What do you want? All right, good evening, brethren.
It's good to see you all. I'm going to open with a passage
from our text in Isaiah 40. And my text is verses 18 through
25, but I'm going to go back to verse 9 because this whole
passage is in relation to the word of the Lord to his people,
to behold your God. Behold your God. And so all these
scriptures, even the ones that we're looking at tonight specifically,
all relate back to what our Lord said to his people, to behold
your God, as we'll read here in verse nine. And that's where
we'll pick up. Isaiah 40, verse nine. Oh Zion, that bringest good tidings,
get thee up into the high mountain. O Jerusalem that bringest good
tidings, lift up thy voice with strength, lift it up, be not
afraid, say unto the cities of Judah, behold your God. Behold, the Lord God will come
with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him. Behold, his
reward is with him, and his work before him. He shall feed his
flock like a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with
his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead
those that are with young. Who hath measured the waters
in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span?
and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed
the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance. Who hath
directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor, hath
taught him. With whom took he counsel, and
who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment,
and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding. Behold, the nations are as a
drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance.
Behold, he taketh up the aisles as a very little thing, and Lebanon
is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient
for a burnt offering. All nations before him are as
nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing in vanity. To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare
unto him? The workman melteth a graven
image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth
silver chains. He that is so impoverished that
he hath no oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot, he
seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image that
will not be moved. Have ye not known? Have ye not
heard? Hath it not been told you from
the beginning? Have ye not understood from the
foundations of the earth? It is he that sitteth upon the
circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers,
that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them
out as a tent to dwell in. That bringeth the princes to
nothing, he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity. Yea,
they shall not be planted, yea, they shall not be sown, yea,
their stock shall not take root in the earth, and he shall also
blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall
take them away as stubble. To whom then will ye liken me,
or shall I be equal, saith the Holy One? All right, let's go
to the Lord in prayer. Lord, our gracious, holy, heavenly
Father, we thank you that we may come
before you now to hear your voice, to see what you have said in
your scriptures. And Lord, we come with this prayer
that you would grant us faith, give us an open ear and a willing
heart ready to receive the word of our God. Lord, help us. You know the weakness and the
infirmity of this flesh. You know the idolatry which resides
in us by nature. And Lord, you know our dependence
upon you to remove the enmity that is in this flesh against
our perfect, holy, wonderful God, who does all things well,
and all things right and just. And so, Lord, we look to you
asking that you would attend this assembly, this gathering
of your people, and that you would bless us, Lord, even those
who must watch online, Lord, that you would bless them and
cause them to to feel and to know Your Spirit, to hear the
voice of our Shepherd, and to follow Him. And Lord, we ask
that You would be with Your people. Lord, that You would comfort
those of us who are mourning, comfort those of us who are sick
and weak and suffering from various bodily ailments, Lord, that You
would heal the sick, heal the broken-hearted, comfort the minds
of Your people, and help us, Lord, to stay upon our Savior,
to keep looking to Him, and to not be taken away with the cares
and the troubles of this world. Lord, we can't do this. We see
our failings and our weaknesses continually. But Lord, You can
do this, and so we ask that you would indeed perform your grace
and work in us, and that you would indeed cause us to walk
in the new man, not in the old man, not in the way of the flesh,
not in sin and iniquity, but in righteousness and doing that
which is right and well-pleasing to you and is a help to your
people. It's in the name of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ that we pray this, amen. Okay, so our text is gonna be
Isaiah 40, and tonight I wanna look at verses 18 through 25
with you. And the passage tonight, it reveals
the alternative that man has for himself to sovereign God. This is wicked man's alternative
to sovereign God. And as we'll see, his alternative
is an impotent idol. It's just an idle God who has
no power, no ability to do anything of himself. And so in reality,
what he's worshiping is the works of his own hands. And this goes
back all the way to the days of Cain, when Cain brought the
labors from the garden, from what he had done. He didn't listen
to the Lord, he didn't hear the Lord to bring blood looking to
the Savior, the coming Messiah, instead he brought his own works,
his own labors. And so since Cain, all the way
through till now, we see how man is always looking to persuade
God, to change God's mind, to influence what God will do. And he's looking to influence
the outcome of what he perceives as his life, either here or in
eternity, and he wants to influence the glorification of his name
and the praise of himself and his works. But we do well to
remember that the Lord, he is God. Deuteronomy 4.35, the Lord,
he is God, there is none else beside him. This is the true
and living God with whom you and I have to do. We stand and
we either rise or fall before Him, and we're His servants,
and we're His creation, and He is able to do with us as pleases
Him. Now, we see here in light of
the Gospel that the simplicity of the righteousness, which is
of faith, it's not sufficient for the darkened mind of man. And instead, looking and seeking
after the true and living God, he seeks to form an image out
of his own imagination, right? And he wants to gain a sense
of approval by his idol God, even if it's by a lie, even if
it is darkness and not true and insufficient to save him. And
so rather than bow to the name, of the true and living God and
call upon his name for grace and mercy, he sooner makes for
himself an image of the God of his imagination, and that's what
he bows down to and worships. Because in reality, it's just
himself. He's just worshiping his own self in it, because it's
his own image. So I've titled this message,
Idolatry Will Not Save You. Idolatry Will Not Save You. And the first thing we'll deal
with is this question that the Lord asks by the prophet Isaiah
here in verse 18. Now, last week we saw how he
showed that it's our creator and he alone that is the savior
of men. We saw that our creator alone
saves, meaning, apart from any works that we do, he saves his
people in grace and mercy. And the prophet then asks in
verse 18, to whom then will ye liken God? Or what likeness will
ye compare unto him? Right, we've seen the true and
living God, and to what are you going to compare him to? And
really, we do well to hear that question as the Lord asking us,
to whom do you liken the Lord to? To whom do I liken the Lord
to? Is he the Lord of the scriptures? Or is he an idol god of our own
imagination? And so it's a good question because
it does expose the idolatry that's in our own hearts. And it catches
sinful man in the very act of shaping and carving out and forming
his own idol God with his own hands from the darkness of our
own hearts and minds. And we do this because we want
something that suits our sin and suits our lusts, our lustful
ambitions and things that we like and approve of and the things
that we don't like or don't approve of. And so with vain imagination
and a foolish heart being darkened, we see the self-professing wise
men becoming fools, as Paul captured for us in Romans 1. In Romans
1, I'm just gonna read verse 23 there, and then a little later,
verse 25, but he says that we, wise men becoming fools, have
changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to
corruptible man. We've taken him who cannot be
defiled and brought down with sin and iniquity and darkness,
and we've tried to make him after our own image, which is corrupted
and sinful and vile. And so we made God into an image
like to corruptible man. If you look at just the history
of other civilizations, we see how they idolized and worshipped
what they called gods, and they were nothing but the appearance
of a man who maybe had some superhuman gifts, but wasn't God, wasn't
omnipotent, was one among many other gods, right? And he also
made four-foot beasts and four-footed, yeah, four-footed beasts and
birds and creeping things. And we see that, right? You can
go on the History Channel and look at the hieroglyphics and
things like that, and you see they're gods. And you see they're
statues of gods with heads of dogs and birds and all kinds
of things. And so really, we see that that's
really true, right? And we're told that while Paul
was at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him when he saw the
city wholly given to idolatry. Idolatry. And what we see when
we're honest and we take that into account, but when we look
at any city, Athens is no different from any city today, where it's
wholly given over to idolatry and that full of religious people
in it, right? Full of religious people and
still an idolatrous place. Paul says in Romans 1.25, of
religious men and women who changed the truth of God into a lie,
and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator
who is blessed forever. Amen. And that's exactly where
we are today. And that's exactly what we see
in forms that get more and more perverted and more and more gross
with transgenderism. It's just worshiping the creature. And it takes no thought of the
God who created us as he created us. And men and women just keep
pushing the bounds, and they just keep pushing that which
is filthy and vile more and more, and it doesn't get better. It
only goes towards perversion. It only goes towards that which
is perversion. And I'm being very discreet.
I'm being very, very discreet. We see it, and it's very foul
what we see going on. around us. And so these verses
before us, they reveal the ridiculousness of man who's more willing and
will sooner worship any God but the true and living God, right,
and worship anything that he might call it God rather than
hear and to learn of the true and living God. And so this is
a warning that the Lord is giving to Judah. Historically, it's
a warning being given to Judah who's on the doorstep, right?
They're very near now to going into captivity. And so he's telling
them now, and it's a word as they go into captivity, and while
they're there in captivity, because the Lord's telling them, you're
gonna be subjected to things even more foul and more worse
than what you've been subjected to, right? And they saw just
in their own vicinity, they saw the worship of gods that had
them do horrible things to their own children and to one another.
And they saw that and partook in that. And then they were going
now to Babylon who one of its things that they did was they
would bring all the wise men and the counselors of these other
countries to here and to practice all their religions, all their
sorceries and magic things that they would do, and the Lord's
telling them, you're gonna go into the very epicenter of idolatry. And that's why Babylon's such
a, why the Lord calls the whore of Babylon the whore of Babylon
because it's just an adultery and it's just a mashing of every
foul wicked spirit and every foul thing that's there and out
there. And so he's warning them that
they're gonna see and hear and be presented with all manner
of forms of different gods and ideas and concepts that they
never even thought of yet perhaps. All right. when they were delivered
from Babylon as a nation and the Lord brought them out and
he reestablishes them, you would have a thought as to what this
people would be like. And the Lord brought them out
and established them again as a nation because he was going
to reveal the mystery of godliness in bringing forth the Son of
God through the lineage of David, right? And the Lord did that.
And we would think that this people would have, you know,
been well-established because those that did come out of Babylon,
those that left were zealous for the law and they were zealous
for the Lord. And they did many, And many,
they heard the law and they wanted to do that which what the Lord
told them to do. And so you would think that when
the Lord came, they'd be ready to hear the truth and that they'd
be ready to receive their savior and to receive the Messiah who
was promised to them. But what we see instead is that
at the time of Christ's coming, they too were found to be idolaters. They were found to be idolaters.
Now, it wasn't the idolaters that we tend to think of. They
weren't bowing down and worshiping stumps, but they idolized the
fact that they were of the lineage of Abraham. They trusted in that. And if you go over to Matthew
3, and when you're there, just put
a marker there, because we're gonna come back later to Matthew
15 a couple of times. So just leave a marker around
there, Matthew. Matthew 3 and verse 7, this is
now speaking of John the Baptist. And I don't think it's any accident
that Isaiah 40 speaks of John the Baptist coming and announcing
the coming of the Lord. And so here it says in Matthew
3, 7, when John saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come
to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers,
who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth
therefore fruits, meat for repentance. And think not to say within yourselves,
We have Abraham to our father. For I say unto you that God is
able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. So that right there is exposing
the idolatry that was in their heart. They were looking to that
lineage of Abraham and trusting that that was their salvation. That was their hope of righteousness
and that they were sons and daughters of God. And so all you have to
do is just say, well, wait, what's their confidence? Is their confidence
in the fact that they're sons and daughters of Abraham? or
is there confidence that they are the sons of God, that they
believe God? And really that's how we can
measure our own idolatry. What is our hope? What are we
trusting in? And so, we don't wanna miss this
and say, well, they were trusting in the fact that they were of
the lineage of Abraham. So this doesn't have any, implication
for me. This doesn't say anything to
me because I'm not trusting in having a lineage with Abraham.
So this word doesn't apply to me, right? And many people will
do that because they don't think it's specifically speaking to
them. But we do things like that very
similarly, right? We look up at some big church
building and say, look at that goat barn. I don't go there and
feed. That's not where I'm from. I
go where they preach the gospel of the sovereign God who says,
as it pleases Him, by the Lord Jesus Christ, apart from any
works of me. And we have to ask, well, is
that your confidence, that you sit under the truth and that
you hear the truth preached and you don't go there? Or is your
hope of salvation fixed in the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we preach,
that that's your hope? And when I say that, I understand,
yes, we have to be under the truth. I'm just gonna lay it
out. I don't want us to misunderstand. We must be under the truth, but
just being under the truth doesn't mean that we have any part in
Christ. Has God revealed faith in your
heart? Is he your hope of salvation? And that's what I'm getting at,
is that we can see the idolatry rampant in the most religious
people, And so it's a warning to us to say, Lord, please don't
let that be made. Please have mercy, because I
can see how easy it is to fall into any kind of idolatry and
make that my hope, all right? Now, we also see a twist here
in that verse nine there, in the sense that it's man, when
he's making himself an idol, he's making a god of wood and
precious metals and stone, it says. And yet man can't give
any life to that idol, that stone idol that he just made. But we
see here that God is able of lifeless stones to raise up children
unto Abraham. And I just think that that's
actually a pertinent point there is that
here we are trying to make a God out of stone and there's no life,
and yet God can take us who are hard, cold, dead rocks, and make
us into children of Abraham, right? Those that believe God,
just like Abraham, and are saved by faith, by the faith which
our God has given to us, fixed, looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, and the Lord tells
us in Acts 17, 29, For as much then as we are the offspring
of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is likened to
gold or silver or stone, graven by art and man's device. Man's imagination, man's skill,
a man's ability. God's not how God is made. We know that men and women have
made to themselves gods like that, but that doesn't mean that
God is not true and real and that there is a true living God. And so what the Lord is showing
us is that it's not the natural carnal practices that God is
looking to. He's not looking to see that
we're just religious. And that's another popular lie
in the world. Just have faith. God just wants
you to have faith. Faith in what? That's a very
broad thing, right? God doesn't just want us to have
faith. Not all religions lead to the Lord. In fact, there's
only one way, one path, one way, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is
the only name under heaven given among men whereby we must be
saved. if we are to be saved, it must
be by the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one that God accepts
and receives his people in. And so for that cause, to ensure
that we worship God in spirit and in truth, because that's
who the Lord is seeking, John 4, he seeks those that worship
him in spirit and in truth, to ensure that there's anyone like
that, Christ came and accomplished their salvation, and the living
God sends his spirit to seek out his people and to reveal
that faith in them, to give them life, to wash them in the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ, to free them of that guilt and bring
them out of that dark prison of bondage and filthy natural
idolatry. That's all there in our own head,
so the Lord does that. As Paul said to the Corinthians,
and I've been on this verse a lot lately, but in 1st Corinthians
2.12, now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but
the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that
are freely given to us of God. Alright, the Lord has freely
brought salvation in his people Christ. He's given us everything
necessary, all spiritual blessings are revealed to us, given to
us, and he teaches us them, and continually telling us the same
truth, the same blessed comfort over and over in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And he does this by the Spirit
of Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith. by faith, the faith
which he gives. That's not a natural faith that
I'm speaking of, but that spiritual faith, which is the gift of God,
not of works, lest any man should boast. And so the Lord is declaring
to us here, this is the folly of man, this is the sin of our
flesh, and he feeds us with his word to behold your God. That's what he's calling us to
do, look to the Lord. You see all the idolatry, you
see it in your own flesh, in your own heart, natural heart
and mind. Behold your God. Keep looking
to Him and trusting Him. And understand, no, don't forget
that He saves you apart from your works. He did that in the
beginning, and He continues to save us apart from our works.
Not that we want to have no fruits, we would have fruit, but it's
of his spirit. It's of that spiritual seed of
Christ our husband who brings forth spiritual fruits in us. And so that's of the thankful
living soul who seeks to serve the Lord and to be a comfort
and a help to his brethren. But we know we're not doing that
for our salvation. And because we do those things,
that's not why are saved or why we continue in salvation. It's
because it's the blessed work of the Spirit in us and we're
thankful. And I only say it again to remind
us because of the natural heart in us that so easily, easily
forgets. All right, so we trust our God
who delivers us out of darkness and from idolatry. And now the
Lord in verses 19 and 20, he exposes this idolatry. I spoke
a lot about it, but let's read. It's specifically here, Isaiah
40, 19 and 20. The workman melteth a graven
image and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold and casteth
silver chains. Those chains being the things
that would hold it from falling over, right? Like Dagon fell
over on his face and how embarrassing that is because it shows you
that it's no God. I mean, it just makes it plain
to everyone that that's not God, if it falls on its face, so they
create chains so that there's no accidents that happen, no
embarrassing accidents about that happening. All right, but
that's describing a wealthy, a wealthy idolater. And then
in the next verse, we see the poor idolater who's just as guilty. Verse 20, he that is so impoverished
that he hath no oblation, chooseth a tree that will not rot, he
seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image that
shall not be moved. And so what we're seeing here
is that idolatry knows no bounds, right? It has no, it's not limited
to just one class or type of people. It's in all classes,
in all, among the rich, as well as among the poor. And so in
like manner, just as it isn't bound by our our social standing
in our wealth or lack thereof, so it is that it's not bound
by a certain time. It's not bound by just this time
period way back here. It's just as prevalent in our
day. Even though we don't see physical
stumps usually, it's still very present in our day. And the reality
is we do see it. You can go to a Catholic church,
for example, and see very moving and profound statues, right?
With their toes rubbed off because people are so enamored with them
and they touch it. They just want to touch it to
get some kind of healing or a feeling, right? And we see all these stations
and other pieces, adornments of man-made religion is really
all that it is. And you can walk down the street
and seeing some person's garden, you know, near their house usually
a statue of Mary, right? Or if you go into, I've worked
with a lot of people that were Hindus, and I've been in some
houses where there's a room and there's a wall dedicated to where
they worship and pray to their gods. And, you know, even in
Christian, so-called Christian churches, and they're adorned
with with artifacts that are meant to make you feel like you're
in a holy place. Whether it's stained glass, whether
it has a picture or not, or there's a large cross or something else
like that, a purple robe or something. All these things are meant to
capture our imagination and make us feel lifted out of the flesh
and into the spiritual realm. That's because there's no other
power in it. There's nothing else in there to to deliver the
person from their bondage of sin and death, right? And it
doesn't do what they think it, it doesn't give life. There's
no eternal life, there's no salvation in it, all right? And so what
we're seeing is that religion doesn't cleanse men of idolatry,
all right? They might be more moral, they
might be more obedient to the law or the bylaws of their church
organization, And even punishments and the threat of punishments
and terrors, they don't, in the scriptures, they don't change
a person from being idolaters either. It doesn't change anybody
when you see that. And I say that because in Revelation
9.20, for example, we're told that the rest of the men which
were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works
of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols
of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood, which
neither can see, nor hear, nor walk." And so religion is very
good at cleaning the outside of the cup and making us to appear
righteous in the eyes of men and women, but it does nothing
for the filth of the soul and the blackness of our own heart
from whence all these wicked things come, right? From whence
the sin and the evil comes. It comes from us, right? Not
just simply our environment, but it's this own heart that's
the problem. I'm the sinner, I'm the problem.
And so the Lord is showing us that. We also see in regards
to religious works and service, there are some that are rich
in their good works, and there's others that are considered poor
due to a lack of gifts and talent, and yet all alike are idolaters,
bound in sin and need to be delivered by the true and living God. All
right, and now that brings us to verse 21. Have ye not known? All right, so the Lord puts forth
to his hearers in Isaiah 40, verse 21, Have ye not known? Have ye not heard? Hath it not
been told you from the beginning? Have ye not understood from the
foundations of the earth? Our God created the heavens and
the earth and everything in it, and yet man seeks to bury and
hide that truth of God. First Corinthians 2.9 says, but
as it is written, I hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have
entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared
for them that love him. But the free grace of God, who
shows such mercy, such tender mercy, and life and light and
grace to us, to bankrupt sinners, apart from our hearts, works
which never entered into our hearts or our minds. And the
reason we're told, well, The reason we're told that they do
now enter into our hearts and mind. The reason why he's revealed
these things to us is because, or sorry, the reason why we don't
is because the natural man receive it, not the things of the Spirit
of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know
them, because they are spiritually discerned. And so that's why
it never enters into the heart of man. And the only reason why
it enters our heart is because we now have receive the Spirit,
not the Spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is of God,
who's revealed these things to us, what God has freely given
to us in Christ. And so the natural man doesn't
receive the testimony of God, he does not receive the light,
because he can't see it. He's just, his eye is dark, and
he can't see the light. of God, and in Christ, he can't
see the light of Christ, and so he doesn't believe Him at
all, and he will not hear, even though he sit where the truth
is preached, if the Lord leads him to himself, he's not going
to hear. And that's why our hope isn't fixed in where we're sitting,
but in whom we stand, in whom we trust, and having no confidence
in the flesh, But the natural man can't conceive of a God who's
not pleased with his own works and isn't impressed or in need
of something that he does for him. He's trusting, he trusts
in those things and he can't conceive that there's a God who's
not influenced by my will and my thoughts and my works and
what I can do for him and he's not impressed with it. We see this even with the Pharisees,
right? So if you go back to Matthew
15 now, we see a very religious group
of persons and the Pharisees, very well studied and well read
and had all the right friends and moved about in all the right
circles. But in Matthew 15, verse 12, And just stay there, because
we'll look, there's a couple places we'll see in Matthew 15,
but first verse 12, the disciples came to Christ and said unto
him, knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended after they heard
this saying? When they heard Christ speak,
they became offended at what he had said to them. And Christ
answered and said, every plant which my father, which my heavenly
father hath not planted shall be rooted up, let them alone. They be blind leaders of the
blind, and if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into
the ditch. And how many great churches or
places of worship, I'm not saying they worship the true God, but
how many large churches and places full of people that appear to
be rich in works, would be surprised to find out that Christ has never
attended or visited their services. And then how many living churches
would be humbled just to have a sense that the Lord has visited
them and revealed some nugget of truth to them and comforted
their hearts and blessed them with his own presence and kindness,
how many would be humbled to know that the Lord has revealed
faith in the hearts of one of his little ones under the truth
of the gospel, though they be a small and little flock. And
so how sensible, how often are we made sensible of our own firmity and whisper, truth, Lord, it's
truth, you're holy, you're righteous, and you're just to pass us by."
That's true, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall
from their master's table, right? And so we cry out to the Lord,
Lord, please, attend us, attend, meet with us, and visit us, and
reveal yourself to us, and hear our cry, and hear our prayer,
and have mercy upon us, and deliver us from seeking dark ways of
this world that we might have some temporary comfort for a
little time in false ways of religion. But man is very backwards
in his idolatry and he thinks he's doing God's service, but
in reality, for all his zeal and all his energy and all his
attempts, he's nothing but a stench in God's nostrils. That's what
we are in ourselves. That's what we are in our own
works and when we're confident in what we're doing. Because
it's only in Christ that the Lord receives any of us. And so, trusting in his works
and believing that his contribution is making a difference and that
God needs him, he refuses to hear the simplicity of Christ,
who alone gives life. And instead he goes off and makes
his idol of religion and bows down and worships that. All right? And so, you know,
back there in Matthew, you know, when man makes an idol, right? And we're thinking of how, what
man makes his idol from, you know, wood and stubble or stones
and gold, precious metals like gold and silver and stuff. And good definitions of that
would be lame, blind, dumb, and maimed. Those would be good definitions
of those idols. And yet, even today, in Christian
circles, and those that think that their works and that their
faith is what saves them, and what they've done for the Lord,
that that's what saves them, they go about, and they have
many catchy sayings, and they go about declaring these sayings
to try and incite activity up in the hearts and minds of their
people, of their members. And they'll say things like,
God has no feet but your feet, because without you, God is lame. And God has no eyes but your
eyes, because their God is blind without you. And God has no voice
but your voice, if you don't speak for him, because their
God is dumb. And he has no hands with your
hands because their God is maimed. And how contrary do the scriptures
reveal to us the true and living God, who is Jesus Christ? We're
told in Matthew 15, verse 30, and great multitudes came unto
him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed,
and many others. and cast them down at Jesus'
feet, and he healed them, insomuch that the multitude wondered when
they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be made whole, the
lame to walk, and the blind to see, and they glorified the God
of Israel." And so, brethren, behold your God. That's what
he's saying. Behold your God. He's the one
that heals. We don't need to go make maimed,
blind, dumb, lame, Idols, our God is living and true. Lift
him up and exalt him, behold him, and he's the one that heals
his people and reveals himself to his people. Now he says back
in our text, Isaiah 40 verse 22 and 23, it is he that sitteth upon the
circle of the earth and the inhabitants thereof are his grasshoppers,
that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain and spreadeth them
out as a tent to dwell in, that bringeth the princes to nothing,
he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity. All right, so the
Lord's saying that he's the one who determines the boundaries
of man, right? He raises up whom he will and
he puts down whom he will. And we saw this when Christ rejected
the Pharisees, right? He rejected the Pharisees and
he was very content for them to stay right where they were
and he let them alone, right? We saw in our study in Mark,
he left them. And he, I mean, we saw other
times where he just passed them right on by, whole cities, just
went right on by whole cities and left those people to themselves,
but to lowly fishermen who were nothing in the eyes and the esteem
of man to then he revealed himself and to them he gave them gifts
and a voice with which to declare and exalt him before the people. And he used them to build and
extend his kingdom. And so then he gives now a stark
warning to the wicked, but this in verse 24 comes as a comfort
to the people. It's a warning to the wicked,
but a comfort to the people of God. Yea, they shall not be planted
yea, they shall not be sown, yea, their stock shall not take
root in the earth, and he shall also blow upon them, and they
shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. And so the truth is that our
Savior has come into the world, God has come in the flesh, was
seen of angels, he's justified by the Spirit, He went to the
cross and successfully accomplished our salvation, and dying in the
room instead of his people as their substitute. And he shed
his blood to redeem them, and to purge us of the stain of sin
by his death. And he satisfied God well, so
that now in Christ, God is satisfied with us, as he is with Christ,
and we're his people. And our enemies, the wicked,
were destroyed there. When Christ died on the cross,
they were destroyed. And death was put to death. And
sin was slain. And the enemy, the accuser of
the brethren, was cast into the pit of darkness. And so he has
no power, and our enemies are silenced before us, thanks to
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so He sends His Spirit now,
and by the Spirit, He saves His people sovereignly in His grace,
while the wicked go on and perish in their idolatry, and in their
sin, and doing what they do, and the Lord using them to work
good for His people, and His will in the earth. But the church
remains, and that founded upon the Lord Jesus Christ. All right,
so Isaiah 40, 25 says, to whom then will ye liken me, or shall
I be equal? Sayeth the Holy One. And so to
the people of the Lord, He has no equal. There is no other God
but Him, and He is our hope. And when we go astray, the comfort
we have is that He directs our hearts back to Him, and He sets
us again looking to Him and trusting in Him, alone and so we trust
the Lord and we cry out to him, Lord save us. Save us from that
idolatrous path and go in the way of so many wicked. Keep our
hearts, Lord. Keep us ever looking to you.
Let us not set up an idol in this heart or our imagination
and let Christ dwell in our hearts by faith and be with your people,
Lord. So I pray the Lord will bless
that word to our hearts. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
we thank you for your mercy and grace, which you revealed in
your Son, Jesus Christ, and Lord, how you show us that you deliver
us from idolatry, and how you deliver us from going the way
of the world. And with our flesh inventing,
God's inventing, ideas, inventing things that perish and will cause
us to perish with them. But Lord, we pray that you would
be exalted in our midst and in our hearts, that we would behold
our God and that we would look to none other but the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we pray, Father, that you
would bless your people, revealing Christ to us. For it's in his
name we pray and give thanks. Amen.