, these great military leaders just seem to be completely fearless. You see this again and again, if you know anything about military history. Alexander The Great did this, he jumped over a wall into a fortress alone and fought by himself, because he was disgusted by his own soldiers who weren't following his lead. He was ready to die at that moment. Shamed, his other soldiers followed and saved his life. He was severely wounded. But he never died from battlefield wounds.

At one battle George Washington's coat was filled riddled with bullet holes, but he wouldn't come off the battle, battlefield. Douglas MacArthur landed, and there were just still snipers, it was still dangerous and there were bullets around his feet kicking up sand. Now, it could be argued if they get knocked off we'd never hear about him. True, good point. They die early in their military career, we never hear about them. They don't make it into the Encyclopedia Britannica. But they... This, it clearly says, Cyrus moves on unscathed by a path his feet have not traveled before. He came from the east and went over and conquered Lydia and its wealthy king Croesus got all his gold and then moved from the north down to conquer Babylon. So both of these things are fulfilled in verse 25, both directions. Look at verse 25. "I have raised up one from the north, and he comes, a one from the east who invokes my name." Which is it? Is he from the north or from the east? From both. He originally came from the east, he moves across conquers Lydia and then comes down from the north to conquer Babylon. But in all of this God's activity is highlighted. Who did this? It's God who does this.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He is the one who stirs up and give them victory. God hands nations over to him. The fear of the nations is there in verse 5, "The islands have seen it in fear, the ends of the Earth tremble." And they turn to their idols for courage. Verse 5-7, "They approach and come forward, each helps the other and says to his brother, 'Be strong.' The craftsman encourages the goldsmith, and he who smooths with his hammer spurs on him who strikes the anvil. He says of the welding, 'It is good.' He nails down the idol, so it won't topple. Good thing, don't want your idols to topple. I mean, the God of the Bible doesn't grow weary. He has infinite power, he doesn't need to be nailed down so he won't topple. And so, God's clearly mocking these idols here. So, oh, Israel, oh my people, do you not see how foolish and worthless idols are? Worship the true God of the Bible.

Next section, in verses 8-16, we see the Lord defeating Israel's enemies, there's a clear contrast between the pagan idolatrous nations who turn to their idols for strength and help, and Israel, who is descended from Abraham, God's friend. Look at verses 8-16. Start at verse 8-9, "But you, O Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham, my friend, I took you from the ends of the Earth, from its farthest corners I called you, I said, 'You are my servant'; I have chosen you, and have not rejected you." God's unconditional election of Israel sets them apart from the other pagan nations of the world. Sets them apart. So they're turning to their idols for help, Israel turns to the true and living God for assistance. Isn't it beautiful in verse 8. He calls them the Jews. You descendants of Abraham, my friend. Isn't that amazing? The God of the Bible, the God who measures the Cosmos with the span of His hand, calls Abraham who's he, flesh and blood calls him His friend. He says, concerning Sodom and Gomorrah, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I'm about to do?" He involves Abraham in what He's doing. He draws him into an intercessory relationship. He draws him into a loving relationship. This is fulfilled for us in Christ, isn't it? Doesn't that say in John 15, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have call you friends, for everything I learned from the Father, I have made known to you."

We were created to be an intimate relationship with the Eternal God of the universe. He in Christ calls you and I, His friends. Actually though in the resurrection, after the Resurrection, Jesus goes even beyond that. He says them to go and tell the brothers that he is going to go ahead of them in Galilee and there they will see him. Calls them brothers, so we are his brothers and sisters, we are members of his family, adopted sons and daughters of the living God. How beautiful is that? And so, the application in verse 10 is plain. Do not fear, in the verse 10. "So do not fear for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God, I will strengthen you and help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." How easy it would be for Israel in exile to think that God has forsaken them? How easy it would be? But he said, "Do not be afraid for I am with you, and I will strengthen you and I will uphold you by my righteous right hand."

Jesus has put it plainly in this way, "I will never leave you, nor will I forsake you." And so, whatever God has planned for you and it might involve great pain, you know that, don't you? God uses pain to sanctify us, but whatever he wants to bring you through he's going to hold you by His righteous right hand, and never leave you or forsake you. And so, God has made this commitment to crush Israel's enemies by transforming Israel from the core of their being.

God’s Commitment: To Crush Israel’s Enemies by Transforming Israel

Look at verses 11-16, "All who rage against you, [speaking about Israel] will surely be ashamed and disgraced. Those who oppose you, will be as nothing and perish. Though you search for your enemies, you will not find them. Those who war against you will be as nothing at all for I am the Lord your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, do not fear, I will help you." Verse 14, "Do not be afraid, O worm Jacob, oh little Israel, for I myself will help you declares the Lord your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel." Verse 15, "Behold, I will make you into a threshing sledge, new and sharp with many teeth, and you will thresh the mountains and crush them and reduce the hills to chaff. You will winnow them and the wind will pick them up and the gale will blow them away. But you will rejoice in the Lord in glory, in the Holy One of Israel."

So here, God takes on Israel's enemies. So I'm going to crush your enemies. I'm going to take on your enemies and I'm going to defeat them and there will come a time oh Israel that you will search for your enemies and you won't be able to find any of them. There will be none. They'll all be gone, that's what He says in these verses. Well, if you look at the history of the Jewish people from the time of the Babylonian invasion, until this very day, has been what Jesus called the times of the Gentiles. They've been under Gentile domination and even in the promised land, up to this present time. So these words have not been fulfilled, there's really no stretch of time in which Israel could say, "You will look... They looked for their enemies, they couldn't find any of them, they're all gone." That has not happened to this present day. So what is it talking about? Dear friends, I believe this is immediately talking about the sacrifice of Christ on the cross and His resurrection, and beyond that, the coming new heaven and new Earth, and the kingdom of God in which we will look for enemies, and not find any. And the gates of the new Jerusalem will stand open forever, because there's no threat.

And all of the wicked that would not love God or serve him or believe in Christ will be removed separated like chaff from the wheat. And so the image here is of Israel being made into a threshing sledge, new and sharp, what is that? I have no idea. So I looked it up. Threshing sledge is used for threshing. What's that? Threshing is the separation of the wheat that you can use from the chaff that you can't use. And so, the sledge is this heavy thing with like, metal discs or something that's dragged across the wheat and pulverizes it, and then it can be threshed and separated. So Israel becomes in human history the separator, the separator of wheat from chaff. How does that work? Well, what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, salvation is from who? The Jews. And in Christ comes the fork in the road for the human race. And in Christ alone comes the separation from wheat to chaff. As John the Baptist said, he will clear his threshing floor, gathering up the wheat into his barn but burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Israel, though warm, though small, though weak will become the issue for the world, ultimately in the person of Christ. That's the best I can make out, of verses 11-16.

If you have a different theory, let me know, but I think it harmonize with what's actually happening in Israel's history. But look forward to the day, think about this, the day when you, as a Christian will look around, in the new Earth, you'll walk around and you will not be able to find any enemies at all. They'll all be gone. No satanic enemies or demonic enemies, no human enemies, they'll all be gone. You will search for them, but you will not find them, that's coming in Christ.

And so in verses 17-20, The Lord will transform nature and refresh his people. "The poor and needy search for water, but there is none. Their tongues are parched with thirst, but I, the Lord will answer them, I, the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will make rivers flow on barren heights and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water and the parts ground into springs. I'll put in the desert, the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive. I will set pines in the wasteland. The fir and the Cypress together, so that my people may see and know, may consider and understand that the hand of the Lord has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it."

Well, let me summarize the image here. The image here is of desert conditions in which there's nothing growing, desert conditions, there's no water suddenly transformed by a flow of heavenly water that changes everything into a lush garden of Eden. That's what those words are talking about. So what is the desert? Well, I think it's both physical and spiritual. By the way, do you notice how often I do that again and again? It's both physical and spiritual, it's both physical and spiritual. I say that again and again with Isaiah. There is an immediate fulfillment that has to do with Israel in space and time, and then there's a spiritual fulfillment in Christ that has to do with the gospel. I think that's the only Christian interpretation you can do for these Old Testament prophecies. There is an immediate fulfillment.

Israel, when Joshua entered with the Jews and they took over, was described in this way, a land flowing with what? Milk and honey. Joshua was told, Moses was told, "You know, the promised land is not like Egypt where you had to irrigate with a foot pump." Frankly, Egypt was known as a pretty lush bountiful place, it was constantly cranking out bread for Rome and other places. But you still had to irrigate. He said, "No, no, it's better than that. It drinks in the rain year round, it's lush, it's a land flowing with milk and honey." Yeah, but by the time the idolatrous Jews got done with it, it was like a desert.

And God said, He would do this before they even entered. He said, "If you go in there and if you get dragged into the sins of the surrounding nations and you start worshipping Baal and Molech and all these other false gods, I'll tell you what I'm going to do." Deuteronomy 28:23 and 24, "The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you will turn to iron, the Lord will turn the reign of your country into dust and powder, it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed."

If you look at a satellite photo of Palestine now, it doesn't look like a land flowing with milk and honey to me, I think it's under judgment. Isn't this the very thing that happened at the Garden of Eden? Don't you remember, when Adam ate the fruit and God judged him? He said cursed is what? The ground, because of you. And so, this whole Earth lies under a curse, this whole created order lies under a curse. Israel itself was turned into a desert physically. So what is God going to do? He's going to rain down water on it. Physical water? Sure. But I think of a better water than that.

If you look at Isaiah 44:3, you can turn there or just listen. There he clearly links the pouring out of water as the giving of the Holy Spirit. Isaiah 44:3, he says, "For I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground, I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants." That's that Hebrew parallelism, pour out water on the dry land, I'll pour out Spirit on you. And so, yes, I believe that God, that this Earth after it's done with all its fiery judgments will be so resurrected and transformed, it will be lush, better than the garden of Eden. But even better, we will be transformed because we, in our sin, we are like in the desert. Do you know what I'm talking about? Have you ever felt that way? Things so dry for me spiritually. I feel so distant from God. I feel like I'm walking through the Sahara.

And so David puts it in this way, in Psalm 63:1, he says, "O God, you are my God, earnestly, I seek you. My soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water." He is parched spiritually. The answer is redemption through faith in Christ, and the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. And He's going to pour out rain and refresh you. And he's going to give you foretaste of heaven. He is the deposit guaranteeing your future inheritance, your fellowship with God. And you can drink in the Spirit any time. That's what's going on in 17-20. And so Garden of Eden language means that paradise will be restored. Look at 19 and 20, "I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive. I will set pines in the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together, so that people may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the LORD has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it." And so, God will bring about a new heaven and a new Earth.

Now, verses 21-29, we covered at the beginning. God alone determines and declares the future and we would add a third word, performs it. He does it, he determines it, decrees it as a sovereign King, and then he declares some of it through the prophets, not all, but just enough to know he's on the job and he knows what's happening and then he performs all of it.

So verses 21-24, "'Present your case,' says the LORD. 'Set forth your arguments,' says Jacob's King. 'Bring in your idols to tell us what is going to happen. Tell us what the former things were, so that we may consider them and know their final outcome. Or declare to us the things to come, tell us what the future holds, so we may know that you are gods. Do something, whether good or bad, so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear. But you are less than nothing and your works are utterly worthless; he who chooses you is detestable.'"

Well, we've covered this. Baal, Molech, Osiris, Isis, Iris, Isis, Jupiter, Zeus, Thor, all of these false gods don't exist, they are storefronts for demons. All of them. The idols are storefronts for demons, the demons do exist. And so, demons are god and goddess impersonators. 1 Corinthians 10:20 says the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God. But you know what, demons are just fallen angels and you know what, angels don't know the future. It says in 1 Peter, even angels long to look into these things, they're wondering what's happened. The good angels are celebrating when new things happen, like when Jesus was born, like, "Whoa, that's awesome." They're celebrating and they're wanting to know what's coming next. In the Book of Daniel Chapter 12. They're saying, "Okay, what's good? What's the outcome? What's happening?" They don't know. Only God knows and those who listen to what God says.

Now, both past and future are inexplicable apart from God. The idols can't even tell us what the past things were. It's really hard to know the past. Any historian knows how hard it is to find out what really happened. Any trial attorney knows or judges know how hard it is to get the history of what actually happened. But even more than that, so what? All this stuff happened, what did it add up to? Tell us what the former things are so that we can figure out their final outcome. You can't do that. So, all of history lies under God to interpret for us. That's what these verses are saying, and we can't interpret it apart from the finished work of Christ on the cross.

And so, God is acting in history to bring about His purposes, including raising up this conqueror, Cyrus the Great to come from the east and the north to destroy Babylon, verse 25. And God is the only one to foretell these events because he's the only one who ordained them and would bring them to pass, verses 26-28. No one else told it, no one foretold it, God alone predicted the future and made it happen. Why did he do this? So that we would believe in Him. Same thing as the miracles of Jesus, He did it so we would believe in Him. Jesus said it plainly in John 14-29, "I've told you this now before it happens so that when it does happen, you will believe that I am He." That's why predictive prophecy was given so that we would believe in God.

So what application? First and foremost, come to Christ, that's the point of all of this. All prophecy leads to Jesus, not to Cyrus the Great.  Friends, Cyrus the Great is dead. And it's really, really hard to find his mausoleum burial place. His empire is gone, it's been superseded by the Greeks, which have been superseded by the Romans. I don't need to continue. They're all gone, they're all dust in the wind. But Jesus is risen from the dead and lives forever. He came for sinners like you and me, trust in Him. But guarantee there's someone listening to me here in this vast assembly that is a non-Christian, that came in here, unforgiven under the wrath of God. I plead with you, trust in Christ. You don't need to do any good works. You just need to repent and believe and trust that Jesus is your savior and that God raised him from the dead.

Secondly, dear Christian brothers and sisters, stand in awe at a God who controls history like that, who makes prophecies and fulfills. Just stand in awe of Him, worship Him, and stand in awe at His ability to predict the future. And proclaim it to skeptics. Go look for someone this week that says, "What's the difference between Christianity and all the other religions?" Say, "Fulfilled prophecy." There you go, just right away, just say, "Fulfilled prophecy," especially the prophecies of Christ. And just start with your own skeptical heart. Let's just start there, okay? If you're ever tempted to doubt, is it really true? Go to this? The Word of God is a miracle, fulfilled prophecy points to it.

And then ultimately, if I could say, "Do not fear for God is with you." Look again at verse 10, I'd urge you to memorize it. If you're only memorizing individual verses, memorize the whole chapter, although after this sermon you're like, "No, I don't think so." 29 verses, it's a long chapter. So, just do verse 10, "Do not fear for I am with you. Do not be afraid for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." You don't know what the future holds, you don't know what's coming. It might be what you think is more than you can bear. God knows what you can bear. He's been ahead of you already, he knows the future and he is telling you in effect, you could picture him going out to the future and coming back from it and saying your future in Christ is infinitely bright. So do not be afraid of what's coming. You may hurt. You may weep. You may go through trials, but I have measured all of those trials and I've captured all of your tears in my bottle. Everything will tend toward your final salvation. Do not be afraid, I am with you.  Close with me in prayer.

Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Isaiah 40:18-31. The main subject of the sermon is how God faithfully gives strength to His weary saints.

While studying this morning the text, going over it again, thinking about it this morning, I can make this true statement about every one of you. Either you are weary right now, spiritually weary, physically weary, or someday, perhaps even soon, you will be. If you look at verse 30, it says, "Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall." Even the strongest and the mightiest among us get weary and weak, and need sustaining, renewing grace.

Some of you may be weary and weak because you're outside of Christ. The Bible in other places says that you're dead in transgressions and sins, and I am so thankful that God brought you here today because I believe that God speaks, in this text, a word of comfort, a word of encouragement and strengthening. In effect, in this text, almighty God is saying what Jesus says to us so plainly in Matthew 11, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest."

He is saying that in this text, and this is a magnificent text. For the third week, we get a chance to look at this. If I had my druthers, we'd just keep on going, and going, and going in Isaiah 40. The problem is Isaiah 41's so awesome, and Isaiah 42's so awesome, and on and on we go. But what I want to urge you very practically to do is take your Bibles and open to Isaiah 40, and look along with me. If they're electronic, that's fine, scroll up. We'll assume you're doing Bible, and not something else. Alright? We'll just make that judgment of charity that that's what you're doing with your iPhone. Alright?

But the rest of you pick up, and just... I'm going to be walking through Isaiah 40:18-31, and my desire is that you would know this incredible, this majestic God found here in Isaiah 40, and that God would speak a word of strengthening and encouraging to each one of you. That's my desire, that's my prayer because that's what He did for me this morning. We all need it, the text says all of us need it, no one's exempt.

You may not feel you need it right now, and I understand that. There's some times that just so many good things are happening, and you don't feel weak and weary, you feel strong, and that's good. That's... We have times like that, and we need that. But there are going to be those times that you just need to be refreshed in the Word, and I would commend for the rest of your lives Isaiah 40 to do precisely that.

This chapter has the power to present to you the greatness and the majesty, the infinitude of almighty God in the service of your own refreshing and renewing. That's what the whole chapter is about. We have this majestic, infinite God, who can't even barely be described, tending his flock in verse 11 like a shepherd, and carrying them close to His arms. At the end of the chapter, in effect saying, "Come to me all you who are weary and weak, and I will renew your strength." That's the scope of the entire chapter. What a great, great God we serve, and what an incredible universe that He's made. All of these things point to the might of God.

We're going to be looking again at the cosmos, at the universe, and what it shows us about God. Did a little research on this this week. Do you know that there's a star out there somewhere that is so large that if it were at the center of our solar system, its diameter would reach somewhere between Saturn and Jupiter in orbit? That's how big the thing is, it's absolutely massive. If you flew around its equator in an airplane at a normal airplane speed, and wanted to go one time around the circumference of that star, it would take you over 1,000 years to make the trip. That's one star, and yet it is so far away from us that it cannot be seen by the naked eye. That star is dwarfed by the cosmos.

The Bible reveals that God sustains that star at every moment of its existence. This massive, powerful ball of burning gas needs God to stay alive, in effect, to keep on burning. That's the God who is ready to minister to you today. All of these infinite thoughts are to be applied in that way. This God is ready to strengthen you today, and to minister to you.

Let's get a little bit of context here. The context here, verses 1 through 17, we've already had two sermons, and just go over it very, very quickly. God here is speaking the Gospel, a timeless message of good news to the human race, in verses 1 through 17. Now there's an immediate context. The Jewish nation was raised up as a priest nation to the world, and in the midst of that would be special people, prophets like Isaiah, and God gave them special visions about the future and of Himself.

Isaiah was an incredible prophet. At a certain time, 7th century BC, he is speaking about the future of the Jewish nation, and he's... We're going to talk more about this, God willing, in subsequent weeks; but the Jewish nation, called out by God, given the Ten Commandments, the covenant, were violating that covenant, disobeying God's laws, going after idols. In due time, after the time of Isaiah, God would cast them into exile by the Babylonian Empire, which wasn't even an empire when Isaiah was speaking these words.

But after that, He would judge the Babylonian Empire, and restore a remnant, a very small remnant of Jews back to Judah and Jerusalem to rebuild the city, rebuild the temple. This, Isaiah 40, is, immediate context, speaking a word of encouragement to the Jewish nation, to Judah and Jerusalem, to those people, for what they're about to go through, and you could imagine even a direct word to the exiles in Babylon, saying God is powerful enough and strong enough to keep His promise and restore you back and rebuild the city of Jerusalem. That's the immediate context.

But friends, you must know, as you read these words, that that's not enough. It's too small a thing to quote Isaiah 43, too small a thing for Isaiah 40 to just speak to the remnant of Jews in exile in Babylon, that he's going to bring 'em back. That's just too small a thing, these words soar above that in redemptive history.

I believe this chapter speaks to every generation of God's people, in all of the circumstances they would ever face, a word of encouragement and strengthening. It starts right away with just the good news of the Gospel, verses 1 and 2, "'Comfort, comfort my people,' says your God. 'Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her warfare is completed, that her sins have been paid for, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.'"

What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. There is no reconciling power, there is no atoning work that there is in the universe, other than the cross of Jesus Christ. Immediately for me, as a Christian, I read verse 1 and 2, saying, "There is comfort in the cross of Christ, and there is infinitely enough atonement for all of my sins. There is forgiveness for me," and that is incredibly comforting.

Then he talks about this messenger John the Baptist, who's going to come verse 3 and 4, "A voice of one calling: 'In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.'" Now we know that that was fulfilled in space and time by another prophet, John the Baptist, who came. These words are ascribed to him over and over in the New Testament.

John the Baptist came immediately before the ministry of Jesus Christ, and got everything ready. He just leveled things, and raised up these valleys. He got human hearts ready for the grace of God. Before the grace of God can come into a heart in a saving way, God must first prepare that heart, and so there was a preparatory work of grace going on through John the Baptist.

So it is with each of us, before any of us comes to Christ, God must humble us, and God must convict us and show us our wickedness and sin, and that we need a savior. John the Baptist went ahead of Jesus and prepared the way and got everything ready, and then the beautiful message of the Gospel in verse 5, "And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it for the mouth of the Lord has spoken."

The glory of the Lord revealed, that's the Gospel. Jesus is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word, as it says in Hebrews 1:3. The radiant glory of God is clearest on display in the cross of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 1, it says the cross of Christ is a display of the power of God, and the wisdom of God. In Romans 5:8, it's a display of the love of God. In Romans 3, it's a display of the justice of God. All of these attributes radiating out from the cross of Christ.

But I bring them back to verse 5 of our chapter here. The glory of the Lord will be revealed, be unveiled in Jesus, and all mankind together will see it for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. We need this message, don't we? Because we are mortal sinners. Every one of us is mortal, we are going to die. We're under Adam's death penalty.

Verses 6 through 8 talks about this. "A voice says, 'Cry out.' And I said, 'What shall I cry?' 'All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.'"

Oh, we need to hear that. You may be in your prime, you may be in the strength of your life physically in terms of your beauty, your intellectual prowess, in terms of your achievements, of your careers; but just know this text stands over all of us. Some day, God's breath will blow on you, and you'll wither, and you'll shrivel, and you will die. If the Lord doesn't return in our lifetime, we will all die.

Therefore, we must have this good news. Amen. Because it is appointed to each one of us to die, and after that, to face judgment. Some day, we're going to die, and we need this eternal word that stands forever speaking a word of forgiveness and life to us, and so we've got to have that verses 6 through 8. Then the glory of God, the centerpiece of this good news is God Himself. God is the Gospel. He's what we get by coming to Christ. He's what... You get God, forever and ever. And God gets you, as we heard earlier about the inheritance. Isn't that amazing? Why would God want us? But he does, and he loves us.

But look at verse 9, "You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, 'Behold... your God!'"

As I preached on that, I said this is how you do it. You pick up the Bible, and you ask the Holy Spirit to take the scales off your eyes, and to give you the eyes of faith; and then you look in the text, and you behold God. Behold your God. That's the good news of the Gospel.

We see the glory of God spanning an astonishing range. In Verse 10 he is the powerful judge of all the earth. He comes with power, and His arm rules for Him. His reward is with Him, and His recompense also accompanies Him. This is the sovereign God of the world, the judge of all the earth. That's what God is in verse 10.

But then as I've already mentioned, he turns right around and says in Verse 11, "He tends His flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in His arms, and carries them close to His heart. He gently leads those that have young." We need that. We are frail, we are weak. We are like flickering flames ready to be extinguished. We are like bruised reeds ready to be severed, and to fall to the ground. We are fragile and weak, and we are assaulted every day by powers that are too strong for us in the world, the flesh, and the devil. Every day. We must have this sovereign God tending us and carrying us and picking us up, and he does that for us in this Good Shepherd Jesus. He is the Good Shepherd. Verse 11 points to me immediately to Christ.

Last week, we looked at verses 12 through 17. The infinite magnitude, the staggering majesty of Almighty God in these verses. "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? Who has understood the mind of the LORD, or instructed him as his counselor? Whom did the LORD consult to enlighten him, and who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge or showed him the path of understanding?"

We talked about how those who questions, who, are humbling to the human race. They show that infinite separation between God and us. Which one of us has enough wisdom to tell God anything, or give Him any advice? Who was there when he spread out the heavens, and stretched out the earth, and laid its foundations? None of us was there. We're meant to be humbled by this, and also encouraged because this is our God, who has done all of these things.

Verse 15, "Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket, they're regarded as dust on the scales. He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust. Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires, nor all its animals for burnt offerings. Before Him, all the nations are as nothing. They're regarded by him as worthless and less than nothing." That's where we're at in Isaiah 40, 1 through 17.

Now in verse 18, the prophet addresses immediately a theme that we're going to see again and again, as Isaiah 40 through 49, and that is the utter folly of idolatry. Again and again, we're going to come face-to-face with this issue of idolatry. You look at it in verse 18 through 20. "To whom then will you compare God? What image will you compare him to? As for an idol, a craftsman crafts it, and the goldsmith overlays it with gold and fashion silver chains for it. A man too poor to present an offering selects wood that will not rot. He looks for a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not topple."

He addresses this issue of idolatry. We're going to see this again and again, God challenges the idols. He takes them on and challenges them. He comes after them. He's aggressive towards these idols. He's fighting against the idols that are luring his chosen people away from their faithful devotion to Him. A constant pull, a gravitational pull of idolatry away from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

God is going aggressively after these idols. He's in bitter warfare for the affections of His people. He wants your hearts, and my heart. He wants us to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. The idols are a very grave threat, and so He's going after these idols hard. The idolatry of His people is the very reason why they would be going into exile in Babylon. Even before that happened, God was exposing the wickedness of idolatry.

Now what is idolatry? What do we mean by that? We hear about it over and over. It is an issue that still stands before us in the New Testament. 1 John, final verse, "Dear children, keep yourselves from idols." It's an issue for all of us. What is it? I go again and again to Romans 1:25 as a good, strong, clear definition of idolatry. It's a root essence. There it says, "They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things, rather than the Creator, who's forever praised. Amen."

That's the essence of idolatry, is an exchange of truth for a lie. There's this lie being told about all the false religions. They're all idolaters, or about secular materialism, it's idolaters too. That we would put as an ultimate goal for our lives something created, that's the essence of idolatry. It's a lie. Anything that... What Tim Keller calls functional saviors. Anything you turn to, to save yourself from sickness or depression, anything you would turn to save yourself from ultimate damnation, that is not the God of the Bible, is an idol. Anything.

It could be money, it could be pleasure, it could be power, it could be achievements or attainments, whether academic or in professional life. It could be sports, it could be beauty, it could be sex, it could be possessions or entertainment, it could be fun or food, or anything that's lower than God that you put ultimate value on, and that you pursue and go after as a functional savior. That's an idol.

Now in Isaiah's day, as in ours and other places of the world especially, but we could argue that it's going on in factories here in our country too, there are idol makers shaping and crafting idols that become the focus of people's worship. They use their imaginations to come up with artistic representations of deity. They'd look around at the world, and think about what aspect of the god or goddess they were trying to capture, and they would make some artistic representation of that, and shape it and mold and put it in a statue.

They would use perhaps a bull to represent the god's strength, gold to represent the god or goddess's worth or purity. Or they would sometimes reach for a conglomeration of animals or animalistic virtues, like eagle's wings, or fish scales, or lion's teeth, or bear's legs. Who knows? They would put together a conglomeration representation of the god or goddess they were trying to worship. That's idol making.

Now the artist's activity is being highlighted here, and Isaiah will do it actually again and again in these chapters. He's going to go into the craftsman shop, and watch him while he works, will do this again and again. He's going to ridicule it, he's going to make fun of it. "What can you make that compares with me?" He's saying, the God of Isaiah 40. "What can you shape and craft that actually even comes close to me? What are you going to compare me to?" He's mocking this.

Now he looks for this craftsman, the woodworker. He looks for a certain kind of wood that won't rot. You don't want your god or goddess to rot. That would be bad. You're looking for a kind of wood, and you're an expert in the types of wood. Some are more expensive than others, etcetera, and so if you could... If you've got the cash, you can get an idol that will last a little bit longer.

Or you're going to cover it with gold or silver. Silver, if you can't afford the gold. Not only that, but he's adept at a kind of the mechanical engineering of idolatry. You need some chains to be sure it won't topple, or maybe you'll need to nail it to its platform. Moving on it like Dagon that falls over, or gets decapitated, that would be really bad symbolism. We don't like that. So we need to have a chain to set it up so it won't topple, so it won't rot, it won't topple.

Now God has absolutely, adamantly forbidden all idolatry. In the 10 Commandments, He said, "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them and worship them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God." God is jealous for your heart, affection, and you can't make any representation of God. There is nothing in this universe that's like God, nothing.

Now we are the closest. We humans, created in the image of God, are the closest created thing to God; but there's nothing that perfectly captures the essence of all that God is. Now in scripture, God uses comparisons in language to teach us what He's like, but no one of those verbal images completely captures God.

God is mighty and fearless like a lion in Isaiah 31:4, but he's vastly more powerful than any lion. He isn't only mighty and fearless, he's other things besides. A lion's not enough to capture God. God is tender and compassionate like a nursing mother, Isaiah 49:15. He is protective like a mother eagle over her young, Deuteronomy 32:11. But He's vastly more compassionate than any nursing mother, infinitely more so, and He's more protective than any eagle. He isn't only compassionate and protective, He's other things too.

God is a warrior, but He's greater than any warrior you can possibly imagine. And He is so much more than just a warrior. God is a refuge, He is a strong tower, He's a solid rock, He's a mighty wind, He's a spring of water in the desert for the weary and the thirsty. He is a father, He is a king, a singer. He is light. God is love, God is Spirit. He is all of these things, but He's not any one of them all by itself. Scripture's full of such language, but no one image fully captures all that God is. That's the beauty of the Word of God. But no representation, no idol can fully capture God, and we're forbidden from even trying.

To whom can you compare God? The answer is no one. There is no one like Him. This is the infinite holiness of God, the uniqueness of God, the infinite separation between God and all of the universe.

Now in verses 21 through 26, we see the supremacy of God over earth and heaven. He makes an appeal twice in this text, in Isaiah 40, to their theology. He appeals twice to what they already know.

Look at verse 21. "Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded?" I am not going to tell you anything categorically that you've never heard before today. I'm not here to rock your world with some new ideas of God. There may be images you haven't heard before, there may be logical connections you haven't made before, but these are things you've already known. God has been telling them to the human race for millennia now, through his prophets.

Little by little, line upon line, book upon book, with greater and greater clarity, as redemptive history unfolded, God made Himself clear to the human race, what He's like, line upon line. He says, "Do you not know? Have you not heard?" So go back to your theology.

I just want to stop here and give you a point of application. Alright? You need to go back again and again to Isaiah 40 and to other scriptures, and feed yourself on theology. Go back to what you've already known. When you are weak and weary and struggled, go back and feed on God's word again. That's where the strengthening comes from. You already know these things, I'm not telling you anything new. Then he establishes God's position as sovereign over all the earth. Look at verse 22, "He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers."

From time to time, members of my household will get afraid, inordinately afraid of insects. I'm not saying who, I'm not describing that, I'm just saying it happens. I want to say, "Look, let's look at this logically. Do you know how much you outweigh that spider by? It's not even close, it's not fair. Here, watch." Squish. "Ugh, gross." They don't want to see that, they don't... They just want me to take care of it, while they're out of the room.  They don't want to hear the thing... Never mind, I'm not going to do that. Yeah, we just outweigh these spiders by more than you can imagine.

God uses the image here of grasshoppers. All of its people are like grasshoppers to Him. That's what He's saying. He's not impressed by human power at all. Now He's already declared for us that the nations are like a drop from the bucket, and dust on the scales, the nations taken as a whole.

But now in this section, he zeroes in on the mighty men, the rulers, the kings, the leaders. Those powerful ones in society. Look at verses 23 and 24, "He brings princes to naught, and reduces the rulers of the world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff."

Now verse 23 and 24 completely rejects the concept that appeared in church history called deism, the idea that God the Creator, God set up the universe like a vast complex clock with all of its sprockets and its springs, wound it up and just lets it run, and He just stays out of it. The God of Thomas Jefferson, the God of other deist, he just stays out of it.

No, he doesn't stay out of it, not at all. God gets actively involved in raising these princes and kings up to their position. He plants them, he establishes them in their position. Like God says to Pharaoh, "I raised you up, I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display My power in you, and My name might be proclaimed to the ends of the earth."

But God raised Pharaoh up, He established him. He raises up every prince, every king, every mayor, every select... Or woman. Every ruler, everyone in authority, in every society, God raises those people up, all of them. Good and evil, all of them. He establishes the rulers of the earth in their position, He lets them flourish for a very short time, and then He brings them to an end. He blows on them, and they wither and die. It isn't an accident. He has raised them up, He has measured out the span of their time of rule, and then He brings it to an end.

How apt are we to forget this, how apt are we to stand in awe of human achievement, human intellect, human glory and power. Don't do it, God rules these rulers with absolute power, including the day of their installation and the day of their death. Here, Isaiah focuses on the brevity of their reign. "No sooner, no sooner, no sooner," He says. As soon as they're established, it seems, they die.

But God, His Kingdom, lasts forever. Nebuchadnezzar understood this in Daniel 4. After God humbled him, and changed his mind to the mind of an animal, and then restored him after seven years, Nebuchadnezzar said this about Almighty God in Daniel 4:34-35: "Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: 'What have you done?'"

Now God's power extends vastly beyond anything that man can reach. Verse 25, "To whom then will you compare me?" And he says, "Who is my equal?" The scope of God's immeasurable power reach is not merely to the ends of the earth, but to the ends of the cosmos itself. Verse 22, "He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in." God created and controls the atmosphere of planet earth, the air that we breathe.

Since the space program and all that, and satellites, we now have those pictures of this blue planet against a completely black backdrop. It's this bubble of air in which the perfect mixture of oxygen, not too much, so things just don't ignite all the time. He just measured it out. In that life, it's flourishing. God is the one that did that, that stretched out the heavens, meaning the immediate earth and atmosphere that we breathe.

But then he goes beyond that, in verse 26, to talk about outer space. Look at verse 26: "Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens, who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing." You could spend hours thinking about Verse 26. Have you ever been out on the mountains, in the mountains at night, and gone out and looked at the stars? You may even be up maybe several thousand feet, so you're up above. The atmosphere is a little bit thinner, away from the city. Air is clear. Wow, night sky. Maybe until that day, you'd never really seen the Milky Way, but now you can see it. There it is, this white, blurry cloud going across in a narrow band, and they tell us that that's our home galaxy, 104,000 light years across. The Milky Way.

The Milky Way has over 100 billion stars. If Abraham had begun counting them, and had continued until he was done, all the stars in the Milky Way would have taken him 3,000 years. In recent years, the Hubble Space Telescope has greatly expanded our sense of the incomprehensible immensity of the cosmos. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies in outer space, and a number of stars. It just boggles the mind. It just goes beyond any effort I could put to put words to it. Just... There's just a lot of stars out there.

That's an understatement, if ever there was. That's just rhetorical technique, use understatement. I can't help but use understatement when it comes to the number of stars. But look what the text says. The text says that God calls each one by name, one at a time. Now naming in the Bible shows power and understanding, so He's in charge, and He understands the difference between this star and that one. That's amazing. Now the only difference to us is the size of the star, its location, and its color. That's what they're working with out there.

There's just not enough difference between those three things, from dot to dot to dot to dot to dot to dot to dot, to name them. Instead the cosmologists name sectors of the sky. They just give them boring names with numbers and letters in them. No, no, God names each of these stars. Not only that, He says because of His understanding and his power, none of them is missing. Would you notice if one of them were?

Wait a minute now. Wait, wait now. You say, "Actually, Pastor, what if it were in the Big Dipper? If one of the stars in the Big Dipper were missing, I would notice. So would you and the whole world, I think." But this text tells us why that won't happen. Because God knows and understands those stars, and what it's going to take to keep them burning; and because of His power, they're still there. They depend on God to continue to exist.

It's amazing. You know what that says to me? If I can just speak to you who are the elect children of God, He's not going to lose track of any of you. Jesus said, "All that the Father gives me will come to me…and I will raise him up at the last day." He's not going to lose you. If He can do the stars, He can do you, and He will not lose track of you.

Let's take all of this, and apply this lesson. Now look at verses 27 through 31. Isaiah takes this amazing chapter and presses it home to the hearts of God's people. It comes in three stages, and we'll cover these quickly. First, our despair. Secondly, God's greatness. Third, our renewal.

First, our despair, our discouragement. Look at verse 27. "Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, 'My way is hidden from the Lord, my cause is disregarded by my God'?" Friends, this right here, right now is where the rubber meets the road. You may not use this language, but I know that circumstances can be crafted that will get you to say similar things.

"God is tired of me. He's weary of my sins, He's tired of bearing them. He's sick of me, and He's going to throw me out. He's weary of carrying my load. He's bored with me. I'm going through this right now, and it seems that God doesn't even notice. Been praying for months, some could say been praying now for years, and God hasn't answered my prayer. I've looked at my prayer, it looks biblical, it looks right, it doesn't seem like there's anything wrong with it, and yet God will not answer it. I don't understand it. Why? Why, Oh God? How often do human beings say that three-letter word up to God, 'Why? Why are you doing this to me?'"

But here, the tables are turned, and God is saying that to us: "Why have you forgotten me? Why do you think that I don't know you? Why do you think I don't notice what you're going through?" Now I know that there are some dire circumstances that many of you are going through. I'm aware of some of them, I will not say I'm aware of all of them, but I'm aware of some of them. Some of them are just flat-out heartbreaking, heartbreaking. Some of you have been crying out to God in regard to that, and you just wonder, "Why isn't God hearing my prayers?"

Extend your imagination going out to other places in the world. Think about, let's say, a house church pastor in China that's been arrested, and been held now for months. Or in Iran. He's been praying and praying to be released, and be able to resume his ministry, and go back with his wife and kids. They're praying the same thing. God said in Luke, that he's going to hear the cry against the oppressor, and He will not make them wait long, but it's already gone longer than they thought it should have. They don't understand why God hasn't answered their prayer yet. They're apt to say, "God has forgotten me, God doesn't see my suffering."

Or it could be some of you going through extreme pain through medical situations. The pain is just day after day, and you're like, "God, all You have to do is just alleviate the pain. I may not even be asking for healing now, just a reduction in the pain. Why won't You do that?" People are tempted to say this, "My way is hidden from God, my cause is disregarded by God. Why don't You care about me?" But God is saying this to you now, "Why won't you trust me? Why won't you love me? Why won't you live for me? Why don't you cast all your burdens on me? What more do I have to do to prove my might and my power and my love for you than the creation, and also the redemption in Christ, at the cross and empty tomb? What more do I have to do? Why are you saying these things to me?"

Every generation of His people, and every nation on earth, there will be times that every individual Christian is tempted to say these kinds of things to God. If you're not being tempted right now to say them, sometime soon, some circumstance will come, and you'll be right here, verse 27. You will be tempted to despair, you'll be tempted to be discouraged. It's the language of despair. "God doesn't see, God does not know, God does not care. Or if He does see and know and care, He's not powerful, He can't do anything about it." God is turning around, saying, "Why are you talking to me like this, oh my people?"

Step two, God's greatness. Verse 28. "Do you not know? Have you not heard?" Again, notice, let's go back to your theology. "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary. His understanding, no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary, and increases the power of the weak."

God goes back to the theology, and he teaches them who He is. "You've already... You know me. You already know enough." What have you learned? You've learned God's eternity. The Lord is the everlasting God. He has no beginning, and no end. He's not trapped in time as we are. For us, we're always in now, we're always in today, for God is the everlasting, the eternal God. Yesterday, today and forever, all equally in front of God all the time.

Yesterday, He remembers that He promised to be a God to you, faithful to the end. He remembers that promise, like a husband remembering his marriage oath. He's not going to forget his oath to you. Now He knows what you're going through right now, and He knows where you're heading. You know where you're heading? You're heading to a perfect world of resurrected people where there'll be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain. He knows that. And that your present sufferings are light and momentary compared to that, and they're actually working out that eternal glory.

He's the everlasting God, and He is the Creator of the ends of the earth. He made all things. There is nowhere you can go that God is not there. It does not matter what you're going through, He is the Creator of the ends of the earth. Whether God's people are in exile in Babylon, or whether they've been captured in a raid by Vikings, and hauled away as captives, or whether they're homesteading in the deep woods of Kentucky during the French and Indian wars, or maybe they're lying in a hospital bed during an influenza epidemic in 1919 in which thousands, even tens of thousands have already died, or maybe running through the streets of London during the blitz, looking for a bomb shelter before the bomb comes to kill them or destroy their home. Or waiting in a hospital here in Durham for a pathology report that probably might change your life.

God is the Creator of the ends of the earth. He's in all of those places at all of those times. He's the everlasting God, and He never grows tired or weary. God's arms don't get tired of holding you up. Isn't that awesome? As I was going over the sermon this morning, this is what moved me the most. I sometimes feel that God is weary of carrying me because of my sin, just weary. God said to me in the text today, I believe, "I will never grow weary or tired. Ever. I just don't get tired like you do. I will never grow weary."

God isn't tired of you, dear friend. He isn't weary of saving you. He isn't worn out with your sin. He's not suffering from battle fatigue in defending you from Satan's attacks, or restoring you. God's as fresh in the battle as the day He started. You may not be, but He is. He's ready for more, and he always will be. He does not grow tired or weary.

Then lesson four, God is wise, and His understanding is unsearchable. He is working out an unsearchable plan that is infinitely wise; and everything, dear friends, is right on schedule. He knows exactly what He's doing. This is our God. Do you not know these things? Haven't you heard this? Hasn't it been told you from the creation of the earth? This is our God.

Now it's time for our renewal, dear friends. Let's be renewed, amen. Look at Verse 30 and 31. "Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint."

Isaiah brings up the strongest among us. Back then, it was the warriors, alright? Now we would think perhaps Olympic athletes. Really at the absolute fringe of the bell curve, the best that there is, honed and shaped through years of training. Or perhaps you could think of Navy SEALs, or special ops guys. They're just absolutely the best, strongest people there are in the face of the earth. Even they grow tired and weary, and the young men stumble and fall. All of us get weary. All of us have what Spurgeon called "fainting spells."

We're not always equally strong, we're not always equally mighty. Some days, we just get flat-out worn out, discouraged, and down. The journey seems so long, and the enemy seems so strong; but those who hope in or wait for the Lord. Some translations go one way, some... I'll give you both. Alright? Hope in the Lord, and wait for Him. While you're waiting, hope. Okay? Wait on the Lord, and hope in Him. Let the scripture renew your conception that the future is unspeakably bright. That's what hope is, a sense of feeling in the heart that the future's bright. Immediate future, long-range future, eternal future, all of them bright. God's at work in all three, and He will give you hope.

As you hope in the Lord, your strength will get renewed. What does that mean? You'll start feeling more physically energetic. You just have more energy. God did that to Daniel, and Daniel was just wiped out on the ground. He touched him, and he got strength, and he stood up. Just how does God do it? I don't know how He does that, but He does that.

"God, I'm really weak and weary right now. Give me emotional, physical strength." And he will renew your strength, and all of it's in Christ. He is the vine, we are the branches. As we abide in Him, He will renew our strength, and then you will be able to do just supernatural things. Look at verse 31. You're like, "I would love to do this." "They will soar on wings like eagles." That's amazing. "They will run and not grow weary, and they will walk and not faint." We will... You are able to do infinitely wise and powerful things through the Gospel.

We're going to come now to a time of celebration of the Lord's Supper, and this is a time also of renewal. As we come to the Lord's table, I'd like to ask that you meditate on the things that we talked about. Know this, that God is calling on us in the Gospel to repent and believe in Christ, and trust in Him. If you are an unbeliever, and you have never trusted in Christ, we're going to ask that you refrain from the Lord's Supper, but just look to Christ crucified and resurrected. Believe in Him, and trust in Him.

Then when you receive the ordinance of water baptism, you'll be welcome to come; but all of... Those of you that have testified your faith through baptism, come to faith in Christ, you're welcome to the table. I'd like to ask the deacons to come now as we celebrate the ordinance of the Lord's Supper.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Isaiah 40:12-17. The main subject of the sermon is God's infinite glory, which is greater than all that is in creation.

On January 12, 2007, Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world, the violinist, carried on a social experiment. This is a man who had recorded multiple albums and whose recordings sell millions every year, a man who books over 200 concerts annually with ticket prices in excess of $100, $150 each. This man stood incognito in a Washington, DC subway with an open violin case in front of him, holding in his hands a 1713 Stradivarius worth $3.5 million, and he played eight Bach sonatas as people bustled past and barely noticed. They probably looked on him as a step above a homeless person, played pretty well though, I guess, as they walked by, and occasionally some people would stop and listen. In all, according to the cameras that were put there, 1097 people heard him that morning, 27 put money in his violin case. The total offering was $32.17, so that's an average of a little more than a dollar for each contribution for Joshua Bell playing a Stradivarius, playing Bach music there that morning.

Now, I think that this social experiment is a parable of 7.1 billion people bustling past Almighty God and occasionally dropping a buck or two in an open violin case. Everyone there that went by, except one lady stood and she said, "I heard you at Symphony Hall last week, and you were amazing. What are you doing here?"  So there was this one lady who knew who he was. I think she was glad for the free concert, she stood there for a while.  I don't know if she was late to work that morning, but well worth it, well worth it. But everyone else vastly underestimated that man and his skill, vastly underestimated. But that is as nothing compared to how each and every one of us underestimates Almighty God. And if I could extend it to his incarnate Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, whom some have called God incognito, veiled in flesh, the Godhead, see, we also barely notice him, would scurry right on by. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him, but he was as nothing to us, and we just scurry by.

And then we have, I think, before us in the text that you heard Jim read, you have a sense of what offering would be sufficient for such a God. Lebanon is not enough, all of its cedars are not enough to burn the fires and all of its animals, not enough for such an offering that would be worthy of a personage like Almighty God. And so my desire is, through the ministry of the Word today, by the power of the Spirit, to lift our hearts, our minds higher in our estimation of God, and that we would also have a greater estimation of God's provision for us and our sin, Jesus Christ. I want to have an encounter with the Living God today with you. I want to share that together, I want us to read these words and meditate on them slowly, and I want us to ponder this infinite God and have a sense of his greatness.

And my conviction is, that if we do that, as I prayed in my pastoral prayer, people all across the spectrum of earthly circumstances will be ministered to. Whether you're filled with joy and things are going really, really well for you in your life right now, or shattered by something that happened this week and don't know what the answers could possibly be, I believe a greater sense of the vision of God through this text will minister to you.

So this morning, we're going to hear some of the most exalted words in the English language, and we're going to ponder them, and we're going to look, as it were, through narrow slats in a fence and light, glory is going to stream through those slats, those narrow slats are words; nouns, verbs, adjectives, sentences, paragraphs. We're going to just see through a glass darkly, someday we'll see face-to-face. But this morning we look at a book, we look at some words, and we're going to have a sense of the greatness of God. And there's so many things that a meditation on the staggering majesty of God does for us, many things. And I'm going to talk about a good number of those, but one thing it does for me as a Christian, it guarantees the gospel of my salvation. And that's probably the most important thing we can get out of this: This great God is willing to save sinners through Jesus Christ, and how encouraging is that?

So let's talk a little about context now, we're right in the middle of a chapter in the middle of a book, this incredible book of Isaiah. We've jumped right in Isaiah 40:12-17. Last time we looked in depth at the first 11 verses, we saw there I think the timeless message of the gospel. Now, Isaiah was a prophet who lived in the 7th century and 8th century BC, and who is writing to Jews at that time who are facing certain circumstances. And we come to a hinge in the book in Isaiah 40:1-39, basically facing the Assyrian threat and all that that meant. And then at the end in Isaiah 39, we have a prophecy given to Hezekiah that some day that nation, the Jews of Judah, would be carried off into exile into Babylon. But now in these chapters, and in the first 10 chapters after that, 40-49, we're going to have repeated promises of the restoration of the Jews back to the Promised Land. They're going to be established back in the Promised Land, these exiles, to Babylon, will be reestablished, and they will be allowed to rebuild the destruction of Jerusalem and rebuild the temple, and God's going to allow them to do that.

And so that's an immediate circumstance, we'll talk a lot about that. But all of that requires the absolute sovereignty of God. First of all, none of it had happened yet. Isaiah was looking ahead across a century or more in the future to what would happen. But he was speaking, I think, immediately to that generation that hadn't even born yet to give them courage and hope that God's power was sufficient to bring them back and reestablish them in the Promised Land. They could rebuild their city and their country and resume their lives in the Promised Land. But I believe that the words of Isaiah 40 through 49 and of Isaiah 40 in particular, just soar above that immediate detail of redemptive history, it's just too big for that. It's too small a thing to just talk about the restoration of the Jews to the Promised Land. So again and again, we're going to springboard from that immediate circumstance to the gospel of Jesus Christ and what it means for every tribe and language and people and nation, and sinners like you and me. It's just too great for just that small detail.

So the big picture right away in Isaiah 40:1 and 2, God speaks a message of comfort to sinners like you and me, "Comfort, comfort My people says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her their hard service or warfare has been completed, that her sin has been paid for. That she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins." And I said last week that yes, there was an immediate sense of fulfillment of that as the Jews would be allowed to return and their sins would be forgiven as exiles are allowed to continue. But far, far greater than that is the word that speaks to me and to you as individual sinners, that there is in Jesus, in the shed blood of Christ, an atonement infinitely greater than all of your sins. And that is incredibly comforting, isn't it? To just know that sins can be forgiven through faith in Christ.

This is a message of comfort. And it's a message that proclaims the glory of God in verse 5, it says, "The glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh, all mankind together will see it for the mouth of the Lord has spoken." It's a message based on the eternal Word of God, it's based on words. All flesh, all human beings are like grass, and all of their glory and their achievement is like the grass of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, and the breath of the Lord blows on them, surely the people are grass. Grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God stands forever.

And so, this is a message that's been captured in words. And faith comes by hearing, and as we hear these words, we are able in verse 9, to behold our God, to see Him. We can say to the towns of Judah, 'Behold your God, look at Him.' And so we can see now, only with eyes of faith. Someday we'll see Him face-to-face, but now just with eyes of faith, so we can say, "Behold your God," as we listen to the words of this incredible chapter. So this is an incredible gospel, ultimately fulfilled in the shed blood Jesus Christ who died on the cross, in the place of sinners like you and me and who God raised from the dead on the third day. And we are told that if we put our trust in Him, turning away from our own works, repenting from our wickedness, if we trust in Christ, we will be forgiven.

And that's not all. That someday, a multitude from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation, for whom that has happened, will be gathered around the throne of Almighty God in the new heavens and the new earth, and we're going to see such beauty we can scarcely even imagine. It's going to be infinitely greater than we can put in words. It's going to far outstrip any suffering any of us went through. Says in Romans 8, "I consider that our present sufferings aren't even worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." And we're going to see that glory and there will be no more death, no mourning, no crying, no pain, there will be no more warfare, no crime. Nothing but the glory of God radiating this beautiful resurrected earth as it were, you could say it that way. And we'll live there forever and ever in perfect happiness. But the world staggers through unbelief concerning this message. It can't accept it.

And it's so tragic, it's so ironic, this is the very thing the world yearns for. The very thing that it puts in its songs. I was listening to one song this week and the singer was just singing out of the emptiness of his soul and he's singing, he says, "I have a hole in my soul and I'm yearning for love and a sense of the feeling of that love. I want that, but I just can't find it anywhere." I'm preaching the gospel to the digital music. You need Jesus. And I just, you know, I don't know, maybe I'll get on his calendar, give him a call, maybe he'll return my call and we'll get some time together. Share the gospel with him, but he's just representative of this whole world that yearns for this peace and yearns for this joy and this beauty and to be there forever and no more death, mourning, crying and pain.

But then when we're told that this gospel can give it to us free of charge, that there's nothing, just as a free gift of grace, the world staggers through unbelief. I think as I've analyzed it I think it's both too good to be true and too bad to be true. I think that's what's going on, it's just too good to be true. The very things that we want, that we could live eternally in a perfect world, free from all of these ills and misery, and just live there forever, it's just too good to be true. But it's also too bad to be true because we just can't accept the basic premise that we are wicked, rebellious sinners in the sight of a holy God, and that we deserve eternal condemnation in hell. And that if we aren't saved by someone else, we will most certainly go to hell. That's just too bad to be true. And so the world staggers through unbelief and will not accept it.

I think we think too highly of ourselves and too lowly of God. And the problem at the root of all of this is we really just don't know God, we just don't know Him. We underestimate what He can do. We underestimate his goodness, and his love, and his mercy and grace. And so we stagger with unbelief at these vast promises of God. And we underestimate God's holiness and righteousness and justice, and we can't accept his appraisal of who we really are in our wickedness and rebellion. So I think we need a vision of God, we need to know who he really is, and that's what Scripture has been given to us to do. That's what Isaiah 40 does, in some ways better than any other chapter in the Bible.

Think of yourself now, think of your own patterns, your own habits. Do you not frequently think hard thoughts of God? Does that not happen to you? Do you not frequently question God? You wonder about his wisdom and allowing or permitting this or that. Do you not question God's love for you from time to time? Do you not effectively question his power in the world? Do you not put things together in this sense and wonder at events in the world and think that this or that happening prove some kind of deficiency in God, either he lacks power he lacks wisdom, or he lacks love? Something's wrong with God because of the world here that we've got.

Do you not occasionally from time to time speak disrespectfully of God, Almighty God, the one who spoke the universe into existence, the one who said, 'Let there be light,' and there is light. The one who created the sun, and the moon, and the stars; the one who destroyed the world with a flood, the one who knit you together in your mother's womb? Do you not from time to time speak disrespectful words about him and what he's doing in your life? When was the last time that you questioned God? When was the last time you challenged God? When was the last time you brought God to the bar of your justice and asked him hard questions about the things that were going on? This is our root issue, this is the reason we stagger in unbelief regarding the promises of the gospel.

We don't know God. And Jesus cried about this, cried out in John 17. "Righteous Father, the world has not known you…" It's coming from the depths of his being. They don't know you, Father. But God has locked up within these words, the words of Scripture, the power to give us faith and through that faith to give us sight in the eyes of our heart, that the eyes of our heart might be enlightened and we would know this true God, and that's a powerful thing.

And so this vision of the infinite majesty of God for me guarantees the gospel in my life. I'm able to look at it and say the things that God has promised He will most certainly do for me, and for a multitude from every nation on earth, He will do it.

Secondly, the stunning immensity of God dwarfs the universe. Now, get ready for me to go absolutely geeky on you. It's going to happen for probably at least 20 minutes, but hang in there, alright? This is who I am, I can't stop being who I am, but here we go. Alright. I love science, I love engineering. And we're going to just find out just how great this God is in exponential terms. Alright, so verse 12, "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?"

We can hardly conceive of the immensity of God. The more we stand before him in awe, in awe, the incredible immensity of God, we would be silent before Him. Our problems, such as they were, would by contrast shrink into insignificance. I really do mean for them to shrink. I don't want to minimize your problems. I know they're weighty and they're many, I know, and they hurt. But compared to such a God, they shrink and it's marvelous to ponder just what we said earlier, Immanuel, through Jesus, God, this God is with us, and he will help us. And that's so encouraging. So, he means though in all of this to humble us. God is humbling humanity here. Five times in the series of questions he's addressing to the human race, he's talking to the whole human race, he lays out five cool questions one after the other. Alright.

"Who has measured the waters of the oceans in the hollow of his hand?" Who, O human race? Have any of you puny, tiny humans been able to do that? No. Well, Almighty God has. Who of you has used his hand to mark off the dimensions of the heavens? Who? Is any human being capable of doing this? Anyone want to step forward and say they've even been close to doing this? But God has done this. Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket? Who? Do you know any human being even remotely capable of such a feat? The entire human race working together for a century couldn't achieve it, but God can do it in an instant. Who has understood the mind of the Lord? Is there any human being willing to step forward and match wits with Almighty God? Any genius scientist willing to take on the infinite mind of God? Yes, there are some really clever really bright scientists who have studied tiny aspects of what God has made and have come to new insights that are true, have written about it, and then well rewarded.

But God made what they were studying. We're just scanning God's work in small detail and getting some of it right. Who has ever instructed God or been his counselor? Now, at one level, all of us say, "I have, actually." We'll talk about that, but no one can give God advice or counsel. So you read these verses, the series of who, who, who, who, who and he's talking to us and he's meaning to humble us because we're so arrogant and he's meaning to put us in our place so that we understand how great and how immense he is.

Now, what do I mean by immense? The immensity of God? Perhaps directly related to the omnipresence of God may be hard for me to distinguish between the two. The immensity of God, it has to do with God's relationship to his physical universe. God's infinity relative to earth and outer space and everything that there is, God fills every part of his creation with every part of himself. So, everywhere you are in the universe, God is fully there. That's the omnipresence or perhaps, immensity of God fully there. Therefore there is no container for God. There's no box you can put God in where God's in here and he's not on the other side of the barrier. Solomon knew that when he made his temple. You remember the dedication of his temple in 1 Kings 8:27, he looks at this golden box that he made, this golden building. It's relatively small, but boy, it was ornate, lots of gold, lots of glitter, and he stood there looking at it, he said, "But will God really dwell on earth? Heaven, even the highest heavens cannot contain you. How much less this temple I've built?"

God is not contained by anything, he's not dwarfed by anything. Have you ever stood before something so huge that you felt yourself shrink into insignificance? Like, you go to the Half Dome at Yosemite and is about 4800 feet off the valley floor and you just feel small. You just feel small. Or the Himalayas. I've had the privilege of trekking in Nepal and they're just big, friends. And you just feel small. Or maybe it's the Grand Canyon, maybe just the ocean, you just look at something or a night sky and you just look up and you just look at the Milky Way and you think for a little while and you just feel small.

When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, I think, 'What am I? I'm nothing. I'm small.' So we're shrinking. And God is comparing in his immensity, comparing himself to things we can kind of relate to. He starts with the oceans, God is able to measure the waters of all the ocean, it says, with the hollow of his hand. Now this hollow of hand language, this is what's known as anthropomorphisms, God acting like a human. We are created in his image, he doesn't have physical hands or eyes, but the Bible uses that type of language to help us understand him. So if God had a hand, he could scoop the oceans in the hollow of his hand just like that. Now, imagine yourself doing this, going to some small lake, maybe where you went boating or sailing or something like that, and going to the edge and crouching down and cupping your hand and scooping some water into the hollow of your hand. Did you notice the surface of the lake going down a little bit at all?

Well, how many scoops would it take for that to happen? Well, I can just tell you, don't bother doing that. Go to a bathtub, and fill it up. Alright, two-thirds high. Normal bath size, okay? Maybe 30 gallons. Alright, I've worked all this out. This is as geeky as it's ever going to get from this pulpit, I hope. I hope. And at the rate of about one scoop every second or so, I figured it would take me 20 minutes to empty the bathtub. How many such bathtubs are there in Lake Michie? Lake Michie, maybe you've heard of it, maybe you haven't, but it supplies 35 million gallons of drinking water per day to the City of Durham, 35 million gallons a day. How long would it take me alone to empty Lake Michie? And how big is Lake Michie compared to the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans? You get the idea?

So, how much water is there on earth? I bet you are asking that question. How much water in all of the oceans and all of the seven seas? No one knows, but they estimate, that's what scientists do, they estimate. So, estimates put it at 333 million cubic miles of water. Okay, what's a cubic mile? I don't really know, but it's a mile, mile in all directions. And the cubic mile is equal to the amount of water that flows over the Niagara Falls in one month. There are 333 million of those on earth, they estimate. God is able to scoop the water in the hollow of his hand. How many of us has stood at the edge of the ocean and been amazed by just the sheer power? When we were in Japan, we went and saw during a typhoon, that's their version of a hurricane, and it was dangerous but unforgettable. And we just stood there watching the wind lashing the water, and it's just awesome and terrifying.

When Carolyn, my 18-year-old who's at Liberty now as a student, Carolyn was born in a landlocked state of Kentucky, she was born in Louisville. My other kids, all born in a state that had access to the Atlantic Ocean, but she was born in Louisville. Best that Louisville could do is the mighty Ohio River, which I knew didn't really compare. And so, we went at Christmas time, she's about 6 months old to my mother's house in Cape Cod. It just so happened that the night before, there was a vicious storm. And I knew what was up and I knew what we were going to do the next day, so I took Carolyn with me. We drove down to Nauset Beach, parked, and I held her in my arms, and we walked up the boardwalk and crested the dunes, and I wasn't watching the ocean, I was watching her face. She's 6 months old and her eyes got as big as saucers as she saw the ocean for the first time, and I was seeing it kind of for the first time through her.

And she just kept wordlessly pointing over and over, like this. It's like, "I know, I know, I see it." Actually, I wasn't seeing it but I knew what it looked like. I was looking at her, and she's just pointing with these big saucer eyes at this majestic display. I don't know what she was thinking at that point, but just the immensity, the lessons that she was getting at that point. And God is using the ocean to teach us how immense he is, or he talks about the dust of the earth, it extends to the dry land as well. Who has held the dust of the earth and to measure away the mountains and the scales or the hills in a balance? The dust of the earth is most insignificant part of it, it just flies by us on a windy hot August day, and you can feel the dust on the surface of an end table or you might be able to see it if the sunlight comes streaming down, you can just see the dust flying through, it's just not even worth counting. Who would ever count it or try to collect it?

 But God knows how much dust there is on this planet, he's able to gather it and hold it in a measure and know how much dust there is. And he's also able, it says, to weigh the mountains and the hills in a balance. He's weighed them all and he knows what each of them weigh. So he knows how much Mount Everest weighs. If you were to ask Siri or Google how much this Mount Everest weigh, try it. I did, I didn't do Siri but I did Google. Any answer will begin with some of those ridiculous engineering estimates. Well, most mountains are just simply cones and off they go, okay? Height, whatever, and they come up with an estimate of, Mount Everest weighs 357 trillion pounds. Okay. I wonder if God just laughs. Actually, it's 396.4475. If you want, I can keep going and tell you all the decimal points.

God knows exactly how much each mountain and hill weighs, even the smallest hills. So, from the tiniest speck of dust flying through your living room window to the largest mountain and everything in between from the deepest ocean to the shallowest puddles, God knows what is on planet Earth. The immensity and power and knowledge of God is absolutely staggering. But God doesn't just stay on planet Earth, he goes out into the cosmos. Humanity were confined here, for the most part. The heavens soar above us and are meant to humble us, as I've already said from Psalm 8. So we look up to the night sky and we are humbled, we look up to the sun and we're humbled. We have occasionally escape Earth's gravitational pull enough to get into outer space. The furthest any human being has ever been from the surface of the Earth is Apollo 13, as they slung around the back side of the moon to get back. You've perhaps seen the movie Apollo 13, that's the furthest any human being's ever been from Earth, 248,000 miles roughly.

The next stop would be Mars over a hundred times further than that, but if you want to get serious and go star travel, that's Alpha Centauri, that's 4.3 light years away. What is that? Well, that's 100 million times further than the distance from the Earth to the moon, 100 million. What's that? Well, imagine that we have taken a baby's first step, it'd be like comparing a baby's first step to 69 trips around the equator. In fact, we haven't begun yet. And that's to the nearest star, 4.3 light years away. The Hubble Space Telescope and other cosmologists tell us the furthest is 13.7 trillion light years away, that's 4.3 compared to that big numbers, big outer space. God fills it all with every part of his being.

Now, the immensity of God compared to heaven and earth is meant to humble us and also to encourage us. It's meant to humble us. He uses things that are much bigger than us and says he's much bigger than them. That's what he's doing here. Each of these things is just much bigger than us and God is bigger than all of them. The oceans dwarf us in their sheer magnitude and their raging waves could sweep us all away in an instant if God didn't control them, but God scoops the oceans in his hand like a little child scoops water out of a bowl. The dust of the earth overwhelms us with sheer volume of its specks. They may seem limitless to us, but God knows exactly how many there are. The mountains of the earth overwhelm us with their imposing height, a massive weight, they could threaten to crush us if they start to slide down to our cities, but God has weighed them on his scales.

This infinite God is at work on your behalf. He wills to save your soul through Jesus' blood and resurrection. Be comforted, be encouraged, and don't ever question him.

That brings us to the inscrutable wisdom of God that humbles humanity. Look at verses 13 and 14, "Who has understood the mind of the Lord or instructed him as his counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him? And who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge or showed him the path of understanding?" So we have now we're shifting to the mind of God, the wisdom of God. We've looked at the magnitude of God, power but now the infinite wisdom of God on display. It was the mind of God that enabled him to craft the heavens and the earth to begin with. God created the sun, the moon, and the stars, and the Earth and set them in complex motion with various physical laws that enable life to happen on Earth.

Everything relay that God calculated the best heat for the sun to put out the best distance from the sun to the Earth for life. Everything, the best size of the moon and its gravitational effect on the Earth, figured it all out. God calculated the chemistry of water and how he made water very unique and special, how it's one of the few substances whose solid floats in its liquid. And it's a good thing because that means that rivers and oceans and things freeze from the top down, enabling life to go on below the surface of the ice, and eventually the ice to melt in the heat of the sun. God is so wise. Everything worked out. The mind of God figured out the structure of the mountains, the nature of the dust, the best depth of the ocean. Everything.

It was the mind of the Lord that figured out the complexity of your body, of your brain, of your circulatory system, of everything. Fearfully and wonderfully made are you. It was God who figured all of those things out. And the mind of God is on display, not just in all the physical universe and all the stuff there is. It's on display in the unfolding of history as well. God is very wise in unfolding history. The sequencing, how from the sin of Adam through to the point of where Jesus, in the fullness of time, was born of a virgin, who lived a sinless life, died on the cross and rose again and on through the 2000 years since. God has been unfolding history, the rise and fall of one nation after the other. Everything wisely figured out down to the smallest detail.

Now, who has understood all this? Which one of us has understood the mind of the Lord? Is anyone intelligent enough to trace all this out and comprehend it? There's not a human being on the face of the Earth whose intellectual capacities reaches 1/10th of 1 millionth of 1% of what God does. So, who has ever instructed God as his counselor? I've said this before, I love it, I think about it probably once a week, I'll say it again. Erwin Lutzer. Has it ever occurred to you that nothing has ever occurred to God? And it never will. So if nothing ever occurs to God, then you're not ever teaching God anything in your prayer life. When you kneel down to pray for a brother or sister who's going through a certain trial, for yourself, whatever, and you're starting to explain to God what's going on and starting to tell him the things that are happening, you haven't taught him a thing, and you never will. There's no aspect of history that He's not thought straight through, if we could use that kind of language as though there was an Alpha and Omega of his thinking. He just instantly got it and always has, and we are not instructing him about anything when we pray.

God knows what we need before we ask him, he has already worked everything out. That means that redemptive history is unfolding exactly as the wisdom of God has ordained. Exactly. And nothing is surprising him and nothing ever will. And so, he doesn't need any advice. And let me ask you a question, if he did need advice would he ask you? It's like, well, you know, I'm... I mean, if you were asking him advice, I'd be in the running at least among those. Do you not see how arrogant this whole thing is? First of all, God is saying in this text, I'm not asking you for any advice. There is no one here who can be my counselor. God's plan cannot possibly be improved on. I know there is suffering in this world. To us, it is incomprehensible. But God has measured everything out and is working out a spectacularly beautiful plan for his glory and for the joy of his people.

Justice is the Foundation of his Throne

No one, it says in this text, in verse 14, taught God the path of justice. Interesting phraseology here. NIV just kinda tones it down to, "taught him the right way." But other translations I think do a little bit better when they say, "taught him the path of justice." It's fascinating, and important. Many times, we sinners want to question God about his justice, don't we? Jeremiah did it. In Jeremiah 12:1, he says, "You are always righteous O Lord, when I bring a case before you yet I would speak with you about your justice." Boy, that takes some guts. "Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do the faithless live at ease?" It doesn't make any sense to me. I'm questioning you about your justice. Later, after Jeremiah gets his answer, God says, "If you utter worthy, not worthless, words, you will be my spokesman." So, don't question me about my justice.

Justice is the foundation of his throne, it says in Psalm 97:2. And God has made known his justice to the Earth, first in his word, in the word of God, his law is just, his word is just. This is the justice of God, the 10 Commandments and all of the moral law that's just. But we have violated God's justice by our sins, and no one taught God the path of justice and what to do about it. God worked it out before the foundation of the world. How? That he would send his Son, his sinless Son into the world as a human being and he would die under the just punishment of God for sinners like you and me. No one taught God that. God worked that out before the foundation of the world.

And so it says in Romans 3, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement [propitiation], through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-- he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus."  So, no one taught God that. No one taught God how to justify wicked people like you and me. Have you fled to Christ and trusted in him, to receive the forgiveness of your sins? Have you looked to Christ? Have you believed in him for the forgiveness of your sins? I plead with you, do it now. You've heard the gospel already multiple times, even this morning. God presented Jesus as an atoning sacrifice so that sinners like you and me can be just and righteous in his sight. But no one taught God how to do that. That was something God worked out before the foundation of the world.

And the infinite power of God towers over the nations. We're going to develop this more next time, but look at verse 15, it says, "Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are accounted as dust on the scales. Behold, he takes up the coast lands like fine dust." This is the immensity of God compared to the nations. The Jews probably felt like just straw on a tidal wave of human history, they couldn't control anything. First, the Assyrians sweep in and take away the northern kingdom, then the Babylonians come in and sweep away whoever is not killed by the sword, famine, and plague; just a small remnant away to Babylon. And then, the Persians come in and destroy the Babylonians, and the King of Persia lets some of them come back, but they're living under Gentile domination. And after the Persians fall, when Alexander the Great comes in and the Greeks come in, neither they're in the Greek age.

And then the Greeks fell when the Romans swept in and destroyed their decaying empire, and they took over for hundreds of years. And then after them, eventually the barbarians and the Muslims and others have swept and dominated. And so it is, generation after generation. The nation seemed immense and powerful, organized together with military purpose. If, as one people speaking one nation, they begun to do this, God said at the Tower of Babel, "Nothing will be restrained from them." Powerful these empires, but they are like a drop from the bucket and dust on the scales to God. Isn't that encouraging? They're like nothing. We're going to talk more about this next time. But picture a farmer walking across the barnyard and he's got a bucket of water and he's bringing it to water some of his livestock, and as he walks, he's trying to be careful but a single drop sloshes out of the bucket.

Picture him putting the bucket down and weeping, and trying to get that drop back and you're like, "What is the matter with you? That's a drop from the bucket. God says, "That's what the nations are to me." Almost not worth even talking about. Or picture dust on the scales like a medieval cellar of vegetables. And he's got his scales and some woman comes and she wants to buy 2 pounds of turnips and right as he's weighing it out, she shrieks and says, "You're cheating me!" "What are you talking about?" "You didn't dust your scales first before you weighed my turnips." Like, what is the matter with you? The dust is as nothing, it's not even worth comparing. The nations are a speck of dust and God is 100-pound weight on the scales of redemptive history, wherever God weighs in, that's what happens.

Have any of you ever sought to lose weight, and you stepped on the scales with trepidation, and you want to know whether it was a good week or not, and you got the bad news that you'd actually gained half a pound that week? Have you ever thought, "Oh wait, yeah, that's right. I didn't dust the scale first." Just get off and dust it and try again, see how that goes.  That's what the nations are, they're dust on the scales of history, these things that we fear so much. They're like nothing to God. And so, we need to apply this to today. Do you see the swirling events? We look at what some call extremist Islam, some others would say, "That's just what Islam is. It's what Islam has always done." It just bothers me how ignorant American politicians are of history and what the people who first believed in Islam and Muhammad did with that knowledge. Just read about it, first 200 years of Islam, find out what they did. This is what they've always done, but we don't need to be afraid, friends. Amen?

We don't need to be afraid. The nations, all of them, are like nothing. Same thing with communist China, and other nations, and ideologies, and post-Christian Europe with all of its materialism and atheism and bored, yawn at the gospel that they think is played out and doesn't really count for anything anymore. God is greater than all of the nations.

So now, the question that's in front of us is what can we possibly offer to such a God? Look at verses 16 and 17. "Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness."

 So what could we poor, tiny sinners offer? Possibly offer to such a God?  Even if we were not sinners. Imagine you came from some poor, tiny little kingdom and you're going to the halls of the great king and you have with you some of the finest homespun fabrics that some of the most skilled women of your community made. And as you're waiting in the antechamber, trying to even get into the sub-sub-sub guy who deals with people like you who want to see the great king, and you realize he's wearing garments that are of much better quality than the stuff you brought, finest silk, shimmering, you've never seen a fabric like it and you're looking at what you have to offer. Or perhaps you brought a bushel of carrots and they're getting ready for the big feast, which they pretty much have every night, and the produce they're hustling past is far better quality than yours. It's as nothing, you feel like I have nothing to offer.

But the problem is, actually we're not sinless, we are actually rebels. We have rebelled against this great king. What could we offer for our sins? And Isaiah says, Look, if you had all, in the Old Testament style, animal sacrificial system, if you had all of the logs of Lebanon and burn them up and had all the animals in that country, it would be insufficient. What's Joshua Bell worth? If you really knew who he was and what he was playing? What should they have offered there? Well, I guess, the ticket price is about $100. Okay, well, what's God worth? The fact is, we have nothing to offer. Nothing. And God knew it, and that's why he sent his Son.

The Lord searched, he saw that there was no one, he assessed the human race and knew that we had nothing to give. And so, his own arm worked salvation for him and his right hand sustained him and he sent his Son and he worked salvation in our place and offers it free of charge.

So what application? Flee to the gospel, friends. Flee and embrace this Savior. Realize you have nothing in your hands to offer. Realize that and accept the offering that God has made for you on your behalf in Jesus. And if you already have done that, I want you to just continually have an encounter with the Living God. Read over these verses later today. Read over them. Have your problem shrink compared to this great God.

I'm not minimizing them, I understand, I grieve with you, some of you going through the things you're going through. I want to talk more. We want to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. We're not minimizing but I just think a vision of a God like this can heal you, and strengthen you, and encourage you. Flee to him. Embrace him. Know that he loves you. Take your problems. Cast your burdens on him and just think this Mighty God has sent Jesus to be my good shepherd, and he will take me up in his arms, who we talked about last week, who can carry me close to his heart when I'm struggling. This is the God who loves me and who can do something for me. Trust in him. Close with me in prayer.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 40:1-14. The main subject of the sermon is the comfort God provides to His people.

So I'm a man under authority today, I've been given a message from God, and my job, my task, is to deliver this feast to you without doing anything to mess it up. And that's my desire. I feel like a table waiter, and I've been told by the master chef, "This is the food, this is the meal, and I want you to bring it to the people." And when we come to the incredible words of Isaiah 40, I'm not the first table waiter to bring this message. As a matter of fact, the first was Isaiah himself. And the chapter begins with a direct command to him. The grammar of Isaiah 40:1,2 is interesting. It's a command coming from Almighty God to a single individual. It's a little clearer in the KJV. "Comfort ye," so that's imperative in that Old English style. The individual that was being addressed was Isaiah the prophet. He's being given a command by Almighty God to speak a word of comfort to the people of God. And it's strong, too, because He says it twice. "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God." And so, I have a commission, I'm in a long, long line, a numberless line of proclaimers of these truths, and I'm just taking my place in line and I get to do the very same thing. I get to speak to you who are in the Kingdom of God, to you who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus. I get to speak to you a word of comfort from Almighty God.

And what a privilege that is. What an incredible message Isaiah 40 is. It's so glorious. The poetry, the images that flow in this chapter are so rich and full. It's easy, perhaps, for someone who loves poetry or images or literary things to study it as a piece of literature, and therein lies some of the danger. This isn't a piece of literature, this is the Word of Almighty God. God is speaking this to us. And He commands Isaiah the prophet to comfort His people and He says, "Speak tenderly," in the NIV, "Speak tenderly to Jerusalem." The words in the original language is, "Speak to the heart of." Speak to the heart. Speak to her heart. Almost like feminine language here, like a suitor speaking to a woman. Tenderly, words of courtship, words of tender affection. "I want you to speak tenderly to Jerusalem, I want you to speak to her heart." Or perhaps, like a father speaking tenderly to a young child some words of instruction or correction or training. "Speak tenderly. Speak to the heart of." I think in the absolute sense, in the big picture, it's "Speak sovereignly, speak the word of transforming grace to people who without that word will have hearts of stone and continue living in rebellion. So speak to the heart of my people. Speak tenderly. Speak this word." It's poignant and powerful.

What Is the Comfort? Three Things (vs. 2)

What is this comfort? This dual comfort, "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God." In other words, Isaiah the prophet's saying, "You are the people of God. I want you to know what your God is telling me to tell you. I want you to know that God, your God, wants you to be comforted. He really wants you to feel comforted." Well, comforted about what? Well, he says three things. Jerusalem's "hard service" it says. Generally, the translation is "warfare." Warfare has been accomplished or finished. "Her sin has been paid for that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins." So, the context here is warfare, the warfare of Zion, the warfare of Jerusalem, the warfare of the people of God, of the Jews.

Context of the Comfort: Jerusalem’s Sin

Now, there was an immediate context in Isaiah's day. But then, there was a timeless context to the people of God in every generation. In the immediate context, Isaiah the prophet, living there in 700 BC or so, after the Assyrians have been swept away by the sovereign hand of God and godly King Hezekiah's rebuilding what the Assyrians have destroyed and they're going on with their history, He's already predicted in Isaiah 39 that someday Judah and Jerusalem will go off into exile in Babylon for sins.

But now, he is looking beyond that exile, amazingly, to the time when God will sovereignly allow a remnant to go back to Judah and Jerusalem and rebuild the city. So the immediate context is, all of that time of turbulence, that exile, that suffering, will come to an end and Judah will be able to return and rebuild Jerusalem, rebuild the temple. That's the immediate circumstance, but the words just tower above that, the concepts go far beyond that immediate situation. God is speaking through this chapter to every generation of His people. And so, the warfare mentioned here is bigger than merely the Babylonian conquest and the destruction of Jerusalem and things like that. No, I think the warfare is explained by the rest of the phrase. Her warfare has been accomplished, her sin has been paid for. The Bible reveals that, apart from Christ, naturally, every one of us is at war with God, and even more significantly, that the Holy God is at war with us. Now, if you're lost, if you're not a Christian, you may not feel that at all, you may not be aware of that, but the Bible says it's true. If you're outside of Christ, the wrath of God remains on you every day.

You're under the judgment of God. God, in His holiness, is at war with you and you may say, "Why?" It's because of His holiness and your sin. And my sin. That's why the warfare is there. We are sinners, we have violated the laws of God, there's iniquity in us, unrighteousness in us. That's the warfare. But there will come a time when that warfare will come to an end. It will end forever at a certain point, because God is speaking to us a word of comfort in the Gospel. And that word of comfort is, ultimately, we know through Christ, through His shed blood on the cross, God is at peace with us. And we, through the work of the Spirit of God, are now at peace with Him. We are reconciled, we're in a good relationship with God. And that is comforting, isn't it? That is comforting. And it says that Jerusalem has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

Now, this is a vital statement here. Salvation originates with Almighty God. "She has received from the Lord's hand, double for all her sins." We can't save ourselves, there's nothing we can do to change this status of warfare with God, nothing. All we can do is make it worse by continual sin. We can't change it, we can't reconcile God to us by any good works or any pious attitudes or turning over of new leaves or any of that, we can't do it. No, it must come from God. Salvation is from the Lord. And so, Jerusalem has received from the Lord's hand, it says, "Double for all her sins." Now, I have meditated on this. I've read the commentaries, I've tried to understand what does this mean? Some commentators say that Jerusalem has been punished far more, perhaps, than she expected, which is true, I think that's true. I think people just generally underestimate where the sin is going to lead, just how bad it's going to get. Vastly underestimate just all the things that sin brings into your life, and that you end up getting far worse, double what you thought it would be.

But I actually don't think that's what this is talking about here. I actually think that what happened to Jerusalem, the invasion of the Babylonians, the destruction of the city, the destruction of the temple is far less than they deserved, actually. Far less. So I don't think that's what double means here. No, I think this has to do with the worth and value of the atoning work of Jesus Christ, that we have received from the Lord's hand, through Jesus Christ, infinitely more than we needed to be reconciled. That the worth of the blood of Jesus just towers above the weight of our sins. Now, our sins are weighty, because God is holy and our sins are more numerous than the hairs of our head, that is true. Our sins are like vast mountains and they're numerous. So I'm not minimizing sin, I'm just maximizing the worth of the atoning work of Jesus Christ.

Jesus' blood is worth more than the impact, the weight, of all of my sins and all of yours and all of the sins of the whole world, and if there were a billion other worlds, just like this, it'd be more than all of that, too. That's the infinite worth and value of Jesus, and it comes right down to roost on us who are Christians, and we come to understand how sinfulness we are. You're getting educated on that. You know what I mean, brothers and sisters? You're being trained in sanctification, you're being led by the Spirit to find out how much you needed a Savior, how much you needed Jesus. You underestimated it when you first came to Christ. He's teaching you now, you know. And He's educating you on how hard your heart was, and still is, and how, as I mentioned a moment ago when I was up here talking about David Platt, how grievous it is the limits we'll put on what we'll do for God, how we'll give a certain amount of money and we'll give a certain amount of our time and our effort, but we're not going to sell out for this. And it's grievous and we see it and it's like, "Wow." The Spirit says, "In effect, you haven't seen anything yet, but I would just destroy you if I showed you the whole truth, but I want you to know this, dear child of God, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more."

Isn't that comforting? "Comfort, comfort, my people", says your God." It doesn't matter how great your sins are. The worth of the atoning blood of Jesus is infinitely greater. I've used this analogy before, I keep using it almost daily in my own life. My sin, your sin could be likened to a fire. Some days, my sin is like a match, some days it's like a torch, some days it's like a bonfire on a beach, some days it's like the World Trade Center on September 11th. God's grace is like the Pacific Ocean, can handle all of the above. All of it. His grace in Jesus is infinitely greater than my sin, and that is incredibly comforting for me. And this message needs to be spoken because we are sinners, all of us. From the very beginning of this book, this has been the theme of Isaiah, one of the great themes, not the greatest theme, but one of the great themes, the great wickedness, the sinfulness of the people of God and how much we need the saving work of Jesus.

And so, from the very beginning of this incredible book, Isaiah 1, Verse 2, "Hear O heavens, listen O earth for the Lord has spoken. I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me."

And then, he unfolds very plainly in chapter, after chapter, after chapter, how God's created people, human beings have specifically rebelled against Him. Their idolatries, in Isaiah chapter 2. Isaiah 5 has a litany of sins of Judah and Jerusalem, just one thing after another, luxury and immorality, and injustice, and drunkenness, and brutality, and all of these sins just flowing. And we know it's true of us too and we deserve, they deserve eternal condemnation, and God in His grace gave them exile instead. And so, God is speaking to us now a greater word of comfort than He spoke immediately to those Jews who were going to be restored at some point and go back to Jerusalem, and that greater word of comfort is the saving work of Jesus Christ. It's clear now, we've got the New Testament, we've got the gospels, we know what Christ has accomplished. It was just spoken in prophetic vision at that point, but now we know. Let me just stop and just apply this to you right now. Does this bring you comfort today? Does it? Does it bring you comfort every day? Are you comforted as a sinner, saved by grace?

Now, I know that it's the task of a preacher to disturb the comfortable, so the Word of God can do that, but here, the word is, "Please comfort the disturbed. Comfort them, and encourage them."

Secondly, verse 3-5, Prepare the way for the Lord. "A voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up and every mountain and hill made low. The rough ground shall become level and the rugged places a plain, and the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.'"

By the way. I hope you see why I'm preaching three sermons on Isaiah 40 here. How rich is this? How rich are these words, and how powerful. So relax, we're not going to get to all, even all of verse 14, these 14 verses. But look what it says here. "A voice of one calling in the desert."

Let's just pause for a moment, and try to understand this desert. We're going to see this image again and again, this poetic image of the desert, the wilderness in Isaiah 40-49, especially. What is it? Well, it should be understood both literally and figuratively. Okay? Obviously a desert is a place where nothing is growing, where there's no water, there's no life, it's a sterile barren place, hostile place. It is, I believe, a picture of Judah and Jerusalem under judgment, from God for their sins, also. So, it's a literal thing because God did judge the Promised Land. Remember how it was said to be a land flowing with milk and honey, a land you didn't have to irrigate with a foot pump like you had to do back in Egypt. No, it drinks in the rain from heaven, and it's lush and there are these huge clusters of grapes that you need a huge pole to carry, and it's just a lush land.

Yeah, but by the time the sinful Jewish nation got done with it, it was a land under judgment. Remember how in the time of Elijah there was this drought, three years, specifically predicted by the book of Deuteronomy, "If you turn from me, says the Lord, to idols, the gods of the nations that you're going to displace, if you do that, I will command the heavens to stop raining on you and the Earth will turn into powder and dust beneath your feet." So, it's literal, but it's also metaphorical or spiritual for the hearts and the lives of people apart from the grace of God, people in their sins. This desert. And we're going to see the desert turned into a garden of Eden again, in these chapters. We're going to see the sovereign grace of God pouring down the rain of the Spirit and causing the people of God to flourish under His grace. Now in the desert, in the midst of their rebellion in the midst of their sins, there is this voice, a voice of someone calling in the desert, "Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God."

This Passage Fulfilled: John the Baptist Prepares the Way for Jesus

Well, we know who this is. If there was some other immediate kind of fulfillment of this... Something, some individual or individuals before the New Testament era, I don't know, but all four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all four take these very words and apply them to John the Baptist. For example, Matthew 3:1-3, "In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the desert of Judea, and saying, 'Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.' This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, 'A voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.''" So who was this individual, this John the Baptist? He was, I think, the last old covenant or Old Testament prophet, even though he's written about in the New Testament era, he came in the spirit of Elijah as a direct fulfillment of that prophecy in Malachi. He came in the spirit of Elijah, he kind of dressed like Elijah, he wore camel's hair and a belt of leather, just like Elisha the Tishbite did. He ate locusts and wild honey.

Now, the honey I get, but the locusts, look it up if you don't know what I mean. Can you imagine doing that? But that was clean food. You could do it under the Law of Moses. I don't know if you would have enjoyed it. I'm just going to move on right now. But that's what he ate. But what was really important was his ministry, he lived, he was born, I think six months before Jesus Christ and you have the story in Luke about how all that came about and he preached powerfully in the desert and he baptized repentant people for their sins.

“Every Valley Raised” and “Every Mountain and Hill Levelled”

And it says, "Every valley shall be raised up, and every mountain and hill shall be leveled." Now, what does this statement mean? Well, first of all, you must understand, John the Baptist was not a civil engineer. We're not looking for literal fulfillment of this leveling of mountains and raising up of valleys. That's not what he did. His work was the work of a preacher, a prophet, a proclaimer of truth and a baptizer of people. So, in that manner, he leveled mountains, in that manner, he raised up valleys.

Now, a simple interpretation of this is everything has to be gotten ready for the coming of the Lord, and that's valid. So you don't want to look at details or spiritualize them, just simply say, things have to be made ready in sinners' hearts before Jesus can come. There has to be a preparatory work of grace in someone's heart before they're ready to come to Jesus. And so that preparatory work is frequently painful, it's difficult. They see their sinfulness, their wickedness, they're in misery, they understand they're lost. They feel it acutely. And they know they need a savior, but they don't have an answer, they don't know what to do, and then the gospel comes and brings good news to them, and so there has to be a preparatory work, a leveling work, a work of grace. So that's a simple way. And I think we could all sign off on that, but I'm going to go on, and I'm going to press some of the details here.

Every mountain and hill will be leveled. The mountains and the hills here are obstacles to the coming of Jesus, they're obstacles. In Isaiah 2, we have this image of lofty things that represents the idolatrous hearts of human beings and especially the arrogance of human beings thinking they don't need Jesus, they don't need a Savior, they're fine in their religion, they're fine in everything that they could do. And so when John saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, this is what he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

That I think is a leveling of every mountain and hill, leveling. These arrogant, self-righteous people needed to be leveled before the word of God, the word of Christ could come to them. Conversely, there are other people who feel so crushed by life, frankly, and so crushed by their sins, and so crushed by the justice and the wrath and the righteousness and holiness of God, that they just are utterly despairing of any hope of salvation for themselves. And they are too broken to even try, or even think there could be an answer for them. They are in this sense valleys that need to be lifted up, they need to be given hope that God could forgive them, that there could be grace for them, that there is an answer. And he did this by his baptism. And he was baptizing sinners who are coming to him and repenting and so there was a sense that they could be cleansed of their sins and restored and made new. And so John the Baptist came to do that.

The Glory of the Lord Revealed... in Jesus Christ

And then it says, "And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it." Don't you see how beautiful that is, how John the Baptist had the privilege of pulling back the veil and saying, "Behold your God. Look at Him, behold Him, see Him." How do you do that? Well, one day Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus Christ, came to him to where he was baptizing, and wanted to be baptized and he said, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" Now, John says in John chapter 1, I wouldn't have recognized Him except the Spirit told me that He was the one, He didn't look unusual, extraordinary, He just looked like anyone else. But John knew who He was. And he heard the testimony of God the Father from heaven. As soon as Jesus came up out of the water, a voice came, a dove came down, heaven was torn open, a dove came down representing the Holy Spirit and a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is my Son whom I love, with Him I am well pleased." John heard that voice himself in a special way as a prophet of God, and he said, "I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God." And then the next day when he saw Jesus coming toward him, he said, "Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world."

So, we have in verse 5 of our text the glory of the Lord is revealed in the incarnation of Jesus, His status as fully God, fully man. Who walked on the face of the earth, who lived a life, a sinless life, and then who at some point in God's purposes, at some point in the fullness of time, died on the cross, shed His blood under the wrath of God, as an atoning sacrifice for sinners like you and me. Behold the lamb. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And all mankind, all flesh, the KJV says, together will see it for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. How do we do that, how do we do that now, how do we see the glory of Jesus?

 Well, you almost sometimes you need to close your eyes and just listen to the Word of God, close your eyes and just have someone speak these words, "This is My Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased." Picture the heaven torn apart and the Dove descending on Jesus, and this voice coming, picture John the Baptist pointing to a man and saying, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." You can see in your mind's eye, by faith through the hearing of the word of God, you can see the glory of Jesus. It's the only way, it's the only way. Everyone, it's available for everyone, all over the world, people from every tribe and language and people and nation can hear this message and see the glory of Jesus. And they do it by faith, by faith that comes from hearing the words about Jesus. Now there's going to come a day in the future, when the full glory of Jesus will be unveiled, revealed to the human race, and no one, no one will need any faith on that day.

Jesus spoke of that day in Matthew 24. In verse 30, He says, "At that time the sign of the Son of Man... " That's His name for Himself. "Will appear in the sky and all nations will mourn. They will see the Son of Man," listen, "coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory." They'll see it with their own eyes, no faith needed. And it speaks of that also in Revelation 1:7 where it says, "Behold He is coming with the clouds and every eye will see Him. Even those who pierced Him. And all nations on earth will mourn because of Him. So shall it be, Amen." So there's coming a day when everyone will see Jesus in the sky with great glory and no faith needed then, but understand, at that point the opportunity for justification by faith alone will be over, no one will be saved by that sight, those who were not saved the day before that, those who had not found Christ before that will be condemned for their sins. Today is the day of salvation, today's the day to trust in Christ.

And so I appeal to you. I don't know you all, I don't know what's going on in your life, I don't know what's going on in your heart. But I'm pleading with you, to see Jesus' glory now in the gospel, the glory of Christ who died on the cross in your place for sins, under the wrath of God, see Him in your mind's eye. See Him on the third day, raised to life bodily and call on the name of the Lord, that your sins may be forgiven. Don't leave this place lost. See Him. The Glory of the Lord revealed in your heart.

And do it while you still have time because verses 6-8 say, your glory, my glory, it's fading away. Look at verses 6-8, it says there, "A voice says, 'Cry out.' And I said, 'What shall I cry?' 'All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.  The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass.  The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.'"

So this section begins, A voice says, Cry out. This must be the voice of God. So Isaiah the prophet is saying, Someone's saying, Cry out, it must be God. But I don't know what to say. What should I say? What shall I cry out? What's the message? I'm a table waiter, I'm not going to write the message. "No prophecy of scripture ever had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along." So what do you want me to say? Alright, tell them this, tell the human race, these words, "All men, all humanity is grass and all of their glory is like the flowers of the field, the grass withers, and the flowers fall. Surely the people are grass." It's like Isaiah says, That's the message. I'm going to go preach it. But yeah, I agree, I see it, I see it happening, I see that people are grass, I see their glory fading and the word of our God standing forever. What does that mean? Well, this is very humbling for us but we need to face it.

James says, when we look in the Scripture, you're looking in the mirror. Well, look at yourself now, look at yourself in the mirror of the Word of God and see grass, see a flower of the field. You may be in your prime, whatever that means, you may be in your prime. In our culture, that means young and athletic and attractive and all that. Okay. I could say a lot of things right now, but I'm just going to keep moving, alright? We are mortal. You know what that means? We're going to die. Actually more than that, it means we are dying. We're in the process right now of dying. We're mortal. What's happening? We are aging, our cells are replicating, but imperfectly. We are developing wrinkles, our eyesight isn't what it used to be. We're losing abilities. Now you say, "Well I'm not, I'm 16." Alright, you're reaching, you're ascending to the peak, but if you live long enough, if God lets you live long enough, you're going to crest and you're going to find the back side.

Now, some of you are saying, "Pastor, you haven't seen anything yet. Don't talk to me about that. I already have a sense of how it's going to go, but I'd rather just... " At any rate, so that's it. And we have in our culture a big deception on this issue going on with cosmetic surgery and Botox and plastic surgery, and all kinds of techniques to stave off what's so obvious. All flesh is grass, we're dying, we're going to die. We age, and we can't do anymore the things we could do when we were younger. I read recently an optimistic article about how Michael Jordan can still dunk at age 51. I see the writing on the wall on that one. Alright, do you see it? I don't know if he sees it. But I see it. He's in a battle with age, he's in a battle with time, and time's going to win because all flesh is grass. Not just some. Everything, our awards, our accolades, our skills, all of them are like the grass of the field. People forget, no one cares anymore. Who won the Academy Award for best supporting actor in 1955?

I hope none of you are taking your smartphones right now and seeking to answer the question. It is answerable. But if you go there, you'll probably find out you don't know the dude. Okay. I didn't know him, I'd never heard of him. That year On The Waterfront was the big movie and all that. So you probably heard of Marlon Brando, but you've not heard of this best supporting actor. Look it up later if you want. But the point stands, we don't know who this guy is. And maybe that was his moment of glory when he got that statuette and all that, but it's faded now, what does it mean?

Isaiah the prophet is going to talk about Cyrus, just says Cyrus. Humans added the phrase, The Great, Cyrus the Great. He's going to win an empire, but then you know what's going to happen to him? He's going to die, and he was buried at some place in Iran, Pasargadae. I don't know how to pronounce it, but it may be so. And there's this windswept tomb there, and according to an ancient historian named Plutarch, the tomb was inscribed originally with these words, "Oh man, whoever you are, and wherever you come from, for I know you will come, I am Cyrus who won the Persians their empire. Do not, therefore, begrudge me this bit of earth that covers my bones." There's your glory, there's your empire there's all your power and your grandeur. You can't even read those words now, they're effaced by wind and time and sand, rain. You extend this to all the earthly glory that could ever be pursued, the glory of massive buildings. We know what happens to Twin Towers in an instant, we've seen it now. Maybe you couldn't have believed it before you saw it, but how those twin towers came down in a few minutes down to a pile of rubble. So it will be with all human glory, the glory of fame fades away.

I tried to pursue on the internet famous people in the 19th century who now no one knows, hard to get at. Didn't know what to Google. So I'm just saying, there must have been some... Because I don't know who they are. That's the whole point, maybe a Shakespearian actor who was all the rage in New York City for about 12 years and now no one knows his name. I don't know, all flesh is grass. All glory is fading. Even ordinary people, not famous people, they ascend, they reach a peak and then they come down, throw a stick in the air, watch it, that trajectory, that's you. That you. And in the future generations, people won't even know who you were, probably, unless you're famous. But you have to be really famous that if five, six, seven generations go down that anybody would know your name.

All Flesh Is Grass – Only Hope is Christ’s Resurrection

And why is this? It's because we're all of us under the curse of Adam, we are all destined to return to the dust. We came from the dust, and we'll go back to the dust. There's your trajectory, you're up and down, you're a stick thrown in the air and comes back down. Some go higher, some lower, but they're all coming back down. It's all the same shape, because of Adam. Do you not see now the glory of these words spoken by our Savior, "I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in Me will live even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in Me will... " What? "Never die." Do you not see the value of that, the value of this gospel promise, that we will live forever? The contrast though to human flesh is God's Word that never fades, "Surely the people are grass," verse 8, "The grass withers, and the flowers fall. But the Word of our God stands forever." God's breath blows on people, and they fade, it's not an accident that we die. But God's breath also speaks out His word and He ordains that that lives forever.

Jesus said "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." He said in the Sermon on the Mount, "I tell you the truth, until Heaven and Earth pass away, not the smallest letter or least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law until everything is fulfilled." God's Word is eternal. 1 Peter says that this is the word that was preached to you, this gospel message was preached to you. How awesome is that? And it speaks of a life incorruptible, eternal life that God is offering to you through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Now verses 9-14, I'm only going to touch on lightly. Okay, lightly, really lightly. Next week we're going to talk more in depth about the majesty, the greatness, the infinite majesty of God in these verses. But I just want to make one simple point here, and behold the greatness of God in a conjunction, a combination of infinite majesty and gentleness with sinners like you and me. So look at these verses, 9-14, "You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, 'Here is your God!' See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power, and his arm rules for him. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.  Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? Who has understood the mind of the LORD, or instructed him as his counselor? Whom did the LORD consult to enlighten him, and who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge or showed him the path of understanding?"

So, we messengers... So, pastors, preachers, evangelists, missionaries, fine, but all Christians, we messengers, we should go up on a high mountain and proclaim this good news. What is the good news? Here's the good news: Behold your God, God is at the center of the good news, the greatness of God, and we're going to see His glory. Verse 10 talks about His power, He's going to come with might and His arm rules for Him, He's going to bring His reward with Him, but also his recompense. So He's going to reward His servants and He's going to punish His wicked enemies, both of those are going to happen. He's going to come. But in the middle of all of this, this greatness, this incredible God who measures the waters in the hollow of His hand and with the breadth of His hand marks off the cosmos. We'll talk about all that next week. This incredible God is able to tend His flock like a shepherd and gather the lambs up in His arms and gently lead those that have young.

Do you feel the need for that today? Have you ever felt the need for that? You feel shattered, you feel broken by sin, you feel discouraged, you feel downcast. Satan is working on you, and you feel so weak. Picture Jesus your good shepherd, scooping you up and holding you in His arms, that's the picture of this infinite majestic God, who takes His hand and marks off the cosmos, this same one picks you up and holds you tenderly and speaks comfort, comfort into your ears. How sweet is that? Like I said, next week we're going to talk more about the infinite majesty of God.

Some quick applications, I've been making applications throughout the sermon, but I want to plead with you again to come to Christ, I want to plead with you, who even now you're still holding out, you're not sure if you need the Savior, you do. Trust in Him. Trust in Him.

And understand how God has provided an end to the war between you and God, you can feel and know and experience the peace of God in your heart, you can know forgiveness, and ample provision is made for the forgiveness of your sins. Those of you that are Christians, I invite you to just drink in and feel around you, the comfort comfort of the first verse, and the fact that He has provided double, infinitely enough for all your sins, and that He is tending you now like a good shepherd, and leading you gently and wisely. Rejoice in that, feel the comfort for that. And if I can urge you, behold your God more than you do, behold Him more than you do, more clearly and more frequently.

So I would just suggest read this more. Read it, it's the only way you're going to see this invisible God, by seeing Him by faith, we walk by faith, not by sight, pick up the scriptures, don't miss a day, don't miss a day. Feed on Him, Behold your God, see His glorious greatness, behold your God and look forward to the second coming of Christ, when all nations will see Him and be heartbroken over those that will mourn when He comes back. And urge yourself and others to do everything you can to look forward to the day of God, and speed its coming by evangelism and missions. If I can just give a simple application, if you have time to come minister to some internationals at tomorrow's picnic, there's an application. Pick up one of the parking things there and come and let's meet some internationals. And that's the cheapest simplest mission trip you've ever had. You get to sleep in your own bed, you even get to eat foods that you recognize. Alright, and have a good time and you also get to invite people to come to know Christ, invite them to church, get to know them. It's a fantastic time of sharing.

next week get ready for some explosive things that we see the infinite majesty, the greatness of God in the rest of this section of Scripture. Close with me in prayer.

Pastor Andy Davis overviews the last section of the Book of Isaiah and the prophetic word received of events that would happen from his time to centuries ahead.

In the summer of 1987, I went on my second mission trip, I had been the year before, in Kenya, but this time I went to Pakistan, and toward the end of that summer, we made an incredible trip across the Karakoram mountains along the Karakoram Highway, into China. And the part of that incredible journey was a trip through the Khunjerab Pass, which is the highest pass in the world, in terms of altitude, it's the highest I've ever been while standing on terra firma, almost 16,000 feet. And I remember distinctly that day, it was one of the most spectacular days of my life, because I took my life in my hands and rode on the luggage rack of the van, down the Karakoram Highway, for hours. The kind of thing I wouldn't do now, as a married man with children, but I'm glad I did it, at the time.

And I can't even describe, I can't put into words the scenery that I saw from that lofty perch, from the Khunjerab Pass. You can see mountains as far as... It was a clear day, and just row upon row of mountain ridges, that were just going out before my eyes. It was just amazing, and I stood there and just soaked it all in, and I just thought about it. And then it occurred to me as I was standing there, that these mountains look like they're touching each other, but they're, really, probably 20-50 miles apart. Maybe even more. And this gives me, this morning, as I begin this overview of the last section of Isaiah 40 through 66, a kind of an analogy of what it was like for Isaiah, the prophet, touched by the supernatural power of almighty God, touched by the Spirit of God, to be able to stand at a certain point in history, 7th century BC and to describe, to write down, in timeless words on a scroll, things that wouldn't be fulfilled for centuries. And they're just, literally, side by side with each other, in the words of this scroll. You go from one chapter to the next and from one theme to the next, and they're just one chapter on top of each other, but these events are separated by centuries, even by millennia.

And so, Isaiah, supernaturally endued by the sovereign Spirit of God is able to write about things that were only beginning to happen in his time, or that wouldn't even happen for a long time. He prophesied, for example, the return to idolatry of Judah and Jerusalem under Hezekiah's son, Manasseh, and how that idolatry would lead to the invasion of Judah by Babylon, and how Babylon would destroy Jerusalem and the Temple. The Temple of Jerusalem would be razed by the Babylonians, leading to a small remnant of Jews, exiled to Babylon for their sins. But then, subsequently, the destruction of Babylon, by the Medes and Persians under Cyrus the Great whom he names specifically by name, in two chapters, Isaiah 44 and 45, and how Cyrus the Great would issue a decree to rebuild the ruins of Judah and Jerusalem and let the foundations of the temple be laid. He named Cyrus the Great 100 years before his parents were born, Cyrus's parents.

I've often wondered if they had free will in the naming of their son. Or if there was somebody whispering, "Cyrus would be a good name. Why don't you try Cyrus?" But how this specific prophecy had been written down a century before that. And then, how this small remnant of Jews 42,000 of them, he didn't say the number, but a small remnant of Jews would return to the rubble of Judea, the rubble of Jerusalem and rebuild it? And re-establish a Jewish presence in the Promised Land, leading to the greatest single event in redemptive history, and that's the life-death resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, who's ministry, he saw more clearly than any other Old Testament prophet. Isaiah wrote, very, very plainly of the coming of the Messiah, and his bloody death on the cross, his piercing for our transgressions, and of his bodily resurrection from the dead. All of these things seen seven centuries before Christ was born.

And then, the coming of the Holy Spirit, poured out in abundance like rain on the people of God, and how, as a result of the sovereign activity of the Spirit of God, the sons and daughters of God would spring up like plants from a field. And there are a lot of different ways to look at that prophecy, and we'll talk about them, about the coming of the Spirit, and how Jesus was going to be a light for the Gentiles, that he might bring the salvation of God to the ends of the earth. And how the Gospel would spread to the ends of the earth and be successful there and there would be Gentiles who would believe in this Jewish Savior. And they would repent of their sins and trust, and they would call on the name of the Lord while he was near and find salvation in Jesus, how this would happen even to the ends of the earth and to the ends of time.

But how the final wrath of God would be poured out on the earth, for its wickedness and its sins, leading to the second coming of Jesus Christ. And debatably, we can talk about it, but possibly, the millennial kingdom. And if there's any Scripture that describes in detail the thousand years reign of Christ on earth, it would have to be Isaiah, although that's debated. But how people live to unnatural old age before they die, and how there's an astonishing flourishing of agriculture in the land, and all of these things. And then, what's not debatable is judgment day beyond all of that, and the separation of the entire world into believers and unbelievers and a clear depiction of the final place of condemnation, hell, in language that's right there to the very end of the book of Isaiah, but then also a depiction of the New Heavens and the New Earth, the home of righteousness is coming. All of these things, like those mountain ridges, one on top of the other, you just can reach out and touch them all as you read this book.

But separated in actuality by dozens, hundreds, even thousands of years, and Isaiah saw it all. So I have a different image from another mission trip I made. A number of years later, I was preaching in Poland, and we were in a very beautiful area, rolling green hills, lakes, and I was in a hotel I was writing on the balcony of the hotel. And I looked out from where I was on the sixth floor, and just so pretty there, in Northern Poland, and there was this ultra light, you know those little planes that people fly they're like powered hang gliders? Those guys are maniacs. But I would love to have been that person. He was just barely missing the high tension power lines which I was grateful for, but he was just soaring out over this lake and just... And I'd like to kind of do that, but without any danger today and just move out over these mountain ridges of prophecy. And I want to draw out seven grand, glorious themes that are going to be recurring in these 27 chapters. Kyle said I'm going to be preaching for the next few weeks, is that what you said Kyle? Is that all I have? I better get going. I've got a few weeks.

But just amazing journey that we're going to be on as we begin in Isaiah, and I want to draw out seven grand themes, that we could refer to again and again, I wonder if we need laminated cards in the pew back and as I preach chapter after chapter after chapter, in Isaiah 40 through 66.

Okay, this morning we're going to be looking at themes one, four, six and seven. Alright, the next week will be themes two, five, and seven, next week, we're going to do one, two, three and five, it's just going to keep coming up again and again, these same seven themes. So that's the task in front of us. I want to set the context, I already done it briefly, but Isaiah is standing at this juncture, Isaiah 1 through 39, the central kind of drama there has been Assyria, and the Assyrian invasion of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and their deportation of the Jews in Israel, the Northern Kingdom. And then he goes on into the Southern Kingdom of Judah and is stopped right at the walls as we saw when I was preaching last time how the Lord sent the angel of the Lord and he killed 185,000 Assyrian troops in one night. And Sennacherib king of Assyria, turned and went back, God sovereignly led him back to his home city of Nineveh and there he died. And so you get a feeling that Assyria's done now. And though the Assyrian empire would continue for another hundred years or so, it was ever waning in power from that point on.

And now we have the rise of the next great power in that region of the world, the ancient near east and that is Babylon. At the time that Isaiah lived, it was a city in the Assyrian Empire, a conquered little city state, but Isaiah saw with the eyes of prophecy, what was coming, and that was that Babylon would rise to be a mighty empire, reach its zenith, and then in a very short time, be toppled itself by the Medes and Persians under Cyrus the Great. He saw all of that. Now you may ask how does he see all this? How does he know what the future holds? How can he predict so clearly what is coming? Well, 2 Peter 1 said this, above all, you must understand this is about prophecy. This is what sets Christianity apart from every other world religion. Fulfilled prophecy specifically focused on the person and work of Christ. This is what separates Christianity apart. So those of you in the college campus, you're going to face this again and again, What makes Christianity different than Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism?

Fulfilled Prophecy

Start with this, "Fulfilled prophecy." Fulfilled prophecy. And so, 2 Peter 1:20-21, "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture ever had its origin in the will of man." Prophecy never had it's origin in the will of man, "but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." And so the Holy Spirit came into Isaiah the prophet, and he sat down and wrote on a scroll these timeless words about all of these things that were coming. And I want to draw out these themes now and make them plain. God is able to predict the future and no one else can because God is sovereign over the future that he predicts. He is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy or prophet. He says, in effect, "This is what I'm going to do and nothing can stop it." And He is the King of the universe, and so he can make predictions. And he challenges the idols and he has them come in again and again on this very issue, "Bring in your idols," he says in Isaiah 41. "Let's see what they can do. All right, idols, tell us the former things if you can, and what their final outcome would be, and then predict to us, the future things. Yes, tell us what the future holds. Do something, good or bad, so that we may know that you are gods."

And so he does this again and again in Isaiah 41, Isaiah 44, Isaiah 45, Isaiah 46, 48. "I can predict the future and no one else can." And so he has this power to do this in detail.

And so, now let us bring forth these themes and let's begin with the first and greatest. And it's a central theme of the Bible, it's a central theme of the universe, it should be the central theme of your life and that is, The infinite majestic greatness of Almighty God. We're going to see a celebration of the attributes of God in these 27 chapters of Isaiah that will take your breath away, strengthen your faith, give you courage to face the trials that you will face in your lives. First and foremost, the infinite greatness of God over all creation. God is majestic and powerful and infinitely greater than the creation he made.

We'll see this in Isaiah 40:12, where it says, "Who has measured the water in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket? Or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?" God is also infinitely majestic over all the idols and the gods. Isaiah 40:18, 20 says, "To whom then will you compare God? What image will you compare him to? As for an idol, a craftsman crafts it and the goldsmith overlays it with gold and fashions silver chains for it. A man too poor to present such an offering selects wood that will not rot. He looks for a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not topple." Well, our God isn't made of gold or silver or wood and He will never topple. He doesn't need to be nailed down, no chains need to be put on Him to support Him. He is an infinite and mighty God and all of the idols and gods of the nations are nothings. God is also infinite, and majestic over all the nations themselves including their kings and princes and rulers and all the mighty men and women of the earth.

So he says in Isaiah 40:20-22, "He sits enthroned above the circle of the Earth, and its people before him are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princes to nothing and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground then he blows on them and they wither and the whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff." And so because of this God is infinitely great and majestic over all of time and history. He rules over history. In Isaiah 41:4, he says this, "Who has done this, and carried it through calling forth the generations from the beginning." Listen to this. "I the Lord with the first of them and with the last, I am He." God calls forth each generation by His sovereign power. He knits each generation of people together in their mother's wombs and he is with them as they rise to their, the zenith of their power and their strength and their energy, and then they fall off, age, and die. He's with every generation, he was with the first and he will be with the last.

He rules over all of human history. He is omnipotent. He is absolutely immeasurable power. Again, Isaiah 40:26, "Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens, who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls each of them by name. Because of his great power, and his mighty strength, not one of them is missing." He is also infinite in his wisdom and knowledge. Again, Isaiah 40:28, "Do you not know, have you not heard the Lord the everlasting God, is the creator of the ends of the Earth, he will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom."

And yet how incredibly gentle and tender is this infinitely majestic God with sinners like you and me. How it says in Isaiah 40:11, "He tends His flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart. He gently leads those that have young." So the scope of this God is immeasurable. The scope of Almighty God from his tenderness, all the way up to measuring out the Cosmos with the breadth of his hand.

So Isaiah pictures a God who is both terrifyingly immense in His power and knowledge, but also meek and lowly and tender-hearted in dealing with sinners. The display of the glory of this great God is the center piece of Isaiah 40 through 66. And so it says in Isaiah 40:9, "You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain you who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, Lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up. Do not be afraid, say to the towns of Judah, behold your God." That is my privilege today, I get to do that. I get to just say to you the towns of Judah spiritually, Zion, spiritual Zion, "Open your eyes and behold your God. And there is no problem in your life that even comes close to his capacities and his power and his grace, and his love, for you. So just behold, your God." How are you going to do that? Listen to the Word. Because faith is the eyesight of the soul, and by hearing God's Word, we see our God who cannot be seen. First theme.

Second theme. The sinfulness of the idolatrous human race. The wickedness of idolatry is a major theme of Isaiah 40 through 66. He mentions it again and again. This great God of ours, this great God of Isaiah 40-66 is a jealous God. He created each of us to love him, to cherish him, to worship him, to live openly for him. That's why He created you and me. And so he says in Isaiah 42:8, "I am the Lord, that is My name. I will not give My glory to another or My praise to idols." He's jealous over his glory and over his place in your heart. But instead sadly, tragically the human race, all of the human race, not just the Jews, under Manasseh and not just the Babylonians, with Bel and Nebo and all that, not just them, not just those totem pole worshipping Aboriginal tribes or whatever, not just all people apart from his sovereign grace are idolaters.

Here, I'm going to reach to Romans 1:25 for the best definition of idolatry. "They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the creator who's forever praised. Amen." That is idolatry. When you exchange the worship you should be giving to God and you're worshipping, living for, ultimately living for some created thing, you are an idolater. And all of us were idolaters apart from the saving grace of God. God is at war with the idols in Isaiah 40-66, at war with them. He hates them and he's fighting them. Idols are mentioned 19 times in these chapters. So again and again, he brings them up. And as I mentioned, he challenges them probably four or five times to a duel. He wants to take them on. I love that part that I already quoted to you where He says, "Do something. But you're nothing, you don't even exist." But our God is the living God and so he wants to challenge the idolatry that is rife in our culture, our time. And let's be specific. The idolatry that tempts your own hearts, too. It is dangerous to read about the idolatry of the Jews or the idolatry of the Babylonians and say, "What wicked people, they are, glad I'm not like that."

So God through Isaiah the prophet mocks the idols, makes fun of them. We've already seen that some of it, how these idols have to be nailed down or they'll topple. You remember the memorable passage in Isaiah 44, where you've got this guy who goes out and selects a worthy piece of wood, drags it home, cuts it in half and uses half of it to cook his dinner, and warm himself in his workshop, and then uses the other half and carves it and makes it into an idol and he bows down and worships it and says, "Save me, you are my god." And in case you missed the details, he goes back over it. Half of it he used to cook his meal and the other half he bows down and prays to it. It's just mockery.

So, idolatry is exposed. God's hatred for idolatry is revealed, but the idolatry of the entire human race is also clearly unfolded as well. You know that Hezekiah led the Jews of Judea in a revival of true religion, biblical religion. Got rid... Finally got rid of the high places. Had everyone worship in the pattern of the Law of Moses. But then he died and his son Manasseh took his place and vigorously led them all back into wicked idolatry, including to the point of sacrificing one of his own sons, a descendant of David, a son of David, in the fire to Molech. Well that brought about the exile to Babylon, it brought about the punishment of God. Judah indulges in idolatry, and this is the very reason why Judah will be sent into exile. Listen to Isaiah 42:17-19. "Those who trust in idols, who say to images, you are our gods will be turned back in utter shame. Hear you deaf, look you blind and see. Who is blind, but my servant, and deaf like the messenger I send? Who is blind like the one committed to me, blind like the servant of the Lord?"

Well, that's Judah. But all the nations are doing the same thing. And Isaiah 46:1, the prophet exposes the gods of Babylon, Bel and Nebo. You know Bel from which you get the name Belshazzar, the final king of Babylon. Nebo from which you get the name Nebuchadnezzar. These were the two key gods of Babylon. And they are exposed as the false burdens that they are, they're heavy, made of gold and they have to be loaded on ox-carts and the oxen, they're stumbling under the weight of these things. And it's saying, the crushing idolatry of the world will destroy everyone who worships those idols. So this is a problem to the ends of the earth.

Theme number three. The wrath of God in the judgment of sins. This is a major theme throughout the Bible, but in Isaiah 40-66. God is actively involved in human history. He's not the absentee god of Dius who started the universe up like a complex clock mechanism, wound it up and let it run. That's not the God of the Bible, it sure isn't the God of Isaiah 40-66. No, he gets involved, he moves out and one of the number one things that God does in these chapters, is pours out his wrath on idolatrous, wicked, sinful, nations. His just judgments on them, for their sins. God will judge, first his own people and purify them of their sins by slaying the wicked.

Isaiah 51:17-20 says this, "Rise up oh Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord, the cup of His wrath, you who have drained to its dregs, the goblet that makes men stagger. Of all the sons she bore there was none to guide her. Of all the sons she reared there was none to take her by the hand. These double calamities have come upon you. Who can comfort you? Ruin and destruction, famine and sword, who can console you? Your sons have fainted, they lie at the head of every street, like antelope caught in a net. They are filled with the wrath of the Lord, and the rebuke of your God." So God's judgment began with the house of God, with the Jews, as he pours out his wrath on them, who said that they were Jews, but they really weren't, only in name, only. But they were generally... They were genuinely idolaters and God poured out his wrath on them. And because of that, he destroyed Jerusalem and his temple, the place where he wanted his name to dwell forever but he destroyed it, God did, by the Babylonians.

So it says in Isaiah 64:11, "Our holy and glorious temple where our fathers praised you has been burned with fire. All that we treasured lies in ruins." Why? Because of the judgment of God. But God in his grace, and in his mercy, restrained his wrath completely from the Jews and by his sovereign grace left them a remnant, chosen by grace, he didn't completely exterminate them. The sons and daughters of Abraham, still exist, and God reserved for himself a remnant. He left a remnant. Now, beyond the issue of the Jews, Judah and Jerusalem, we have the consistent activity of God in judging this nation, or that nation, or the other nation for their sins. He's not just a national tribal deity, just the God of the Jews, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but he is the God of the entire world. And he is just and righteous and will judge every nation on earth for their sins. This is the God of the whole world. Not just of the Jews.

And so, in Isaiah 63:6 he says, "I trampled the nations in my anger. In my wrath, I made them drunk and poured their blood on the ground." And then 66:15-16, it says, "Behold the Lord is coming with fire and his chariots are like a whirlwind, he will bring down his anger with fury and his rebuke with flames of fire, for with fire and with his sword the Lord will execute judgment upon all men and many will be those slain by the Lord." So we have many cities devastated, many people slaughtered. And the culmination of the righteous judgment of God for sin is hell and that is also pictured in the words of Isaiah the prophet. If you were to go to the very last verse in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah 66:24, you don't have to turn there now, but just listen, this is the very last verse, this is the last word. Isaiah 66:24. "And they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me. Their worm will not die nor will their fire be quenched and they will be loathsome to all mankind." That's the end of the prophecy.

Well, Jesus picked up on those same words and used them to describe hell. In Mark 9 he says, "If your eye cause you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched." Isaiah 66:24.

Theme number four. The wonderful good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen. The good news that there is a Savior from this just wrath of God and his name is Jesus. Jesus the atoner of sins, the Redeemer, the suffering servant, Jesus Christ. No one in the Old Testament saw the ministry of Jesus Christ more clearly than Isaiah the prophet. No one. It was Isaiah that saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple. John 12 tells us, Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus' glory and spoke about Him.

But he saw most specifically the promise of a full payment for all of our sins. Now it's going to begin and I'm going to start with this next week. Isaiah 40:1-2. I'm going to preach three sermons on Isaiah 40. After that, I will try, not promising, but I'll try to keep to a chapter a week. We'll do our best. But I can't do that in Isaiah 40. And look how Isaiah 40:1-2 begins. "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins." Well, there's only one way that sin gets paid for in the Bible and that's with the shed blood of Jesus Christ. There is no other atoning sacrifice, no other atoning sacrifice. So, how then did Jerusalem's sins get paid for? How then is there forgiveness?

Well, the servant of the Lord, so called in the book of Isaiah, this is Jesus. And Isaiah 49:6 says that he is the light for the Gentiles. There's an Intra-Trinitarian conversation there in Isaiah 49:6. God the Father says to God the Son, what his mission is going to be. He says, "It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth." That's Jesus' mission to be the light for the Gentiles that He may bring salvation to the ends of the earth. And so we have this term Redeemer, or redeem. The term redeem or Redeemer is used 22 times in these 27 chapters. Again and again, we have this idea of redemption or redeeming. The word means to buy a slave out of slavery by the payment of a price or to buy a captive out of captivity by the payment of a price. That's what redeeming is.

Now Judah and Jerusalem, the Jews will be captives in Babylon, they have to be bought out from Babylon, they have to be redeemed. And so this is the language used in Isaiah 48:20. "Leave Babylon, flee from the Babylonians. Announce this with shouts of joy and proclaim it. Send it out to the ends of the earth; say, 'The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob.'" So when the remnant went back to the promised land, when they went back, they were redeemed. Yeah, but the payment hadn't been made yet. It's like a big, grand, glorious redemptive history IOU. An Intra-Trinitarian IOU. Jesus would shed his blood to pay the price of that redemption. That's the only payment there could ever be. And then Isaiah 52:9-10, it says, "Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God." The whole world is in slavery to idolatry and to sin. The whole world is under the righteous judgment and wrath of God. We all deserve it. And Jesus Christ is the Redeemer. Not just for the Jews, that's two small a thing, said God. But a Savior to the ends of the earth for every tribe, and language, and people, and nation, everyone.

And so it says in Isaiah 59:20, "The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins." So the Redeemer is coming. Now, Isaiah 53 is the clearest depiction of how that redemption would come about. Without the shedding of blood there's no forgiveness, the book of Hebrews tells us. And Isaiah 53 tells us who's going to shed his blood. And it says, in Isaiah 53:4-6 of this suffering servant who is Jesus. "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet, we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted, but He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds, we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." But that's not enough there in Isaiah 53, you also have a clear depiction of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. He wouldn't merely die, he wouldn't merely be pierced for our transgressions on the cross and shed his blood, but on the third day, God would raise him from the dead.

And so we have also in Isaiah 53:9, "He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth." Verse 11. "After the suffering of his soul he will see the light of life and be satisfied; and by his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many." He was put to death for our sins but raised to life for our justification. How awesome is that.

Theme number five. The spread of the word of this gospel, and the call of the Gospel to the ends of the earth. this is the powerful Word of God. You've already heard it alluded to. "All men are like grass and all their glory is like the flower of the field." Isaiah 40:6-8. "The grass withers and the flowers fall when the breath of the Lord blows on it. Surely, the people are grass. The grass withers, and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God stands forever." And then you heard Damien read so beautifully Isaiah 55:10-11 "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and will achieve the purpose for which I sent it." So God's going to unleash this powerful force in the world called his Word. What we know is the gospel of Jesus Christ, he's going to unleash it. And he's going to let it do it's powerful work and it will not come back empty, it's going to come back with what he intended to achieve having been done.

And he has in mind the ends of the earth. What do we mean by that? Every tribe and language and people and nation. Isaiah is the prophet of the Gentiles. You could call him that. He's talking again and again about us. And he says, there in Isaiah 42:12, "Let them give glory to the Lord and proclaim his praise in the islands." What are the islands? Far away places. If you're living in Jerusalem, the islands means the ends of the earth.

We've already seen that in Isaiah 49:6, "That you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth." Isaiah 52:15 says, "So will he sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of Him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand." This is the spread of the Gospel predicted in the Book of Isaiah. It's going on right now. And so there are these messengers of good tidings. Isaiah 52:7, "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, 'Your God reigns.'" How beautiful are the feet of those who bring that good news. And then listen to this Isaiah 66:19, "I will set a sign among them and I will send some of those who survive to the nations." I'm going to send them out to the nations, "to Tarshish," that's Spain, that's like Gibraltar. That's a long way away from Jerusalem when you don't have very good sailing vessels. "I'm going to send them "to Tarshish, to the Libyans and Lydians (famous as archers), to Tubal and Greece, and to the distant islands that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory among the nations."

That's clear missions, friends, in Isaiah 66:19. And at the center of that message is a call to repentance and faith. Isaiah 45:22, "Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth." That's repentance. Turn, turn away from your idolatries, turn away from your wickedness and away from your sin, turn unto me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth. Isaiah 45:22. Isaiah 53:1, "Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" When God reveals his arm, people believe, that's what happens. They believe and in that belief they are saved from their sins. Simple justification by faith. Isaiah 59:20, "The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins."

And so, we have going out to the ends of the earth this invitation to free grace which you heard again, read for us already. How beautiful is this? Isaiah 55:1-2, "Come to me all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." And then later in that same chapter Isaiah 55:6-7, "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call on Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man, his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God, and he will freely pardon."

So I just want to stop right now, this ultra light flying over mountain ridges, and just stop for a moment and say, have you ever done this? Have you ever called on the name of the Lord for the salvation of your soul? Have you sought the Lord while he may be found? May I say more accurately, are you seeking the Lord while he may be found? It's not just once, that's just the first time when you come to Christ, then you'll be seeking him the rest of your life while he may be found, and you're finding him day after day, by the Spirit. But have you done that? Do you know for certain that your sins are forgiven you through repentance and faith in Christ? You're included in all of this, you're included in Isaiah 40 through 66. You're among those nations that are there to the ends of the earth. Have you repented, and trusted in him?

Number six. God's restoration of Israel and the Promised Land itself. Real quickly. God is going to restore Israel, He's going to rebuild Jerusalem. He says it very plainly in Isaiah 44. Cyrus is going to allow the remnant to go back, he's going to say to the rubble filled towns of Judah, "Let it be rebuilt," and to Jerusalem, "Let it be restored," and of the temple, he will say, "Let its foundations be laid." By the way, that must have been a shock in Isaiah's day. "Oh, any word from the Lord?" "Yes. Yeah. There is." This is Hezekiah's day now, everything's going well. Things are flourishing, things are going really well. Everybody's high places removed. He said, "The good news is, God is going to move Cyrus the Great to rebuild the temple." "Rebuild it?"

"Well yeah, he's going to... Well, he's going to have the foundations laid after him then it'll get rebuilt." "Lay the foundations of the temple." "But we have a good temple. It's running real well." "Yeah, well let me tell you what's going to happen to that temple." Well, God ordained that that temple be destroyed but he also ordained that it be rebuilt and that a small remnant of Jews would come back to that pile of rubble that was Jerusalem and under Nehemiah, rebuild the walls and the city itself, and under Ezra and Haggai rebuild the temple even though it was smaller. And why did he want to do all that? Because he was excited about a small number of 40,000 Jews returning? No, to set the stage for Jesus, so that Jesus could say to the Samaritan woman, "Salvation is of the Jews," and that would mean something. And so, he's setting up a play... A set on a play with curtains, and with everything needed setting it up, so Jesus could come and die there.

He would restore it, but bigger than all that, the language of restoration of a remnant streaming back to Jerusalem, it's spiritual language for the success of the Gospel. And God is going to pour out his Spirit and it's going to rain down like righteousness, it says in Isaiah 45, that the Spirit is going to rain down and his, God's, sons and daughters are going to spring up by the sovereign power of the Spirit. If you're a child of God today, you're included in that prophecy, you're one of the sons and daughters of Abraham, you sprung up by the sovereign power of the Spirit and you are now flourishing for the glory of God. That's the restoration of the Jewish nation. So yes, physical, but ultimately spiritual. And in the end, he's going to be restoring the land itself. Lots of environmental verses in Isaiah. God has a lot of interest in what's happening to planet Earth and he's going to be restoring all of it.

Ultimately, number six or seven, the theme, "the New Heavens and the New Earth". Ultimately He's going to build a new Jerusalem, Isaiah 60, and the light of this new Zion will shine, and the glory of Lebanon will come and all of the glory of the gentile nations will flow in, and all of the Gentile converts, let's put it in that language, will beautify the New Jerusalem with their faith in Christ. And they will live there forever and ever as Peter calls us, living stones in that eternal sanctuary, that eternal temple, we're going to be there and we're going to beautify that place, every tribe and language and people and nation. And it's going to be majestic.

And it says in Isaiah 60, "No longer will violence be heard in your land, nor ruin or destruction within your borders but you will call your wall salvation and your gates praise. And the sun," listen to this, "The sun will no more be your light by day or the moon, your light by night." Does that sound familiar? Revelation 21 coming right from Isaiah. "For the Lord will be your everlasting light and your God will be your glory." And then finally, the New Heavens, and the New Earth, Isaiah 65, "Behold I will create New Heavens and a New Earth. The former things will not be remembered nor will they come to mind, but be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create. For I'll create Jerusalem to be a delight and it's people a joy, and I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take the light of my people, the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more." That's the new Jerusalem. Isaiah saw all of that? Yeah, and more besides. So come in the next number of weeks to hear some of these sermons from Isaiah because these themes are going to enrich us time and again.

Application number one, come to Christ, number two, stand in awe of fulfilled prophecy, stand in awe of it. Stand in awe of this Bible, this miracle that we carry around and underestimate all of it, stand in awe of what's in it, and be comforted that your God is such a mighty God that He can dwarf all of your problems. And so, as we sang earlier, when you pass through the fire you're going to make it all the way through, you're not going to be consumed. When you go through the waters you're not going to drown. The fire and the water are not for your destruction if you're a child of God, but for your purification, and he's going to strengthen you through all of that. So pray for me as I prepare for next week, I look forward to meeting you again on Isaiah 40 next week. Close with me in prayer.

There will come a day, and I look forward to that day more and more as time goes on, when this statement will come true, "There will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain." Aren't you yearning for that day? "No more death, mourning, crying and pain." And then, as the verse continues, "For the old order of things has passed away." And the very next verse, Revelation 21:5, says, "Behold, I am making everything new." Isn't that awesome? God is at work, even now, making everything new, transforming everything.

Now, I read in a book some time ago, that, "The most powerful single event on Earth is a fully mature hurricane." And the individual who made that statement did a scientific analysis of the energy of a fully mature hurricane, compared it to the power of the nuclear arsenal of the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and found that it was less. "The most powerful single event on the surface of the Earth is a fully mature hurricane." Alright, fine, that's what the scientists, the meteorologists, would tell us. That would put them in their heyday, to be able to say that. But can I add one word? Let's just add one word. The most powerful single physical event on Earth is a mature hurricane. I would say that the most powerful event on Earth is not physical, but spiritual. It is the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and then the effect on the heart of an individual under the influence of the Holy Spirit who hears that Gospel, and is transformed from death to life. That is the most powerful moment on Earth." And isn't it interesting that the most powerful physical event on Earth is destructive? But the most powerful spiritual event on Earth is way beyond constructive, it brings life, even eternal life. Isn't that God's way? And so, as we stand on Earth today, and as we look out, and we see all the glory, and the beauty of this physical world. How many of us have been to national parks, or to scenic coastlines, or to mountains, or different places, and you can think, even now, of the images of beauty that flow in. And the Scripture tells us that this world, physically, is under a curse. Because of Adam's sin, the world is groaning in some sense, groaning for liberation from the chains, the bondage that's on this physical order. Because of sin, the world is in bondage to decay and futility. We can see that, not just in hurricanes, but in all of the natural disasters, and erosion, and all of those things, and then we can see it in our own bodies as we age, and we can see it in friends or ourselves as we have dreaded diseases, or even as we face death, we know that the physical creation is groaning and yearning for the new creation.

"The most powerful event on earth is not physical, but spiritual. It is the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and then the effect on the heart of an individual under the influence of the Holy Spirit who hears that Gospel, and is transformed from death to life."

But God is at work in this world, making everything new. And the theologians use this language of "already" and "not yet," and I want to apply that to what I want to talk about, as a centerpiece of my message today, the new creation. There is a sense in which the new creation is already here, and there's a sense in which it's not here yet, and it's already here in the souls of the redeemed. It's already here in the body of Jesus Christ resurrected from the dead. In those ways, it's already here, but in every other way, it's not here yet, but it's coming, and that should make us joyful, amen. Then we should be filled with hope and filled with joy that someday the King seated on His throne will say, "It's finished. There's no more death. Death is gone forever. There's no more mourning, no more crying, no more pain. It's gone. The old things are done."

But now, we yearn while we're still in the old order of things, and we still feel physical pain, and we're still seeing people die, and it's still breaking our hearts. And we understand the current events, and we look at this, and we say, "Well, it's not here yet." But still, we should be filled with hope, because the Gospel is at work. It's at work secretly around the world. Jesus told an incredible parable about, the Kingdom of Heaven. It’s like yeast that a woman took in and hid. She encrypted it, she hid the yeast in a large amount of flour, until little by little, secretly, it permeated the whole dough, and the dough rose, and it was ready to bake. So, the Gospel, for 20 centuries, in a hidden, secret way, has been permeating this world and doing its secret work. You can't see it with your eyes, though you can see the fruit of it. You can see the fruit in a Christian's life, in a transformed life, you can see that. But the real work of transformation is internal, it's hidden, it's spiritual, and the power for that transformation is the Gospel. As Paul says in Romans 1:16, "I'm not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. First for the Jew, and then for the Gentile." It also says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "If anyone is in Christ, [what?] he is a new creation." The old is gone. Behold, everything has become new. And that's an awesome thing. And so, today, for the last time, I get to preach from the Book of Galatians, the last section of Galatians.   I think the clearest, careful articulation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the Bible is found in the Book of Romans, but I think the second clearest is here in Galatians. And some of the very same themes that shine, and are elaborated on in Romans, are sketched out a little more briefly here in the Book of Galatians, and so we have a chance to look at it.

Again, remember the context of Galatians, why the Apostle Paul wrote it so many centuries ago. Paul was a frontier, trail blazing, church planting apostle to the Gentiles. He resolved to go over the Gospel, had never been proclaimed before, so he wouldn't be building on someone else's foundation, and he was brought in due time to the region of Galatia, modern-day Turkey, and preached the Gospel there. And with tremendous effectiveness too he left behind him a trail of churches there in that region of beautiful, Gospel-centered healthy churches, and he left, and went on with his work. But sometime after he left, some false teachers came, Jewish men who claimed to be followers of Christ, and claimed to be preaching the Gospel of Christ, but they weren't. They were preaching a toxic, poisonous mixture of faith in Jesus, plus obedience to the law of Moses, equals salvation from sin. And so Paul heard about this, was devastated by it, and wrote Galatians back to those churches, to try to win them back to the true gospel. And so in Galatians 1, Paul writes to express his tremendous chagrin, his grief that in such a short amount of time, they've turned their back on the true gospel, and turned to what he calls, "Another gospel, which truly is no gospel at all." Gospel means good news. It's not good news that you can earn your salvation by perfect obedience to the law. How is that good news? It's not. And so he wrote to them saying, "It's no G\gospel at all." And "if even we, or an angel from heaven, if anyone should come to you, and ever preach a different gospel, let him be eternally condemned."

And Paul then goes on in Galatians 1, and on into Galatians 2, to give his own history with the gospel, how God worked in his life. You know the incredible story of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, and how he was, we would have to say, the least likely convert in the world the day that he was converted, and how God called him out of darkness into light, the light of the resurrected glory of Jesus that met him on the road to Damascus and changed everything for him. And God, at that moment, called him into his service, and gave him instruction in the Gospel. And he wasn't taught the gospel by any man. He wasn't handed it by the apostles. No one told him. It was just Christ, through the Spirit, instructed him in the true gospel, and he began to preach it right away in Damascus, and then after some time, in Arabia, as he had time to meditate on the gospel, and understand more fully its nature, its doctrines, its implications. He was unleashed into Satan's world, and started preaching the gospel with great conviction, and boldness, and power. And yes, he met the apostles in Jerusalem. They shook his hand, gave him the right hand to fellowship. They saw that God was at work in him among the Gentiles, the same way he was at work in them among the Jewish churches, and they were on the same team. They weren't preaching a different message.

And then, in the middle of Galatians 2, he makes it very plain what that message is. The heart of the gospel is justification by faith alone apart from works of the law. That's the heart of the Gospel. How can a sinner be made right with God? How can we, who have violated the laws of God, stand holy and blameless in the sight of such a Holy God? His eyes are like blazing fire. His feet are like burnished bronze. We cannot survive Judgment Day without an atoning sacrifice, without forgiveness from Almighty God. And so, in the middle of Galatians 2, he says, "We know. We Jewish believers know. We've come to the conviction that we are not justified by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ alone." It's the only thing. And so to try to mix in the laws of Moses, it's poisonous. And that's what these Judaizers were doing. They were the ones in Acts 15:1-5, you can see what they were saying. "‘The Gentiles must be circumcised, and required to keep the law of Moses,’ and unless you," he said that they would say to the Gentile converts, "Unless you are circumcised, and unless you obey the law of Moses, you cannot be saved. You're going to hell if you don't follow meticulously the ceremonial laws of Moses, all the laws. You will not be saved."

Well, Paul says, "We Jewish Christians know that that's not true. We know that a man, a woman, a boy or girl, no one is justified except by simple faith in Jesus." That's the doctrine of justification by faith alone and that's the centerpiece of it. And then, in Galatians 3, and on into 4, he supports this from the Old Testament. He supports it from the example of Abraham, who believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. That's the Gospel. It's been the same all the way through. No sinner has ever been made right by obedience to the law. That's the nature of legalism, by the way. That's what it is. You know you've sinned. You've violated the Law of God. You know that. What do you do about it? Legalism says what you do about it is obey the law. Present and or future obedience to the law will atone for past disobedience to the law. That's legalism. But that cannot be true. It isn't true.

And so Paul does an incredible job in Galatians 3 of unfolding how this has been the Gospel all along. Old Testament saints looked ahead to Christ crucified and resurrected. We New Testament saints, we look back by faith to the same. But it's always been the same. Individuals have always been justified by faith apart from works of the law. That's the Gospel. He does an incredible job defending it and unfolding it. Now, the most obvious thing we can think about, is if we're justified by faith in Christ, and not by works, then it doesn't matter how we live, they would say. If we're completely forgiven, apart from works, then we can, as he says in Romans, "Go on sinning, so that grace may increase." He deals with that in Galatians a little differently by talking about the war between the flesh and the spirit.

When you become a Christian, you're born again, you're made a new creation by the power of the Holy Spirit of God. And the Holy Spirit enters you, you are adopted as a son or daughter of the living God, and you become a temple of the living God. He says in 1 Corinthians 6, that this indwelling Spirit is mighty against wickedness and evil. And he takes that law, the moral Law of God, which is summarized in this way, "Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself, and writes it on your heart, if you're genuinely born again." And then by the power of the Spirit, he works out a whole new kind of life, in which you hate wickedness, you hate evil, you hate violation and transgression of the law, and yet, the whole time, you know you're forgiven, even if you should sin. That's beautiful, that's Christianity. You know you're justified by faith, not by works. When you sin, you don't try to go off and do good works. You go back to the cross, you go back to faith, and repent, and you ask for cleansing.

Yet you live an increasingly holy life, in which the fruit of the Spirit is on display in your life. That, dear friends, as I've said, is your best life now. Apologies to anybody that might have used that phrase before, but that is your best life now. That is the fruit of the Spirit, Amen. That's the best you can ever do, doing the works of God, filled with the Spirit, characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. That's what the Spirit works in you, not the wicked acts of the flesh. It's genuine Christianity, that's what he's been saying in Galatians. At some point, I’ll begin today's sermon, so at some point. But that's a summary of the Book of Galatians, that's what Paul has been saying, that's the Gospel. Isn't that good news, that you can and are forgiven, simply by faith, and not by works? It'll never be your works that makes you right with God, but only faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. But now, we have the indwelling Holy Spirit, and we're able to live an increasingly holy life, bringing forth fruit, and keeping with repentance, and living a godly life.

Now, here at the end, he's going to back to some of these themes again, one more time, and if you hadn't heard any of the preaching before in Galatians, if this is your first Sunday here, it wouldn't make much sense. Circumcision doesn't mean anything. Uncircumcision, what is that? Well, now you understand what he means by that. The Judaizers, these false teachers were saying, "You had to be circumcised in order to be saved. You have to follow the law of Moses," and now, Paul is going to address that. So let's begin right in the middle, in verse 16, he's going to promise peace and mercy to a category of people in verse 16. Its an infinitely rich treasure, "peace and mercy with God are given to all who follow a certain rule." That's what he says in verse 16, even "to the Israel of God." So how valuable is peace with God? How valuable is that, to know that, not only just that you're at peace with God, and have peaceful feelings in your heart, and your relationship with God? That's a good thing. It's a good thing to have a clear conscience. It's a good thing to be freed from guilt. That's a good thing.

It's the better thing for God to be at peace with you. And in the Gospel, if you have been justified by faith in Jesus, you have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. God is at peace with you. How awesome is that? And not only that, but he talks about mercy, the mercy of God, which Lamentation says, "God's mercies are new every morning." God continues to lavish mercy on you, to not treat you as your sins deserve, to give you healing of your diseases, to give you blessings that you don't deserve. God just pouring out peace and mercy on you, and that's the blessing, the benediction that he gives, peace and mercy to all who follow a rule, who walk by or live by a certain rule. That's what it literally says, "Peace and mercy to all who walk by this rule." 'Walk' means live your daily life in light of, minute details of how you live your life, how you get up, how you go back down to bed, and everything in between, how you eat, how you dress, how you speak, everything, just how you walk. That's what 'walk' means, how you live, minutely, your daily life. "Peace and mercy to you who walk by a certain rule."

Now, the word 'rule' is in the Greek 'kanon,' from which we get the 'canon,' etcetera. It means a rule or measurement of what's right, a certain standard, there's a certain rule that's laid down, this particular rule. Now, what is that rule? Well, you'll have to go back one verse, look at verse 15, "Neither circumcision, nor uncircumcision means anything." Neither one means anything, it doesn't matter. What counts is a new creation. Peace and mercy to everyone who walks according to that. That's what he's saying. So those are the Christians, those are the ones who understand that the only thing that matters is a new creation, and peace and mercy to you, if you understand that. This is the rule. And so do you understand that all that matters is a new creation? And the key thing is, how do you understand your standing with God? How do you deal with your sin? What do you do when you feel guilty? When you know you violated the laws of God, what are you reverting to?

Are you trusting in... There's basically two religions that are in the world, self-salvation through obeying some moral standard. That's one version. And the other is salvation by sovereign grace, through the finished work of Christ on the cross. Those are the two options. Self-salvation, there are a lot of versions of that. But John MacArthur used an image that I thought was helpful. It's kind of like this, like walking through a supermarket, and there's all these packages, and all of this different colorful trappings, but you open it up, and it's the same tasteless, death-producing sawdust inside each one of those world religions. They're all the same, even though they have different outside packages. It's self-salvation by living according to a certain moral standard that they tell you.

But we Christians, we know that that doesn't work. There's no way you can live up to it. There's no way you can use it to atone for past sins. God didn't approve of it. The only law he ever gave to the world, which is approved, is the law of Moses, and he said that it will not save you. All the rest is just man-made laws, and they certainly won't save you. There's only two options: Self-salvation or salvation by grace through faith in Christ. That's it. And if you understand that, and if you have, in fact, been made a new creation by repentance and faith in Christ, you're going to live according to that. You are free to live out that freedom, a freedom from wickedness and evil, a freedom to serve others, and to love, and to be characterized by the fruit of the Spirit. You are going to walk according to that rule, that's salvation. "Peace and mercy to you," that's what he's saying, "Who walk according to the understanding that all that matters is a new creation."

I've gone to the center, let's go back to the beginning now, and look. Verse 11, "See what large letters I use, as I write to you with my own hand?" Why does he do that? Well, first of all, I believe the Book of Galatians is pouring from Paul's heart like red lava. He is so passionate in this book. You can read all of his Epistles, I don't think you'll find any other Epistle that has as much passion, and as much love, but also, you can sense some frustration. He just says harsh things in it that are surprising sometimes.

 And I think and scholars tell us that (and you can find it), generally Paul dictated his letters to a secretary who would write it down. I love it when Tertius slips his own name in there in Romans. Who wrote the Book of Romans? "I, Tertius did." Alright. It's real good stuff, isn't it? Well, he... It was Paul that dictated it, but here at the end, it seems like he grabs the pen and he writes in big letters. And they say that probably it's because he had problems with his eyesight, maybe from the scales that fell from his eyes, we don't really know, but it's possible that he had trouble, that this was the thorn in the flesh, or this was the illness that led him to Galatia. He said in Galatians 4 that they would have torn out their eyes to give them to him. So it's an odd statement if he... Well it makes sense if he had some problem with his eyes.

So, what he's saying here is, "I'm writing this, so you know I wrote this." This has the mark of authenticity, but more than that, it has the mark of passion. It's like big font here. "This is how I write with my own hand," he says. And then, he makes his final passionate attack on the Judaizers in verses 12-13. Look at it, "Those who want to make a good impression outwardly are trying to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. Not even those who are circumcised obey the law, yet they want you be circumcised that they may boast about your flesh." This is one last time to go at these Judaizers. "Those who want to make a good impression outwardly," he calls them.

The essence of their message to the Galatians, these Gentile converts, is compulsion to be circumcised. They're trying to compel you to be circumcised, that's the thing. "Unless you are circumcised, you cannot be saved," that's compulsion. It's not an option for them, trying to force them in this matter. That's their doctrine. And these are the ones who are trying to make a good impression outwardly, and we'll talk about that in a moment, but they are glorying in the flesh, they preach the Gospel that they do, which is no Gospel at all, the gospel of works, so that they may glory in the flesh, or glory in your flesh, in particular, alright?

They're yearning to boast or to glory in the flesh. Now, the 'flesh' means unaided human effort, self-effort, your own native abilities. They want to boast in that. Now, God hates all of this self-effort toward salvation, he hates it. He's not going to spend eternity listening to it. He will not. As it says in many places, "Let him who boast, boast in the Lord," Amen. We're going to be saved in such a way that we will be completely stripped of all arrogance. All arrogance will be stripped. Zephaniah 3:11 says, "On that day, you will not be put to shame," is Judgment Day, I think. "On that day, you will not be put to shame for all the wrongs you have done to me." Wow. What a statement. Why not? Because of the atoning work of Jesus. And then, he says later, in that same verse, "Never again will you be haughty on my holy hill." So, when he's done saving us, we're not to be haughty, we're not to be arrogant, we are to be so humbled, so humbled, and we're to boast in the Lord.

Now, what are the goals of these Judaizers? Goal number one is to make a good impression outwardly. That's what they do. They look good on the outside. Do you remember how Jesus, in Matthew 23, says, "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like white-washed tombs. You look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside, you're full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside, you appear to people as righteous, but inside, you're full of hypocrisy and wickedness." Well, our God, the God of the Bible looks at the heart. And there is no way the external appearance of goodness is going to save you on Judgment Day. There's no way. That's why we say, "What counts is a new creation." You have to be made new from the inside and that's something you cannot do. You could as easily do open heart surgery on yourself, as take out your own heart of stone and give yourself a heart of flesh. They are equally possible, namely they are impossible. You can't transform yourself from the inside, but God can. Amen? But these folks just want to make a good impression on the outside. They're looking good. They're shiny, and moral, and nice, and all of that, but they are wicked inside.

Their second motive, he says, is to avoid persecution. Later Paul will get to the marks on His body, but they don't want to be beaten up. And if any one of them should defect from that Pharisaism, that Judaizer tendency, they will get ravaged by the pack of wolves that's going after them, going after Paul, that was making life miserable for him. They don't want that. They don't want to be persecuted for the cross of Christ, and so they preach this Judaizers' doctrine. And he says very plainly in verse 13 that they don't obey the law either, truth be told. Look at it in verse 13, "Not even those who are circumcised obey the law." They're not keeping the law. No one is. No one is keeping the law perfectly. Remember we said that. Remember Galatians 3:10? There it says, "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in this book of the law." All the law, all the time, or full condemnation. That's what you get with the law. And no one can survive that. He says in verse 13 here, "Not even those who are circumcised keep the law. "They're all hypocrites. If anyone stands and says, "I am perfectly keeping the law of God," he or she is a hypocrite. It's not true.

And then, we get to that glorious verse 14 that we talked about last week, "But God forbid, [or may it never be], that I should ever glory or boast, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." So, Paul, and we talked about this at length last week, so I don't need to go into it much now, but Paul makes this serious pledge, "I pledge, myself, that I will never boast in anything in myself, except this, I'll talk this way. I am, you all know my resume, I am the one whose life led to the crucifixion of Jesus. That's who I am. My actions, my thoughts, my motives led to the death of Jesus. I'll boast in that. Or I'll boast in the fact that Jesus took that punishment from me. That's what I'll start to boast in. There's nothing to boast in about me. There's nothing to talk about. I'm sinful, but Jesus took away my condemnation. So, may I never boast in anything about myself. I'm not going to glory in my flesh. I'm going to glory in Jesus." And we talked about that last week.

"By whom [he says] the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I to the world." We didn't talk about that much last week, but what does that mean? Well, basically, because I have been crucified with Christ, Galatians 2:20, because of that union, because I've been transformed in the way I think, I now see the world differently than I ever did before. I see the pleasures, and the powers, and the philosophies, and the possessions of this world differently. That looks like a corpse on a cross to me. It's just disgusting. It's not appealing to me. It's worthless to some degree. That's how the world now looks to me. I don't want anything of that. "If Satan were to offer me," Paul would say, "The whole world, all of its glories, I wouldn't turn away from Christ and from the Gospel to receive it, just as Jesus didn't. The world has been crucified to me. And conversely, I've been crucified to the world. So, when the world looks at me, it looks on me as someone worthless." Now, this is true of Paul and it's more and more true of people who boldly step out to challenge Satan's kingdom. It's not necessarily true of every Christian. We will be increasingly despised the more counter-culturally we stand up for Jesus. The more you step out in faith, the more you boldly preach the Gospel, the more you challenge wickedness in this world, the more the world will hate on you and see you as crucified, as worthless. That's what Paul's saying, but that was true of Paul, for sure. "All that matters," he says, "Is a new creation."

Look again at verse 15, "Neither circumcision, nor uncircumcision means anything. What counts is a new creation." Now, if you look back, maybe one page, maybe you have to flip in your Bible, but look back at Galatians 5:6. He makes a similar statement there, but it's a little different, similar, but different. There in Galatians 5:6, he says, "For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision, nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith working through love." We wouldn't look on these as contradictory, but they complement each other. They work together, okay? What counts? Circumcision, uncircumcision doesn't matter. But what matters is faith working through love, faith in Jesus, producing good works.

In Galatians 6:15, he says, what counts is a new creation. Friends, it's the same thing, just different ways of saying the same thing. When you hear the Gospel and the Holy Spirit saves you, works in you, transforms you, you are made into a new creation. Your faith is then going to start working out in love. You're going to start loving God with works of love toward God, works of obedience towards His Law. You're going to going to start working out with love toward neighbors, toward brothers and sisters, Christians. You're going to start... It's going to be a life of works, faith working through love. That is the new creation life.

I just want to stop and ask. Has that happened to you? Is that characterizing you? Can you honestly say, as you look in the mirror that is the law, you look in the Scripture, "I am a new creation by the sovereign grace of God." Can you honestly say that? Some of you... Most of you should be able to say, "Yes." There's no pride in it, I don't think, pride in it. It's just God did this to you. But has he done it? Maybe you're just a guest, a visitor here today. Maybe you're here for the first time. Maybe you're a college student. Maybe you're a senior adult. You might be a visiting scholar. I don't know who you are. But the question I want to ask is, are you a new creation through belief in Christ? Is faith working itself out in love in your life? Has everything been made new?  Like 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Everything's been transformed." Are you a new creation? Have you trusted in Christ? And if not, I plead with you now, repent and believe. Trust in Him. Look to Christ crucified and resurrected. Believe that he died for you, for you personally. And that if he hadn't, you'd deserve hell. But he did, so you don't have to go to hell. You can believe in him and have forgiveness. To me, I think that's the point of the Galatians, indeed of all of Scripture, to take someone from lost, dead in their transgressions and sins, to alive forever in Jesus. Has that happened to you?

Now someday… Someday, there will be a finished work in the physical universe. The new creation's coming. Isn't that amazing? Think about it. You can read about it in Revelation 21 and 22, when there'll be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain, first described by the Prophet Isaiah. And that's where we're going next, God willing, in preaching. I can't wait. Some of you have been waiting for Isaiah 40 for a long time, so we'll get to it. One dear brother said, when I stopped at Isaiah 39, of all things, said, "You brought us to Christmas Eve, but we didn't get Christmas. When are we going to get Christmas?" Christmas for you, if that's what you mean, is coming, God willing, next week, but we're going very, very soon to this.

But in Isaiah 65 and 66, for the first time, we have this phrase, "New Heaven and new Earth." Second Peter calls it, "The home of righteousness." Revelation 21-22 says it's a perfect world, free from all corruption, death, mourning, crying, and pain. Romans 8 says that it is liberated from its bondage to decay. It's going to be beautiful. I believe it'll be very much look like the world we live in now. It's not gonna be some weird sci-fi type place. Sorry to disappoint some of you. But it's going to be like this place, only without the corruption, and the decay, and bondage of sin. And how beautiful will it be? And you will be, if you're redeemed, you will be in resurrection bodies, free from all misery, free from aging, free from death, and you will love being there. And that's where we're heading. That's the end of the new creation and we get there only through faith in Christ.

Now, I want to finish by looking at this amazing new definition of Israel. He says there, "Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God." I'm going to follow that translation. Some translations give you the sense that there are two different blessings he's given, Peace and mercy to the Christians, and then peace and mercy also to the Israel of God. And that's a possible translation, a possible interpretation. But it would fly in the face of everything he's doing in this book. Hasn't he told us Gentiles that we are children of Abraham? Hasn't he told us that through Christ, all of the promises and the covenants in Abraham are fulfilled in us? Aren't we told in other places that the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile has been destroyed by the body of Christ, and now, all those rules and regulations, including circumcision, that separate us are gone? And now, there's this one new man, that's one new person in Christ, that's Ephesians 2. Haven't we been likened to wild olive branches that are grafted into a cultivated tree through faith in Jesus?

And so, I think He's giving a more accurate new covenant definition of Israel as the people of God. Jew or Gentile, doesn't matter, who have repented and believed in Jesus, we are the Israel of God. Jews who are ethnic only, who do not have faith in Christ, are pictured in Romans 11 as having been stripped off, branches stripped off and laying on the ground. Now, if they repent, they can be grafted back in again, for God is able to graft them in. But we, the wild olive shoots... Don't be offended by that. We're all wild olive shoots. We've been grafted into this cultivated tree, nourished from the root system in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What that means for us, as we're about to transition into the Book of Isaiah, is when it makes promises to the House of Israel, and the House of Judah, and when you read that, we can read ourselves in there.

Like the promise of a new covenant in Jeremiah, it's very, very plain. He says in Jeremiah, he says, "The time is coming when I'll make a new covenant," listen, "With the House of Israel and with the House of Judah." What am I supposed to do with that as a Gentile? "Well, I'm happy for them, happy that they're going to get a new covenant. Oh, good, yay, Jews. I'm so glad they get a new covenant." No, no, no. We are included. We, through faith in Jesus, are sons and daughters of Abraham. So we can read that with attentiveness, "And this is the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel. After that time, I'll put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people, and I'll forgive their wickedness, and remember their sins no more." I read all of that coming to me and to you, if you're a Christian. So again and again, we're going to see in Isaiah 40-49, and then beyond, he's going to talk about Jacob, and Israel, and all of that, and we are going to, through the cross, read ourselves into those promises, and find joy in them, Amen. And how sweet is that? That's my understanding of that difficult verse.

Final words from Paul in verses 17-18, he says, "Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." There's the poignancy there, isn't there? He could take off his shirt and show you scars. Lots of them, not a few. You've read his list of sufferings. Remember in 2 Corinthians 11? "Five times, five times I received from the Jews the 40 lashes minus one." Five times, any one of those could have been fatal. Five times! What do you think his back looked like after that? And he said, "I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." "I'm healed, but I'm not healed." So there's physical wounding and there's psychological, there's mental wounding that comes from that.

Remember how the Lord appears to him in Corinthians and says, "Do not be afraid, keep on speaking, and don't be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack you, and harm you." Why is he saying that? Paul needed to hear that. He got tired of getting beaten up. "Three times," he says, "I was beaten with rods." That's eight beatings, eight. "Once I was stoned and left for dead," that's nine now. Nine times a lash, or a rod, or a stone attacked his body as he stood up for Jesus. I believe people like that, who have suffered like that for Christ, get an incredible reward in heaven. Jesus said, "Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in Heaven." But it's also fulfillment of what the Lord said to Ananias, "I'll show him how much he must suffer for my name."

But here he's giving a warning, he said, "I don't want any more trouble from you people. Let no one cause me any more trouble, enough! Because I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." It gives him a moral authority, it challenges me too, and then he finishes with these very familiar words, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers, Amen." Every epistle of Paul begins with, "Grace to you," and ends with, "Grace be with you." It's kinda like you walk into an epistle, you walk into a room of grace, and you're just swimming in grace while you're reading the epistle, and as you go out the exit door at the end, "May grace go with you." What is grace? It's God's settled determination, his determination to do you good who deserve wrath. He's pouring out goodness on you, and grace, and sustaining you. May grace be with you, the grace of our Lord Jesus.

Alright, what applications can we take from this? Well, briefly, I've already given the number one, come to Christ. Come to Christ. Don't leave here unregenerate. I warn you, don't leave here unregenerate. You don't know how long you'll have to be alive. I warn you, flee to Christ. And if you flee to Christ by repentance, and faith, you will find full forgiveness, not because of your works, but because of what Jesus did for you. Flee to Christ.

Secondly, walk, all of you believers, walk by this rule that all that matters is a new creation. More and more meditate on that. May God's power, by His Spirit, be in me to fulfill His Law. I want to walk by that rule. I want to live that kind of life, a Spirit-filled, supernaturally empowered life. I want to be consistently characterized by the fruit of the Spirit, don't you? I want to be that kind of a husband. I want to be that kind of a father. I want to be that kind of a pastor. I want to be that kind of a man, where you interact with me, and you're interacting with the fruit of the Spirit all the time. Now, I'm never going to get to "all the time," but I want it. And I yearn that the new creation life would be flowing through me, and not just in me, I want it in you guys too. I want that flowing in our church.

Big picture in Galatians, continue to be vigilant against both legalism and license, fight them both. They're both wicked, they're both corruptions, and so, let's fight legalism. Let's know that we're justified by faith alone, not by works, but let's not take that so-called freedom, that misunderstanding of freedom, and then go sin as much as we want. That's license, neither one. Understand that we are the new Israel. Any Jew or Gentile that believes in Jesus, we're the Israel of God. That's why he says, "Israel of God," not, "Israel according to the flesh," but "the Israel of God." Understand that, and then read those Old Testament promises, as though they're written to you. I love, in Isaiah 43, He says, "When you pass through the fire, I will be with you. When you pass through the waters, they're not going to overwhelm you." I can read that, even though I'm a Gentile, because I'm a believer in Christ.

I can't wait to preach those promises to you, but those are sweet promises flowing to you. And then, thank God for all of the courageous suffering, like by Paul, that was done to get you the Gospel. You know how many martyrs, brothers and sisters in Christ died, to get you the pure Gospel and protect it from 20 centuries of Satanic attack? It's one of the great reasons to study church history, to honor our brothers and sisters who died to get us an intact Gospel. But secondly, be willing to suffer yourself, in your lifetime, while you have the relay race, that this Gospel might be passed onto the next generation intact. So praise God for those that suffered and be willing to suffer. And then, finally, grace be with you all. Let's close in prayer.

Father, we thank you for the grace that comes to us by studying Galatians. Thank you for all the things that we have learned from Galatians and I pray that we would internalize these lessons. I pray that we would understand the Gospel, that justification is by faith, apart from works of the law, that we would understand the Spirit-filled life that leads to holiness, and joy, and good works. Help us to get those two in the proper order and understanding. And now, be with my brothers and sisters here. We pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches on Galatians 6:14 in the declaration of the Apostle Paul that we should not be prideful, but instead place our confidence in Christ's redemptive work.

This morning I'm going to resume preaching in Galatians. According to my own plans, this will be the second to last sermon that I preach in Galatians. Next week, I'm going to go back over this same ground and preach a more normal expository sermon in Galatians 6:11-18, and that will finish the book, God willing. But this morning I thought it best for us to focus on one verse, in particular, that's had a tremendous impact on my life over the last two months and more. I want to talk about an experience that I've had, actually two different experiences. One I'm going to talk about right away in the sermon and then I’m going to defer the other to the middle or end of the sermon. These things have made a tremendous impact on me, and both of them relevant to the text you heard Andy read a moment ago. Galatians 6:14, "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."

I often go bike riding for exercise, and I take with me my smartphone, which has changed my world. How is it that something can enter your life and then become indispensable to life itself? I don't know how that can work, but it seems that way. At any rate, I was listening to a sermon by John Piper on this text, and it just really, really ministered to me in a very deep, rich, convicting way. It spoke to me in ways that I needed to be spoken to. And I yearn and I've been praying all week to be able to confer that same blessing to you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, but I despair of any natural ability to do it. So I know that only by the Holy Spirit can you be similarly moved, convicted, helped by this kind of sermon. But I'm trusting that this will benefit you. By the time I thought about that, I'd already written the expository sermon that I will preach next week.

The hardest Rubik's Cube for me was which should come first. Should I preach across the text and then zero in, or zero in first and then go back? So I've decided to do this first, and next week, we're going to do little more context work on this verse and try to understand it. But there's a power to taking just one verse sometimes, and just letting it hit you at full impact. And I want to do that today, that's my desire. "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Piper was preaching at that point in a series of four sermons at Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis. The sermon series was entitled "Education for Exaltation." I talked to John about it. It was a fundraiser for their new sanctuary where they worship now. And so this exaltation is another way of understanding the word "boasting," or exalting in something, boasting in something. And so Piper had planned out four sermons on this boasting and this exaltation theme. And this was the third of four. He'd already preached on boasting in God, and then I think boasting in Christ, and then boasting in the cross. But then when he got to this and just started to do the work for that sermon, he realized, at least he felt, that he had made a big mistake, that he didn't fit the scheme at all.

When you look at the verse, it just seems to eliminate all other boasting. So what about those last two sermons we just heard? It's a kind of a jealous exclusive verse, "May I never boast in anything but the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ." May it never be something like that. Paul uses an expression here that's common. If you study Paul, he has these kinds of expressions, and they're translated different ways in different translations. Sometimes, "God forbid," or, "May it never be." It's at a very strong language, like you get in Romans 6, "What then shall we say? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? God forbid," or "May it never be. We died to sin, how can we live in it any longer?" There's a sense of horror, almost. It's just impossible to conceive that this would ever be. Or another verse, 1 Corinthians 6:15, "Do you not know," he says, "that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members with a prostitute? God forbid!" or  "may it never be!" It's just like this horror. It's unthinkable. So you bring that to this verse here, and he's saying it's just, "May it never be." "God forbid that I would boast in anything except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."

And that's strange because Paul boasts in many other things, actually. It's actually a pretty common theme with Paul. I think he uses the word "boast" sometimes, translated glory, etcetera, exalt. He uses this word more than any other biblical writer probably because Paul himself was a very prideful boaster before he came to Christ. He was very proud of his spiritual resume. It occupied his full attention, and he thought much about it. There are many verses in which Paul boasts in things. Like in Romans 5, he actually does it three times. Romans 5:2, he says, "Through Him [through Christ] we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God." Then the next verse, "Not only so, but we also boast in our sufferings. And because we know that suffering produces perseverance…. And then at the end of that section, in Romans 5:11, he says, "Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." 1 Corinthians 1:31, he says "Therefore, as it is written, 'Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord." And then 2 Corinthians 12:9, he says, "My grace is sufficient for you." God was saying to him, "For My power is made perfect in weakness, therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me." In Romans 15, he boasts on the work that God has done through him in planting churches from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum. So he actually does this a lot. How are we to understand this verse? How are we to understand the vehemence, the exclusivity of this verse, "May I never boast in anything, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ"?

Well, the immediate context we'll get to more next week. I'm not going to do much work on it, but he's talking here in direct contrast with the Judaizers, the false teachers who were afflicting these churches that he had planted. And these Judaizers had come in to Galatia after he left, and they were preaching a false gospel, which is no gospel at all, of Christ's work on the cross plus their works in the law equals salvation. And he's just laying that whole thing in Galatians. He's talking about these Judaizers and their attitude, and what they're trying to avoid and all that. In Verse 13, he says, "Not even those who are circumcised obey the law, yet they want you to be circumcised in order that they may boast about your flesh. May I never boast." That's the context, and we'll talk more about that next time.

But this self-glorying boasting is the enemy of the cross. They're diametrically opposed. They're absolutely set against each other. The spiritual resume building that the arrogant human heart does when confronted with its own sinfulness. Very few will say, "I'm not sinful," we acknowledge, but what the normal reaction is, "Yes, but I do these things. Yes, I committed adultery, I committed murder, but I'm basically a good person. I gave $10,000 last year to the homeless shelter." That's the mentality. You're going to run into this again and again. The more active you are on evangelism, you're going to see this attitude again and again. It's not rare. "I try to treat people well. I try to treat people the way I want to be treated... " All of this.

It's amazing how they quote a jumbled version of the law, and they think they meet it, but there's this resume building, this arrogant, independent human heart which seeks to save itself by good works. And when it's achieved, it will stand up on the winner's podium of life with the gold medal of final success around its neck, and say, "How do you like me now?" And let me tell you something, God doesn't want to listen to that for all eternity. And so he has, from before the foundation of the world, established a salvation that will deeply humble us and prevent us from boasting in ourselves. And every step of that salvation, from predestination right straight through justification by faith, sanctification by a cooperation between us and the Holy Spirit, glorification by no cooperation at all, all of it humbles us.

We can talk about that another time. We live in a world full of boasters. We're surrounded by it, and we have that affliction ourselves. So confident in our achievement, so confident in what we can do. If you like sports, it's not long before you are listening to some arrogant boasting. Goes on all the time. I think it must have predated Cassius Clay after he defeated Sonny Liston, but when he just stood and said into the camera, Muhammad Ali, "I am the greatest," and then elaborates on this. Well, it was shocking to some degree. People at least tried to fake humility before that, even though they didn't feel it themselves. But why do that?

I remember when Rickey Henderson, a baseball player, set the all-time record for stolen bases. Slid into third head first, as he did, he knew immediately... He knew where he was in the pecking order, jumps up, rips third base up, and holds it over his head. Then Lou Brock, whose record he had just broken, who was a very humble man, came up and stood next to him, had a microphone set up, and there Rickey Henderson stands next to Lou Brock and says "Today, I am the greatest base stealer of all time," right next to Lou Brock, the former greatest base stealer of all time, I guess. But this is the kind of arrogant boasting we are so accustomed to in our culture. And at the root of it, if you look at it long enough, you understand, it is self-worship. And therefore it is idolatry, and God will not have it.

Paul here in this text has given us a glimpse into what the cross has done to him. In reference to this boasting, "The cross has stripped me forever of prideful boasting." Paul, on the road to the Damascus, realized who he was. He finally understood who he was. The cross gives us so much. It enables us to know who God is, and you can look and see the attributes of God. But in some amazing way, it's a mirror, too, and you can see yourself there. If you know what to look for, you can see yourself as you really are, at the cross. And Paul realized, as Jesus appeared to him in heavenly glory, that he had been completely wrong about Christ, dead wrong.

Christ was not a false prophet and a deceiver of the people. Christ Jesus was Almighty God, radiant in splendor in heavenly glory. And Paul, he was able to see, in the light of that, who he was for the first time, to see himself truly as he really was, a dirty, a filthy rebel, a transgressor. The law probed him at that time and for hours and days immediately after that, and exposed his corruptions, his arrogant tendency to boast in his Jewishness, to boast in his zeal and his legalistic pharisaism, to boast in his religious attainments, to boast in his superiority over all the unwashed Gentiles, his superiority over all average Jews who didn't study or work as hard as he did. Actually his superiority over his classmates, first in his class and all that. Superiority over everyone else, all of that, all of that was just so much stinking rubbish. He saw that in the light of the glory of the resurrected Christ. In the light of the cross, he was able to understand that as Jesus appeared to him with eyes of blazing fire and feet of burnished bronze, and he's able to see himself in the light of that heavenly glory for the first time who he really was.

And so blinded by that heavenly light, Paul fasted and prayed and allowed the law to do its final convicting and converting work in him as he really understood it and he knew he was guilty, guilty, guilty, crushed by the law, he was lifted by the gospel. He came to understand the Cross of Christ in a radically new way. And that verse, "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree," made Jesus' claim to be the Messiah the Savior of the world, had made it seem blasphemous up to that point. How could God's chosen Messiah die under the curse of God? How could He cry out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Didn't make any sense, it just seemed blasphemous. How could someone who was despised and rejected by the Jewish authorities die such a shameful death on a Roman cross?

Now he realized this Jesus was indeed who he claimed to be, the glorious Son of God. So why was he accursed? Well, he understood that Christ had become our substitute, a curse for us, as we saw in Galatians 3:13, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.'" Essential to his new understanding of the cross was the proper understanding of himself. I deserve the wrath of God. That's what I deserve. So, here's the shift. Jesus' claim to be God wasn't blasphemous. Paul's claim to be righteous was blasphemous. That's the shift. They go together. If you understand that Jesus is God and died on the cross under the wrath of God, you understand the cross, you see, "Okay, the real blasphemy is the way I've thought of myself up to this point." And from that moment on he said, "May I never boast in anything except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Yes, Paul does boast of many things, but he would say, "Any good right holy boasting that I do, would not even be possible for me if it weren't for the cross." Well, why is that, Paul? Well, as we said, he boasts in the hope of the glory of God, he boasts in his sufferings, he boasts in God himself, he boasts in the Lord, he boasts in his weaknesses, he boasts in the work that God has done through him in planting churches, he does all that boasting, but he would tell you immediately, "Yes, but I wouldn't even be alive, I wouldn't even be here, you wouldn't be able to talk to me if it weren't for the cross of Christ because I would be condemned to hell. I would not have the leisure to do any other boasting." And so the cross of Christ is the doorway through which you can do all these other wonderful boasting, and you will. You will boast in God and boast in Christ and boast in your sufferings and weaknesses, boast in work that God does through you to his glory. You can do all that as Paul does, but first boast in the cross and understand who you are. The cross spoke a constant message of humility to him. "Paul, you would even be alive if it weren't for the cross."

So what does it mean then to boast in the cross? Well, boasting, as we said, is speaking words of exultation, look what was done, look what was achieved, look at the power behind it, look at the works, look at the resume, "This is what I'm presenting to you as worthy of your esteem, think about this," etcetera. All of that, in our pre-Christ state, tends to be focused on us. "Look at me, look at what I've achieved, look at my powers, my abilities." Paul says, "Enough of that. It's a disgusting topic to me. I don't want to think about it, I don't want to talk about it. I want to boast only in what the cross achieved for me in revealing me to be a sinner and what it revealed about God as a savior." So behind all this is understanding what I truly deserve. "What do I truly deserve?" That's what this is. It's a meditation on that.

Now, you've walked with the Lord a long time, many of you. You've faced this question before, and that's what makes this sermon a little bit difficult for me. I don't think I'm telling any of you, who have been veteran Christians, anything new. The meditation on the theme "What Do I Truly Deserve?" But what I'm finding is that it's under-applied in my life. And I see that every time I take some credit for some good thing or forget to thank God for some good thing, etcetera, or even more commonly in my life, complain bitterly about some negative thing that's happening because I don't really deserve that kind of treatment. And so that's what I want to do for the rest of this sermon, is to try to apply this concept in a way I hope that will be as healing for you out of your bad habits as has been healing for me or starts to heal me out of some of my bad habits.

So what are some biblical facts on that question, "What do I truly deserve?" Well, first, I am a sinner. I have violated God's holy law. Secondly, God is just and righteous and holy, and he will punish sin with perfect wrath. The just punishment of sin is eternity in hell." Hell is described very plainly in the Bible. It's called, in Revelation 20-14, "a lake of fire." It's a place of terrifying torment characterized by wailing and gnashing of teeth, a place of utter darkness, a place of tormenting memories and bitter regrets, and it is eternal. It says in Matthew 25:41, "Then the King will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.'" Eternal fire, that's how Jesus describes it. Revelation 14:11, "The smoke of their torment rises forever and ever." There is no rest day or night for those that are suffering there. So, the cross tells me I deserve to be there right now. Right now. And so do all of you. And that's the key to understanding, "May I never boast in anything except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ," The gracious relief of our just sentence, the just sentence of God against us is meant to humble us, to strip us of boasting in anything but Christ and him crucified. And so we're supposed to take this idea and apply it to two main categories, the blessings you have received from God, all of them, and then the hard things or afflictions that God measures out to you as a loving father and uses for your good. This meditation helps in both categories.

Now, Piper, when he preached this sermon at that point, he was preaching two services a day, and he finished preaching the first service, and a young woman came up to him in between the two services and said, "Pastor John, I understand what you're saying. I do, I get it. But honestly, if I'm really honest, I just don't feel that undeserving." He was so tender with her and dealt with her beautifully. But it hit him, he said, "like a ton of bricks." And so in the second service, he paused at that point and said about to Bethlehem, and I'm saying to you FBC, he pleaded, "Please, feel undeserving. Please, let the word of God work on you until you do. Feel it. Feel the weight of it. Feel undeserving."

And then, having felt undeserving and realizing that God has delivered you from the hell that you deserve by the grace of God, you're able to live your life in the way that he wants you to. Now, I understand that this is probably a mixed group, probably Christians here and non-Christians. So, if you're a Christian, you will never experience hell. Isn't that amazing? Think about that. Ponder that. You will never experience hell, but you deserve to. And it's helpful to know that and to meditate on it. You've been rescued by the grace of God through the cross of Christ, but you'll never experience the hell that Jesus went through for you. You'll never experience that. Or perhaps you're a non-Christian, and God is presently bearing with great patience your continual rebellion against him. Now, rebellion comes in different types. You may be just ignoring him. You may be flaunting yourself in one particular area of your life. You may just not think about these things much and came because someone invited you. It could be all different forms of rebellion, but God is bearing, the Scripture says, "with great patience" and he is pleading with you now as though God himself were making his appeal through me. He's pleading with you be reconciled to God so that you never experience the condemnation of hell. Pleading with you, but you deserve it, either way you deserve it and you're not there. And either way, the fact that you're sitting here now, in this climate-controlled room on a cushy surface, and you are experiencing this right now, and not hell, And that's because of the cross. It's the only reason, whether you're a Christian or non-Christian, that's why.

How then can we look at our blessings? Well, look at the physical blessings that you have, the air that you're breathing right now. Think just with wide-eyed amazement at the sweet, clean fresh air that you're breathing now compared to a sulfur stink that you could be breathing right now. Think about the sights that you generally see in your life across a year, let's say, the light, the color, the beauty, the order, a walk through a flowering garden, a trip to the ocean or to the mountains. You're seeing crashing waves with the foam and all that, you're seeing autumn, you're seeing foliage and mountains and valleys and light twinkling on rivers, and all of that, and you've seen that beauty. You've watched the sunset with your friends, you've stood there with your spouse, your kids, your friends, and you've watched that. And you feel the gentle breeze on your face and you feel all of the blessings, and it probably just doesn't occur to you, "I could be, should be, deserve to be in hell right now instead of experiencing this."

What about relationships? You live your lives surrounded by people who love you, care for you, pray for you, laugh with you, cry with you, give you gifts, tell you jokes, care about how you're feeling. Perhaps you have a loving spouse who's put up with your sins and weaknesses for years. Now, you'll be quick to tell me you put up with your spouse too. I tell you what, I actually feel that one of the best applications is meditations in marriage. I really do. Whenever you're tempted to feel... I haven't gotten to the affliction section yet, but whenever you're tempted to feel, "I don't deserve what's coming toward me right now," think about Galatians 6:14. It frees you from the prideful arrogance and makes you humble and enables you to deal well with your spouse at that key moment. But just think about, "I don't deserve any of my friends, I don't deserve my family, I don't deserve my spouse, I don't deserve to be a member of this church, I don't deserve any of the blessings I encounter." What about food? All of it's pleasure, the various flavors, textures, it's healthfulness, nourishments for body and delight for the tongue. Think about biting into your favorite piece of fruit. It was originally a peach, but I changed it for one person in this room. That person knows who she is. Nectarine, think about that. Take a beautiful, succulent nectarine and you bite into it. Just think about that flavor, and as you're experiencing that, you're saying, "I don't deserve this. I don't deserve this blessing. God has given me this. May I never boast, except in the cross of Christ."

Last night, I put my son to bed, and we were talking and praying. It was pouring rain. And I just was thankful that we get to sleep in a dry, warm, comfortable bed, and I was just grateful. I was thinking about this message, too, and I was saying, "You know... " I didn't say this to him, but just in my mind I was saying, "Instead of being in torment, we're in comfort and protection. And why? Because of the grace of God in Christ." You go through all your spiritual blessings, too, your calling, your election, your justification, sanctification, the Bible, the spiritual gifts, all of that, a river of blessing.

Now, conversely, if you don't think like this, if you think you kinda do deserve all these blessings, if you don't really feel that undeserving, do you realize how eventually you'll be miserable with all of them? They won't satisfy you at all. You'll have a bored, detached, tasteless kind of been there, done that feeling to life. You'll lose your wonder and amazement at God's goodness to you, and you will not be thankful. You'll actually be arrogant. So paradox here is knowing that you should be in hell right now, is the most joy-producing, one the most joy-producing ideas you can ever have. That humbling idea is like, "Wow, I'm alive."

Did you ever see Christmas Carol and Ebenezer Scrooge, and he wakes up and realizes it's all over now and all that, and he tries to live a different life? Now, it's all regeneration without Christ, I get that, but just the exhilaration, knowing, "I'm alive. I'm here. I can live life now. I can live to the glory of God." That's the way a Christian should think. "I'm not in hell. I'm free." I thought this, "I've been rescued from hell to eat this peanut butter sandwich." I don't really like peanut butter that much, but the next time that someone serves me a peanut butter sandwich, because that's all there is for lunch and I eat that, I'm going to say, "Thank you, God." I'm not going to say it to my hostess or host, "I've been rescued from hell to eat this fish." That's about what it would take in that case.

It's also powerful, this meditation is powerful when it comes to our afflictions. Very powerful. And I'll tell you another experience I had in Washington, DC. I was there, and I know I've shared this with a number of you, but we were at the Holocaust Museum and it's a very sobering place, very sad and sobering place. It's a museum dedicated to the memory of Jews that died in the death camps set up by the Nazis in World War II. And it's very sobering and they do a lot of things to make it real to you so you understand what that was like. At the end, it was really just a simple diorama, this diorama of Auschwitz. And it was all one color, like a taupe color, and it was just a scale model. And I just looked down there, and for the first time in my life, I had this thought, as I looked down. I looked at this model of Auschwitz and its prisoners there in that terrible, terrible place, and the thought occurred to me, "It is possible to go from Auschwitz to hell." I'm not saying everyone who died there went to hell, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that just because you died there doesn't mean you're going to heaven.

And then I kept thinking, I said, "I wonder if anyone who did die from Auschwitz and went to hell, if it were possible, contrary to the parable that Jesus told in Luke 16, remember, rich man and Lazarus, and the rich man's in hell in torment and he would like to go back and warn his brothers but he can't go? Suppose it were possible for someone to make the return trip. Suppose an angel came down and said, "I'm going to let you go back to Auschwitz for a day," how many people languishing in hell would refuse the journey? Zero. None. So what that means is the more you think about that, there is no earthly circumstance that even compares with the torments of hell. None. So that means we have the power, as Christians, to have a kind of joy that non-Christians can't even conceive of in the midst of the most dire circumstances.

Now, I applied this, some would say in an unfair way, to one of my kids recently. The individual was having a hard time with a chore that was a rather distasteful chore, it had to do with cleaning a bathroom. And so I was meditating on these themes. That poor person… being one of my kids. I said, "If you were languishing in hell and you could get out for half an hour to clean a bathroom, would you do it?" Now, John Piper said that was really unfair and mean, but then he tweeted it two days later. So I guess he liked it in the end… quoted me, "Not mine, but somebody I know said this." It's like pastor abuse of kids. I wasn't trying to abuse. I was trying to help, really trying to help. And I thought after the half hour, your 28 minutes, the bathrooms almost cleaned, really all joking aside, can you imagine that individual pleading, "Is there another bathroom I can clean somewhere? It doesn't matter where it is or how bad it is."

You see how it changes your perspective? It's like, "Wow, there is nothing I go through on Earth that even remotely compares with that, and Jesus has delivered me from that." And not only that, the Bible teaches that all of the afflictions that we experience in life were given us for our blessing and our benefit, for our good. And so we are rich with the love and grace of God. Picture yourself as though you were some homeless person in some gutter somewhere and Jesus, the only begotten Son of the Lord of Glory, of the Emperor of the Universe, comes and finds you, takes you out of the gutter and then takes you shopping. And brings you to this incredible boutique, and he's just putting in the cart all of these expensive things, $650 coat and $200 pants and $450 shoes. And you're like, "But it's so expensive," and he's saying "I'll pay for it. I'll pay for it. I'll pay for it. You just add, I'll pay for it in blood."

So it's every blessing you experience in your life is blood bought at the cross. And every affliction that God has wisely measured out for you, to sanctify you and help you, is blood-bought. It's very expensive, and it's all paid for by your elder brother, by the only begotten Son of God. You are rich. So FBC, may you never boast in anything except in the cross of Jesus Christ. Close with me in prayer.

Father, we thank you for this meditation. There's so much more to say, but I want to stop here. And I pray that you would enable us, oh Lord, to understand these truths. Next week, God willing, we'll have a chance to see them in their settings, but just free us up from this arrogant boasting in ourselves and our achievements and accomplishments. And free us up from the corollary complaining and negativity that comes when we're afflicted beyond what we think we deserve. God, free us up, help us to see that in the cross is the true measure of what we were and what we deserved apart from Christ and that Jesus has paid it all by his blood. In Jesus' name, I pray, Amen.