The Immeasurable Majesty of Our God (Isaiah Sermon 46)

On January 12, 2007, Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world, the violinist, carried on a social experiment. This is a man who had recorded multiple albums and whose recordings sell millions every year, a man who books over 200 concerts annually with ticket prices in excess of $100, $150 each. This man stood incognito in a Washington, DC subway with an open violin case in front of him, holding in his hands a 1713 Stradivarius worth $3.5 million, and he played eight Bach sonatas as people bustled past and barely noticed. They probably looked on him as a step above a homeless person, played pretty well though, I guess, as they walked by, and occasionally some people would stop and listen. In all, according to the cameras that were put there, 1097 people heard him that morning, 27 put money in his violin case. The total offering was $32.17, so that’s an average of a little more than a dollar for each contribution for Joshua Bell playing a Stradivarius, playing Bach music there that morning.

Now, I think that this social experiment is a parable of 7.1 billion people bustling past Almighty God and occasionally dropping a buck or two in an open violin case. Everyone there that went by, except one lady stood and she said, “I heard you at Symphony Hall last week, and you were amazing. What are you doing here?”  So there was this one lady who knew who he was. I think she was glad for the free concert, she stood there for a while.  I don’t know if she was late to work that morning, but well worth it, well worth it. But everyone else vastly underestimated that man and his skill, vastly underestimated. But that is as nothing compared to how each and every one of us underestimates Almighty God. And if I could extend it to his incarnate Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, whom some have called God incognito, veiled in flesh, the Godhead, see, we also barely notice him, would scurry right on by. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him, but he was as nothing to us, and we just scurry by.

And then we have, I think, before us in the text that you heard Jim read, you have a sense of what offering would be sufficient for such a God. Lebanon is not enough, all of its cedars are not enough to burn the fires and all of its animals, not enough for such an offering that would be worthy of a personage like Almighty God. And so my desire is, through the ministry of the Word today, by the power of the Spirit, to lift our hearts, our minds higher in our estimation of God, and that we would also have a greater estimation of God’s provision for us and our sin, Jesus Christ. I want to have an encounter with the Living God today with you. I want to share that together, I want us to read these words and meditate on them slowly, and I want us to ponder this infinite God and have a sense of his greatness.

And my conviction is, that if we do that, as I prayed in my pastoral prayer, people all across the spectrum of earthly circumstances will be ministered to. Whether you’re filled with joy and things are going really, really well for you in your life right now, or shattered by something that happened this week and don’t know what the answers could possibly be, I believe a greater sense of the vision of God through this text will minister to you.

So this morning, we’re going to hear some of the most exalted words in the English language, and we’re going to ponder them, and we’re going to look, as it were, through narrow slats in a fence and light, glory is going to stream through those slats, those narrow slats are words; nouns, verbs, adjectives, sentences, paragraphs. We’re going to just see through a glass darkly, someday we’ll see face-to-face. But this morning we look at a book, we look at some words, and we’re going to have a sense of the greatness of God. And there’s so many things that a meditation on the staggering majesty of God does for us, many things. And I’m going to talk about a good number of those, but one thing it does for me as a Christian, it guarantees the gospel of my salvation. And that’s probably the most important thing we can get out of this: This great God is willing to save sinners through Jesus Christ, and how encouraging is that?

So let’s talk a little about context now, we’re right in the middle of a chapter in the middle of a book, this incredible book of Isaiah. We’ve jumped right in Isaiah 40:12-17. Last time we looked in depth at the first 11 verses, we saw there I think the timeless message of the gospel. Now, Isaiah was a prophet who lived in the 7th century and 8th century BC, and who is writing to Jews at that time who are facing certain circumstances. And we come to a hinge in the book in Isaiah 40:1-39, basically facing the Assyrian threat and all that that meant. And then at the end in Isaiah 39, we have a prophecy given to Hezekiah that some day that nation, the Jews of Judah, would be carried off into exile into Babylon. But now in these chapters, and in the first 10 chapters after that, 40-49, we’re going to have repeated promises of the restoration of the Jews back to the Promised Land. They’re going to be established back in the Promised Land, these exiles, to Babylon, will be reestablished, and they will be allowed to rebuild the destruction of Jerusalem and rebuild the temple, and God’s going to allow them to do that.

And so that’s an immediate circumstance, we’ll talk a lot about that. But all of that requires the absolute sovereignty of God. First of all, none of it had happened yet. Isaiah was looking ahead across a century or more in the future to what would happen. But he was speaking, I think, immediately to that generation that hadn’t even born yet to give them courage and hope that God’s power was sufficient to bring them back and reestablish them in the Promised Land. They could rebuild their city and their country and resume their lives in the Promised Land. But I believe that the words of Isaiah 40 through 49 and of Isaiah 40 in particular, just soar above that immediate detail of redemptive history, it’s just too big for that. It’s too small a thing to just talk about the restoration of the Jews to the Promised Land. So again and again, we’re going to springboard from that immediate circumstance to the gospel of Jesus Christ and what it means for every tribe and language and people and nation, and sinners like you and me. It’s just too great for just that small detail.

I. The Staggering Majesty of God Guarantees the Gospel

So the big picture right away in Isaiah 40:1 and 2, God speaks a message of comfort to sinners like you and me, “Comfort, comfort My people says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her their hard service or warfare has been completed, that her sin has been paid for. That she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” And I said last week that yes, there was an immediate sense of fulfillment of that as the Jews would be allowed to return and their sins would be forgiven as exiles are allowed to continue. But far, far greater than that is the word that speaks to me and to you as individual sinners, that there is in Jesus, in the shed blood of Christ, an atonement infinitely greater than all of your sins. And that is incredibly comforting, isn’t it? To just know that sins can be forgiven through faith in Christ.

This is a message of comfort. And it’s a message that proclaims the glory of God in verse 5, it says, “The glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh, all mankind together will see it for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” It’s a message based on the eternal Word of God, it’s based on words. All flesh, all human beings are like grass, and all of their glory and their achievement is like the grass of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, and the breath of the Lord blows on them, surely the people are grass. Grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God stands forever.

And so, this is a message that’s been captured in words. And faith comes by hearing, and as we hear these words, we are able in verse 9, to behold our God, to see Him. We can say to the towns of Judah, ‘Behold your God, look at Him.’ And so we can see now, only with eyes of faith. Someday we’ll see Him face-to-face, but now just with eyes of faith, so we can say, “Behold your God,” as we listen to the words of this incredible chapter. So this is an incredible gospel, ultimately fulfilled in the shed blood Jesus Christ who died on the cross, in the place of sinners like you and me and who God raised from the dead on the third day. And we are told that if we put our trust in Him, turning away from our own works, repenting from our wickedness, if we trust in Christ, we will be forgiven.

And that’s not all. That someday, a multitude from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation, for whom that has happened, will be gathered around the throne of Almighty God in the new heavens and the new earth, and we’re going to see such beauty we can scarcely even imagine. It’s going to be infinitely greater than we can put in words. It’s going to far outstrip any suffering any of us went through. Says in Romans 8, “I consider that our present sufferings aren’t even worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” And we’re going to see that glory and there will be no more death, no mourning, no crying, no pain, there will be no more warfare, no crime. Nothing but the glory of God radiating this beautiful resurrected earth as it were, you could say it that way. And we’ll live there forever and ever in perfect happiness. But the world staggers through unbelief concerning this message. It can’t accept it.

And it’s so tragic, it’s so ironic, this is the very thing the world yearns for. The very thing that it puts in its songs. I was listening to one song this week and the singer was just singing out of the emptiness of his soul and he’s singing, he says, “I have a hole in my soul and I’m yearning for love and a sense of the feeling of that love. I want that, but I just can’t find it anywhere.” I’m preaching the gospel to the digital music. You need Jesus. And I just, you know, I don’t know, maybe I’ll get on his calendar, give him a call, maybe he’ll return my call and we’ll get some time together. Share the gospel with him, but he’s just representative of this whole world that yearns for this peace and yearns for this joy and this beauty and to be there forever and no more death, mourning, crying and pain.

But then when we’re told that this gospel can give it to us free of charge, that there’s nothing, just as a free gift of grace, the world staggers through unbelief. I think as I’ve analyzed it I think it’s both too good to be true and too bad to be true. I think that’s what’s going on, it’s just too good to be true. The very things that we want, that we could live eternally in a perfect world, free from all of these ills and misery, and just live there forever, it’s just too good to be true. But it’s also too bad to be true because we just can’t accept the basic premise that we are wicked, rebellious sinners in the sight of a holy God, and that we deserve eternal condemnation in hell. And that if we aren’t saved by someone else, we will most certainly go to hell. That’s just too bad to be true. And so the world staggers through unbelief and will not accept it.

I think we think too highly of ourselves and too lowly of God. And the problem at the root of all of this is we really just don’t know God, we just don’t know Him. We underestimate what He can do. We underestimate his goodness, and his love, and his mercy and grace. And so we stagger with unbelief at these vast promises of God. And we underestimate God’s holiness and righteousness and justice, and we can’t accept his appraisal of who we really are in our wickedness and rebellion. So I think we need a vision of God, we need to know who he really is, and that’s what Scripture has been given to us to do. That’s what Isaiah 40 does, in some ways better than any other chapter in the Bible.

Think of yourself now, think of your own patterns, your own habits. Do you not frequently think hard thoughts of God? Does that not happen to you? Do you not frequently question God? You wonder about his wisdom and allowing or permitting this or that. Do you not question God’s love for you from time to time? Do you not effectively question his power in the world? Do you not put things together in this sense and wonder at events in the world and think that this or that happening prove some kind of deficiency in God, either he lacks power he lacks wisdom, or he lacks love? Something’s wrong with God because of the world here that we’ve got.

Do you not occasionally from time to time speak disrespectfully of God, Almighty God, the one who spoke the universe into existence, the one who said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there is light. The one who created the sun, and the moon, and the stars; the one who destroyed the world with a flood, the one who knit you together in your mother’s womb? Do you not from time to time speak disrespectful words about him and what he’s doing in your life? When was the last time that you questioned God? When was the last time you challenged God? When was the last time you brought God to the bar of your justice and asked him hard questions about the things that were going on? This is our root issue, this is the reason we stagger in unbelief regarding the promises of the gospel.

We don’t know God. And Jesus cried about this, cried out in John 17. “Righteous Father, the world has not known you…” It’s coming from the depths of his being. They don’t know you, Father. But God has locked up within these words, the words of Scripture, the power to give us faith and through that faith to give us sight in the eyes of our heart, that the eyes of our heart might be enlightened and we would know this true God, and that’s a powerful thing.

And so this vision of the infinite majesty of God for me guarantees the gospel in my life. I’m able to look at it and say the things that God has promised He will most certainly do for me, and for a multitude from every nation on earth, He will do it.

II. The Stunning Immensity of God Dwarfs the Universe (vs. 12)

Secondly, the stunning immensity of God dwarfs the universe. Now, get ready for me to go absolutely geeky on you. It’s going to happen for probably at least 20 minutes, but hang in there, alright? This is who I am, I can’t stop being who I am, but here we go. Alright. I love science, I love engineering. And we’re going to just find out just how great this God is in exponential terms. Alright, so 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?”

We can hardly conceive of the immensity of God. The more we stand before him in awe, in awe, the incredible immensity of God, we would be silent before Him. Our problems, such as they were, would by contrast shrink into insignificance. I really do mean for them to shrink. I don’t want to minimize your problems. I know they’re weighty and they’re many, I know, and they hurt. But compared to such a God, they shrink and it’s marvelous to ponder just what we said earlier, Immanuel, through Jesus, God, this God is with us, and he will help us. And that’s so encouraging. So, he means though in all of this to humble us. God is humbling humanity here. Five times in the series of questions he’s addressing to the human race, he’s talking to the whole human race, he lays out five cool questions one after the other. Alright.

“Who has measured the waters of the oceans in the hollow of his hand?” Who, O human race? Have any of you puny, tiny humans been able to do that? No. Well, Almighty God has. Who of you has used his hand to mark off the dimensions of the heavens? Who? Is any human being capable of doing this? Anyone want to step forward and say they’ve even been close to doing this? But God has done this. Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket? Who? Do you know any human being even remotely capable of such a feat? The entire human race working together for a century couldn’t achieve it, but God can do it in an instant. Who has understood the mind of the Lord? Is there any human being willing to step forward and match wits with Almighty God? Any genius scientist willing to take on the infinite mind of God? Yes, there are some really clever really bright scientists who have studied tiny aspects of what God has made and have come to new insights that are true, have written about it, and then well rewarded.

But God made what they were studying. We’re just scanning God’s work in small detail and getting some of it right. Who has ever instructed God or been his counselor? Now, at one level, all of us say, “I have, actually.” We’ll talk about that, but no one can give God advice or counsel. So you read these verses, the series of who, who, who, who, who and he’s talking to us and he’s meaning to humble us because we’re so arrogant and he’s meaning to put us in our place so that we understand how great and how immense he is.

Now, what do I mean by immense? The immensity of God? Perhaps directly related to the omnipresence of God may be hard for me to distinguish between the two. The immensity of God, it has to do with God’s relationship to his physical universe. God’s infinity relative to earth and outer space and everything that there is, God fills every part of his creation with every part of himself. So, everywhere you are in the universe, God is fully there. That’s the omnipresence or perhaps, immensity of God fully there. Therefore there is no container for God. There’s no box you can put God in where God’s in here and he’s not on the other side of the barrier. Solomon knew that when he made his temple. You remember the dedication of his temple in 1 Kings 8:27, he looks at this golden box that he made, this golden building. It’s relatively small, but boy, it was ornate, lots of gold, lots of glitter, and he stood there looking at it, he said, “But will God really dwell on earth? Heaven, even the highest heavens cannot contain you. How much less this temple I’ve built?”

God is not contained by anything, he’s not dwarfed by anything. Have you ever stood before something so huge that you felt yourself shrink into insignificance? Like, you go to the Half Dome at Yosemite and is about 4800 feet off the valley floor and you just feel small. You just feel small. Or the Himalayas. I’ve had the privilege of trekking in Nepal and they’re just big, friends. And you just feel small. Or maybe it’s the Grand Canyon, maybe just the ocean, you just look at something or a night sky and you just look up and you just look at the Milky Way and you think for a little while and you just feel small.

When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, I think, ‘What am I? I’m nothing. I’m small.’ So we’re shrinking. And God is comparing in his immensity, comparing himself to things we can kind of relate to. He starts with the oceans, God is able to measure the waters of all the ocean, it says, with the hollow of his hand. Now this hollow of hand language, this is what’s known as anthropomorphisms, God acting like a human. We are created in his image, he doesn’t have physical hands or eyes, but the Bible uses that type of language to help us understand him. So if God had a hand, he could scoop the oceans in the hollow of his hand just like that. Now, imagine yourself doing this, going to some small lake, maybe where you went boating or sailing or something like that, and going to the edge and crouching down and cupping your hand and scooping some water into the hollow of your hand. Did you notice the surface of the lake going down a little bit at all?

Well, how many scoops would it take for that to happen? Well, I can just tell you, don’t bother doing that. Go to a bathtub, and fill it up. Alright, two-thirds high. Normal bath size, okay? Maybe 30 gallons. Alright, I’ve worked all this out. This is as geeky as it’s ever going to get from this pulpit, I hope. I hope. And at the rate of about one scoop every second or so, I figured it would take me 20 minutes to empty the bathtub. How many such bathtubs are there in Lake Michie? Lake Michie, maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe you haven’t, but it supplies 35 million gallons of drinking water per day to the City of Durham, 35 million gallons a day. How long would it take me alone to empty Lake Michie? And how big is Lake Michie compared to the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans? You get the idea?

So, how much water is there on earth? I bet you are asking that question. How much water in all of the oceans and all of the seven seas? No one knows, but they estimate, that’s what scientists do, they estimate. So, estimates put it at 333 million cubic miles of water. Okay, what’s a cubic mile? I don’t really know, but it’s a mile, mile in all directions. And the cubic mile is equal to the amount of water that flows over the Niagara Falls in one month. There are 333 million of those on earth, they estimate. God is able to scoop the water in the hollow of his hand. How many of us has stood at the edge of the ocean and been amazed by just the sheer power? When we were in Japan, we went and saw during a typhoon, that’s their version of a hurricane, and it was dangerous but unforgettable. And we just stood there watching the wind lashing the water, and it’s just awesome and terrifying.

When Carolyn, my 18-year-old who’s at Liberty now as a student, Carolyn was born in a landlocked state of Kentucky, she was born in Louisville. My other kids, all born in a state that had access to the Atlantic Ocean, but she was born in Louisville. Best that Louisville could do is the mighty Ohio River, which I knew didn’t really compare. And so, we went at Christmas time, she’s about 6 months old to my mother’s house in Cape Cod. It just so happened that the night before, there was a vicious storm. And I knew what was up and I knew what we were going to do the next day, so I took Carolyn with me. We drove down to Nauset Beach, parked, and I held her in my arms, and we walked up the boardwalk and crested the dunes, and I wasn’t watching the ocean, I was watching her face. She’s 6 months old and her eyes got as big as saucers as she saw the ocean for the first time, and I was seeing it kind of for the first time through her.

And she just kept wordlessly pointing over and over, like this. It’s like, “I know, I know, I see it.” Actually, I wasn’t seeing it but I knew what it looked like. I was looking at her, and she’s just pointing with these big saucer eyes at this majestic display. I don’t know what she was thinking at that point, but just the immensity, the lessons that she was getting at that point. And God is using the ocean to teach us how immense he is, or he talks about the dust of the earth, it extends to the dry land as well. Who has held the dust of the earth and to measure away the mountains and the scales or the hills in a balance? The dust of the earth is most insignificant part of it, it just flies by us on a windy hot August day, and you can feel the dust on the surface of an end table or you might be able to see it if the sunlight comes streaming down, you can just see the dust flying through, it’s just not even worth counting. Who would ever count it or try to collect it?

But God knows how much dust there is on this planet, he’s able to gather it and hold it in a measure and know how much dust there is. And he’s also able, it says, to weigh the mountains and the hills in a balance. He’s weighed them all and he knows what each of them weigh. So he knows how much Mount Everest weighs. If you were to ask Siri or Google how much this Mount Everest weigh, try it. I did, I didn’t do Siri but I did Google. Any answer will begin with some of those ridiculous engineering estimates. Well, most mountains are just simply cones and off they go, okay? Height, whatever, and they come up with an estimate of, Mount Everest weighs 357 trillion pounds. Okay. I wonder if God just laughs. Actually, it’s 396.4475. If you want, I can keep going and tell you all the decimal points.

God knows exactly how much each mountain and hill weighs, even the smallest hills. So, from the tiniest speck of dust flying through your living room window to the largest mountain and everything in between from the deepest ocean to the shallowest puddles, God knows what is on planet Earth. The immensity and power and knowledge of God is absolutely staggering. But God doesn’t just stay on planet Earth, he goes out into the cosmos. Humanity were confined here, for the most part. The heavens soar above us and are meant to humble us, as I’ve already said from Psalm 8. So we look up to the night sky and we are humbled, we look up to the sun and we’re humbled. We have occasionally escape Earth’s gravitational pull enough to get into outer space. The furthest any human being has ever been from the surface of the Earth is Apollo 13, as they slung around the back side of the moon to get back. You’ve perhaps seen the movie Apollo 13, that’s the furthest any human being’s ever been from Earth, 248,000 miles roughly.

The next stop would be Mars over a hundred times further than that, but if you want to get serious and go star travel, that’s Alpha Centauri, that’s 4.3 light years away. What is that? Well, that’s 100 million times further than the distance from the Earth to the moon, 100 million. What’s that? Well, imagine that we have taken a baby’s first step, it’d be like comparing a baby’s first step to 69 trips around the equator. In fact, we haven’t begun yet. And that’s to the nearest star, 4.3 light years away. The Hubble Space Telescope and other cosmologists tell us the furthest is 13.7 trillion light years away, that’s 4.3 compared to that big numbers, big outer space. God fills it all with every part of his being.

Now, the immensity of God compared to heaven and earth is meant to humble us and also to encourage us. It’s meant to humble us. He uses things that are much bigger than us and says he’s much bigger than them. That’s what he’s doing here. Each of these things is just much bigger than us and God is bigger than all of them. The oceans dwarf us in their sheer magnitude and their raging waves could sweep us all away in an instant if God didn’t control them, but God scoops the oceans in his hand like a little child scoops water out of a bowl. The dust of the earth overwhelms us with sheer volume of its specks. They may seem limitless to us, but God knows exactly how many there are. The mountains of the earth overwhelm us with their imposing height, a massive weight, they could threaten to crush us if they start to slide down to our cities, but God has weighed them on his scales.

This infinite God is at work on your behalf. He wills to save your soul through Jesus’ blood and resurrection. Be comforted, be encouraged, and don’t ever question him.

III. The Inscrutable Wisdom of God Humbles Humanity (vs. 13-14)

That brings us to the inscrutable wisdom of God that humbles humanity. Look at verses 13 and 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?” So we have now we’re shifting to the mind of God, the wisdom of God. We’ve looked at the magnitude of God, power but now the infinite wisdom of God on display. It was the mind of God that enabled him to craft the heavens and the earth to begin with. God created the sun, the moon, and the stars, and the Earth and set them in complex motion with various physical laws that enable life to happen on Earth.

Everything relay that God calculated the best heat for the sun to put out the best distance from the sun to the Earth for life. Everything, the best size of the moon and its gravitational effect on the Earth, figured it all out. God calculated the chemistry of water and how he made water very unique and special, how it’s one of the few substances whose solid floats in its liquid. And it’s a good thing because that means that rivers and oceans and things freeze from the top down, enabling life to go on below the surface of the ice, and eventually the ice to melt in the heat of the sun. God is so wise. Everything worked out. The mind of God figured out the structure of the mountains, the nature of the dust, the best depth of the ocean. Everything.

It was the mind of the Lord that figured out the complexity of your body, of your brain, of your circulatory system, of everything. Fearfully and wonderfully made are you. It was God who figured all of those things out. And the mind of God is on display, not just in all the physical universe and all the stuff there is. It’s on display in the unfolding of history as well. God is very wise in unfolding history. The sequencing, how from the sin of Adam through to the point of where Jesus, in the fullness of time, was born of a virgin, who lived a sinless life, died on the cross and rose again and on through the 2000 years since. God has been unfolding history, the rise and fall of one nation after the other. Everything wisely figured out down to the smallest detail.

Now, who has understood all this? Which one of us has understood the mind of the Lord? Is anyone intelligent enough to trace all this out and comprehend it? There’s not a human being on the face of the Earth whose intellectual capacities reaches 1/10th of 1 millionth of 1% of what God does. So, who has ever instructed God as his counselor? I’ve said this before, I love it, I think about it probably once a week, I’ll say it again. Erwin Lutzer. Has it ever occurred to you that nothing has ever occurred to God? And it never will. So if nothing ever occurs to God, then you’re not ever teaching God anything in your prayer life. When you kneel down to pray for a brother or sister who’s going through a certain trial, for yourself, whatever, and you’re starting to explain to God what’s going on and starting to tell him the things that are happening, you haven’t taught him a thing, and you never will. There’s no aspect of history that He’s not thought straight through, if we could use that kind of language as though there was an Alpha and Omega of his thinking. He just instantly got it and always has, and we are not instructing him about anything when we pray.

God knows what we need before we ask him, he has already worked everything out. That means that redemptive history is unfolding exactly as the wisdom of God has ordained. Exactly. And nothing is surprising him and nothing ever will. And so, he doesn’t need any advice. And let me ask you a question, if he did need advice would he ask you? It’s like, well, you know, I’m… I mean, if you were asking him advice, I’d be in the running at least among those. Do you not see how arrogant this whole thing is? First of all, God is saying in this text, I’m not asking you for any advice. There is no one here who can be my counselor. God’s plan cannot possibly be improved on. I know there is suffering in this world. To us, it is incomprehensible. But God has measured everything out and is working out a spectacularly beautiful plan for his glory and for the joy of his people.

No one, it says in this text, in verse 14, taught God the path of justice. Interesting phraseology here. NIV just kinda tones it down to, “taught him the right way.” But other translations I think do a little bit better when they say, “taught him the path of justice.” It’s fascinating, and important. Many times, we sinners want to question God about his justice, don’t we? Jeremiah did it. In Jeremiah 12:1, he says, “You are always righteous O Lord, when I bring a case before you yet I would speak with you about your justice.” Boy, that takes some guts. “Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do the faithless live at ease?” It doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m questioning you about your justice. Later, after Jeremiah gets his answer, God says, “If you utter worthy, not worthless, words, you will be my spokesman.” So, don’t question me about my justice.

Justice is the foundation of his throne, it says in Psalm 97:2. And God has made known his justice to the Earth, first in his word, in the word of God, his law is just, his word is just. This is the justice of God, the 10 Commandments and all of the moral law that’s just. But we have violated God’s justice by our sins, and no one taught God the path of justice and what to do about it. God worked it out before the foundation of the world. How? That he would send his Son, his sinless Son into the world as a human being and he would die under the just punishment of God for sinners like you and me. No one taught God that. God worked that out before the foundation of the world.

And so it says in Romans 3, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement [propitiation], through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished– he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”  So, no one taught God that. No one taught God how to justify wicked people like you and me. Have you fled to Christ and trusted in him, to receive the forgiveness of your sins? Have you looked to Christ? Have you believed in him for the forgiveness of your sins? I plead with you, do it now. You’ve heard the gospel already multiple times, even this morning. God presented Jesus as an atoning sacrifice so that sinners like you and me can be just and righteous in his sight. But no one taught God how to do that. That was something God worked out before the foundation of the world.

IV. The Infinite Power of God Towers Over the Nations (vs. 15-17)

And the infinite power of God towers over the nations. We’re going to develop this more next time, but look at verse 15, it says, “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are accounted as dust on the scales. Behold, he takes up the coast lands like fine dust.” This is the immensity of God compared to the nations. The Jews probably felt like just straw on a tidal wave of human history, they couldn’t control anything. First, the Assyrians sweep in and take away the northern kingdom, then the Babylonians come in and sweep away whoever is not killed by the sword, famine, and plague; just a small remnant away to Babylon. And then, the Persians come in and destroy the Babylonians, and the King of Persia lets some of them come back, but they’re living under Gentile domination. And after the Persians fall, when Alexander the Great comes in and the Greeks come in, neither they’re in the Greek age.

And then the Greeks fell when the Romans swept in and destroyed their decaying empire, and they took over for hundreds of years. And then after them, eventually the barbarians and the Muslims and others have swept and dominated. And so it is, generation after generation. The nation seemed immense and powerful, organized together with military purpose. If, as one people speaking one nation, they begun to do this, God said at the Tower of Babel, “Nothing will be restrained from them.” Powerful these empires, but they are like a drop from the bucket and dust on the scales to God. Isn’t that encouraging? They’re like nothing. We’re going to talk more about this next time. But picture a farmer walking across the barnyard and he’s got a bucket of water and he’s bringing it to water some of his livestock, and as he walks, he’s trying to be careful but a single drop sloshes out of the bucket.

Picture him putting the bucket down and weeping, and trying to get that drop back and you’re like, “What is the matter with you? That’s a drop from the bucket. God says, “That’s what the nations are to me.” Almost not worth even talking about. Or picture dust on the scales like a medieval cellar of vegetables. And he’s got his scales and some woman comes and she wants to buy 2 pounds of turnips and right as he’s weighing it out, she shrieks and says, “You’re cheating me!” “What are you talking about?” “You didn’t dust your scales first before you weighed my turnips.” Like, what is the matter with you? The dust is as nothing, it’s not even worth comparing. The nations are a speck of dust and God is 100-pound weight on the scales of redemptive history, wherever God weighs in, that’s what happens.

Have any of you ever sought to lose weight, and you stepped on the scales with trepidation, and you want to know whether it was a good week or not, and you got the bad news that you’d actually gained half a pound that week? Have you ever thought, “Oh wait, yeah, that’s right. I didn’t dust the scale first.” Just get off and dust it and try again, see how that goes.  That’s what the nations are, they’re dust on the scales of history, these things that we fear so much. They’re like nothing to God. And so, we need to apply this to today. Do you see the swirling events? We look at what some call extremist Islam, some others would say, “That’s just what Islam is. It’s what Islam has always done.” It just bothers me how ignorant American politicians are of history and what the people who first believed in Islam and Muhammad did with that knowledge. Just read about it, first 200 years of Islam, find out what they did. This is what they’ve always done, but we don’t need to be afraid, friends. Amen?

We don’t need to be afraid. The nations, all of them, are like nothing. Same thing with communist China, and other nations, and ideologies, and post-Christian Europe with all of its materialism and atheism and bored, yawn at the gospel that they think is played out and doesn’t really count for anything anymore. God is greater than all of the nations.

V. What Can We Possibly Offer to Such a God? (vs. 16-17)

So now, the question that’s in front of us is what can we possibly offer to such a God? Look at verses 16 and 17. “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.”

So what could we poor, tiny sinners offer? Possibly offer to such a God?  Even if we were not sinners. Imagine you came from some poor, tiny little kingdom and you’re going to the halls of the great king and you have with you some of the finest homespun fabrics that some of the most skilled women of your community made. And as you’re waiting in the antechamber, trying to even get into the sub-sub-sub guy who deals with people like you who want to see the great king, and you realize he’s wearing garments that are of much better quality than the stuff you brought, finest silk, shimmering, you’ve never seen a fabric like it and you’re looking at what you have to offer. Or perhaps you brought a bushel of carrots and they’re getting ready for the big feast, which they pretty much have every night, and the produce they’re hustling past is far better quality than yours. It’s as nothing, you feel like I have nothing to offer.

But the problem is, actually we’re not sinless, we are actually rebels. We have rebelled against this great king. What could we offer for our sins? And Isaiah says, Look, if you had all, in the Old Testament style, animal sacrificial system, if you had all of the logs of Lebanon and burn them up and had all the animals in that country, it would be insufficient. What’s Joshua Bell worth? If you really knew who he was and what he was playing? What should they have offered there? Well, I guess, the ticket price is about $100. Okay, well, what’s God worth? The fact is, we have nothing to offer. Nothing. And God knew it, and that’s why he sent his Son.

The Lord searched, he saw that there was no one, he assessed the human race and knew that we had nothing to give. And so, his own arm worked salvation for him and his right hand sustained him and he sent his Son and he worked salvation in our place and offers it free of charge.

VI. Application

So what application? Flee to the gospel, friends. Flee and embrace this Savior. Realize you have nothing in your hands to offer. Realize that and accept the offering that God has made for you on your behalf in Jesus. And if you already have done that, I want you to just continually have an encounter with the Living God. Read over these verses later today. Read over them. Have your problem shrink compared to this great God.

I’m not minimizing them, I understand, I grieve with you, some of you going through the things you’re going through. I want to talk more. We want to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. We’re not minimizing but I just think a vision of a God like this can heal you, and strengthen you, and encourage you. Flee to him. Embrace him. Know that he loves you. Take your problems. Cast your burdens on him and just think this Mighty God has sent Jesus to be my good shepherd, and he will take me up in his arms, who we talked about last week, who can carry me close to his heart when I’m struggling. This is the God who loves me and who can do something for me. Trust in him. Close with me in prayer.

We yearn this morning to have an encounter with the living God by the words of this text!

Again and again, sinful humanity has trembled in the presence of the infinitely holy God:

·       Adam, after he had sinned and eaten the forbidden fruit, heard the sound of the Lord God as He was walking in the garden, and he trembled and hid from the presence of God

·       Abraham, when God appeared in the form of a blazing torch to make a covenant with him, was seized with terror and fell into a deep sleep

·       Jacob, when God appeared to him in a dream at the top of a stairway to heaven, awoke in terror and awe saying “How awesome is this place! It is none other than the house of God, the very gateway to heaven!”

·       Moses, when the angel of the Lord appeared to him in the flames of the burning bush, hid his face in terror and could not look

·       Isaiah had a vision of the Lord, high and exalted, and of angels crying to each other, “Holy, holy, holy… the whole earth is full of His glory!” and Isaiah trembled with fear, knowing he deserved to die! “Woe is me, I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips… and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty!”

This vision of Isaiah 40 was presented first to the eyes of his heart; God chose him as a prophet to see revelations of heavenly glory—the glory of God—and write about them. By the Word of God alone today can we see this same glory… the glory of God enthroned! By the Word of God alone today, can we be made to tremble in the presence of such a majestic God!

This morning, we are going to hear some of the most exalted words in the English language, translated faithfully from the original vision of Isaiah in the Hebrew language… we are going to stare at unapproachable light through the narrow slats and peepholes of human language; we are going to look at the blinding light of the glory of God sneaking in dim rays into our minds through LANGUAGE… nouns, verbs, pronouns… sentences… paragraphs

By faith alone will these words enable us to SEE GOD in His majesty, enthroned above all humanity

I.   The Staggering Majesty of God Guarantees the Gospel

A.   Isaiah 40:1-11: The Timeless Message of the Gospel

1.   Immediate Context: the Restoration of the Jewish Nation from Exile

a.   God is ABSOLUTELY SOVEREIGN and rules the nations! All the kings of the earth are as nothing to God and they do His bidding

b.   So do not be afraid, O little Israel! God is able to atone for your sins and restore you from Babylon to the Promised Land!

c.   But the message is MUCH TOO GREAT to stop at that! This extends to the entire human race!!

2.   Big Picture: God Speaks to the Human Race of Our Restoration from the Exile of Sin

Isaiah 40:1-2 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.

a.   A message that requires a radical transformation of the human heart to accept… the valleys raised up, the mountain and hills levelled

b.   A message that proclaims the GLORY OF THE LORD… revealed to all mankind together

Isaiah 40:5 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

c.   A message based on the eternal WORD OF GOD (vs. 6-8)… all flesh is GRASS, but the word of our God STANDS FOREVER!

d.   A message in which the messengers go throughout the world and proclaim these words: BEHOLD YOUR GOD!! (vs. 9)

e.   Ultimately: This message is nothing less than the gospel of Jesus Christ!!

3.   BUT the human race CANNOT ACCEPT this message! The world is steeped in UNBELIEF

B.   The World Refuses to Believe this Good News!

1.   How amazingly tragic! This is the very thing every human being on the face of the earth desires!

2.   We desire lasting peace… deep forgiveness… freedom from war and crime… freedom from disease and death… true, lasting happiness…

3.   All of these things are offered FREE OF CHARGE to anyone who will simply believe them

4.   But the world REFUSES to believe these truths!

a.   These things just sound TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE or TOO BAD TO BE TRUE

i)   TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE: The promises are quite incredible… eternal life in a perfect world, free from death, mourning, crying, pain… a perfect world filled with beauty… a world with no war, no crime, no suffering… all paid for by a glorious Savior—Jesus Christ

ii)   TOO BAD TO BE TRUE: On the other hand… this message proclaims that human beings are WRETCHED SINNERS, deserving of eternity in hell; we are under the just wrath of Almighty God; we are ENSLAVED TO SIN and totally UNABLE TO SAVE OURSELVES; we are servants of the devil, deceived and being deceived… that is TOO BAD to be true… we OVERESTIMATE ourselves…

5.   So… we THINK TOO HIGHLY OF OURSELVES, and we think TOO LOWLY OF GOD

6.   Why? Because WE DON’T KNOW GOD!!

a.   If we really knew God—His greatness, His power, His wisdom, His mercy, His grace, His love, His compassion—we would not stagger in unbelief at the GOOD NEWS of the Gospel; we would not think it is TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE…

b.   AND… if we really knew God—His holiness, His wrath, His righteousness, His justice, His zeal for His own glory—we would not think so highly of ourselves; we would not stagger and reject the BAD NEWS He has clearly given us of our sinfulness and our need for a Savior

7.   Think of yourself… your patterns, your habits:

a.   Do you not frequently think hard thoughts of God?

b.   Do you not frequently question God, wonder about His wisdom in doing this or that?

c.   Do you not question God’s love for you? Do you not effectively question His power in the world? Do you not wonder if the world and its problems seem to prove some DEFICIENCY in God?

d.   Do you not speak disrespectfully of God, Almighty God, the One who spoke the universe into existence? The One who said “Let there be light” and there was light? The One who created the sun, the moon, and the stars? The One who destroyed the world with a flood? The One who knit you together step by step in your mother’s womb?

e.   When was the last time you questioned God? When was the last time you challenged God? When was the last time you brought God to the bar of your justice and in some way accused Him of wrongdoing?

f.   This is our ROOT ISSUE!! The reason we stagger in unbelief regarding all the assertions of the Gospel—WE DON’T KNOW GOD!!!

8.   God here in this chapter helps every generation of people to BELIEVE THE GOSPEL MESSAGE…

9.   He takes us by the hand and leads us step by step to understand the infinite majesty and greatness of God

10. Through the prophet, Almighty God speaks the words we need most to hear… words that have REAL POWER to CREATE FAITH in our hearts

II.   The Stunning Immensity of God Dwarfs the Universe (vs. 12)

Isaiah 40:12 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?

A.   We Can Hardly Conceive of the Immensity of God

1.   The more we stand in awe of the incredible immensity of God, we would be silent before Him…

2.   Our problems—whatever they are—would shrink into insignificance

B.   God is Humbling Humanity Here

1.   A series of questions addressed to the human race

2.   Five times, God says “Who has…” to us

a.   Who has measured the waters of the oceans in the hollow of his hand? WHO?? Have any of you puny, tiny humans been able to do that? No? But Almighty God has!!!

b.   Who has used His hand to mark off the dimensions of the heavens? WHO?? Is any human being capable of doing this? Anyone want to step forward and say they’ve even been close to doing this? But God has done that!

c.   Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket? WHO?? Do you know any human being even remotely capable of such a feat? The entire human race, working together for a century, could not achieve it! God can do it in an instant!!

d.   Who has understood the mind of the Lord? Is there any human being who is willing to step forward and match wits with Almighty God? Any genius scientist willing to take on the infinite mind of God? Yes, some scientists have perceived certain aspects of the universe with amazing clarity and explained it to us in ways no one had up to that moment… but those human geniuses are merely scanning God’s work and noticing some details about it.

e.   Who has ever instructed God or acted as His tutor or counselor?

f.   Who? What human being can read these astonishing verses and not immediately be SILENCED? Humbled!! That is the whole purpose here!!

C.   The Immensity of God

1.   What is the “immensity” of God? It has to do with God’s relationship to the universe

2.   It is God’s infinity relative to earth and outer space… God fills every part of His creation with all of Himself all the time

3.   There is no place in the universe that you can go that God is not 100% present… present with all that He is

4.   There is no “container” for God

1 Kings 8:27 “But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!

5.   God is not dwarfed by anything… God dwarfs everything Himself

6.   Have you ever seen something so huge that you felt yourself to be tiny?

a.   Yosemite Half-Dome… rises 4737 feet above the valley floor

b.   Karakoram Mountains… all of them over 20,000 feet high

c.   The Grand Canyon… 18 miles across, 1 mile down to the Colorado River

d.   A deep night sky in the mountains… the stars testifying to your smallness

D.   God’s Immensity Compared to the Earth

1.   Start with the oceans… God is able to MEASURE the waters of all the oceans with the hollow of His hand… as though He can cup His hand and scoop up the Pacific Ocean and have plenty of room for the Atlantic as well

a.   Imagine doing this yourself… just go to a small lake nearby your house; go to the edge of the water, crouch down, and scoop up a handful of water and notice if the water level of the lake goes down at all! If you filled a bathtub with a normal amount of water for a child’s bath, it would be 30 gallons of water; I guess you could hold a half a cup of water in your hand… there are 16 cups in one gallon… that’s about 1000 handfuls of water in a bathtub…it would take about 20 minutes for you to empty the bathtub with a scoop every second! Lake Michie supplies 35 million gallons of drinking water per day for Durham… and Lake Michie is a small lake… How much water is there in the Atlantic? And the Pacific? And all the other oceans? Estimates put it at 333 million CUBIC MILES… a cubic mile is = the amount of water that flows over Niagara Falls in one month… or if

The land area of Manhattan Island in New York City is 22.96 square miles. So if we divide 1 cubic mile by 22.96 square miles, we have 1/22.96 miles = 230 ft. So if you built a retaining wall around Manhattan and poured 1 cubic mile of water into it, only buildings taller than 23 stories would break the surface!

And there are 333 MILLION of those on earth… a staggering amount of water

So ponder again this statement:

Isaiah 40:12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand

How many of us have stood at the ocean’s edge and been intimidated by the crashing of the waves? How many of us have seen videos of tidal waves after tsunamis or in hurricanes and felt a sense of terror at the sheer power of the ocean?

The ocean is a relentless force, pounding the shoreline with awesome power… but Isaiah says God cups his hand and scoops all the water on earth in one motion

God is never intimidated by anything! God rules the waves with a single word:

Job 38:8-11   “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, 9 when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, 10 when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, 11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?

Illus. Carolyn’s first view of the pounding surf… December, 1996… she was six months old

2.   God’s immensity on earth extends beyond the oceans… it includes the dry land as well…

Isaiah 40:12 Who has held the dust of the earth in a measure, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?

a.   The “dust of the earth” is the most insignificant part of the dry land… dust surrounds us at every moment… it flies seemingly randomly through the air as the winds blow; God is able to contain the dust of the earth in a single measure, and knows how much there is… that would be a vast undertaking, and impossible for any human being to do

b.   At the other end of the spectrum, God has weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance; God knows how much Mt. Everest weighs, and all the other mountains on the face of the earth as well…

i)   If you were to ask Google “How much does Mt. Everest weigh?” be assured any answer given there is based completely on estimates… It starts with these words: “Mt. Everest is more or less a cone”… they estimate the radius of the cone’s base and its height, a calculate the volume of the cone; then they have to estimate the density of the rock that makes up Mt. Everest. They arrive at an estimate of 357 trillion pounds… BUT THAT’S JUST A GUESS… God knows exactly how much each mountain and hill weighs

c.   So… from the tiniest speck of dust flying through your living room to the largest mountain and everything in between, from the deepest oceans to the shallowest puddles, God KNOWS WHAT IS ON PLANET EARTH

d.   The immensity and power and knowledge of God is absolutely staggering!!

E.   God’s Immensity Compared the Heavens

1.   But Isaiah doesn’t stop on planet earth

a.   Humanity is confined to the surface of the earth

b.   The heavens above soar beyond our reach for the most part…

c.   Yes, we’ve escaped earth’s gravitational pull and gotten out into orbit

d.   But the furthest any human being has ever been from earth is orbiting the far side of the moon—248,665 miles from earth… the astronauts James Lovell and his Apollo 13 crew did that on April 15, 1970

e.   The next closest stop will be Mars… over 100 times farther from that record

f.   BUT outer space is overwhelmingly immense… seemingly infinite

2.   The immensity of space

a.   The nearest star is Alpha Centauri—roughly 4.3 light years away… that is a stunningly far distance compared to the distance travelled by Apollo 13… 100 million times further! Like comparing your baby’s first step with a journey around the entire circumference of the earth! But that’s just to the NEAREST STAR!!

b.   The most distant galaxy yet seen by the Hubble space telescope is estimated 13.2 billion light years away… compared to 4.3 light years!!

c.   Space engulfs our minds with its sheer immensity… it is terrifyingly huge

d.   BUT Isaiah 40:12 shows the immensity of God compared to the universe itself:

Isaiah 40:12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?
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The “span of the hand” is the distance from the thumb to the forefinger on an outstretched hand

Imagine God taking His hand and marking off the entire cosmos like this… “one, two, three…”

1 Kings 8:27 “But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you.

F.   The Immensity of God Compared to Heaven and Earth is Meant to Humble Us AND Encourage Us

1.   God is immensely greater than things that are immensely greater than us…

a.   the oceans dwarf us in their sheer magnitude; their raging waves could sweep us all away in an instant; but God scoops the oceans in His hand as a child scoops water out of a bowl

b.   the dust of the earth overwhelm us with the sheer volume of its specks… they seem limitless to us; but God has weighed them all in His measurement cup

c.   the mountains of the earth overwhelm us with their imposing height and massive weight; they could threaten to crush us if they started to slide down toward our cities; God has weighed them on his scales and could easily hurl them all into the sea

d.   the heavens overwhelm us with their seemingly infinite distances; our minds stagger at the impossible distances; but God measures the heavens with the span of His hand

e.   ALL OF THIS IS MEANT TO HUMBLE US… but also to ENCOURAGE US

2.   This infinite God is at work ON OUR BEHALF! He is working out a vastly complex salvation plan to bring us to Himself in perfect righteousness

a.   Restoring the Jews to their promised Land after the exile to Babylon is NOTHING to God… He can do it with almost no effort whatsoever

b.   Saving sinners through the shed blood of Christ is WELL WITHIN God’s power to achieve, and He will do it!

III.   The Inscrutable Wisdom of God Humbles Humanity (vs. 13-14)

Isaiah 40:13-14 Who has understood the mind of the LORD, or instructed him as his counselor? 14 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?

A.   The Infinite Wisdom of God is On Display Here

1.   It was the MIND of God that enabled Him to craft the heavens and the earth in perfect physical balance to achieve His ends

2.   God created the stars, the sun, the moon, the earth and set them in complex motion, with gravity holding everything in proper relation to each other

3.   God calculated the best heat for the sun, the best distance from the sun to the earth, the best size of the moon and its gravitational effect on the earth

4.   God calculated the chemistry of water, its astonishing amazing characteristics—the fact that ice floats in water means that rivers and ponds and lakes freeze from the top down, allowing them to thaw again in the spring and allowing fish to survive the winter… the MIND OF GOD figured out water

5.   The mind of God figured out the structure of the mountains, the nature of the dust, the best depth of the oceans, how to make the waves halt at the shoreline

6.   It was the mind of the Lord that figured out how to make the immensely complicated human body

B.   The Mind of God on Display in Human History as Well

1.   More than merely the physics of the universe or the chemistry of the oceans or the biology of the human body, there is the WISDOM OF GOD on display in the unfolding of human history

2.   It was the wisdom of God that worked out what to do in response to Adam’s sin… He had already determined that before He created the world… it is called Redemptive History

3.   The MIND of the Lord worked this astonishingly complex plan out in human history… woven in amongst the rise and fall of many world empires, woven in amongst the triumphs and tragedies of millions of people and countless towns, villages, and cities

C.   Who Has Known the Mind of the Lord?

1.   No one has understood all this!!!

2.   No one is intelligent enough to trace all this out and comprehend it all

3.   There is not a human being on the face of the earth whose intellectual capacity reaches to a fraction of 1% of the mind of the Lord

D.   Who Has Instructed Him as His Counselor?

1.   Erwin Lutzer: “Has it ever occurred to you that nothing has ever occurred to God?”

2.   God has NEVER LEARNED ANYTHING… and HE NEVER WILL!!!

3.   So God needed NO COUNSELOR when He was crafting the universe and setting forth His eternal plan for the human race

4.   None of us was born then, and even if we had been, we could have added nothing to the mind of God

Job 38:4-7 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone– 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

5.   We could not have brought forward a single shred of a detail that God had not already pondered completely and understood down to the atomic level

6.   God’s plan cannot possibly be improved upon… God worked out the best possible way to display His glory and to redeem His elect in the midst of the explosive destruction of sin

E.   No One Taught God the “Path of Justice”

1.   This is a specific statement made here in verse 14

2.   The “path of justice” is translated by the NIV as “the right way”… but that is weak

3.   The “path of justice” is the way by which God can display His justice in the world

4.   Many times, we sinners want to question God about His justice:

Jeremiah 12:1 You are always righteous, O LORD, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?

5.   God already knows justice perfectly… we, the unjust, can teach God NOTHING about justice!

Psalm 97:2 Clouds and thick darkness surround him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

6.   Rather, God is constantly demonstrating His justice to a wicked human race

a.   First, by the Law of God

Isaiah 51:4 The law will go out from me; my justice will become a light to the nations.

b.   Second, by the sacrifice of Christ

Romans 3:25-26 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished– 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

The commitment of God to justice is absolutely immeasurable!! He would rather slaughter His own Son than allow sinners into heaven unjustly!!

So what can the human race teach God about justice??

IV.   The Infinite Power of God Towers Over the Nations (vs. 15-17)

Isaiah 40:15 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.

A.   The Immensity of God Compared to the Nations

1.   The nations are a daunting, terrifying obstacle to the peace of God’s people

2.   Human beings, highly organized, militarily powerful, organize themselves into a world conquering force known as an empire

3.   The nations—Gentile nations—are the very ones who were terrorizing the Jews, invading them, conquering them, carrying them into exile

4.   First, the Assyrians swept into the northern Kingdom of Israel and laid it waster; then they almost succeeded in doing the same to the southern Kingdom of Judah

5.   Then, the Babylonians swept into Judah and wiped it out; they destroyed Jerusalem and completely levelled the temple

6.   They carried off into exile the tiny remnant of Jews they didn’t slaughter

7.   But that was just the beginning! After Babylon would come one Gentile power after the next—dominating the Jews and ruling over them: the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans… then more and more Gentile empires

8.   These words from Isaiah are timeless, however… they tower over the wrecks of those empires!

Isaiah 40:6-8 All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. 7 The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass. 8 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

9.   God is speaking to His chosen people… not just the Jews, but in the New Covenant, all Christians—both Jews and Gentiles… though you may feel tiny compared to the nations, the nations are tiny compared to God!!

B.   The Nations are a Drop from the Bucket and Dust on the Scales

1.   Two images teach the exact same thing!

2.   The nations are absolutely NOTHING compared to God… they are inconsequential in power… lightweight… not worth speaking about

3.   The nations cannot alter God’s plan one bit; the nations cannot make God afraid in the least; the nations are a DROP FALLING OUT OF A BUCKET

a.   Imagine some farmer carrying water to his barn to water his cows

b.   Imagine as he crosses from the pump to the barn a tiny drop sloshes out of the bucket

c.   Imagine the farmer stopping, horrified… he gets down on his hands and knees and scoops up the damp soil where the drop fell, trying to rescue and reclaim this single drop of water!

d.   You would call such a man insane!

e.   In the flow of human history, God is like the Niagara Falls, and all the nations put together are like a single particle of water mist hovering in the air

4.   The nations are dust on the scales!

a.   Imagine a vendor selling produce in the market back in the Middle Ages

b.   Imagine a woman coming to purchase his turnips and seeks to buy 2 pounds for her family

c.   The vendor begins to weigh out the two pounds, and the woman shrieks that he is cheating her!

d.   “Why?” He asks her? “Because I saw you! There is a piece of dust on the scales and you didn’t wipe it off before you weighed my turnips! You’re cheating me!”

e.   The scales cannot even weigh the dust… it is immeasurably small! On the scales of human history, all the nations together amount to a single piece of dust, and God is like a 50 pound weight! Whatever side God weighs in on, that is what will happen!

5.   Even the distant islands, the mysterious coastlands are like fine dust

a.   The world, even in its unexplored nether regions, will produce no surprises that can threaten God

b.   God created those distant islands, those unexplored coastlines… they are as nothing to God!

C.   Applied Today!

1.   We look at the swirling events of the nations and it’s easy to be daunted

2.   We look at an assembly of enraged militant Islamic extremists with their fists in the air, chanting about death to their enemies, willing to slaughter innocent people or die martyr’s deaths to accomplish their ends

3.   We look at the massive tide of opinion in the USA on issues of immorality—abortion, homosexuality, legalization of drugs, etc.— and are easily intimidated

4.   We look at the deadness of hearts in post-Christian Europe, the rise of secularism and materials and science and communist China and all these supposed threats to the gospel and to the Christian church

5.   God means for us to read these verses and laugh with Him at His enemies!!

6.   The nations are as NOTHING compared to Almighty God!

Isaiah 46:10 I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ will spread from shore to shore; God will convert His elect; Jesus Christ will build His church, and the Gates of Hades will not prevail against it!!

V.   What Can We Possibly Offer to Such a God? (vs. 16-17)

Isaiah 40:16-17 Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering. 17 All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

A.   What Could Tiny Sinners Like Us Possibly Offer to Such a God?

1.   Even if we were not sinners, but merely emissaries from a distant kingdom trying to get an audience with such a king… we walk into the outer courts of His palace and look around at the wealth— infinitely greater than Solomon’s staggering kingdom;

2.   We look in our hands at what we brought to offer such a king—it is a simple linen garment the women of the community wove… but you see all the servants of the King wearing magnificent silk garments such as you’ve never seen in all your life; you are also offering a bushel of carrots from your garden, and you see the servants of the King hustling to prepare that evening’s feast, and their produce is of far better quality than what you brought, and in vast supply

3.   You realize you have nothing to offer that would even be worthy of notice in the slightest amount

4.   But how much more is this true when we are SINNERS! We have been in rebellion against this majestic Emperor! What could we offer then?

5.   If the entire human race came to their senses and organized together an offering to the Holy God of the Universe… our tiny planet were scoured for the best wood with which to burn the sacrificial offering, and the best animals were found in huge numbers… it would be INSUFFICIENT as an offering

6.   LEBANON… that place of towering cedars, which grow to heights of over 130 feet, with diameters of 8 feet… all put together would not be enough to offer such a God

7.   All the beasts of Lebanon also are NOT ENOUGH for the altar fires God deserves… nor do they atone for the vast record of human wickedness!!

8.   All the nations put together are as NOTHING… they are EMPTINESS compared to the majesty of this Holy God

B.   So… What Offering Could We Make that is Equal to the Majesty of God?

1.   Simple answer… NONE!

2.   Even more, what offering could we make that would atone for our sins?

3.   Simple answer, again… NONE!

C.   Christ Alone is Sufficient!

1.   God saw that there was nothing we could offer

2.   God knew that there was no way that we could atone for our sins

3.   So God prepared His own sacrifice, His own atonement

4.   Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, whom God presented as a propitiation for our sins

Romans 3:25-26 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished– 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

5.   By this offering alone can our sins be atoned for!!

6.   This is the point of the meditation on the greatness of God’s majesty… that we would be humbled and realize the only possible offering there could ever be before such a majestic God is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us

VI.   Application

A.   Come to Christ!

B.   Have an Encounter with this Majestic God… and Be Truly Humbled!

C.   Look Over these Verses Again… and Allow Your Problems to Sink into Insignificance

1.   I do not minimize the suffering of anyone in this room… our sufferings are real and weighty

2.   You may be suffering daily physical pain… you may have a diagnosis of cancer… you may face a very uncertain future in connection with your medical trials; or perhaps all of that is true of a loved one in your life—a wife, a husband, a son or daughter; an elderly parent; and you may be struggling every day with the compassion for their pain, and with the trial of caring for them

3.   You may be deeply lonely, and feel that very few people know about you or care about you; you may go a week or more with no one reaching out to you

4.   You may be struggling financially in ways that few people know about… you may be struggling to make ends meet

5.   You may have a array of trials of various combinations… maybe you have no great trial, but you’re anxious about the future— where you’re going in life

6.   This vision of a God who measures the waters in the hollow of His hand and measures the universe with the breadth of His hand has always been intended by God to ENCOURAGE His weak, small, frail people to trust in Him and believe the gospel of His power and provision for their sins

D.   Though God is so Mighty and Majestic, He Truly Cares for Us!!

1.   If it weren’t for the compassion of God, He wouldn’t even look at us or care for our tiny issues in the least

2.   But the Scriptures again and again reveal a God who is tender and compassionate to our needs and sufferings, and who is willing through Christ to forgive our sins

Isaiah 40:11   He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.

3.   Allow this amazing combination of verses to minister to you as you may need: if you’re arrogant and lifted up, let these verses level you, humble you, lay you low; if you are crushed and broken- hearted, allow these verses to lift you up to full trust in such a God!!