Dust in the Scales

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Date: February 16, 2025, Afternoon Text: Isaiah 40:12–15 Series: Isaiah Preacher: Conley Owens

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Please turn your Bible to Isaiah chapter 40. If you're using the Pew Bible, that can be found on page 600.
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Isaiah chapter 40, we'll read verses 12 through, go ahead and read 12 through the end of the chapter, but today the preaching text will be 12 through 15.
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Please stand when you have that for the reading of God's Word. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and marked off the heavens with a span, and closed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
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Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand?
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Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?
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Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust of the scales.
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Behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
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All the nations are as nothing before him. They are accounted by him as less than nothing, and emptiness.
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To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? An idol, a craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts for its silver chains.
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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.
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Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
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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, who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.
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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.
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To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him, says the Holy One? Lift up your eyes on high and see, who created these?
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He who brings out their hosts by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.
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Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel? My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my
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God. Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting
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God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable.
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He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might, he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall faint, fall exhausted.
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But they 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.
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Amen. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, as you open up these words to us today, we ask that you would help us to understand them fully, that you would help us to submit to them as well.
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In Jesus' name. Amen. So this passage before this, verses 1 through 11, has spoken of and foretold this gospel that will come, this gospel that will be comfort to the people of God.
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What the nature of this gospel is, the message is, all flesh is like grass, and its glory like the flower of grass, but the
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Word of God stands forever. This is a message that should be proclaimed with boldness because it is certain to be accomplished.
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And now after we have seen these statements about this message, originally the statement, comfort my people, and then the voice crying, and then the voice asking, another voice asking, what shall
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I cry, and then a herald of good news, all these different statements about these voices, these heralds of the gospel.
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Then from 12 onward, we have an address of those who would doubt this message, those who would be fearful and doubt this thing.
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It's very common that man doubts God's Word, even those who believe in God's Word, even those who have the
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Spirit of God often end up doubting God's Word. This is not something to be doubted because He is an all -powerful and all -knowing
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God. He speaks here of both His omnipotence, His being almighty, and also
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His omniscience, His all -knowing. By these two things, we should trust in Him for His Word, not only when
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He tells us what is right and He gives us His law, but also when
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He tells us of salvation. Even as the hymn we just sang said that we should not doubt
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His royal promises. So He starts off here in verse 12 saying, Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand and marked off the heavens with a span and closed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?
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The answer is, of course, the Lord. The Lord has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, meaning that He is so great,
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He is so immense, that even though He is not a physical thing that takes up physical space, if you were to imagine
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Him as such, it would be right to imagine Him as one who is so great that all the waters in the whole world could fit into the palm of His hand.
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He has marked off the heavens with a span. You know, how is it that measurement is done?
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It's either done with your arm or with a tool that's not much larger than you are, and you measure these things off?
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Who could measure the heavens with some small instrument? The Lord is great enough that He can mark the heavens off by a span.
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So not only the waters, but even the heavens. And then it talks about the dust. He's enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure.
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He's able to assess all these things because He is greater than all these things. He's weighed the mountains in a scale.
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He's weighed the hills in a balance. God transcends all things. He is greater than all things.
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Then it speaks of His knowledge. Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord or what man shows
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Him His counsel? Whom did He consult and who made Him to understand? Who taught Him the path of justice and taught
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Him knowledge and showed Him the way of understanding? The answer again, of course, is no one.
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No one has showed Him all these things. No one has measured the Spirit of the Lord. No one has anything to offer
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God as far as counsel goes. We have nothing to offer Him.
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All our knowledge comes from Him. All our wisdom comes from Him. We never in any sense are a source of knowledge for Him.
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And this is true to agree beyond even which many Christians realize. A lot of Christians understand
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God's knowledge as largely being a deductive knowledge or of a knowledge that observes and gathers things.
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Even the Bible sometimes speaks in this way of God seeing the whole earth. As an analogy, it speaks that way.
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So a lot of people imagine that God, He can look into the future and observe what will happen.
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And He looks at us. And then by looking at us and observing, He then knows because we have informed
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Him by being present and Him being able to observe us in that way.
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And maybe it wouldn't be right to call that informing God because it would be such minimal effort on our part.
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But the reality is by existing, by doing things, we are changing the mind of God because we would be changing the things that He knows.
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This is how a lot of people think about God's omniscience, His all -knowing. That is something where He observes. And then based on what
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He observes, based on us, He then knows those things. But this is not how
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God's omniscience works. God is not informed by us in any sense. He is not even informed by observing us and looking down and then gathering information about us.
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Instead, because we are created and all things have been created, He has placed all things into being,
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He has designed us including our own wills, He has designed all things, He simply knows intuitively.
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The way we speak of God's knowledge is that He intuits. He doesn't deduce things,
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He intuits. He simply knows without even observing because all things come from Him.
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And so He should not be doubted in any sense. He should not be doubted as one who lacks all power because He has all power.
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And especially as regards the new creation. Why shouldn't you doubt His ability to accomplish this gospel, accomplish this comfort that is spoken of here?
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Why shouldn't you doubt His ability to make a new creation? He's the one who made the old creation. Why shouldn't you doubt
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His wisdom and His knowledge? He is the one who is the source of all knowledge.
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And these things go hand in hand. We are people who tend to, in our minds, divorce them.
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It's a common trope that you have the dumb jock, right, or the weak nerd, right?
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Those are common tropes and so you think of these things that are in some kind of balance so that they're divorced and actually one is sort of inhibiting the other, right?
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The weaker you are, the more likely you are to be smart or the stronger you are, the more likely you are to be dumb.
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A lot of people think of these things as being in a balance like God has sort of gifted people all equally, right?
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And they're kind of—the way that manifests is just different. The reality is it's not true.
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God has gifted many more than others and this is His purposes. But even beyond that, it is not even the case that those things are in any sense, you know, distributed in such a way to be harmful to one another, to be opposed to one another.
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In fact, it is by God's omniscience that He is all powerful. It is by His omnipotence that He is omniscient.
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It is because He has created everything that He knows everything. Because it is from His hand,
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He is the source of it and creating it. And so therefore, He knows it. And it is because He knows all things that He is able to govern the world perfectly and properly in an all -powerful way.
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If He did not know all things, He would not be capable of such. And so these things go hand in hand and they belong completely together.
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And so God is completely omniscient, He is completely omnipotent in ways beyond which the typical person thinks of those terms because they usually think of it as the same species of strength, just greater, the same species of knowledge, just greater.
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But God's knowledge is one that is unlike ours in that it is not informed by other things.
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And His power is one that is unlike ours because He is the source of all things. And so what ought man's response to be to this?
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Verse 15 tells us, Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are counted as the dust on the scales.
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Behold, He takes up the coastlands like fine dust. This should be man's response.
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Man's response should be to recognize that He is small, He is not powerful, the nations are as nothing to Him.
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Even the coastlands, meaning the farthest reaches of the earth, even accounting as far as you could of the earth, it is still the case that it is all dust in the scales.
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It is all as nothing. How can
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God accomplish His purposes given the strength of the nations? The reality is they derive their strength from Him.
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He is greater than the nations are. It is all dust in the scales.
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If you measure something in scales and you put a little bit of dust in it, is that going to change the reading?
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It is not going to change the reading. It is not going to matter at all. There are wrestlers who, in order to make weight, will shave all their body hair and hope it will give them that little small reading on a very fine scale that they need in order to make weight.
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And a lot of times it doesn't. And they shave their body hair for nothing. This is what dust in the scales is. It is like that.
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So all the nations together, dust in the scales, nothing. It does not register on the scale because it is so little.
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And so we, when we have all our man -made objections to God's wisdom, to God's power, in anything that He has spoken, but most especially
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His gospel, His promises that He has given that mankind is inclined to doubt, we should recognize that we are as nothing.
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Anything that comes against God is as nothing. There is no reason to heed such things.
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And this is a statement that comes up frequently in Scripture, and often even with this barrage of questions.
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You notice how Isaiah asks these things. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, marked off the heavens with His band?
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Who has done this? Who has done that? Who has informed Him? Who has been His counselor, etc., etc.?
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All of these questions giving the same answer, you know, no one has done any of these things, to emphasize how foolish it would be to suggest otherwise, to emphasize how great
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God's power and strength are. And this is precisely how it is phrased elsewhere. You might be familiar with Job, where in Job 38 and 39, you essentially have two straight chapters of these styles of question because Job has doubted
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God's goodness. Job has doubted God's wisdom. And what does Job say at the end of this? Job at the end realizes that he is like dust in the scales.
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He says, Behold, I am of small account. Small. He's nothing. What shall I answer you?
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I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer twice, but I will proceed no further.
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Job realized he shouldn't have spoken, that his resistance to God and God's wisdom was ill -placed because God is far more powerful.
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God is omniscient. And those are the two things that go together in those chapters of Job 38 and 39 as well, is that God is all -powerful.
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God is omniscient. So therefore, Job should trust Him and not doubt His wisdom. You see this also with Agur in Proverbs 30.
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Agur, the son of Jacob. Considering all these things about the Lord, asking the same sorts of questions, you know.
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Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in His fist? Who has wrapped up the waters in His garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth?
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What is the name? What is the son's name? Surely you know, etc. All these questions. Who has done any of these things?
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No one other than God. And what is His answer? I am weary, O God, and worn out.
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Surely I am too stupid to be a man. I have not the understanding of a man. I have not learned wisdom, nor have
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I knowledge of the Holy One. So what does Agur say? He says, I have no power.
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I have no knowledge. You are the one who has the power. You are the one who has knowledge. And then he follows all that up with, every word of God proves true.
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He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar.
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Every word of God proves true. Why would anyone doubt
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His word? Every word proves true. And this is something where, perhaps
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I'm saying this, and it all feels very obvious to you. Yes, every word of His proves true. He is God. He is all powerful. He is omniscient.
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But this is, every single instance of sin is essentially a doubting of God's word. It's a doubting of His promises.
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It's a doubting of whether or not He would be good enough to uphold you and to reward you in that instance of faithfulness.
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Or a situation where you wonder, well maybe the world's way is more wise in this particular instance. Maybe God doesn't exactly know in this situation.
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Maybe I know better. Maybe the world knows better. Maybe these temptations are not ill -founded.
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So it might seem obvious that God is all powerful, and God is all wise, and He should be trusted, and He should not be doubted.
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You can say those things on a exam by administering an exam.
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Right now, I imagine every single person here would get a 100 % on the exam. But where it comes down to practice is do you actually trust that God is able to do these things, or do you doubt
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Him? Do you doubt that He is able to save, that He is able to accomplish His purposes, that He is wiser than you are, and that you should absolutely trust
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His word? This is an interesting thing.
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You see how versatile this truth is. By the way, the New Testament quotes it multiple times, this truth of God's understanding being greater than ours in multiple aspects of salvation.
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Because this doesn't apply to just one aspect of salvation. It applies to multiple. Consider this. In Romans 11, listen to how
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Paul applies it here. He applies it to the salvation of the Gentiles. He says in Romans 11, 25, lest you be wise in your own sight.
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You know, here we are, man's wisdom versus God's wisdom. I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, my brothers.
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A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. In this way, all
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Israel will be saved. Okay, so he's describing as the salvation of all Israel as being one that includes the
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Gentiles. And then he explains a little more about this.
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What does he say at the end? Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways.
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For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? Who has known the mind of the
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Lord or who has been his counselor? He's quoting Isaiah 40. One might object and say that this is not something that God should do.
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God should rather save the Israelites in the way that I expect in this particular way, in this way where, as he talked about, theirs was the inheritance, the birthright, et cetera.
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Why has he saved in this way and not according to the flesh, not according to one's own birth or anything like that?
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Well, he spent chapter nine, he spent chapter 10 talking about God's wisdom in salvation and his purposes and that these happen by his purposes.
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On whom he has mercy and on whom he has compassion. Not by the will of man but by his own will.
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Why? Well, in part, we are told that we don't have to know why.
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Who are you, what is molded to say to the molder, why have you made me like this?
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So on one hand, you don't need to know. You should just trust God regardless. On the other hand,
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God has been kind enough to reveal to us that he has his purposes in his glory by saving a particular people rather than those who demonstrate some kind of external superiority to others or like a superiority of attitude.
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You know, they're more humble, they're stronger, they have more faith. Rather, it is by the mercy of God that he has granted the faith necessary for salvation.
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It is by the mercy of God that he saves in order that he is glorified. This goes contrary to man's wisdom and consider what you see when you look at the landscape of evangelicalism.
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This is a minority belief even though it is directly on the pages of Romans 9 and other chapters, right?
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God's sovereignty and salvation, him choosing whom he will choose, him being merciful to whom he will be merciful and having compassion on whom he will have compassion.
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Why is it that this is such a minority view? Because it runs contrary to man's wisdom and people doubt the wisdom of God.
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And I would argue the same thing applies to those who would obstinately expect some kind of special status for the nation of Israel that runs contrary to the whole flow of Romans, right?
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To the Jew first and also to the Greek, right? But for the Lord is not partial. Jew first and also to the
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Greek. These are things that are true of both of these parties. And so those who would try to give
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Israel some sort of privileged status, are they not operating by man's wisdom in a way that runs contrary to what
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God's word has said about how all these truths apply though first to the Jew because these truths were revealed to them first, also to the
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Greek. But yet, once again, what do you see in evangelicalism? You see many rejecting God's, you see many rejecting
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God's sovereignty and salvation, and you see many rejecting the idea that, yeah, that Israel wouldn't have this very special status, right?
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Because these were in contrary to the mind of man as he comes to God's word with his prerogatives. Also consider how
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Paul explains this in 1 Corinthians 2. Now in 1
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Corinthians 2, there's a lot of context here in chapters 1 and 2. It's talking about the way that the gospel is proclaimed, that it seems like foolishness to demand that this be the primary way that the gospel goes forward by the proclamation of the word rather than signs or more eloquent philosophical discourses that would impress the knowledgeable rather than being simply statements of truth.
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How does Paul respond to this as people are objecting and they're putting themselves under different teachers who don't have different teachings, right?
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Some say they're from Paul or Apollos. It's not that these people have different teachings. It's rather that they feel that it's right to align themselves under a certain kind of rhetoric, a certain kind of eloquence, right?
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And they're finding the power of the gospel in something other than the gospel itself. What's his response?
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The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for they are folly to him and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
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The spiritual person judges all things but he himself is to be judged by no one for who has understood the mind of the
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Lord so as to instruct him but we have the mind of Christ for who has understood the mind of the
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Lord so as to instruct him but we have the mind of Christ, right? So here Paul is applying that statement for who has understood the mind of the
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Lord so as to instruct him to refer to the power of the gospel. The gospel is powerful on its own.
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It accomplishes its purposes in the hearts of the hearers for the one who has the mind of Christ, for the one who has the
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Spirit. The natural person does not accept the things of the
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Spirit of God because they are folly to him but if you have the mind of Christ, if you have the mind of Christ being the
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Spirit of God, then these things make sense to you. But note that even with Isaiah 40 being written to the people of God, even with Romans 11 being written to the people of God, even with 1
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Corinthians 2 being written to the people of God, these things still needed to be written. So in other words, even those who have the
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Spirit of God are often doubting the power of God and his word.
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And so we need to be reminded of these truths. We need to be reminded that God is powerful to save.
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Why is it that we should trust in the means of grace? Why is it that we should trust God's word to go forward?
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Not through our manipulations, not through our programs, et cetera, not through clever presentations that de -emphasize the difficult truths that don't resonate with man and emphasize the ones that man likes.
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Why is it that we don't have to rely on those things? It is because God is all -powerful and he is all -knowing, and so as Paul says in 1
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Corinthians 2, we can trust the Lord. No one has informed him, but he has informed us, giving us the mind of Christ.
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He is all -powerful. He is all -knowing. He should be trusted. And this is something that I have, over the past few years, and I feel a little ignorant or gullible that I did not notice this sooner, but I have noticed over the years that I spent a long time assuming that others who are truly
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Christian, others who have the spirit of God, necessarily are always operating with the mindset that God's word is always right and he knows what is best.
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The reality is, people so frequently doubt this, that these things had to be written in Isaiah and Romans and 1
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Corinthians. This is important to step back and ask yourself. A lot of times,
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I will present some biblical truth to someone and they will respond to me with a practical objection.
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Now what I assume, what I have assumed in the past is going on there a lot of times, is that they accept the biblical truth.
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They know that if you were to follow God's word, there might be some difficulties and they want to know how to resolve that practical concern with the biblical truth and so they're kind of jumping ahead in the conversation to that next question.
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What I found is actually happening when that happens, is that they don't think the biblical truth itself is enough proof.
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They need the practical objections to be handled as well. This is very frequent, that people don't consider
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God's word enough. They come with their practical objections. They come like someone would in Isaiah 40 and say, can this really be done?
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Is this something that we should really trust you, that you would comfort the people, that you would bring them back from Babylon, that you would have such good news that would truly save this people?
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The answer is yes. He should be trusted. He can accomplish all these things. Just to give you a few examples of places where I've encountered this, just abstract topics, although I've seen it in a lot of little things.
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When I talk to people about the ethics of money and ministry and that the gospel should not be sold, not in the obvious form of saying,
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I'll tell you the gospel if you give me money, but even in other forms as well where pay walls are put in front of biblical teaching, which is very common in our culture, the initial responses
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I get are almost always no wrestling with the biblical argument, but things like, well, people wouldn't value what they don't buy, or well, then how would ministry be supported?
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How would you, but then all these different ministries would die. That's like the main concern. The main concern is that the ministry happens because that's how people are going to be saved.
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It's going to be through the ministry happening. There's not a trust in the Lord that His ways are best, and so who cares if it doesn't look like it's going to work?
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Our task is only to trust in the Lord, and then He will use whatever means He has chosen to use.
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You see this frequently if you talk to someone about the ethics, or whether or not women are permitted to preach or be pastors.
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You go to biblical arguments, and then what are the first things that are said? Well, I've learned from women as though the statement is one that's saying that you can't learn from women.
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It's impossible for a woman to have information to share, or knowledge to share, or wisdom. None of those things are what's stated.
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It's just this is what the Bible has commanded. If we're going to ask follow -up questions, those are worthwhile, but they should not be these must be satisfied before I will trust in the
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Lord and what His word has said. That has to come first. Then you figure out the other things. Or just one more example, the death penalty.
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I'll talk to folks about the death penalty. Very clear in Scripture that this is, if government is something ordained by God, this is the thing it is supposed to do.
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I mean, it's supposed to do lesser things too, but the power of the sword. What is the power of the sword for in Romans 13?
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It is to be used to kill. That is what it is for. Genesis 9, 6, whoever sheds blood by man his blood shall be shed.
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These are very basic things. I will talk to Christians. I will show these verses, and they will say things like, well, our government is very efficient in the way that it does it.
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It costs a lot of money to enforce the death penalty. I'll point out, it's very cheap actually. You don't really have to spend a lot of money.
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It doesn't matter what statistics say. Just trust the Lord that this is what this institution is supposed to be doing.
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And so in each of these things, this is what the church is supposed to be doing, this is what the family is supposed to be doing, this is what the government is supposed to be doing.
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There are statements from God's Word where man, because he, so frequent, and even man indwelt by the
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Spirit of God when he doubts God and is not relying on the Spirit, on the mind of Christ, he's inclined to make those practical concerns of higher importance than the
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Word of God itself. But there is such great peace to be had in just trusting God and not trying to lay that burden on yourself of figuring out what's going to be most effective, what's actually going to work, what's going to accomplish the best results.
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You don't know. You don't know the future. You don't know any of that. You are a small account.
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Lay your hand on your mouth as Job did. You are dust in the scales. All the nations are dust in the scales.
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And even that is overstating it. I mean, what else are you going to ascribe? They're nothing. They're less than nothing.
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And so recall this in your evangelism as you're sharing the Word of God.
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You know, do not back down and feel that you have to make it appealing to someone else by deemphasizing the difficult truths and emphasizing the easy truths.
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You know, do not, for example, prayer meetings.
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You know, come to the prayer meetings. Spend time by yourself in prayer. These are the means that God uses to accomplish
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His purposes. These are things where we could look at them and we say, well, is God really powerful enough to use these things?
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Is He really wise enough to command me to spend time in prayer, et cetera? I haven't really seen a lot of benefits from this.
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And so, you might not be explicitly thinking those thoughts in your head, but really, what is happening when you neglect those means is you don't see them as powerful, you don't see them as useful.
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But they are. They are because God has told us and we can trust Him. Now, sometimes
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He explains to us more because He is especially kind to us. All right, sometimes
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I'll give my children a command and I won't have time to give a follow -up explanation and they will struggle to obey because they don't feel like it's worthwhile.
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Sometimes I'll have the time to explain to them why it is that I want them to obey this and then they will find it easier to obey.
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And so, God is a good Father who has done that, but that doesn't mean in those cases where He hasn't that we aren't to obey.
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We're still to obey even in those circumstances. He still knows what's right even in those circumstances. The nations are like a drop from a bucket.
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They are counted as the dust on the scales. Behold, He tapes up the coastlands like fine dust. This forming what's known as an inclusio with the beginning in verse 12.
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He has enclosed the dust of the earth. We are the dust of the earth.
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He is greater than us. We are of nothing. We should lay our hands on our mouth and trust Him. Not only when
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He tells us what to do and He tells us His law, but especially when He tells us His salvation that we should trust.
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He is able to save to not doubt it, to not despair and feel burdened to accomplish
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His purposes on our own, but rather to trust in Him and be at peace. Amen.
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Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for the assurances that You have given us. We ask that we would not doubt
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Your royal promises. Christ is King and He has promised us great things.
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We pray that we would trust in these and we would not be those who doubt Your wisdom, who doubt