Word of Salvation – January 2025

 

Creation From Another Angle

 

Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp on Isaiah 40: 25-27 & W.C.F. 4:1

Reading: Isaiah 40:18-31, Westminster Confession – art.4:1

Singing:        BoW.341       Creator Spirit, by whose aid
–                       BoW.115       Not to us be glory given
–                       BoW.019a     The spacious heavens declare [1,2,3] –                       BoW.019a     Lord, when You search my life   [9]

Theme: Seeing God’s care in His creation makes us aware that He has no equal & that He also cares for us.

 

Introd:  On a couple of occasions I’ve watched a rather sad news-clip on television.

Bins full of watches and CDs, videos and software are crushed by immense rollers.
What a waste!  All the time and effort it took to make all that stuff…!
Thousands upon thousands of dollars’ worth of goods are ruthlessly smashed.
Most of it is not even recycled… it is destined for the garbage heap in some landfill.

 

But the problem is that all these products are fakes… they are counterfeit.
Very clever imitations of the real thing… but they are not the real thing.
On top of that they violate copyright… so the customs department destroys them.

 

I recall a certain current affairs programs that had a segment on fake designer gear.
Name-brand stuff… that at first glance seemed genuine… but it was actually fake.
A professional person showed up some glaring weaknesses.
People who thought they had bought designer jeans actually had a poor quality substitute.
Those who had bought brand-name sneakers actually ended up with cheap counterfeits.
Fakes and the counterfeits ultimately do not match up to the real thing.

 

The same is true in religion… there are fakes and counterfeits in abundance.
Often they are marketed so attractively that many people are taken in.
False religions… that just don’t measure up to true religion..
Counterfeit gods… who are just no match for the God of the Bible.
That problem is as common in our day as it was in Isaiah’s time.

 

A]        LOOKING FOR A GOOD COUNTERFIET GOD (vs.25).

 

1. In our text the Lord asks a probing question: To whom will you compare me?
   The same question was asked already back in vs.18: To whom will you compare God?

What kind of counterfeits will you put next to me.

That’s not really the sort of question we here in church would ask.
We already know that such a comparison is a futile exercise.
When you know the God of the Bible then you know that there is no equal.

But in Isaiah’s day that wasn’t the case.
He was addressing people who were not content with God’s self-revelation.
Faith in Yahweh God…?  A God you can’t even see…?
That was okay back in the olden days… in father Abraham’s time.
We live in a different world.
What we really need is a god whom you can get a handle on.
A god whom you can see and touch… a god who is close by and not distant.

 

Isaiah is peaking to a nation that has already been dabbling for a long time in false religions.

They’ve got caught up in the counterfeit gods of the nations around them.

So God now asks them to compare the counterfeit with the genuine… the fake with the real thing.

 

Is there anything at all comparable to Yahweh God?
”To whom will you compare me?  Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.
The purpose of these verses is to show that God does not have any equals.
Some things are so outstanding that no comparison is possible.
For example: an Aussie swimmer might be tempted to compare himself to Ian Thorpe.
But that’s no contest… there was only one Ian Thorpe… no one matches him as a swimmer.
It’s a hundred times more so that God has no equal… there is no comparison.

2. This uniqueness of God is vividly spelled out in vss.18-20.

It is introduced by that ludicrous question: Who compares with God?
And then the prophet zeroes in on a very real problem in his day and age.
There are the idols of Israel’s making: What image will you compare Him to?

 

And then Isaiah proceeds to show that the counterfeits just do not measure up.
I love the irony that comes out in those verses.
These gods are made of gold… but only gold-plated.
Cast-iron is good enough on the inside… where you can’t see.
And there’s the nice silver chains… this god needs decorating if it’s to have any glory.

In vs.20 the irony becomes even stronger.
The poor man who can’t afford gold-plating and silver chooses wood instead.
But, hey… you do want your God to last more than 10 years don’t you…?
So he chooses wood that won’t rot.
And of course it’s got to have a heavier base so that it won’t topple.
You can’t have a god who keeps falling flat on his face.

 

In this way the Lord shows the utter futility of the fake gods of the day.
Their glory is just some gold plating and some silver decoration.
They can’t even stand up without toppling over unless you make them secure.
So how on earth can gods like that compare with the God of the Bible?
In Cabramatta I saw them in Asian shops. Buddha statues of metal… gods of timber.
Psalm 115 mocks god like that:
They have eyes but cannot see; they have ears but cannot hear…!

 

Counterfeit gods.  What is created is being worshipped instead of the Creator.

Fake religion… and in religion there is just no contest between the counterfeit and the real thing.

 

3. In our text it is interesting that the questions are asked by “the Holy One”.

Keep in mind that back in Isaiah 6 we have that record of Isaiah seeing a vision of the Lord.
Yahweh God… whose glory filled the temple.
And the seraphim crying out ‘Holy, holy, holy!’.
That vision deeply impacted Isaiah’s understanding of God.
It influences his whole ministry so that 30 times in his writings he refers to the Lord this way.
God is the Holy One… and it is the Holy One who asks: Who is my equal?

 

So already in that name ‘The Holy One’ we have a stress on the uniqueness of Yahweh.
That question, “Who is my equal?’ strongly implies that there is no one to compare.
But so does the name ‘The Holy One’.
The Hebrew word ‘holy’ means ‘set apart’ – Yahweh is set apart from all other gods.
This God is in a class all of his own.
All the others are counterfeits and fake… Yahweh alone is the genuine article.

 

This holiness of God speaks to us of distinction and difference and distance.
So not surprisingly… throughout the Bible this holy God always instils fear and awe.
Every time God appears to a human being that’s the reaction.
Whether it is the Lord God appearing to Adam and Eve in The Garden.
Or the glorified Jesus appearing to John on the Island of Patmos.  Fear and awe.

But there need be no fear or awe for counterfeit gods.
You can cheerily bounce into the presence of fake gods with a flippant attitude.
Anybody can come into the presence of a counterfeit god just as they please.
It doesn’t matter.  But to come before the Holy One you need a Mediator.
And only the Mediator He has provided – the mediator we have in Jesus.

 

B]        THE REALITY OF A UNIQUE CREATOR GOD (vs.26).

 

1. It is in this context that we read once more of God as our Creator.

Isaiah gives us a brief thumbnail sketch of the Genesis story of creation.

But now creation from a different angle… from the angle of the true God over against the counterfeits.

 

So the prophet invites his people to lift up their eyes and look to the heavens.
Just like the writer of Psalm 19, he invites us to look at God’s handiwork.
God’s handiwork in the skies gives evidence of who this God is.

There is nothing quite like the heavens to bring home to us God’s greatness.
Nothing more adequately shows us the absurdity of those counterfeit gods.
Nothing more clearly lifts us beyond fake religion.

Some of you may have seen some of the NASA pictures taken by the Hubble telescope.
They are breathtaking.  If you’ve seen them you’ll know just what Isaiah means:
Lift your eyes and look to the heavens; who created all these?

 

It’s part of our human nature to want something more than an invisible God.
In times of doubt and difficulty we long for something a little more tangible.
I can understand why God took Abraham outside at a time when he doubted.
And God told him to count the stars… if he could…!

I recall one summer, camping at Coonabarabran in central N.S.W.
A clear summer night and well away from the bright lights of the city.
You cannot count the stars… nor can we ever grasp the greatness of our Creator.

 

So our text invites us to look to God’s handiwork in the heavens.
Not as a substitute for God… not as something to be worshipped in place of God.
But as a tangible support of our faith in the God who made all of that.

 

2. Some of this creative work of our Creator God is beautifully spelled out in vss.21-24.

There’s some graphic language about God’s creative activity.
It briefly mentions the earth… the circle of the earth.
(You see… the Bible doesn’t teach a flat earth after all…!)
It briefly mentions the people… who are like grasshoppers before God.
And a little later it adds that this Creator God is still sovereign in human affairs.

Running through these verses is the idea that creation shows us God.
God in His wisdom made the earth the way He did… and He made the people the way He did.
A wise God who made all things well… and on the sixth day declared it to be very good.

 

But the prophet also shows us the ease with which God did it all.
That His eternal power is evident in His creation.
Once more the prophet’s eyes turn heavenward and he says:.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy.
The language is that of someone hanging up a curtain.
He spreads them out like a tent to live in.
The imagery is that of a desert nomad pitching his tent.
IOW: making the universe was as simple as that for our Creator God.

 

Here then is a beautiful thumbnail sketch of what happened at the dawn of history.
That it pleased God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to create the world out of nothing
in order to reveal the glory of His eternal power, wisdom and goodness..

 

3. In our text I’ve assumed (with our NIV) that the focus is on the stars.

Because the word star – or starry – is not actually mentioned in the original text.

We simply conclude that… from the call for us to (literally) lift up our eyes on high…!

 

Some have wrongly concluded that this is really about the invisible spirit world that God created.
The world of angels… both good angels and fallen angels.
They base that idea on the word ‘host’ in vs.26.
Claiming that the word ‘host’ usually means the army of angels… the angelic host.

 

However the idea here is the same as in Psalm 19: that the skies proclaim God’s handiwork.
So these verses simply elaborate what we have in Genesis 1 in one single cryptic sentence.
“He made the stars also!”

 

So why does the Lord, thru Isaiah, focus Israel’s attention on the heavens?
It’s because Israel is beginning to worship the starry hosts.
They are following in the footsteps of the pagan nations around them.
Dabbling in the worship of sun, moon and stars as gods… fake gods… counterfeit religion.

 

So God asks them to look at the immensity and vastness of the universe.
A universe so vast that to get to nearest star would take 3 centuries flying by the Concorde.
And the language is very expressive: He brings them out one by one… calls each by name.
Almost as if God is saying:
Come on up, Venus!  Your turn now, Mars… Okay, Southern Cross, you’re next.

 

Millions of worlds… galaxies and solar systems to show His great power and mighty strength.
But all this is to remind Israel how foolish it is to worship those celestial bodies.
So too it ought to remind our modern society of the foolishness of astrology.
It’s not the stars that control our lives… it’s the Maker of the stars who does that.

 

C]        THIS GOD IS INVOLVED WITH HIS PEOPLE (vs.27).

 

1. All of this is not just meant as some nice theology… some abstract teaching about reality.

No….! This is a very practical issue that has implications for daily life.

We become aware of that as God again addresses Israel in vs.27.
Why do you say O Jacob, and assert O Israel,
‘My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God’?

 

It’s possible to interpret those lines in either of two ways.
They can be taken as a boast that God doesn’t know what we get up to.
(The NIV uses the word ‘complain’ but it’s really just a synonym for ‘speak’)
So perhaps these people are just boasting that God doesn’t care anyway.
What we get up to is quite irrelevant to Him.

Or it can indeed be taken as a complaint in times of difficulty.
So that Israel has this mistaken idea that God has forgotten them.
Or even worse… that in their troubles God has actually abandoned them.

 

So this matter of God as the unique Creator God who cannot be compared…
is linked back to the nitty-gritty issues of our daily conduct… and of our routine affairs.

 

I recall that we had a teacher at high school who had eyes in the back of his head.
At least… that’s what we kids thought… he always seemed to know exactly what was going on.
Even when his back was turned to the class.  That is even more so with God.
If not a solitary star is missed by God… then He also knows us intimately.
If He cares for each planet and star… does He then not also care about each one of us?

 

2. So this is very relevant to Israel in their situation.

For those who acted as if God didn’t know and didn’t care: God does know and He does care.

For those who worry that God has maybe abandoned them… He has not done that at all.

 

In the light of what follows at the end of Isaiah 40 we understand why the NIV makes this a lament.
Because there the Lord addresses weary and troubled people.
People who have probably been playing the victim.
They are tired of life’s troubles… they are fed up with the daily grind.
So they complain that God doesn’t care any more.

 

That’s why those verses 28-31 spell out the implications of God’s power and wisdom.
This awesome God of creation is more than able to help.
He has the ability to support you when you think you can’t do it anymore.
He is wise enough to know what He is doing when your shoulders droop in despair.

 

Those verses begin with a powerful rhetorical question.
Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth…?
Trust in the stars… and they are going to let you down every time.
Fake gods and counterfeit religion is not going to do it for you.
Only the true God is willing and able to help.

 

And then Isaiah spells out God’s wonderful goodness to His creatures.
In one of the most lovely promises in Isaiah for troubled people…
God spells out the difference it makes to worship this true God.
He highlights the blessings of genuine religion.
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall;
But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength…!

 

3. The bottom line here is faith in the true Creator God.

In our weariness and trouble we often wish for more tangible things to hang onto.
We’d like some support for our faith.
And God is prepared to give us that too.

He takes us – as it were – and stands us under the night sky to show us His power.
But then at the end of that we have to trust that real… that genuine God.
To avoid the fake and counterfeit solutions and to trust Him alone.

 

Because it is those who hope in the Lord who will renew their strength.
And they are the ones who will soar on the wings of eagles.
It is they who will run and not grow weary… they who will walk and not be faint.

 

Most of us are very familiar with the Creation story in Genesis 1.

We’re not so familiar with the Creation story in Isaiah 40.
It’s the same story… but from another angle.
It was told to remind Israel in some of its darkest days that the Creator could be counted on.
The destruction of Jerusalem and the seventy year exile were soon to happen.
But God had not forgotten His people.
He still had a role for them – through them would come the promised Messiah.
The one through whom God would strengthen the weary and revive the weak.

 

For this reason we not only have the creation story, we also have the re-creation story…
the gospel of Christ.
What an incentive for us to stay away from the fake and to avoid the counterfeit..!

And to find our hope and strength in this God alone.  Let’s encourage others to do that too.  Amen