Who Is God?
Isaiah 40: 1-31
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God With Us For Advent
1999 |
Max A
Forsythe | |
This morning we have heard read one of the great passages in the Scriptures. It has often been used to encourage people during the Advent season down through the centuries. Years ago I remember reading that Isaiah, as one of the longer books, required a second scroll to record the work of his long life and ministry of revelation. How the sixty-six chapters were divided between them I do not remember. But within the scrolls, it early became evident that there were distinctive divisions.
This seventh "book" or division in Isaiah is enough different from the rest of the book that too many of the worldly observers believe that it has to be from the hand of a different author. This is especially tempting to liberal theologians, who disbelieve that God granted visions and revelation activity by and through the Holy Spirit. Now, the differences in content between the first six and the last division are dramatic indeed. Dr Young observes that "when one turns from the thirty-ninth to the fortieth chapter it is as though he steps out of the darkness of judgment into the light of salvation". Derek Thomas adds that "after the clouds of judgment that have overshadowed the entirety of the first thirty-nine chapters comes the sunshine of God's grace that will occupy the final twenty-six chapters".
This difference should in no way be taken to indicate separate authorship! For most of the century too much scholarship has focused on what is called form criticism and textual analysis. This is much like the educational establishment, where the teaching of English has degenerated to a veneration of grammar and the details of organization, which have kept several generations from learning to appreciate the meaning and symbolism of language and literature. If you want to understand what I mean, as well as the challenge of the school classroom, I would encourage you to see the excellent Penny Marshal film starring Danny DeVito, Renaissance Man. Be warned, there are a few raw moments and I wish that the film industry could be persuaded in many cases to edit five minutes, or even twenty words, to make the best of their "art work" for general audiences.
Now, the Hebrew and Greek writers of our Old and New Covenants were literary craftsmen far above the common measure; so much so that the illiteracy of our present century causes us too often to miss the subtle structures and spiritual implications of the texts. Precise language, like precise doctrine, has suffered widely as a result. Chapter forty of Isaiah, which we have before us today, is one of the greatest chapters in all of revelation history. There is so much here that we will divide this crucial chapter into three portions.
In the first eleven verses Isaiah introduces the theme of consolation to show us the love of our Creator God. Then in verses twelve through twenty-six Isaiah tells us more about our Creator God. Finally in verses twenty-seven to thirty-one he invites us, the people who hear God, to respond in humility before His awesome throne and there to exchange our weakness for His strength.
In the first eleven verses before us, Isaiah introduces the theme of consolation in the opening word used twice: "Comfort, yes, comfort My people, says your God." Now this comfort is both literal and spiritual in context. There should be no doubt that the Lord, speaking through Isaiah, is telling Judah that the Babylonian exile announced in chapter thirty-nine will only be temporary. God does have it in mind to return His people once again to the Holy presence on Mount Zion. This will indeed come about by the specific arrangements of our Creator God.
There is also here a specific reference, as we understand it, to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in addition we may learn from the sinfulness of Judah and her dire straits, that we too live in exile from the eternal Kingdom of our God and our Christ. Now what is the nature of the comfort offered here by Isaiah to Judah and to us as well?
Think of it this way. When your tooth aches, you bite the bullet, so to speak, and finally call a dentist. Usually you have plenty of time to think about this decision before the appointed time arrives. When you go to the dentist's office, you know full well the routine, right? Of course, he doesn't come out and hold your hand and tell you that everything will be all right. He has to get specific and find the damaged tooth and go on and repair or remove the tooth as necessary. This is indeed so simple, a little pain and the offending "sin", oops, I'm getting ahead of myself here. A little pain and the offending tooth is either repaired or removed. At any rate, the dentist must get specific. So must the prophet and all those who minister in God's name. But notice the tender instructions for those messengers in verse two.
The Hebrew for this phrase is also used in 2 Chronicles 32:6 to describe the way that Hezekiah encouraged Judah to trust in God in spite of the Assyrian invasion. He and Isaiah are no Steve Martin type of dentists, grinding the drill, and racing the motor to threaten the patient! No indeed, their voices are tenderly calling people home, as the old Hymn goes. One commentator identifies the voice of these verses as the voice of grace. Double comfort is God's gracious response to Judah. This double comfort may be explained in the sense that not only are the debts of sin covered over, but the blessings of the future are added as well.
A second voice is identified in verses three to five. The immediate context is the return from exile, but its final fulfillment is in the coming of John the Baptist. In our time, the construction of super highways literally applies the text to make journeys easier. The voice of preparation has a specific purpose in both contexts. The full and future context is in the baptism and repentance called for by John the Baptist. Yet time, like life, is short and decisions must be made while we may. After all, there is not and never has been any real doctrine of second chances within the Christian orthodoxy.
A third voice applies this timely message to a waiting world and tells Isaiah what he must say. That message is to remind everyone that their life is brief, and in comparison the word of God stands forever. And we have known the message of God's eternal word, and that word is full of hope. Isaiah and all of those who know that word are to speak that word to the world boldly.
See in verse nine the instructions to the prophet, to John the Baptist and everyone who follows after? "Get up into the high mountain ... lift up your voice with strength" Here we may know that our calling, like Isaiah's, is to make God's presence known. Certainly, John the Baptist's ministry was ever so much more dramatic. When he introduced Jesus to the people of his time he fulfilled literally the last words in verse nine: "Behold your God!" Our calling may not be as dramatically real, but still when we call our friends, family and neighbors to the God of heaven revealed in Jesus Christ, He is indeed spiritually present. He comes in power and His sovereign arm rules well and fully. Yet, just as Jesus promises, He comes tenderly like a shepherd.
Like that shepherd, He gathers the little lambs of the kingdom into His arms and carries them close to His heart. This is the ministry of Christ and this is our calling as well, to gently, tenderly remind people of their sinful condition and encourage them to put their hearts, minds and soul into the care of our great and eternal Shepherd.
And in and through Christ, the Creator God who calls us to be His sheep is revealed. In the first few verses in our second portion, we hear echoes of Job's conversation with God [Job 38-41]. The humbling of that earlier revelation proved sufficient for Job's repentance and salvation. In every time and place it is necessary to know who and what God is in order to appreciate the divine order of things. The Apostle Paul quotes from this section twice in his letters to Rome and Corinth. In both places he takes the text of verse thirteen, "Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has taught Him?" The first citation [Romans 11: 34] is part of a doxology of praise for the wisdom and knowledge of our Creator God which is beyond mere human understanding. In the second citation [1 Corinthians 2: 16] Paul insists that since we cannot understand the mind of God, therefore we are able to recognize God's truth only to the extent that we have the mind of Christ.
The having of this mind of Christ delivers us from spiritual bondage to all other religions. This is why the Apostle John declares [John 8:32] that those who know the correct doctrine of revealed truth will be set free. Of course, the world today may wonder what there is to be set free from just as much as the Spiritual leaders of Jesus time, who argued that they too were not slaves of any sort. Yet Jesus told the truth; that they and everyone who ever sins, is a slave to sin. However, people in all times and places have been reluctant to hear that truth. In order to hear it, like Job and all the rest we must be convinced that there is a Creator God and that He has indeed spoken. Our passage today will show us, if we have the mind of Christ, that the God of heaven is an infinite, eternal Spirit with wisdom and power.
If those last few words sound familiar it is because they come from the fourth question of the Presbyterian & Reformed Westminster Shorter Catechism, where the Westminster divines asked in their study guide, "What is God?" Their scriptural answer is one of the finest theological observations of all time. "God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." In our short passage from Isaiah forty, at least five of these concepts are illuminated for the understanding of our hearts. May the mind of Christ be ours as we hear the words of the prophet.
"God is a Spirit." With this phrase we may begin our exposition. Look carefully at verses eighteen through twenty, where Isaiah describes the images of men fashioned from earthly materials. There are the idols, cast from metal and covered with more precious gold and silver. The poorer people selected wood and craftsmen to create their graven images. Certainly, people in the west today are not as comfortable with such primitive idols as some cultures in the east and other remote areas. However, there are crystals, pyramids and chemicals from which charlatans promise power and understanding. There are astrologists who would enslave people to observations of heavenly signs and seasons. There are also con artists who pretend to reveal deep secrets from the dark depths of space and time. But God is not like any of those. God is a Spirit, and except to reveal Himself in Christ, God is not physical or material.
According to the commandment, it is sinful to compare God to any person, place or thing. In our time we might also add that He is not comparable to any idea either. After all, some of the very modern liberal theologians like to talk about the necessary idea of God which may encourage people to act decent and better than they might. This will not do! God is simply: God. He is the Creator and Sustainer of the entire universe, as we shall see in the other portions of our text.
As we look at verse twelve we begin to get a hint of the infinity of our Creator God. In verse twenty six we are invited to lift our eyes to the seemingly endless starry hosts of the universe. Even with the Hubble telescope circling the planet, we have yet to find an end to the awesome starry hosts. Small pin points of light that we used to think were a single star have turned out to be distant galaxies of unnumbered stars. The more we look, the more we find stretched out to infinity. Yet, the God of the universe is greater than His creation. He has taken the measure of the waters, He has marked off the heavens, He knows the sum of the earth's dust, stone and earth. He who created all of this and more, knows the name of each item in the inventory of space.
Do you even know how many objects circle our star which we call the sun? A few years ago I purchased a "traveler's guide to the solar system" and was surprised to discover that there were several thousand God made objects in orbit around our sun. We only heard about the biggest ones in school. Or do you even know how many man made objects circle our globe? Well, NASA knows that. There are approximately ten thousand pieces of man made metal out there. And all of it needs to be tracked because if even that lost screw driver would hit a working astronaut, it could ruin his whole day, not to mention his life!
Years ago I used to go into one of those ice cream places that promised thirty-three flavors or more of ice cream. Now it takes time to decide what you want with that many choices. Just imagine when there are five hundred television channels to choose from; what will people do? Who can even keep track of such a choice? Even choosing a phone company is getting perplexing and difficult. Once someone called and wanted to sell me his phone service. When I mentioned the company we use he admitted that he bought time there at the same rate we do and then resold it at a higher price! If you think details like those I have mentioned are difficult to keep up with, imagine, if you can, knowing all of the stars and managing their courses since the very beginning of creation. Infinite - there is a great and awesome word to describe the eternal God of heaven.
Then there is the eternal nature of God who exists outside of time! Look back to verse eight, where we see that God's word stands forever. Compared to His eternity, our short lifespan is brief indeed. Certainly, modern science has observed more of the heavens and gained more knowledge of the earth than was common in Isaiah's time. Yet, that worldly knowledge which derives its insight from the theories of that great Science Fiction Writer - Charles Darwin is foolish indeed. Isn't it intriguing that the more facts and calculations we have to measure and understand the creation, the less we really truly know about the creation?
How then can we speak of wisdom if we do not know and praise nature's God? Of course, some secular writers are willing to admit that there may have once been a creative process. Yet, in going that far, they will not admit that He is still active in His creation. But turn to verses fifteen through seventeen to see the ongoing power of God. "the nations are like a drop in a bucket!" Then in verse twenty-three we see that God "brings princes to nothing; He makes the judges of the earth useless." Every time we get frustrated with worldly rulers it is well to remember that they are barely a drip in the cosmic order of things!
God breathes and Empires fold up. Have we learned that lesson from the events of the late eighties, when the Communist power evaporated like so much dry grass? "'To whom will you liken Me? Or to whom shall I be equal?' says the Holy One." Our God is indeed an awesome God as the spiritual song goes. Such knowledge should give us confidence day by day. Paul would agree, for in Romans 8: 38-39 we hear him say: "For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Now we come to our third part of the text today and we are presented with a quandary. If the God whom we know and worship is the Almighty Creator of all heaven and earth, than why on earth is Christ's Church so depressingly helpless in the midst of a hapless hopeless secular society? Based on the text of verse twenty-seven, Derek Thomas observes a similar problem in the Old Covenant church of Isaiah's time. The national neurosis in Israel's time must have its cause in spite of the reported revival during the reign of King Hezekiah.
The closest contemporary thing to this problem, which may explain the present predicament of American churches in the last century, has to do with a biography of one of America's most influential "saints". All of us to some degree have been affected by this man's writings, as his and certain British ideas of theology became mainstream evangelical by the time of World War Two. This American religious leader is well known for the study Bible which bears his name. In an unflattering biography published by the Banner of Truth Trust, Cyrus I Scofield's life and work is exposed in great detail.
One of the main arguments of the biography is that Schofield along with a British leader by the name of Darby, popularized a theory of a declining Church and a division of history into various dispensations. The arguments are long and well documented. For our purpose this morning we will focus only on a declining church, or the failing church syndrome, as it is sometimes called. Along with this underlying syndrome of failure, there has been also a historic focus on spiritual conversions, with a minimal emphasis on a godly life or a nation in obedience to God's law.
Certainly, we have to be very careful in diagnosing the actual conditions of Isaiah's time; however, if the implications of a declining church, along with an emphasis on emotional revival and a minimal interest in leading a godly life have produced our present generation of confused Christians, then something similar could have happened during Isaiah's time as well. Again and again the prophets called Israel and Judah to task for not obeying God even as they counted themselves among the elect. So they wonder why God has apparently abandoned them. What word does Isaiah have from God for such people? In the last verses of this chapter, God's people are called to account.
Look at the great text which begins in verse twenty-eight and runs on to the end of the chapter. Whenever God's people feel down and out, whenever their hope is at low ebb, let them hear about God's greatness and His ability to do all things. In the last verse, thirty-one, the word for renew literally means "exchange". The Lord thus intends to exchange our weakness for His strength, so that His power can be made perfect in our weakness. Will we look up and appreciate that the Sovereign Lord of all the universe keeps us in mind and commands us to obey Him? "Have you not known? Have you not heard?" Isaiah asks. Our God is the God of heaven, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
This Almighty God is not exhaustible; He does not suffer from any of our human frailties. His wisdom is beyond our ability to comprehend. Thus we should always be careful in thinking that we really truly know the mind of God. A prominent philosopher in this century, Mortimer Adler, who edited the Great Books of the Western World came to a saving faith late in life. The thing that brought him to faith was his realization that our God was too big and complex to be understood. He said that only a God beyond comprehension and understanding was worthy of being worshipped. Our God is just such a God, as Isaiah declares in these verses. By His Spirit and by His son, He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
Over a century ago, there was a very ordinary minister in Great Britain. Suddenly and for two years, the spirit of God came upon Him and turned loose a lion of an evangelist during a great and notable revival. Just as suddenly, the Spirit's work was completed, the Church was strengthened, and its impact upon that corner of the world was magnified. The Lord's work is such that even a young man's strength and endurance can be stretched to the limit. But we have God's promise that all "those who wait on the Lord will [exchange] their strength." Those who look up to the Lord will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint. May the Lord give us the blessing of such strength so that we may serve Him gladly our whole life long. Amen.
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Resources Used | |
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Canfield, Joseph M. |
The Incredible Scofield & His Book. |
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Ellis, Charles. |
The Wells of Salvation: Meditations on Isaiah. |
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Thomas, Derek.. |
The Welwyn Commentaries: |
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Youngblood, Ronald.. |
The Book of Isaiah: An Introductory Commentary. |
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Young, Edward J.. |
The Book of Isaiah. |
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The New
Geneva Study Bible (NKJV) | |
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Isa40d |
Jul-Aug 94 & 03 December 99 |
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