Here Is Your God, Part 2

Here Is Your God, Part 2 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. … Say to the towns of Judah, “Here is your God.” These words come from last week’s text, Isaiah 40:1-11. God sent His message of hope and comfort to Judah. But they were hurting. If God was with them, where was His power to help? Is God able to keep His promises? Isaiah answers such questions by describing the greatness of God. Here is your God! Trust in Him. He can deliver you. Hear 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? Can you measure the oceans in your hand? They contain 366 million, million, million gallons of water. If you could ship one train per second, each train having 100 cars, each car holding 20,000 gallons, it would take 6,000,000 years to ship all this water. Yet God measures it “in the hollow of His hand”. Can you measure the heavens with your span? It is 26 million, million miles (26 trillion) to the nearest star besides the sun. Using my large 8-inch handbreadth over a 100-year lifetime, it would require me to make 65,000,000 measurements per second to measure just this astronomically short distance. But God can measure the whole universe. God made the dust, the mountains, and the hills. He can count, measure, and control everything. He is able to meet our needs and to deliver us. Here is your God! God also has the knowledge and wisdom to deliver you. Hear verses 13, 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? No one can teach God something he does not already know. God neither needs nor seeks our advice. God knows all the facts, has wisdom to know the best course of action, knows when is the best time to act, and is able to do those actions. Here is your God! Since both His power and His wisdom are unequaled, God has no rivals. We see many nations as great powers, but God regards all the nations as less than nothing! Hear verses 15-17: Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket: they are regarded as dust on the scales; he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust. Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires, nor its animals enough for burnt offerings. Before him all the nations are as nothing; they are regarded by him as worthless and less than nothing. God regards great nations as inconsequential, like a drop in a bucket. He can just blow them away like a little dust on the scales. No nation is capable of propitiating His wrath. All nations together are nothing, worthless, even less than nothing. This includes our own nation. The islands referred to are any large land mass west of Israel, which would include us. So, we too are just fine dust to God, nothing compared to Him. Here is your God! And God has no rival among the gods. Hear verses 18-20: To whom, then, will you compare God? What image will you compare him to? As for an idol, a craftsman casts it, and a 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. Isaiah ridicules the folly of idolatry. The rich man’s god needs chains, so it won’t topple over, and the poor man’s god needs to be made of the right wood, so it won’t rot. You don’t want your god to tip over or rot. All manmade religions are foolish, for our God is the only God. Modern man may not make wooden idols but is just as foolish. We trust in material things in the religion of materialism. We serve ephemeral pleasures in the religion of sensualism. We exalt man over God in the religion of humanism. No idol nor ism can compare to God! God alone can meet our needs. God has no rivals to compete with or to hinder Him. Here is your God! He is the God who is fully in charge, in control. God is sovereign, possessing all authority. God rules from above this physical universe. Hear verses 21 and 22: 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? 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. We have no excuse for being ignorant of the rule of God over His creation. All of creation declares his greatness. And all of creation including mankind are subject to Him. He is the true ruler of this earth. This means that He rules over our human princes, governors, and presidents. Hear verses 23-25: He brings princes to naught 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 than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. “To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. Where are Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao? God raises rulers up and then brings them down. Like the rest of us, they wither when God but blows on them. Here is your God! No one can compare with Him. We will end today with good news: God is a benevolent ruler. Hear our final verse, verse 26: Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. God knows each star by name. There are 100 billion galaxies containing an average of 100 billion stars each. God knows each star by name. He never loses track of any of His creatures. There are only seven billion of us. He knows your name and where you are. Stars are just balls of hot gas. We are made in His image. If He cares for hot gas, He will surely care for you. If He keeps track of them, He surely will never forget you. If He could create this universe, He can surely meet all your needs. God knows who you are. God knows where you are. God knows what your needs are. God knows how to meet those needs. God is able to meet your needs, and no one but you is able to stop Him. God loves you and desires to meet your needs, but He waits for you to trust Him and to humbly ask for His help. Will you believe in God and ask Him … To meet your personal needs. To forgive your sins and give you eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. To meet the needs of your family. To send revival and an awakening to America. Here is your God! Come to Him trusting in Jesus and receive His benevolent rule in your life.