Sermon Tone Analysis

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The Omnipotence of God – Isaiah 40

!!!! Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church April 22, 2007

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Not many centuries ago, as far as the observable universe was concerned, man firmly believed that the Earth was central and stationary, while a little Sun, moon, and other tiny heavenly bodies were orbiting around us.  That’s how it looked from our natural perspective and from our ignorance.

Of course, now we know that an enormous blazing fiery ball we call the Sun is really at the center of the solar system, and that our relatively tiny planet is just one of many going around this immense Sun.

The more we learned about our galaxy and surrounding neighborhoods of galaxies the more we realized we are just one microscopic speck in a universe bigger than anyone ever imagined or thought.

We may never know how big the universe is.

What was true in astronomy is also true in philosophy and theology - the human race naturally thinks we’re at the center and focus of everything.

We are so man-centered and self-centered, we think everything is about us.

Even as Christians we may think that Jesus came to earth and did all these things primarily just for us, and that God’s focus and central goal is me, and we may not say it this way, but we see God as /man/-centered.

But as we’ve seen in past weeks, God is utterly God-centered and scriptures say over and over that He does everything ultimately and primarily for His own glory, to magnify and display the manifold dazzling splendor of His name, attributes and character.

The chief end of God is to glorify God.

He is more committed to His name and His glory than He is to you.

He commands us in the Ten Commandments to not put anything before God and He practices what He preaches in putting nothing before Himself (Get CD on glory of God or read it online to see those Scriptures).

This is not new or an unusual teaching.

The older theologians almost unanimously make the glory of God the ultimate, and the good of the creature the subordinate end of all things … There is a great difference whether the earth or the sun be assumed as the centre of our solar system.

If we make the earth the centre, our astronomy will be in confusion.

And if we make the creature, and not God, the end of all things, our theology and religion will in like manner be perverted.

(Hodge, /Systematic Theology, /1:436)

 

Well, what I want to do today is to continue to put God back in the center of our universe.

I don’t want my thinking or theology or religion to be perverted or warped, and I don’t want yours to be, so I make no apologies if this message makes much of God and not us

When Psalm 19 launches into talking about how the heaven’s declare the glory of God, the prime illustration it gives there of God’s glory is the Sun as it rises and sets and shines and warms and glorifies God every day without exception or delay, it is on center stage, like a powerful or mighty runner fulfilling its end.

God and His glory needs to be like the Sun, uppermost in our thinking and focus, around which all other planets and pursuits revolve.

Greater than any mighty runner from Psalm 19, our Almighty God, with omnipotent dominating and directing force, this infinite immeasurably big God needs to be in the middle.

God is already the blazing center and consuming fire that controls everything whether our ignorance recognizes it or not, but I hope we can take our naturally man-focused thinking and put our every thought in orbit around a God who is so much bigger than all of us combined can think or even imagine.

One pastor has pointed out that about 99% of all the matter in our solar system is found in our Sun.

All of the planets, moons, asteroids, and energy combined is barely a fraction of that Sun, and the gravitational pull and sheer immensity and power of that supreme star guides everything invincibly.

The pastor went on to talk about having a view of God so awesome and so massive that everything in your life revolves around God irresistibly.

I can’t say that I’m there yet, but man, do I want to be – and I invite you to join me in looking at what Isaiah 40 has to say about putting God and His glory at the center of our spiritual solar system, in the middle of our universes, so to speak.

How can we have that view of such an immense and great God, that all our problems put together seem so tiny in comparison?

I hope this message will at least be a start in helping us get a bigger perspective of a God who is so massive and dominating that every thing else in our life (work, family, finances, marriage, health, worry, trials, relationships) should revolve around HIM at just the right distance, balance, and in perfect harmony.

Isaiah 40 was written to people who had lost focus on this view of God.

They had let other things drift towards the center, so the blazing and glorious Sun (God) burned up those other things with consuming fire.

They trusted in themselves, in human leaders, in even pagan nations and their idols, and God destroys and annihilates all of those false sources of comfort in this section.

READ VERSES 9-26

 

Verse 26 calls them to take their eyes off all those other things and lift them up and their thoughts to the grand and bigger picture of what awesome God is doing and has done.

This section has been introduced as where ‘Isaiah looks some 100 years into the future into a time when the Jews will be conquered by the Babylonians and carried off into captivity for some 70 years.

They will be living in a foreign land and they will be subject to foreign kings, they will be surrounded by idolaters and all kinds of false gods on every side.

In order to strengthen the soul and the faith of the people of God as they will be living in decadent days, Isaiah brings this message in chapter 40 to pull back the curtain and to unveil for the people of God the matchless and infinite sovereignty of our God who rules and reigns over all.’

(Lawson, GCC tape 15 LAW-1)

 

I use the word “omnipotent” (omni – all; potent – power) which means that God is all powerful, His strength is unlimited or infinite, or to use a common biblical term, God is ALMIGHTY

 

This passage displays God’s Almighty power over four areas:

God is Almighty over    SALVATION (v.

9-11)

                                    CREATION (v.

12-14)

                                    NATIONS (v.

15-20)

                                    ALL (v.

21-26)

                                   

*1.

**God is Almighty over salvation, v. 9-11*

*/Get yourself up on a high mountain, O Zion, bearer of good news, Lift up your voice mightily, O Jerusalem, bearer of good news; Lift it up, do not fear.

Say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!”/*

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The good news of the gospel is revealed more clearly in Isaiah than in any other Old Testament book.

Some have called Isaiah “the little Bible” because it has all the great doctrines, and 66 chapters to match the 66 books.

The first 39 chapters epitomize the 39 books of the Old Testament, and its message of God’s holiness and judgment for sin.

Everyone agrees chapters 40-66 mark the second half of the book (see 40:1), and it is where comfort and salvation is most clearly revealed.

And the number of chapters in the 2nd half matches the number of books in the N.T.

The 3rd verse of this chapter begins with a voice crying in the wilderness, and that’s also how the 3rd chapter of the first book in the N.T. (Matthew) begins, with John the Baptist fulfilling this prophecy as a voice in the wilderness preparing the way for the Lord.

Notice the call in Isaiah 40:9 to Zion and Jerusalem to herald this gospel, this good news.

Jerusalem of course did begin to fulfill this call as bearer of the gospel on the day of Pentecost.

Jesus had taught his disciples to be like a light on a hilltop which cannot be hidden, and it was from Jerusalem on that day that Peter did lift up his voice without fear to proclaim about the Sovereign Almighty God who gave His Son to die, and about that Supreme Savior who rose again – “Here is your God” – Jesus is both Lord and Christ and demands you repent and be baptized in His name.

!! Behold your God /– /‘The interjection arrests the attention, drawing it to the message itself.

The cities of Judah are stopped, as it were, that they might see their God before them … In these words is found the heart of the Gospel, “the sum of our happiness,” as Calvin puts it, “which consists solely in the presence of God.”

This is the great theme of the remainder of the prophecy; it is the very center of the Gospel.

If we have not God, we have nothing; and if we have Him, we have all things.’

(E.J. Young, 3:38)

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*10 **Behold, the Lord God will come with might, With His arm ruling for Him.

Behold, His reward is with Him And His recompense before Him.*

 

/Might - /Fifty-six times the Bible declares that God is the almighty one (and this word is used of no one but God, cf.

Rev 19:6).

What do we mean when we say “Almighty” or “omnipotent”?

“God is all-powerful and able to do whatever he wills.

[Within] his nature, God can do everything that is in harmony with his perfections.”

[Thiessen, /Lectures in Systematic Theology/, p. 82.]

In other words, the question, “Can God create a stone so large that He could not lift it?” is not a legitimate question.

God can do all things that are in harmony with His nature and Person.

… Because God is Almighty, all things are possible (Matt.

19:26) … [He] can do all things; nothing is too hard for Him.

He does as He pleases (Ps.

115:3) and decrees all things in accordance with His will (Eph.

1:11).

God cannot do things that are not in harmony with His nature.

He cannot go back on His word (2 Tim.

2:13); He cannot lie (Heb.

6:18); He has no relationship to sin (Hab.

1:13; James 1:13).

– /Moody Handbook of Theology, /195

/ /

/His arm ruling -/Isaiah mentions God’s arm far more than any other prophet, and it represents personal strength in action.

God’s strong arm is directed by God’s will, it’s not limited by man’s will.

Stephen Charnock: The power of God is that ability and strength whereby He can bring to pass whatsoever He pleases, whatsoever His infinite wisdom may direct, and whatsoever the infinite purity of His will may resolve … Without power His mercy would be but feeble pity, His promises an empty sound, His threatenings a mere scarecrow.

God’s power is like Himself: infinite, eternal, incomprehensible; it can neither be checked, restrained, nor frustrated by the creature.

!!!!!

A friend of mine was in a church that didn’t believe this truth (Arminian-Wesleyan church that really taught against a high view of God’s sovereignty and power) and his pastor actually said from the pulpit one time: “God doesn’t have the guts to interfere with man’s ‘free will.’”

!!!!! My friend soon left that church not only because that seemed a little off (if not blasphemous) but through Scripture he understood that his salvation and anything good in his life was not due to his human will, but was due to God’s will intervening in his human sinful will, working in his heart long before he ever came to faith, even choosing him before the foundation of the world (Eph.

1:4).

God not only knows the end, He decrees or declares the end from the beginning, and God’s will and pleasure won’t be thwarted

Isaiah 46:9-10 (NASB95) \\ 9 “Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, \\ 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’;

 

When I called this section “God is Almighty over salvation” in our outline, it’s because one of the greatest illustrations of God’s surpassing power is in salvation and life-giving regeneration

 

Ephesians 1:19 -/ //[I pray that you may know] what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.

These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might \\ 20 //which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, \\ 21 //far above all rule and authority and power and dominion …/

 

And the illustration of this power Paul then gives is that “you were dead in your trespasses and sins … But God … made you alive” (Eph.

2).

When we were powerless, God’s power initiated.

We were dead, depraved, hopeless and helpless, doing nothing, but God’s  resurrecting power and sovereign grace gave us life and faith.

Our will and faith was involved to be sure, but we did not get spiritually resurrected because we responded (on our own), we responded because we were resurrected (given spiritual life).

His love caused ours.

Isaiah 45:7 & 9 (NASB95) \\ 7 The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these.

\\ … 9 “Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker— An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth!