started this last week. We've been talking on these Sunday nights about strength passages in the Bible. There are many. Not every time are we going to look at every strength passage where the Lord says He gives His people strength, but picking some out as we go through and We need strength in these last days, don't we, to serve the Lord? I know saints of God throughout the ages have said that, and I know that it's true. Listen, Christianity's always been counterculture, okay? And the further we get into heathenism in our country, the more counter our culture, Christianity, will be. We've been blessed in America. Our country was founded on Judeo-Christian values, We've been blessed, but those values and those people that founded those are long gone. And it's been passed down, but every generation is one step away from losing the foundations. If foundations be destroyed, God's Word says, what can the righteous do? So we need strength as we live for God in these days. And Isaiah 40 is a tremendous passage, Isaiah 40 through 66. gives us the message of the comfort of the returning Babylon, the Jewish returning from Babylon, exiles coming back, some were staying there, some were coming back. Esther is a book about, we're looking on Wednesday nights, Esther is a book about those that stayed, a group of people that stayed. So we're looking at that on Wednesday nights, started that last week. Isaiah, he's talking to those that are going back. And they would need help. They would need strength for the journey. It's about a 500-mile journey. didn't have Southwest Airlines back in those days, OK. They had Southwest Footlines, OK, you know. And so they would have to foot it back and it was hard to get back and just things going on and all of this. They would need extraordinary strength and the Lord said it's available. So we looked all the way through the passage. I really dropped off at about, let me just go review a little bit. We looked at verse 1, God is a God of comfort. Let me back up. Really in the latter part of verse nine, he says, behold your God. And he's just magnifying in Isaiah 40 who God is. So you belong to God, we belong to God tonight. We need to know who God is so that we can live for God. We can worship God, we can know God, and we can tap into his word and godly principle. Behold your God. He's a God of comfort, verse one. where it says, comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. He always personalizes that. He's our God. He's God of comfort. He's a God of forgiveness, verse two. He's a God of provision. They would need that provision going back. He's a God of promise. in verses 6 through 8, he's a God of good news. Verses 9 through 11, he's a God that's awesome. Verses 12 through 27, and that's kind of where we parked last week, did some visual illustrations, what I don't always do, some, but we showed how the Lord says there that he has in, let's see, verse 12, who have measured the waters in the hollow of his hand. You know all the waters of the world will fit in the Lord's hollow of His hand, and not even a teaspoon will fit in mine. Think about that. God's huge tonight. And listen, if all the waters can fit into God's hand, then my problems can fit in there pretty easy, okay? And that's what we need to see. I think that's what He was trying to get them to see. He's meted out the heaven with a span The span was from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the small finger, the pinky. And for mine, it's about nine inches. But the Lord, the heavens, He measures the heavens with the tip of the span. And we don't even know how many billion stars are in our galaxy or how many billion galaxies are beyond ours. But God knows them, and we're going to read tonight where He's got them all by name. So that's our God. He's an awesome God. He says who's comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure or a basket, who's weighed the scales in a balance. The Lord knows how much everything weighs. He knows the mountains, how much they weigh, and the hills. And then he goes on and he says, verse 13, who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord? Or being his counselor, who hath taught him? What university did God attend? Who counseled God? Who mentored God? The answer is none. God can teach, but He can't learn. That's our God. He doesn't need to learn anything. He is the teacher. And then what are the nations of the world to Him? We stopped there and then we're gonna look tonight, beginning in verse 18. So let's read that. To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare Him? The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth over silver chains. He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation chooseth the tree that it will not rot. He seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image that shall 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 setteth 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 stalks shall not take root in the earth. And 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. We're going to cover the rest of the chapter. Let's pray right there. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for who you are tonight. And we pray as we walk through these verses that we will do what we need to in these verses and see you as you are presented in Jesus' name. Amen. So again, he asked a set of rhetorical questions. Who is like God? he is superior over all idols. He says the guy that's impoverished, the poorest man in this earth, he says, he chooses a tree, a good tree, one that's not going to rot, and he picks somebody out and he makes an idol out of it because he wants to worship this. You know, I've seen that. I've seen poor, poor people giving offerings they have to gods that didn't exist. I remember when I was in India in 2001 and I would see this, I even saw they have these idols in these shops where people can go and they can give their offerings to these idols and at 5 o'clock or so they shut. I thought that was interesting. I said to the missionary, I said, I guess that idol's gone home for the night, right? I mean, they shut, right? But people still come by and throw things under the door to them, throw coins and rupees. They don't have anything, these people, but yet they're doing everything they can. And God says, who is like me? God is unequaled. There's no God like our God. And it just goes on. It talks about his superiority over all of these, these gods. Verse 22 is an interesting verse. It says, it is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth. You know, for thousands of years, many thought that the earth was flat. All they had to do was pick up a copy of the Hebrew scriptures and read, God sitting on the circle of the earth. All right? Kind of like, was it Jefferson or one of our forefathers that was dying and they were bloodletting him? You know, they used to do that. Was it who? Washington. or George Washington was dying, they were letting blood out. That's what they used to do. They had blood letters. Did you know, this is something you may not know, but you know, a barber pole where you see the red and white striped barber, you know where that came from? You used to go and get a haircut and get your blood let. If you were sick, they believe you had an infection and if they cut you and you bleed out, then the infection would bleed out. Well, I'm glad the barber doesn't do that anymore. But anyway, I'd stay away from them. But anyway, The Washington is dying and a copy of the Word of God is sitting right next to him, which says the life of the flesh is in the blood. All I had to do is read the Bible and he might have lived a little bit longer. I don't know, but that's how people were. People thought that the earth was flat. Well, God's Word says God is sitting on the circle of the earth. And then he goes on in verse 22, he compares people to grasshoppers. Okay, that's interesting, isn't it? You know, men may be large in number, but they, get this, men are no more in control of this world than a grasshopper that's hopping around with his antennas just going like that. waiting for somebody to pick him up and put him on a hook for bass fishing or something. You know, I mean, just, you know, just think about, I used to love catching grasshoppers, you know, and fish with them. I'm thinking, but God says, look at what he says. He says, he says, a lot of part of verse 22, the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers. You know, people really think that they're in charge when God says they're as grasshoppers. And God is not only supreme in the realm of creation, he's equally supreme in the affairs of man. Verse 23 and 24. In other words, God is so involved in the affairs of this world, he's sovereign. what He's trying to tell us. He's sovereign. He's in control. God's in control. Nations come and go. Leaders come and rise and fall. But God is steady and God is sovereign and God's got a plan. God raises one up and puts another one down. I believe we ought to vote. I believe we ought to pray for our leaders. We're commanded to do so. We ought to do all we can. But I want to tell you something, it's all in the hands of God. And God does things for a reason, and He raises people up as discipline sometimes, and then raises another one up for a blessing sometimes. And so He is supreming the affairs of man. And then again, verse 25, He says, to whom then will you liken Me, or shall I be equal, saith the Holy One? Now, He's getting ready after this verse to open up another avenue, the heavens. But here He calls Himself the Holy One. And that is an attribute of God that sets Him apart from all other gods and His creation. The word holy is Kaddish, which means apart. God is apart. He is totally apart and different than anything we could imagine. God is holy. And we are so unlike God in His holiness. If there is ever an attribute that we are not like God it is holiness. Now we are commanded to be holy and I want to talk about that in just a second. But think about this, John said it like this in I John, God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. That is hard for us to comprehend because everywhere we look is darkness. There is sin everywhere. Everywhere we go as beautiful as we go to places that's beautiful on this earth. There's sin there. There's darkness everywhere But yet God is light and in him is no darkness at all God's holiness is his supreme attribute and the one which all others are affected what I mean by that is this God is love, but God's love is a holy love and God is wrath, God is just, but His wrath and His justice are holy. When God tells Joshua to go into the land and utterly destroy everything that breathes, we have to back up and say God knows something about those people that we don't. And we have to say God is holy in everything He does, and because He's holy, He's holy in His justice, He's holy in His wrath, He's holy in His execution of wrath. And if God tells us to do something, then we just back up and say, God, you're right. God is pure. as part of His holiness. Pure is a word that means unmixed. God's holiness, His character is not mixed with anything unclean or untruthful. That's why He says in Psalm chapter 12 that God's words are pure words, purified seven times, perfection. God's word is pure. Proverbs 30 verse 5, every word of God is pure. You realize you hold a perfect book in your hands tonight? A pure book, a holy book, because it is the holy Bible. It says that for a reason, because it's from a holy God. And so God is like that. Habakkuk 113 says, thou art of pure eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity. The whole best message of the Bible that I said this morning is this, be holy for I am holy. He said that to His people in Leviticus and He says it to His New Testament people in I Peter 1, verse 16. And praise God we can be holy. We can be holy because although God's holy and God's different from us, we can be made holy through a relationship with Jesus Christ. We come to Him in repentance and faith. He cleanses us with His precious blood. He makes us saints, which is the word holy. Praise God! You're saved tonight! You're holy! You say, I don't feel very holy. Well, I agree. We don't FEEL like that, but in position we are, and in practice we're BECOMING what we are in position. That's what Brother Rich asked this morning about sanctification. What's sanctification? Well, really it's becoming in practice what we are in position. God looks upon us and he says, St. Howard. And Linda says, uh-uh, no. But hey, that's how God looks. Aren't you glad God looks at us like that? He looks at us, we're holy to God. We've been made holy. I'm gonna tell you what, that makes me wanna be holy. want to live a holy life, a separated godly life. And that's back to where we get that word comfort in verse 1. Once we're made right with God we have comfort. And we have the comforter, the Holy Spirit who makes us holy. So we can know Him, praise God, He is holy, He is unequaled. And then He goes on and He says He is a God who is engaged, verse 26 and 27. says, Lift up your eyes on high, and behold, who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number? He calleth them all by names, by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power, not one faileth. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest thou, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God? This is an interesting, he's a God who's holy, he's a God who's unequal, but he's a God who's engaged. He's engaged with His people. The idols have eyes but they see not, they have ears but they hear not, hands but they handle not, the psalmist said. But our God is engaged with His people. You know deism, which is still around, but deism was really big when our country was formed. A lot of our forefathers were deists. A deist is somebody who, it's a philosophical belief that suggests that God exists and He's ultimately responsible for the creation of the universe, but that He doesn't interfere directly with the created world. That God created, they believe that, but yet didn't they believe God just kind of stepped back and just let things happen? Well, this verse says, nuh-uh. And there's other verses, right? Colossians 1.17 says, By him all things consist, Hebrews 1.3 says, all things are upheld by the word of His power. You realize this, God could just yawn tonight and this world fly apart. You know, think about it. I mean, He just takes His hand off one time just to scratch the back of His head. I'm telling you, this world just might fly apart. God's got everything in control. And look at what this verse says. It says, lift up your eyes on high and behold, who hath created these things that bringeth out their hosts by number. Talking about the stars here. He calleth them all by names. We haven't even found them all. Hubble, you know, it was the Hubble, the Hubble scope, you know, that guy, he took us further than anybody, but God keeps track of a billion, billion galaxies containing a billion stars each, billions of billions of stars, and He knows their names. He knows all their names. And He knows when there's a problem. Listen, our God's huge tonight. Not only that, but God, He keeps up with the flight plan of every sparrow. every sparrow, and He instantly comprehends every need in every corner of our cosmos. We shouldn't worry, or we shouldn't even think for a moment that when we need a little extra strength, He can't give it to us. That's what He's saying. He's working towards something here. And He's saying, listen, this is who it is. And then He says to, I like what He says, Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest thou, O Israel? My way is hid from the Lord. What in the world are you even talking about thinking that God doesn't see what's going on in your life? God knows exactly what's going on in our life. Hey, why speak as that old Dennis? Huh? I think sometimes God just, you know, does God really know what's happening in my life right now? Does God know I'm getting kicked in the stomach? Huh? We think that sometimes, don't we? Okay, you don't, but I do. I know God does, but sometimes I need a reminder like this to say, wait a minute, wait a minute. He knows exactly what's happening, and He allowed me to get kicked. He allowed that to happen to me. God's in control. God knows exactly what we're going through. Don't think that He's not. He knows. If He knows, He knows every sparrow that falls from the sky. He knows every hair that's numbered on my head and your head. Dale's head. Dale gives him an easy job. But you know, think about it. God knows every single hair we'd have, Dale, if you let it grow, okay? He knows every single, He knows that, then God is interested in our lives. So we're talking about a God who's awesome, who's unequaled, but He's very engaged in our lives. He's very engaged. The last point here is He's a God who renews our strength. And verses 28-31 are some of the most awesome verses in all the Word of God. It's just tremendous passage. Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary. There's no searching of His understanding. You know I get tired but God doesn't. He doesn't faint. He's not weary tonight. He giveth power to the faint. Praise God for that. He giveth, and to them that have no might, he increaseth strength. You ever feel like you just can't go on any further? I feel like that sometimes. I just, and God says, you know what? I'm gonna give you some strength. You get weary, you're gonna faint. He says, even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. You know, when we're young, we think we can do anything. But even those jokers, those young whippersnappers, like my dad used to say, they get weary and tired because we live in a world, we live in a fallen world, and our body is dying, and our body, and we serve the Lord, and we want to do right, but I'm telling you, it's hard sometimes. We need His strength. We need to, even the youth, he says, 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. They shall walk and not faint. Wow. Now God's used some awesome illustrations here. He's used the water, He's used the dirt, He's used the mountains, He's used the planets, all of this. Now He closes with this awesome illustration of an eagle. An eagle. I'm glad that the eagle is our national symbol. Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be our national symbol. That would be really awkward, wouldn't it? I mean, think about that, huh? I mean, you know, I could just see the, you know, the turkey with some arrows going through its beak, you know. It just, no, I'm glad whoever overrode Benjamin, and we got the eagle. Eagles are majestic birds with remarkable vision. Their eyes are larger than human eyes, and scientists believe that their eyesight may be eight times sharper than our eyes. They can see their prey a long ways off. With amazing speed, they descend on them and snatch them with the most powerful talons. They have huge talons. They grip them like a vice. Their beaks are sharp as a butcher knife designed to cut and tear apart their food. But most of all, eagles are made for flying. Eagles are made for soaring. They soar at speeds of 60 to 100 miles an hour. And like a stunt plane, they just go through the sky, rolling and looping and diving. I mean, they're just amazing. Anybody ever seen an eagle in the wild? They're just amazing. We were in Alaska one time and I was preaching and the pastor put us down on the bay, Resurrection Bay, it's called there. in Kenai or somewhere like that. And we went out one morning and we were watching some orcas were out feeding. And I looked over and I saw an eagle sitting there. And I've zoomed in, one of the rare moments when I got a good picture, because Karen has the eye, but I zoomed in on that eagle and took a picture. And right when I took it, he looked at me like this, you know, like only an eagle can do. But I looked up and the tree was full of eagles, bald eagles. I'm talking about 20, 30 bald eagles. And I was like, Karen, look. But they're pretty when they're just sitting there, but when you see them soaring, it's amazing. Eagles are beautiful. They're made for soaring and they glide and soar. They don't flap their wings a lot like other birds, hummingbirds, sparrows. They don't constantly flap their wings, they soar. And this soaring allows them to travel at long distances with very little energy. God has created our planet with invisible columns of hot air called thermals. They rise up here and there from the ground. They're called thermals. And eagles, which are one of God's creations, right, that work with God's creations, work with the Creator and the creation, and they know how to find these thermals. And eagles, I read, where they fly into these invisible thermal, these currents, stretch out their wings and they catch the updraft. And as they catch these thermals, they go higher and higher and higher into the atmosphere. And eagles can fly as high as 15,000 feet, so high that you can't even see them with the naked eye. They get these thermals and they just catch one and they just catch one and they catch another one, just keep on going. And then they just glide and they glide. But they're looking, they're looking, they're hunting even up there, right? Well, this is Isaiah's picture of faith. See, we need strength for our journey. We need strength. But what do we have to do? We have to stretch out our wings of faith and catch those thermals. When we catch God's wings of thermals, those thermals so to speak, we get an updraft and we're able to rise above. And how does it happen? Well, look what it says. They that wait upon the Lord. What does wait upon the Lord mean? To wait upon the Lord means faith, trust, confidence in Him. It involves ongoing prayer, spending time and more time with the Lord in His presence. The psalmist said in Psalm 27, 14, wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. He said it again in Psalm 62.5, my soul wait thou only upon God for my expectation is from him. You see, waiting on God doesn't mean we sit around doing nothing. Waiting on God means that we engage the Lord. We go to the Lord in his word. We're finding, we need strength. So what do we do? We go to God, we wait upon God. We sometimes just lay before God, just sit before God and listen to what he's got to say to us. We commune with him in prayer. And what happens? We renew our strength. That word renew our strength there. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. The word renew means to exchange. We exchange our strength for His when we wait upon the Lord. Our strength is not enough for this world. It's not enough for the trials of life. It's not enough. The sooner we realize that, the better. Sooner we fall flat on our face the better because then we realize that I can't do it in myself. I need God's strength. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew, exchange their strength for His strength. That's what happens. We exchange our strength. We catch that updraft of faith. We need that extra strength to get through the day, get through the week. Sometimes it just means, you know, to be honest, my, when the Lord has spoken to me and given me direction in my life, it's been when I was totally alone with God in my office or at home or something just praying, just, I'm not in a hurry, I'm just waiting on the Lord. And I'm usually just laying down. You know, Stonewall Jackson, Howard knows who he is, is Southern General, right? The South would have won the war, but God had to kill Stonewall Jackson, that's what they say. But anyway, Stonewall Jackson was known for his long marches. He would march his troops unbelievable distances. But Jackson knew a secret. After marching for a number of miles, he would lay his soldiers out. He would make them all just lay out like that. and it renewed their strength, is what we're told. And I don't know about marching, because I joined the Air Force. We don't really know how to march in the Air Force, better than the Navy though. But anyway, but we didn't do long marches, I don't know much about that, but I know this, when I get before God and I spend time with Him, on my face before the Lord, He renews my strength. He allows me to get up. He encourages me to get up and keep marching. Keep marching. Matter of fact, this verse says what? They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. We run when the challenges are many. They shall run and not be weary. Okay, wait a minute. Mount up with wings as eagles, okay? He enables us to soar. Somebody said, when the crisis comes, we need to soar, but we need to run when the challenges are many. But here's the hardest part, walk and not faint. You know, all of us can work up a run, and we can even soar at times, but you know what God talks about over and over again in the New Testament? Walking with God. Walking with God is just being walking faithfully in the daily demands of life. It's just one step after the other, just continuing to walk. That's why he says, they shall mount up with winged eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint. Because when we walk, it's the daily demands of life sometimes, the walk with God that causes us to faint, and God knows that. But when we renew our strength, when we wait upon the Lord, He gives us the strength to go on. You know when we spend time with God, we're in His Word, He hears the cry of our heart, doesn't He? And He honors faith. He honors faith in Him alone. When we do, when we get that faith that we need from the Lord, we get those updrafts of faith. Those updrafts. And we're able to run and not be weary and walk and not faint. I don't know about you tonight, but I need some extra strength. I need some extra strength. I need some real wisdom for some things going on right now. And I need this tonight, and I need you to pray for me. There's some real trials going on in our lives right now. And we need the strength to be able to know what to do with them, okay? So I'm asking you to pray for us, and we pray one for another. All right. Thank you, Lord, for your word this morning, this evening. And thank you that you promised to give us the strength we need when we wait upon you. Seal these things in our hearts, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's stand.