Here Is Your God – Part 4
Isaiah 40:1-31 (12-17)
February 4, 2024
A.W. Tozer wrote:
“Let us beware lest we in our pride accept the erroneous notion that idolatry consists only in kneeling before visible objects of adoration, and that civilized peoples are therefore free from it. The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him.”
(Tozer, A.W. [The Knowledge of the Holy; Harper & Row; New York, NY; 1961] pg. 11)
We are seemingly aware of the dangers and sinfulness of idolatry.
Exodus 20:3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
• We are warned about placing anything as a god before Him.
Exodus 20:4-6 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”
• We see the warnings against idolatry and the fashioning of graven images in the supposed likeness of God.
We understand that it was because of idolatry that God sent Babylon into Judah to destroy her and carry her off into exile for 70 years.
We seem to have a right understanding that idolatry is wrong
Because God hates it, and we would not argue in the least.
BUT PERHAPS there are more problems with idolatry than just the wrath which it incites.
Have you ever considered the ramifications that idolatry will have on your life?
We could read about it in Romans 1
Romans 1:21-25 “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”
• Go and “google” the ostrich footed people of Zimbabwe.
• Go and look at the effects of idolatry.
• Go and look at the effects of listening to a Satan-filled witch doctor.
• We see the pitfalls of nations like India which are steeped in idolatry; starving to death while cows walk free and unharmed.
But we pass them off as primitive cultures.
But in the quote above A.W. Tozer pointed out that
Idolatry is more than bowing to an idol,
It is ultimately having thoughts about God that aren’t worthy of Him.
We may not have the “primitive” idolatry of incest or cow worship,
But we do understand the idolatry of weak theology.
And this is the idolatry Isaiah is exposing here in Isaiah 40.
Their idolatry is NOT just about a graven image.
Their idolatry is about a weak understanding of God.
• They have reduced God in their thinking to something less than He is.
• They are recreating God in their own image.
• They are recreating God in the image of the nations.
• They are recreating God in the image of their idols.
• They are recreating God in the image of their rulers.
• They are recreating God in the image of their mystical astrology.
They have managed to reduce God to being like them or like the nations or like the idols or like the rulers of this world or like the stars.
THAT IS BLASPHEMOUS.
THAT IS IDOLATROUS.
THAT IS A SURE FIRE WAY TO PUT YOU IN DESPAIR.
AND TONIGHT I want you to contemplate the negative effects that the idolatry of weak theology can have on your life.
Your theology will directly effect your life.
• If your God is merciful, you will rest in mercy.
• If your God is holy, you will walk in holiness.
• If your God is small, you will strive to do it on your own.
You understand the issue at hand.
We are getting at the root of the problem that is plaguing these refugees
Who have become convinced that God has forgotten them.
We remember their lament:
(27) “Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, And the justice due me escapes the notice of my God”?”
We have been addressing both the root of this despair
And the solution to it.
The reality is that the reason Jacob is in such despair
Is because they have forgotten God.
Isaiah is writing to say, (9) “Here is your God”
We have broken their failed memory into 3 categories.
We spend the last 3 sermons talking about the first thing they forgot:
#1 GOD’S PROMISES
Isaiah 40:1-11
And we won’t go all through it again.
• But Jacob forgot the promises of God and it led them into despair.
• Remembering His promises was the pathway to hope.
Tonight we start looking at the second thing Jacob forgot.
#2 GOD’S POWER
Isaiah 40:12-26
Even as I typed this out, I nearly changed it to “GOD’S PREEMINENCE”
So feel free to go with the one you like best.
But what we are talking about here is that God is unlike any other.
But when you start to view God through your lens…
Or when you start to make God like you or like something…
YOU WON’T LIKE WHAT YOU’RE LEFT WITH
AND THIS WAS ISRAEL’S PROBLEM.
It is apparent that Israel was too quick to compare
• God’s wisdom to that of man’s
• God’s power to that of the nations
• God’s deliverance to that of idols
• God’s preeminence to that of kings
• God’s guidance to that of the stars
And if you do that you’ll end up with a God who has
• No wisdom
• No power
• No deliverance
• No preeminence
• No guidance
And then you’ll end up with NO HOPE.
This is the problem with Israel.
They have forgotten who God is.
• They have dumbed Him down to some level of their own comprehension.
• They have demoted Him to something more palatable to their taste.
• And now they are stuck with this bland and boring impotent god.
Isaiah writes to remind them who God is.
More than that, He allows God to remind them who He is.
Make no mistake, this portion of Isaiah’s message IS A REBUKE.
• It drips in some places with sarcasm
• It is very “in your face”
• It comes at you with the force of, “How dare you?”
And this is fitting because anyone who would replace proper theology
With weak man-made theology deserves such a rebuke.
And yet, though it is a rebuke, the purpose is still the same…COMFORT.
God confronts their idolatry that He might correct it.
He corrects it that they might have comfort.
MAYBE YOU NEED THIS REMINDER TOO.
Like we did with the first segment,
Let’s break this one down a little further as well.
This segment comes to us as God challenges our view of Himself
By comparing Himself to 5 worldly powers.
5 areas that man are prone to lean upon or fear or listen to or trust in.
And God takes each of them on one by one.
At the end of the segment you’ll see that God is not “like” any of them.
He is infinitely higher, wiser, stronger, greater, more dependable,
And transcendent above them all.
So let’s look at these 5 comparisons.
1) TO MAN (12-14)
“Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, And marked off the heavens by the span, And calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, And weighed the mountains in a balance And the hills in a pair of scales? Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, Or as His counselor has informed Him? With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding? And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge And informed Him of the way of understanding?”
If those 3 verses are familiar to you, they should be.
They were the chosen verses of Paul as the only way he could describe the way God “blew his mind” in regard to the gospel.
• Paul took us through a 11-chapter explanation of the gospel.
• He culminated in the last 3 chapters with an essay explaining God’s sovereignty over salvation and even the mystery of breaking off the Jews that Gentiles might be grafted in, and the promise of bringing Israel back in again.
And one almost gets the feeling that as Paul wrote the letter,
The Holy Spirit seized hold and wrote it for him.
Because at the end of the segment,
• Paul just leaned back,
• His mind fully blown,
• And wrote the only words that seemed fitting to him upon learning such mind-blowing truth.
Romans 11:33-36 “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR? Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”
Paul finished walking us through the gospel and was left speechless.
All he could do was quote these verses about the infinite wisdom of God.
Paul reminded us God’s wisdom is beyond human ability to find it.
Paul said God’s judgments are “unfathomable”
Job wrote a great chapter on wisdom in Job 28
Expounding how mankind knows how to find all sorts of valuable things.
• He describes mining for gold and diamonds all sorts of precious jewels,
• But admits when it comes to wisdom, man doesn’t even know where to begin.
Job 28:12-22 “But where can wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? “Man does not know its value, Nor is it found in the land of the living. “The deep says, ‘It is not in me’; And the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’ “Pure gold cannot be given in exchange for it, Nor can silver be weighed as its price. “It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, In precious onyx, or sapphire. “Gold or glass cannot equal it, Nor can it be exchanged for articles of fine gold. “Coral and crystal are not to be mentioned; And the acquisition of wisdom is above that of pearls. “The topaz of Ethiopia cannot equal it, Nor can it be valued in pure gold. “Where then does wisdom come from? And where is the place of understanding? “Thus it is hidden from the eyes of all living And concealed from the birds of the sky. “Abaddon and Death say, ‘With our ears we have heard a report of it.’”
You can’t dig for it, you can’t swim for it, you can’t buy it, you can’t barter for it, and even if you could, there’s no currency that equals it in value.
MAN CAN’T OBTAIN IT.
Unless God reveals Himself to you, you can’t see it.
• Wisdom is unique to God, not man.
• To assume that God’s wisdom resembles ours is blasphemous idolatry.
We learn that the word of God is spiritually appraised.
• No man can know the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
1 Corinthians 2:9-13 “but just as it is written, “THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.” For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.”
So to even have the thought that God somehow “thinks like me”
Or that “I think like God” or that we are anywhere close
To being on the same page naturally is such an insult to God.
Paul reminded us that God’s wisdom is beyond human ability to comprehend it.
Even if we could find it, we wouldn’t know what to do with it.
Paul quoted Isaiah saying, “who has known the mind of the LORD?”
Here we find that even when God does reveal His wisdom to us,
It is so far above us that we can’t even comprehend it.
When David tried, he wrote:
Psalms 139:6 “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.”
I’ve been reading John Owen’s “The Death of Death”
• And it’s taking me forever because John Owen is way smarter than me.
• I have trouble with comprehending what he is saying.
And yet we think we can casually comprehend God’s wisdom?
HE IS SO FAR ABOVE US.
If He doesn’t choose to give us the ability to comprehend, we can’t.
Paul reminded us that God’s wisdom is beyond human ability to claim it.
Asking with Isaiah, “who became His counselor?”
Who here would take credit for teaching God all that He knows?
Who here would take credit for showing God how to create?
• We don’t even know where such wisdom is found.
• When we see it we can’t comprehend it.
• But we’re going to actually take credit for teaching God something?
• NOT HARDLY!
THE WHOLE POINT IS THAT GOD IS NOT LIKE YOU.
PAUL USED THIS PASSAGE as one of the great doxologies in Scripture to remind us of the transcendent wisdom of God.
But I hope that is NOT THE ONLY reason this passage is familiar.
Israel is here confronted with 4 question:
1. “Who has marked the waters in the hollow of His hand, and marked off the heavens by the span, and calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, and weight the mountains in a balance and the hills in a pair of scales?
2. “Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, or as His counselor has informed Him?”
3. “With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding?”
4. “And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge and informed Him of the way of understanding?”
They are direct.
They are bold.
They “in your face” obvious realities.
Do such a tactic seem familiar to you?
How about the day
• When another suffering man began to question the injustice of his suffering?
• When Job, filled with despair, also had wrong thoughts about God?
How did God correct Job?
How did God lift Job out of his despair?
THE EXACT SAME WAY!
Now Job got 4 chapters of it instead of 4 questions,
But the point is the same.
Listen to God confront Job:
Job 38:8-11 “Or who enclosed the sea with doors When, bursting forth, it went out from the womb; When I made a cloud its garment And thick darkness its swaddling band, And I placed boundaries on it And set a bolt and doors, And I said, ‘Thus far you shall come, but no farther; And here shall your proud waves stop’?”
• Job viewed God as unjust because God did what seemed wrong to Job.
God reminded of His wisdom to create
As a wisdom that so far beyond Job’s
That Job had no right to question God’s wisdom about anything.
Isaiah followed suit and asked Israel: “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand”
Let that statement sink in!
• God measured the oceans out of His hand!?!
• How big is God?
• How far above you is He?
God asked Job:
Job 38:19-20 “Where is the way to the dwelling of light? And darkness, where is its place, That you may take it to its territory And that you may discern the paths to its home?”
And again:
Job 38:31-33 “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, Or loose the cords of Orion? “Can you lead forth a constellation in its season, And guide the Bear with her satellites? “Do you know the ordinances of the heavens, Or fix their rule over the earth?”
Again God confronts Job limitation and ignorance.
• Job never even considered what it would take to command the stars.
• God does it with ease.
Isaiah followed suit by reminding: “And marked off the heavens by the span”
Another mind-blowing statement.
• God measured out the heavens by the span of His hand?
One commentator:
“Our solar system is inside the galaxy called the Milky Way. And this galaxy we live in is shaped like a spiral, a gigantic pinwheel spinning in the open expanse of space, with our solar system rotating around the center once every million years or so. We lie about two-thirds of the way out from the center of the galaxy, in what might be considered the boondocks. The Milky Way is 104,000 light-years across, containing over 100 billion stars. To count them one by one would take us over 3,000 years. And according to the latest probings of the Hubble Space Telescope, there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in God’s universe!”
(Ortlund, Raymond [Preaching The Word Commentary Series: Isaiah; Crossway, Wheaton, IL, 2005] pg. 247)
“by the span”
Have you ever even considered how you’d go about creating something like that?
God asked Job:
Job 38:4-7 “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? “On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together And all the sons of God shouted for joy?”
God simply wants to know where Job was in all his power and wisdom when God was working on the universe?
You see the point: WE ARE NOT EQUALS!
Isaiah again follows suit: “And calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, and weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in a pair of scales”
Isaiah may have very well had Job’s rebuke ringing in his ears as he began this section addressing a people who had greatly minimized God in their minds.
I don’t think you realize who you are dealing with here.
At the very least you have forgotten.
He is the creator of all things!
Him and no one else!
Isaiah 44:24 “Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb, “I, the LORD, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself And spreading out the earth all alone,”
That is to say, “I don’t recall any man being there to help when I created it all.”
• In fact, man wasn’t created until day 6.
• Like a blister, Adam didn’t show up until all the work was over.
Raymond Ortlund wrote:
“When God created everything, he needed nothing. All the ideas, all the genius, were his alone. God imagined every tropical fish. He established every function of gravity. He shaped galaxies as irregular, spiral, and elliptical. He came up with it all, by himself alone, out of his own superintelligence. In Babylonian religion the creator god Marduk had to consult with “Ea, the all-wise.” The pagan gods worked by committee. God the Creator needs no one else, including you and me.”
(ibid. pg. 244)
And we aren’t just talking about the actual heavy lifting.
God didn’t need any help in imagination, design, know how, architecture, engineering, science, or any other field of human expertise.
• No one “directed the Spirit of the LORD”
• No one “informed Him”
• No one “gave Him understanding”
• No one “taught Him in the path of justice”
• No one “taught Him knowledge”
• No one “informed Him of the way of understanding”
Job 38:1-7 “Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, “Who is this that darkens counsel By words without knowledge? “Now gird up your loins like a man, And I will ask you, and you instruct Me! “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? “On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together And all the sons of God shouted for joy?”
It comes with a ringing, “Who is this..?”
And this is how Isaiah begins comparing God to the rival of man.
• How quick we are to lean on our own understanding.
• How quick we are to trust in our own logic.
• How quick we are to reinterpret that which is disagreeable.
• How quick we are to assume we know better.
And then how quick we are to assume that God must think like us.
But God confronts that idolatrous mindset.
1. Where were you when I used My word to create the heavens and the earth?
2. Have you ever created anything by your word?
3. Does your word have such power?
(It’s actually a heresy that has arisen today called the Word-Faith movement where men actually do think they can create with their words – nonsense!)
GOD CHALLENGES MEN THERE.
Speak something into existence!
• Go tell dry land to appear in the middle of the ocean.
• Go tell the wind and the waves to be still.
• Go tell a withered arm to be made new.
Why would you think your words had anything in common with Mine?
AND SINCE YOU’RE SO GOOD AT ADVICE:
• When was the last time you told God what to do?
• When was the last time He needed your input?
• When was the last time He asked you for clarity?
Do you get the nonsense here?
Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.”
But man does not know such things.
Jeremiah 33:3 “‘Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’”
It is a foolish comparison to think
That God in any way thinks like you or me.
Isaiah 55:8-9 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
It is nothing short of idolatry to bring God down to your level.
You couldn’t insult God’s intelligence any more
Than to act like He thinks like you.
To place your wisdom at such a high level
That you assume that God thinks like you think.
THAT IS BLASPHEMOUS AND IDOLATROUS
BUT AS WE SAID, it is more harmful than just that.
Do you know the ramifications of having a God who doesn’t know any more than you know?
UTTER DESPAIR.
Imagine
• Being a refugee; a political prisoner held captive in a foreign land
• And you go to God to ask what to do
• And He answers, “I’m not really sure, do you have any ideas?”
That’s when it’s time to start panicking!
But God is not like you!
God is not like man!
STOP BRINGING HIM DOWN TO YOUR LEVEL!
• Man’s word does not have the wisdom or the power of God’s word.
• Man does not know what God knows.
• God doesn’t think like man thinks.
It’s no wonder you are in despair, you thought God was like you
And if you didn’t know how to get out of this mess,
It must mean He doesn’t either.
That’s the first comparison, TO MAN
And there is no comparison, God wins.
2) TO NATIONS (15-17)
“Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, And are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales; Behold, He lifts up the islands like fine dust. Even Lebanon is not enough to burn, Nor its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before Him, They are regarded by Him as less than nothing and meaningless.”
Now we come across the great obstacle.
Jacob was held captive by a great nation.
The golden head of Babylon
Had invaded their land, burned their temple, torn down their wall,
And Israel wasn’t the only one.
No one had had an answer for “Babylon the great”
Such nations were too powerful.
Oh don’t we understand that line of thinking!
Especially those of us who live in this
“Super Power” nation of the United States of America.
• We have a military so mighty that terrorists were able to steal our own planes
and fly them into our buildings.
• We have an intelligence agency so might that they did it right under our noses.
• We have an economy so strong that we are 34.17 trillion in debt.
• We have a workforce so strong that we import about 1 trillion dollars more of
goods than we export every year.
• Our remarkable education system ranks 13th in the world.
• But we do manage to win the Olympics every 4 years.
But we think so highly of our power.
Even our power to provide, deliver, and save.
And then we think of other nations that strike fear in our hearts.
• What if Russia attacked?
• What if China invaded?
In our minds nations like this
So often become the focus of enormous power.
We see them as such a great machine of power
Who can do whatever they want.
And in Israel’s day it was no different.
Who could withstand the mighty arm of the Babylonian machine?
It must have all felt very hopeless to those refugees held captive there.
The reality was because they had reduced God to being
One who was no stronger than the nation of Babylon.
SO GOD BRINGS UP ANOTHER COMPARISON.
(15) “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket…”
Have you ever carried a 5-gallon bucket full of water?
• Did you spill any of it?
• Did it matter?
That is the nations before God – ABSOLUTELY INSIGNIFICANT!
• Do you think God is worried about China?
• Do you think Russian keeps Him up at night?
• Do you think God fears the USA will dethrone Him?
It is laughable.
“nations…are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales;”
When is the last time you went to the doctor’s office and they weighed you?
• After they weighed you did you ever bend down, flick a piece of dust off the scales and say, “There, try it now”?
Nope, because it doesn’t mean anything.
“Behold, He lifts up the islands like fine dust.”
• Think about Hawaii
• Think about Ireland
• Think about Australia
It is nothing to Him.
They are like fine dust.
Carrie wipes away thousands of them with one swipe of her hand.
“Even Lebanon is not enough to burn, nor its beasts enough for a burnt offering.”
Lebanon was known for it’s great and thick forests.
• And God says if you were to take every tree from every forest in Lebanon
• To build a fire where you could offer every animal there as a burnt offering…
THAT WOULDN’T BE ENOUGH
TO EVEN SERVE AS AN APPETIZER FOR GOD!
And just to make sure you understand the point.
(17) “All the nations are as nothing before Him, They are regarded by Him as less than nothing and meaningless.”
So do you really think God is no more powerful than Babylon?
Daniel was pretty interested in this subject.
TURN TO: DANIEL 2:31-45
• Nebuchadnezzar had a dream and called upon Daniel for its interpretation.
Do you see that God not only had Nebuchadnezzar in His sites?
• But He knew what nation was coming after that and after that and after that…all the way to the final nation that will rule the world forever.
Why do you get so up in arms over the power of nations?
• To those who feel dejected because they live under a government they view
to be oppressive.
• To those who feel hopeless because their vote doesn’t seem to matter.
• To those who wonder if the nation has so lost its moral center that they can
even win a vote any more.
• To those who see all that they hold dear being tossed aside.
To those who, like the refugees in Babylon, don’t see any way to defeat the great political machine that has taken over their lives.
That would be true if God were no bigger than the nations.
But have you lost sight of who He is?
Have you made your God so small that you actually think He can do nothing against the evils of our nation?
As Ortlund also put it:
“When God created man, he didn’t dig his own grave. He didn’t create an unforeseen difficulty. All human opposition is, to God, a minus factor in the equation of reality.”
(ibid. pg. 245)
When God created man and then man sinned.
• God had no problem removing him from the garden and sending him throughout all the earth.
When man populated and grew increasingly evil, even when they began to cohabitate with demons,
• It only took God 40 days of rain to wash the earth free of them.
When man’s descendants decided to build a tower
• It was no problem for God to confuse their language and scatter them.
When cities grew wicked,
• He rained fire and brimstone.
Egypt was broken with plagues.
Assyria was broken by a rumor.
Babylon was broken by hand writing on the wall.
THEY DO NOT POSE A THREAT TO GOD.
When God sent the Israelites into Canaan, which nation proved too much for Him?
Psalms 44:2-3 “You with Your own hand drove out the nations; Then You planted them; You afflicted the peoples, Then You spread them abroad. For by their own sword they did not possess the land, And their own arm did not save them, But Your right hand and Your arm and the light of Your presence, For You favored them.”
Stop reducing God to One who is no more powerful than a nation.
And realize that if God determined to turn this nation, burn this nation, or cause this nation to hover in the air like a hot air balloon He could do it.
The nations of the world are not an obstacle to Him, not even a little.
Psalms 47:3 “He subdues peoples under us And nations under our feet.”
Psalms 47:8 “God reigns over the nations, God sits on His holy throne.”
Psalms 59:7-8 “Behold, they belch forth with their mouth; Swords are in their lips, For, they say, “Who hears?” But You, O LORD, laugh at them; You scoff at all the nations.”
Psalms 22:27-28 “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, And all the families of the nations will worship before You. For the kingdom is the LORD’S And He rules over the nations.”
Psalms 33:10 “The LORD nullifies the counsel of the nations; He frustrates the plans of the peoples.”
I THINK YOU GET THE POINT.
• If the nations have caused you half a second of fear and trepidation…
• If you are in despair because of the current political climate…
• If your entire hope rests on some election…
Then you have dumbed God down way too far.
Remember who He is, and find comfort.
So now we have God compared to the nations
And once again there is no comparison.
Psalms 43 “Vindicate me, O God, and plead my case against an ungodly nation; O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man! For You are the God of my strength; why have You rejected me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? O send out Your light and Your truth, let them lead me; Let them bring me to Your holy hill And to Your dwelling places. Then I will go to the altar of God, To God my exceeding joy; And upon the lyre I shall praise You, O God, my God. Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.”
There are 3 more, but we’ll wait until next week to start looking at them.
