Isaiah 40:12-31
Amen. Turn to Isaiah 40. Isaiah 40, we looked at the first
11 verses last week, and tonight we’ll look at verses 12 to 31. Last week, we noted the turning
point from chapters 1 through 39, a bunch of doom and gloom
and judgment. Every nation listed, every nation
going to get it for being sinners. Now we come to the last 26 chapters. Comfort, God promised. Peace,
he told them. And then he mentioned preparing
the way for the coming of the Lord Jesus. We thought about
John the baptizer preaching in the desert, repent for the kingdom
of heaven is at hand. Now we want to think about who
God is. The Israelites were in a dark
time. They were in a depressed time.
And the antidote to that is always God. And so that’s what we’ll
see tonight in Isaiah 40, 12 to 31. So hear God’s word with
me. This is Isaiah 40, beginning at 12. Who has measured the waters
in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a
span? enclosed the dust of the earth
in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills
in a balance. Who has measured the spirit of
the Lord or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult? Who made him understand? Who
taught him the path of justice and taught him knowledge and
showed him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are like
a drop from a bucket. and are accounted as the dust
on the scales. Behold, he takes up the coastlands
like fine dust. 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. To whom then will you liken God,
or what likeness compare with him? An idol, a craftsman cast
it and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and cast for its silver
chains. He who is too impoverished for
an offering chooses wood that will not rot. He seeks out a
skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move. Do
you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been
told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from
the foundation of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle
of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches
out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent
to dwell in, who brings princes to nothing and makes the rulers
of the earth as emptiness. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely
sown. Scarcely has their stem taken
root in the earth when he blows on them and they wither, and
the tempest carries them off like stubble. To whom then will
you compare me? That I should be like him, says
the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and
see who created these. He who brings out their host
by number, calling them all by name by the greatness of his
might. And because he is strong in power, not one is missing. Why do you say, O Jacob, and
speak, O Israel? My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my right is disregarded by my God. Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord
is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He
does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint and to him who has no might, he increases
strength. Even youths shall faint and be
weary and young men shall fall exhausted. But they who wait
on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up
with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not faint. Amen. The word of the Lord. You can almost just stop there,
couldn’t you? Good, good stuff. Good verses we know. Y’all know,
about navel gazing, don’t you? That’s N-A-V-E-L, like belly
button, not N-A-V, however you spell the boats. Navel gazing,
you know, we stare at our belly button, the sky is falling, we
take on the temperament of Eeyore. Right. Remember from Winnie the
Pooh, nothing good is going to happen. Everything bad is going
to happen. Woe to me. Why me? We know about
melancholy, right? We know about being down or having
the blues or depression or despair. One of the great theologians
of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther, as great as he
was in his work, preaching the gospel and reforming the church,
reminding us we’re justified by faith alone, all that. He
was given to deep bouts of depression and despair. And his wife, Katie,
knew well of this tendency. And one day he was, I think,
in the pits pretty good. And his wife, Katie, comes into
his study all dressed in black, dressed in mourning clothes,
weeping. What is it, my dear, he says. God is dead, she wept. That can’t be. God cannot die,
Luther says. Oh, but he has, Dr. Luther. And that snapped him right out
of his fit of depression. What a good wife to remind him
that God is in the pit of despair that he found himself in. Maybe
a good play actress to remind him. Well, our life setting,
We live in this world. We live in the present evil world.
We live under the curses of Genesis three. We live under the fallenness. It’s John Madison, the Christmas
song we sang earlier beneath life’s crushing load. How does
it go? Forms are bending low. You know
how that goes. Into the weary world came the
good news of the gospel. And so we live in the present
evil world under the curses, under the effects of the fall.
Even our bodies are wasting away. I mentioned a few moments ago,
navel gazing, Eeyore, melancholy, the blues, maybe more seriously,
depression. Sometimes our brains don’t do
what God made them to do. Sometimes the chemicals are off
and our depression can be medical, no doubt. It can be our temperaments. Maybe we’re half glass empty
people, right? You know, those kinds of folks.
We can be half glass full people. We can have a poor diet, poor
exercise. We can fail to get rest. The
surroundings that are life-setting could be rather overwhelming.
Scientists, medical professionals speak of stressors. You know,
you can only handle so many stressors in your life. It’s like the tachometer
in your car getting close to the red line. Your engine’s going
to blow and stressors could be health, it could be family, it
could be finances, it could be career, it could be You know,
the older generation you look after, the younger generation,
it could be all sorts of things. And we can feel caged in, hemmed
in, even imprisoned by our surroundings, our life setting. really in a
sense what was going on in the life of Israel. Isaiah, the prophet
to Judah and Jerusalem, Israel’s already northern kingdom been
hauled off by the Assyrians. The Assyrians are surrounding
Judah and Jerusalem and Hezekiah, who’s king at the time, can’t
leave his own city. He can’t defend his people. They’re
outnumbered. They’re outmaneuvered. Their
doom and their gloom is sure unless God intervenes, which
of course he does. He sends the Assyrians off. But what will keep us from despair? What will keep us in life circumstances,
medical circumstances, maybe even our fallen nature temperaments? What will keep us from doom and
gloom and despair? Well, I’ll tell you what can
bring us to despair, and that’s a low view of God. I’ll tell
you this, I have friends in the ministry who will say, if you’re
depressed, you’re sinning. And it’s not medical, it’s a
sin issue. Okay, I’ll buy into half of that.
But no, we’re bodies, right? We have chemicals, they do strange
things. Some of you could probably say
been there, done it, got the t-shirt, medical professionals helped.
But what I want to focus tonight is not on the medical side. I’m
not discounting it and saying it doesn’t exist. I know it does,
personally. even professionally, but I want
us to think about the God side of maybe being down in the dumps. And it often comes from a low
view of God. It comes from a very high view
of circumstances. Oh, the sky is falling. Oh, the
world is falling apart. Oh, the country’s on fire. You
know, my checkbook is empty. My body’s out of, gas, you know,
whatever it could be. But very often we interpret the
world with our feeble sense. We interpret the world and like
verse 27 says, God says to Israel, maybe we get this way. Why do
you say, O Jacob and speak, O Israel, speaking of God, my way is hidden
from the Lord. He doesn’t see me. And why do
we say my right is disregarded by God? You ever felt that way?
Where are you, God? What are you doing? What are
you not doing? God says, why do you say that? And so now his
remedy is going to be, let me show you who I am. Another, reason we might get
there. And I’m saying this to the Sunday
night crowd, but maybe somebody comes to you and offers a little
help or ask for a little help. You get outside the means of
grace. You get outside the fellowship of the saints. You get outside
the prayer of the church. You get outside the preaching
and the sacraments. You get outside the things that God has designed
for you. And of course you’re in the dumps.
Now you can come to church morning, noon, and night. You could do
all the right things and still be in a hard spot. I don’t want
to discount that. But I had a pastor, teacher,
friend who said the first line of defense for spiritual problems,
the first thing to ask is, I haven’t seen you in church. Why don’t
you come to church for four or five weeks? Then we’ll talk about
your problems. And generally speaking, being
with God’s people, being in God’s house, being under the ministry
of the word, the means of grace, that will that will take care
of things because that’s what God has given us. But here’s
the big picture. We forget who God is and we get
impatient with His ways. We forget who He is, His character,
and then we get impatient with His ways. What you’re doing,
God, is not to suit me. It’s not to my liking. And we
probably need from time to time a Katie Luther to come in our
presence with black mourning clothes and weeping and saying
God is dead because Well, sadly, that’s the way we live. So what’s
the antidote to the blues, as it were? Well, it’s the character
and the actions and the promises of God. It’s the story of redemption. It’s remembering, at least in
the case of Isaiah chapter 40, that God is a creator and sustainer. So just a few things about God
being the creator. You find it in verses 12 on it
says, who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand? Kind
of sounds like Job right there, doesn’t it? Remember Job wrestling
with God, wrestling with his friends. And then finally he
gets a brow beating by the Almighty. Where were you when I created
things? Where were you when I threw the
stars into the galaxies? Who has measured the waters in
the hollow of his hand? Who’s marked off the heavens
with a span? Who’s enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure
and weighed the mountains and scales, the hills on a balance?
Who’s measured the spirit of the Lord or what man has shown
him as counsel? Whom did he consult? Who made
him understand? Who taught him the path of justice?
Who taught him knowledge? Who showed him the way of understanding?
Behold, nations are like a drop in the bucket. They’re accounted
as dust. on the scales. You got mountains
on the scales and now little nation dust particles. Behold,
he takes up the coastlands like fine dust. Lebanon would not
suffice for fuel, nor are its beast enough for an offering. All the nations are as nothing
before him. They are accounted by him as less than nothing and
emptiness. And so you see the power of God.
He’s the one that by his word speaks and what we see in the
world comes into existence. But we’re told in Colossians
that Jesus upholds the world by the word of his power. So
the same word that spoke and gave us creation is the same
word that continues to speak and upholds. You know, you get
a little questioning sometimes what would happen if God didn’t
uphold the world. Well, you wouldn’t want to think
about the answer to that. It would cease to exist, right? He upholds
the world that he made by the word of his power. He upholds
it by the same word. And so our God is powerful, powerful
enough to speak. And he makes, now we know this
to be true about God as a recreator. He walks up to Lazarus’ tomb
and what does he say? Lazarus, come forth. He goes
to the person with the withered hand or the lame legs or the
palsy or the hemorrhaging or whatever we see in the life of
Jesus. And he speaks in their malady.
is gone. He even tells the wind and the
waves to be still. And so God’s word is powerful. It’s a creating word. So you’re
stuck in Jerusalem. You’re surrounded by Assyrians.
Maybe you’re stuck in a body that’s not healthy. You’re stuck
in a life situation that you think won’t end. And just with
the word, what could God do? He could take care of it. But,
you know, we get down in the dumps and we say, oh, God can’t.
God won’t. He’s forgotten me. What’s the
little saying that used to go around the schoolyard? Nobody
likes me. Everybody hates me. Guess I’ll
go eat worms. Right? We can get that way. in
our spiritual lives, but God is the powerful creator and his
knowledge is vast. He knows every star because he
flung them into the sky. Not a one of those stars is lost.
He’s the God who knows intimately, Psalm 139 tells us. He knows
each of us as we’re being knit together in the womb. He knows
us by name. He knows the numbers of the hairs
or lack thereof on our head. And so our creator is one we
can have faith in. Our God is independent, or the
technical theological word is He has auseity. He is independent of everything. He does not depend. on anything
that exists for his glory or his pleasure, or he’s happy in
himself. He didn’t need the world. He
didn’t need people. We’ve sure caused him enough
problems, but he is independent. He’s independent. He knows all
things. He makes all things, sustains
all things, but they do nothing for him. In fact, you could have
a whole country full of beast. And guess what? wouldn’t make
a suitable sacrifice to give him the worship that is due him. His greatness, his grandness
is something that we ought to focus on. You know, we come to
church and we sing some songs, we hear the word, and we quickly
go back into the world. And this is a question for you
to think of. How fast do you turn off what you heard and turn
on the noise of the world and forget? I’m not asking for a
friend, I’m asking for me. I’m asking for you. That’s what
we do. We’re like James, the look in
the mirror and go away quickly, forgetting what we’ve heard.
But we ought to ponder on the creator God, the powerful God,
the all knowing God, the independent God. And that’s what Isaiah is
saying. Hey, if you’re sad, depressed, got the blues. surrounded by
the Assyrians or health or whatever circumstances. Think on God,
big, strong, mighty, powerful, and independent. So he’s the
creator, but he’s also the sustainer. And that idea picks up in verse
21. Do you not know? Have you not
heard? Has it not been told you from
the beginning? Do you not understand? from the foundations of the earth.
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants
are like grasshoppers. Here’s that creator creature
distinction. God is the creator. You’re not,
you’re the creature. Big gap, big difference. We’re like grasshoppers. He stretches
out the heavens like a curtain. He spreads them like a tent to
dwell in. It sounds like Psalm 19, doesn’t
it? He causes the rising of the sun
and the setting and he The son is like a bridegroom returning
to his tent at night. He brings princes to nothing.
Verse 23 says, do y’all know we had a prince? Well, they went
to Russia. Does that count as going to nothing?
The Assyrian dictator empire. He became nothing this week.
Who did that? Well, we could say it was Assyrian rebels, but
according to verse 23, he brings princes to nothing. He makes,
the rulers of the earth emptiness. You know, we just got through
a presidential election and, you know, maybe you’re happy, maybe
you’re not, whatever. But it’s God who did it, right? He makes
some to rise, some to fall. It’s his thing. 24. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely
sown. Scarcely has their stem taken
root in the earth when he blows on them and they wither. and
the tempest carries them off like stubble. God is the sustainer,
the incomparable sustainer. Everything he makes, he takes
care of. Everything he makes is upheld by his hands and he’s
not comparable to anyone and he is over all things. Verse 26 tells us, lift up your
eyes on high and see who created these. He who brings out the
host, speaking of the stars, by number, he calls them by name,
by the greatness of his might, because he is strong in power. Not one is missing. Can you count the stars? Nope.
Can you keep track of whether they’re all there or whether
they’ve fallen? Nope, but he can. Quite able, quite amazing. Not enough sticky notes in the
world to keep you able to uphold this universe and all that is
in it. All right. So God is creator
and redeemer. This is supposed to help us when we get the blues.
This is supposed to help us when we get down in the dumps. So
two things, remember and trust. We need to remember verse 21
and 22 tells us that it’s the little refrain. Do you not know?
Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from
the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
And then if you skip over to verse 28, have you not known?
Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God,
the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow
weary, and his understanding is unsearchable. See, I think
part of our problem when we get down to the dumps is we forget,
like Luther, that God is alive, that God is strong. He’s creator.
He’s powerful. He’s able. And I know we’ve all
got different settings, situations, stressors, whatever in life.
And yes, they can be overwhelming, but God hasn’t forgotten. God
hasn’t gone to sleep on you. He hasn’t said, well, that’s
too hard for me. I’ll go take on the easy stuff. The problem
is we’ve forgotten him. We’ve forgotten that he’s, you
know, our little VBS song, big, strong, and mighty. There’s nothing
my God cannot do. The mountains are his, all the
rest. Think of Psalm 73. The psalmist
had been looking at the world and saying, look at all the wicked
people. They prosper. Look at all the wicked people. They’re
nice and fat. They got food. They got pleasure,
right? That’s what he says. And then he says, God hasn’t
given me my due. And so he gets all blue and down
and sore, you know, sore thumb. And he even says, I got brutish,
like a brute, like a beast towards God. dared to complain. And then he goes to church, says,
until I went to the house of the Lord and I saw their end.
And so coming to church, coming again to hear what is good, right,
and true is very helpful. And we’re reminded very quickly,
God cares for the sparrows. God cares for the lilies. God
knows the numbers of the hair on our heads. He knows how weary
we are. And so we need to do a lot of
remembering, but also trusting. The scripture tells us he is
the everlasting God, verse 28. He’s the creator of the ends
of the earth. If he did that, don’t you think he can handle
your little piddly problems? Maybe piddly to him, not to you.
He does not grow faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. And it goes on to remind us he
gives power to the faint. He gives power to him who has
no might. He increases his strength. Even
youths shall faint and be weary and young men shall fall exalted.
But they who wait for the Lord, they who wait for the Lord shall
renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings
like eagles, run and not be weary. They shall walk and not be faint.
Our trust needs to be in the everlasting God, the creator
and the sustainer, the mighty one, the powerful one, all the
omnis that he is. He knows all things. He can do
all things. We need to remember his covenant
also. His covenant cannot fail because it is his word, his oath.
And all of history shows that he keeps his end of the bargain.
And he shows us that most graciously in that he did not spare his
own son, but gave him up for us all. And so a good challenge
for us is to remember the ending, verse 31, wait, for the Lord, or maybe a better
translation, hope in the Lord. Let’s look to him now in prayer.
Lord, we may be down in the dumps, but we have a place to go to
look up and that’s to you. That’s to your heavenly throne.
And we want to remember you now as creator and as sustainer and
as the one who can give us strength. Lord, so fill up our tanks tonight. Let the blues disappear, the
depression fade away, the melancholy dissipate. We ask for your grace
now in Christ’s mighty name. We pray it in his name, amen.