The Awesome Greatness of God

 

Rev John Westendorp

Scripture Reading – Isaiah 40:1-17.

Text – Isaiah 40:12-17

Sing: Book of Worship 367 / 181 / 8a / 148.

Confession/Grace: Isaiah 6

 

Introduction:

 

It’s very easy and very common to have a very small God.

Think, for example, of what Hollywood does with God.
Invariably, to Hollywood He’s a being like us who is just a little bigger and better than us.
We find those caricatures of God in movies like “Bruce Almighty”.

 

But the God of many Aussies is not much better – again a very small God.
I had a workmate who always referred to God as “the old man” upstairs.
Many see him as a kindly sort of Santa Clause who rewards those who do good.

 

Christians too can have a God who is too small.
We may enjoy singing that children’s song: “My God is so big, so strong and so mighty”.
But in practice we have many ways in which we effectively cut God down to our size.

 

 

What impresses me about the book of Isaiah is Isaiah’s many pictures of God.
Isaiah has a big God. No, more than that! He has an awesome God.
It begins already with that majestic scene in Isaiah’s temple vision.
God on the throne of the universe… high and exalted…
With the angels of heaven hiding their faces from that awesome God.

 

Our text is another of those majestic revelations of the awesome God whom we worship.

 

A] THE GOD OF THE CREATED ORDER – NATURE.

 

1. Isaiah confronts us with the greatness of God by asking a series of rhetorical questions.

Rhetorical questions are questions that you really don’t expect anyone to answer.
Because the answer is so obvious that we don’t need to have it spelled out.

 

So the prophet asks a series of questions that all begin with, ‘Who?’
And in each of them he asks us to imagine some small measuring device;
but then in contrast some object to be measured that is incredibly large.
When we read these questions they seem almost ludicrous… quite laughable really…
except that Isaiah is making the point that our God is an awesome God.

And so the questions come:
Who can take a small measuring device and measure vast quantities?
Who can measure off enormous subjects with tiny measuring standards?
Who… who… who…? And in each case the answer is obvious: God alone!

 

2. Isaiah’s first glance is towards the impressive sea.

I’ve always found standing at the edge of the ocean a humbling experience.
That ocean stretches away to the horizon… it is vast… what a huge expanse.
More of the earth’s surface is water than land. Travel a little on water and it seems unending.
I recall that back in 1950 it took our family five weeks to travel to Australia over the ocean.
I think of its depth.
There’s a trench off Malaysia in which you can drop Mount Everest and it would be under water.

 

Now add together all the seven oceans of the world… all the lakes… all the rivers.
Every glacier… every snowflake… every pebble of hail… all the underground water!
Who can measure all of that H₂O in the hollow of His hand?

 

I try to imagine every human being on planet earth lining up at the seashore.
And all of us – together – dipping in our cupped hands and taking a handful of water.
Would it make any noticeable difference to the level of the ocean? Hardly!
Yet here Isaiah pictures God measuring the waters in the hollow of His cupped hand.
Awesome! Amazing!

 

3. Next Isaiah’s gaze switches to the heavens. And again there is this profound vastness.

At home I stand on the plains of the Darling Downs and the sky stretches from horizon to horizon.
It’s huge; especially when you stand under those heavens on a clear moonless night.
It stretches away to who knows where.
We measure the distances in light years… I have trouble getting my head around that.
Light travels at 186,000 miles a second. And we talk of stars that are light years away from us.
That’s the distance light travels in one year: 186,000 times the number of seconds in a year.

 

And then we need to keep in mind that we’ve only just begun to explore the universe.
There are not just thousands of stars out there… there’s thousands of galaxies.
Each galaxy with numerous solar systems. Who can measure that huge universe?

 

The Hubble telescope has opened our eyes to the vastness of the heavens.
It has brought home to us that so far we’ve really only scratched the surface.
I look at some of the NASA pictures and I wonder: How much more is there to discover?
And yet here Isaiah portrays God as marking that universe off with a span of his hand.
What we measure in light years God measures between His thumb and His pinkie. Awesome!

 

4. As if all of that isn’t enough Isaiah turns to glance at the dust of the earth.

What he means here isn’t just the dust that gathers under your bed.
He means the dirt that makes up the surface of the earth. Who can measure it?
On the West Coast of Tasmania we once traversed the sand dunes. What a lot of sand.
Most of us have never seen a desert… but Australia’s Simpson Desert is vast.
And then I think of the Sahara Desert… and the sand on a million beaches around the world.
All the dirt in the the outback and across all the continents of the earth.

 

How on earth can you even begin to estimate how much of that stuff there is?
How hopelessly impossible to measure it… where would you start?
It would be a huge job for me to just measure the dust of the earth that makes up my back yard.

 

That question becomes even more absurd when we realise what Isaiah is really asking.
It seems that the measuring implement Isaiah has in mind was an ephah.
That’s a basket to measure grain… it held just a little over a litre.
A little basket smaller that a two-litre milk bottle. That’s so ridiculous that it’s laughable.
Yet Isaiah picture God as able to put the dust of the earth in a basket. That’s awesome.

 

5. If that wasn’t enough of a challenge we’re next shown the mountains.

And again the stress is on their size… the hugeness of the mountains of the world.
I’ve spent some time tramping New Zealand’s alpine country. Those Alps there are amazing.
My wife and I once spent a whole week exploring the Canadian Rockies… very impressive.
In South America the Andes is a mountain range that spans the continents from North to South.
Or think of Mt Everest… a single mountain that is more than 8km high.
But now the question is: Who can measure… not just one mountain… but all of them?

 

Do you get the picture that Isaiah is building up?
The God we worship is not some puny replica of ourselves that is just a little bigger.
Someone basically like us… but a little more powerful.

 

No this God weighs the mountains… Everest and Mt Kilmanjaro, Mt Cook, Kosiusko and the Andes.
And for God it is as effortless as a grocer weighing out some fruit or vegetables.
Just a flick of the wrist and they are tossed onto the scales.
Who weighs the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?
God does. Because our God is so big that He is simply awesome.

 

B] THE GOD WHO NEEDS NO ADVICE OR COUNSEL.

 

1. But Isaiah hasn’t finished yet. If that’s how awesome God is then there are some repercussions.

So the prophet asks some more questions… different question.
But questions that are just as laughable… just as seemingly absurd.
If God is really so awesome then can we claim to have really understood Him…?
Who has really grasped the truth of the Spirit of the Lord?

 

Or let’s make the situation even more ridiculous.
Who of us here has acted as God’s counsellor or advisor?
Or to put it another way: Whom did God consult to give Him insight.
Was there someone who said: Sit down Lord and let me tell you a few things you must know?

 

Well… okay… we have moments when we struggle with God’s sovereign ways with us.
And in those moments we may be tempted to tell God He’s forgotten a few things.
In fact… yes… there are people who want to act as God’s counsellor.
As someone said: Some people don’t mind serving God as long as it’s in an advisory capacity.

 

But Isaiah is showing us how absurd that is.
If God does all of those things with His creation we’d better shut our mouths.
It is ludicrous to think that God might want your advice… or some suggestions from you.

 

2. So we’re left with this problem: How can we possibly grasp who this God is.

Isaiah has shown us all these marvellous images of a God who is so big.
And the reality is even greater… Isaiah is struggling to put it in human language.

 

When Job pictures a big God he also shows that greatness in the way God handles His creation.
But after grappling with it Job adds: And these are only the outer fringes of His works.
God is infinitely beyond us… that’s why He’s awesome.

 

Today we tend to throw that word ‘awesome’ around quite a lot, don’t we?
All sorts of things are said to be awesome.
I think of the turtle in “Finding Nemo” – “Awesome, man, really awesome…!”
But awesome is that which inspires awe… it’s ultimately what makes us bow down and worship.
God is awesome… that’s why we worship Him even if we don’t fully understand Him.

 

3. And that’s just the reason why Isaiah asks all these rhetorical questions.

Israel has drifted away from the God of the Bible.
It has busied itself with images of God… you read about that in the following verses.
And they have mental images of God that bring God down to their level. A small God!

 

So they need to hear again God’s revelation of Himself to Israel through the word of the prophet.
If this God is so awesome… so huge that no one can give Him advice.
Then we need to listen to His advice… we ought to heed His counsel.

 

God has given us His Word in which He reveals His wisdom and counsel.
But if you stand in judgment of that Word then it’s like trying to advise the Lord God.
Instead seek out the wisdom of this awesome God by devoting yourself to His Word. Absorb it.

 

C] THE GOD BEFORE WHOM NATIONS ARE NOTHING.

 

1. There is another way in which Isaiah wants to show us how awesome God is.

In vs.15 he turns from nature to history… from the created order of things to the nations.

From the inanimate part of God’s creation to people… the pinnacle of creation.

 

But now Isaiah is no longer asking rhetorical questions.
Instead he is making some powerful statements that in Hebrew begin with “See!”
Behold… Look…! Or as our NIV puts it: “Surely…!”
In other words he is giving this some emphasis to drive home the point to us
And the point is that God’s awesomeness is also seen in connection with the nations.

 

2. See… the nations are like a drip on the rim of a pail.

The last drop from a container isn’t all that important to us.
Unless you’re like me and have Dutch genes in you, then you to try to wring out that last drop.
But that’s just the point… that last drop in the container is stubborn and we give up.
That last drop is just inconsequential to us… who cares; it’s only a drop?

 

Now think of the nations… the teeming masses of people that make up a nation.
Or think of a nation in its pride and arrogance… puffed up in its self-importance.
And now Isaiah, from God’s perspective, says the nations are like that last drop in the container.
And then not even the last drop in a cup… no… the last drop in a bucket.

 

That sure puts nationalism into perspective, doesn’t it?
Here in Oz we celebrate Australia Day every year… and we do that with pride.
But there are some things in Oz that I’m not proud of.
When I see how wasteful we are and how greedy for material things…
When I see affluence all around me and yet hear people complaining, I’m not proud.
In those moments I need to be humbled by this divine perspective.
We’re not all that big… and my nation isn’t awesome… not by a long shot.
God alone is awesome… my nation is more like that last drip in that bucket.

 

3. If you think that’s sobering then try Isaiah’s next illustration for size.

God regards the nations as dust on the scales. He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.
Here I think Isaiah is not talking about islands as land masses.
Rather it seems to me that he’s talking about the island nations of the Mediterranean.

 

Dust on the scales… that’s even less significant than a drop in a bucket.
That final drop might still be worth licking out… but dust…?
By the way: Please don’t think of the scales and balances here as those used in a science lab.
At school we had beam balances kept in glass cases to keep them free from dust.

Instead think of the scales they measure your bananas on at the supermarket checkout.
Have you ever seen the ‘checkout chick’ make sure the scales were dusted first?
I mean you don’t want to pay more for your bananas than you should… so dust the scales first.
That’s ridiculous. Specks of dust make no significant difference to your grocery’s weight.
So the divine perspective is that the nations make as much impact on God as dust on scales.

 

4. Perhaps Isaiah could imagine someone arguing: Yes, but what if these nations actually worship God?

Doesn’t it change things when people bring their gifts and sacrifices to the Lord?

Well here too the reality is sobering.
God says that even the best worship… with the forests of Lebanon for fire…
and all its animals for a burnt offering… that does not really impress Almighty God.

 

God is not saying here that He doesn’t want to be worshipped… of course He does.
But the point is that if you think you can impress God with your worship this morning think again.
Because if God really is the awesome God Isaiah pictures Him to be…
then how could even the cedars of Lebanon and all the animals be adequate for Him?
So don’t think that your worship today lifts your status before God above that of a speck of dust.

 

5. As if that isn’t enough Isaiah really hits home with his final remarks.

Look at the sobering picture he paints in vs.17.
The nations are as nothing… regarded by Him as worthless… as less than nothing.

 

Nations strutting across the stage of history with pride are a big fat zero. They are ‘Good for nothing’.
They are even less than a zero before God. That’s a staggering thing to say.
How can anything be less that nothing? Nothing is a vacuum.
And the nations are less than a vacuum…? How can that be?

 

Please don’t think that God is saying that this is how he values human beings.
No He’s simply pointing out that in terms of the impact they have on God… less than nothing.

 

D] THIS GOD IS ISRAEL’S REDEEMER FROM EXILE.

 

1. Let me tell you why God stresses the insignificance of the nations.

Isaiah 40 is written in troublesome times.
It was an age when Assyria’s power was waning and Babylon was gaining world dominance.
Nations and kings were strutting across the stage of history full of their own importance.
And then God says: Yes, but before me they are really a big fat zero.

 

When we read the papers and we are troubled by world events and by upheavals among nations.
Be encouraged that God is so much in control of world affairs…
that the nations are like a drop in a bucket… as dust on the scales.

 

2. In fact let me take that a little further.

World affairs were about to include Israel going into exile in Babylon.
Their constant idolatry was about to be punished by 70 years in a strange land.
But now God wants to put that too into perspective.
God has the power over nations… also over the nations that take Israel into exile.

 

That’s a wonderful encouragement. God’s people have some very powerful enemies.

But we have an awesome God who is far, far more powerful than our enemies.

 

3. In fact the really beautiful thing about Isaiah 40 is that it was written to encourage Israel in exile.

It begins with those lovely words of comfort in vs.1.
And it includes the wonderful promise that this awesome God is Israel’s loving Shepherd.
And this awesome God promises to redeem His people and lead them home.
And their awesome God will do it and He can do it because the nations are nothing before Him.

 

Today we know that all this was fulfilled especially in Jesus.
The nations raged to try to stop Jesus from coming into the world.
But that didn’t hinder Him from coming as our Good Shepherd who will lead His people home.
Now as our awesome Lord He has all power and authority in heaven and on earth.
This awesome God is Jesus, your Saviour, who loved you enough to give His life for you.
And because of His awesome power He will save you and bring you to your eternal destiny.

 

Amen