We have a song in our songbook titled, “Where Could I Go?” The first verse talks about the difficulty of facing temptations. So then the question is asked, “Where could I go but to the Lord?” The second verse speaks about having good neighbors. But when my soul needs manna from above, where could I go but to the Lord? The third verse talks about having good friends and receiving comfort from God’s word. But when I face death, where could I go but to the Lord? The chorus repeats that when you are seeking a refuge for your soul, there is no where else you can go but to the Lord. When you are needing a friend who can save you in the end, where can you go but to the Lord? It is this kind of thinking that Isaiah wants his people to consider in Isaiah 40. In Isaiah 40:27 the people are questioning God. They are saying that God does not see what they are experiencing and that God does not care. Isaiah has given two pictures about God through verse 17. God is pictured as a saving shepherd, gathering his sheep into his arms. God is also pictured as being so great in power and majesty that nothing is too hard or too big for him to handle. The third picture of God that we are going to see begins in Isaiah 40:18. The key question to this picture is asked twice. With whom will you compare God? (Isaiah 40:18,25). What Isaiah is going to tell us about God is so that we will draw the same conclusion as the song, “Where could I go but to the Lord?”
Trying To Compare God (Isaiah 40:18-20)
So Isaiah begins in verse 18 by asking us to try to figure out to whom you can compare your God. What is an accurate comparison? If we are trying to explain God to someone, what likeness will you use so that you can make this comparison? As we think about God, who or what can we compare him to so that we can get a better understanding of him? The expected answer to this rhetorical question is that you cannot compare God to anything or anyone. There is no comparison. Any attempt falls woefully short. But Isaiah tells us to try to make the comparison.
Look at verse 19. Can we compare our God to an idol? Can we have an idol before us see if there are some kinds of comparisons we can make? The first problem with an idol is that it is made. Whatever we make cannot be compared to God. Even if you overlay the idol with gold and put silver chains on it, you still made you. You are the one trying to ascribe value to it. Maybe you are able to make a contribution to this idol by choosing wood that will not rot. You know that we want to make sure that our idol will not wear out over time. Is this a good comparison for God? Maybe we are so skillful that we set up the idol in such a way to make sure that the idol does not fall over. Is this a good comparison for God?
God wanted to even show the Philistines the silliness of such a comparison. Turn in your copies of God’s word to 1 Samuel 5. As a judgment on the people of Israel, the Philistines destroy the city of Shiloh and capture the ark of the covenant. Look at 1 Samuel 5:2-5. The Philistines took the ark of God, brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it beside Dagon. Dagon was an important Canaanite god that was worship by the Philistines, Amorites, and other peoples in the area. So notice how the Philistines are putting God and Dagon in comparison by placing the ark of the covenant next to the Dagon idol. Look at 1 Samuel 5:3. When the people of Ashdod (a city of the Philistines) came in the next day, they saw that the Dagon idol had fallen face down on the ground before the ark of the Lord. Here is God saying that there is no comparison to be made here. Now here is how you know you do not have a true God: you pick up your idol and put him back into place. The people think that this happened by accident. But in verse 4 we read that the next day they came into the temple and they found Dagon yet again fallen on his face before the ark of the Lord. But this time the head and hands were broken off. You do not dare try to compare this God to anything in creation. There is no one like God.
The Supremacy of God (Isaiah 40:21-24)
In verse 21 Isaiah returns to questioning his people. These are things that his people should clearly know. Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has this not been told to you from the beginning? Do you not know this since the earth was founded? God sits above the circle of the earth and the people of the earth are like grasshoppers. Have you ever had the opportunity to stand on a very high place and look down? Maybe you have gone to the Empire State Building in New York City or Willis Tower in Chicago or the Space Needle in Seattle. Perhaps you have been on top of a large ferris wheel or sky rider. When you look down you see how small people look. You are such an elevated place and so high up that everything looks small beneath you. This is the point Isaiah is making. Do you not know how high and exalted God is? Do you not understand his elevated state? How can you compare anything in creation to God when God is so much greater than anything that he has made? There is a reason that God did not allow images to be made in their worship because there is nothing worthy of comparison to him. In fact, you might remember that God only came to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai as a voice in Exodus 20 so that they would not try to make an image to compare him (cf. Deuteronomy 4:10-15). They did not see God. They just heard his words as he spoke to them his ten commandments.
The greatness of God is further described as God’s ability to stretch out the heavens like a curtain or cloth. He can stretch out the skies and space like a tent. I had to think about this picture about the greatness of God. With our current technology it takes us about 7-10 months to get to Mars, Earth’s second nearest planet, when the orbit’s of both planets are in their ideal positions which only happens once every 26 months. Therefore, a round trip journey to Mars takes about three years (https://www.space.com/24701-how-long-does-it-take-to-get-to-mars.html). The average distance between Earth and Mars is 140 million miles. It is such an enormous distance, never mind consider the size of our solar system, other solar systems, and galaxies. But God is so great that he stretches out the skies, stars, and space like cloth. Who can you compare God to when he has such power?
Further, look at verse 23. He reduces princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth emptiness. Rulers think they are so important. We think rulers and leaders are so important. Listen to God’s point of view in verse 24. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, and no sooner do they take root in the ground that God blows his wind upon them and they wither. Can we compare God to any human leader? There is no such comparison. First, they are temporary and God is eternal. But notice another subtle yet important point that Isaiah makes here. Who is in charge? Notice that Isaiah does not say that leaders are here today and gone tomorrow, which is true. But Isaiah also says that no sooner does a leader arise and God blows on them and they wither. God just blows like blowing out a candle and those leaders are gone. They are swept away like chaff. God cannot be compared to any human, no matter how great or powerful they may be.
The Immensity of God (Isaiah 40:25-26)
So Isaiah returns to the question. Who will you compare God or who is God’s equal? Let us take in one more picture that is given to us in verse 26. Look up and see the stars. The first thing we are to think about is who made all these stars? Who created the stars? The only answer is God. Now listen to the immensity of God in verse 26. God brings out the stars one by one and calls them all by name. Did you hear that God? God calls out the the stars by numbers and by name. It caused me to consider a question. Are there more stars in the universe or are there more grains of sand? The shocking answer is that there are innumerable more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on the earth. So I want us to think about what God is telling us. At the moment there are about 100 billion observable galaxies with the technology that we have. Please catch this number: 100 billion galaxies. Our galaxy was 30 billion stars in it. If we use our galaxy as an average, then we would say that there are 3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 observable stars. That is 3 with 21 zeroes after it. Now read verse 26 again. God calls out the stars one by one and calls each one of them by name. He calls them in marching order and names them one by one. I can’t keep my kids’ names straight at times.
Now read the rest of verse 26. Not one star is missing because of his great power and mighty strength. Not one is missing because he is strong in power. God is in full control with his great power. This picture that Isaiah gives us reminds us of what the writer of Hebrews proclaimed as he opened his book.
The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. (Hebrews 1:3 CSB)
When the writer of Hebrews says that the Son sustains all of the universe by his powerful word, he really means every aspect of creation. The whole universe is sustained and continues because God says so. We had another day today because God said so. The universe did what it did today because God said so. He upholds everything by his powerful word. God keeps track of billions times billions of stars. So what is the point? Look at verse 27.
Does God Care?
Why do you say that God does not see your troubles? Why do you say that God is not aware of what is happening to you? Why do you think that your cause is disregarded by God? What do you think that your difficulties have escaped God’s notice? God is not like anyone else or anything else. God does not forget. He does not lose track of things. He does not misplace things. He does not get overwhelmed with running the world. He does not lose track of you or is somehow unaware of your circumstances. We need to see that God is like no other so that we will stop comparing God to ourselves. We think God does not care because sometimes we do not care about things. We think God forgets because we sometimes forget. We think God will not vindicate our righteousness because we see human leaders being unjust and not upholding the righteous and the innocent. God is not like us. God does not think like us. God does not act like us. God cannot be compared to us. Friends, God has his eyes on you and your life and has not lost track of you.
At the beginning of the lesson, I turned our attention to a hymn, “Where could I go but to the Lord?” This is what Isaiah wants his people to understand. Who is like God that you would go anywhere else? When we put our trust in possessions and wealth, we are trusting in our Dagon idol that has no power and simply breaks down. But we are tempted to put God next to our stuff and want to trust in both. We will trust in God so long as we have our health, our wealth, our families, our careers, our comforts, or whatever else we deem as our Dagon idol. God cares so why would we run away from him? Why would we turn to other things that are not gods at all? Why would we avoid the one who counts the stars and names them? Why would we leave the one who is enthroned above the earth? Who is like our God who loves and cares for his people?