If you need an outline, there might be some available still in the back. I think we have some people, if you raise your hand nice and high, we'll get it. We have several here who need outlines, so if y'all could help us out here by passing those out, we'd greatly appreciate it. We're continuing our series through the Bible, and if you have your Bible, turn to Isaiah chapter 40. That's where we'll be today, Isaiah chapter 40. Imagine with me that you are speaking to a bunch of children. You have kids, whether they're in the nursery or whether they're in a Sunday school class, or for whatever reason you are just telling them and you're talking to them about the Lord, about the Bible, you're telling them stories, and one of them says to you, excuse me, sir, what's God like? How would you answer that question? Where do you get your assumptions of what God is like? A lot of us base our assumptions of who God is and our thoughts about who God is on our past or on our thoughts about our life. Where do you get your information? Is it because of pop culture? Do you think of God in the pop culture sense? Do you think of God like a Santa Claus in the sky who gives out good gifts to people, and is this happy man who's kind of disconnected from reality? Or you think of Him as Father Time. I've seen many pictures of cartoons, and they often display God in a cartoon with a gigantic beard, and He's sitting on a cloud. Have you thought, is that what pops into your mind? What comes into your mind when you think about when you think about God. What character traits come into your mind when you think about God? And in fact, I want to ask, what would you say is the most important part of the Christian faith? I believe the most important part of the Christian faith is knowing who God is and knowing Christ, knowing Him personally. In fact, Paul talks about this in Philippians chapter 3. He says, yet indeed, I count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. He says, I will give up everything to know Jesus. And I wonder if that's how we really feel. Do we have that same desire? He says, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and I count them as rubbish, I count them as dung, I count them as less than worthless, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith. that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His death. I think there is nothing more important than knowing God. Knowing God will keep you afloat when you think you're drowning. Knowing God will stabilize you when you're falling, and it will strengthen you when you need it the most. Father, we ask You today as we look at who You are and the character trait of our great Immeasurable God, I pray that we would leave here with an awe in our hearts for how great you are. Help us never to lose that, that awe for our great and inspiring and loving God. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. If you've been reading in your Bible reading, you're coming through the book of Isaiah, and you may have noticed this, that Isaiah is full of different judgments and words against other nations. It's amazing. Several of the judgments against nations throughout the book of Isaiah. There are some stories in Isaiah that reflect second Kings, but the tone of the first part of Isaiah is a lot of judgment. It's a lot of harshness, a lot of speaking out against sin. And then in chapter 40, everything changes. We find here a massive shift in tone away from confrontation and towards assurance and comfort. And these are some of our favorite passages of scripture. In fact, as I was talking to Eric this afternoon about I'm preaching Isaiah 40, he said, are you going to sing any of Isaiah 40? And I said, no, I'm not going to. But if you're familiar with music like Handel's Messiah, you'll find passages in Isaiah 40 in Handel's Messiah. This is a rich passage of scripture that is often quoted. And in fact, in chapters 1 through 39, you could think of it this way. We diagnose the problem of sin. And in chapters 40 through 66, you have the solution or the salvation of a Savior. And so we have this introduced here in Isaiah 40. This passage addresses the people who will be taken into exile in Babylon, and God's people will be judged for their disobedience and idol worship. What do they need to hear? What do they need to be exposed to? What do they need to know going into this terrible time? What they need to know is they need to hear about the character of God. And I think we all need to hear about the character of God. This morning I was speaking with someone and they said, you know, the past six months or so it feels like all you're preaching, you've been warning us, like you feel something bad is getting ready to happen. I thought, oh no, maybe that's just the valley we're going through in 2 Kings of bad kings. But you know, always sometimes it feels like there just could be something bad. And what do we need to know when we're getting ready to head into bad times? If we're getting ready to head into dark times, if we're getting ready to head into difficult times, what do we need to know? We need to know who God is. need to know who the Lord is. And what we're going to find in this passage first, the first thing we learn about is that He is the comforting God. Would you read with me as we begin Isaiah 40? The word says comfort. Yes, comfort my people, says your God. Speak comfort to Jerusalem and cry out to her that her warfare is ended. That her iniquity is pardoned. For she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins." The book to this point, as I said, has been heavy with confrontation of God's people. Now, God turns to speaking comfort to these people. The first way of speaking comfort is comfort in forgiveness. He says, look, your warfare is over. Your warfare is completed. Your warfare is finished. Your iniquity, your sins, your transgressions, your public, your corporate, your personal sin is forgiven. It's passed over. It is pardoned by God Himself. There is nothing quite relieving as being pardoned from guilt. One time I was in trouble in school. When I was in college, I had a really, really concerning thing happen to me. I was worried that I was going to get in trouble, and I went to somebody who was in charge, and I can't get into all the details. It wasn't really that bad. But it felt really bad at the moment. You've been in a situation like this, you feel like you've done something terrible. And I went and spoke to someone and I said, hey, I got a problem. I ended up doing this thing. I'm really, really sorry. What's the damage? What's going to be my consequence? He says, oh, it's fine. No big deal. I felt elated. I felt like I had been given a prize. I was forgiven. There was no problem. It was over. All my problems are gone. I have this burden relieved off my shoulders. And he says, she, Jerusalem, has received from the Lord's hand, from God himself, double payment. Double for all her sins. So there's a couple ways you can look at this. In Job, we see Job who goes through all this trial, remember? At the end of his trials, he receives double for what he lost. Perhaps that's what this is speaking to. In Jeremiah chapter 16 and verse 18, we have this passage that says, at first, I will repay double for their iniquity and their sin because they have defiled my land. They have filled my inheritance with the carcasses of a detestable and abominable idols. I will repay them double. They will experience double. But there's always this idea of, there's also this idea of doubling something. If you fold something over and you bring it back on itself. In other words, you know, when you double up a long, like a rug or some sort of comforter in your bed, if you fold it over, if you double it up, you are bringing it back and it matches in the sense that you're getting everything that you were due, it has returned and it's over. You have been chastened and everything is paid for. And if you remember Isaiah chapter 1, the sins they've been dealing with is their spiritual adulterous relationship with God. He says, you are forgiven. It's a huge relief. Comfort in forgiveness. When we are forgiven, God forgives us. It comforts us. Don't let Satan ever fool you into believing or feeling you're not forgiven when you are. This is a problem Christians have. I've talked to people who say, I've asked forgiveness for the same sin dozens and dozens of times. Have you ever done that? You say, God, please forgive me for this sin. And then a month later, it comes to your mind again. So what do you do? You ask God to forgive you for that sin again. Let me ask you a question. Did God forgive you the first time you asked Him? Then why are you asking again? Very often we get caught up in our emotions and we don't feel forgiven, so we don't think we are forgiven. Let me tell you, our salvation is based on a promise. We believe, and Christ said He'd give us salvation, He'd give us eternal life. You know, forgiveness is based on a promise as well. God promises to forgive you, and you have to believe Him. You may not feel forgiven, but God promises to forgive us, and we should be comforted by this. We have forgiveness through Jesus Christ, and these are promises we have. 1 John 1, 9, you know this verse. If we confess our sin, God is what? Faithful means He will always do it, and He is just, that means He has a right to do it, to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. God removes the penalty of our sin, He forgives us, and He cleanses us. He cleanses us from the way that sin hurts us or the way that sin defiles us. And the basis for this forgiveness is not because of you. It's because of Jesus Christ and His payment on the cross. Chapter 2, verse 1, my little children, these things I write to you that you may not sin. If anyone sins, we have an advocate, a go between with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. And he himself is the payment, the propitiation for our sins that were forgiven. and not only ours, but also the sins of the whole world. Christ's blood pays for all sin, and he says when you ask forgiveness, he is faithful and just to forgive you of your sin. What an amazing comfort thought you should be comforted in forgiveness. You should also be comforted in God's victory. Look at verse 3. The voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord and make straight in a desert a highway of or for our God. Every valley shall be exalted. Every mountain and hill shall be brought low. The crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough places smooth. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken." Here's the proclamation. The voice of one crying in the wilderness. It's a single voice in a desolate place. We see this fulfillment in the New Testament with the life of John the Baptist who calls to prepare the way of the Lord. Notice, prepare the way of the Lord. That means to make it ready. He's preparing the way of Jehovah God. When you see Lord, L-O-R-D, all caps, that is the covenant name of God, Y-H-W-H in Hebrew, Jehovah or Yahweh, God, that is the Lord. And that is applied to Jesus Christ in the New Testament when it says that John the Baptist came to prepare the way for Christ. And here he is, the voice of one crying in the wilderness as a preparation for the coming of the Lord in victory. Make the straight highway for our God. There's a message that God is coming. There's a message that God is coming, and what's the requirement for us? If God is coming, what should we do? We should get ready. Prepare ourselves. Prepare the way of the Lord. When someone's coming, prepare the house for our visitors. Prepare the house for our guests. When someone's coming over you, you clean yourself up. You get dressed. You come to church. You prepare yourself to be among other people. Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight the imagery of a desert place, a place not associated with flourishing or prosperity. Here it's associated with God's coming. Prepare it. A highway for our God. What's the result? Look at verse 4. Every valley shall be exalted. God will win the victory. He can move mountains because He created them. And He has the authority. I love the reversals here. He says every valley, every low place will be brought up. Every mountain will be brought down. All the crooked places will be made straight. All the rough places will be made smooth. This is a complete re-terraforming of the earth itself. And just, okay, think about this in the light of a person in the time of Israel or Judah when this was written, when Isaiah is speaking to them. Okay, imagine this, because we have earth movers today. I went to the landfill the other day, dropped a bunch of stuff off, and I looked over and there was a gigantic earth mover just moving stuff around in there. Those things are massive. just massive, and they're impressive. I mean, if I fell into the thing, I would disappear, right? I mean, it's just, it's a massive, a massive machine pushing all this junk around, and it can move dirt easily. That is not the way things have always been. To move dirt, or to move mountains, or to make rough places smooth takes a massive amount of work, and it seems immovable to us. It seems insurmountable to us. The mountains, the hills, the valleys seem inconquerable to us, unchangeable. But to God, they're easily altered, and that's the point. Mountains seem impossible to us. I can't flatten a mountain, but God can. I can't raise a valley, but God can. I can't make things that are crooked, smooth, or straight, but God can. God is the one who's going to do this, and this is the result, the victory he's going to have. And look at verse five. When this happens, the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. That's a promise. God's glory shall be revealed. the glory of the unseen God will be seen and it will be obvious to all flesh. We see this a couple times. One in the New Testament in Luke chapter 2. This began to be fulfilled with the coming of Christ. Remember this story out of Luke 2? You hear it every Christmas. Did you see it, he says, now there were in the same country shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and what? The glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. No wonder they were greatly afraid. The glory of the Lord is shining around them. And it says that the angel said to them, don't be afraid for behold, I bring you good tidings, a great joy, which I'll be to all people. There is born to you this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ, Messiah, Yahweh, God. And this shall be the sign for you. You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger. In John chapter one in verse 14, we're told that we are beholding Christ who is full of grace and truth. There is also coming another day, the day that is still in the future, when the glory of the Lord will be seen by all flesh. And Philippians chapter two describes this. It says that the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow. Those in heaven and those on earth and those under the earth, that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. There's coming a day when the glory of the Lord will be revealed to all flesh. There's a surety of it. The mouth of the Lord has spoken it. The one who created heaven and earth with his voice, when he speaks, he speaks truth. When he speaks, it's authoritative. We see here the comfort in God. What a comfort. Isn't it a comfort to know you have a strong, powerful, victorious God who is your Savior? Paul talks about this. You know, we tend to think of God and His greatness, and we might get distracted away from thinking about His kindness. But in 2 Corinthians 1, Paul says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. There's our word again, comfort. What does God do? He comforts us in all our tribulation or all our afflictions. When we go through afflictions, that could be a physical affliction, a spiritual affliction, a social affliction. It could be any kind of affliction. God comforts you in your affliction. Why? That you may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble. with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. God is a God of comfort who comforts us in our troubles so we may comfort others. What a blessing. We serve a great God who is a comforting God. He's not just a comforting God. He is also the everlasting God. Look with me in verses 6 to 8. We'll see that God forgives, God comforts, and God is eternal. Notice that God is different from his creation. He's separate from his creation. He says, the voice said, cry out. And he said, what shall I cry? Here's his message. All flesh is grass and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers. The flower fades because the breath of the Lord blows upon it. Surely the people are grass. Notice the difference here between God and his creation. We have a beginning. Creation has a beginning and end. He does not have a beginning and end. He is not bound by time. We are bound by time. God not only sees the past, but can see the future in your present. There's no reason for you to worry when you serve an everlasting God. God is the everlasting one. We fade as a leaf. We fade and wither, but God's Word is everlasting. Verse 8 the grass withers, the flower fades, but. But the Word of our God stands forever. God is an everlasting God who has an everlasting Word. And we can have a confidence in an everlasting God. There's a huge difference between us and God. We fade like the grass. He is everlasting. In this Word, why does He give us this Word? Why does God give us this everlasting Word? Is it just to make a point? Is it just to show of power? Not at all. In fact, the reason God gives us His Word is because He is a self-revealing God. He is a self-revealing God. What do I mean by this? We don't have to guess who God is or try to understand Him on our own. We do not come to God and say, well, I wonder what God is like. Let me go and observe creation and try to discern what God might be like. Christianity is a revealed religion. We have the Word of God revealed to us by God Himself, and God has revealed Himself to us in His Word, so we receive revelation. What does God show us about Himself in this self-revealing? Well, number one, He shows Himself to be a strong God. Oh Zion, you who bring good tidings, get up into the high mountain. Oh Jerusalem, you who bring good tidings, lift up your voice with strength. Lift it up, be not afraid. Say to the cities of Judah, behold your God." So Zion here is described as the one who brings good tidings, who preaches the gospel, the good news. Why get up on a high mountain? Well, from a high mountain you can be seen and you can be heard. So get up there, get in front of people, get up on the high mountain, and you who bring the good tidings, a picture here of a herald, someone who preaches, someone who explains, and someone who is bringing news from a far place, get up in a position where people can hear you and proclaim. And what is the responsibility to speak out with courage? Don't be afraid of this message. What should you say? Behold your God. Look at your God and what He has done. How does God reveal Himself? Look at verse 10. with strength. Behold, the Lord God shall come with a strong hand and his arms shall rule for him. Behold, his reward is with him and his work before him." Notice the strong hand. Our hand in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, represents the ability to work. Someone's strong hand means their strong ability, their strong active work. God has a strong hand, and not only that, his arm is one that will rule. He has power, he has authority, and his reward is with him. This word reward has the idea of plunder or idea of payment or tribute. So, a successful warrior comes home from battle, and what does he bring? He brings home the plunder from the battle. He has brought home the goods with him, and he is coming home with, and it says, behold, there he is. It's like you're looking at this highway that is returning. God is returning on this highway, and he's coming like a victorious warrior, carrying with him the payment from his victory, and he shows himself to be a strong God. And I think some of us Don't struggle with this at all. We imagine God to be a strong and powerful God. But the next part of this, I think, is complementary to this, and you either struggle maybe with one or the other. That is, you struggle in your mind to think of God as being all-powerful, and look at this next one, that He is a tender God. Look at verse 11. It says that He will feed His flock like a shepherd, and He will gather the lambs with His arms. and carry them in His bosom and gently lead those who are with young." What a contrast. Just think about this for a second. He's saying God is the powerful, strong military leader bringing in the plunder from the victory, and He's also the shepherd who's gathering the lambs in His bosom and carrying gently the mothers along so that they are protected from the bad animals that might be there. He is guarding and protecting and caring and loving and tender. The difference between strength and tenderness. I think some people don't struggle with God being tender, but they wonder if He's powerful. They say, yeah, I know God loves me, but can He do anything about my troubles? They think of God as being unable to work, and some people are not at all worried that God's strong. Oh, God's powerful, but like does He care about me? And they imagine that God's almost like this malevolent person in the sky who is picking on them with all of his power. But what we find here in verses 10 and 11 is that God is not one or the other. He is a shepherd warrior returning from battle. He is the good shepherd. Jesus calls himself the good shepherd in John chapter 10. He says the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. So God here is the shepherd. cares for the sheep. He is the shepherd and He is the warrior. He is both. God is a self-revealing God. It's not up to us to decide who God is. I had many conversations. I remember when I used to serve, when I was in college, I would go to Clemson sometimes and talk to students about religious things or about God. I would ask them questions about, you know, what they thought about God. And I remember this one person saying, well, I don't think God's like that. I don't think God could ever do that. And I said, okay, well, do you have any, like, does Bible verses that say that? He didn't believe that God would send someone to hell. And I said, well, why? And he said, well, because I just don't think God would do that. That's not the kind of, I don't think that's the kind of thing God would do. I said, well, how do you know that? He said, well, I just think that. I said, you see, the problem here is that you're deciding who God is instead of letting God decide who He is. What if I told you I don't think you'd like pizza? Well, because it's just not the kind of thing I think you would like. Who am I to say that what you would like and what you wouldn't like? Who am I to say who you are and what you would do? It's up to you to tell me who you are and what you like. And God has shown us who He is. And we have the confidence looking at this that God has shown us in His fullness, He is not only a strong God, He is a tender God. And I find that to be a wonderful thing that He is a self-revealing God. And as He reveals Himself, He also shows Himself to be the great God. And we're gonna take a whole section here to talk about how great God is. And three main sections here, beginning in verse 12, of God's greatness first compared to men. Isaiah 40, verse 12. Who has measured the water in the hollow of his hand, measured heaven with a span, calculated the dust of earth in a measure, weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? I don't know if you've ever had moments where their breath is taken away by landscapes. I was thinking about this, meditating on this, and I just went through my photos, and I grabbed a few when I was in Utah. Let me see here. When I was in Utah, I stepped out to do a conference. It was an overnight conference for young people in Utah, and I arrived at a church, and I got in the parking lot, and I stepped out, and that was my view. of these beautiful snow-capped mountains in February in Utah, and it really took my breath away, and I just stopped, and I took a picture of my cell phone. I couldn't believe it. I said, this is just beautiful. And all the other teenagers, you know what they're doing. They're unloading from the van, and they're just walking right by it. They see it every day. but it took my breath away. There's the massive mountains, and then when we went on a youth group mission trip out to Las Vegas, we went on our first day, we went to the Grand Canyon, and I took this picture, and you can hardly see it, but way down here, there are two little dots, and those are people. And the vastness of this river, the Colorado River, that runs through the Grand Canyon, you see the green, and you see the massive row upon row, and it's a mile deep. And you think you can see all of it, and then you realize you've only seen half of it. And you look, and there's another whole section of this beautiful, vast hole in the ground. And you think, wow, this is incredible. It's amazing, you feel so small and so insignificant, and then you see things of true beauty. When we were in Nova Scotia on another mission trip, we were out there and we saw these beautiful rocks there at Peggy's Cove, and the gorgeous rocks, and the gorgeous water, and the beautiful landscapes, and then the sun, the way it hit it, and it was so cool. In the middle of July, it was like 45 degrees out there. We're sitting there looking at the water, and just in amazement at the beauty of God. And I was overwhelmed, and I saw these things in awe. And as I was reading this verse, My mind came to these pictures. He says, who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand? When you stand and look at the massive Atlantic Ocean, you can just stand there and look at it. It's amazing. You know, God can take all the waters in the entire world, and it fits in the hollow of his hand. For us, we're like, wow, this is incredible. For God, it's right there. Does God physically have a hand? No, God is spirit. We worship him in spirit and in truth. But that's the scale we're talking about. To God, it's nothing. And he says more, he says, he measured the heavens with a span. You look at the sky, and you stand out, and you look at how massive the sky is, the dome of the sky, and you see all the beautiful stars. My wife and I, we were in North Carolina at the end of last year. We took a walk by ourselves, left the kids back at the beach house, and took a walk on the beach where it was really quiet and really dark, and they have to turn all the lights off because of the sea turtles. And so there's no light pollution. And when there's no light pollution, you can see the stars. And you can see the Milky Way. And you're walking along the scene of the massive amounts of sky. And you think of how amazing, how huge it is. And you realize that God measures the heavens with His span. You think about that. That's the picture. God just, oh, it's just, we measure in light years. God measures it with the span of His hand. And then we see He weighs the mountains and the scales, the dust of earth in a measure. It's like He, pfft. Just blow the dust off the scales. It's not a big deal. It's negligible. We're talking about things. The hills are in a balance. To us, it's so breathtaking. To us, it's so amazing. We see these beautiful pictures of things that are mind-blowing, and we think to ourselves, wow, this is huge. Wow, this is amazing. And to God, no one is bigger than God. There's no one bigger. You know, we're small, we're insignificant. God's greatness compared to man. There's no man out there who's bigger. There's no one who's smarter. In verse 13, he says, who has directed the Spirit of the Lord or as his counselor has taught him? With whom did he take counsel and who instructed him and taught him in the paths of justice? Who taught God knowledge? Who showed him the way of understanding? We all need direction and help all the time. Our understanding is so limited. If you don't need direction from other people, you look it up on Google. You all need help. We all need help. We don't know how to do anything on our own. Nothing's just natural. We're always having to receive help from people. And yet, who helped God? No one helps God. He doesn't need input. He has no counselor. No one instructed Him. No one gives Him wisdom. He invented wisdom. Proverbs chapter 8 tells us, I don't have it on the screen here, but in Proverbs 8.22, the Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way before His works of old. I have been established from everlasting, from the beginning, before there was ever the earth, when there was no depths. I, wisdom, was brought forth, where there were no fountains abounding with water, before the mountains were settled, before the hills. I, wisdom, was brought forth. God made wisdom. Wisdom does not come before God. God comes before wisdom. No one is smarter, and no one is more powerful. Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, and counted as a small dust on the scales. Look, he lifts up the aisles as a very little thing. Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor is beast sufficient to burn offering. All the nations before him are as nothing. They're counted by him as less than nothing and worthless. The drop in a bucket. All that means is that you have a bucket of water, And if I gave you the bucket of water and then I put one extra drop of water in the bucket, could you tell? Of course not. There's no difference. I added an extra drop. It's a drop in the bucket. It makes no difference at all. It's negligible. It does not change anything. He says the dust of the scales. I was referencing this earlier, but that's again negligible. Which of you going to weigh yourself in the bathroom in the morning? You blow the dust off your scales before you step on it. I want to get every ounce I can out of this. Dust doesn't make a difference. You could dust the scales perfectly. You'd still weigh the same. And look what he describes here. He says, the nations are as a drop in the bucket and counted as small dust on the scales. All the nations are nothing before God. No one's more powerful than Him. And you keep going, He says all the islands, He lifts up like they're nothing. They have no authority over God. God's greatness compared to men, then God's greatness compared to idols or false gods. He says in verse 18, to whom then will you liken God or what likeness will you compare Him? The idols of the nations are the only challenge to the Lord, so what can you compare to the Lord God? You can't compare Him. Who would you rather worship? Let's look at these idols. Let's deconstruct what's happened with these idols. Verse 19, a workman molds an image. The goldsmith overspreads it with gold. The silversmith casts silver chains. Guess what? Idols need to be made by men. And if men cannot make an idol with silver or gold, they're going to use a tree or wood. Look at verse 20. Whoever is too impoverished for such contribution chooses a tree that will not rot. He seeks for himself a skilled workman to prepare a carved image that will not totter. What kind of God do you serve that rots or falls over? What kind of God is an idol that cannot stand up for itself? Idols will totter. Idols will rot. And if you can't see the analogy, to so many people they build their lives and they worship their careers, they worship things that can be taken away from them like that. And yet God says, these people are being fools. Verse 21, He says, you know, if you contrast this with God, I mean, these idols have to be positioned and like shimmed up so they don't fall over. Have you not known? Have you not heard? Verse 21, 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 out like a tent to dwell in." What a great God! He doesn't exist in this earth in an idol to be secured. He exists above the earth. He exists outside of things, and we are so much smaller than He is. God is so great compared to idols and God's greatness compared to kings. When it comes to princes and judges of the earth, he brings the princes to nothing. He makes the judges of the earth useless. God is much greater because kings have a short rule, verse 24. Scarcely shall they be planted, scarcely shall they be sown, scarcely shall their stock take root in the earth when he will also blow on them and they will wither and their whirlwind will take them away like stubble. Alexander the Great of Macedonia united the Grecian isles and formed a great army to conquer the known world. He overthrew the Persian Empire and secured rule all the way to India. Alexander the Great was one of the greatest military men in history. He is a great ruler. Look at this from Britannica.com. Suddenly in Babylon, while busy with plans to improve the irrigation of the Euphrates and to settle the coast of the Persian Gulf, Alexander was taken ill after a prolonged banquet and drinking bout. Ten days later, on June 13, 323 BC, he died in his 33rd year. He had reigned for 12 years and eight months. and his body diverted to Egypt by Ptolemy, the later king, was evidently placed in a golden coffin in Alexandria, both in Egypt and elsewhere in the Greek cities, he received divine honors. No heir had been appointed to the throne, and his generals adopted Philip II's half-witted illegitimate son, Philip, and Alexander's posthumous son by Roxanna, Alexander IV, as kings, sharing out the stripes among themselves. After much bargaining, the empire could hardly survive his death as a unit, and both kings were murdered, and the kingdom falls apart, One man lived, conquered, and died, and people forgot about him. And that his influence was gone. And that's what God is saying here in His verses. He's saying that yes, there will be kings. They will be planted, they will be sown, but it won't be long and they'll be uprooted and gone. It won't take long. It is just like a moment. People rule and then they're gone. This is the story of history. The greatest man, everything he had worked for was gone and the most consequential man in history became inconsequential, a stubble, he couldn't even hold together his own kingdom. God has creative power. Verse 25. To whom of them will you like and meet, or whom shall I be equal? Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these things, who brings out the hosts by number, who calls them by name. By the greatness of His might and by strength and power, not one is missing." Do you ever question God's power? Just go outside and look up and see, that's the God who calls these stars by name, who knows all of them. I don't know all of them, do you? He knows, they're still finding more stars, and God already knew about those. It's like God made so many stars so that no matter how far we look, He's like, yeah, I already know. I already got those lined up. I mean, you guys haven't even discovered as much as I've created. Why did He create those stars? For His own enjoyment. He did it because He's great and powerful. And in light of all this greatness, it's tempting to think that He's far away and He's unapproachable. But what we find in this last passage, as we wrap up in the last part, is that He is the close God. He is the imminent God. He is close by. He is not far away. God says, am I not a God at hand and not a far off? Verse 27, why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, my way is hidden from the Lord and my just claim is passed over by my God? Why do you say my life is invisible to God? Don't you know that he's watching you? Don't you know God sees you? Verse 28, have you not known, have you not heard the everlasting God? The Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth. He doesn't faint nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. God is involved in the lives of people. He doesn't grow weary. I can only take so many stories from my family or from my kids. I can only take so much time and I get exhausted. We all are that way, right? In some ways, maybe not, maybe you're better than I am, but we only have so much energy and we're like, I just can't do any more. God is not like that. God can listen to all of our prayers at the same time. You could all be praying at the same time. When we pray on Wednesday night, there are groups of people here praying, and groups are there praying, and groups are there praying. They're all praying to the same God who still hears them. Have you not known, have you not heard the great God who doesn't grow weary? He gives power, verse 29, to the weak. And those who have no might, he increases strength. He gives strength to the young people. They grow strong because he enabled them. God is close to the weak. Everyone experiences exhaustion, but God is close to us and gives us strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But those who wait on 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. There's a fascinating little detail here. When the Bible tells us that you shall mount up with wings like eagles, some of you have heard me say this before. The word eagle in the Hebrew Bible is not the word eagle that's typically used. We would think eagles, you think of the bald eagle, you think of like a hawk or something like that. And honestly, eagles' wings aren't super impressive. They're fast, they're quick, but what is the picture, what is he trying to say? When you do some research, you understand that that's really not the word that's intended there, that for English speakers, eagles is not really the best word. In fact, the best word, brace yourselves, you ready? The best we can announce is actually the word vulture. Have you ever seen a vulture's wings? Oh, they're massive. In our culture, vultures are bad. In most ancient cultures, they honored, in a sense, vultures because they would ingest dead things and they could take the dead things without dying themselves. If I call you a vulture, that's not a compliment. But that didn't have the same idea in the Bible. The word vulture did not have the negative connotation that it has in our context. So if I said mounted with wing-like vultures, you would be like, oh, that sounds bad. But no, it's not. Just bear with me. God says that if you ever go out and watch a vulture fly, the massive wingspan and the huge wings that they have, this is the picture of what God is saying. You will mount up with wings, massive wingspans like a huge vulture, and you will not grow weary. You will run and not be weary. You will walk and you will not faint. God who is unable to faint and unable to be tired will give you his strength. As we wrap this up, God comforts us. God reaches down and ministers to us in our affliction. God is everlasting from beginning to end. The grass withers around us, the flowers fade, the seasons change, people we know and love pass away from this earth, but God is eternal. And this eternal God has revealed himself to us, that he is strong and tender, and he's a great God, greater than kings and idols and men. And he's a comforting, everlasting, great and eternal God who is close to us, hearing our prayers and wanting fellowship with us and enabling us to be strengthened and to go and to do what he's called us to do. So what now? When we know God, remember I said, if we know who this God is, what does it change? Well, first, when we know God, we learn not to fear. That's been one of the main focuses. I've had it as an undercurrent. I hope you've picked up on this. In fact, in the next chapter, he says this, fear not, I am with you. Be not dismayed, I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." How comforting is that if you don't first know who He is? You must know who He is and then it makes sense that you can have comfort and learn not to fear. Secondly, when we know God, we want to tell others about Him. In Acts chapter 4, Peter and John answered and said to them, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God you judge, but we cannot but speak the things that we have seen and heard. I wonder if you could say the same thing. Can you speak, can you but not speak the things of God? You have to speak how great God is and how wonderful He is. The Lord should be your highest aim. He is worth every sacrifice. He is worth every moment. Nothing else compares with knowing the greatness of our God. Father, we ask you tonight to help us to just, to be confident, have no fear, to be confident, to share the good news, because you are so great, and you love us, and you care for us, the great God, who not only is great, he is good. You've shown us yourself, Lord, the great and good and awesome God. And so today, may we be filled with awe as we think about our Almighty Father, who alone is holy. You're the great one. You're our refuge, and we can trust in you because you're a tower, a mighty fortress. And we can trust and rest in the great and loving God. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Would you stand with me? We're going to sing a hymn in closing, number 61, which is, Almighty Father, you alone are holy.