Isaiah 40:21-31

The exalted portrayal of the God of Israel continues. It includes the remarkable detail that ‘’He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth…’’ (22). These words were written long before the scientific discovery that the world is round! Isaiah praises God the Creator. ‘’Don’t you understand the foundation of all things? God sits high above the round ball of earth. The people look like mere ants. He stretches out the skies like a canvas – yes, like a tent canvas to live under.’’ The Message. But God is also the destroyer of the wicked (23, 24). Wherever earthly rulers are ‘’planted’’ or ‘’take root’’, God blows them away like chaff. The people of Judah needed to hear this, surrounded as they were by great and threatening emperors and empires. Knowing this will also bring perspective to our viewing of the news.

‘Deism’ is the belief that God created the universe, but He doesn’t control it. He ‘wound it up’ like a clock, and left it to run on its own. Deism presents a God who is an ‘absentee Landlord.’ But this is not the God of the Bible. This is not Isaiah’s understanding of the Almighty (25, 26). God not only made the Universe, He also preserves it, with every star in its own place. ‘’Look at the night skies: Who do you think made all this? Who marches this army of stars out each night, counts them off, calls each by name – so magnificent! so powerful- and never overlooks a single one?’’ The Message. The New Testament brings to us an even fuller revelation. It says that the Lord Jesus Christ, being God Himself, is the Agent of creation, and in Him ‘’all things hold together.’’ (Colossians 1:16, 17). It is an awesome experience to be out in a dark place, where there are no street lights, and look up into the night sky. It causes you to wonder. It makes you feel so small. For a believer, it encourages your worship of the infinite God who knows every star by name. (See also Genesis 1:16b, and the almost throwaway line: ‘’He also made the stars.’’ ) I believe a major reason for the universe being there is to prompt us to ask the question of (26): ‘’Who created all these?’’ As someone said, the majestic procession of the stars shows the ‘precision’ of God’s control and not its absence.

Sometimes we need God to question us. Or we need to ask searching questions of ourselves. Don’t we know? Haven’t we heard? Hasn’t it been told to us, and have we not understood? (21, 28a). Then why do we speak so negatively and complain? (27). Have we lost sight of who God is? Perhaps we are not living in the light of the truth we have received? ‘’Why would you ever complain, O Jacob, or, whine, Israel, saying, ‘’GOD has lost track of me. He doesn’t care what happens to me’’? Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening? GOD doesn’t come and go. GOD lasts. He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine. He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch his breath.’’ The Message. This God, whose ‘’great power and mighty strength’’ upholds the universe, will also hold up His weary, discouraged people (29-31). He has not abandoned them, whatever they may feel. (Remember that feelings can tell big lies.) God will give them strength for seemingly impossible tasks; to be able to face challenges and surmount obstacles. ‘’The wrong inference from God’s transcendence is that he is too great to care; the right one is that he is too great to fail (28); there is no point at which things ‘get on top of’ him. But vs 29-31 make the big transition from power exercised to power imparted, to be experienced through the faith expressed in the word hope…’’ Derek Kidner: The ‘New Bible Commentary’, p.656. There is the idea in verse 31 of changing strength, as a person might change into fresh clothes, or exchange and old thing for a new.

Prayer: Lord, let me trade in my strength, which is weakness, for your strength, which is power.