To Whom Will You Liken God? Series

Fearful Judah knew all this, of course. They’d been taught the ways of the Lord, just as we have. God had always revealed himself as the Almighty God, the great and only King, the LORD of hosts. In that sense, Isaiah 40 was nothing new—it was unchanging truth given a fresh look. We know it too. What is so much of Isaiah 40 but the simple teaching of God’s providence, his almighty and ever-present power by which He upholds and governs all things with his powerful hand?

But Judah needed to review these truths, like we do. Look at verse 21: “Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?” More questions, with more obvious answers. ‘Yes, you do know this, Judah. You’ve heard this before. I’ve told you this from the beginning. But now you need to believe it.’

God speaks this to reassure his people, to adjust our vision so we have a clear view of the world: the nations are as nothing to God, their populations are like grasshoppers in his eyes, and their princes like fading flowers. So be encouraged! Do not fear. Do not plot how you can get out of this. But keep your gazed fixed on the glory of God.

This remains our constant need, to take all our good theology and to live it. We can become anxious about many things, like what the future is going to be like for the church in this land. Or about the godless movements sweeping Western nations, when good is called evil, and evil is called good. We fret about the kind of world that our grandchildren will grow up in. We might even say, ‘I’m glad I won’t be around to see where this all ends up. It’s going to be bad.’

And then God says to us, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning?” Have you forgotten that God sits above the earth, that its inhabitants are like insects before him? To whom can you liken God, or with whom will He be equal? No one, and nothing. He is sovereign. He is faithful. He is unchanging. So you can trust in God, always. And you should worship him with all your heart.

For this holy God is worthy of more worship than anyone could ever give. Verse 16 says, “Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering.” God is so great that even all the mighty forests of Lebanon wouldn’t create a sufficient bonfire for his altar. God is so great that there isn’t a stockyard in all the earth which would have enough animals for sacrifice to him.

And nothing that a human gives is capable of putting God in your debt—not your money, not your prayers, not all your suffering—for He alone is Lord. Yet here is the wonder of God’s grace: that He delights in the adoration of his people, that for Jesus’s sake this glorious God seeks a relationship with lowly sinners like us!

3) He is Lord of his people: If all this is true about God, then there’s only one response that He seeks. That’s where Isaiah is going with all this. As he asks in verse 18, “To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to him?” That question admits only one answer: God is incomparable, and you must serve him alone!