The God of the Stars

The Omniscience, Immensity, and Eternity of God in Isaiah 40

Please turn your Bible to Isaiah chapter 40. We're gonna be looking at verses 25 through 27 today. I'll read beginning from verse 12 for context. Please stand when you have Isaiah chapter 40 for the reading of God's word.

That can be found on page 600. Isaiah 40, beginning with verse 12. 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?

Who has measured the spirit of the Lord and what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult and who made him to understand? Who taught him the path of justice and taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding?

Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are accounted as the dust on the scales. Behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.

All the nations are as nothing before him. They are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. 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.

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. 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? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers who stretches out the heavens like curtain and spreads them like a tent to dwell in, who brings princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

Scarcely are they planted, scarcely stoned, 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. 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. He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.

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 faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint and to him who has no might, he increases strength. Even youth shall faint and be weary and young men shall fall exhausted.

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. Amen.

You may be seated.

So if you recall, this second half of the chapter has focused on the attributes of God as an encouragement to the people of God. It is because he is such a great God that we can trust that he is powerful to save and this gives us the confidence and boldness we need to live the Christian life.

Verses 12 through 14 spoke of his omniscience. Because he has created the whole world, he knows all things. There's no one who has taught him anything. Verses 15 through 20 speak of his immensity that he is without measure, sometimes referred to as his omnipresence, that he has no boundaries to himself, saying that no sacrifice would be sufficient for him.

He is greater than all things. And then verses 21 through 24, we have seen these statements regarding his eternality, that from the beginning of the world, his greatness has been known. While all other things are short in their lifespan, his greatness is known from the beginning and contrast with that implying his eternality.

Okay, so thus far, we have seen his omniscience, his immensity, also known as omnipresence, his eternality, his timelessness, and now we will look at his omnipotence, him being all-powerful, and this is how the chapter will end, focusing on him being all-powerful.

It's because he is all-powerful that we can trust that he is able to save us. Because he is all-powerful, he strengthens us. Begins here in verse 25, saying, "'To whom then will you compare me? "'That I should be like him,' says the Holy One.'".

God cannot be compared to anyone. He is greater than all things. He is the Holy One. When it speaks of him as the Holy One, it's pointing out that he cannot be compared to other things. There are different ways that things can be holy, right?

Sometimes that speaks of righteousness, sometimes it speaks of distinctness, sometimes it speaks of purpose, but he's holy in every kind of capacity. There simply is no comparing him to other things. He has made the world and his thumbprint is on the world, so there is some analogy.

Yet at the same time, he is not comparable by way of magnitude, as though his, when we spoke of his omniscience, it's not as though he just knows more than we do, right? We spoke of the fact that his knowledge is untensed, meaning it is not changed by past, present, and future, the way ours is, even if we know the time, our knowledge is changing, right?

His immensity is not just like him being bigger. That is why omnipresence isn't the best word a lot of times, because that suggests he just is large in space. But he transcends space itself. When we speak of his eternality, that's not the same thing as omnitemporal.

He transcends time itself. He is holy, he is above all things, he is unlike other things. He has created the world so that there is some analogy, but he is of a different species, so to speak. There is not comparison by way of degree.

So to whom, then, will you compare him? Speaking especially of idolaters, but all those who would think of him as something created, something that could be measured by degrees in comparison to something else.

It says, lift up your eyes on high and see who created these. Speaking of the stars, lift up your eyes, see the stars. He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, because he is strong in power, not one is missing.

So by the greatness of his might, he created these, and he brings them all out. He's brought out all the stars, he knows them all by name because he has created them. You know, if you look at the heavens and you see all the stars, there are so many.

Now, this is something that we don't see as much in our own place and location, because the lights of the city tend to blot out the skies a good bit, and so we do not see the number of stars, but if you go out into the middle of nowhere, if you go out into the middle of a place where there is not a lot of light, you can see there are so many stars.

God knows every single one of the stars. He knows every single one. Recently, took a trip to Joshua Tree National Park where there's supposed to be a lot of stargazing. Now, it happened to be cloudy the entire time I was there, so I didn't get to see them, but I have been out in nature before where there haven't been lights around, and there are so many stars.

They're vast, and scientists haven't found all the stars, nor is it likely that they ever will. God has created innumerable stars, and by His power, He is able to call them out into the sky so that they go on their particular patterns, and He knows them all by name, by name.

Now, if you think about what that means, what does it mean to name something? To name something is to have power over that thing. God named Adam. Adam named the creatures, but the suggestion here is that God is the one who is naming the stars.

He is the power over the stars. Now, this is more than just, this might be more literal than you are initially imagining. There are several passages that talk about this. Consider Job 38. Job 38, one through 33.

Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or can you loose the cords of Orion? Can you lead forth the Maseroth in their season, or can you guide the bear with its children? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?

Can you establish their rule on Earth? This is God speaking here, and He's speaking of the stars by name. He is naming the constellations. These names are even names that we use now. Now, they're not exactly the same name, but the notions are the same, right?

The cords of Orion. It's not exactly that name Orion that is being used here in Hebrew, but people know that this is the same constellation, so they translate it cords of Orion. What's the cord of Orion?

Orion's belt. You're familiar with Orion's belt, the three stars that you see arranged in the sky? Now, that predates any kind of mythology around Orion. That's here in Job. Job is, while the authorship of the book may be later, Job is describing a very early setting, and so God is speaking, naming these stars, describing a man's belt as being that particular constellation.

What does this suggest? These stars and their names predate those Greek cultures. These stars and their names come from much earlier. Is it not quite possible, likely, and even suggested by this passage that God is the one who named the stars, and we, as we have vestigially received those names from previous generations, are receiving those names from God?

Now, there are many stars that, you know, perhaps He never told us the name of or that have been lost along the way, and so we name those things, and you can pay some service that will name it after, you know, your dog or whatever you want.

There's all kinds of services that will do those sorts of things because there are so many stars, but God demonstrates His power over the stars by naming them, and we have texts like what we have in Job 38 that show us even the names that we use may indeed be the names that God has chosen for those stars.

This demonstrates His power, that He is above the stars, the greatest things in the sky, He is above those things. He calls those things out. He commands them, and they obey, and so this response here, 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. What this is is the voice of someone who is despairing, saying, I am faithful, I am righteous, why do you not save? Remember, we are looking forward to the captivity in Babylon.

Isaiah has prophesied in the previous chapter that people will go off into Babylon, people will be stuck there, and this is prophesying about the salvation that we will receive once they have gone out into Babylon.

And so, this is the voice of one who despairs and thinks that God is not going to take him out of Babylon, God is not going to take him out of captivity, but this is foolish, because God is able to accomplish all these things.

This is what He puts forward, that if He commands the stars, He can command His people. If He can call them all out by name, He can call every single one of His people out by name. So, consider what this implies for salvation.

God's omnipotence, the greatness of His might, Him being strong in power implies for salvation. He is, above all things, His power is greater than anyone's power. Psalm 147 says the following. The Lord builds up Jerusalem.

He gathers the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars and gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord and abundant in power.

His understanding is beyond measure. The Lord lifts up the humble, He casts the wicked to the ground. Right, so Psalm 147 makes the same association. He determines the number of stars, He gives them all their names, and then something from the passage later in Isaiah that we're not looking at today.

His understanding is beyond measure. The Lord lifts up the humble and casts the wicked to the ground. It is because He knows all the stars, He knows their number, He knows their names, it's because He is that powerful that we can be assured that He will call His people out, that He will raise up the humble, that He will lower the proud and the wicked.

And this is what He even said to Abraham when He called Abraham out of his land. He said, can you number the stars? Look at the stars, try to number them. The implication being, Abraham can't do it, Abraham is not powerful to save.

But God is powerful to save. He says that your seed will be as many as this, the nation that comes from you will be as many as this, as many as the stars of the heavens. This is the promise of God to Abraham that He is the one who is able to save, He is the one who is able to make great because He is all-powerful and knows the quantity of stars, knows them by name, unlike man.

And so God is mighty to save. He pulls the people out of Babylon, He saves them out as He claimed that He would do, and He saves us. He has saved us by sending Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has come, He has conquered, He has destroyed the enemy, He has set His people free from bondage, and on that last day, He will come again to salvation, and He will make His reign completely manifest in order that we may fully enjoy it.

How will this be done? By the power of His might, by His great strength. He does not delay in these things. The one who would look at the fact that He has not come and saved and thinks that this is perhaps because God is not sufficiently powerful, because God has forgotten Him and does not know Him, because He's not powerful enough to know all the stars, He's not powerful enough to know all His people, this is misguided because He is powerful enough, because He knows all the stars.

Consider these words of 2 Peter. 2 Peter 3, eight says, but do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as 1 ,000 years, and 1 ,000 years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Okay, so there's this promise in 2 Peter that God's delay is not a delay, right, that His tarrying is intentional, that He has His purposes in this. Now, a lot of people will point at this passage and say, see, it says that He desires all to come to repentance, right, that He doesn't wish that any should perish, and they would have you believe that God does not elect His people for salvation because it speaks in this way, right, that He doesn't desire that any should perish.

Okay, so God is extending the exact same love to every single individual. He doesn't want any single person to perish, right? That's how they would understand this. Well, God certainly is kind to both the just and the unjust, but that is not what this passage is saying.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish.

Who is you?

It was the beloved, as He speaks of here. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved. So this is the people, God's people, His beloved. He does not wish that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance, and so this is not saying that He is, this is not saying that He is trying to save every last individual that exists.

This is saying that He is trying to save every last of the elect that exist. This is why He tarries, okay? In fact, if you look at this from the Arminian perspective, that would say that this is talking about God's attempt to save every single person.

What does that even mean? He would tarry forever, right? At what point would He have accomplished His purpose? There would be no point at which He has ever accomplished His purpose, unless there was some kind of nuclear holocaust that wiped everyone off and there weren't any more people left to save, right?

But this is not what it says. He is patient towards beloved ones, every single one of them to be saved. He is going to save every last one of His elect. So consider this in light of Isaiah. What is the concern of the person who speaks in Isaiah?

The concern is, well, if God hasn't come and taken us out of this situation yet, maybe He is not powerful enough. Maybe He does not know us. Maybe He cannot call us all out by name. But what is the answer 2 Peter gives?

It is because He knows every last person by name, it is because He wants to save every last person that He is tarrying. That is the reason. It's entirely the opposite, right? You could look at this and you could say, oh, this shows that God is not powerful.

No, it is because He is powerful that He tarries, that Christ tarries, that Christ hasn't returned because He knows every last star, He knows every last one of His people, and He will call every single one of them out.

That is why He tarries. So it demonstrates the exact opposite. It does not demonstrate His lack of power. According to 2 Peter 3, Christ tarrying demonstrates His power that He will save every last one.

This also has implications for idolatry as suggested from earlier in the passage. Notice the parallels, right? To whom then will you compare me? What it said before in verse 18, to whom then will you liken God, or to what likeness compare Him?

And that talks about idols. So this has implications for idolatry, that you cannot compare God. His omnipotence, His being powerful, is so much greater than any other kind of power. It cannot be compared.

It's not just that He has, He can call out stars, et cetera, and commands that kind of authority. He has created them ex nihilo. This is a different kind of power than man has. Okay, man can take things that already exist and form them.

Now, God can do that to a greater degree, but then beyond that, God can call things out of nothing. God has created people for Himself out of nothing. That is a power that transcends the notion of physical force and exertion, that kind of thing, right?

So God's omnipotence, just like His omniscience, just like His eternality, just like His immensity, it transcends the human notion of these things. And so God cannot be, He cannot be compared. Consider also what the implications of this passage are for idolatry, given the phrase, bring out their host by number.

A lot of times when it talks about the host in the heavens, it's talking about angelic powers. There does seem to be some kind of association of the stars with the angels, at least in sort of representing one another, or the stars representing the angelic beings.

Isaiah 14, 12 had spoken of Satan as the day star, right? Most commonly known as Lucifer in the King James version, but you read modern translation, it talks about him being the day star, right? There is a, yeah, there seems to be some scriptural connection between these two, between the angelic powers and inert heavenly bodies.

Revelation 1 uses stars to represent angels. It says these stars that you saw, these are the angels of the churches, et cetera, right? Stars represent angels. So if God commands the stars, if He is above all gods, what does that mean for idolatry?

It's foolish, it's foolish to have anything that compares to God. He is greater than, He's greater than all those things. Right, there's not, yeah, it would be foolish to, it would be foolish to compare Him.

And consider this final passage, what this means in verse 27. 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. You know, what's going on here when someone says this?

And maybe this verse even sounds familiar to you, because it does sound familiar. It is very similar to some other verses in Scripture that have kind of an opposite point to them. Psalm 14, one, says that the fool says in his heart, there is no God.

They're abominable, they do wicked deeds, et cetera. Okay, so that is a wicked fool who says, I can get away with whatever I want, because God is not watching. What is this describing? This is describing something different.

This is describing, we might call him a righteous fool, right, someone whose ways are right, and he is wondering, why isn't God vindicating me? So the wicked fool says, I can get away with whatever I want.

The righteous fool says, why has God not vindicated me? You know, I'm not going to be rewarded for my labors, et cetera. But this is, yeah, this is far from the truth. You know, there's a popular question called the question of theodicy, which is, if God is all powerful, all wise, all good, why is it the case that good people suffer?

Bad things happen to good people. Now, the common Reformed response to this is, there's no such thing as a good person. The Bible says that none is good. And yet, at the same time, there are promises given in Scripture to those who are God's people, to those who do follow in his path of righteousness, right, and while they have no righteousness of their own, and they have an alien righteousness from Christ, as they walk in his ways, there are promises of vindication, there are promises of reward.

And so, it is a sensible question to ask in light of those promises, even though no one is good. Why is it the case that there is no vindication? Well, the answer is, there is, and it is coming. There is a vindication that is coming.

So consider what this would imply for ourselves. You must understand God rightly. It is not enough to think of him as like other things, to think of him as like created things, so that he is just more powerful, he is just more knowing, he is just more long-lasting, more wise, things like that.

No, his might, his knowledge, his power, it transcends created powers. And those who would compare him in this way will ultimately despair, will ultimately mock him. Jude 10 says, but these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.

If you are inclined to trust in that which you understand and make comparisons of God in that way, you will be destroyed by that. You will not think of him rightly, and you will either despair, you will mock him, you will blaspheme him.

But he is all-powerful, and his strength is great. You cannot see that with your eyes, but you are called to know it in faith. You recall Elisha and all the armies surrounding him. His eyes opened to see the angels around him, God's powers that were greater than the enemy powers.

Okay, this is the case. God commands all the angels, he commands all the stars. His powers are far greater, far greater than our powers. And you should learn from creation itself. The stars are supposed to tell you this.

Psalm 19, one says, the heavens declare the glory of God. You are supposed to know about the glory of God from the stars, from creation. As you go out in creation, know that one of your tasks as a Christian is to observe those things and to recognize God's greatness in them.

That if you are observing creation and you are not witnessing the greatness of God, that is not coming to your mind. You are failing in the task of what you are supposed to do as you are experiencing creation.

Now, I know that this is harder for us in some ways because we live in a very technological society where we aren't exposed to nature in the same way. So seeing God's raw power in creation is often hidden from us, even like I talked about the lights hiding the stars.

But still, when you experience creation, you are called to observe these things. And here's the thing, even though it is more difficult for you in that sense, Isaiah 28 had told us that we have the same task when we see subdued creation, when we see the skill of the farmer in cultivating with his particular talents and technologies that he uses.

So this is not something that is only true with raw creation, it is also true with God working through man to build up technology. So you actually have the same task, whether you're out in the middle of nature or in a city.

You have the same task, but there's a special way that this is accomplished through raw nature. One way that people compare God, as they ought not, is in thinking lowly of the Trinity and making analogies of the Trinity.

God is three persons, one being, right? One being and three persons. There is no analogy for this, right? You can make analogies for the way we speak with language, that we talk about him being three and we talk about him being one.

For example, a married couple is two and they're also one flesh, right? But that's just an analogy of language. That's not actually describing what is going on with the being of God. And so this is one example of what people do to compare God in ways that they ought not, is to try to make analogies to describe the Trinity.

You see all these different religions who just reject the Trinity because they cannot accept it because it has to be something like the world and they can't think of anything like the world that it's like and so they reject him entirely.

But then other people want to believe the Trinity but then at the same time want that to be like other things and so they claim it is like other things when it's not, you know, this description of God's being.

So you must have worshipful thoughts toward him. You must acknowledge that he is holy. He is not to be likened to anything. This claim, you know, what would you liken me to? What would you compare me to?

This is a rebuke towards those who would make Trinity analogies. What would you compare him to? It's not, his being cannot be compared to anything like that. But now the main application of all this is to not despair and it continues in the next passage speaking of the same thing.

To not think that he is not powerful enough to vindicate that he will not save. He will, he will accomplish all that. In fact, he has his purposes in delaying because he is capable of doing that. And the longer that you endure, the greater the glory is for that, the greater his glory is for that.

In Genesis 15, 16, it talks about how the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. In other words, God will bring Abraham back in the fourth generation. He will bring his people back 400 years later into the land of Canaan after he has allowed enough evil to increase that his glory will be displayed in destroying the people of Cana.

So you see that that delay is bringing about something for the glory of God. You see this also in Romans and Proverbs when it talks about not taking vengeance for yourself but heaping burning coals on the head of your enemy through kindness, right?

So the more that you endure difficult things, the more there is a building up of gloria, of judgment from God on enemies. A greater vindication awaits, right? Greater vindication, a greater reward. You look at all that Job suffered through and though he doubted God in ways he shouldn't, he never blasphemed God.

And so at the end, he is very rewarded by this, right? And he is given a higher station than he had before. There is a great reward to be had for trusting in the Lord, trusting in his power. And so it doesn't matter what kind of trial you're in.

It doesn't matter whether or not, yeah, what the case may be, whether it be relationship stuff, whether it be sin issues. God is powerful enough to save you out of every single one of them. You ought to trust in him.

You also ought to pray to him. You ought to not look at his timing as indicating his lack of power, rather his timing indicates his power. And this is most especially true with the return of Christ. Christ is returning.

The fact that he has tarried for 2000 years does not mean that he is not powerful enough to return. In fact, it shows his power to return because he is going to save every last one of his people and he's not going to let any of them perish, amen.

Dear Holy Father, we thank you for the great assurances that we have of the power of Christ to save. We ask that you would accomplish these things in your good timing. We do pray that you would hasten the day that Christ returns.

We pray that as we pray, trusting faithfully, that you will answer that prayer, that you would accomplish your purposes in good measure. In Jesus' name, amen.