Please turn your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 40. Isaiah 40, and we're gonna read this whole chapter, and the plan is to give an overview of this chapter in this sermon, and then come back later and go through the different parts of it in more detail, so a lot of details that we won't cover today. But there's something to seeing the whole thing together. Maybe you saw in the news some things about the Vatican, and in the Vatican they have the Sistine Chapel. And there's something about seeing the whole ceiling of the Sistine Chapel that Michelangelo painted all together. And then maybe you want to walk up and look more closely at the different scenes he basically painted the whole Bible. there. So there's benefit, I think, to seeing the whole thing together here with this chapter. So we're gonna read it now and go through it today. Isaiah 40, beginning in verse one. Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. A voice cries, in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain and hill be made low. The uneven ground shall become level and the rough places a plain and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. A voice says, cry. And I said, what shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news. Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news. Lift it up, fear not. Say to the cities of Judah, behold your God. Behold, the Lord God comes with might and his arm rules for him. Behold, his reward is with him and his recompense before him. He will tend his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms. He will carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with young. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains and scales and the hills in a balance? who has measured the spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as dust on the scales. Behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before him. They are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness compare with him? An idol. A craftsman casts it and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains. He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot. He seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move. Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to dwell in. who brings princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth. When he blows on them and they wither and the tempest carries them off like stubble. To whom then will you compare me that I should be like him, says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these, who brings out, he who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one is missing. 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 youth 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. This is the word of our God. Let's pray for his blessing. Our Lord, we come and we pray now for your spirit who is immeasurable. And we claim your promise that you give the spirit without measure through Jesus Christ. We pray, Lord Jesus, as you are the true God and true King, risen from the dead, ascended into heaven with all power and authority, that you would send your spirit to help us to understand your word, to help us to know you, the true God, and to worship you, and that you would open the blind eyes, that you would set free those who are imprisoned by their sin, May your spirit do this work, we pray. We pray in your name, Lord Jesus, amen. Once upon a time, I heard a church. It was a big church and they had lots of elders and lots of people on staff and lots of people who could preach. And they did a sermon series called, If This Were the Last Sermon I Ever Preached. And about 10 or so of those people who were elders or on staff, they were able to select a passage that they could preach as if it was the last sermon they ever preached. One person chose Isaiah 40. And if this were the last sermon I ever preached, I would want it to be Isaiah 40. Isaiah 40 has almost everything, I think, that we could say that a Christian needs and that the non-Christian needs. Isaiah has the gospel in chapter 40. In fact, Isaiah seems to have been the one who coined the term gospel. Evangel, the good news of verse nine, that is the herald. He is the herald of the gospel, which in Greek became translated as euangelion or evangel. That's where this word comes from. The gospel is good news. It's glad tidings. So we have a herald of the gospel here. We have the promise of pardon and the forgiveness of sins, and that payment is made for sins. We have how God cares for his people, that he comforts his people, that he gently cares for them like they are his flock in his arms and that he gives strength to his weary people. But beyond all that, we also have God more than anything in this chapter, we have a description and a vision of the true God and who he really is. And above all that we need, whether we're Christians or not, we need to understand who God is. The non-Christian needs to know the God who made them, the God who made them so that they would know him and worship him and they would see his majesty so that they would be convicted of their own depravity and fall upon their faces and realize that they need a savior. The non-Christian needs this vision of God of chapter 40. The Christian needs this vision of God. This chapter is given to the people of God to encourage them. that this is the God who has all power to carry us through the difficulties that we face in life. And when we might struggle with spiritual issues and spiritual problems of our faith and our doubts, this is the God who is presented before you as one who is trustworthy. as a great God who you can love and trust and worship. And this God who promises to carry you through all of the troubles that you face in life. So what is there in this chapter that is missing? What do you need as a non-Christian or as a Christian that isn't found here? So let's look at this great chapter. We've divided it up into three parts, an everlasting message, everlasting God, and then everlasting strength. And so we start fittingly with God. The everlasting message begins with God. God is the first person to speak as verse one begins. Comfort, comfort my people. says your God. Now, this is not comfort as a noun. It's not like just someone saying the noun tree flower. It's not comfort as a noun. It's a verb. It's a command comfort. It comes across more in the King James, which will say comfort ye comfort ye my people. God is commanding a group to go and comfort his people. Probably he is marshalling his army of prophets. He wants his prophets to announce a message of comfort. And we can see why God's people would need comfort. If we've been going through this book of Isaiah and you just put it in the context of everything that's happened, In 722, Assyria came and destroyed the northern kingdom. Assyria has taken over the north. In 701, we've been looking at this whole story with Hezekiah of how Assyria came and destroyed 45 cities of Judah. And then how King Sennacherib surrounded the city of Jerusalem, the capital city, which is basically all that's left of both kingdoms of Israel is just the city. And you remember how they were put under siege and how Isaiah had said it would be three years before you could even eat your own harvest. And so they're running out of food. They have been under siege for a long time. The Book of Kings tells us that in an attempt earlier, when Hezekiah had little faith, he had made an attempt to stave off Assyria. He ripped the gold off the doors of the temple and basically emptied the treasuries so that he could try to pay off Assyria to keep them from coming into attack. So they are economically depressed. They are broke. They've got no money. And they are at the place where God had said in Isaiah chapter 6, there would be only a remnant. And that the remnant that remains would just be like a burning stump. That's where Judah is now. Yes, did God do a great deed to Rescue them from the soldiers and he killed the 185,000. Yes, that's all good. But now you have to rebuild from ruins. Everything's ruined. On top of that, the last story we saw, the story with Hezekiah and the messengers from Babylon came and Isaiah told Hezekiah that one day Babylon is coming. and they would take everything from the palace and the temple and the city. They would take the sons away and the nation would pretty much be left to nothing and be invaded by the Babylonians. So if there was this great miracle that was done and then the city is there basically broke and in ruins, There's no one who could now come and say, I'm going to make Jerusalem great again. There's no hope of that happening. No, because Isaiah said that no matter when that's going to be in a generation or two or three, Babylon's coming and Jerusalem is only going to go further down. So the kingdom of Judah, the city of Jerusalem, they're out of the frying pan. but they're about to jump into a fire. That is why God says, comfort, comfort my people. My people need comfort because it looks like everything's ruined and it's not gonna get any better. And this sometimes is what life is like, isn't it? Sometimes we go through very difficult things and we see God's grace being made perfect in our weakness and how God strengthens us and helps us to get through it. And you might go through something really bad, really big, really hard, and you're brought out of it. And now what? And now you're exhausted. And you think, okay, well, I made it through, I survived, but now I have to live life. Now I have to rebuild my life. Yes, I'm glad God gave me the grace to make it through. But what am I going to do now? I don't feel like starting all over again. I don't feel like rebuilding from the ruins. And how do I know it's ever going to get any better? What if just the next bad thing is coming? What if the next great trial and great suffering is about to just drop into my life? This is how life is. And so we need messengers. to say, God wants to give you comfort. And it's reinforced with the double use of the word. God says, comfort, comfort my people. Well, here's part of the message of comfort. Verse two, speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Speak tenderly to those who have been through such great suffering. Speak tenderly and cry to her that her warfare is ended, her iniquity is pardoned, and she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. So this is what people call the prophetic past. It's speaking in the past tense, but it's a prophecy about the future. There will be a time, and it hasn't happened yet for them, but one day their war will be ended, God will pardon their sins, and God will receive the payment for their sins. It hasn't happened yet, but God promises in his comforting message to them that this day is coming. They can look forward to this day. This is part of the comfort that they can receive. They can know that their sins will be forgiven. Now, somebody there might, in 701, 700 BC, they might say, well, what good is that? What good is it that my sins are forgiven? How is that going to feed my family? We don't have any crops to harvest. How are we going to rebuild this city? Well, this is what God is telling us, that our bodies and our souls are made to interact with each other, and we have this complexity of how we relate, and our spiritual condition can be affected by our bodies, our minds, and the things that happen to us. and vice versa, when we are encouraged spiritually, this relates to how we can have our bodies feel better and our minds feel better, that sometimes this is how it works, that our body and our soul interacts. So that even when we face difficulties physically or in our environment, in our circumstances, we can still receive encouragement spiritually. Because the difficulties tend to discourage us spiritually, God wants to bring comfort of spiritual encouragement. Yes, I know you might not have any harvest next year. Yes, I know that your city is in ruins. Yes, I know that you're exhausted and that you're facing all these difficulties in life. And I'm not saying this makes it all go away and it just makes it all better. But you can have comfort in knowing that your iniquity is pardoned. Your sins are forgiven. And this can encourage you. This is what suffering people need. Even if it's not just a spiritual suffering, but it's a physical suffering. We need people who will come and speak tenderly. Speak tenderly to someone and say, God is not at war with you. Your sins are forgiven. God has made payment for your sins in Christ. And as we can encourage each other and remind each other of God in Christ for us, this can help comfort and lift our spirits. And sometimes it even energizes us and can make us feel better physically. This is the message of God's comfort. From there, God goes on to tell us about three voices. First voice we find in the wilderness in verse three. A voice cries, in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low. The uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. So we hear the voice of a Baptist preacher, a Baptist preacher greater than Spurgeon. His name was John the Baptist. There's a voice crying in the wilderness and his preaching says, prepare the way of the Lord. In other words, the Lord is coming. So most literally, Jesus, the Lord, is coming. But in Isaiah's context originally, it is that the Lord is a king and he's a victorious king. And when a king goes out and he conquers and he makes a victory and he comes back, he is expected to be praised and lauded and given honor for his great victory. And so prepare the way of the Lord is a way of saying, roll out the red carpet for the king. Don't let there be any obstacles in his way. Lift up the valleys and lower the mountains and clear the rocks so that we can show honor to our great king and how much we appreciate the victory that he has won for us. And so when the Lord returns, when the Lord comes in his victory, it says the glory of the Lord will be revealed. and all flesh will see the glory of God. And so John the Baptist prepared the way of the Lord, and the Lord came himself in flesh. The glory of the Lord was displayed in the God-man, Jesus Christ. Christ, John says, we saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father. Christ showed his glory and his healings and miracles. He showed his glory as he hung on the cross. He showed his glory when he rose from the dead and appeared to the disciples in a glorified body. And so he has come and he has obtained a victory. But we're also waiting for the Lord to come again. There will come a day when all flesh shall see the glory of the Lord. Revelation 1 says, Behold, he is coming in the clouds, and every eye shall see him. When the Lord comes for a second time, every eye shall see him. And he will come as the reigning victorious king, the true God, the one who has dealt with all of our sins, the one who has defeated all of his enemies. He will come as the conquering king. We should prepare the way of the Lord. We should look to his second coming, pray that he would come quickly, go and make disciples of all nations, that all creation would hear the gospel preached, and then he shall come and every eye shall see him. So that's the first voice, the Baptist preacher. Then we have the second voice in verse six, which seems to be A voice calling out to Isaiah. A voice says, cry. And Isaiah said, what shall I cry? Here's the message. Here's the message to Isaiah. This is what you need to cry. All flesh is grass. All its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Isaiah's message here is that all flesh is grass. The people have seen that happen when the king of Assyria came and defeated the northern kingdom. The king blew them away like they were grass. As the king of Assyria came through Judah and just ransacked and destroyed town after town, 45 of them, then they saw all flesh is grass. Their cousins, their brothers dying, being defeated. All flesh is grass. And then as the mighty king surrounded the city with his great army, 185,000 soldiers, and then in one night the angel of the Lord blows through. All flesh. Is grass. 185,000 soldiers can die at the decision of the Lord because all he has to do is take away their breath by his Holy Spirit, because all we are truly is. grass, we die, we quickly fade. And they've seen that happen. So what can they depend on? The word of our God will stand forever. God has said that he will leave a remnant. God has said a Messiah, a savior would come. God has said that he would not allow his people to be totally destroyed. So what they see around them is that all flesh is falling like grass and they see themselves that they know they themselves are going to fall. King Hezekiah is not the answer. No king that they can foresee is the answer because they're all grass and they're going to fade and fall. But somehow the the Lord will keep his word. And the Savior. will come. The Lord will be victorious for his people. That's the second voice. Now we find the third voice, which is the herald of the gospel, the gospel preacher, the minister of the new covenant. Verse nine says, get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news. Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news. Lift it up, fear not. Say to the cities of Judah, behold, you're gone. Behold, the Lord God comes with might and his arm rules for him. Behold, his reward is with him and his recompense before him. He will tend his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms. He will carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with young. God calls a preacher to make an announcement. He's a herald. It's the role of the herald is simply to announce the news, to run to the town and say, hear ye, hear ye. And his message as a herald is glad tidings, good news. It's the gospel. And God says, lift up your voice with strength, preach loudly, announce it confidently because it's good news. You're not coming with a list of do's and don'ts that people aren't going to like. You're not coming to browbeat people and tell them how much they've failed because they're not going to like to hear that. No, you can be confident and preach with strength because you have a good message for them. You have good news. Makes me think of Peter in Acts chapter two. and how he went from denying Christ and weeping bitterly to now being filled with strength, filled with the Holy Spirit. He stands up in the middle of Jerusalem and he says, I have good news. Jesus is the Christ and he's risen from the dead. That's the message of the gospel. God, Jesus Christ, And so notice the announcement that he is to say at the end of verse nine, behold your God. Now the word behold there is really an attention getter. It's not really like supposed to be a verb or command about beholding. It's kind of like when we say the word, hey, like if I were to say to you, hey, over there, or hey, look over there, The focus is not on the word, hey. And so it's not about, hey, you should be better at heying or you're not good enough at heying. It's just over there. That's the thing you need to pay attention to. And sometimes when we read this verse, we might think, behold your God. Oh, that's a command. I need to behold God more. I don't behold God enough. Well, there's truth to that. But it's not a command. It's an announcement of good news. The focus is not on behold. The focus is your God. Pay attention to your God, because your God is there. And so this is the message. Your God. First of all, that He is yours. He belongs to His covenant people. All of this that we're going to see about God, it belongs to you. All this power and might, He works for you. But not only is he your God, but he is God, your God. God is the one you need to think about. God is the one you need to pay attention to. God is the one who is revealed to you. He's what you need. You need to know and love and understand this God. In all the difficulties that we face in life. What we really need at the end of the day is simply God. To understand God, to understand His greatness, to understand His love and His care, that He uses all of this greatness for the good of His people. The more we think about God and less of ourselves, the better off we will be spiritually. And so this is what he goes on to say in verses 10 and 11, that God comes with might. He comes with a powerful arm. But what does this powerful arm do? It's not to squash you. It's not to push you away. But it's to push away the enemies and to gather his lambs in his arm. God uses his power and strength to be tender. to be gentle, to gather his people in his arms, love them, take care of them, protect them from the enemy. And so we have those three voices, the everlasting message of the gospel and God's word. And from there, Isaiah moves now to tell us more about who this God is. He is the everlasting God. This is the God who is yours. He tells us about the greatness of God first by telling us of his power. Let's read again verses 12 and 17. He says, who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span? enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance. Who has measured the spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales. Behold, He takes up the coastlands like fine dust. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before Him. They are accounted by Him as less than nothing and emptiness." We have a vision of the greatness of God and His great power with these incredible illustrations. truths that are illustrated for us about God. God can take all of the oceans and measure them in the hollow of his hand. God can take the Milky Way galaxy and he marks it off with a span, the distance between a thumb and a pinky as a span. And this is the galaxy in the hand of God. God can take all the dust of the earth, all the land on this planet, and He scoops it up the way that you scoop up a cup of flour. God takes the mountains, and He puts them in the scales. You might pick some strawberries, and you pick the strawberries, and you want a pound of strawberries. And so you get a couple strawberries, and you put them on a scale, a pound. God takes Mount Everest like it's a strawberry, and he takes the Andes like they're a couple of strawberries, and he takes the Rocky Mountains, two or three, and he just puts them on the scales. These great mountains that are majestic before us are just little pieces for God to pick up so easily. And then he goes on to talk about the knowledge of God. Not only does he have all power, but he has all knowledge. Nobody consults with God. God doesn't consult with anybody else. God doesn't learn. He doesn't learn anything. He doesn't learn from anyone. God needs no counselors, no consultants, no coaching. God knows everything that there is to know from eternity. Before even the world began, before time began, God had it all at once in his mind. He's always existed and he's always known everything. He's even known everything that could possibly exist that doesn't even exist. God knows it all. There is no bound. No containing of the infinite knowledge of God. And so then he goes on to say that nothing can be compared to God. Verse 18. To whom then will you liken God? What likeness compare with them? An idol? A craftsman casts it and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains? He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot. He seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move. Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to dwell in, who brings princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth when he blows on them and they wither and the tempest carries them off like stubble. To whom then will you compare me that I should be like him, says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these. He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his mind, because he is strong in power, not one is missing. To whom then Will you compare me? Will you compare me to stars? Well, I know stars. I made the stars. I know all their names. You can't even count them, but I know every single one of them and I call them by name. You're going to compare me to the stars? You're going to worship stars? I made the stars. What will you liken me to? Will you try to cut some wood? You think that's going to look like me? You're going to get some gold and silver to make it like me? The question of verse 18 is kind of a double meaning question. To whom then will you liken God? That's a rhetorical question. You can't liken me to anything. That's what he's saying. But the other part of the question is, what are you doing likening me to God? Why are you likening me to God? You think you can, but you can't. See, you make likenesses of me. That's the problem. You think an idol is like me? Why are you making idols? They're not like me. That's the point of what he is saying. This is the problem with idolatry. Idolatry cannot capture the true God. It cannot capture the majesty, power, greatness, and glory of the one true God. Everything that would try to capture him in an image or an idol is an insult to him. offensive to him. You know that painting of Michelangelo where he paints God's finger reaching out to Adam to try to touch his finger? Michelangelo shouldn't have painted that because God doesn't have a finger like that. He doesn't look like that. It's an insult to him to try to think of God in that way as if he had a body. Maybe some of you moms, maybe you get Mother's Day cards today. Maybe you got a little child draw you a picture. And when a little child draws a picture of you, you say, oh, thank you, that's so cute. But what if your little child drew a picture of a worm in the card and said, mom, that's you. You probably wouldn't think, that's so cute. You'd think, that's kind of insulting, that's kind of rude. Did my son just call me a worm? Well, that's what it's like to make idols of the one true and living God. It's to try to compare him to something that in comparison is a worm. It's an insult. to make something out of wood or metal and say, that's what God's like. To try to paint a painting or draw an image. Everything created is worm-like, filthy, depraved, fallen in comparison to the one true living God. Idolatry is not only nonsense, foolish, it's insulting to God. And so God says in verse 25, to whom then will you compare me? Not only likeness, but also comparison. To whom will you compare me that I should be like him? You can think about this verse evangelistically. To whom will the world compare God? Sometimes we talk, we think, as if we have to defend God. We have to stand up for God. We need to think about the world as if there is only one living and true God. And He created every person to be known, to know Him. Every person knows at least the truth that there is this God out there, and yet they suppress the truth. But they know the truth. What they are doing in their fallenness is trying to compare God. They've got their little charts. Allah, Jehovah's Witnesses, Buddha, what Buddha says about the universe. And they're comparing. Comparing religions. And we feel like, well, I have to prove that my religion makes more sense and my religion is better than theirs. What if we see the world this way? There is only one God. He is the Lord. Nothing can be compared to Him. What are you doing? comparing God to other gods. There's no comparison. It can't be done. It shouldn't be done. What are you doing saying that you want God to measure up to what you think is right? So you're going to study God and you're going to decide if he makes sense to you. Does God work that way? Are you gonna say, well, God doesn't make sense to me. I prefer to think of God this way or that way. No, God says, to whom will you compare me? Don't compare me to yourself. Don't compare me to your ideas of what a God should be. You're making a God in your own image, and that image is a worm in comparison to the real me. No one. And nothing can be compared to God. We cannot put God in a docket and try to make him prove himself to us. We don't go on dates with God to see if He fits our standards, if He is our type of God. No, God just is. He exists. He is the great and glorious God. You're not comparing Him with all the other gods and religions that you want to date. You either submit to Him or you don't and you face His wrath. These are our only options. Do you know the true God? Do you know the God who has revealed himself through Jesus Christ and seen him as Savior in Christ? Or you reject him because you say, nope, he doesn't fit my standards. Nope, he's not what I want in a God. No. You either know him, the real one, or you reject him. But you rejecting him doesn't change anything about him. So the appeal here is to stop comparing God to your own ideas. Submit to him, to what he's revealed about himself in your word. Worship him, love him, know him as he has made the way through Jesus Christ. Well, we come to the last part, the everlasting strength that God gives. Here at the end of the chapter now, after all of this, God through Isaiah speaks to the heart of the people. See, God knows what you think. He's all knowing, isn't he? So he knows what you think. He knows how you and I think. He knows that you go throughout your days sometimes wondering if God really has power and ability to deal with these things that are happening in your life. Sometimes you wonder if God is paying attention to the things that are happening. He knows that you wonder if God really cares. And not just sometimes that you wonder, but sometimes you genuinely doubt it. You have strong, serious doubts that God actually cares about you as an individual who belongs to him. And so all of this in the first 26 verses is meant to be the background to get you to understand what he is about to say. 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? Didn't you hear the last 26 verses? 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 youth 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. In its context, verse 27 seems to be specifically talking to the northern kingdom, the kingdom of Israel, that was captured in 722. And if you interpret this in the context of 701, you can understand the statement. God, you saved Jerusalem. They're all over there. They survived. You did a great miracle for them. Why'd you let us get destroyed? God, you don't care about us. God, you don't treat your northern people the same way you treat your southern people. God, you must have favorites. You've disregarded our right. We're sons of Abraham. We're sons of Jacob. Aren't all the promises to Jacob for us too? So why did we get destroyed and they didn't? God has an answer. The Lord is the everlasting God. He does not faint or grow weary. God will keep his promise to his people. You might have the same question of verse 27. Romans 8, 28, yep, that's a great verse. Oh, the Lord works all things together for good. But it's got this condition. It's got this explanation. It's for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Well, yeah, that's the problem. How do I know if I'm called according to His purpose? Because you see, when God seems to work out everything for good for all these other people, and He's not working out everything for good in my life, then shouldn't I conclude then that I have not been called according to His purpose like they have? If I have a rights and they have rights, my rights are being disregarded. Maybe God hasn't called me. Maybe God isn't really working out all things for good. And so this is the answer. This God, if you belong to him in Christ, that's the only condition, is that God has saved you in Christ. You are united to him. He has pledged himself in a covenant to you. If God is your God, than the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He is here to give power to the faint. He is here to give strength to his people. This greatness of God, part of the reason we need to know it all is so that we know that God is an unending source of this strength. If you were to try to compare God to the type of God that you would want, Make a likeness of God the way that you would like Him to be. Eventually, He would turn out to be a God who has the strength that you have. A God who does not have everlasting strength. The good news is that God is the everlasting God. He's not like the way you would imagine Him. He's not like the gods you compare Him to. And therefore, he never grows weary. And therefore, he is always able to give strength to the weak. Here is a promise. He gives power to the weak. We could even say it's almost a promise in verse 30. Young men will grow weary. Sometimes I wonder if God makes young men come to certain points in their lives where they do grow weary. They are exhausted. Because young men tend to be strong and they tend to think about themselves as strong and they can do things and they tend to be prideful and arrogant, and God has to do something to make arrogant, strong young men weak. And so God brings Men, all of us, but in this case, we're talking here about young men to be exhausted. I don't think it's just a nice poetic image. But it's talking almost literally of how God works in people's lives. If you want to know the Lord. If you want His grace to be at work in you, if you want His power to be at work through you, then you, even a strong, smart, young man, needs to be weak, humble. Like Paul in 2 Corinthians 12. Paul was a tough guy. He could endure beatings, he could endure shipwrecks, but whatever that thorn was, that thorn brought him down. So he has a strong man could say, I know that I can't do anything. And so all I can do now is wait upon the Lord. And when you wait upon the Lord, he works his grace through you. He gives you strength. This is his promise. When we are in need, if we wait upon him, he gives his grace to persevere. One day, we who are in Christ, God will bring us across the finish line. He will help us cross the river of death. You might be one of those people wondering how God is really working all things out together for your good. But if you just keep waiting, keep waiting upon the Lord, keep clinging to him in faith, even if it's touching the edge of Jesus's garment, so to speak, just keep hanging on, keep holding on. Wait for the Lord. He carries you through day by day by day. He'll carry you to the end. One day. We receive glorified bodies, no sin, no suffering. And we are strong. and we run in the new heavens and the new earth, we run and never grow weary. That's the promise awaiting us if we continue by faith to cling to Christ and wait upon the Lord. This is all you need. All you need for, I can say, pretty much anything going on in your life, what you need right now, is this God revealed in chapter 40. This God who pardons sins through Jesus Christ. If this is the last sermon I ever preach, this is what I want you to know. This is your God. And I want you to know that you can say, yes, this is my God. Is he your God? Go to him and worship him. Let's pray. Lord, you are worthy to receive all honor, blessing, glory and dominion forever and ever. We thank you, O Lord, that you are the true God, that you have revealed yourself through Isaiah. Thank you that you have revealed yourself in the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for the Lamb of God. and that he was slain so that we as sinners might know you. We pray that you would help us to give all worship to you. Oh, God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit to you be glory forever and ever. Amen.