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February 08, 2009
“The God Who Is There and Here”
Isaiah 40: 21-31
Sunday, February 8, 2009
We Christians live in two realms, the physical that we experience through our senses and the spiritual with which we interface through the Bible and our Faith and beliefs.
So did the Jewish people of Isaiah’s day. They lived in a material and political world that they experienced with their 5 senses. They also lived with an awareness of a realm beyond the material. They believed in God and they believed that God was working for their benefit in the world and the universe.
But their descendants would be living in a time when the events of the world would be so overwhelming to them that it would seem to crowd out any awareness of a spiritual realm. The Descendants of Isaiah’s generation would experience an upheaval in their world that would press in upon their existence so severely that it would make them doubt all of the things they had believed about the spiritual realm and their place in it.
The Old Testament Jews believed that God had brought them into their and His promised land. They believed that He would keep them safe in it forever. They viewed certain events of nations and empires trying to conquer Jerusalem and Israel and failing in the attempt to be God’s preserving them in their land. Each time such an event happened, it strengthened their faith in God and in their security in their land.
But during the lifetime of Isaiah a nation known as Babylon was becoming stronger and beginning to build an empire. In the lives of the generations that succeeded Isaiah’s the great might of the Babylonian Empire would be released against Israel and she would not be able to stand against it. Jerusalem and its glorious temple would be destroyed. Most of the people of Israel would be killed and the survivors would be marched off to places within the Babylonian Empire. With the destruction of their temple and their towns and cities came the destruction of their beliefs. They doubted that there was a God. Some of them probably worshipped the Babylonian gods, who seemed more powerful than the God of Israel in those days.
Many found it necessary to use all of their energies and imaginations to survive. They had no time or energy to spend on spiritual contemplations and cogitations.
Under the Inspiration of God, Isaiah wrote the poem contained in Chapter 40 for those who would come after him who would live in the midst of doubts about God.
I have read a portion of this poem to you because I think we live in a time when our physical and material realities have become so intense that we might doubt the spiritual realities that we have been taught or discovered through our searches. We live in an age when the external stimuli in our physical realm keep us so involved and so preoccupied that we have little time or energy to contemplate the spiritual realm. And the stimuli have become so attractive and addictive that we turn them on and keep plugged in to them in every daylight hour and sometimes even when we sleep.
A few weeks ago our youth group viewed a CD which made us sit in silence for about 5 minutes. Much of the presentation was done through white words printed on a black screen. Let me tell you, the silence was deafening.
The purpose of the CD presentation was to have us think about how difficult it is in our day to be quiet and experience the presence of God. After the presentation was over, I mused as to how noisy we like our lives, how when noise is not present, we manufacture it or bring it with us. Our cars all have radios and CD players. I remember the days when Jogging and Running became prominent physical activities. In the beginning a part of the idea of running was to get out in nature, to listen to its sounds and to get away from the pressures of life. Now almost every runner carries a music device and wears headphones. I have also seen many joggers and runners stopping to answer cell phones.
So, while I have you in a relatively quiet place this morning, and while those few of you who are wearing listening devices are supposed to have them tuned into the Worship Service, I would like to point out to you some of the supernatural or spiritual concepts that are in these verses .
The entire poem of course assumes the existence of God, but the places of his existence are mentioned in verse 22; “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and it inhabitants are like the grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to live in…”
God is out of this world, literally. Not only is he beyond it spatially, he is in other dimensions than the 3 dimensions that are here. God lives above or beyond the circle or sphere of this world. He even lives beyond the universe. And yet he is present in the universe and in the world. He has spread out the heavens (our earth’s atmosphere) like a tent to live in. While God is way beyond our world, he is also in it, present with us by his Holy Spirit.
This concept of the presence of God is developed further in verse 23 & 24 “who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth nothing. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest caries them off like stubble.”
God is not only present in our world, he is busy in it. He controls the rise and fall of its rulers and their nations and empires. The Babylonian empire would only last 60 years beyond the destruction of Israel until it would be taken over by the Persian Empire. And the Persians would allow the Jews to return to and rebuild their own land.
So in our own time, as we fear the repercussions of other nations financing our national debt and many other situations we and our nation are facing, I would remind you that God is in control of our earthly politics and our rulers and he will bring all nations and rulers to serve him. That does not mean that we are not to be concerned about ideas and movements that will cause some harm. But God will prevail.
In verse 26 another basic precept of Christianity that is under attack in our world is referred to. “Lift up your eyes on high and see; who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing.” Most of us have been taught that science reveals that the process of creation of the earth and the universe is the big bang and the process of creation of life forms is evolution. Many of us have been taught these scientific theories in such a way that it was inferred that there was no God behind it. Let me remind you that science is concerned with the How of these things, religion is concerned with the Who. And I will go even further and remind you that science has not yet given us its final answers on the how. Many changes in Scientific thought have occurred in the past 500 years, are we to think that there will not be more?
Whatever may be the processes God used to create the universe and the world, the unchanging truth of religion in general and Christianity in particular is that God is the creator. If your God is not the Creator, he is not God.
There have been those who believed and there are those who continue to believe that if there is a god, he really doesn’t care much about what we do, and if everything comes out OK in the end, he will receive us into his kingdom. There are some who believe that God has abandoned them and does not see or care about their suffering. There are also those who think that they can keep their secret sins from God. Some politicians have recently discovered that they cannot keep their records about not paying their taxes a secret from the government or the people. What ever makes us think that our lives of suffering or of sinning are not known to Him? Look at verse 27&28: “Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord and my right is disregarded by my God” Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, he does not grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.”
God is aware of your weakness and your suffering. God was with the people of Israel every minute of their 70 year long exile in Babylon. And he brought them out. God is with you in your sufferings and in your sinful secrets you thought you had kept from Him.
And He will bring your suffering to an end. See verses 29-31; “He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
Do you count on the Lord for the strength you need to carry on and to do the Lord’s will? Waiting for the Lord does not mean shutting down and resting until the Lord moves you. It means doing the best you can and counting on the Lord to give you the power and wisdom you do not have.
My friends, we cannot see God in this world and the information we receive about our world and universe rarely mentions God. Sometimes we forget that He is with us working in our world, but the History of Israel and the Holy Scriptures demonstrate that God was working in the world then. If we look carefully at our lives and our world today, we will see God at work, if not now, we will see his work when we look back later.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at February 8, 2009 01:46 PM