Isaiah chapter 40. From what we read in Isaiah chapter
1 and verse 1, he was given a very long ministry, this man Isaiah,
this prophet of God. He prophesied during the reigns
of four of Judah's kings and it must have been over 70 years,
70 years that he was in the ministry preaching or prophesying for
God. When I think about that, I think
about God's providence and the fact that God gives some a few
days life in this world and some many years life in this world. Several years ago, I read the
autobiography of William Jay, and he wrote it in letters to
his children. But one of the chapters in that
book, he discussed the advantages and disadvantages of a short
life or a long life. There are both. There are. But we know this is something
that God ordains, that God determines. None of us determine the times
that we will live in this world. And the psalmist said, my times
are in thy hands. And I'm thankful they are, aren't
you? I'm thankful that your time and my time is in God's hands.
And the same is true concerning a man, a prophet, the ministry
that God gives to a man, whether it be a few days, a few years,
or for many days and many years. God has used some man to do more
preaching the gospel in five years than others have done in
preaching 25 or 30 years. We know that. All of us should
learn to pray like Moses wrote in Psalm 90 when he said, teach
us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. That's a good prayer, isn't it?
Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto
wisdom. The longest life and the long
ministry like Isaiah's, in reality, is just like the Apostle James
wrote, like a vapor. No matter how long you live in
this world, no matter how long you may preach in this world,
our life is like a vapor that appears for a little while and
then it vanishes away. That's true of all of us, isn't
it? In comparison to eternity. I
mean, if a man lived, I saw on the news this past week, the
last survivor on the Battleship Utah, I believe it was, it was
at Hawaii, Honolulu, on December the 7th, 1941, when it was attacked. One man still living, turned
104. And that's a long life by any
of our standards, but in comparison to eternity, 100 years. is like
a minute or two, isn't it? When with the Lord, one day is
as a thousand years. You know, it will not be long
before several of Isaiah's prophecies will be very prominent. As we
approach the Christmas season, we know that there's two of his
prophecies in Isaiah chapter seven and also in Isaiah chapter
nine that are that are quoted at this time of the year, printed
on Christmas cards, and you see it everywhere, it seems like. One of them is, behold, a virgin
shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. And we know what that name Immanuel
means, don't we? God with us. God with us. What a blessing to think that
God came into this world, his world. God with us. Now it seems to me that chapter
40, if you read through the book of Isaiah, it's something, I
remember reading something, compared it to the Bible. There's 66 chapters
in Isaiah. There's 66 books in our Bible. And there's 39 chapters, 39 books
in the Old Testament, and then 27 in the New Testament. And
it seems like here with chapter 40, there is a division. I mean,
there's a division and it begins with these words, Comfort ye,
comfort ye my people, saith the Lord, saith your God. Comfort
ye, comfort ye. Well, that in itself is a message
because it reminds us that in this world, we will meet things
and we will experience things where we need God's comfort. That's one of his titles in 2
Corinthians 1, the God of all comfort. Comfort you, comfort
you, comfort you, my people, saith your God. In this world
in which you and I live, there's so much turmoil always. It's like the ocean. It's like
the ocean that's continually casting up dirt and mire, continually
moving. And so this world is a world
filled with turmoil. And so God commands his preachers,
his prophets, to comfort his people. Are we to comfort God's people?
Well, we're not going to look at the first few verses in this
chapter, but if we did, we would see this. Behold your God. That's the message of comfort.
Behold your God. With the eye of faith, behold,
keep your eyes upon God, upon Christ, first of all. Looking
unto Him, who is the author and finisher of our faith, let us
run with patience the race that is set before us. Yes, behold
your God. And not only behold Him as our
Savior, but behold Him as the King of kings and the Lord of
lords that He is reigning and ruling. And no matter what happens
in our life and in our world, we know who's in charge. We know
who's at the rudder. We know that God is, that He
is sovereign, and we also know that He works all things together
for good to those who love Him, to those who are the called according
to His purpose. What a comfort is that, isn't
that true? If you love God tonight, and
you do if you trust in Him, impossible to have saving faith and not
have love for Christ. Because the faith that saves
is a faith, the Apostle Paul says, which worketh by love.
So what a comfort to know that all things work together. for
good to them that love God, to those who are the called according
to His purpose. Tonight, I want us to, briefly,
I want us to look down to verse 27, to the end of the chapter,
and I want us to see in these verses, first of all, a question,
and then secondly, an answer, and third, a promise. Let's read
27 through 31. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and
speakest, O Israel, my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment
is passed over from my God? Hast thou not known, hast thou
not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of
the ends of the earth, fainteth not? Neither is weary. There's no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint
and to them that have no might. He increases strength. Even the
youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly
fall. But they that wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as
eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk
and not faint. First of all, the question, verse
27. And this is God asking the question. And of course, you've heard me
say this so many times, you know what I'm going to say. When God
asks a question, he never asks for information. No, he knows
all things. But notice his question to Israel,
to the nation of Israel. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and
speakest, O Israel? Here's the question. Why do you
say this? My way is hid from the Lord,
and my judgment passed over from our God. Why do you say that? Why would you say that? Let me
paraphrase the question that is asked of this nation. Why would you say that the Lord
has forgotten you? Why would you say that? And this is so typical of all
of us. In a straight, in difficulty,
we never think that the problem might be with us. It's always
with God. But God asks, why sayest thou,
O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel? My way is hid from the Lord.
God's forgotten about me. Here I am in this bad situation,
this trouble, and God's just completely forgotten about me.
Why would you say that? That goes all the way back to
the Garden of Eden, really. Part of the fall. When, when
Adam said, when God asked Adam if he had eaten of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, you remember what he said? The
woman, the woman. Now it doesn't accept the blame
that he did this. It was his fault. He had, he
had disobeyed God, but no, he tries to put the burden on the
woman and the woman, she tries to put the burden upon God. And God asks the nation of Israel,
why would you say that I've forgotten you, that I've overlooked you? Why would you not look to your
own self, in other words? And you know, this book begins
showing the awful, awful situation the nation of Israel given to
idolatry and all kind of unrighteousness in the land among the people. This is very much like Psalm
73. Keep your place here, but look
back with me to Psalm 73. The psalmist here is saying, truly,
God is good to Israel, no doubt about that. Now he's feeling
sorry for himself, isn't he? Pity party. God is good to Israel,
even to such as are of a clean heart. But as for me, what's
the implication here? God's not good to me. He's good
to Israel, the people of God. But he's not good to me. My feet
were almost gone. My step said, well, I slipped. For I was envious at the foolish. You see, when we put our eyes
upon others around us, and especially upon the wicked, how they prosper,
many of them in this world, have no regard for God, no time for
God, no interest in the gospel, and yet it seems like they are
blessed. And they are blessed, many times
financially and materially. But this is what caused us almost
here to become discouraged and ask the question
or make the statement, actually, God is good to Israel. As for
me, as for me, I want you to look down further in that chapter
to verse 14. Here's where he tells what his
experience was. For all the day long have I been
plagued and chastened every morning. That's his experience. All day,
for all day long have I been plagued, chastened every day. His use of the word plague to
me is interesting here. If you look further back in 1
Kings, I've been plagued, he said, plagued and chastened every
day. Back in 1 Kings chapter eight, this is Solomon praying his prayer
of dedication at the temple that he had constructed. And he's
praying that those people who prayed and looked towards this
temple, that God would hear them and answer their prayer. But
notice in verse 38, he says, what prayer and supplication
so ever be made by any man or by all thy people, Israel, which
shall know, notice this, every man, the plague of his own heart. The psalmist here said, I'm plagued
every day. And that is the truth concerning
God's children. And by this, who shall know the
plague of their own heart. When the Lord saved you, if you've
been saved by the grace of God, when you look to Christ and God
the Holy Spirit came to indwell you, you received a new nature. A new attitude. But the old nature
didn't leave. The old nature's still here. And that's what I understand
by this plague. A man understands the plague
of his own heart. His own heart. And it's a continuous
grief. And it's a continuous burden
to the people of God. How many times do we say, I'll
never do that again? Only to do that again. How many
times, well I'm gonna make a change and make a resolution to do something
different and then we find ourselves doing the same thing. How many
times? The plague of that old nature. And we're going to have that
old nature as long as we're in this world. Until, as that hymn
writer said, till we drop this robe of flesh and rise To meet
the Lord, we're going to have this old nature with us. We're
going to have that plague of our heart. We're going to know
that. But why would we think, why would
we think that our way is hid from the Lord? Why would we think
that even our sin is hid from the Lord? The scriptures teach, I started
to say we believe, but I'm going to say the scriptures teach that
your sins, if you're one of his children, your past sins, your
present sins, and your future sins have all been forgiven. Sometimes people find fault with
that statement. They say, even our future sins.
Well, that seems to be encouraging people to sin. No, no. But think
about it, when the Lord Jesus Christ died for you, all of your
sins were future. They were all future when He
died and paid the price. Yes, but we still have this old
nature. And because of that, sometimes
we get into a position or condition, I should say, like we find here,
when we think that our way is hid from God, that He's forgotten
about us. And we see others and hear of
others, the Lord answers their prayers, and we think, well,
it just doesn't seem like he's answering my prayers. Why would
you say that your way is hid from the Lord? Why would you
say that? Others, we think, they seem to
enjoy a sense of God's favor and God's presence, and I seem
to be cold at heart. It's as though God has forgotten
me, as God has overlooked me. Now, we might never say this,
what the Lord asked them why they would say this. We would
never mouth these words, but in our heart, sometimes we may
feel like this. My way is hid from the Lord. God has forgotten about me. God has forgotten about me. Well,
notice the answer in verses 28 and 29. As I do not know, it seems to me as
though the Lord answers his question. Why would you say my way is hid
from the Lord? Have you not known? It seems
to me that the Lord answers by saying, your thoughts of me are
too low. They're too low. It's like, I
believe it's in Psalm 50 where God said, you thought that I
was altogether such and one as you are. Why would you think
that I've forgotten you? That your way is hid from me.
That I don't see what you're involved in and what you're going
through. Your thoughts of me are surely
way too low. Not worthy of God. Not worthy
of God. Your thoughts of my power are
too low. Look, hast thou not known, hast
thou not heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of
the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? Can anything be too hard for
the one who is the creator of all things? Nothing can be too
hard for him. You know, when you work, man,
you go out and you work strenuous work, hard work, and you've got
to refresh. Your body has to refresh itself,
doesn't it? You've got to recoup and recover
your strength, your physical strength. You know, God, He never
loses any strength. He is all-powerful, has always
been all-powerful, and shall always be all-powerful. Your
thoughts of God, he's a creator of everything. Why would you
think this? Low thoughts of his power, low
thoughts of his omniscience. There's no searching of his understanding. It's impossible. It's impossible
that your way could be hid from God. In other words, that's what
I see here. No matter what condition, what
problem, what difficulty you're in, don't ever entertain the
thought that somehow God's not aware of what you're going through. No, God knows everything. And the thing about his omniscience,
he knows everything at the same time. Everything that has ever
been, everything that shall ever be, everything that ever could
be. God knows all things. And he seems to illustrate that
in verse 26 with the heavenly bodies. If you look back up there,
lift up your eyes on high and behold, you have 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 and not one failure. What a display. We live in a
city where there's so much light, you can't hardly see the stars,
but sometimes maybe if you get out to West Texas and camp out
there, Ivan, you can look up and you can really look into
the heavens and see the handiwork of God, the stars, even the planets,
a couple of them you can see. And God put them all there, created
all of them. And the thing that always amazes
me is when we hear what the scientists say about the number of stars,
the billions of stars that there is, there are, he knows the name
of every one of them. You believe that? It's what the
scripture says, isn't it? He knows the name of every, calls
them all out by name, how many billions. Don't ever think that
God doesn't know, that God doesn't see, and that God's not concerned
about his children. You parents here tonight, I know
you love your children, you'd do anything you could for your
children. If you saw them in trouble, you
saw them in need, you'd move heaven and earth to help them. If us being evil would do something
like that for our children, how much more God for his children? How much more? All power comes from God. Did
you know you wouldn't, I wouldn't, we wouldn't have power to walk
out of this building tonight unless God gives it to us. I
don't know if you've ever heard that, I guess you call it a recitation. What am I? What am I without
the power of God? Beautiful, beautiful. And they're
playing I Need Thee Every Hour. Oh, I wish I had the words to
that. I'd read it to us tonight. What
am I without the power of God? What could I do? What could I
do without the power of God? His power and His understanding
It's unsearchable. You know, that friend of Job
by the name of Zophar, he asked Job this question. He said, canst
thou by searching find out God? Canst thou by searching find
out God? And I might say, can men with
their powerful telescopes ever find out the number of the heavenly
planets and stars and galaxies that there are? I don't think
so. Canst thou by searching find
out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty
to perfection? It is high as heaven. What canst
thou do? Deeper than hell. What canst
thou know? All power and all knowledge is
in God. Now the third thing that I see
here is a promise. The promise. So we have a question,
we have an answer, and we have a promise given. The promise
is the Lord shall renew their strength. He will renew their
strength so that they might soar like an eagle. They might run
and not be weary. They might walk and not faint. Now this is a conditional promise. There are promises in the word
of God which are unconditional and there are promises which
are conditional and this is a conditional promise. An example of an unconditional
promise is what God said to Noah when he came out of the ark after
God had destroyed all flesh except those eight souls in the ark,
God said, neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy
the earth. Now that's never gonna happen
again. Never. That's an unconditional promise
that God gave to mankind. Gave it to Noah, of course, at
that time, but to all men. He will never destroy this world. all creation, all creatures,
I should say, again by the flood. Another unconditional promise
is the new covenant. All of these promises are unconditional. Look with me, keep your place
here, but turn over a few pages to Jeremiah chapter 31. In Jeremiah chapter 31 and verse
31, we read, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I
will make a new covenant. Now this new covenant is actually
the oldest covenant. It was actually made before the
world began. And it's called a new covenant
because it's newly revealed. The old covenant was a covenant
of works, which God gave to Adam. But now God says, I'm going to
make, the days will come, saith the Lord, that I will make a
new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of
Judah. You say, well, Does that pertain unto us? Absolutely.
You read in Hebrews chapter 8 and Hebrews chapter 10, the apostle
is speaking to believers, to God's children, no matter if
our nationality was Jewish or Gentile, that this covenant promise
is to us. It's to God's people, I should
say. It's to God's children. Notice, not according to the
covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took
them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. Now,
that covenant was conditional. That covenant that God made with
Israel at Mount Sinai, it was conditional. If they obeyed,
then they would be able to stay in the land and they would prosper.
But as we read here, they broke that covenant. Although I was
an husband unto them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith
the Lord. There's no if, there's no maybe,
no. These are unconditional promises. I will put my law in their inward
parts and write it in their hearts And I will be their God, and
they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more
every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know
the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them
unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord. For I will forgive
their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more. Those are
unconditional promises. God declares what he will do. Thank God for that covenant of
which Christ is the surety. Remember when he said, this is
my blood of the new covenant of New Testament, which is shed
for many for the remission of sins. Now back to our text. This is a conditional promise
here that we're looking at tonight. What is the condition? Waiting
upon the Lord. That's the condition. Waiting
upon the Lord. God promises that they shall
soar like the eagle, run and not be weary, and walk and not
faint. That begs the question, doesn't
it? What does it mean to wait upon the Lord? What does that
mean? Well, I'm sure I'm not going
to fully explain this, but I can tell us this, it does not
mean inactivity. That's not what it means to wait
on the Lord. Just sit down and like a hump,
a bump on a log, just sit there forever. No, that's not what
waiting upon the Lord is. It's not inactivity. But I do
believe there's three things that I can say tonight with assurance
that this waiting concerns. First of all, believe Him. If we're waiting on the Lord,
we believe Him. Without faith, it is impossible
to please God, we read. Believe Him. You have a promise,
here's His promise, believe Him. Believe that He's faithful, that
He's true to His word. He cannot lie, he cannot change. Those are strong statements,
aren't they? When you say God cannot do something. But he said
that. His word declares that. He cannot
change. I am the Lord, I change not. Believe, believe him to fulfill
his promise. Number two, ask him. Ask him
to fulfill his promise. And number three, expect him
to fulfill his promise. Believe, ask, and expect. And why should we expect anything
less from the Lord our God than that he will fulfill his promise? One of the promises of the Lord
that I try to remember every day Try to remember it before my
feet hit the floor. As your days shall demand, so
shall your strength be. That's a promise, isn't it? A
wonderful promise. As your days shall demand, so
shall, we don't know what's ahead. We get out of bed, we don't know
what we're going to face that day, what's before us. But we
do know this, as our days demand, so shall our strength be. The
Lord is my strength, David said. The Lord is the light of my life. The Lord is my salvation. May the Lord bless these words
to us here.