Our Awesome God (Part B)

Be foolish to say, God, can you load me up with problems so I can demonstrate my faith?

That would be so ridiculous. And of course, he's not like, oh, okay, that's a good idea. But from time to time, you know, we come across someone in our life who is a good Christian as good Christians go, and they're suffering unfairly. And yet we just commit it to the Lord. That's what we're supposed to do.

That's what he expects us to do. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Isaiah.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Now, here's Pastor Rick with part two of his study called Our Awesome God in Isaiah chapter 40. We can't make God bigger. When you magnify something, it retains its size, just the appearance.

Your attitude changes towards it because you see more of it. So we can see God big, or you can see him little. That's not advisable. To refer to God as the man upstairs reveals a concept of a small God. It's void of holiness.

It is void of so much of his majesty. It is a title unworthy of God. So if someone says, well, you know the man upstairs. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I don't know. Maybe your God is the man upstairs. My God is the God in heaven who rules over all creation. He's not worthy of being referred to as a man upstairs. It's kind of creepy anyway. Who's upstairs?

I need more than just such a vague description. And so if your God is little, then your faith is smaller. If your God is big, then your faith will be greater. That's what Isaiah is saying.

That's what David was saying. The 10 unbelieving spies that went into the promised land saw God too small to take the promised land and give it to them by their own words. They saw God smaller than the enemies. Numbers 13, verse 33. This is the voice of unbelief. These are the voices, a chorus of those who see God as smaller than problems. There we saw the giants. The descendants of Anak came from the giants.

Moses inserts that. But then now back to their words. And we were like grasshoppers in our own sight. So we were in their sight.

We felt so tiny and they felt so big. That's their story. Now Caleb and Joshua saw it the other way around. In Numbers chapter 30, before they give you their little pathetic speech, we pick up Caleb and Joshua. Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses. Could you see Caleb, we know he's a rough guy.

He's in his 80s. He said, I can still fight. And so Caleb, when it says he quieted the people, he just took his sword out. Everybody shut up.

No, I don't need to do that, but I like that. Anyway, Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, let us go up at once and take possession for we are able to overcome it. But the men who had gone up with him said, we are not able to go against the people for they are stronger than we. And so the inhabitants were giants and they were grasshoppers. But God in verse 22 of this chapter says, it's actually the other way around. Look at verse 22 of Isaiah 40. It is he who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. That is seeing God as big. Now it continues here in verse 12. He measured the heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure. The distance between the thumb and the pinky is a span.

Let's make it about that big. Again, it's poetic language. It's divine design and it involves engineering. Or you can actually see sort of someone baking a cake or a pie, you know, put a little measure of this, a little bit of that.

They don't know just how much to put. When it says he weighed the mountains and scales and the hills and a balance, it is the language we can appreciate. We applaud this kind of approach because how else can the prophet describe the bigness of God? There's nothing in his creation bigger than him. Part of a thing can't be bigger than the thing itself. It's a fundamental. And God did not make Jupiter say, wow, I overdid it on that one.

That's bigger than me. It is not. Verse 13, who has directed the spirit of the Lord or as his counselor has taught him? Verse 14, with whom did he take counsel and who instructed him and taught him in the path of justice? Who taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding?

These are rhetorical questions. Of course, the true God needs no advice. There's no advice you can give to God.

God, let me give you some, let me give you a point, a tip here. It's just insane. That's not your flesh talking. That's stupidity talking.

Full-blown ignorance. An all-knowing God, an omniscient God cannot learn. And it's pointless to disagree with him because of that. Now, he allows us to dialogue. He allows us to lay out our case before him. And he, from time to time, will adjust his action based on that.

But even that has great limits. He let Abraham go along. You know, if you read that section with Abraham before, you know, Abraham is praying to God not to destroy the sexually perverted. Abraham had a heart for God. And God listened to him. And if you read that section, you say, okay, we got the point, Abraham. And he keeps bringing the number down, down until finally God says, okay, that's it, 10. 10's your number, Abraham. If you can find 10 men in Sodom and Gomorrah that are righteous, 10 people, I'll spare it.

Well, he couldn't find it. Anyway, it's the flesh talking when you think God is missing the point. Psalm 145 verse 17, the Lord is righteous in all his ways, gracious in all his works. We don't have to question his goodness. We will. The flesh will. But the spirit will put down the flesh. And it will repeat itself. Some are better at it than others.

All can be better at doing it as life goes on. Verse 15, behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket and are counted as a small dust on the scales. Look, he lifts up the aisles as a very little thing. And so, again, nothing approaches the enormity and wonder of God.

How can you not love the language of the prophet? Now, you stop here and you say, well, wait a minute, what about if I'm going through something that's really bad? And there are quite a few bad things. Well, it won't look pretty. It will hurt. But in the end, what is going to happen 150 years from that point?

What is going to be important to you then? That's perspective. And it's not something we ask for. It would be foolish to say, God, can you load me up with problems so I can demonstrate my faith?

That would be so ridiculous. And of course, he's not like, oh, okay, that's a good idea. But from time to time, you know, we come across someone in our life who is a good Christian as good Christians go. And they're suffering unfairly. And yet we just commit it to the Lord. That's what we're supposed to do.

That's what he expects us to do. And I think that sometimes God allows these awful circumstances for the purpose of fortifying the faith of his people. And without these events, the believers, their faith would be either weaker or false. And so he filters it out through these experiences.

It's one of my takes on these things. You know, whole Christian villages have been slaughtered. Men, women and children alike. The Jews, righteous Jews had even suffered along with the wicked. So these things are realities that we have to face in faith or you throw your faith away and face them as an unbeliever does. You know, may God strengthen us to do the right thing. Verse 16, and Lebanon is not sufficient to burn nor its be sufficient for a burnt offering. Now Lebanon, as we may recall going through the scriptures, known for its timber, its cedars, and its cypress trees, and just its trees, but never had they enough to light a fire for the altar of God.

Never has it been sufficient. Always, whatever man takes from creation to worship God, he's taking from God, it's God's creation. It belongs to God to begin with. It's insufficient for fire and it's insufficient for sacrifice. Man cannot offer an adequate solution to sin.

That's the point. Lebanon is not sufficient to burn nor its be sufficient for a burnt offering. So it's in the theme here is that of ritual sacrifice, which is for education. Keep us mindful of our sinful state. That's what it was for the Jews. Hebrews 10 14, when Paul is writing to the Jewish people and saying, you need to stop being a part of Judaism.

You need to be Christians. And he says to them, for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. That's the same, that's what Isaiah is saying in verse 16. Whatever can be offered to God in worship and sacrifice is always far short of his glory.

You can't offer sin there. That was the best wood for the fire and the best bull on the fire. Now, you know, God has got to be impressed by that.

Well, that's not true. So whatever we offer, he created to begin with. We're offering his stuff.

If you look at it that way, if you really want to impress God, then create something from nothing. But you can't. We're inadequate. We're not good enough.

We're not powerful enough. Still, he accepts us in Christ, even rewarding us for the service we do in the power of his Holy Spirit. Paul knew this. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God. 2 Corinthians 3, 5.

It is a good verse to memorize. Verse 17, all nations before him are as nothing and they are counted by him less than nothing and worthless. It's too bad that many of the people in his day in Jerusalem and the Jewish people, many of them, they needed to hear this.

They were non-compliant to these teachings, to these doctrines, the understandings of who is God. When the Christian sees God, they don't have to say, who are you? We know who he is.

He's revealed it to us. And thus, all scripture is by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness, for correction, instruction in righteousness, that the child of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped. God is superior. All the nations, verse 17, before him are as nothing and they are counted by him less than nothing and worthless. And the end of the Great Tribulation will finalize that.

Well, phase one, the final, ultimately a thousand years or more after, it will be finalized completely. But humanistic man is too impressed with mankind. Humanistic man disapproves of God. And yet they like his creation, even though it is a flawed creation, now because of the curse, of sin, and they won't even acknowledge him. They prefer nature over the God of creation, Romans 1.25.

We all know this. It's worth telling an unbeliever if you get a chance. It's okay to open your Bible and say, hey, let me just read this to you.

It shuts you up and hopefully, hopefully you'll convert from your blindness. It says, speaking of the humanistic men in the days of Paul, who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, that would be idolatry, whether it's made up in your head or with a statue, and worship and serve the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever, amen. So, back to the metaphors. What Paul is saying, what Isaiah, what the Bible tells us, is the reality behind the metaphors is greater than the metaphors. He is metaphorically a shepherd, but he's greater than that.

We're trying to just get it so we can understand. He's far greater than any shepherd, and we're far more valued to him than any sheep. He tells us that, and when Jesus comes along, he says, you're of more value to me. Well, he says here in verse 17, and they are counted by him less than nothing and worthless. Humanity has nothing to, you can't brag before God, collectively or individually. You cannot, a nation cannot say, brag to God.

Even Abraham could not. Romans 4, verse 2. Now, when Paul writes Romans, he's mindful of unbelievers, and he's mindful of the questions believers have about unbelievers, because there are good ones.

What happens to them? I believe there are Muslims and Buddhists around that are good people that have never heard the gospel, and God will do the right thing with them. I do not believe, you go to hell, that's too bad. I believe the God of the universe always does right, and it's quite presumptuous to think that we know better than him. But as for those who hear the gospel, well, that's a pretty clear deal there, and that's what we go by. He says here, and they are counted by him as less than nothing and worthless. For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. Paul takes that away.

Even Abraham, the father of the faith of the Jews, he can't brag to God, and if he can't brag to God, nobody can. I just love this stuff. I love that once, you know, God shows you something, you see it, and you try to comply. You say, 10-4, Lord. Roger that.

I got it. The unbeliever scoffs, digs deeper away. But we see the beauty of these things, and I think as Isaiah is writing this, I think he just got carried away in a good way, in a righteous way, just loving on the Lord and his splendor. Look at verse 18. To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness will you compare him?

Are you crazy, coming here with these idols? What are you going to liken him to? The name Michael means, who is like God?

Nobody. And that's why Michael's rebuked the devil, and Michael will cast Satan and his minion out from the presence of God, because nobody's like God, and it's the very thing Satan wanted to be, like God. I shall exalt my throne and my star and all this gibberish. It's a wonder the angels listening to that, the righteous ones didn't die laughing. Man-made images of God, they don't impress him. Wow, look at that. It's so creative.

Is that a mustache? Psalm 113, verse 5, who is like Yahweh our God who dwells on high? Nor is there salvation in any other name, for there is no other name given among men under heaven by which we must be saved. It is impossible to create anything to represent the Creator. It just, the symbols may point to his work, to his, to characteristics of God. You can say, well the cross is a symbol of his love and his sacrifice, but that's not an image of him. Having never seen God, idolaters still attempt gross representation, grotesque representations of him. Titus, chapter 1, verse 5.

It's like Paul when he's writing this to Pastor Titus, he's just sharing what he's come up against as a pastor and he's sharing it with Titus to say, you're going to come up against this too. And so you're going to have people like this. He says, to the pure, all things are pure.

You're going to have good people in your life. But to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. But even their mind and conscience are defiled.

We might say they don't have a filter. That's the language of today. Their conscience is defiled. They don't know how to do right because they don't want to know how to do right.

They will always look to benefit for them to take benefit for themselves at the cost of others. And so Paul warned him. Well in Isaiah's day, there are people like that and yet they still made these little figurines in religion. Verse 19.

The workman molds an image, the goldsmith overspreads it with gold and the silversmith casts silver chains. Now this wouldn't be so bad if these were just the people surrounding the Jewish people, the covenant people. But that wasn't the case. The people surrounding the covenant people had influenced the covenant people and now many of them broke the covenant with God and were doing these very things. The book of Judges, the book of Kings, all of the prophets. This is the story. It is the story of Christianity.

That there are people that are born in a righteous house, go to a good church, learn the scripture from childhood and then get up and make their choice as adults to drink the devil's brew. And it is, you know, it's not magic. God's not going to say, well, you know, they don't mean it.

This is serious business and we need to approach it that way. God approaches it that way. Allowing his son to die on a cross I think is a very big statement just concerning that alone. They imagine that the invisible God can be made with visible stuff, these idolaters. Now people imagine that God can be shaped by their imagination or forced out of existence in their imagination.

They just decide that they're going to be atheists. Colossians 1, speaking of Jesus, he is the image of the invisible God. Even if we had pictures of Jesus, he's not going to look, when we see him, he's not going to look like he looked when he walked the earth. He is in a glorified state and that context of his coming from the father to earth or whether it's Christophany before the virgin birth or his maturity after the virgin birth. The apostles didn't recognize him. On the road to Emmaus they didn't recognize him.

It would be foolish just on that level, but it is prohibited period. Even if you could see what Christ now looked like, we are forbidden from making any image of him. 1 Timothy 1.17, now to the king eternal, immortal, invisible. To God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever.

Amen. Now the king eternal is Christ. It's the deity of Christ that Paul writes about. And so the workman is trying to make an image of the invisible God.

How do you do that? You've not seen him. Yeah, well, I just, this is how I think he looks.

And then the next guy, well, I think he looks this way. And as you know from many of the existing pieces of junk that the world calls artwork, these clumsy manifestations of gods, many of them are grotesque. Like, man, if I saw something like that, I don't think I'd want to worship it.

I might want to shoot it. I mean, you know, multiple heads and just all sorts of weird, and then it even gets to be immoral. And they're on there, still have temples. In Tibet, they have temples with these acts that are just unspeakable. Anyway, after rejecting the truth, what remains? What do you have left?

Just make stuff up. Verse 20. I don't know, if I was speaking to me before I was saved, what would I say to these things? I think that the salvation of a soul is such an incredible experience. Would I have responded to the logic, or was I in such darkness that the, like a black hole that is said to have so much gravity that light can't get out of it? And of course, where that leaves me is, I think sober-minded on this subject of praying for lost souls, that they are blind, and they are spiritual fools.

I was once there. It took God to get me out of there, and it's going to take God to get them out, but he invites me to pray without ceasing. That's actually the second, well, in the Greek it's the shortest verse in the Bible. Pray without ceasing. If you count the letters, Jesus wept, pray without ceasing.

So if you can't, what happens if you can't afford a golden idol? Well, Satan is not going to be stopped by that. Verse 20. Whoever is too impoverished for such a contribution chooses a tree that will not rot. He seeks for himself a skillful workman to prepare a carved image that will not totter. He's got to have a craftsman to keep his God from falling over, and that won't work. So the devil is interested in damning the poor also.

If you cannot afford an extravagant idol, then a common idol will do just as well. 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? So now he goes into this question format. He'll provide the answers, of course.

Paul does that with Romans. In many sections he goes to question-answer format, but these are the components of understanding. He's saying humans are expected to know better. Have you not known, heard?

Have you not been told, understood? Well, that's what Paul said because Romans chapter 1. What may be known of God is manifest. It is told in them, for God has shown it to them.

For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio today. Cross Reference Radio is a ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. If you'd like to learn more about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website crossreferenceradio.com.

You'll find a number of teachings from Pastor Rick available there. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of new editions of Cross Reference Radio. Just search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. We're glad we were able to spend time with you today. Tune in next time to continue learning from the book of Isaiah with Pastor Rick right here on Cross Reference Radio.