Alright, let's turn to Isaiah
chapter 40 again. Isaiah chapter 40. Now from our youth up, from the youngest to the oldest,
as we go through this life, we're going to encounter different
things which we would worship. which we will worship, if not
for God's grace. I've tried to break this text
into four divisions. This is not all of the things
that you will encounter, but these are four things you will
encounter. Things that are very prevalent. The first thing is the worship
of man's wisdom. The second thing is the worship
of man's gods. The third thing is the worship
of man's government. And the fourth thing is the worship
of man as God. All of these could be under that
last heading. But we'll break these down. Now,
here's what I want you to see. God is before all things. He made all things. He's above
all things. And He rules all things. God
alone is worthy to be worshipped. And when all other things are
gone, God only and those who by His grace believe on Him,
will remain. And everything else will be gone. The title is, Worship Only God. Alright, here's the first thing
you will encounter. The worship of man's wisdom. The worship of man's wisdom.
Man likes to imagine that by his wisdom he can determine how
all things came into being in this world. It's not enough for
man to, and he can't do it, he can't submit to God, submit to
God's word that all things in the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth. That God created all things.
But man in his wisdom has come up with something that to man
is smarter More substantial, more to be dependent on than
in the beginning God created. And what man's come up with is
a theory. A theory. That's more substantial. A theory. An oxymoron. An educated guess. An educated
guess. The man likes to say that everything
started with a big bang and then evolved and is still evolving
from there. That's man's wisdom. That's opposite
to God's Word. Alright, let's read it. God is
the all-wise Creator. Verse 12. 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."
Now, I want to remind you again that we're talking here about,
in the context, we're talking about God who has come manifest
in the flesh. We're talking about God, the
Lord Jesus Christ. manifest in the flesh. This is
the Word who was in the beginning. This is the Word who made all
things. This is the Word for whom all things were made. This
is the Word who was made flesh and dwelt among us. This is God
who is the Lamb, who purged His people of their sins. This is
God who satisfied His own justice. This is God who is the Shepherd
of His flock. This is God whose reward is with
Him. He did everything He did of His
own glory, for His own glory, to His own glory. This is God
whose people are His workmanship, whose work is before Him, and
His reward is the work that He's accomplished. This is who we're
talking about. Things we can understand. Human
hands, human measurements. Earthy hands, earthy measurements
here so we can get an understanding of how God made the world. Let's
think about this. He talks about the hollow of
the hand. The hollow of the hand. Let's
get some measurements here. You can hold a teaspoon of water
in the hollow of your hand. Most everybody can hold a teaspoon
of water in the hollow of their hand. Scripture says God held
All the waters on the earth measured Him in the hollow of His hand.
Now, we're not talking about God created everything by a voice,
but we're having something here we can understand. His hand,
the hollow of His hand. The tip of the index finger to
the thumb right here is a span. That's a span. It says He measured
out heaven with a span. And when I thought of that, I
thought of the windows. You open and enlarge the window
now on your computers just with your fingers like that. That's
a span. That's how he spread out the heavens. He made it out
the heavens. This word here that he measured
the dust of the earth, that word measure is a word that means,
it's terse, it means a third or a third part, and it probably
means what a restaurant, when you think of dust, you think
of salt, something like salt, the texture of salt. In the restaurant
business, if somebody says add a dash of salt, they'll say add
about three fingers. He goes, here's one, here's the
other, and here's the other. And you reach like that, and
you just pinch you out some salt, throw it in there. That's how
He measured the whole dust of the earth, just like a dash of
salt. And you know what scales and
a balance are? Scales and a balance. The mountains
and the hills, it said, He weighed in the scales and the balance.
God is the all-wise Creator. Now you get an idea of how big
God is. and how He's able to do things
that we can't comprehend. Now, it tells us here God is
the self-sufficient wisdom. Watch this. He says here, Who
hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being His counselor,
hath taught Him? I had professors in school, and
you'll have teachers in school, men with PhDs, men who were wise
by worldly standards, who did their best to convince me that
God's not wisdom, that He's not wisdom, and did it with authority
as if they were the wisdom that you ought to listen to and heed
because they knew something that men didn't know. Well, no matter
who the teacher is, no matter who your teacher is, We're going
to have to confess that we learned what we learned from somebody.
Somebody taught us what we know, but not God. Verse 13, "...who
hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor,
hath taught him. With whom took he counsel? Who
instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and
taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding?"
Nobody did. He's wisdom. with what are you
and I? What does He say about us? What
does He say our wisdom is? Verse 15, 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 isles
as a very little thing. Now get the illustration. the
nations together. We're not talking about just
one person out of the nation. We're talking about all the nation,
the inhabitants make up the nations. And we're talking about all the
inhabitants together, all the nations they make up together,
he says here, are like a drop hanging off of water, hanging
off of a well bucket. And God is the bottomless never-ending,
infinite well of living water. And all the nations are just
a drop of a bucket. And the dust of the balance is
that dust that's on the scale, on the balance that doesn't even
move the balance. It doesn't even move the scale
at all because it's so insignificant and so light and has no weight
about it. It doesn't even affect the scale
whatsoever. That's a blow to us who are not
even in ourselves a drop of a bucket, but who are just part of all
the inhabitants, all the nations of the earth which are a drop
of a bucket. That's a blow to us who think
that we're somehow able to comprehend infinite God by searching and
finding out God. Our God is infinitely greater
than us, infinitely wiser than us. Now, He does something else
here too. He not only puts all men on a
level of insufficiency in and of ourselves, He puts us on a
level of insufficiency with the beasts. Look here now at verse
16. Lebanon is not sufficient to
burn. nor the beast thereof sufficient
for a burnt offering." We can't satisfy God ourselves. We can
offer everything we have to offer, and we can't satisfy God. We
can't please God. All nations before him are as
nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing in vanity. Where are we going to see the
wisdom of God? Christ Jesus is the manifestation of the wisdom
of God. Whenever God, of God, you're
made to behold Christ by faith and see Him, then you really
will have wisdom and understanding and understand how it is that
this God, before He made anything, how He purposed and created and
brings to pass how that He as holy God would save a sinful
chosen people that he chose before and reconcile them to himself
in holy justice and show them mercy all in Christ because he
came and fulfilled all that was required of his people. Everything. And Solomon is the wise man. He's a picture of Christ. And
he said, when he wrote Proverbs, he said this, Wisdom is before
him that hath understanding. Wisdom is before him that hath
understanding. But the eyes of a fool are in
the ends of the earth. You think about that. A man that's
been taught of the Spirit of God that has spiritual understanding. He has his eyes set on Christ. When he hears something taught
of man, his thought is this, does that line up with what this
word says, what the word of my God says? Does that glorify man
who's dust and nothing, or does that glorify Christ my Lord? Whatever he hears, this is the
touchstone. This is where he takes everything
to cry. And he runs the race set before
him looking to Christ. But the fool, the man who doesn't
have Christ for his wisdom, you know where his eyes are? They're
in the ends of the earth. They're always looking at the
earth, looking at the earthy, looking at man's wisdom, looking
at man's understanding, looking at man's ways, looking at and
going to and fro in the earth trying to find something, find
something, find something that's wisdom and understanding. And
God says, that man's a fool. That man's a fool. Well, here's
what I want you to get. You get a good education. Get
a good education, apply yourselves to your studies, and be respectful
to your teachers. But know this, we have wisdom. when we find out how God saves
His people in Christ the Lord. When we meet Christ the Lord
is when we have wisdom. And we won't get any higher wisdom
than Christ. Christ is the wisdom. And the
fact is, when all of our learning and all of our understanding
that we've obtained in this world, the worldly things we learn and
are taught, when we have obtained all those, when we've gone out
and worked our career And when everything comes to an end, when
all that wisdom is done, we're going to stand before God who
is wisdom. And then all that earthly, worldly
wisdom won't matter. One thing's going to matter.
What think ye of Christ? Who's representing you? When
God calls your name, are you going to have to answer for yourself
or is Christ going to step forward and say, here I am? That's what's
going to matter. All right, give more time, give
more diligence to be taught of God than you do to know all the
worldly things you're learning in a school classroom. Just think if we really did that. This world, you know what this
world would be? It would be altogether opposite to what it is now. All right, second thing. you
will encounter the worship of man-made gods. Look at verse
18. To whom then will ye liken God? Now seeing how wise God
is, seeing who He is, who are you going to liken to God? Or
what likeness will you compare unto Him? Well, does that stop
men? No. Look at verse 19. The workman
melteth a graven image, And a goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold and
casteth silver chains. He that is so impoverished that
he hath no oblation chooses a tree that will not rot. He seeketh
unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image that shall
not be moved. Now here's man's way, man's God. Man by nature is impoverished. He's poor, he's bankrupt, he's
blind, he's deaf, he's dead in trespasses and sins. He has no
understanding of who God is, how God saves, at all. Born that
way. But he chooses a tree. First
of all in his mind, he starts to set his affection on something.
Something natural, something that's dust, something that's
earthy. And he starts from that thing,
trying to liken that thing to his God. And say, ah, that's
my God. That's what God is like right
there. That's what God's like. And then
he seeks a cunning workman. A cunning workman. And that's
what most preachers are. They're cunning goldsmiths. They
listen to a man say, this is what I think about God. And they
will They'll say, alright, well that's what God says about Himself.
And they'll pick out and deceitfully use the Word of God to cast that
image that started in the mind, to cast it over with gold and
silver and make it to where now it's not just some dull and earthy,
vain thing that started here. Now it's all shiny and looks
like it's really something. Really something. And it'll stay
that way and it'll be immovable. unless God moves it, unless God
moves it. We went over to the Princeton
Art Museum one day while the kids were out on spring break
and that's a good museum, good little museum. But they had all
these whole room of the era of where all of these pictures there.
of this man who is effeminate, he's got tears in his eyes, he's
got a little dabble of blood coming out of his side, he's
got a crown of thorns on his head, and he just, you feel sorry
for the fellow. That's not God. That's not God. That's an image that man imagines
God to be. That's not God. That's not God. Even if you saw Christ suffering
on the cross with His natural eyes, you can't see what Christ
suffered on the cross. Until God gives us faith, we
can't behold what He suffered on the cross. And even then,
we just behold it a little bit. We just get a glimpse. We have
to receive it by faith. We can't logically conclude everything
that He bore. But I know this. We know this
for sure. Any God that's depending upon
a slave who is in chains and in bondage to exercise his will
and free himself out of bondage, that God is that helpless as
that image on that canvas. You think I'd bow down to one
of those pictures in that museum and say, please save me. Oh,
it's a pitcher. It's a worthless pitcher. Thank
God, who? There's a little planner who
looked down through time and he chose some because he saw
some would choose him. That's not the God of first causes.
That's not the God who purposes and brings to pass his purpose
effectually as he will. That's the God who reacts. That's
the God who does things because man lets him do something. That's
the God man creates right here in his head, right here in his
deceitful wicked heart. Blessed is the man whom God chooses
and calls us to approach unto Him. Herein is love, not that
we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be propitiation
for our sin. That's the God of this Bible.
The God who is that little Jesus who shed His blood for everybody.
He shed His blood for men who are in hell. What good is His
blood then? A God who depends on you to believe
on Him, to make His blood have some kind of saving effect? Who
will do that? Nobody will. Nobody will believe
on the true and living God unless God makes them willing in the
day of His power. That Jesus The Jesus of this Bible, he said
this, I'm the good shepherd. Let's look at this, John chapter
10. Look over there with me. He said in verse 11, I'm the
good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. We saw in our text last week
in chapter 40, it said that He will come with strong hand, His
arms shall rule for Him, His rewards with Him, His work before
Him. He's not depending on man for
anything. And that same God who affectionately laid down His
life and redeemed His people, That mediator who did that and
accomplished the work, it says, 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.
He stood right there in front of some men and he said this
in verse 26, John 10, 26. He said, but you believe not
because you're not of my sheep. As I said unto you, my sheep
hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give
unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall
any man plucked him out of my hand, my Father which gave them
me." Uh-oh, when did that happen? That happened before the world
was ever made. That happened before this wise
God ever created anything. You mean everything he's been
doing all along has been because his father gave him some sheep
and he's going to come forth and he's going to give his life
for those sheep and he's going to come forth and he's going
to cause those sheep to hear his voice and he's going to know
those sheep so that those sheep follow him? Yes. What if some
don't believe? He said, it's because you're
not my sheep. Not my sheep. You see, if we believe, it's
because You were a son of God, a child of God, by God's grace,
and therefore God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your
hearts and caused you to cry, Abba Father. If you don't believe,
it's because you're not a sheep. That makes us get things in line
and say, whoa, this God really is God. This God's not, He's
not some little helpless, helpless man. who was a little martyr
that couldn't do anything. He is God. He is God. A vain idol. He can't raise anybody
from the dead. He's as dead as the man who created
him. Verse 21. Back in our text. Isaiah
40 verse 21. Have you not known? Have you
not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have
you 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. It is He 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 makes
the judges of the earth as vanity." Do you know who the princes are?
Do you know who the judges of the earth are? They are His sheep. They think
they're judges and they think they're princes, until He comes
to them in power and He introduces them to the Prince of Life and
He introduces them to the Judge of all the Earth, who gives life
and who satisfied His own justice and who in mercy has come to
them in power. And He brings these little princes
and judges to nothing and makes us to behold He's everything.
He's everything. You're going to encourage the
wisdom, man worshiping man's wisdom. You'll encourage man
worshiping false gods, God of his imagination. Here's the third
thing. You'll encounter the worship of man's government. People really
do worship government. You know that? Verse 23 there,
he says, he brings the princes to nothing. He makes the judges
of the earth his vanity. Political science. Actually,
you know, I was saying about PhDs that I had at college that
were taught like they were God himself. Actually, the worst
one of the bunch was a political science professor. He was a political
science professor. Man conquering man. Man bringing
peace about by the science of politics. You turn on the news
and you'll see how well it's working. See how well it's working. But you know the worst case of
all is, is masters, men who set themselves up as masters and
trying to do it in so-called churches, trying to legislate
obedience, a right spirit in God's people. What's the difference? Tell me what's the difference
between A king sitting on a throne ruling a civil government and
a king standing in a pulpit trying to affect obedience by the law. Tell me which one, either one
of them brought about peace ever, ever, ever. Look, verse 24. Yea, they shall
not be planted. Yea, they shall not be sown.
Yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth. He shall blow
upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take
them away as stubble. To whom then will you liken me,
or shall I be equal, saith the Holy One? Here's the last thing. you'll encounter the worship
of man as God. Now, all of this, as I said before,
could be under this one heading. But we see this in our day, so
much so, it's frightening. It's frightening. Man has exalted
himself to be the savior of the earth. All mankind, as one giant God-opposing
man of sin, is standing in the temple of God under the expanse
of God's creation and putting himself in the place of God as
if he is God and able to save the earth. We use terms to make God seem
smaller and man seem bigger. Words like this, Mother Nature and Mother Earth. Look at verse
26. Lift up your eyes on high and
behold who hath created these things. that bringeth out their
hosts by number. He calleth them all by names,
by the greatness of His might. For that He is strong in power,
not one faileth." I want you to turn over with me to Genesis. To Genesis chapter 8, verse 22. Well, the world's going to end
if we don't save it. That's the gospel today. The
world's going to end if we don't save it. Oh, you can't squash
a June bug. Look here now. Watch this. Genesis
8, 22. After the Lord destroyed all
the inhabitants of the earth with a flood, After the Lord
did that, this is what He promised Noah. He put him in the ark and
He spared Noah because Noah was in the ark. Picture Christ. When
He brought him out of that flood of judgment, brought him out
of the ark, He said this to him. This was the covenant He made
with him. Genesis 8.22. He said, while the earth remaineth,
seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter,
and day and night shall not cease. Alright, I want you to turn now
to Isaiah chapter 54. What did all that, what did that
picture? That's so, that's going to happen. Everything God promises as a
spiritual type of something, He brings to pass literally in
the earth. Everything He promised Israel, that political nation,
He brought everything He promised them to pass in the earth, exactly
as He said He would. But everything He promised them
was a picture of what He's going to do for His true Israel, His
true people, spiritually. And so it is here. What He promised,
He's going to literally do. He's going to uphold. There will
always be seed time and harvest, cold and winter, day and night,
as long as this earth remains. He's going to hold it in store.
It's going to fail. It's going to be folded up. But
He's going to hold it in store. What was that covenant He made
with Noah? Picture up. Look at Isaiah 54, 9. After we
hear the wonderful work that Christ accomplished by His own
blood, bearing the wrath of God in His own body on the tree,
bearing the sins of His people, the iniquity of His people, being
made a curse in Isaiah 53, just as Noah was in that ark and bear
the flood of God's judgment in the ark, the ark bore it, So
Christ bore it for His people, here's the covenant God makes
with His people when He comes in spirit and the heart. Verse
9, this is as the waters of Noah unto me. For as I have sworn
that the waters of Noah shall no more go over the earth, so
have I sworn that I will not be wroth with thee nor rebuke
thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed,
but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the
covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy
on thee." Now, let's see a type, let's see how the Lord God illustrates
how sure His Word is to us and how sure His covenant is everlastingly
to His people. The covenant He's accomplished.
The work He's accomplished. Let's see how He illustrates
it to us. Look now at Isaiah 61. I'm sorry, you're right there.
Look at Isaiah 55 verse 10. How does He illustrate it to
us? For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, And
returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it ring
forth in bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to
the eater. So shall my word be that goeth
out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void,
but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall
prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." Look at Isaiah 61
verse 11. As the earth bringeth forth her
bud, As the garden calls it to things that are sown in it to
spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and
praise to spring forth before all the nations. You see, God's
used nature. He's used His nature. He's used
His rain, His snow. He's used light and dark. He's
used day and night. He's used cold and hot. He's
used all of seed time and harvest. He's used those things to illustrate
to His people how sure and certain His Word is. I'm 41 years old. I've not yet seen anybody stop
the sun from coming up in the morning. I've not yet seen a
man stop it from going down. I've not yet seen man stop the
wind from blowing. I've not yet seen men stop the
water from being that which keeps men alive. Never once seen it. And I won't see it until God
has called out the last one of His elect. If He does it in my
day, I might see it. but I won't see it to the end."
And you know why He's going to keep sending the seed, timing
the harvest, and sending the cold and the hot, and sending
the day and the night and all of that? Because He's used those
things to illustrate how sure and certain His everlasting covenant
is in His Son. If those things fail, if He allows
those things to stop, we could say, He's not able to do the other,
but because He's able to do the greater, which is His Word of
grace in the heart, coming down like snow, distilling upon the
soul like the dew from heaven, causing seed, the Word of His,
to spring up within us by His grace, by His power, by His might,
just as it never, that rain of snow doesn't return void, so
His Word doesn't return void. And because that's the case,
you can be sure He's going to continue to cause the lesser
rain and the lesser snow to fall, and He's going to continue to
bring forth by it as long as He's got a child of God in this
earth. That's right. He will. You can be sure of that.
If God let all these elements cease before calling out His
last sheep, then they would not serve to remind us of God's power
to save His people in Christ. Be respectful of God's creation.
Be respectful of it. Just like to be respectful of
kings, president, like we saw last week in our lesson of 1
Peter. All the rulers of the earth. But know this, God's the
king. Christ is the king. The government's
on His shoulder. And know this, He's the creator. He's the savior. He's the one
who's doing all things. If we If we're overzealous and
we start looking at this creation like men look at it, thinking
we're going to save it, you know what we'll end up doing? Exactly
what this world's doing. We'll worship and serve the creature
more than the Creator. More than the Creator. This is what you do when you
look at the creation. You see the rain come down. You
see the snow come down. When you see man's abuse of this
world, and yet it's still held in store, you see beyond that
creation. You see beyond these elements,
these natural elements, and you see the Creator. Look to Him
and let it have the effect on you that it had on the psalmist. He said, when I consider the
heavens, When I look up and I consider all the works of your fingers,
I think to myself, what is man that you're even mindful of him?
Or the son of man that you'd visit him? Then, it might be, if that's your thought,
it might be God's planted something in your heart. It might be that
that water of the words come into your own heart, your own
soul. Well, here's the conclusion. The Lord, when He stood here,
He said, you can look at the season. You can look at the sky
and you can tell if there's going to be rain, it's going to be
sunny. He said, you can see when the south wind blows. We're feeling
the south wind blow a little bit, aren't we? Aren't we? A little bit. Beginning to realize
the winter's past. Now, we can see that. coming
out of it, aren't we? Well, he said you can discern
the face of the sky. You can discern the weather and
all these things. Can you not discern the times? Not discern
the time? What time is it? I'll tell you
what time it is. It's time for us to cease trusting
in our own wisdom and beg God to make Christ our wisdom. that
we might behold true wisdom, that we might have true understanding,
that we might know the purpose for which we've been put on this
earth to glorify Him. It's time for us to cease looking
to the God of our imaginations and ask God to make us behold
His glory in the face of Christ Jesus. That we might behold Him
and know the things, have the mind of Christ and know the things
that are freely given of God. It's time for us to cease looking
to rulers of this world and governments of this world and all kinds of
movements of this world and thinking that they're ever going to affect
any peace lasting whatsoever. It's just not going to happen.
The only way peace is going to be brought about is by the King
of Righteousness, the King of Peace, who says, because I'm
the captain of your warfare, it's accomplished. Because I'm
the Lord of heaven and earth, I've pardoned you of your iniquities.
Justly I've done so, and I've rewarded you with righteousness. You're perfect to be accepted
of God. So He's done that. There'll be
no peace in our own hearts, no peace with one another. And we
won't stop losing sleep over what we see on CNN until then. And here's the fourth thing.
We need to cease worshiping man as if we're God. We're not saving
anything. We can't save ourselves, much
less the earth. As He's promised, He'll bring
it to pass. He's God of all the earth. Now look at Hebrews 1.10.
We'll close with this. Hebrews 1.10. Thou, Lord, in the beginning
has laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the
works of thine hands. They shall perish. They shall
perish, but thou remainest. They shall wax old as doth a
garment, but look who's going to fold them up. And as a vesture
shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed. But thou
art the same, and thy years shall not fail. You know what we need
to do? We need to find out who He is
and worship Him. Worship only God. Amen.