03 Why God Doesn't Need Your Plans to Succeed (Isaiah 40:12-31)

Speaker: Good morning. This is Krisan Marotta. Thank you for downloading the Wednesday in the Word podcast. Today we're going to be studying Isaiah chapter 40, verses 12 through 31. This is the third talk in our series on the Servant Songs from the Old Testament book of Isaiah. You can follow along with the lecture notes or find links to everything mentioned in the top by going to our website. You'll find those notes at wednesdayintheword.com slash Servant Songs 3. Well, we are looking at Isaiah chapter 40, verses 12 through 31 today, and I love this passage. I can't tell you how many times I come back to it. Next time you're struggling with despair or depression or your world feels like it's spinning out of control, just come back to this section of Isaiah. To set the stage for us, let's review where we are in the book. Isaiah was a prophet to the southern kingdom of Judah during the time of the divided monarchy. He dates his ministry from four kings who reigned from about 740 BC to 680 BC, which means his ministry spanned maybe 50 to 60 years. The first section of the book, which is chapters 1 through 35, is set against the backdrop of the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians were the rising power, the dominant world power at the time, and they were threatening both the northern and southern kingdoms. And the first section covers that period of about 740 to 700 BC, during which time Assyria comes and takes the northern kingdom into captivity. The last section of the book, chapters 40 through 66, is the section we're going to be looking at in this series. And this section focuses on the Babylonian captivity. It's addressed to a group of people who lived about 120 years or so after Isaiah. So chapters 40 through 66 are set against the exile when the southern kingdom has been taken into exile by Babylon. But Isaiah wrote these prophecies before the captivity happened. So he's prophesying to the captives in Babylon, but they aren't yet captive. So he's unique in that way. He not only prophesies to his contemporaries, but he also prophesied to a generation who would come some 120 years later. Last week we looked at the opening part of the chapter, and you can find that by going to Wednesdayintheword.com slash servant songs two. We covered verses one through eleven, and you'll remember that the question we looked at there was, can we start over? So having failed, having sinned, can we really be forgiven and start over again? So the exile raised the question, has God abandoned his people? Have they finally gone so far as to forfeit the promises he made to Abraham? And the answer he gives us in the beginning of that section is, you absolutely can be forgiven and start over. The passage ends with this picture of Israel's doubt, this kind of why bother calling out? Because mankind has all the endurance of a dandelion, and God answers, but my word stands forever. My servant is coming both to judge and to gather his sheep, and his word will endure, it will last forever. So we're picking up in verse twelve today, and in this section is a continuing response to that despair. I think God's speaking directly to that. Why bother calling out? In the ancient Near East, when one nation conquered another nation and overthrew their temple, they believed that their God was dead. And you get a picture of this in the Book of Lamentations, of the nation of Israel enduring the public scorn and humiliation as the rest of the world looked upon their God as defeated and gone from history. And you can imagine as the exile crept on through its seventy years, that they would begin to believe it too. They could very easily start asking themselves as they endured year after year of captivity, where is God? Is he coming back? Is he truly defeated, as they say? Or why is he forgotten? Or maybe he doesn't have the power to deliver us. Maybe he has the power but he lacks the desire. Maybe he's abandoned us. Those kinds of thoughts would be very easy to have in a culture that was dedicated to foreign gods, and that where they were telling you, your God is dead, he's been defeated. That's the kind of thinking I think God is speaking to in the rest of this passage. Into that kind of despair and doubt comes the word of the prophet Isaiah saying, prepare the way of the Lord, clear away in the wilderness, God is not dead, you will meet him, he is coming back. And Israel responds with a kind of, well, how can we? How do we know it will work? How do we know that this is really going to happen? From their perspective, they faced three insurmountable obstacles. The nations, their rulers, and their gods, or their religions. And those three obstacles dominated and permeated every aspect of their daily lives. And they would look around them day by day and thinking, how could they possibly be overcome? And Isaiah is going to contrast these adversaries with the power of God. So as we go through this section, you'll see he's contrasting the power of the nations with the power of God, God's glory with the glory of their kings, and so on. And this is one of the themes we talked about in the introductory lecture about God being sovereign and in control while the world appears to be in chaos. As we look at this section, ask yourself, what are your foes? What are the obstacles that weigh you down and tempt you to believe that God has forgotten you? Maybe it's change, maybe it's finances, maybe it's health crises or situations, maybe it's relationships or trying circumstances, your job or a spiritual struggle, or just a person you have to deal with over and over that weighs you down. Whatever it is, compare it with Isaiah to the power of the living God. So first he's going to contrast the glory of God with the glory of nations. This is Isaiah 40 verses twelve through fourteen. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and marked off the heavens by the span, and calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, and weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in a pair of scales? Who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or as his counselor has informed him? With whom did he consult, and who gave him understanding, and who taught him in the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and informed him in the way of understanding. First point Isaiah makes is that God has measured the finite universe or the infinite universe from our perspective. And if you think about that, the verbs in twelve, this measure and markov and weighed, are all different ways of describing the same process. They're describing ascertaining the capacity of something by measuring it or weighing it. Imagine taking a measuring cup and trying to count the grains of sands in a sandbox, or multiply that to every grain of sand on the whole planet. Isaiah is not talking about one small part of the earth, but the entire earth, the universe, the elements he picks, the waters, the heavens, the dust of the earth, makes up the whole universe. Notice he gives opposite here. He contrasts the waters and the heavens, or the dust of the earth with the mountains and the hills. So he I think he's using those opposites to express the whole, the totality of it, to be inclusive. And then he links these huge, vast expanses with very trivial forms of human measurements. So the hollow of your hand or a span, a balance, a pair of scales. So he's taking something that's like the heav the span of the heavens or the dust of the earth or weighing the mountains, which is an impossible task for us, and then he uses these like child's play kind of measurements for God. And I think he's trying to show what is impossible for us is like child's play to God. Asking God to weigh the mountains or the heavens is like asking your neighbor for a cup of flour. It's child's play. To us the task is infinitely impossible, and yet to God he can measure the farthest reaches of the universe in such simple, insignificant terms. That's not enough. Isaiah asks, who measures the infinite God? Who informed him? Who taught him? Who directed the Spirit of the Lord? And of course the answer is no one. He didn't need teaching. He knew all this in and of himself. And I think that text would have held great significance for the exiles in Babylon, because according to the Babylonian hymns, their god Marduk is the one who the one who traverses the heavens, heaps up the earth, and measures the waters of the sea. But unlike the god of Israel, Marduk had to have help to accomplish that feat. He had to go consult with other gods and he needed help to do the measuring. In both Babylonian and Canaanite creation stories, their gods had to overcome the opposition of evil forces and seek help to create the world, which is in stark contrast to Genesis, where God merely speaks and it is so. And the point here is that if man cannot measure or comprehend the fullness of God's creation, how much less can he measure the Spirit of God who is behind that creation? Let me give you an analogy. Suppose you take a piece of paper and you draw two circles, one large and one small, and you make the centers of their circles nine inches apart. If each inch represents ten million miles, your picture will show the distance between the Earth and the Sun. So one inch to ten million miles. Now suppose you want to draw another circle that shows where the nearest star is. How far away would you have to draw that circle? You'd have to draw it about 40 miles away from your piece of paper. That circle would be 40 miles from the sun on your paper, and it would represent Alpha Centauri, which is twenty four thousand million miles away. That's twenty-four with twelve zeros. I don't even know how to pronounce that. And that's just the nearest star. Now try to measure the universe, and Isaiah says God can do that in the palm of his hand. If we can't measure or comprehend the fullness of what God created, why do we expect to fully comprehend the God behind that creation? No one has the capacity to measure God. No one even is in his league. We aren't in a position to offer him advice or judge his actions as he brings forth history, and we are certainly not in a position to tell him what to do, when to do it, or how to do it. I think this text is meant to inspire a deep sense of awe in us and a humility before God, especially since in the last section we learned that not only is he the God of the universe, but he gently leads the nursing hues. That's the glory of God. Now he's going to contrast God's glory with that of the nations, and his conclusion is that the nations are as significant as a drop in the bucket. Look at chapter forty verses fifteen through seventeen. Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales. Behold, he lifts up the islands like fine dust. Even Lebanon is not enough to burn, nor its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before him. They are regarded by him as less than nothing and meaningless. So in terms of a threat to God and his divine plan, Isaiah looks around at the nations and says, They're meaningless. They are less than nothing. In the divine scheme of things, the nations that set themselves against God and oppose his plans, they're just like a drop from the bucket or a speck of dust on the scale. So the image is you're drawing a bucket of water from the well and you've got this full heavy bucket. Well, who cares about the drop that drips off the bottom and goes back into the well? It's insignificant. It doesn't make a difference one way or the other. Or when you're weighing something on a pair of scales, what difference does a speck of dust make? It's useless, it's meaningless. How can a drop splashing back from a bucket limit the one who measures the oceans in the hollow of his hands? That's how the nations are to God, and that's how they are to his plans. They aren't even a force to be reckoned with. They are not going to get in his way, and they're not going to hold him back. Think how these words would have struck the exiles in Babylon. Babylon was protected by these huge, impregnable walls. There was a moat surrounding the city, and then there were two sets of very thick walls, and it was considered to be so fortified that no one could ever conquer Babylon. But then came the prophetic word. In 539 BC the Persian armies diverted the Euphrates River, which fed the moat and walked right into the city. And a few days later King Cyrus himself, who Isaiah predicts by name, comes into the city and they fall without even a fight. So in the divine scheme of things, all their elaborate defense systems were nothing. When God said it's time for the city to fall, the city fell, and there was nothing they could do to thwart God's plans. Not only do the other nations have no political significance, they aren't a threat to God, they have no moral significance either. Look back at 16 and 17. Isaiah says that even if the entire nation of Lebanon, which was one of the richest areas in Canaan, were to offer all its possessions and all its resources as a sacrifice to God, it would be nothing. It wasn't enough. It would have no moral value. The question being answered is, since God created man to worship him, does God somehow need people to worship him? Is God now dependent on mankind because God needs worship? And the answer is no. Even the entire nation of Lebanon isn't enough. Its beasts aren't enough for a burnt offering. Even our biggest religious efforts fall short of the glory of God. The national wealth of Lebanon is not enough for one daily sacrifice. It's not going to move God's heart or affect his kingdom. So whether the nations are for or against God is irrelevant because they can't change him. They can't affect him. Isaiah sums this up in 17 as nothing and meaningless, which is the same word that meaningless is the same word that Moses used in Genesis 1-2 to describe the formless and void, the chaos before creation. It's a striking word to use because it implies that our greatest achievements are nothing to God. They are no more a threat to Him than the primordial chaos of Genesis. Now think about that for a moment. We often think that if we don't conquer bureaucracy or solve a problem, then all of God's plans will be thwarted. And we think, you know, we've got to have a budget, we've got to have a committee, we've got to have a plan, we've got to have a program. And if we don't do that, God's kingdom just won't come about. His plan just won't happen. We have to pray enough and we have to plan enough and we have to formulate the right vision and organize and budget and get all on track. And from God's perspective, he's like, I'm in control. It is what I say will happen. It's not up to us to make it happen. We are not a threat to him and we are not a hindrance, and we can't force him one way or the other. The truth of the matter is that all our budgets and all our committees are like the nations. They're just insignificant compared to the glory of God and his plans. God will accomplish his will with or without us. And sometimes I think he takes all our programs and plans away just to prove to us that it is up to him. You've probably heard the old joke, how do you get God to laugh? Tell him your plans. We rally our budgets and our vision statements and our committees and programs, and God says, send them all home. I'll show you who's in charge here and by whose hand it's going to be accomplished. The point being, remember who's in control. We're the drops in the bucket, and he is God. And the flip side is when you're facing circumstances that look insurmountable, remember how insignificant those circumstances are compared to God bringing forth his kingdom and his will. Now come to the second of the three threats, which are idols and kings, and these are in verses eighteen through twenty four. We're going to look first at eighteen through twenty. To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness will you compare with him? As for the idol, a craftsman casts it, a goldsmith plates it with gold, and a silversmith fashions chains of silver. He who is too impoverished for such an offering selects a tree that does not rot. He seeks out for himself a skillful craftsman to prepare an idol that will not totter. So he's looking at how idols are made, and he says, idols require this great expense and human effort. You have to find all these craftsmen, these skilled laborers, they have to put in all their time and effort, and then this idol gives nothing back in return. It's inadequate compared to the glory of God. So idols take a lot of work, they require skilled labor, they have to pay great attention to the detail, this casting, fashioning, and plating, and when you're done, the idol is lifeless and useless. Even the cheaper idols, which are made of wood, require this laborious selection of material and skill to give them stability and durability, and in the end, we don't even know if they're going to stand up on their own without falling over. And even if it does stand up without tottering over, it can't move, it can't speak, it can't do anything. So, in spite of this great expense and human effort required to sustain them, idols are useless and they give nothing in return. They provide no lasting stability. Now remember in Isaiah's day, idols lie behind the kings and rulers. All the kings of his day claimed that they held their throne by divine providence, that their success and the success of the nation was dependent on the correct worship of the correct God. There was a king, but there was an idol or a god behind that king, and Isaiah's saying, They're useless. Next to God they are nothing. Look at twenty one through twenty four. Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to 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. He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. Scarcely have they been planted, scarcely have they been sown, scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, but he merely blows on them and they wither, and the storm carries them away like stubble. Isaiah says, How can you be so ignorant? Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared from the beginning? God alone sits above the circle of the earth. Look at creation. Isn't it obvious that it was created and designed by an intelligent designer who loves order and justice? Evidence of God is built right into creation. And he is so exalted that men appear like tiny, insignificant grasshoppers in comparison. Isaiah is saying compared to God the idols of the earth, the rulers and the kings of the earth, they're nothing. Their kingdoms are nothing. He just blows on them and they are carried away like stubble. In the background talk the very first day we talked a lot about several kings and nations that have now been wiped from the face of the earth. Assyria and Babylon and their kings and their gods are gone. When was the last time you you saw a temple to Marta? And yet every Sunday you go to a church dedicated to the god of Israel. The great city of Babylon with its famous hanging gardens, its huge walls is merely a dig for archaeologists now, and in a thousand years our time will be the stuff of archaeology too, but the name of the Lord will still be worshipped. God can render the rulers of the world useless. He can make it so they leave no lasting impact, and he can reverse their fortunes in a moment. Their glory, such as it is, is momentary. They're gone before their roots even take hold. They wither and fade like the grass and the flowers. So having dealt with the rulers, Isaiah then turns to the last threat, and that is other gods. This is 40, verses 25 through 31. The Babylonian religion was an astral cult. It was built on the stars and the heavenly bodies, so they're each. Their gods was identified with the stars and various bodies in the heavens. And so in this section, you see the glory of God contrasted with the glory of the stars. And I think part of that was a direct kind of comparison to Babylon, but also Isaiah is saying, Don't look at the stars, look at the one who made the stars. So let's look at twenty five and twenty-six. To whom then will you liken me that I would be his equal, says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars. The one who leads forth their host by number, he calls them all by name. Because of the greatness of his might and the strength of his power, not one of them is missing. In some ways not much has changed since Babylonian times. Most every newspaper column and magazine today has a horoscope chart where the foolish can look for advice from the stars. And we have star charts and maps, but we don't even know their real names. We don't know the names God gave them at creation. Our schools accept every religion and philosophy except Christianity. You mention the gospel or Christmas or school prayer and people cry, oh, separation of church and state. And yet they send teachers and government workers to enlightenment workshops based on Eastern religions and New Age philosophy. And it's easy to look at that and feel outnumbered, just as the exiles must have felt outnumbered when they were surrounded by temples to strange God. But Isaiah says, look past those astrologers, look past the stars and ask who made the stars. And the answer, of course, is the God of Abraham made those stars, the God of Israel. He made the stars in the heavens, they're his creation. He not only made them, he cares for them like a shepherd, he controls the uncountable stars, he has an individual relationship with each one, he counts them by name, calls them by name, and if you think about that, that's astounding. According to astronomers, if you sat down and carefully counted stars at night, you could count about a thousand and twenty-nine. And if you had Galileo's telescope, then you could probably see about three thousand three hundred and ten. But today, through the giant telescopes and radio telescopes, astronomers estimate that there are a hundred billion stars in our galaxy alone, and there may be a hundred billion galaxies. Potentially we have a hundred billion times a hundred billion stars, and I have no idea how big that is, and yet God calls each one by name and sets it on its path. His ability to do this demonstrates his might, his power, and his glory. And I think he uses the stars in this section for two reasons, because they would have been significant to the exiles. The first one I mentioned, that the Babylonian religion was tied to the stars, and their gods were identified with the heavenly bodies. But the second one, the way stars would have been significant, is that God promised Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars. So this picture of God not only creating stars, but caring for them like a shepherd, calling them by name, would have resonated with them because Abraham's descendants were likened to the number of the stars. And he's saying that same power that leads and names and protects the stars will lead, name, and protect the children of Abraham. It would be easy to look at all of this, get a grasp of how infinite and how majestic and how transcendent God is, and think, well, he's just too great to care about the lights of me. That would be the wrong conclusion. The conclusion I think Isaiah wants you to draw is that God is too great to fail. He knows every item in his creation by name and he will not forget his people. It's not that he is too great to care, it's that he is too majestic, too powerful, and too glorious to fail. So Isaiah is saying, you don't need to fear the other nations. You don't need to fear their rulers, their idols, or their religions. God has the power to destroy them all. They are insignificant before him. They are like the dust of the earth and a speck of dust on the scales and a drop of water from the bucket, they would blow away with one puff of his breath. Now you can hear the Israelites responding almost, okay, Isaiah, if that's true, why have we been wasting away in Babylon for seventy years? If God is so powerful, then where is he and what's taking so long? And that's the next question Isaiah answers in 27 through 31. So now he concludes, wait on the Lord. This is Isaiah 40, 27. Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel, my way is hidden from the Lord, and the justice do me escapes the notice of my God? So that's the complaint we were just talking about. That the wrong conclusion from seeing God's majesty and glory is to think that he is too great to care. And there are two complaints here. The first one is theological, and that is, my way is hidden. My way is hidden from the Lord suggests that God can't help. That's the theological question. Is God big enough to save me? The second question, the justice to me escapes God's notice, is more experiential. It's asking the question, maybe God just doesn't care. Maybe he's not going to answer my prayers. It's not that he's not powerful enough to do them. He could be powerful, he is powerful enough to do it, but he just doesn't care. He's lost the desire to save me or he doesn't care anymore. And Isaiah answers that their distress does not result from God's weakness, but their need for humility. Look at twenty eight through thirty one. Do you not know? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might he increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary. So Isaiah is answering that question by saying, Your current distress is not a result of God's weakness. It's human resources that fail. Youths in their peak of health and vigor grow tired and weary, but God's resources don't fail. He is the creator of all the ends of the earth, his power transcends space, his resources will never fail. Neither is your plight a result of lack of wisdom, because God's understanding is inscrutable. Their plight is a result of their disobedience. God took them back to Babylon so that they would be humble and broken before him, so that they would see that they need him and him alone. They needed a spiritual renewal, and God allowed them to go into exile to discipline them as a loving father would to bring them back to him. He wants the world's systems and politics and armies to so overrun them that they never trust in those things again, and rather trust in him. And this is the second thing we talked about on the first day, that God acts in history not to destroy but to redeem. Their current distress is not an obstacle to God. Their limited human resources are not an obstacle. God promises them endurance beyond their own resources as if they were to sprout wings like eagles. He's saying he is the holy one of Israel and He will get them through. He will give strength to the weary and power to those who lack. Others stumble and fall and grow old and weary, but not those who wait on the Lord. So the three great foes of Israel, the nations, the rulers, and idolatrous religions, they are no threat to God and his plans. The faithful have nothing to fear from them. Instead, they need to wait on God and God will get them through. He will give them the strength when they have no strength. He will give them the endurance to persevere to the end. The exile they find themselves in does not result because their God is dead or because he's weak or because he lacks power or because he no longer cares for them. They are there because they need to be humbled and brought back to God. They are there because they need to see that they need him and him alone. They need to cast themselves completely on him again and turn away from their idolatry. So just to wrap this up, the thing that stands out in this passage to me are the haunting questions. Who has measured? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord? With whom did he consult? The do you not know? Have you not heard? Each question relates to God's unparalleled power and sovereignty as the creator of the universe and the author of history. And it makes me realize how small I let God become. I kind of put him in a box and expect him to act a certain way, and yet this truth is fundamental. It forms the basis of the first two commandments. God alone is God, and he can't be compared to idols. And the second set of questions that I think are haunting are Isaiah's rebukes, the do you not know, have you not heard, which suggests that ignorance is inexcusable, that we ought to know, that just look around at creation, look around at how God has acted in history, and it ought to be obvious. I think the point I'm trying to make is that when we put these truths at the center of our faith, it puts our problems in perspective. The things that seem overwhelming and crushing and beyond our ability to even get up and face the next day suddenly fall into perspective when you cast them against the majesty and the power of God's word. So the next time you're anxious or you're worried about something or you're in a situation where you just can't see a way out, come back to this passage. At least when I do, I find that all those threats that I think are so crushing are just drops in the bucket. Because God, as author and creator of the universe, knows exactly what he's doing and when he's going to do it, and he is too great to fail, and he cares for you personally. Thank you for joining me today for Wednesday in the Word, the podcast where we seek to explain not only what Christians do, but how if you've been blessed by this podcast, please consider sharing it with a friend. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts Play or however you get your podcast. You'll also find hundreds of episodes on our website, wednesdayintheword.com, so feel free to browse for a topic or passage you're listening to. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates of Heartfeltmusic.org I'm Krisan Marotta, and you've been listening to Wednesday in the Word.