“Behold Your God!” (Part 2 of 4)

Far too often we are guilty of overestimating our own significance and limiting our view of God. Today on Truth for Life, we'll hear from Alistair Begg with part two of a message titled, Behold Your God, as he helps us gain a proper perspective of ourselves and of God's greatness. We're in Isaiah chapter 40, verses 12 through 31. Now those of you who, like me, were alive and kicking in the 60s, will perhaps have grown up with youth groups singing a song which began, In the stars his hand he work I see, On the wind he speaks with majesty, Though he ruleth over land and sea, What is that to me?

I will celebrate nativity, for it has a place in history. Sure, he came to set his people free, But what is that to me? And then I went into the chorus. And then one day I met him face to face, And I found the wonder of his grace.

So far, so good, really. But it was at that point I really stumbled. Even I remember as a boy thinking, There's something wrong with the next two lines. I never really knew what it was. And you might not agree with me.

I don't know. Then one day I met him face to face, And I learned the wonder of his grace. Then I knew that he was more than just A God who didn't care, who lived a way up there.

Now, I never liked singing that, because it didn't seem right to me. And it isn't right, because he never, ever was, is, a God who lives up there and doesn't care. It should have read, Then I knew that he was not A God who lives up there and doesn't care.

You see what happens? The inference from the transcendence of God that is wrong says God is so great that he doesn't care. The inference from the transcendence of God that is right says God is so great he cannot fail. And so you have this juxtaposition between God in all of his transcendent glory and man down here in need of a shepherd, and the shepherd comes. But you see, when it says that he is up there and his glory is above the heavens, it's not talking in spatial terms. It's not that he is up there and away from us. It is that he is beyond us in his greatness.

He's beyond us in his greatness. And this is revealed to us in a number of ways throughout this poem. First of all, in relationship to creation itself. Who has measured the waters and the hall of his hand? And what Isaiah is pointing out is that what is massive to us is manageable to God. I was just looking at… Yesterday, in our elders' meeting, we were thinking about the work that is being done down there wonderfully in Uruguay.

And in order to help us with that, we were given a photograph of South America. And as I looked at the scale of it and tried to imagine going up the scale, I realized, what a vast distance it is from way down the bottom here up to the top and to Cuba and to the islands and so on. And that's only a tiny piece, and then you go out and come in my cave and you'll find the map of the world is vast. And we're not even talking about the solar system here or galaxies. We're just talking about the earth itself. What is massive to us is manageable to God. What we have, actually, is a universe that is dwarfed by the presence of God.

The universe is dwarfed by the presence of God. Look at the pictures. They're pictures. He cups his hands and he holds the waters. How much of the earth is water? I don't know.

It's a significant amount, I believe. And then he takes out a ruler and a compass, and he plots out the heavens. And then he takes out the scales, and he weighs the mountains and the hills, and he assesses it all. Now, what is Isaiah doing here?

He's doing this. He is allowing us, as the readers of his prophecy, to see God through God's eyes, to see God as he reveals himself. He reveals himself savingly, finally, in Jesus. He reveals himself in creation. He reveals himself in his Word. And here in his Word, he says, Do you want to know how I relate to creation?

This is who I am. So, it is there to consider in relationship to creation. Secondly, in verse 13 and 14, to consider how God has no need of counsel. That he never needs to go and ask anybody for advice. That he who has measured out the waters is himself immeasurable.

You see that? Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord? Well, no one. No one. Whom did he consult? Who made him understand? Who could ever have told God what to do? No one shows God how to understand things. In fact, God is the way to understanding. And absent an awareness of who God is, you may be the brightest intellect in the Western world, and yet still you will be foolish. You will be a foolish genius.

Why? Because God is the way to understanding. Now, let me assign for homework Job chapter 28, and then just dip into it for a moment to whet your appetite or make you decide you're not going to even look at it. Job 28 is very similar—in fact, Job is very similar to this poem in Isaiah 40. And in Job 28, Job is asking the question, Where is wisdom? And he runs through a number of things. He says, You know, the natural resources that are in the earth can be brought out by man. Man has the capacity to drill through rock. Man has the capacity to dam up streams and so on.

He can do all of these things. That takes you to verse 11. And then in 12 he says, But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?

He comes down to the same again in verse 20. From where, then, does wisdom come? And where is the place of understanding?

Well, of course, you need to go to the end of the chapter, and there it is. And he said to man, Behold, the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom. And to turn away from evil is understanding. Well, that's quite a thought, isn't it? You go to the universities of the Western world and ask them about wisdom.

We are bombarded on a daily basis—I say this with great thankfulness for all of our scientists and all of our medics. But if there is one thing that is pretty obvious to me as a mere sojourner on earth, if I hear anything else told to me, again, about the scientists have concluded, the scientists know, the scientists have the answer—this is simply an expression of the extent to which a culture has lost any notion of the godness of God. The fact is that once you have dispensed with the source of wisdom, you are left to come up with all of your own answers to your own questions. And the Bible comes to us and says, The LORD by wisdom founded the earth. By understanding, he established the heavens. What does this mean? Well, it means this, that ultimately only God understands God.

Ultimately. Because the finite cannot understand the infinite. Our understanding—and we thank God for the great progress that we've been able to make in the history of man and for the geniuses and for those who have helped us, and I hope you won't misunderstand my comments about scientists, but, you know, having failed physics dreadfully, I suppose I have a bad attitude.

But anyway, that's by the way… No. Our understanding is the understanding of a creature. Of a creature. It's finite. And therefore can't understand the infinite.

At least not by way of investigation. Only by way of revelation. And that's why, you see, when Paul goes in amongst the Corinthians, who were very, very interested in wisdom—and understandably, as people are today, they lay great store by it. I'm a very wise person.

I'm a very intelligent person. And what do you have for me, you believer in God? Well, Paul says, I want to tell you my message, and I should just let you know right at the outset that what I'm going to tell you, you will regard as absolute folly. I'm going to tell you that Jesus Christ is the incarnate God who bore our sins in his body on the tree, and he is the resurrected Lord, and he is the coming King. "'O,' said the people, said, we brought you here, because we thought you were a sensible soul. You're not going to give us that bunk, are you?' And then he says to them, Well, I ought to tell you that the Bible says that God will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning he will thwart."

What is he doing? He's quoting Isaiah chapter 29 verse 14. I mean, think about that. Think about how human wisdom is supplanted generationally.

We used to think it was fantastic, that this, but now this, and this. And so the idea is that the further you go, the later you are born, you're inevitably smarter. But not in terms of God's revelation of himself. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe?

Where's the debater? Hasn't God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom. In the wisdom of God, the world does not know God through wisdom. So it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. Now, come back to the passage, and you realize how this absolutely knocks on the head superficial notions about God. I mean, God has become a catchall for whatever men and women want it to be, whatever they feel it to be.

They'll say, Well, I believe in God, but I have my own God. Years ago, there was a book—I think it was called Habits of the Heart, and there was a chapter in it there called Sheilaism. Sheilaism.

And it was all about a lady called Sheila, who had decided that, you know, she had a God of her own making. Quite fascinating. On the other side of the coin, of course, you get the rationalists who are prepared to say, Well, if there is a God in any sense, he's just an energizing aspect of life. He's a cosmic principle.

Sounds very smart, doesn't it? Well, of course, I believe God is a cosmic principle. Exactly what does that mean, sir? I think what you're saying is you're unprepared to consider the possibility that God is a sovereign person and that it is far more manageable for you to regard him just as a principle.

The smaller the better. Well, we get time just for one more, perhaps. Consider this, then, in relationship to creation. Consider it in terms of the fact that God is in need of nobody's counsel, and consider it, thirdly, in terms of God's view of the nations.

Look at verse 15. If proud man is feeling uncomfortable on an individual basis, now what are you gonna feel like in the land of the free and the home of the brave? Or like me, coming from the rural Britannia world. Britannia rules the waves. Britain's never, never, never shall be slaves.

We used to sing that at the school bus. Well, what's God's view on the nations? Well, behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket. Well, that's not very nice, is it? Let's say we need a bucket to wash something up here. I go back, and I get it, and I bring it out, and I spill up, and it goes like that on the floor.

Said, Did you see that? Well, should we get it back? Well, we can't get it back.

It's gone. It's infinitesimal. It's a drop in a bucket. But what is it? Is it the G8, or is it the G7?

No. It's the G7, isn't it? It was the G8, but one of the drops fell out of the bucket.

Russia, I think. Drop. We're a drop in a bucket as well. You say, Really? Yeah. Yeah.

Look at what it says. The nations are like a drop from a bucket. They're accounted as the dust on the scales. I'm old enough to have gone for potatoes at the grocery store and had them weighed out for me. They used to weigh them out. And then they put them in a bag, and then they put them in my shopping bag when I was tiny.

I hang them on the handlebars of my bicycle and go home. I never said, Hey, there's some dust left there. Could I have that dust, please?

I'd like to take that with me. Because the dust didn't even register on the scale. It was just there.

The nations do not even register. And if you want to consider the coastlands, whether it's the Mediterranean coastlands or whether it's the islands of the world, the picture that we're given of God is that he's able to sweep them up the way he would sweep dust up on a garage floor. You take a brush to it.

Just move it out. It's a metaphor. Of course it is. And what's it saying? It's saying, Here is God.

A voice says, Cry, what shall I cry? Cry, Behold your God. People need to know who God is—not their conjecture of God, not the concept that they've created for themselves, but who God is. Now, if you think about the educational system in Western culture, it largely exists to completely collapse such a notion that begins with God, who is the source, the sustainer, and the end of all things. This is who God is. He's not a construct. He's not a cosmic principle. He's not whatever you want him to be. Isaiah says, No, this is what you need to know. And thank God for Christian teachers in those systems, who, when in the context of interpersonal relationships, are able, as opportunity allows, to say, You know, I actually believe this. In fact, on a religious basis, verse 16, God is not dependent upon man either.

He's not dependent. Why is Lebanon introduced? The nations are like a drop. What about Lebanon? Well, it's an illustration. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel.

All those trees, all the creatures that roamed around in the forests. If you were to put them all together and present them as a sacrifice of praise to God, Isaiah says it wouldn't be enough. It wouldn't be sufficient. There is no worship service you can put together that is worthy of God. I don't care if you're in a cathedral.

I don't care if you've got mass choirs and trombones and everything else that goes along with it. We could never do it. We could never give to God the glory that he alone deserves. We could never offer a burnt offering. We could never offer a sacrifice, could we? No, because there's only one sacrifice that is acceptable to God. And that is when Christ appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Until we understand that, then we will find ourselves at great pains, either to run from God, because we know we cannot face him, or to come up with our own sacrificial offerings somehow or another to make ourselves acceptable.

Now, let me just conclude in this way. Let's not make this say something that it doesn't say. God does not despise the nations. God loves the nations. God has sent his gospel out into the world, to the nations of the world.

One day, when the community of Jesus is assembled, there will be those from all the tribes and nations and languages and so on. The nations of the world are not worthless. But the nations of the world derive their worth from God, who—remember when Paul preaches in Athens, he says that God has established the very bounds of their habitation, that God has made the world to be inhabited, and he has established these things.

So we mustn't make it say something it doesn't say. They are nothing before him. Do you see that? They are as nothing before him.

In other words, it is in comparison to him. We are this, we are that. Look at our history. Where is Stalin's…? Where's the USSR? Where's the might of Greece?

Where's the Roman Empire? Do you think it's going to stop at that? No. No. And God says you should know this. Not in order that you would not take seriously the privileges that are yours within a nation, let's say, but by means of this, God is putting the nations in their place.

You're a schoolteacher. You've used that line, haven't you? Begg, would you just sit down in your place, please?

Begg, we've heard enough from you today. I know that you think you have a lot to share, but would you just sit down in your place? Now, you see, Isaiah 40 is just putting us in our place. So small, so frail, and God, so vast, so powerful, coming to seek us.

Wow. It kind of gives the lie to the idea of, I think I'll do God a favor and go to church. It gives a lie to the idea that somehow or another we've got to protect God from the bizarre notions of our culture. He's not in need of our protection. He is altogether sufficient in himself.

He needs no counselors. He never asked anybody's advice about making the universe. And he has promised that all who come to him through Christ may find their wisdom, their righteousness, and their acceptance in that. That's why it's so silly to think about making idols. And it is to the idols that we will come, perhaps, this evening. We've been listening to Alistair Begg as he reminds us that God is mighty and infinite, but he's not too great to care about us. In fact, he's too great to fail us. You're listening to Truth for Life.

Please stay with us. Alistair will be back in just a minute to close with prayer. Our current study is called Behold Your God. If you're enjoying this teaching from Isaiah 40, you'll want to request today's book. It's titled The All-Sufficient God, and the book contains nine sermons preached on Isaiah 40 by Pastor Martin Lloyd-Jones. If you're familiar with Lloyd-Jones, you know he was a very thorough expositor of scripture during the 20th century. In The All-Sufficient God, Lloyd-Jones unpacks the purpose of the prophecy in Isaiah 40. He considers its original audience and how it foreshadows the gospel. You'll benefit greatly from the depth of his exploration.

Each chapter in the book includes thought-provoking questions for you to consider on your own, and the book is a great supplement to our current series. It comes highly recommended by our team to help you learn more about the greatness of God. Request your copy when you donate today. Your giving cares for the cost of producing and distributing this daily program and for making all of Alistair's teaching available for free.

So, on behalf of so many people, thanks for your support. You'll find the book The All-Sufficient God online at truthforlife.org slash donate, or you can request it when you call 888-588-7884. Now, here's Alistair with a closing prayer. Father, we are in need of what Spurgeon said to his congregation 166 years ago.

We are definitely in need of a real encounter with your immensity. Some of our friends haven't rejected our offers of considering faith because they don't regard it as true. They just rejected it because it seems so trivial. We've got to sort of copy watch Christianity, whereas if you get ahold of the watch, you know it's not the right watch, because it's got no weight to it. It's empty.

It's useless. God, we want you to come, and we want to have, when we get in here with one another, we want to have a sense of your heaviness. We want to have a sense that this immense God to whom we are introduced in Isaiah 40, who has stepped down, who comes to our worship gatherings with us, who leads us in our praise, who preaches to us from the Bible—we want to have a greater sense of that, Father. We want to rediscover awe. We want to be able to say, put us in our place, Lord. Put us in our place, and then use us where you put us. For we ask it humbly in Jesus' name. Amen. I'm Bob Lapeen. Thanks for listening today. Join us tomorrow as we'll find out how easy it is for us to turn gifts from God into objects of worship instead of worshiping the giver of those gifts, the giver of those gifts, God Himself. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.