Isaiah 40:12-17: Worship

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good morning everyone. It is Sunday, February sixteenth, twenty twenty five. It is currently ten forty four am Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now that means, obviously I'm not coming to you live from Victory Baptist Church located in the middle of nowhere, Texas. No, I'm coming to you here because we're not having in person services this morning. So hopefully if you look at everything, I've already given an hour of teaching last night late last night that was already uploaded. This morning, I gave about forty minutes of teaching just about what five minutes ago, So that's already an hour and forty minutes of teaching being made available.

1:00 Now I'm about to do another so that's going to be about two hours and forty minutes of content. And if I do another hour, yeah, so I'm putting together as much content as I can. Hopefully the discussions have been beneficial. Hopefully the discussion about Matthew six and worry and anxiety last night was important. I wasn't completely happy with the way it came across, but I think it was an important discussion. The discussion about Isaiah forty through fifty five and what it says about modern preaching, I think was important. I separated that out from this because I was going to have this kind as an introduction. I was going to do it kind of as an intro and just go through those points very quickly. But then I kind of realized, well, let's just make this its own standalone thing, because I think it's because when well, when you're doing it this way, when you're just broadcasting from here, I can break this down anyway I want.

1:56 I can do twenty minutes, thirty minutes break it. I can break it down anyway I want. So all of that is available, all of that is ready to go. But now we've got a well, let's see if we can advance. We've been working on Isaiah. We've been working in this study on basically Isaiah forty through fifty five since October of twenty twenty four. We're now in February of twenty twenty five. We're still in Isaiah chapter forty. We're still in chapter forty. Now a lot of all of that time and hours were spent out. In fact, we've done about thirty five almost forty hours of teaching on Isaiah forty through fifty five, almost forty hours total of content. Maybe even more than that, I'd have to like, I think it's getting close to forty hours, and we have reviewed sermons, we've been talking about so many issues pertaining to all of this. I think we've really laid down a good understanding of it. So let's just make it very simple. Isaiah forty through fifty five are words of comfort given to Judah who's in Babylonian exileum Babylonian captivity.

3:01 They are being told that their time of captivity or time of exile is coming to an end, and they're going to be delivered. They're going to be delivered ultimately humanly speaking, through Cyrus. He's going to come in and then he will take over and he will let Judah return to rebuild the temple. So all of these words and Isaiah forty through fifty five must be interpreted. They must be interpreted in light of who they were originally given to. Not to you, not to me, not to us, not to the church. They were originally given to Israel, Judah and Babylonian captivity. They must be interpreted that way, They must be applied that way. Any application we draw from it must remain true to that context. If you do not do that, then there's no point. You're just going to church wasting your time. And as we just spoke about just in the previous broadcast what five minutes ago, modern preaching, it's a systemic problem. After reviewing over one hundred sermons, Artificial Intelligence came to the same conclusion that there is a systemic problem in Christianity when it comes to the preaching of Isaiah forty through fifty five. Artificial Intelligence described it as shocking, as systemic, as wrong. That no, none of these sermons are doing justice to the text.

4:27 That's Ai who doesn't have any you know, motive other than trying to say based on the text, these sermons are not handling it correctly. And what's maddening is how many times in Isaiah forty through fifty five the text itself tries to show you who it's about, but it doesn't seem to matter because a sermon after sermon after sermon. We've seen this problem so today we are in Isaiah forty and we are going to look at verses twelve through seventeen. That's the goal, at least in this broadcast, Isaiah forty twelve through seventeen. Let's read starting back in Isaiah chapter forty, we'll just kind of briefly go through this quickly. Versus one through eleven, which we've now covered verse by verse exegetically. We've talked about them a million different ways. We've reviewed I don't even know how many sermons already on Isaiah forty one through eleven. But let's go through these quickly, right, Isaiah chapter forty, Verse one, comfort ye, comfort ye. These are words of comfort. Someone's being told to bring comfort, bring comfort to whom comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God, who is the my people, the my people. Go back to Isaiah thirty nine, verses five through eight. It's those going into Babylonian captivity, which was Judah. Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people. Words of comfort are to be brought to those in captivity.

5:48 It's not about you, it's not about me. It's not about you ripping this out of context and whatever problem you're going through. Oh, the words of Isaiah brought me such great comfort. It brought me such great peace. Slap you across the face fifteen times. It's not for you, it's for them, all right. I don't know how many times I have to say that. All right, So comfort ye, comfort e my people, saith your God, Speak ye comfortably, And just in case you missed it and you still don't get it, speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned for she hath to receive the Lord's hand double for all her sins, the her, the she that is all referencing Jerusalem, all right, Jerusalem, the capital of the southern Kingdom of Judah. I mean, I don't know how you cannot get to get around this, Okay, but let's continue verse three. The voice of Him that cries in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord makes straight the desert a highway for our God. Yes, I know the New Testament uses this and refers and basically is saying John the Baptist is doing something similar, But in this context it's not about John the Baptist.

7:05 We get into all the possible discussions and who it's referencing. And we talked about Cyrus, the Decree of Cyrus and as a chapter one, and we talked about all of that. Every valley shall be exalted, every mountain shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough place is plain. What is that a reference to. That's a reference directly to all obstacles everything in the way of Judah, going back to Israel, going back to Jerusalem. All of those obstacles are going to be made, are going to be removed, and everything is going to mad right so that they can return again. We talked about the Decree of Cyrus as Rich chapter one and how this all played out. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Verse six.

7:48 The voice said cry, And he said, what shall I cry? All flesh is grass. All the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass wither it, the flower fadeth, the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. The people is grass. The grass wither at the flower fadeth. But the word of our God shall stand forever. This is demonstrating, Hey, no matter what you're facing, no matter the obstacles you the Babylonians, it doesn't matter who. Everything else is like well grass, it's like the flower. It's all gonna fade. The one thing that will stand is the Word of God. And it stands and it remains true, irregardless of circumstances, and irregardless of any obstacles you may be facing. Again dealing with their captivity Verses nine through eleven.

8:31 Again just so that there's no confusion in who's being spoken of Isaiah forty verse nine, O Zion, that bring us good tidings. Get thee up into the high mountains, Oh Jerusalem, that bring us good tidings. Lift up thy voice with strength, lift it up. Be not afraid, say unto the cities of Judah. Behold your God, Behold your God. God is the one moving. But God is gonna be moving. God is gonna be delivering them. God is gonna be fulfilling his covenant promises to them. But he's going to be doing it in this particular case with ordinary means, not extraordinary, but ordinary. He's going to bring in Cyrus. Cyrus is going to do though. But they need to see the work of God in the ordinary, and we talked a lot about that verse ten. Behold, the Lord God will come with a strong hand. His arms shall rule for him. Behold, his reward is with him, his work, his work before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd. He shall gather his lambs with his arm, carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. This is all in reference to what God is going to do for Judah to bring them out, to provide, bring them into Jerusalem. But it's going to be done through ordinary means, and we talked a lot about that. Now that brings us to then Isaiah forty twelve through seventeen, and here we're going to really look at the incomparable greatness of God that Israel need to to see, everyone needs to see. Judah needs

10:02 to see specifically that their God is great, their God is greater, because they are going to be greatly influenced and greatly tempted. And we spent all of our time last week talking about this. The idolatry and religious practices of Babylon that would have been greatly influential upon those in captivity. The Babylonian idols, their gods would have been all around them. The religious practices they would have greatly influenced those in Judah, greatly impacted them, or even tempted them to possibly mix some of the Babylonian ideas with the ideas of the true God of Israel and some kind of syncretism. And we talked about all of that and all of the influence. So now it's going to be like, hey, what you need to understand is your God is incomparable. Nothing can compare to your God because it's trying to help those in captivity. So we're going to break this section down and we're going to see what we can try to figure out. What we need to understand is Isaiah forty twelve through seventeen is part of a larger passage where God reassures his people of his greatness, reassures his people of his sovereignty, and reassures his people over his power over all creation. Now, why do they need to be reassured of his greatness? Because they need to see that their God is greater than the gods of Babylon Because in this context, well, the Babylonians defeated them. The Babylonians tore down their temple. So

11:32 maybe the gods of Babylon is greater than the God of Israel because from a human perspective, from a site perspective, their gods beat our gods. And that's very much the way it would have worked in that ancient culture. If you beat them, then your gods beat their gods. Well, for those in Judah, their temple is in ruins, and they can look around and the Babylonian temple for their major god is his tower is like all of the different things they have there are there. So they need to be reassured that their God is great. They need to understand that their God is sovereign. At this point, it looks like the Babylonian gods are sovereign, not the God of Israel, because well, Israel's well, the northern kingdom is gone into Assyria, the southern kingdom is now in Babylonian captivity. They need to understand this, and they need to understand that the Israel's God has the power over all creation. They've got to see his power and his greatness.

12:32 This section emphasizes God's transcendence. It will emphasize his wisdom, emphasize his supremacy over the nations, challenging any notion that he can be measured, instructed, or rivaled. This is like, okay, guys, look, I know you see what's around you. I know you see everything around you. Screams Babylon is greater than us. Their armies are better than us. They're more powerful than us. Their gods are greater than our gods. Their temple is better than our temple. Everything about that. And so this is like, okay, guys, we've got to do this before you come out of Babylonian captivity. You need to kind of go to theology one oh one, and we've got to be reminded of the God of Israel now, but you've got to be understanding that they're going to have to understand this by faith, not by sight. If they look, they're going to be like, well, our God, where is our God? He we've been in captivity all of this time.

13:29 Where is our God? So they're going to have to understand this by faith, not by sight. Now, if we read the text Isaiah forty twelve through seventeen, I'll read it in two translations. I'll start with the ESV Isaiah forty twelve through seventeen. Who has measured the waters and the hollow of his hand, and marked off the heavens with a span, and closed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighe the mountains and the scales, and the hills and a ballots. Who has measured the spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel did, the whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and and showed him the way of understanding. Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust of the scales. Behold, he takes up the coastlands like the fine dust. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, are nor are its beast enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before him, or as nothing before him. They are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. Right now, I'm going to read it from the King James, who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meeted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the

15:00 mountains and scales, and the heels in a balance, who has directed the spirit of the Lord of being being his counselor hath taught him with whom took he counsel, and who instructed him and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding. Behold, the nations are a drop of a bucket, and are counted as a small as the small dust of the balance. Behold, he taketh up the aisles as a very little thing. Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beast thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing and than at tea. All right, So we have to see now, if you hear those words and you understand the context, I think they began to make sense. So let's look at the immediate context. Let's look at the immediate context.

15:50 I think this is important, all right. The immediate context this passage Isaiah forty twelve through seventeen, which we've kind of already discussed. We've kind of already broken it down, but I just want to make sure we double down on this so that we understand it. This passage follows the opening section of Isaiah forty one through eleven, where God declares comfort and restoration for Judah, restoration for Israel. This section is part of a broader argument which goes from twelve to thirty one, which demonstrates God's incomparable power and contrast to the weakness of idols and human rulers. All right, so the point the first part was, hey, be comforted. Basically, it's all coming to an end. You're gonna be set free. God's gonna deliver you, God's gonna care for you, God's gonna feed you. It's kind of like comfort, comfort, comfort. Then all of a sudden, in twelve, almost basically to the end of chapter forty, it shifts and it's like, hey, guys, guys, you need to understand the God of Israel. You need to understand him, you need to perceive him. You need to see him by faith.

16:58 And you've got to see the God of Israel even though everything around you is going to call into question the God of Israel and his greatness, his wisdom, his knowledge, and his power. Right, So I think that makes sense. That's kind of the immediate context. Now, what about a structural breakdown of the section. Well, verse twelve, right, I think this is pretty simple. Let's read verse twelve. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand? Meeted out heaven with the span and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains and scales and the hills in a balance. This is demonstrating God's sovereignty, the God of Israel, his sovereignty over all of creation. It's using rhetorical questions. I think we can all see that to emphasize God's control over the physical universe. It's asking a rhetorical question, who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand? One? Okay, only one who can do that, The God of Israel, who's made it out of heaven with the span and comprehended the dust of the earth and a measure and weighed the mountains and scales and the hills and the balance.

18:09 The God of Israel, the God of Judah. He's the one who does this, not the gods of Babylon. Verses thirteen through fourteen. Who hath directed the spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor hath taught him with whom took key counsel, and who instructed him and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge and shewed to him the way of understanding. So first thing they need to understand is God's sovereignty over creation. The second thing they want them that this text is trying to help them understand is God's infinite wisdom. It challenges the idea that God needs instruction from anyone. So which God is superior over all of creation? The God of Judah, which God has infinite wisdom and needs no one to instruct him, or no, the God of Judah. Now again, from a human perspective, if you're in Babylonian captivity, the God of Judas seems inferior, seems weak compared to the gods of Babylon. But they need to see, so they're going to have to see what they can't see see.

19:15 Their vision would be like, well, the God's Babylon obviously are greater. No no, no, no no, the God of Judah is greater overall of creation. And from a human perspective, you'd be like, hey, God, could you give me a call, because I don't think you know what you're doing. What does the text say, who hath verse thirteen through fourteen, Who hath directed the spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor hath taught him with whom took key counsel, and who instructed him and taught him in the path of judgment and taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding. It's all rhetorical questions. No one. God doesn't need a counselor God doesn't need this instruction. Again, from a human perspective, you would be like, I've got a problem. They're gonna have to understand this and receive this and accept this in spite of what they see and what they feel. All right, now, now you can see the context here. How about verse fifteen, verse fifteen Isaiah forty, verse fifteen, behold the nations or as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance. Behold he taketh up the aisles as a very little thing. Now again, they're gonna have to see our God is greater than all the nations.

20:30 Now from a human perspective, they would be like, well, Babylon is greater than our God, because our God got beat up. Our God got defeated, our God got destroyed. But they're gonna have to see by faith. No no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no, It's not that way. So if we have a structural breakdown here, verse twelve is about God's sovereignty over all of creation. Verses thirteen through fourteen is about God's infinite wisdom, and verse fifteen is the insignificance of nations compared to the God of Judah, the God of Israel. How about verse sixteen and Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beast thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. Verse sixteen is the inadequacy of human worship to match God's greatness.

21:17 This is trying to show. Look, Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beast there of sufficient for a burnt offering. If you took everything in Lebanon, you took all the animals in Lebanon, It's not sufficient to offer an offering to the God of Judah. He is far greater our worship is in we could say this is inadequate, no matter what we offer, no matter who all that we give to God, it's inadequate compared to his How would we say this his income. Let's go with the idea of we'll call it God being incomparable. I think that God is so incomparable that our worship cannot compare. Our worship is not worthy of this God. It's really trying to emphasize. I know you're in captivity. I know you may be suffering, and I know you probably have a lot of philological and religious thoughts about God. And you may have concluded that your God is weaker, your God has been defeated. You may conclude that your God doesn't have a clue what to do. But you need to understand that Israel Judah, that your God is sovereign overall of creation, He has infinite wisdom, doesn't need your counsel, doesn't need your instruction that the nation's Babylon, any other nation, Persia, doesn't matter, whom is insignificant compared to God. And you need to understand that your ability to worship is inadequate

22:48 compared to the greatness, the incomparability of the God of Judah. And then number five, look at verse seventeen. All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. This is to show them that the nothingness of nations before God. All these nations are nothing before your God. Now, it's going to be hard for them to see that. This goes against everything they see. Right. Wait, the nations are nothing before our God. Babylon defeated our God, destroyed our God. No, no, our God is nothing before the Babylonian gods. But they're going to have to see by faith. Now, I want you to understand this. There is nothing they are encountering.

23:34 There is nothing that they are witnessing. There is nothing that they see that would tell them Our God is sovereign over all of creation. They would not see that. They would not see Our God has infinite wisdom. They would be questioning the wisdom of God. The nations are insignificant compared to our God. They would not see that. They may not realize that no matter how they worship God, it's it's inadequate because God is greater, and they with their eyes, they would they would see nothing that would show them that the nations are nothingness before their God.

24:17 They would none of every one of those statements. Every one of those facts flies in face to what they see and what they are experiencing. Life calls it look this. So now, if we want to make this applicable, we're the same. We're not in literal Babylonian captivity, but we are in captivity to a fallen world. We are in this world, whether we like it or not, and we suffer all the consequences of a fallen world, corruptible bodies that get sick, there's pain they're suffering. There's crime, there's disease, there's death, and everything around you Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday should make you go. I don't know if God is really sovereign of all of creation. I really question God's infinite wisdom, because if God is so wise, I could give you about seventy five things probably in about five minutes that I think you should probably change, or we consider doing the insignificance of the nations. While all we do is worry, and all we seem to be preoccupied is with our nation and their nation and this nation, and do this, and our politicians need to do this, and we need to do this. We seem to see the nations as greater than God. The inadequacy of human worship.

25:30 I think sometimes we think our worship is adequate. But it never is because I think we have a tendency to exalt ourself and our worth and our value. And then I think again, sometimes we don't see the nothingness of the nations before God. So if you want an application, we're in the same boat Christianity. That the life of a Christian is living a life of faith where you believe in that which reality around you completely contradicts and calls into question. Now, we like to create a Christianity where supposedly things work that that disproves this reality that we see. But no, what disproves this reality is what we believe by faith, because reality itself calls into question everything we believe. All right, So now let's break that.

26:25 So that's kind of like a structural breakdown. So if you want to go verses twelve through seventeen, you could write it this way. This is what you see, all right. You see God's sovereignty over creation, God's infinite wisdom, the insignificance of nations compared to God, the inadequacy of human worship, and the nothingness of nations before God. It's very simple breakdown. Now, if we want to kind of dig in more from an exegetical standpoint. All right, we can then look at we want if we want to try to break this down even that's just like your basic structure. I mean, we could really stop right there, and that would be more so. We've already done more than most sermons will even do. But now let's break it down and kind of do like an exegetical analysis. Let's really break this down.

27:06 Let's look at verse twelve. I'm gonna read it again from the King James, who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and meet it out heaven and the span with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains and scales and the hills in a balance. Right, so we get this imagery of measurements. The hollow of his hand refers to God's ability to hold all the oceans if they're just a drop. That's the idea there, God can take all the oceans and right there in his hand, showing God's greatness. Subferty, it's using a poetic language, but you're getting the idea God could take all the waters of the earth and basically holding in his hands or all the waters of the ocean the span of his hand.

27:54 Typically this is understood the distance between the thumb and the pinky. It symbolizes his ability to measure the universe effortlessly. Right. So if you look at this, who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and meeted out heaven with the span on one and so think of it one hand, all the oceans on the other hand, the heavens. Right, so he can he can measure the universe in his hand. He can measure out the universe in one hand, and all the oceans in the other the heavens and the oceans and in his hand. Again, it's using a poetic to illustrate his greatness over both.

28:35 God has weighed the mountains as in as if on a scale, emphasizing his control over the physical world, whether it's water, whether it's land, or whether it's heavens. He is sovereign over all water, land, or the heavens now. The philological implication seems pretty clear. Creation is finite and me God is infinite and immeasurable. The language is emphasizing God's complete sovereignty over nation, over nature, I should say, a contrast to pagan gods who are often linked to a specific aspect of nature but never ruled over all of it. And Babylon, you may have a god connected to this part of nature, or are God connected to this part of nature, but they don't rule over all of nature. The God of Judah over rules over everything, the heavens, the oceans, and the land, all of it.

29:38 Now again, their circumstance would say, your God doesn't rule over anything. Your God couldn't even protect his own temple in Jerusalem. Your God couldn't protect you because you're in captivity. Your God is weak, Your God's been defeated. Your God is sovereign over nothing. So they have to go to theology class to be told, no, no, no, no no. The God of Judah is superior, is over all of this, the heavens, the oceans, the mountains, and you would and of course any reasonable logical person would be like, that makes no sense. Now again, the Christian life, if we want to apply to us, is by faith believing that which everything around you says is not true or accurate.

30:29 Now we always want to believe no, no, no, no, no, God, see this happens, and this happens, and this happens. We love to It doesn't work that way. Judah couldn't have Judah if they were into a theological debate. Judah couldn't have done anything. Juda could be like, well, this is what God says, and that would be like yeah, and all the evidence proves otherwise. That's the whole concept of by faith. How about thirteen through fourteen. Who hath just directed the spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor hath taught him with whom took key counsel, and who instructed him and taught him in the path of judgment and taught him knowledge and showed to him the way of understanding. Now we've already broken these passages down from like just a structural breakdown. Now we're kind of really digging into each one. Well, if verse twelve is about God's sovereignty over creation, and we now kind of looked at it in greater detail, now verses thirteen through fourteen is about God's infinite wisdom. Now again the rhetorical questions.

31:25 These questions emphasized God's self sufficiency and wisdom. The implied answer is no one. The implied answer is no one. So let's look at it. Who has directed the spirit of the Lord. No one who has been his counselor no one who has taught him, no one with whom took he counsel, no one who instructed him, no one who taught him, no one who taught him in the path of judgment, no one who taught him knowledge, no one who showed him the way of understanding. No one. It's rhetorical questions, right. It is emphasizing God's self sufficiency and wisdom. God needs no teacher, God needs no counselor God needs no guide. So what is the theological concepts here? Well, obviously his omniscience. God possesses all knowledge and does not learn or acquire wisdom from any source. Justice. God alone defines what is just and righteous humans do not instruct him on it. This is in contrast with human leaders, kings, and rulers, who require advisers, but God has none because he is all wise. I think this. I think it's a demonstration over things, over a couple of things. The God of Judah, the God of Israel, is all knowing, know one can instruct it, so that therefore the God of Israel is greater than the kings of Babylon, Persia or any other nation, and God is greater than all the pagan gods of Babylon. Now again humanly speaking, well,

33:00 the gods of Babylon must be wiser than the God of Israel, since the God of Babylon figured out a way to I don't know, destroy your temple and take you all into captivity. So again you have to believe this by faith. Now verse fifteen, behold the nations or as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance. Behold, he taketh up the aisles as a very little thing. Now this is the insignificant of nations. So all we're doing. I gave you the structure. Now we're just digging into that structure a little greater detail. We're kind of doing more of an exegetical breakdown. I give you the structural breakdown. Now we're doing an exegetical breakdown. Right, drop from a bucket. Nations which seem powerful and significant, are insignificant when compared to God's majesty. Dust on the scales. Dust is basically weightless.

33:48 It does not change the measurement of the scale. This conveys the utter nothingness of earthly powers compared to God's sovereignty. Right, if you have a scale and just a piece of a piece of dust fall on it, it doesn't impact it. Now, of course, if you had a massive dust storm and the dust piles up, it's just saying a piece of dust is nothing. It doesn't do anything. Well, look at that text. Be old the nations or as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as small dust of the balance. Behold, he taketh up the aisles as a very little thing. In other words, all these nations are insignificant. They're nothing compared to God. All right, So he demonstrates the insignificance of the nation. So I again, I've given you the structure. Let me go through it again. Verse twelve is God's sovereignty over creation. I gave you the structure.

34:39 I explained it. Now we're breaking it down into greater detail. God's infinite wisdom Verses thirteen through fourteen. Fifteen the insignificance of nations. Now verse sixteen the inadequacy of worship. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beast enough for a burnt offering. Lebanon had vast resources. Lebanon was famous for its massive cedar forests and abundant wildlife. Yet even if all of its trees were burned and all of its animals sacrificed, it would still be an adequate to offer proper worship to God. So what is the implication? No human effort, no matter how grand, is a match for God's worthiness. Worship must be rooted in recognizing God's greatness, not human effort. When we worship God, the focus is not on us. It's not on what we're bringing. It's not on us being good boys and girls and look at us worship God. It's not about us drawing attention to ourselves. Oh look at me, I'm doing this, I'm doing It's not about us. What it is is when we come to worship God. It's like God, it's us recognizing in the moment of worship. True worship happens at the moment you recognize you are unworthy and God is incomprehensible, He is incomparable, and He is greater than you, more sovereign, overever, when the minutes you feel your smallness and you acknowledge

36:09 God's greatness. Worship happens the minute you understand your nothingness, your worthlessness, your depravity, your sin, what you deserve, and God's incomparable, incomprehensible greatness. That's when worship occurs. Doesn't matter how many songs you sing, doesn't matter, if you raise your hands, fall on the floor, if you're quiet, if you're still, worship only happens. Worship can happen, and you don't need any songs. You don't need anything. You just need at the moment to come into your realization God's greatness and your utter nothingness. That's when worship occurs. At that moment, the moment your brain realizes God is this and I am nothing. Worship is where you become crushed, You become humbled, you become all of your self sufficiency, all of your works, all of how good you think you are, all of that self righteousness just is gone and you're like God, woe is me? God is greater than me. That's when worship occurs. Doesn't happen, and whether you sing three songs, five songs, ten songs, it doesn't matter.

37:17 If the sermon is an hour long, ten minutes long. None of that worship occurs at the moment an individual is confronted with that reality. And Judah needed to be reminded. Your worship is in it's insufficient, it's nothing. Worship is rooted in recognizing God's greatness, not your effort. It's not about what you do, right, it's not what worship is. When we cease to basically exist. If we talk about worship and oh, when we make it at us, what we felt, what we got from it, Oh, it was wonderful.

38:04 We make it all about when we walk out of worship and we're still talking about us, then it wasn't worship. When you worshiped, you don't talk about you because you realize you're nothing. So again we're just breaking down twelve through seventeen. Again, what is the breakdown? God's sovereignty over creation, God's infinite wisdom, the insignificant of nations, and the inadequacy of worship. And now verse seventeen, the nothingness of nations. All right, I'm going to read all the nations or as nothing before him. They are accounted by Him as less than nothing in emptiness. Now the language escalates less than nothing, and emptiness amplifies the insignificance of human power.

38:51 They are less than How can you be less than nothing? See, it's escalating the language. So what is the key theological idea? While nations may seem powerful, they're utterly powerless before God's rule. This was very relevant to Israel, who feared Babylon but needed to be reminded that God is greater than any empire, any of them. They constantly forget this over and over and over, just like we constantly forget it because we constantly live a life around circumstances and situations that are completely contradictory to what we believe about God. Because what we believe God is greater than all of this, but our reality seems to show that the situation, circumstances, and reality is greater than God. So what are the key theological themes? I think I've now kind of driven this.

39:46 I think have really doubled down on this. God's sovereignty over creation. He is above all things and controls all things. God's infinite wisdom. No one instructs God. He is self sufficient. The insignificance of nations, political military powers are meaningless compared to God, and the inadequacy of human worship. No amount of human effort can match God's greatness. Those are the key theological themes I've now repeated them like fifteen times. So application specially for them, they need to trust in God's sovereignty instead of fearing human rulers or circumstances. They had to rest in God's absolute control. What should we do?

40:30 We have to We have to trust in God's sovereignty. And that's something we do by faith, because by sight it's very difficult. We have to recognize our limits. We cannot instruct God, question his wisdom, or fully comprehend his ways. We have to recognize. They had to recognize it. We have to recognize it. God doesn't need us, and we're never going to truly understand and we can't instruct God. And then I think this should break us so that we are left with worshiping in humility. True worship is when we acknowledge God's majesty and rather than our performance. That again, worship happens at the minute we understand our nothingness, we kind of disappear, we disintegrate, we fall apart. It becomes nothing, and all of it becomes us about God.

41:19 We know that we have no righteousness to bring that would be adequate to God. We have nothing. We have literally nothing. The only thing we can bring to God is our sin and our unworthiness. They needed to realize that Israel needed to realize that, See, you can get this idea. Well, God, we worship you, we bring you worship, we lift up our hands, we come to church, we do this, we do this, we do this, we do this as if somehow now God owes us because we're bringing our greatest worship. If you take everything in Lebanon, all the trees and all the animals, it's not worthy. Well, if you take everything you can ever bring to God in your entire life, it's of nothing, it's of don't think we're doing God a favor. Our worship is unworthy.

42:16 Now I've got some I got some questions here I could ask, but I don't think I'm going to do that because I think we've kind of really dug in here. Basically, Isaiah forty twelve to seventeen. It magnifies God's greatness, It magnifies his sovereignty, it magnifies his wisdom, and it calls us to trust and to worship humbly. It calls us to humbly acknowledge his supremacy over all things. The passage serves as a powerful reminder that nothing no nation, no ruler, no human effort can compare to God. Now again, what was the structural breakdown here? What was the breakdown here?

42:58 Let me go all the way back up in minds so right Verse twelve, God's sovereignty over creation, Verses thirteen through fourteen, God's infinite wisdom, God's fifteen or verse fifteen, the insignificance of nations compared to God, Verse sixteen, the inadequacy of human worship to match God's greatness, and verse seventeen the nothingness of the nations before God. That is the structure. We went over that structure twice at least repeated, and then we expanded so that you truly understood it.

43:43 Hopefully you understand why we'd spent two hours last week looking at the Babylonian gods and the Babylonian religious system, because this is directly linked to that those in Judah were facing what appeared to be the greatness and the power of a nation Babylon, the greatness and the power of kings and earthly rulers, and the greatness and the power of their religious system, the power of a nation, the power of individuals or rulers, and the power of a religion. They were confronted with those three things, and what they needed to do was go to theology class and be taught no, no, no, no, do not look to the nations, do not look to the rulers, and do not look to their gods, because the God of Judah is greater than all of that. But you're gonna have to believe it by faith because right now, at this very moment, all you see is Babylonian captivity. That's all you see. You don't know when you're gonna get out.

44:54 I'm telling you that it's coming to an end. But again, when this words were given to them, they weren't even in Babylonian captivity yet, and then they're there for seventy years. So we have to learn to see the reality of God by faith in spite of what we see around us, nations, people, rulers, false religions, but at all, when we see the greatness of God, then it should immediately bring us to and again that moment of worship. Worship is not something you do in church, it's not something you do. Worship is just at that whatever the moment is, wherever it occurs, where you become at a very moment you become aware of God's complete greatness and your absolute nothingness. You can go to church and walk away never worshiped. You can have could have had to worship hour. You can dedicate two hours to nothing but worship in your church, and everybody we go walk away going. It was such a great worship service. And I felt this, and I felt that the only thing you should have felt is that you're totally nothing and God is everything. Until you're brought to that point, worship did not occur. I cannot stress that enough. All right, that's Isaiah forty, twelve to seventeen.

46:27 So late last night we did an hour of teaching. Just right prior to this, did about forty minutes of teaching. Now we've done about forty six minutes of teaching. So it's multiple things. Hopefully you found some benefit in all of this. The next thing we need to try to attempt to do is at some point we need to work on Isaiah forty. Now this brings us to eighteen to twenty four, and I think we'll go eighteen to twenty four and then we need to do we'll finish up with twenty five through thirty one. So don't know if we'll do any of that today, but for now you've got plenty to consider and think about. All right, thank you for listening, God bless