The Majesty of God
Introduction - (SLIDE 1)
So What’s The Big Idea: Many today have the wrong idea of just who God is. Today, we need the power of God in our lives: for salvation, and sanctification (victorious Christian living).
Tozer notes, “God is not a railway porter who carries your suitcase and serves you. God is God. He made heaven and earth. He holds the world in His hand. He measures the dust of the earth in the balance. He spreads the sky out like a mantle. He is the great God Almighty. He is not your servant. He is your Father, and you are His child. He sits in heaven, and you are on the earth (Isa 40:12).”
Our Text: (SLIDE 2) Isa 40:28-31: Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. (29) He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. (30) Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: (31) But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
HISTORICAL NOTES:
Isaiah: Isaiah is an Old Testament prophet called by God to prophesy to Judah, the southern kingdom (of the divided kingdom) of Israel. Isaiah prophesied during a time frame of four kings: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, approximate total of fifty years (ca. 739-690 B.C.).
Setting: Israel, the northern kingdom has been taken into captivity by the Kingdom of Assyria, Judah was spared. Judah is now facing the reality of being taken into captivity by the new bully on the block, Babylon.
Context: In the Book of Isaiah there is a two-fold division: In Isaiah Chapters 1- 39, Isaiah deals with God’s judgments and retributions on the nations. Isaiah 40-66 speaks from a prophetical view regarding an upcoming Babylonian exile with an eventual pardon deliverance and restoration.
The main theme of Isaiah Chapter 40 is the majesty of God.
1. God’s Majesty is a consistent theme in the Book of Isaiah. Isa. 66:1: (SLIDE 3) Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne (a place of honor), and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?
2. It is from the throne of the universe in which God rules. Throne to footstool pictures the entirety of the universe.
3. In our text: God is reminding the disillusioned Jews that though their outlook was bleak
and it appeared as if the pagan God’s of the Assyrians and Babylonians had prevailed; He was the One and only true God. He goes on to remind them of His majestic greatness. Perhaps, this reminder is appropriate for your life today? Have you forgotten there is a true God this morning? Unfortunately, pluralism has infected our way of thinking!
II. POINT 1 – (SLIDE 4) God is Great (Isa. 40:28) - This is substantiated by His attributes!
A) He is the Everlasting God (SLIDE 5) (Isa. 40:28a) Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD. . .
1. Everlasting meaning His time is beyond the sphere of temporality; it is beyond the vanishing point and cannot be evaluated. APPLICATION: He was able to meet the needs of His people even in the most darkened circumstances back in Isaiah’s time and in even in our present culture and society. What is your need today?
2. Elmer Towns describes God as: “The nature of God knows no limits in space. God exists even where there is no space. There is no existence beyond God’s existence.”
a. Doesn’t this sound like a God who knows your difficulties and is capable of caring for you this morning? We have a God that has numbered the hairs on your head; better yet, He can count the apples that will grow as a result of a single seed!
B) He is the Creator. (SLIDE 6) More specifically: your Creator, my Creator, Creator PERIOD!
1. His Creation is a demonstration of his power. He made, upholds, governs and judges creation.
2. In Psalms 19:1, the Psalmist stated: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.” Elmer Towns adds: “The Bible teaches that God ‘upholdeth all things by the word of His power’ (Heb 1:3; Colo 1:17). The power of God keeps the comets in their path and the planets in their orbit. The power of God keeps the atom from exploding into unlimited nuclear fission.” OH MY, WHAT A GOD!
C) He Faints Not – God is a self sustaining and self perpetuating God! A self contained unit!
1. We just looked at the miraculous works of eternality (beyond the point of vanishing) and, creation: (making, upholding, governing and judging) creation. I want to note that these aforementioned traits of God are intensified in wonderment by the two verbs which are to follow: God never faints or becomes weary. The word “faint” simply means to become tiered. God never becomes tiered even when “eternity” and “creation” are considered! Wow! FOLKS, can we get a hold of THIS today!
2. God being uncaused, cannot change; He is immutable (unchangeable) unlike you and I, we have changed over the years. We certainly do not look the same as we did 20 years ago. So here is an unchangeable God who promises His people that He is able to be God, their God. Isaiah is making a comparison in chapter 40 between God and the changeable, temporal and handcrafted idols of Israel’s enemies. I don’t know about you; but, this is the kind of God I would like watching over me. He loves you!
D) God Never Grows Weary – A loss of energy and spirit. Weariness is not applicable to God; though we are all too familiar with it. Fatigue is inevitable for mankind!
III. POINT 2 (SLIDE 7) Man is Feeble (Isa. 40:30: Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young shall utterly fall). Not much needs to be said here, we can only look around to see the frailty of mankind, physically, emotionally and spiritually! We are bankrupt!
A) Youths (the most energetic of our species) Yet they are fainting- suffering from emotional and spiritual exhaustion. We have limitations on our strength.
B) The young men (the strongest example possible) Yet, they become Weary. We marvel at the strength of a strongman; yet, an ant, size for size, has far greater strength than mankind.
C) They utterly fall- Humanity stumbles and staggers. Usually in retreat from the enemy.
IV. POINT 3 God Made Intercession (Isa. 40:29). Why? Because you are His creation, His wayward child!
A) First, He giveth power to the faint (SLIDE 8) (29a: He giveth power to the faint )
1. “The human heart: The human heart is a hard-working marvel. It can keep on beating automatically even if all other nerves were severed. In a 70 year lifetime, it will beat an average of 75 times a minute, forty million times a year-or two and a half billion times. At each beat the average adult heart discharges about 4 ounces of blood. This amounts to three thousand gallons a day or 650,000 gallons a year- enough to fill more than 81 tank cars of 8,000 gallons each. The heart does enough work in one hour to lift a 150 lb man to the top of a three story building. It exerts enough energy in twelve hours to lift a 65-ton tank car one foot off the ground, or enough power in seventy years to lift the largest battleship afloat completely out of the water.”
2. Though God has given us the power of life by the development of the phenomenal heart; we are talking of a far greater power here. The heart is a creation that is designed to sustain physical life; but, the power Isaiah is speaking of (the power of God) can deliver and preserve eternally.
B) Second, He Increases Strength- Isa 40:29b: to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Here the idea is that He gives them a “full might.”
1. Our strength for present and future are not based on our own stability or perseverance but on the fidelity [factuality] of God.
IV) We Have a Problem (SLIDE 9) POINT 4, we lack the needed power.
A) Your Power: (SLIDE 10) You have the power of a sinner – We have an inherited sin nature- We are separated from God, we have been cut off from the unlimited source of power.
1. Romans 5:12: Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (Romans 3:10, 23)
B) God’s Power: He offers a FREE gift of deliverance and restoration!
1. Ephesians 2:8-9: For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (9) Not of works, lest any man should boast.
A) Your Power: (SLIDE 11) You are unable to earn restoration!
1. Titus 3:5-6: Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; (6) Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour;
B) God’s Power: Requires a response! We need to plug into that source.
1. Romans 10:9-10: That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (10) For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (a restoration).
A) Your Power: (SLIDE 12) Understand this, your prideful attempt to self-achieve restoration is powerless this morning.
1. Isa. 64:6: But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
B) God’s Power: Trust God and His Way (through the sacrifice and blood of Jesus Christ); it’s powerfully the Only Way.
1. Jesus Himself told us this: John 14:6: Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
A) Your Problem: (SLIDE 13) You are Powerless and need a TOTAL Transformation. Remember what Isaiah said: those that WAIT UPON THE LORD shall RENEW their strength!
B) God’s Solution: He made a provision for your TOTAL transformation!
1. 2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
2. Our strength is increased when we “wait upon the Lord” and His power source.
a) For those, already regenerated and restored to the source; sanctification should naturally follow. This is accomplished through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
i. Erickson defines sanctification as: “the continued transformation of moral and spiritual character so that the believer’s life actually comes to mirror the standing he or she already has in God’s sight.”
V) In a Nutshell: POINT 5 With God’s Power; you will not fall short! In football: one inch
short of the goal line is all it takes; it may as well be 99 yards, you still fell short of a touchdown (your ultimate goal)!
NOTE: Benjamin Keach comments, “Eagles renew their strength by changing their feathers [regeneration]; though old; they seem young and lively again, and are very long lived,” therefore they are renewed [restoration] wings of strength.”
A) With God’s Power (SLIDE 14) You Will: Mount up with wings as eagles (31a)
1. The Greek word is Chalaph which “conveys the idea of changing clothes, taking off the old stuff and putting on the new.”
a) “In context the meaning is figurative and speaks of ‘taking off’ our weakness and exchanging them for God’s strength.”
b) Eph. 2:1: “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins”
B) With God’s Power (SLIDE 15) You will: Run and not be weary (31b)
1. You can only become complete (perfected before God) through Christ.
a) Colossians 2:9-10: For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. (10) And ye are complete (nothing shall be wanting) in him, which is the head of all principality and power:
C) With God’s Power (SLIDE 16) You Will: Walk and not faint (31c)
1. You will become a conqueror “in Christ.”
a) Romans 8:37: Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors (to utterly defeat) through (on account of) him that loved us. In Romans 8:38-39, Paul goes on to tell us that NOTHING can separate us from God’s love. Clarification: for the unregenerate man, your rejection of God’s Son is the ONLY thing that keeps you separated. John 3:17 says “he that believeth not is condemned already.”
VI) Conclusion POINT 6
A) God Has a Solution: Salvation in Christ Provides us with:
1. Reconciliation (SLIDE 17) (Romans 5:10): For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
2. Justification (SLIDE 18) (Romans 3:24-25) Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: (25) Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
B) (SLIDE 19) Today I have said a great deal; but tell me, How will you respond today? THIS IS DECISION MAKING TIME!
1. For Salvation- You have two choices: Accept or reject God’s Provision in Christ!
a) WRONG CHOICE: In your own self works of righteousness- This way fails to meet the standards!
i. Romans 3:10: As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
b) OR, (SLIDE 21) THE RIGHT CHOICE: in the completed and satisfactory work of Jesus Christ, who made sin atonement on your behalf?
i. Romans 5:8: “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
ii. Romans 5:1: Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
2. CHRISTIAN LISTENER: For Sanctification (Consecration) or victorious living!
a) 2 Cor. 12:9: And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Today’s Challenge: (SLIDE 22) This is not for yesterday or tomorrow. It is for RIGHT NOW!
1. Won’t you follow in faith and be restored to the ultimate SOURCE of POWER: God’s solution today? The truth is: God is majestic! God is divine; and, He has made provision!
2. Trust in His remedy? Jesus Christ for salvation – nothing more, nothing less!
a) John 3:16: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Are you the WHOSOEVER today? I bid you to come to God; He has outstretched arms to receive you!
b) Acts 4:12: Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under
heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
CLOSING ILLISTRATION:
Charles Spurgeon told the story of a ship called the "Central America"? She was in a bad state, had sprung a leak, and was going down. She therefore hoisted a signal of distress. A ship came close to her, and its captain asked, through the trumpet, "What is wrong?" "We are in bad repair and are going down. Wait till morning," was the answer. But the captain on board the rescue ship said, "Let me take your passengers on board now." "Wait until morning," was the message that came back. Once again the captain cried, "You had better let me take your passengers on board now." "Wait until morning," was the reply that sounded through the trumpet. About an hour and a half later, the lights were gone, and though no sound was heard, she and all on board had gone down to the fathomless abyss. Unconverted friends, for God's sake, do not say, "Wait until morning."
WHERE ARE YOU TODAY? WONT YOU REST IN HIS POWER TODAY? PLEASE DO NOT WAIT UNTIL TOMMORROW!
