Series: Isaiah
Title: Worship Only God
Text: Isaiah 40: 12-26
Date: April 14, 2011
Place: SGBC, New Jersey
From our youth up we encounter many different things which we would worship if not for God’s grace. I have tried to break our text into four divisions. These may not be all the things that you may have opportunity to make your gods, but these are four things that are very prevalent:
Divisions: 1. The worship of man’s wisdom; 2. The worship of man’s gods; 3. The worship of man’s government; 4. The worship of man as god
Proposition: God is before all, made all, is above all, and overrules all. God alone is worthy to be worshipped. When all other things are gone, God shall remain. Those who believe God shall remain with God.
I. YOU WILL ENCOUNTER THE WORSHIP OF MAN’S WISDOM
Man likes to imagine that by his wisdom he can determine how all things came into being. Unable to bow to the plain declaration, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”, man has come up with something he thinks far more substantial--a theory. A theory that the world began with “a big bang” and that all things then evolved and are yet evolving.
God is the All-Wise Creator
Isaiah 40: 12: Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
I remind you again that this is God who was manifest in the person of Jesus Christ the Lord. This is the Word who was in the beginning, who made all things, who was with God and is God; the Word who was made flesh and dwelt among us; God who is the Lamb who purged his people of their sins; God whose glory is his reward; God whose people are his workmanship, who are the recompense for all his work; Jesus who is the Shepherd who leads his sheep.
Using human hands and human measures he gives us an idea how big God is:
1. Hollow of the hand holds a tsp of water—all the waters
2. Tip of the index finger to the thumb is a span—measured out heaven with the span
3. A pinch of salt—“three fingers” of salt—that is what this measure (tierce) of dust is
4. Scales and a balance—mountains and the hills
God is Self-Sufficient Wisdom
I had professors—PHD’s—who tried to teach me that God is not Wisdom. And some will teach you this nonsense making themselves out to be the authority as if they are wise and ought to be heeded. But at the very best, every teacher you encounter has to admit that somebody taught them the things they are teaching you. Not God!
Isaiah 40: 13: Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath taught him? 14: With 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?
What are you and I? What is our wisdom?
Isaiah 40: 15: Behold, 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.
Get the illustration. The nations together—are a drop of water hanging on the side of the well-bucket. God is the bottomless, vast, infinite, endless well of water.
The nations the dust that does not even move the weight scale—the dirt of the earth counted more weighty than inhabitants of the nations.
What a blow to little water drops who think themselves wise! What a humbling word to little particles of dust who think themselves mountains, wise enough to find out God by searching!
God not only puts all men on a level plain of insufficiency but he puts them on the same with beasts:
Isaiah 40: 16: And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. 17: All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.
Christ Jesus is the manifestation of the Wisdom of God
Christ is Wisdom of how God before determined to bridge the gulf between fallen man and holy God and do so justly, while being merciful—in Christ the Ladder
Proverbs 17:24: Wisdom is before him that hath understanding; but the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth.
A man taught of the Spirit has spiritual understanding. When he hears what man teaches, he looks to Christ to determine if it is so or not—do the Scriptures agree? Is it glorifying to Christ or exalting man? Is this pointing man to his flesh or to Christ in whom the believer is Complete? The believer has spiritual understanding—he keeps his eye on Christ his Wisdom while he is running the race set before him.
But the eyes of the fool are set on the earth. He is ever-learning—thinks himself wise--and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Application: Get a good education. Apply yourselves to your studies. Be respectful of your teachers. But know, you will get no higher wisdom than that which comes when “of God, Christ is made unto us Wisdom.”
When your earthly education is gone, when your career is over, all the worldly knowledge this world has taught you will be of no use at all when you stand before God who is Wisdom.
Give more time and diligence to be taught of God than you do to know all the worldly things you are learning in a school classroom.
II. YOU WILL ENCOUNTER THE WORSHIP OF MAN-MADE GODS
Isaiah 40: 18: To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? 19: The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains. 20: He 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.
Man’s Way
1. Man by nature is so impoverished—blind, deaf, dead in trespasses and in sins
2. So he chooses a tree—first in his mind he sets his affection on something natural, something dust, something earthy then he foolishly likens it to God. He says to himself—“Ah, that is my God!”
3. He seeketh unto him a cunning workman--that is what most preachers are—cunning goldsmiths—the poor man tells the preacher what he has in mind about god and the goldsmith helps to develop the image with more earthly gold. Now, his vain god is not just dull and earthy, but is shiny and appears more solid. The image truly becomes immoveable in his mind, unless God destroys it.
Illustration: Images in the Art Museum
The little god who is wanting to save men if they will just break the chains of bondage themselves by their will is as helpless as the image on the canvas.
Psalm 110: 3: Thy people shall be willing in the day of THY POWER!
The little planner who looked down through time and choose some because he foresaw some would choose him is a second-cause god—a god who reacts--not the god who is the first cause, who acts and effectually produces results—helpless as the image on that canvas—
1 John 4: 10: Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Psalm 65: Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple.
The little jesus who shed his blood for all men—even those in hell, the world for whom he said I pray not, who depends on a sinner to make his blood to have truly accomplished eternal redemption--is only a martyr created in the painters mind, with tears in his eyes and a little dribble of blood on his side—but he is not the God of this Bible.
John 10: 11: I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep….26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. 27: My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and my Father are one.
The god whose glory is not of himself, whose work is not before him, who may at last lose a few because he is no more powerful to divinely interrupt their dash to hell, to preserve them and bring them to himself—is an image on a canvas.
Such a vain idol can’t raise a man from the dead because he is dead as the man who imagined him.
Isaiah 40: 21: Have 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? 22 It 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: 23 That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.
How we think we are princes and judges until we meet the Prince of Life, the Judge of the whole earth!
III. YOU WILL ENCOUNTER THE WORSHIP OF MAN’S GOVERNMENT.
Isaiah 40: 23: That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.
Political Science
Man conquering man, man effecting peace by the science of politics. The news reports how good a job we are doing every day. Clamor, protests, disputings, wars.
Religious Masters
Worst of all is with religious leaders who make themselves masters-dragging men before the law, trying to legislate a right spirit in sinners, glorying in the flesh lest they suffer for preaching Christ!
Isaiah 40: 24: Yea, 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. 25: To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.
Psalm 22: 28: For the kingdom is the LORD’S: and he is the governor among the nations.
God’s holy nation is at peace with God and one another—for our King is the King of righteousness and the King of peace.
Illustration: I’m not losing sleep
IV. YOU WILL ENCOUNTER THE WORSHIP OF MAN AS GOD
This is huge in our day. Man has exalted himself to be the savior of the earth.
· Mother earth
· Mother nature
Isaiah 40: 26: Lift 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.
God’s Covenant with Noah
The heavens and earth shall wax old and shall vanish away, but not before God calls out his last elect child in this earth, the heavens and earth are kept in store by the word of God. After the Lord destroyed the inhabitants of the earth with a flood, during Noahs’ day, he made this promise:
Genesis 8: 22: While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
God Everlasting Covenant to his People
The covenant of Noah speaks to the glory of God’s everlasting covenant he makes in the heart of his spiritual Israel.
Isaiah 54: 9: For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. 10: For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee.
The Type in the Season and the Elements
One reason the earth will be held in place by God is because God uses his creation to give us an idea of his power to save his people by his word in spirit and in truth.
Isaiah 61: 11: For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.
Isaiah 55: 10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: 11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
If God let the natural elements cease before calling out his last sheep then they would not serve to remind us of God’s power to save his people in Christ.
Application: Be respectful of God’s creation. But don’t try to be the savior of it. You will find yourself worshipping the creature more than the Creator. Look beyond the creation to God and see yourself as you are—very, very tiny!
Psalm 8: 3: When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; 4: What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
Conclusion of the Matter
The Lord said, Luke 12: 55: And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass. 56: Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time?
What time is it? It is time to fall on our face to ask God to make Christ the object of our worship!
1. To cease trying to be our wisdom and ask God to make Christ our Wisdom.
2. To cease looking to the god of our imaginations and ask God make us behold his glory in the face of Christ Jesus, that we might have the mind of Christ to know the things freely given us of God in Christ
3. To cease trying to be self-appointed princes and judges of the earth—and to ask God to make us alive in the Prince of life, to submit to the Judge--the government is on the shoulder of Christ Jesus—warfare accomplished, judgment is satisfied, righteousness is his peoples.
4. To cease worshiping man as if he were God—as the rains come down and accomplish God’s work so the Word of our God is sure…as he has promised us so it is and shall be…he shall not fail to call out every single one whom he has everlastingly loved.
Hebrews 1: 10: And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: 11: They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; 12: And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.
WORSHIP ONLY GOD!
AMEN!