We thank the Lord for bringing us back tonight to worship again. Let's open in our Bibles to the book of Isaiah chapter 40. Isaiah chapter 40, we will read verses 27 to 31. Isaiah 40, 27, here is what the Holy Spirit says in that portion. Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel? My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God. Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary, His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might, he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted. But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Let's look to the Lord in prayer one more time. Father, with the Psalmist, we confess again tonight that the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. Lord, we want that kind of revival and wisdom. and rejoicing and enlightenment that comes from the law of the Lord. Please draw near and open our eyes to behold wonderful things in your law. We desire to be a people who lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles, who run with perseverance the race that has been set before us, who set their eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. So use, Lord, our time tonight to that end and make us better pilgrims on the way to the new heavens and the new earth. In Jesus' name, amen. I want to begin tonight by telling you a story. It concerns a man by the name of Horatio Spafford. I would imagine that at a church like Grace, some of you, maybe many of you know that name. This is the man who wrote the famous hymn, It Is Well With My Soul. Now, Mr. Spafford wrote this hymn at a time when some significant tragedies had struck his life. First, he lost a four-year-old son to death. That was followed by an extensive financial loss, which he suffered during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. He had been a successful lawyer and had invested extensively in real estate in the Chicago area. And when the fire swept through that part of Chicago, so much of his property got burned in that fire. Around that time, He also experienced another devastation that came upon his business investments due to the economic downturn of 1873. And then shortly after that, he planned to travel to England to help with the planning and setting up of evangelistic meetings that D.L. Moody, a famous evangelist who lived at the time, was going to carry out in England. But there was a last minute change in his plans, and he decided to send his family ahead and participate in meetings that were involved with zoning and so on and so forth in the Chicago area following the fire. And so his family went ahead. But there was another tragedy that lay ahead of them because as the ship in which his family was traveling was making its way across the Atlantic Ocean, it collided with another sea vessel and then sank quickly into the water. All of Spafford's four daughters died in that accident. His wife was saved alone. She survived. alone from her family that was in the ship with her. And she sent to her husband, Mr. Spafford, the wife's name was Anna. Anna sent to Mr. Spafford one of the most harrowing telegrams that a spouse could possibly send to their husband or wife. He said, she just simply said, saved alone. Two words. Shortly after that incident, Spafford is traveling to England to be with and comfort his grieving wife. And as his own ship was sailing past around the place where his daughters had died, Sparford was stirred in his spirit to write the words of the hymn that has become famous. It is well with my soul. And you can hear in some of the words of the hymn Spafford's effort to capture and express the incalculable pain that was in his soul using the imagery of waves coming up against the vessel he was traveling in. So he would write words like, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to know it is well, it is well with my soul. I think Spafford's response to all these tragedies that happened almost back to back in his life represents for us what God expected from his people in the passage that we have before us tonight, Isaiah chapter 40, 27 to 31. And there is a little contextual fact here that I believe will help us understand the passage better. So the prophetic vantage point where Isaiah is speaking from in this passage is important for us to understand the passage. So Isaiah is speaking from a standpoint of the southern kingdom, the kingdom of Judah because of the idolatry and covenant on faithfulness have been sent into Babylonian exile as was threatened in Isaiah chapters 30, 38 and 39. So that has come to pass and Isaiah 40 to 66 is designed as a comfort for the remnant of God's people in Babylonian exile. And Isaiah's strategy for seeking to comfort this tiny insignificant remnant of God's people is twofold. First, he explains to them how they ended up where they are. And his explanation is you gave yourself over to idolatry and covenant on faithfulness and wouldn't heed the warnings that God gave you by the prophets he sent to you. Some of them you killed. And that's exactly why you are where you are today. God is not a capricious Being in the sky who flew of the handle and threw you out of the land you broke the covenant He brought you into with himself Consistently and then the covenant curses came upon you that's strategy number one that Isaiah uses. Strategy number two is promising to the people that God will restore them in spite of how bleak and hopeless the situation looks like. And chapter 40 begins to lay out some of the reasons why they could believe in spite of the harsh reality surrounding them that God will indeed restore them to the promised land. So in chapter 40 verses 1 to 11, The remnant should believe that God will indeed restore them to the land because God's word is incomparable. Can't be compared with anything. That's what Isaiah argues in chapter 41 to 11. Then the next thing, the next reason they should believe God will indeed restore them is that God the Lord, the covenant God of Israel is self-sufficient and independent. He does not count on anyone to derive counsel on what to do in regard to keeping his covenant promises to his people. The next line of argument that Isaiah sets forth is to say, the Lord is greater than the nations. Yes, Babylon is a world superpower as of the day, but God is greater than all nations. As he's enthroned in the heavens, all the nations of the earth are like grasshoppers before him, Isaiah says. The next line of reasoning is that God is greater than the idols. The Babylonians were banking on God they made with their hands. And it was important for Isaiah's audience to be reminded from a standpoint of captivity that the God of the nations that took them captive were nothing before the covenant God of Israel. And then the next thing Isaiah says is that the Lord is greater than rulers. No one can thwart his plan. That is the point of what Isaiah says in 40 verses 21 to 24. And then in 40, 25 to 26, Isaiah points out the Lord is greater than the stars. The ancient people tended to associate stars with deities and thought there was power in it. And even in our day, stars are a fascinating reality in astronomy and just studying that is fascinating. And Isaiah wants his people to know that God is greater even than that. And then we come to verse 28 of our passage. And then you hear God say to the people, have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He doth not faint or grew weary. There is no searching of his understanding. Now just in those words, you hear something of a subtle rebuke from God towards the people. Now this is not God chastening his people for mourning because of a tragedy that has come into their lives. God does not rebuke his people when they mourn tragedy. In fact, it's almost sinful not to mourn tragedy in a way that shows hope in the Lord. The Lord Jesus said, So Isaiah is not here rebuking by God's word the people for mourning. The point of Isaiah's statement here is an indictment against questioning the faithfulness of God, questioning the reliability of God, questioning the trustworthiness of God. That's what the people Isaiah was writing to had gotten caught up into because of their circumstances. And Isaiah want to straighten out that thinking with the word of God. So let me just ask you, what do you do when the circumstances of your life, when the experiences of your life seem to contradict your theology? What you believe about God, the thing that you have believed about God and held dear, when that seems to be contradicted by your experience, by what you are going through in life, what do you do? Now, there are two possible approaches, at least, this passage confronts us with, one of the approaches is to try to change your theology to make sense of the circumstances. And that's what the people were seeking to do, to try to change your theology to make sense of the circumstances. And that is the wrong approach, obviously, if your theology is right. And by that I mean you are seeking to draw conclusions from what you are experiencing that are shaped more by your experience than by what God has revealed about himself. That's a disastrous approach to try to understand tragedy in life. So we find that in verse 27 of our text. The people are saying, my way is hidden from the Lord and my right is disregarded by my God. In other words, the people are saying, I have nothing going for me with God. Their logic is sort of like this. Aren't we God's covenant people? Shouldn't he be taking care of us? Shouldn't God ensure that we are treated justly and cared for by people around us? The fact that we are experiencing injustice must mean that our way is disregarded by the Lord. That's that's sort of the logic of The people. And the commentators point out the tens of the verbs used in this section indicate this was not a passing comment that the people made. This is the mood. This is the atmosphere. This is the way that people are thinking about the things they are going through. So in their conception of reality right here, everything is in flux. Everything can change, including God. There is no constant in their lives. There is nothing that is stable that you can anchor onto and feel safe. Everything is shifty and changing. And as I said, that's a catastrophic way to think about tragedies in this life. Because just think about it, if nothing is constant, if everything is in flux, how could you possibly endure? How could you possibly have hope? As our brother read earlier this morning from 1 Corinthians 13, how could you bear all things and believe all things and hope all things and endure all things when even God himself changes? See, it's just not possible for that to happen. But our passage, thankfully, gives us simple but powerfully effective counsel for how to think and understand and make sense of life in the midst of tragedy. And that's the right way what to do when our experiences seem to contradict our theology. And that is given us first in verse 28 of our passage. there we hear this pair of questions. Have you not known? Have you not heard? So that pair of questions right there presuppose, assume that the audience knows the answer to the questions. The questions are sort of rhetorical. in form. And we know that because what is said right after the questions confirms that the people being spoken to should have known what the questions are asking for because the thing that follows is, the Lord is the everlasting God. He is the creator of the ends of the earth. He neither faints nor grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. These are truths that would have been self-evident to an average Jew. You didn't need to teach them. They just they grew learning it from little. with God they were taught there is no beginning. He is not limited by time in any way. He is eternal in all his attributes and what that means is he watches over his people eternally. He never blinks an eye from over his people. So how ridiculous is it Isaiah says to suggest that your way is hidden from the Lord. Now your right is disregarded by God, that's preposterous to say because it just does not fit the very nature of God. That's logic that is completely out of touch with who God is. And the next thing that God reminds the people to relearn and get right is that God is the creator. He is the creator. The truth, that truth is all over the Bible. It's even revealed in creation itself. No one in Israel would have been a stranger to the fact that God, the covenant God of Israel, is the creator. In fact, the first verse of the first book of the Bible says that much. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Every right thinking Jew knew that all the three major divisions of the Old Testament, of the Hebrew Bible, the law, the prophets and the writings all insist that God is the creator of the universe. It is quite remarkable. that in this particular text we're talking about when Isaiah refers to God as the creator he very purposefully uses a word for creator that is consistently used only of God in the Hebrew Bible the subject For that verb is always God, and it speaks of an activity that is accomplished by a deity. And it speaks of an activity that focuses on what is created, not on the raw material used for the creation. Which is why theologians and Bible scholars have come to associate that word with the idea of creation out of nothing. or in the Latin, creatio ex nihilo. So this is a God who speaks the universe into being with no previously existing material. That's the God we are talking about. Now put that idea back into the context and see just what folly would have been there to think that a God this mighty and this eternal will disregard the way of his people. Because there is no place in all of creation where any one of his people could be and be out of the reach of God's shepherding care for them. He spooked this universe into being. He upholds it in being by the word of his power. So you can trust him anywhere in the darkest of darkness. He will be there. And therefore to say that my way is disregarded by my God is to distort the nature of God in attempt to understand the tragedies in your life. And that's disastrous to do, which is what Isaiah is seeking to correct right here. He is everlasting. His strength never diminishes. He does not grow weary. And what about the cognitive ability of this God? What about His ability to understand the circumstances that we find ourselves in? Isaiah answers by saying, His understanding is unsearchable. Can't be computed. We can't understand it. It's beyond us to understand. You may remember Paul's hymn in Romans 11.33. Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments. How inscrutable are His ways. That's the God we are talking. I think it's meditating on the immensity and the greatness and majesty of this God that would have led William Cooper to write a hymn called, God Moves in a Mysterious Way, where he would say at one point, Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace. Behind every frowning providence, He hides a smiling face. We can't prearrange or predict the way this God will work. And if we want a small puny God that fits perfectly into our finite brains, this is the wrong God for us. And praise be to God that we trust and worship and believe in a God who is far immensely greater than us. Because what good is it to call anything God who is just as small as you are? So Isaiah wants to correct that wrong thinking in the minds of this people. But notice God is not only strong and mighty. He allows in his generosity for his strength to overflow to his people. He allows for his strength to flow generously to his people so that they are strengthened and sustained in the midst of all the tragedies and the vicissitudes of this life. Look at verse 29 of our text. He gives power to the faint and to him who has no might, he increases strength. One of the passages that started to capture my attention and just strike me as utterly amazing about this God came from Isaiah in the early days of my being converted as I started listening to some preachers. I remember Isaiah 64, four, from of old, no one has seen a God besides you who works for those who wait for him. Because all along I only knew a God that I am called to work for. But now I was being introduced to a God who works for those who wait for Him. That's sort of the thing that is being said here. If you are weak and fainting and feel like you can't make it, you are a candidate for help from this God. He puts His strength on display through the frailties and weakness of human beings. He is not the kind of impoverished God I knew growing up who needs my chicken and my goat and the sacrifices we were called to offer. This God works for those who wait for him. He gives strength to the weak and to those who have no might. He increases their power. That's the God we are talking about. And therefore, to think of this God as He is supposed to be thought of, and yet think that your way is disregarded by this God, is utterly preposterous, Isaiah says. So if you came in tonight feeling overwhelmed, feeling totally at your wit's end with that trial, or that tragedy, or that burden, you are a good candidate for help from this God. He works for people like that. God is able and delights to give His strength to His people and strengthen them so that in the hardships they do not grow weary. Despair and despondency will never make trials go away, but if you can You can experience a supernatural response to tragedy if you realize that every day of your life and every event in your life is an obedient servant in the hand of this God in His good purpose for your life. And even more, that this God is generously, eagerly waiting to pour out strength into your soul to sustain you in the midst of difficulties and trials. Knowing God like that can help you respond in a supernatural way to all the challenges of life. Now let's just step back for a moment and say, that's who God is. Majestic, powerful, faithful, trustworthy, reliable, eternal. He is the one who created. His understanding is unsearchable. What if you hear all that and say, sounds good, but not very appealing to me. I would rather have something else. What would be your options? What really would you have other than this God to turn to? Well, our passage says the only other option is frail human strength. That's the only other option there is. In the words of James, a mist that appears for a little time and is gone. And Isaiah would say to us in verse 30, even youths shall faint and be weary and young men shall fall exhausted. So what Isaiah is doing is putting, holding up two options. Here is God and here is the other option. The option of the strength of youth. We know that youthfulness, the hallmark of youthfulness is dexterity and strength and and ability and so on and so forth. Youths are able to do things that are amazing because of the strength that they have. You don't need to look very far to be able to see that. Just look in the sports arena. Watching something like the Olympics usually will make you wonder if you are watching machines or human beings in terms of what people are able to do with their bodies. But stop one of those Olympians a handful of years afterwards and ask them if they did that. They would barely remember because the strength would be gone. That's because that's who human beings are. We are wilting grass and fading flowers. It is just the fact, it's just the case that because we are humans at one age, it is harder to pick up your pen that falls to the floor than it was at one time in your life. That's just the way our bodies work. We are wilting grass and fading flowers. And if you would rather choose that over God, that would be the epitome of folly. Because that flesh passes away. That grass fades away. But what if you chose to wait on the Lord? The promise is amazing. Look at verse 31. But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. To wait on the Lord here is means a confident expectation. It's not like saying, I hope you get well and just wishful thinking. No, it is a confident expectation that God will come through on the promises that he has made. He will not let his word fall to the ground. It is believing and resting trustingly that God will do what he has said he will do and that his plan and purposes and timing are good and acceptable and perfect. That is what it means to wait on the Lord. That he is going to cause you to, in the place of your human frailty and weakness, put on strength that is otherworldly in nature. Because He will give such strength to those who wait upon Him. And Isaiah is so confident about that, that he could barely find an image to describe the way people who wait on the Lord gain strength. So that he has to look to the world of birds to say what the outcome will be like for them. They will be like, they will mount on wings like an eagle. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. This is the kind of strength that in the midst of loss of a son and loss of businesses and loss of investment in business and loss of four daughters in a sea accident can still say, it is well with my soul. That's the kind of strength that came to Horatio Spafford. As I said at the beginning, God is able to strengthen in this way. He is able to make us say, God, it may not feel like it, but I know with rock-solid assurance that it is well with my soul. Not because it feels that way, but because you have said it is. And because you have said it is, it is. Because His Word never falls to the ground. The psalmist says in Psalm 103 verse 5, God satisfies our desires with good so that our youth is renewed like the eagles. That's the God we worship. I hope that stirs your heart to want to run with perseverance the race that is mapped before us, that you want to bring more glory to God in spite of how your body feels, in spite of whatever trials you may currently be experiencing, in spite of whatever losses you may know or may be seeing coming your way, that this God is for you and no one can be against you. And of course, the greatest waiting on the Lord that we all are doing is the waiting on the Lord for Him to consummate His kingdom, for Him to usher in the fullest benefits of Christ's cross that He purchased for those who have trusted Christ. The apostle Paul, who lived his life for the glory of Christ, who said, I consider my life worth nothing if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus gave me. As he came to the close of his life, In 2 Timothy chapter 4 verse 18, and you've got to remember, in 2 Timothy 4, Paul is laying out some of the saddest experiences of his ministry, where a fellow missionary companion of his had fallen in love with the world and deserted him and went to Thessalonica, a man by the name of Demas, and then there were others who did not show up at his trial, which means he felt a true sense of being abandoned, of being deserted by friends. What would you expect from a minister who's poured out his life trying to nurture and build up and create and raise up a leadership for the church who is then abandoned at the time when he is in prison awaiting martyrdom by those very people that he poured his life out for? What would you expect from him? It would be like the deepest depth of despair Humanly speaking. But that's not what we see in the life of the Apostle Paul. In 2 Timothy 4.18, what he says is, The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. He knew the God he had believed in. He knew that demons may well go to Thessalonica, whatever he found there, and others may not show up for my trial. I know one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt. The Lord God will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safe into his heavenly kingdom. Do you have that kind of confidence? For Paul, cancer did not have the last word. A pandemic did not have the last word. Nothing in his life, imprisonment and martyrdom, these did not have the last word. The Lord will rescue me and bring me safe into his heavenly kingdom, Paul says. That's the confidence that drew his life from the time Christ revealed himself to him on the Damascus road up to the last second of his life. on earth. That's what we wait for and I just hope this encourages our hearts that we think and operate and live like the Apostle Paul. There is something better than life. The Psalmist says, the steadfast love of the Lord is better than life. And that's why the Apostle Paul would say, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain because of this God. When God delivered Israel out of Egypt and brought them to Mount Sinai to enter into a covenant with himself, he said to them, You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. So he gave them the strength to pack up their belongings and eat the Passover lamb and eat it with bitter herbs and get out of Egypt. He gave them the strength to walk. But in their walking, it was God bearing them up on eagles' wings to bring them to himself, and he did not abandon them in the wilderness. He bore them all the way to the promised land. And he now is bearing all those who have placed their faith in Jesus on eagle's wings to bring them into the new heavens and the new earth. May He give us the joy and the confidence and the conviction that He who began a good work in our lives will bring it to completion on the day of Christ. No plan of His will be thwarted. Not one hair of your head will turn white or black without the providence of this God. He will not leave you mid-course. He will bring you into the city with foundations whose architect and builder is God Himself. Let's pray. Father, I ask that you would Take away any fear and take away any worries and take away any anxieties in the room because of various circumstances, whether finances or health or family members who are even currently unbelieving or whatever it may be. I pray that you would comfort each of our hearts and speak tenderness to our souls and lead us as the good shepherd whose voice is tender life to the souls of his sheep, and who will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering flax, but who will indeed bear all his own and bring to himself in the new heavens and the new earth. So strengthen us in the grace that's in Christ, and make us indeed to mount upon wings like eagles, to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint, all by the strength that you supply, so that in all things you might get the glory. In Jesus' name, amen.