Behold Your God, Isaiah 44, Part 3

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and His Redeemer, the Lord of hosts, I am the first and I am the last. Besides me, there is no other God. That's Isaiah 44 verse 6. And in today's sermon, we focus on how the living God, eternal and reigning over all, is an invitational God. We see His love in that He initiated our restoration through Christ and invested in us, giving us Himself. Let's listen in to this message from Isaiah 44. This is the third part of a message which was first preached on April 28, 2013.

It's part of a series in Isaiah titled Behold Your God. You see He is the living God. He's not just an object. He's not a thing.

He's not a concept. He is a living being. And He invites us to remember.

He invites us to return. He is the one who said in Ezekiel 18, for I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies, says the Lord. Therefore, turn and live. Therefore, turn and live. And I have found this in my study of the Scriptures over the past several decades.

Because in literature, we talk about genres of literature. And if there is a genre that is to be attributed to the Scriptures, it is invitational. The Scriptures are invitational. The God of the universe, the Creator, the Redeemer says, come to me, return to me. All of His work in human history is about that. Return to me. Be reconciled to me.

That's what He's about. The Scriptures are definitely invitational because He is a living God. And He invites us not only to remember and to return, but also to rejoice.

To rejoice. Verse 23, sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it. The end of the verse, for the Lord has redeemed Jacob and glorified Himself in Israel. He says in the middle of the verse, shout, you lower parts of the earth, break forth into singing, you mountains, O forest, and every tree in it. Did you know that all of creation, all of the physical creation, sings the Father's song? Isn't it interesting that the only part of creation that has a propensity not to sing the Father's song is we who are created in His image?

Wow. And that's why we are invited to rejoice because the Lord has redeemed and He has glorified Himself. Lastly, He is the living God because He cannot be ignored. He cannot be ignored.

Beginning at verse 24, thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, and He who formed you from the womb, I am the Lord who makes all things, who stretches out the heavens, all alone, who spreads abroad the earth by Myself. He cannot be ignored. Jesus, the Messiah, the one prophesied, and we're going to see that as we go through this prophesy, the second person of the Trinity, the God-man, He was called the rock of offense, the rock of stumbling.

Simeon in the New Testament, as he saw the young Christ child, he said, behold, this child is destined for the rising and fall of many. What does he mean by that? He means that this child cannot be ignored. Either you will build your life upon Him or you're going to stumble over Him, but He cannot be ignored. So is this God, this living God.

He cannot be ignored, first of all, because He fashions life. He says it twice in this prophecy, He who formed you from the womb. You know who's referring to there? Remember Abraham and Sarah? They were old.

They were beyond childbearing age, well beyond it. And God formed Isaac. And from him came Jacob, whose name was Israel. You see, that's a God thing. Were it not for God's living intervention, Israel wouldn't even exist.

And yet we speak of the nation today. Think about that. He is the living God because He fashions life. When it comes to the matter of existence, how does anything exist at all? Did you know that there are only three possible answers to that question? How does anything exist at all? How did it all get here? Three possible answers. And the first one is that everything came from nothing.

It just poof, there it was, somehow. Two problems with that. Number one, it is absolutely impossible. And problem number two, nobody really believes it. So, okay, throw that one out the window. Possibility number two, that everything that exists came from an impersonal source. Impersonal, meaning it was just cold, hard matter. Look around you. Look at your neighbor in the face. You came from an impersonal source.

That is one of the options on the table. Now, here's the problem. That leaves a lot of things unexplained. For example, where did that impersonal source come from itself? Okay, so it doesn't address the issue of origin. It does not even come close or begin to address the issue of purpose. Or you, as a person, where did you get your personality come from? Where did you get your personality from? It does not address the issues of the immaterial issues of life, like beauty and morality, logic.

It doesn't address those at all. So, if that is your choice to believe that everything came from an impersonal source, then you are willing to leave a lot of fundamental questions completely unanswered. Here's the third option. That everything that exists came from a personal source, a person, an intelligence, a personal being. And if that is true, then that personal being necessarily had to be an infinite being. Behold, the God of Israel. He is the Creator. He is the Redeemer. And understanding Him as the one who fashions life answers all the necessary questions of purpose and meaning, morality, love, personality, all of that. The questions of origin and the question of destiny.

All those questions are answered. He is the God who fashions life. He cannot be ignored. He is the living God who cannot be ignored because He is the God who fashions life. He is also the God who frustrates folly. Verse 25, who frustrates the signs of babblers and drives diviners mad, who turns wise men backward and makes their knowledge foolishness. When it comes to explaining life, if you try to do it without God, it's foolishness. And you will eventually recognize it as foolishness, because it will lead you, if you will follow it honestly and logically, it will lead you to despair. There you go. You know what that is, don't you?

And so, God is the one who frustrates folly. Several months ago, I showed in the Wednesday evening study downstairs, a YouTube clip. It was an interview, a dialogue, between Richard Dawkins and a professor from the University of Michigan named Dr. Randolph Ness. And he said, you know what?

I'm going to tell you about this. And they were talking about physiology and the nature of the physical being. And they were trying to do it from a Darwinian point of view. And Ness keeps using the word designed to describe the physiological features of the body. And Dawkins interrupts, he says, you use the word design and we need to obviously interpret that in a special Darwinian sense.

And I'm quoting. And Dr. Randolph Ness says, you know, I always end up using the word design and someone in the audience always says you shouldn't do that, Dr. Ness, because you don't really mean design. And he says, of course, they're right, because things are not designed.

They only look like they are. But, and I'm quoting, and I'm quoting, when you look at how the mechanisms of the body work, it's almost automatic to talk about them as being designed. But what really gives proof otherwise that they're not designed, it only appears that they are, is when you look at how badly designed they are, no sensible person would ever have left the body the way it is.

Richard Dawkins says, give me an example. And he says, well, take this, for example, let's take the forearm right here. In the forearm, and I'm kind of abbreviating it here, this is in the forearm, there are two small bones right here, okay? It's not one big, thick bone like a robot. It's two small bones right here. I forget what they're called, but you guys can fill that in later.

Do your homework and fill it in later, okay? But the two small bones, and he says, you know, what happened? It's a bad design. No sensible person would have left the body that way like it is, because that's a bad design. Why is it a bad design? Because if you're a skateboarder, Chuck, are you a skateboarder?

No. But if you were, you would fall, and when you fall forward, you put your arms out, and you would break your forearm, because they're very thin bones. Now, if they were thick bones, it wouldn't break. Now, that's his argument for poor design. And then he says, but if it was very thick, it would be very cumbersome.

Now, let me read you what he says. Remember, he's arguing that it is a very poor design and no reasonable creator would leave the body in the way that it is, okay? He says, yet the same feature, the two small bones in the forearm, yet the same feature allows us to rotate our arms in countless delicate ways with a fine dexterity that makes it possible to play the piano or the violin or paint portraits. We can do this marvelous, I'm quoting here, we can do this marvelous thing of rotating our arms all the way around if these bones were thicker you couldn't throw. Quote, I'm using the word design over and over again, I can see why other people do, you know, it's, listen to this, it's very hard to find another word to refer to these mechanisms that work so well. Isn't that interesting? You see, God is living God, he cannot be ignored because he frustrates folly.

He cannot be ignored. Thanks for joining us here at Delight in Grace. You've been listening to Rich Powell, the lead pastor at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The Delight in Grace mission is to help you know that God designed you to realize your highest good and your deepest satisfaction in him, the one who is infinitely good. We hope you'll join us again on weekdays at 10 a.m. you