ISAIAH 40:21-26
THE HANDIWORK OF GOD
(Hebrews 1:10-11)
God’s majestic work as Creator is now emphasized. Isaiah describes God’s power to create, His provision to sustain and His presence to help. From His sovereign position in heaven God watches over His created universe. Nothing or no one can be compared with our transcendent God. God is almighty and all-powerful, but even so He cares for each of us personally. Isn’t that awesome? ... that the Sovereign of the Universe cares for you?
I. THE GOD OF CREATION, 21-22.
II. THE NOTHINGNESS OF MAN, 23-24.
III. THE IN-CONTROL GOD, 25-26.
Let’s jump down to verse 21. I love Isaiah’s awareness here. "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?"
News about God’s sovereign power is not new. It has been evident to one and all since the beginning of time. God existence and amazing power has been evident since the foundation of the cosmos itself for the inanimate cosmos itself could not be responsible for such grandeur and intelligent life. Isaiah boldly proclaims that the Lord is the "unmoved mover" (Aristotle) behind His awesome creation. So many who see and hear are blind and deaf toward God.
God is also the Governor of the world. Look at the first half of verse 22. "It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers."
Twenty-two hundred years before Christopher Columbus, God said our planet was circular (The Hebrew word encompasses the concept that the earth is a sphere) and not flat. Here it was in God’s Word all along. Science acts like it is superior to Scripture, but I’ll take God’s explanation every time.
If you feel small when you imagine God’s creation, it’s because you are! God says we’re like grasshoppers! Picture yourself on a hot summer night out on the deck with your family and friends having a barbecue. How much do the grasshoppers in your lawn affect your evening? A little background noise maybe? Hardly a distraction.
That’s the entire human race before God and His awesome purposes.
Verse 22 continues to declare that the Heavens Are God’s Handiwork. God "Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in."
The word heavens describes all of God’s created universe. In the beginning He said, "Now, let’s make the universe" and poof ... as easily as you put up an umbrella, it was all there. Do you have any idea the immensity of the universe God spoke into existence? For many years I’ve tried to find a decent description. Try this on for size: We’re on planet earth, and we are 93,000,000 miles from the sun. Imagine that distance as the thickness of a piece of paper. From the earth to the sun, 93 million miles equals a piece of paper.
With that in mind, the distance to the nearest star is a stack of paper 71 feet high, with every single piece of paper representing 93 million miles. (Stay with me; this is getting outrageous.) The size of our galaxy is represented by a stack of paper 310 miles high (the distance from Chicago to St. Louis), with every single piece of paper in that stack representing 93 million miles. That’s just our galaxy, and it’s one among millions.
You say, "Oh, I understand that." Well, think about this then. The known universe is a stack of paper 31 million miles high with every piece of paper representing 93 million miles! Now for those of you who like math, there are 10.4 million sheets of paper in a stack 1 mile high. Therefore the known universe is 31 million miles of paper, with each mile representing 10.4 million sheets of paper and each sheet of paper representing 93 million miles. Are you getting a headache? [Gripped by God’s Greatness, p 42.]
In every description we see of God’s reality, we are struck by the immense distance that exists between us and God-in power, in size, in ability, in majesty. The gap is too great to measure. This must be what the astronauts felt viewing the earth from the moon’s surface. We are so small... so infinitesimally tiny. God, on the other hand, could inhale the universe in a single breath. The writer of Hebrews understood this.
You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the works of Your hands; They will perish, but You remain; And they all will become old like a garment, And like a mantle You will roll them up; Like a garment they will also be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will not come to an end (Heb. 1:10-11).
God can roll up and toss away the universe as easy as rolling up an old shirt. The immensity of it all is so much more than we can grasp. He alone is awesome!
What words best describe what you are thinking about God at this moment. God is mind-boggling, limitless, and unbound. Even these words aren’t big enough, are they? We should be gripped by the greatness of God. [Write three words that describe what you are thinking about yourself in comparison to your Creator.]
II. THE NOTHINGNESS OF MAN, 23-24.
He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, Who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. (24) 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.
Men look out on the earth an think themselves and the tasks they accomplish something. God reduces them and their self-important work to nothing. Godless national leaders think they establish something and God turns it into worthlessness. Proud judges make decisions and God makes them meaningless.
Men in themselves are temporary. Humans no more than make an entrance into life then we wither and blow away.
III. THE IN-CONTROL GOD, 25-26.
Verse 25 again bids us to make a comparison. "To whom then will you liken Me that I should be his equal?" says the Holy One.
Holiness apparently describes the otherness, the transcendence of God, which separates Him from fallen mankind and even His cosmos. This otherness is not only because of His essence (5:16; 57:15) but because of His character, His moral perfection as well. [Oswalt, Isaiah, p 69]
In verse 26 we find God also controls the stars. 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.
Night by night God brings out the star studded constellations (Job 38:32) He created. People would worship the breath taking array of the night sky (47:13; Jer. 19:13), but ignore its creator. He calls them by name (knows their composition) and gives them direction and purpose.
How many stars are there in the vast expanse of the sky? With the help of telescopes, astronomers have discovered galaxies upon galaxies, and clusters of giant stars that make our planet seem like a speck of dust by comparison. At times, that knowledge can overwhelm us with a sense of utter insignificance.
In a commencement address to a graduating class at Miami University, columnist George Will gave some statistics that help to diminish our sense of self-importance. He pointed, out that "the sun around which Earth orbits is one of perhaps 400 billion stars in the Milky Way, which is a piddling galaxy next door to nothing much." He added, "There are perhaps 40 billion galaxies in the still-unfolding universe. If all the stars in the universe were only the size of the head of a pin, they still would fill Miami’s Orange Bowl to overflowing more than 3 billion times."
There is a plus side to all that overwhelming data. The God who created and sustains our star-studded cosmos in its incomprehensible vastness loves us. And He doesn’t just love the human race as an entity of multiplied billions. He loves us individually.
We humans, though small when compared to the size of the universe, are the objects of the Creator’s sacrificial concern. What Paul exclaims to be true about himself is true about each of us in all our insignificance: Christ "loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2:20). Yes, the price tag of Calvary is tied to each one of us.
Centuries before the telescope was invented, David realized that bulk and big size aren’t the measure of value (Ps. 144:3). After all, a ton of dirt is far bigger than a l0-carat diamond, but that doesn’t make a dirt heap more precious than a handful of diamonds.
So picture a set of scales. Put all the stars on one side and your own soul on the other. In God’s value system. Your soul outweighs the stars! For when man had sinned and had grieved Him, God sent Christ to die in his place! Christ’s death is the measure of your worth to God.
Thank God that He chose to love you with the measureless love of Calvary. Have you entrusted your priceless soul to His eternal safe-keeping? He who is sovereign over the universe can handle the complexities of your life.
Astronomically, we are insignificant. But we are the beloved objects of God’s care. While we have no reason for pride, we should be inexhaustibly grateful to the Lord whose love for us personally is revealed at Calvary’s cross. We have nothing to boast of but that we’re dearly loved by God. Yes, God was great in creation, But greater, much greater, in grace!
Just for fun, log on to the Internet (http://hubblesite.org/) and take a look at the pictures made by the Hubble Space Telescope. Look at the planets, the stars, the galaxies, the nebulae and be amazed at our AWESOME God who spoke it all into existence. Pick out your favorite and save it on your computer as wallpaper or a screen saver. Or make a slide show to share with your family or your small group. [Gripped by God’s Greatness, p 43.]
CONCLUSION
We describe God as best we can with our limited knowledge and language. Yet we must limit our descriptions of Him and His power when we compare Him to what we experience on earth. What is your concept of God?
As you think about God’s creation: the heavens, the earth, the processes of life and nature, and every living thing, what most fills you with awe for your Creator?
Let’s close tonight’s study in prayer by singing "How Great Thou Art" as a prayer to our awesome God. Take time later on & describe to Him other reasons you know He is awesome.
