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Isaiah 40 Part 2

Isaiah 40 Part 2. ISAIAH. CH 40 690 BC. Isaiah 40 This begins 8 consecutive chapters in Isaiah where God speaks in the First Person of His unique status as the One and Only God: a God of power and of creation a God of wisdom and good counsel a God of judgment

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Isaiah 40 Part 2

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  1. Isaiah 40 Part 2

  2. ISAIAH CH 40 690 BC

  3. Isaiah 40 This begins 8 consecutive chapters in Isaiah where God speaks in the First Person of His unique status as the One and Only God: a God of power and of creation a God of wisdom and good counsel a God of judgment a God Who can rightly ridicule all pretenders and goddies a God Who loves people and vows to protect Israel He already knows these things. He tells us, not to be “cocky”, but so we might know it, too.He is telling us things here, many of which we might assume; but because He tells us, point-blank, in the First Person, we can KNOW about His Attributes and Personality. Unlike allah, who is unknowable (not that I would want to know). Romans 1:19; Ephesians 1:11

  4. Isaiah 40 13Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath taught him? 14With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding? Again, although we have all known people “you can’t tell anything”, in the case of God, He really does already know everything. He really does have no one equal to Him; and He CERTAINLY has no one above Him! To me, it is nice to know that there is an Ultimate Source – beyond which it is unnecessary to look, since there is nothing beyond God. Once you’ve found Him, you might as well say “Eureka!” – because you’ve truly found “IT”. I don’t know about you, but I find that very comforting. A lot of time and money is being wasted in pursuit of other universes, other forms of life, other sources of existence. That’s just rebellion. We’ve got the only God there is. Seek Him; He’s THERE!

  5. Isaiah 40 15Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. “A drop in the bucket”… God coins a phrase everyone now uses. Of course, it means “of little value”, or “making little difference”. God is saying “You know your nation that you prize so highly, or that nation that you envy, or that nation that you fear…”? “Well, all of them are like lint on my sleeve that I would simply blow off.” “Isles might mean islands, such as most people would love to buy if they had all the money in the world; or it might mean continents. Either way, they are no more than a cemetery plot in God’s eyes. Sgt. Preston promo: one square inch of land; Yukon.

  6. Isaiah 40 16And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. 17All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. Lebanon, of course, has a huge forest of cedars; but never mind that. All the trees in Lebanon nor all the animals in that country wouldn’t even make a proper sacrifice worthy of the Lord. (you might ask: “well, what does God want, then?”; He wants your heart) Now, if WE said these things, they would be hyperbole; but when God says them, He is just trying to show us some cosmic reality. We know from Revelation that the nations will one day try to gang up on God and His Anointed. Poof! Opposition gone just like that.

  7. Isaiah 40 18To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? Moses saw a burning bush. It had a Voice. Was that God? God was certainly present; but is that what He looks like? What about Michaelangelo’s picture? Did he get it right? John 1:18 1 John 4:12 God does not want us to do idolatry. We would. He has revealed Himself to us, but with cautionary notations. Christ is sufficient.

  8. Isaiah 40 19The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains. 20He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved. Here begins God’s mockery of man’s futile efforts to make a god in man’s image. That’s exactly upside-down. God has already said that with all the trees in Lebanon and all the animals for a sacrifice, you couldn’t properly worship Him. So here’s a guy, typifying mankind’s religion, trying to make something that looks good so he can feel good, and gold plate his own sin, so to speak. It’s like a band-aid on cancer, or covering up a warning light on your dashboard.

  9. Isaiah 40 21Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? Adam told it; Noah preached it; Abraham believed it and it was counted to him for righteousness; Moses wrote it down; David sang it out; Solomon made good sense of it; Elijah demonstrated it; but the prophets give you a failing grade on it. 22It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in: Nobody at that time knew about the spherical shape of the earth, about its rotation on an axis, nor its orbit about the sun. But here it is. Once again, the Infinite One sees His creation from His own perspective. Is He trying to make us feel unimportant? Not really. The fact that He’s talking to us should make us feel important enough. He is just trying to get us to deal with reality.

  10. Isaiah 40 23That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity. 24Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. Can man change the course of a river? The Mississippi, the Chicago, the Syr Darya and Amu Darya… The Corps of Engineers’ job is to do that very thing. If man can do that, how much more can God direct the affairs of man? Not planted? Not sown? No root? Proverbs 21:1 1The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.So don’t get too comfortable in office! We are told that God establishes princes and He also takes them down, Romans 13:1 1Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. As it says above, in the Isaiah passage, they shall wither and become stubble – so, as Nebuchadnezzar learned, they’re not to let it go to their heads! When God says git, they’re gone. How long, O Lord?

  11. Isaiah 40 25To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. 26Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth. Sometimes we say people are Godly; but we never say God is peopley. So we might say “God is as big as the Universe!” And that would be false. The Universe is His creation and possession. When we see the stars and realize we’re not even seeing one trillionth of them, we are impressed that He has names for all of them. “Not one faileth”; great theology = great science. How so? Hebrews 1:3; Colossians 1:15-17 So “not one faileth” means the universe and all its components hold together, well-integrated and balanced. It also means that, once God created it, things inside that closed system are neither created nor destroyed (1st law of thermodynamics). Not even entropy (2nd law) can cause star matter/energy to fail.

  12. Isaiah 40 Now, since God created all, sustains all, knows all and sees all, O Israel, 27Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God? 28Hast 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. Elsewhere it says, Heb. 4:13 Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. I think we sort of knew that already; but men are known to sometimes act in denial of it. Adam started it when he hid. Jonah followed suit. He went the wrong way and he had to pay…

  13. Isaiah 40 29He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. This is a principle throughout the Bible: God lets the meek inherit the earth; He lets the hungry/thirsty be filled; He lets the weak be made strong, and makes our strength perfect in weakness; He resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble; He draws nigh to those who draw nigh to Him; He comes to give sight to the blind, to bind up the brokenhearted and release the captives. He came to reverse defeat, and death, and to swallow it all up in victory. In short, He came to give life and give it more abundantly. And eternally.

  14. Isaiah 40 30Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: 31But 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. Interesting that God likens waiting on the Lord (I.e., believing, trusting and obeying Him), to a renewal of strength. All humans get tired. The older we get, the more tired. Given. Therefore, this is something all of us can understand. The NT says we shall reap in due season if we faint not (Gal. 6:9). So the “wait on the Lord” part implies patience. It takes patience to wait. Psalm 103:1-5 is very redemptive; it has benefits – forgiveness, healing, rescue, and renewal. It is a companion passage to Isaiah 40:31. Another companion verse is Exodus 19:Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Also: Ps. 81:10 This verse, then, is about much more than the human condition of tiredness and weariness. It is about being in the secret places of the Most High, under the shadow of the Almighty (Psalm 91), experiencing the supernatural on a daily basis.

  15. Isaiah 40 They that wait upon the Lord… 

  16. Isaiah 40 1Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.

  17. Isaiah 40 1Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.

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