In Isaiah 40, the Lord speaks through Isaiah to his people to give them comfort. The greatest comfort you can ever have in this world is knowing God. No one cares about you more than God does. God wants the people to see him the right way. The people think that God does not care what they are going through and will not act on their behalf (cf. Isaiah 40:27). But Isaiah prophesies about the God they need to see when the Christ comes for his people (cf. Isaiah 40:3-5). The first picture that God gave to his people in Isaiah 40 is a picture of himself as a saving shepherd. God comes for his people using his mighty, saving power to gather his sheep to himself. God himself will stoop down and gather his sheep into his arms, drawing them near and caring for them (Isaiah 40:10-11). But now the Lord wants to give another picture to his people. God wants to give his people another lens so that they will see him properly. Open your copies of God’s word to Isaiah 40:12-17.
The Enormity of God (Isaiah 40:12)
You will notice that the way God is going to give the right lens to his people so that they can be comforted is by asking them a number of questions. Consider the first question. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand? Take your hand and cup it like you were trying to hold water in your hand. That little circle divot in your palm is the hollow of your hand. Now think about what God says. Who can measure the waters of the earth in the hollow of your hand? I had to think about this one for a minute so I did a little research. The Atlantic Ocean is 32.78 million square miles. The Pacific Ocean is 60 million square miles. These two oceans encompass about 47% of the earth. They are larger than all the continents combined. God says he holds all of the waters of the earth (not just these two oceans) in the hollow of his hand and measured them.
The second question tracks to a similar idea. Who has marked off the heavens with the span of his hand? God says that he can measure the sky with the width of his hand. We are so small that we cannot even measure the sky over us with the span of our hand. We certainly cannot measure all of the heavens with the span of our hand. This reminds me of a math workbook that asks you to use the appropriate measuring tool. It will ask you if you would measure a house in feet or in inches. Of course measuring in inches is an inappropriate measurement. No human says that we will measure the size of the sky with the span of our hand. It is an inappropriate measurement. But God it is completely possible and appropriate. He can measure all of the skies with the span of his hand. How big are you if you can measure the sky and the stars with the span of your hand?
The third question is also in verse 12. Who has gathered the dust of the earth in a basket? Who has weighed the mountains on the scales? Who has set the hills on the measuring balance? Who can take all the dirt of the earth and put it in a bowl? Who can take a mountain and weigh it? Many years ago we went to the top of Pike’s Peak in Colorado. Pike’s Peak is over 14,000 feet high. When you get to the top, you are so high up that it is a great struggle to breathe. You can feel the weight and the burn in your lungs. Our youngest daughter started turning blue while we were up there due to the lack of oxygen. The mountain is so great that humans become lightheaded on top it. God says he can pick it up and measure it. We are being asked to see the enormity of God. We are supposed to see that we do not serve a small God. Nothing is too big for God. Nothing is too much for God. No matter how big we think something is in our lives or in this world, it is not too big for God.
The Extraordinary Wisdom of God (Isaiah 40:13-14)
The next set of questions point to another attribute of God. Look at Isaiah 40:13-14. Who can tell the Spirit of the Lord what to do? Who can give God counsel? Who wants to raise their hand and tell God that they have some advice that he should listen to? In verse 14 the questions flip to the other direction. Who do you think the Lord consulted so that he received understanding? Who taught God? Who did God consult when he made the world? The Babylonian god Marduk was said to have received counsel when he created. False gods need help. But the true God was not taught anything. You were taught everything you know. Your parents taught you. Your friends taught you. God and his word have taught you. But who taught God? Who was God’s teacher so that he learned what is just? Who explained to God the world so that he had knowledge and the way of understanding?
Let me ask these questions in a more personal way so that we can appreciate the lens that God is trying to give to us so that we see him properly. What do you understand that you should give counsel to the Lord? What wisdom do you have so that you should tell God what to do? What comprehension do you have that you need to explain things to God? God is the way of understanding. God has all understanding and comprehension, not us. To tie this back to the last point, if we cannot measure the world, how do we think that we can measure or comprehend God? His wisdom is too vast. His knowledge is too great. There is nothing that we can explain to him as if he does not know or understand.
The Importance of God (Isaiah 40:15-17)
The third characteristic in this section of Isaiah 40 is to show the significance of God. Look at verse 15. The nations are like a drop in a bucket. How important is a drop in a bucket? When you get done mopping the floor, how concerned are you if there is a drop of water left in the bucket? A drop of water is nothing. Please hear what God just said. All the nations of the earth are a drop in the bucket to him. Every nation today and throughout human history think that they are so important. They think their actions are so important. They think their governments are so transformative. They think their policies are so critical. God looks at the nations as a drop. Keep reading in verse 15. The nations are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales. If you are measuring something on a scale, how important is a speck of dust? If you are going to weigh yourself on the scale, do you make sure that there is not a speck of dust on the scale because it is going to radically alter the results? No, not at all. The speck of dust is completely insignificant. The speck of dust has no importance at all. It does not change anything. It does not move the needle at all.
Keep reading the next picture in verse 15. He picks up the islands like they are fine dust. We make much of the islands. These are beautiful destination vacation locations. We build resorts on them. We make them human playgrounds so that we can take a rest. But the islands are like dust to him. God is so great that according to verse 16 all the cedars of Lebanon are not enough to be fuel for offerings to God. At that time Lebanon was considered to have the greatest forests with huge cedar trees. But even the forests of Lebanon and all of its animals are inadequate as a sacrifice to the Lord. You know that we think what we offer God is so important. We think if we worship today that God should be impressed. We think God should be so pleased because we came for worship. Isaiah says that you could take miles of land possessing the greatest trees and countless animals that is still not enough because God is that great and that important. Notice how this is emphasized in verse 17.
All the nations are as nothing before the Lord. Does this remind you of Psalm 2? The psalmist asks in Psalm 2 why do the nations rage and plot against the Lord and his plans. Why are they trying to resist the Lord and what he is doing in the world? When you understand the greatest and importance of God, then we would see that this is completely ridiculous to do. The nations are as nothing before. They are considered by God as nothing and emptiness. We think we are so important. We think this country is so important. God counts this country and every country as nothing. God counts nations as unimportant. God does not look down at peoples and nations and think, “Oh no! What shall I do?” In the words of Psalm 2, God looks down at the nations and laughs (cf. Psalm 2:4). God looks down and shrugs his shoulders. Psalm 2 says he holds the nations in derision. He scoffs at their plans.
Messages
Now it is important to remember that the purpose of Isaiah 40 is to provide comfort to his people (cf. Isaiah 40:1). God’s people are to get up on the mountains and shout the good news, “Behold your God!” (cf. Isaiah 40:9). So how are these pictures changing our view of God so that we would experience the comfort God wants us to have?
We need to see that we are nothing without God. We think we are so much without God. We think we can do so much without him. We think we can successfully resist him. We think we can control our future. We think we can make plans without him. We think we can control our destiny. We think we can take matters into our own hands. All of this thinking is complete foolishness. One of the point of these pictures is to see our complete nothingness before him. He is so great and we are nothing. We look at everything that is so much bigger than us and fail to think about how these things are showing us that God is even bigger. James tries to remind us of this truth by pointing out something we can regularly be trapped with saying.
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:13-16 ESV)
We think we have so much power and we are so great. But James reminds us that this is simply not the case. You do not know what tomorrow will bring. You do not remember that your life is just a mist. You are here for a little time and then you will vanish and you do not have any control over when that will be. When we see that we are nothing before God then we will say what James tells us to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
But we would miss the point if we left things right here. The point is not that you are nothing so get over yourself. Rather, the point is you are nothing without God so how amazing is it that God loves and cares for you? David drew this very conclusion and I believe it is the conclusion that Isaiah wants his people to make.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? (Psalm 8:3-4 ESV)
The enormity of God as the wise Creator is to make us amazed that he did not say you are a drop in the bucket to him. No, God is mindful of you and cares for you.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6-7 ESV)
God did not tell you to humble yourself under the mighty hand of God because you are so small and he is so great (which is certainly true). Rather, humble yourself so that God can exalt you. Humble yourself by casting all your cares on him because he cares for you. Trust him because he cares for you. Love him because he cares for you. Obey him because he cares for you. Turn from sin because he cares for you. Seek him because he cares for you. Hope in him because he cares for you. Our value and our worth is not in ourselves or in what we do. Our value and our worth are in God because he made us in his image. God’s people were saying that God did not care (cf. Isaiah 40:27). God shows how much he loves us and cares for us, as small as we are, because God pays attention to each one of us. Jesus even said the hairs of our head are numbered to our Father because that is the kind of care and attention he has for his people (cf. Matthew 10:30; Luke 12:7). Seeing the enormity of God shows us that he care for you in all that suffer and experience in this life.