Our God All-Knowing

Isaiah 44:21-46:13

Big Idea: Nothing lies outside God’s knowledge, he knows all things, he knows how he will save and he calls on his people to live by faith.

Big Question: What can we know for sure in the year 2020 and beyond?

The Year 2020

McCrindle Research, an Australian research company, recently posted the three most disliked phrases of 2020:

We’re all in this together.

Social Distancing.

The least favoured phrase of 2020 … “these unprecedented times.”

It is the unpleasant truth … we are living in unprecedented times.

Remember when, “What are your plans for Christmas?” use to be a pleasant, friendly question.

Now, it causes people angst.

You might have your plans sorted.

But if your Christmas gathering threatens to be larger than 20 - you’re asking will they lift restrictions?

If you have family in Qld - will the boarders be open?

If the year 2020 has taught us anything it is that we have very little certainty.

What can we know in the year 2020?

That’s the question our passage from Isaiah will answer for us today.

Because Isaiah speaks the words of our ALL KNOWING GOD who reveals his truth to his people.

The great news is that you will be able to walk out of here today,

into a world experiencing unprecedented times of uncertainty

but you will know something profoundly true,

profoundly comforting,

something that will give you peace and hope.

Something that will enable you to be a blessing to your neighbourhood, your suburb, to our Shire.

Aren’t you glad that you came today?

In our passage Our God, the All Knowing is sharing his plans with his people.

He is offering them comfort at a time when the people are very uncertain about the future.

It takes no imagination at all to see how this may speak to us today.

If your god is not all knowing then your god is too small.

And that’s a problem because if you have a small god then you will no basis for confidence or certainty, either in these unprecedented times, or at any other time.

There are three movements to our passage today

A Pending Punishment

A Perplexing Prophecy and

A Promising Plan.

Let’s take a look...

A Pending Punishment (44:21-28)

What I want to show you from this section is that God knows our condition.

God is all knowing, and so he knows our condition.

Basis of God’s knowledge is that he is the one who made us and everything else.

Look what God says in …

v21b

Isaiah 44:21 ESV

21 Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you; you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.

Read v24

Isaiah 44:24 ESV

24 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: “I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself,

v24 … I knitted you together in your mother’s womb.

During COVID we have had 6 additions to our creche ministry; 6 babies either born or about to be born. Exciting.

Six instances of God’s recent, intimate handy work among us.

I made everything, in the heavens and on the earth.

Shire voted the second best place to live in Australia.

It really is God’s country. He made it.

“who alone,” “by myself”

Our God alone knows all things because he alone made all things.

The splendour of every detail of the earth declares his glory, power, his infinite knowledge.

But he also knows the brokenness we have brought to His creation.

We have employed some new software in the last week to help us do what we need to do in these unprecedented times.

Not been all smooth sailing.

We have been in communication with the developers, the ones who made the software because they know how it is suppose to work.

And they can identify the bugs in the system.

And God the all knowing, the Divine Developer says I have identified the bugs in his system.

Isaiah 44:22 ESV

22 I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.

God knows our condition.

There is a bug in the system.

It is the transgression and sin of his people.

And as we will see in a minute Isaiah’s message is because of sin destruction is coming.

The problem is that the people are surrounded by dissenting voices.

There will be no destruction they say. Everything is fine. God is not angry with us.

But look at what God says, knowledge belongs to me.

I withhold and I give.

v24 I am the Lord …

Isaiah 44:25 ESV

25 who frustrates the signs of liars and makes fools of diviners, who turns wise men back and makes their knowledge foolish,

I frustrate the knowledge of all those who contradict, reject and oppose me

Don’t waste your time or fill your mind turning to the back of the paper to read the horoscopes; don’t wander into those shops along the mall to consult tarot card readers and fortune tellers.

God makes their counsel foolish.

In fact be very careful who you listen to, the whole world is bent on affirming sinful behaviour, and declaring that which God calls evil as good. Our culture celebrates in its sin.

Ads for telecommunication companies quietly espousing as good lifestyles God declares as wrong.

The message is peace, peace when there is no peace.

But Isaiah’s word will be confirmed (v26) as God’s Word.

Judgement is on its way.

This is the tricky bit - the Pending Punishment.

v26b

Isaiah 44:26 ESV

26 who confirms the word of his servant and fulfills the counsel of his messengers, who says of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be inhabited,’ and of the cities of Judah, ‘They shall be built, and I will raise up their ruins’;

28b

Isaiah 44:28 ESV

28 who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and he shall fulfill all my purpose’; saying of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be built,’ and of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’ ”

These verses read as if they are in the present or the near present.

The rebuilding of the temple, and Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah.

But at the point in history when Isaiah preaches these words the people living in Jerusalem can look out their windows see the temple.

All these important symbols of their religious and social identity are intact.

BUT THIS IS PROPHECY.

The take home for all of God’s people hearing these words is that sin leads to destruction.

Sin in any age leads to destruction.

Rom 6:23a For the wages of sin is death

The problem of having an All Knowing God. He knows our sin.

God is impartial, he must punish all sin, even the sin of those he loves.

These things cannot ... will not be ignored.

The punishment for Isaiah’s hearers will be the destruction of the temple, their cities, and exile from their land.

Their sin will lead to shame and dishonour. And it will strike at the very heart of who they see themselves to be, at the very heart of their identity.

Have you noticed how sin in God’s people always does that.

Your sin strikes at the very core of your identity and your confidence before God.

Your sin produces shame.

Your sin produces the feeling of distance between you and God, you and God’s people.

When we persist in disobedience,

when we choose not to be wholehearted toward God, not to draw near to God

when we are not examined and corrected and encouraged and directed by his word because we are not properly in his word

When we are not in conversation with God in prayer in response to his word and intent of living his way

Sin destroys by striking at the very core of our identity as God’s people.

Draw near to him…

Went back to the gym the other day.

First time since COVID closed it down.

It was so good to see my gym crew.

I forgot how much I enjoyed working out with them, chatting with them.

Like being able to meet up today…

And what an absolute joy it is to feel the nearness of God in our lives.

He knows your condition; that you are a sinner - he knows all things.

Even so he is clear, his people are special to him.

Draw near to him, and he will draw near to you (James).

Call on him in earnest he will answer.

He has made the way clear for you to be restored in him - I’ll talk more about that in a moment, but ...

You see even as He speaks of the destruction caused by their sin God is pointing to his redemption, his restoration.

He knows our condition, he will not leave his people in their sin, he has made a way clear for our redemption, our restoration.

That’s the theme of what follows,

A Perplexing Prophecy (45:1-17)

In this section God promises salvation, but it arrives in a very unexpected way.

God’s agent of rescue for his people from the punishment and shame of exile is Cyrus.

He is an unknown figure at that time - pinpoint prophecy.

But what is clear to the people is that their rescue will not be what they would expect.

But it will be a rescue that

Isaiah 45:4–7 ESV

4 For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me. 5 I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, 6 that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other. 7 I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.

Promising Plan (45:18-46:13)

God is all knowing because he made all things, controls all things, and his eternal plan will be fulfilled.

God not idle - uninvolved, knowing what will happen but not engaged in proceedings.

Not the absent watchmaker, not an uninterested observer knowing what will happen.

James Tedesco, scoring tries, calling the play, making tackles.

But he is also determining the outcome of the game.

Taxi ride in a foreign land.

No idea if this driver is going the right way, the most direct way, or even if you’re going to get there alive.

I think Israel feel like that.

To us this is ancient history.

To Isaiah’s audience it is prophecy - they are not even in captivity yet.

God has revealed that due to their sin they will be exiled.

But amid the devastating news of punishment there is a note of hope.