OUR GOD IS GREATER Part I (Is. 40:1-11)

OUR GOD IS GREATER Part I (Is. 40:1-11)

We have just been singing a variation of the most favourite hymn in the
United Kingdom, as voted by BBC’s Songs of Praise. As you will have
noticed, the hymn, - “O Lord my God, I stand and gaze and wonder”, is one of
a number of variations of “How great Thou art”. It was originally a poem
written by a Swedish Baptist called Carl Gustav Boberg, and it uses the
melody of a Swedish folk song. It has been added to and revised on a number
of occasions by various singers and writers such as George Beverly Shea, Cliff
Barrows and Eluned Harrison.

Carl Gustav Boberg wrote it one afternoon after he returned from walking
home from church, and listening to the church bells along the shores of the
bay. All of a sudden, a mighty storm blew all around him, - with the thunder
and lightning … and then just as suddenly, it subsided to a peaceful calm.
When he arrived home, he sat down at his desk, opened the window, and
looked out at the woods on either side of the bay, heard the birds singing, and
took in all the sights and sounds he saw … and he wrote

O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.

Last Lord’s Day morning we were looking at the opening verses of Isaiah
chapter forty. We considered a people with afflictions, - how the Lord’s
people had to contend with the apostasy that had seeped in among them and
had sullied their nation’s privileged relationship with God. In the midst of it
all, we find, - as God always does, - He keeps a remnant, and we considered
them under the title of a people acquainted with God. Then we completed
our study by considering how blessed a people we are … a people with all of
God’s assurances. A chorus of another hymn George Beverly Shea used to
sing … “Some through the waters, some through the flood, Some through the
fire, but all through the blood; Some through great sorrow, but God gives a
song, In the night season and all the day long”.

Sometimes it may be difficult to hear the voice of God. We tend to be able to
hear every other sound before we hear Him. Our doubts and fears drown Him
out.

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We try to listen, we try to stop our ears from the frightening noises around
us, but sometimes we become so weak we don’t have the energy … and the
clamouring, and the thunders, and the roars, and the screeching ‘wear us
down’. Is there anything we can do? Can my faith be restored to where it once
was when I first trusted in the Lord?

First and foremost, the place where we must begin is to realise afresh our God
is greater than our circumstances. As the remnant looked back, they saw
failure and sin … and they needed encouragement. These were a people who
loved the Lord, and were beloved of the Lord … and from under the
stormclouds hanging over the nation, they looked for a way through their
dilemma.

Let’s divide these verses into four sections in which God brings assurance to
His people. … Each section has a particular message. The first voice we hear
speaking is …

THE VOICE OF PARDON 40:1 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your

God. 2 Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is
accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord's hand
double for all her sins.

 There is no doubt about it … the nation of Israel had a long list of sins
against their name.
 Whether they were willing to recognise it or not, they were guilty of
idolatry, injustice, immorality and insensitivity to the prophets God had sent
them. Put very simply, these people who had been blessed so mightily by God,
but who chose to choose the ways of idolaters, deserved judgment from God.
 Yes, … but they were still God’s people, and He loved them.
 The ruler at the time was Hezekiah. He was a good king who brought
religious reform, and under whose rule the temple in Jerusalem was reopened.
 He removed the idols, the temple vessels that had been desecrated were
sanctified for use again.
 Singing and the sounds of musical instruments once more heard in the
praise of God. Passover was reinstated.
 The bronze serpent of Moses that had become an object of idolatrous
worship was destroyed.
 The tithe was reintroduced, and also the religious feasts of the Law.
 These were all excellent changes and Hezekiah is to be greatly
commended for His faithfulness to the Lord.

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 However, Isaiah had to warn Hezekiah not to have anything to do with

Sennacherib, the Assyrian king, but, nevertheless, in 705BC Hezekiah had

given him a tribute of silver and gold.

 As a consequence of disobedience, four years later, Hezekiah became

seriously ill and was dying. He pleaded to the Lord to save his life, and the

Lord answered his prayer.

 He praised the Lord for His goodness in answering his prayer, Is. 38:17

Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it
from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. 18 For the

grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit

cannot hope for thy truth. 19 The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this
day… 20 The LORD was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the

stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the LORD.

 When the Lord pardons, He gives you a song in your heart. It is a song the

world cannot sing.

 One of the all-time most favourite hymns sung all over the world is
“Amazing grace! How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me! I once
was lost, but now am found; Was blind, but now I see. … ’Twas grace that

taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved; How precious did that
grace appear The hour I first believed!”
 … How can anyone sing such beautiful words if they do not know the

amazing grace applied to their own heart! Yes, the world can sing it in the

most beautiful harmonies, but surely, - in the ears of God, - the most tuneless,

tone-deaf believer is a more welcoming sound.

 Believer, when God looks on you and He sees His grace at work in you,

and He sees how you enjoy Him and love Him, it places a smile upon His face

that must beam all over Heaven!
 her iniquity is pardoned … No amount of this earth’s wealth can ever pay
the price of the debt the sinner owes to God … but the indelible mark of sin
that is theirs’ can only be erased by the cleansing blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. … “The world was in darkness in sin and shame; mankind was lost,
and then Jesus came. He carried our sins to Calvary’s tree, He hung there, and
bled there, for you and me. … Thank You Lord, for saving my soul. Thank

You Lord, for making me whole. Thank You Lord, for giving to me Thy great
salvation so rich and free.”

 Though He would chasten His people, He would never forsake them.

 Though the clouds would gather, the sun would again shine through.

 What a wonderful Saviour is Jesus my Lord! He has more grace to forgive

me my sins than I could ever understand.

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 Believer, maybe there is a sin that has been following you for many

years, - maybe in your teenage years you became embroiled in something you
have regretted ever since, - don’t let it ‘pull you down’. The psalmist prayed,

25:7 Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy

mercy remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O LORD.

 The Bible does not give us licence to ignore our sins either … but bring

them before the Lord, ask Him for His forgiveness, believe in Him that He has
forgiven you … and move on … and don’t look back!

 Unbeliever, as yet you are a stranger to God’s grace, - you are not yet
saved. Don’t let the devil tell you the Lord cannot save you. Don’t listen to the

voices that tell you there’s nothing can be done for you … because that is not

what the Lord says!

 The Lord spoke to these same people through the prophet Jeremiah, 33:7 I

will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build

them, as at the first. 8 And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity.

 There is none God cannot save when He works in sovereign grace … and

if you are not saved, call upon Him today. The voice of Pardon.

 We are not going to get through, - this morning, - all four of the voices

that are speaking in these verses, so we shall draw our study to its conclusion
as we consider …

THE VOICE OF PROVIDENCE v.3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,

Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the

crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: 5 And the glory of the

LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD

hath spoken it.

 The Jewish people had a rough road back. It would be a humiliating path,

one they would never choose to wish to travel. They had none to blame,
though, but themselves. It was no-one else’s fault.

 On the banks of the River Jordan John the Baptist stood in his raiment of
camel’s hair tied round him with a leather strap, and he preached to the people

of Israel, Jn. 1:23 I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the

way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.

 This was God speaking. This was God’s promise that He would not desert
them. This was God’s promise that He would go before them to bring them

back again onto Himself. This was a message of hope that would free them

from the judgment God had laid upon them.
 Now, many people don’t like to hear that God judges sin, … that He can

be an angry God Who punishes forever those who will not repent of their sins.

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 There is no easy way round preaching such a message. If it is not

preached and brought to the attention of the unsaved, the preacher is in breach
of his contract with God to preach the whole counsel … but the preacher is

also failing the sinner because not one of us here would fail to warn a loved

one if they were heading blindly towards an open pit of disaster!

 God also punishes sin in the life of the believer, and when the believer is

in such a state they lose the joy of their salvation and also its victory.

 John warned his fellow-countrymen. Even though they looked at him and

saw a strange spectacle of a man, his message was from God and was

prophesied six hundred years before.
 Why do you think they hated his message so much … and the message
Jesus preached too? Why do you think they had ‘hearts of stone’ and eyes that
were ‘blinkered’ to the Saviour? Why do you think they were holding on to
errors of the past? … It was because they had rejected the truth of God, and

God had handed them over to the spirit of unbelief.
 Yes, judgement must be preached … but grace must also be all the more
preached. We do not have a message of doom, but we alone have God’s

declaration that through His grace, - His undeserved favour, - sinners can be

saved and become His precious children.
 You see, God’s grace had been applied to His people, their iniquity had
been pardoned (v.2), the Lord has chastened them … and He was now
showing them a brand new horizon … v.4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every

mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the

rough places plain.

 The one Who in the beginning made the valleys and the mountains and the

hills says that even the crooked paths that we made for ourselves as we

wandered away from God will be made straight.
 We won’t have to wonder what is round the next corner … because He

will make it all straight. The ground upon which we walked and which was so
hard on our feet … He has given us the right footwear to help us tramp over it

until He once again brings us on to the path that is smooth and pleasant.

 He is the Shepherd of the sheep, and sometimes the ground can be hard to
walk on. It’s nice when we are lying down in the green pastures, and walking
along the still waters … and along those paths of righteousness, but there are

also those times when we have to journey through the valleys that never seem

to end. But even there, He steadies us with the rod and staff, as the Psalmist

declared, 63:8 My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.

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 Yes, for many long years, Israel was in the spiritual wilderness … barely
coping from one day to the next … but God came and spoke to them where
they were.
 He saw them in the dry and desert land. He saw them looking for the
spiritual water to drink … and He promised them living waters. He saw them
hungry and He provided them with manna. He saw them as a tired, weary and
defeated people … and He loved them.
 Believer, the Lord never stops loving you. Not even when sin gets such a
hold of you that you turn away from God … He never stops loving you.
 There might be a voice inside telling you that God has finished with you,
… well, believer, I can assure you, that is not the voice of God.
 In the opening chapter of Isaiah we read, 1:18 Come now, and let us reason

together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as
snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

 And the purpose of God’s goodness to you is so that the glory of the LORD

shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath
spoken it (Is. 40:5).

 Believer, you are a witness to the Lord. Your life is an advertisement for
Him. Whether you see it or not, that is how it is.
 The Lord has saved you to shine for Him. In Mal. 3:17 we are told, they

shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels.

 We don’t like it, - we would never ask for it, - for the Lord to bring us
upon difficult paths … but when you study His Word, you will see that
everything He does, He does for His own glory and for the joy of His people.
 If you don’t see it yet, keep on going because the mouth of the LORD hath
spoken it, and His glory will be revealed!
 How do I know I am going to reach Heaven? I know, because Christ has
died to save me on the cross and He has risen again from the tomb!
 How do I know I will make it through every eventuality that comes to me
in life? The answer is the same … I know, because Christ has died to save me
on the cross and He has risen again from the tomb, and He is coming back for
me some day, and He will take me to my eternal home in Heaven!

CONCLUSION
 We have only managed to get halfway through our study this morning …
but maybe the Lord is saying it is enough, just for now.
 Maybe you are feeling like the faithful amongst the children of Israel. You
are tired, you feel worn out, and you wonder if your life is ever going to turn
around.

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 Well, I can’t give you any guarantees how your life will progress … but I

can guarantee you the Lord will never forsake you, He will never hold back on
any of the promises He has made you in His Word.
 Believer, keep on doing what the Lord has saved you to do … keep on

trusting in Him and in His grace.
 When the devil whispers in your ear something that he is trying to
discourage you with … don’t argue with him, don’t even speak to him using
your own words … just tell him this, the blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son
cleanseth [me] from all [my] sin (I Jn. 1:7).
 Tell him it over and over again, and he’ll soon run! He can’t stand being

reminded of his defeat!
 Through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross as your Substitute and His

resurrection from the tomb, all your iniquity has been pardoned (Is. 40:2), and
the Lord sees His glory in you (v.5).
 Unbeliever, you needn’t stay where you are, come to Jesus and be saved,

Prepare ye the way of the Lord (v.5).

 Preparation for that encounter is made through meeting with Christ. It is

made by recognising He died as the sacrifice for you at Calvary, and you hand

your life over to Him, and He takes you and uses you in His service.
 God is greater than our circumstances. He is greater than anything this

world brings along our way.

 It is the same welcome message we all need to hear that the Lord set
before us last week. It is a word of encouragement much needed in these days,

comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith the Lord.

 I trust that we allow our hearts to be open to His Word today and that the

Holy Spirit will glorify the Name of our Saviour and Lord in us and among us.