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To Whom Will You Compare Me?

Isaiah 40

Dec 18, 2022


by: Jack Lash Series: Isaiah 40 | Category: Advent | Scripture: Isaiah 40:18–26

I. Introduction
A. We’ve been studying Isaiah 40 leading up to Christmas.
B. Isaiah 40:18–26 To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? 19 An idol! A craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains. 20 He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move. 21 Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; 23 who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. 24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble. 25 To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.
C. This larger section is about how big the Lord is.
1. But remember, Isaiah isn’t just theologizing about the greatness of God. This is a Jesus prophecy! Isaiah has announced the future coming of the Lord and now He’s talking about what this promised, coming Lord is like.
2. Last week in Isaiah 40:12 we talked about how this coming Lord is far bigger than the creation itself, holding all the waters on earth in His hand and measuring the heavens with His yardstick, scooping up all the dust of the earth in a cup and weighing the mountains and hills on a scale.
3. Then, in v.40:15-17, Isaiah compares Him to the nations of the earth, saying that in comparison, the nations are like: a drop of water, dust on the scales, fine dust, and finally, like nothing.
4. Now, in today’s section, 18-26, Isaiah continues to talk about who this coming Lord is, and how big He is, but in order to do so he invites us to search for something or someone else who can compare with Him.
5. He asks the question at the beginning and again at the end:
a. In v.18, Isaiah asks, “To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?”
b. Then in 25, God Himself asks, “To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him?”
6. And in the rest of the passage, the Lord God is compared to three things which loom large in the eyes of Isaiah’s hearers:
a. In v.18-20, He is compared to idols.
b. In v.22-24, He is compared to the inhabitants of the earth, namely people.
c. And then in v.25-26, He is compared to the stars in the heavens.
II. So, let’s take a brief walking tour of Isaiah 40:18-26.
A. 18 To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?
1. This question gets to the heart of the human problem. Instead of accepting God as God and treating Him as God, mankind has replaced the creator God with created things (Rom.1:21-23). We’ve fired Him and hired another in His place.
2. And when Isaiah asks, “To whom will you compare God?” he is asking, “Are you really going to put something in God’s place? Who could you ever find to replace Him?”
3. And every time we look somewhere else for our satisfaction, every time we feel like there’s something on earth we can’t live without, every time something besides Christ is the driving force in our lives, this is exactly what we’re doing! We are looking to someone or something else to take God’s place in our hearts.
4. It may be something as good and wholesome as a spouse or a newborn child, but it is a false god.
5. And it’s so foolish! Why? Because there’s nothing that’s big enough to replace Him.
6. After asking this question, Isaiah refers to the practice of having an idol built by a craftsman – which was common in his context – to show what a ridiculous thing it is for people to worship idols instead of worshiping God...
B. 19 An idol! A craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains. 20 He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move.
1. There is no conclusion explicitly stated here, nor any lesson drawn, for that is obvious: Idolatry is empty and ridiculous. Shall the God who single-handedly made the world be represented by a thing some craftsman makes from the stuff of the earth which then can’t even stand up by itself without special effort from the craftsman?
2. We also know that the point here is about how worthless and absurd idolatry is because the same point is made EXPLICIT numerous times in the next few chapters of Isaiah –(Isaiah 41:6-7; 44:9-20; 46:5-7). (See also Jer.10:3-5, 9-10 and Psalm 115:4-8.)
C. 21 Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
1. Again there is no explicit statement of what Isaiah is referring to here. But it is so obvious that it goes without saying.
2. What is so obvious from Isaiah’s perspective is that God is God: all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal, sovereign, and holy. (Holy means other – meaning that there is no one who compares.) The Holy One is the sole ruler of heaven and earth.
3. And Isaiah is saying, You’re missing something which is staring you in the face!
4. We have the expression, “the elephant in the room.” It refers to something which is too big to miss and yet no wants to deal with it or address it. That’s what Isaiah is saying about God. He is the elephant in the room. But no one wants to deal with it. No one wants to deal with Him. So they act like He’s not even there – which is laughable because He’s an elephant in the room.
5. Then Isaiah goes on to describe Him and how big He is...
D. 22-24 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; 23 who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. 24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
1. God sits enthroned ABOVE the world. He is not part of it. From His vantage point the people of earth with their colossal egos are as small as grasshoppers. Even those at the top of the pecking order He brings to nothing. He blows on them and they are gone.
2. This is manifested in the Christmas story. It must be, because when Mary was told about bearing Jesus, she recognized the fulfillment of Isaiah’s promise in the coming of Jesus: “He has brought down the mighty from their thrones.” Luke 1:51
a. And last week we saw how God thwarted the malicious plans of Herod to kill the baby Jesus.
3. But there are other ways we can see this promise of Isaiah fulfilled in the coming of Christ.
4. I’d like to think about how the coming of Jesus brought down one ruler in particular, Caesar Augustus, by far the most powerful person on earth at the time Jesus was born. It’s hard to exaggerate what an enormous figure he was. He is considered one of history’s most influential men and most effective leaders. Our month of August was named after him.
a. Last week we talked about how God turned Caesar Augustus into His servant by using him to get Mary to Bethlehem so Jesus could be born in the place Micah 5:2 said he’d be born.
b. But there’s a lot more than that. Caesar Augustus was the 1st Roman emperor, basically king of the world, his empire stretching from England to Russia to Asia and back to N. Africa.
c. As the first Roman emperor, he was the first to attribute divinity to himself and demand worship.
5. And yet God turned Augustus and other Roman rulers into His servants to prepare the world for the coming of His Son.
a. Under the leadership of Caesar Augustus, the Roman empire enjoyed 200 years of peace and prosperity, along with political unity, and even though there was plenty of brutality and oppression, there was also peace and law & order, so much that there’s a name for it: Pax Romana. Because of this, the early Christians were able to travel safely anywhere in the empire.
b. And for hundreds of years before the coming of Christ, the Romans had been building strong, stone highways which traveled out from Rome to every part of the Roman empire, which then enabled the gospel to be carried to every corner of the Roman world with relative ease.
6. When Jesus was about 18 years old, Augustus died. Rumors claimed that his wife poisoned him, but one thing we know is that whatever happened, God blew on him, he withered, and the tempest carried him off like stubble, as Isaiah 40:24 says.
a. Augustus was a particularly impressive grasshopper, but Jesus was on a whole different level. He “was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (Jn.1:2-3) Jesus created Augustus Caesar; Jesus sustained Augustus Caesar; Jesus used Augustus Caesar for His good purposes; and then Jesus ended Augustus Caesar.
E. Isaiah continues by comparing the Lord to the stars of heaven in v.25-26: To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.
1. Not only are idols ludicrous replacements for God, not only are the earth’s people like grasshoppers to Him and its rulers like nothing, but even the stars of heaven are nothing more than His works of art and His servants. H created them and He holds them in existence.
2. This is even more amazing today than it was in the day of Isaiah, for we know a lot more about how big stars are and how far away they are.
3. But stars know their Master. He calls one to do what He wants it to do, and it willingly obeys.
4. We also see this in the Christmas story, don’t we? The Lord called a great star to rise in the west to mark His birth and to lead the magi to His side.
III. Three things we need to take to heart here.
A. First, the folly of idolatry (v.19-20).
1. Sometimes we think that our problem is that we want too much from God. We ask for more and more things and more and more comfort. But in one sense the opposite is true. We are too easily satisfied; we are satisfied with too little.
a. That’s the problem with idolatry. The worst thing about having a false god is that you miss out on the true God! Idolatry is being satisfied with too little! It’s like preferring pig slop to fine food.
b. Now, as sinful people, all of us have things about God which make us feel uncomfortable.
c. The fact is, there’s a very willing counterfeiter who’s ready to help one and all to make a custom-ordered idol which includes things we really want and leaves out things we find undesirable.
d. But the minute we begin to adjust God to make Him like we want Him to be, we begin to unmoor ourselves from the true God, and worship an empty, useless, phony idol.
e. What good is it to pray if there is no one there you’re actually speaking to? Do you think God listens when we refuse to pray to Him, and instead we pray to a false idol? Maybe it makes people feel a little better when they pray, but that’s what I’m talking about when I say we settle for far too little.
f. One of the precious things about knowing the true God is that we can cry out to Him in times of trouble and know that He hears us and cares about us and has the power to intervene, always acting for our best.
g. But instead many settle for feeling a little better by praying to a God of their own imagination. That’s a mighty poor exchange!
h. And that’s the problem with idolatry. It’s empty! There’s nothing there! You’re seeking refuge from the storm in a house made of tissue paper. Something that has no life can’t give you life!
i. When we look to idols to give us what only God can give us, that is the epitome of stupidity.
j. But the fact is, my idols – the things I yearn for and strive after – are just as ridiculous!
k. My idols are just as worthy of being mocked as the carved images someone worships in Africa.
2. The living God, on the other hand, who has revealed Himself in many places and in many ways, most fully in His Son Jesus Christ, is wise and engaged and active and purposeful. He is not only alive, He is the source of all life. John 1:4 says about Jesus, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10) He even said, “I am the life.” in John 14:6.
3. The Christian faith is not wishful thinking to make us feel better. The apostle Paul said if it’s not true, then we of all men are most to be pitied (1Cor.15:14-19). But it is true! We have a wonderful God. He loves us and has committed Himself to our welfare. He has earned our trust by giving us His Son.
4. Even if we suffer, He is with us in it, He has a purpose for it, and He is carrying us through it. And soon He will deliver us from it once and for all!
5. It is the epitome of foolishness for us to look for another.
a. When a woman has a tyrant for a husband, a man who belittles her and pushes her around and verbally or physically assaults her, it is understandable if she longs for someone else. But a woman with a wonderful, loving husband, it just doesn’t make sense for her to look elsewhere.
b. And so it is with us! We have Jesus! We are blest with the best! How can we be dissatisfied?
B. (God compared to other people)
1. One of the most common idols people have is the approval of other people, or to put it in the language of Isaiah 40:22, the approval of grasshoppers.
2. When people are blind to God, when they have no eyes to see Him, it seems like other people are the big thing. Ed Welch wrote a book entitled, When People Are Big and God Is Small.
3. We fear people’s disapproval; we long for their approval. And for many, this is what they live for. This is what they think they need to be happy.
4. But how absurd it is to think that people who are here one day and gone the next, who know so little and are so lacking in wisdom, are big — and the One who spoke the universe into existence with the word of His mouth, the One who knows all things, the One who has always existed and will always exist is small!
5. Do you ever get an insect in your car while you’re driving: maybe a horsefly or a spider or a mosquito or a bee? Do you know how many people have died in car accidents because an insect cause them to panic? But if you think about it, it’s really foolish to be more afraid of the insect than of losing control of your car. Foolish, and potentially deadly. And yet, it happens a lot!
6. The same thing is true about fearing man more than we fear God. Jesus said this: “My friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. 5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!” (Luke 12:4-5) This is not fear-mongering. This is loving advice to friends.
7. Three weeks from today we are going to begin a sermon series on the book of Revelation. And in the first chapter John sees a vision of Jesus ready to return, “clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest...His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.” Revelation 1:13-16 That’s the One we need to fear – and to love!
8. The baby in the manger really was bigger than the whole world, though it wasn’t so obvious at 1st.
9. And it still isn’t as obvious as it will be on the day He comes again! But it’s obvious enough. And that brings us to our final point, in v.21.
C. 21 Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
1. Don’t you get it? Isn’t it obvious? Haven’t you been told about this since the beginning? Haven’t you always known deep down inside?
2. There is in the heart of man a tendency to be oblivious to the truth which is right before our eyes.
3. Paul says we suppress the truth (Romans 1:18).
4. The truth is there staring us in the face! But we don’t LIKE the truth.
5. The thing people most need to know in life is so distasteful that they’ll stop at nothing to convince themselves it’s not true. They ignore it, or they change it, or they mock it – whatever it takes.
6. There is a part of us which wants to be oblivious.
7. When Isaiah was called as a prophet in chapter 6, he was told he would be prophesying to people with dull hearts, heavy ears and blind eyes, who hear but don’t understand, who see but don’t perceive (Isaiah 6:9-10). That’s what v.21 is talking about.
a. It is possible to hear and yet refuse to get the message.
b. There is none so blind as he who will not see.
8. God is the elephant in the room. Are we going to go out of our way to avoid Him? Or are we going to fall on our knees and worship Him?