Fear Not, You Worm Jacob

Last week we jumped back into our sermon series on the book of

Isaiah with the 40th chapter. The last half of the book of

Isaiah is just uniquely majestic and so profoundly prophetic of

Christ and and the 41st chapter here is no exception.

Given the length of this chapter, I'm only going to read

the first verse and then pray, But then we'll read this chapter

in its entirety as we walk through its message.

So look with me at Isaiah 41, verse one.

It's a call for the Gentile peoples to hear God's word with

reverent silence and to renew their strength in its message,

to put their faith in the God who will speak and make a

watertight case that He is to be trusted above all gods.

So Isaiah 41, starting in verse one, listen to me in silence, O

coast lands, let the peoples renew their strength.

Let them approach, then let them speak.

Let us together draw near for judgment.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you are the God

who speaks and out of darkness comes light.

You speak and and where there is a desert, there becomes pools of

water. There comes life.

And so we ask Lord, that you as your word is proclaimed, that

your spirit by your word would create new life, that there

would be hope in our hearts, that there would be peace where

there used to be fear. This we pray in Jesus name,

Amen. One of the most well known books

defending Christianity was written by a former atheist who,

in setting out to disprove Christianity, ended up coming to

faith in Christ. His name is Lee Strobel and the

book is Is the Case for Christ, first published in 1998.

Before he came to faith in Christ.

Lee Strobel is a successful man by all all worldly accounts.

He was a graduate of Yale Law School and a legal editor for

the Chicago Tribune. He was married to an agnostic,

he had a daughter and the future was all bright for him.

But then his wife Leslie became best best friends with a

neighbor who was a Christian and who had a daughter the same age

as theirs. This woman showed her love and

hospitality and she eventually invited her to church.

Leslie became a Christian and Lee thought that his marriage

was over and he was even considering divorce.

But then he had a brilliant idea.

He could use his expertise as a lawyer who could publicly expose

shams to to research the resurrection of Christ and

disprove it. If he could disprove the

resurrection, he could win his wife back from the cult that she

had joined. So he attempted to do just that.

He studied the evidence for the resurrection of Christ and Long

story short, he ended up seeing how reasonable it is to believe

that Jesus Christ existed, that he died and that he rose again.

And so Lee Strobel gave his life to the Lord.

His book A Case for Christ is This is the story of this

journey and gives reasons why the resurrection should be

believed. He presents a a case to to win

his hearers over and not to bring about any kind of of

judgment. And that is similar to what's

happening here in Isaiah 41. Here God is making a case.

He's making a case for why everyone should trust in him.

And he makes that case not to bring about a wrathful judgment,

but to win over those who hear his argument.

And Isaiah 41 the Lord God addresses both Jews and non Jews

to consider 3 reasons to trust in Him above all gods.

I have these reasons outlined for you in the bulletin on page

8. The first reason is the power of

God over the nations and history.

The second reason is that those who trust Him have no reason to

fear. And the third reason is the

powerlessness of other gods. So as we consider this case, May

God give you wisdom to consider these reasons.

May God make it crystal clear to each one of us where our trust

that where the trust of our souls should rest.

Let's start with reason number one in verses one through 7 that

we should trust in God and no other because of the power of

God over the nations and history.

Read with me verse one again and let's consider God's invitation

to the nations. Listen to me in silence, O

Coastlands. Let the peoples renew their

strength. Let them approach, then let them

speak. Let us draw this together, draw

near for judgment. We see here in verse one the

language of judgment and later we'll hear the language of of

case and giving a proof. And so we begin Isaiah 41 with a

court scene. God is calling the coastlands

the the Gentile peoples. He call, he's calling them to

listen to him and to listen to him with reverent silence as he

makes his case to them. In the second poetic line of

verse one, you see that God is inviting them into this

courtroom, not to indict them, not to punish them, but he calls

these non Jewish people the people outside of his covenant.

He's calling them to renew their strength.

He's calling them to renew their strength in the words with the

words that He is about to tell them.

Now if you were, if you heard last week's sermon from Isaiah

40, does the phrase renew their strength?

Sound familiar? Well, it does, doesn't it?

Just one verse before this, the very last verse of chapter 40.

God promised to Israel that they who wait for the Lord shall

renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings

like eagles. So now in Isaiah 41 the Lord

turns to the nations, these nations surrounding Israel, and

He invites the nations into what was promised to Israel.

They too can have their strength renewed if they wait for the

Lord, if they put their trust in Him.

This message of good news and inclusion of the non Jewish

people is a major theme in the book of Isaiah.

It is through Israel that all the nations of the earth will

receive God's blessings. This invitation to the Gentiles

extends beyond its original hearers and all the way to to us

Gentiles to to all the peoples of the world today.

The promises of God's blessings in the book of Isaiah are

offered not just to believing ethnic Israel, but to all who

put their trust in God and in the promise of Jesus Christ.

So we Gentiles who live 2700 years later, we can hear these

words of comfort and blessing and read them as written not

just to the original audience, but also to us.

That's wonderful. It's fantastic.

Let's now look at verses 2 through 4 and hear God's opening

argument in his case. Here God will declare His

unmatched sovereignty. Verse 2.

Who stirred up one from the East, whom victory meets at

every step? He gives up nations before him,

so that he tramples kings under foot.

He makes them like dust with his sword, like driven stubble with

his bow. He pursues them, and passes on

safely by paths his feet have not trod.

Who has performed and done this, calling the generations from the

beginning, I, the Lord the 1st and with the last, I am He.

Here in this passage is a profound statement from God

declaring His unmatched sovereignty over the nations and

over all of human history. And verses 2 through 3.

God predicts the future that He will one day raise up someone

who is going to soundly defeat the nations.

He asks, Who stirred up one from the east?

Who did that? This man, whom God predicts he

will raise up, will trample kings and defeat nations with

ease, all at the permission and hand of the Lord God.

In this passage, God doesn't. God doesn't reveal who he's

prophesying about, probably to just illustrate that, that

there's not merely just one example of God raising someone

up to power for his own purposes.

But this is just something. This is something God always

does, but a few chapters later in Isaiah 44 and 45, we're going

to see that there is good evidence to believe that this

conquering ruler from the east will be the Persian emperor

Cyrus. Cyrus is he's going to come

about 150 years later from when this is written and he's going

to defeat the Babylons and other nations with ease.

And in these chapters, Cyrus's very name is mentioned and it's

prophesied that he will call for the rebuilding of Jerusalem and

the temple. This is a really amazing

prophecy that the temple and Jerusalem, they were in great

shape in Isaiah's day and the exile of Judah wasn't going to

happen for another for over 100 years.

But here God declares that He is so sovereign that He is able to

predict and orchestrate the events of the future.

Now if someone were to think that God only predicts and plans

just a small set of future events in human history, God

blows all of our minds in verse four with how sovereign He is

over the course of human history who has performed and done this,

calling the generations from the beginning, Calling the

generations from the beginning, God who is the Alpha and the

Omega, the 1st and the last. He has called all the

generations of all peoples into being from the very beginning of

human history. No one is like our God who not

only predicts the future but also plans and orchestrates it.

Today people themselves, they they try to predict and

orchestrate the future, maybe using trying to use horoscopes

or fortune tellers. Or maybe they they believe in

karma and so they try to manipulate karma by by doing

good works in the present so that they're guaranteed good

fortune in the future. Or in some Christian and pseudo

Christian circles, those who there's, there's people who turn

to so-called prophets for the prediction of certain events.

Recently in the news, there was a prediction about the rapture

that was supposed to, the rapture was supposed to happen

on the past week or two. And so that's just circulated

quite a bit around the Internet only for the predicted day to

come and go. And these kind of prediction

predictions have been happening quite a bit over the past 150

years. People even today, they, they,

they, they, they try to predict and orchestrate the future, but

it's all to no avail. No one is like God, so we should

trust in him. Trust in him.

And whose hand are all the nations and all of human

history? Those hands, God's hands, are

strong and mighty and secure and safe from any harm that you may

face. So how do the nations respond to

this offer of trusting in the omnipotent power of God?

Read with me their response of fear and idolatry.

And verses 5 through 7. The coastlands have seen and are

afraid. The ends of the earth tremble.

They have drawn near and come. Everyone helps his neighbor, and

says to his brother, Be strong. The Craftsman strengthens the

Goldsmith and he who smooths with the hammer, him who strikes

the anvil, saying of the soldering, it is good and they

strengthen it with nails so that it cannot be moved.

Instead of trusting in God and renewing their strength in Him.

We see in verses 5 and 6 that they respond with fear and and

with trying to find strength in themselves, in one another.

And we look at verse 6, the Gentile peoples turn to their

neighbors instead of turning to God and they say to one another,

be strong, be strong. Why is it that that when when

sovereign, the sovereign power of God is so clearly displayed,

why is it that we so easily resort to trusting in the

strength of men? We want to be like God, don't

we? We we want to be sovereign and

independent from him and his law.

This is rebellion against our Creator, not only the nation's

turn in fear to one another to find strength instead of turning

to God. They then in verse 7 get to work

to build idols that they can put their trust in instead of God.

The word strength occurs 2 more times with the Craftsman

strengthening the Goldsmith as they work together to make

idols, and also with how they strengthen and make solid and

firm the design of their idols, securing it with nails.

They put their strength into this idol instead of waiting on

the Lord to receive His strength.

This is utter foolishness. It's completely unreasonable to

exchange the strength freely offered by the Almighty God with

the utter helplessness of man made idols.

People still trust in idols and other gods even today.

Although it looks different, the human heart has not changed.

It's always worshipping. Worshipping either the creator

or some aspect of creation. Katie Jacobson, one of our

missionaries to Cambodia, recently wrote an update about

how at this time of year, there's a 15 day Buddhist

festival where people give food offerings so that the spirits of

their dead ancestors who who visit during that period of time

so that they're these ancestors will, will see that they haven't

been forgotten. Now they're, they're, they're

afraid that their dead ancestors will will curse them with

misfortune if these offerings are not put out.

So year after year, out of fear, they trust in these food

offerings to to the idols of their dead ancestors so that

their future will be blessed. They desperately need the hope

of Jesus Christ, the blessing of yes, one who died, but one who

resurrected again, who is victorious over fear and death

and over cursing, and who is able to bless us with every

spiritual blessing. May God bless the work of Katie

and our other missionaries there in Cambodia, especially during

this dark festival. So that's a, that's a pretty

blatant form of idolatry. But here in America, we still

have plenty of idolatry, but it's just a lot, a lot more

subtle. The apostle Paul calls

covetousness idolatry. He calls it idolatry.

And so we see that idolatry is not merely something that we

make with our hands and then we worship.

It's something that we desire and worship in our very hearts

and minds. We worship what we trust, what

we feel gives us security and purpose.

So for many of us, we worship the idols of of nice houses,

influential friends, respectable jobs, national recognition, put

together families. We may also worship pleasures,

sex, food, sleep, comfort all the idols of our heart and and

and of this world. They're they're all empty and

powerless in comparison to the power of Jesus Christ, whom

Hebrews 1/3 says that Jesus Christ upholds the universe by

the word of his power and he as revelation one says he is the

alpha and the Omega. This is reason number one in

God's case to us trust Him and Him alone, for He has supreme

power over everything, everyone, and all of human history.

All the nations are like a drop from a bucket in comparison to

Him. Let's move on now to reason #2

we are to trust God and God alone because those who trust

Him have no reason to fear. We now look at verses 8 through

20. We saw in verse 5 that the

coastland responded to God in fear.

But now here God is going to speak to His chosen people,

Israel, and and He's going to comfort them to not respond in

fear as the nations have done. So in the section where we're

going to see reason after reason for why we are to trust in God

and not be afraid like those who do not trust, we just saw God's

mighty hand of power. And now in verses now these next

13 verses, we'll see God's mighty heart of comforting love.

So we're going to start, let's start with verses 8 through 10.

And I think you'll recognize the verses for the the verse, the

words from verse 10. But you, Israel, my servant

Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend,

you whom I took from the ends of the earth and called from its

farthest corners, saying to you, you are my servant.

I have chosen you and not cast you off.

Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your

God. I will strengthen you.

I will help you. I will uphold you with my

righteous right hand. Do you recognize those words?

Yeah. We just thank those in the hymn.

How firm a foundation and they're so reassuring.

God addresses Israel here and and and it's it's three

different times he says to them fear not and he's telling them

don't be afraid like the nations who who aren't who aren't

trusting in me. Then over the next 13 verses.

God will give at least seven reasons for why they should not

be afraid. But before we look at those

reasons, I think it's important for us to rightly understand

this fear not command in verse 10.

Fear not now. While while this phrase is an

imperative, a command, we should read it more as words of loving

comfort to be received than of just like a harsh command just

to obey. The command of fear not is very

common throughout Scripture, but sometimes we read it as if it's

just simply a command to obey. And so if we are afraid, we, we,

we, we think we're, we're, we're being disobedient and we're

sinning. So fear is then is seen as a

sin. And then those who are afraid

are then also weighed down with the extra burden of guilt, which

then increases their fear. It's an awful cycle.

I do not think that that is the tone and intention of the phrase

fear not to be afraid is fundamentally a matter of

suffering, not of sin. To be afraid is fundamentally a

matter of suffering, not of sin. In the Garden of Gethsemane, our

Lord Jesus Christ was praying and weeping as he faced the

imminent agonies of the cross. And it says that he was

troubled. He, our Lord, was troubled.

And that's a word that could also be translated as anxious.

Our Savior was weeping and praying for God to remove the

cup, that cup from him. But Jesus in, in his fearful

suffering in the garden, did he sin?

Absolutely not. No, He responded rightly to God

in his fear. He cried out to God, he prayed

for relief, and he also submitted his will under his

Father's will, saying not as I will, but as you will.

Fear is a suffering, not a sin. But our response to our fear is

often sinful. Our response to our fear is

often sinful. What we do with that fear, we

often seek to to grab power and control instead of submitting to

and praying to the God who has all power in his hand and who

holds us dearly in his heart. There's a there's a famous skit

by Bob Newhart that further illustrates this point.

It's a it's a it's just comedy gold that you just don't really

get any more in this PC World. The scene opens up with Bob

Newhart playing a therapist in his office and a female client

comes in for her first meeting with him.

He tells her that the the meetings not going to last any

longer than 5 minutes. She then shares the reason for

her coming in. She's afraid of being buried

alive in a box. After a few questions, he tells

her he has 2 words for her that she should write down.

So she gets out a pen and paper and eagerly anticipates those

two words that she hopes will release her from these fears.

He then leans in and shares these two.

Those two words at the top of his voice.

Stop it. Is that what God's doing in

Isaiah 41? When his people are afraid, Is

He simply commanding them fear not stop, It's just stop being

afraid? Absolutely not.

These are words of comfort. Words of comfort are meant to

transform a person to, to bring them peace, not to demand that

they transform themselves, that they calm themselves.

When a child sees something that makes them afraid, that they,

they, they then run to their parent or grandparents whose

arms are open. And they, that, that parent or

grandparent, they, they say to them, oh, come here.

You know, let me hold you. It'll be all right.

Don't be afraid. I'm here.

Those are not merely raw commands.

They're words of comfort that the child takes solace in.

So as we look at these comforting words in verses 8

through 20, receive these words as comfort for you.

Receive them from God as you would like a hug from a parent

or grandparent. God's with you.

He'll take care of you. It's going to be OK Be at peace.

Don't fear. Let's now look at at 7 reasons

to not be afraid. Look with me again at verses 8

and 9. The the first reason you should

not fear is that God has chosen you.

You see that in both verses 8 and 9.

God chose Israel to be his servant above all other nations.

We you can look in Deuteronomy 7 and it says God.

God says there that God chose Israel because he loved them.

He there's no more fundamental reason given than that he loves

them. That's why he chose them.

Israel is God's beloved and chosen servant.

So this this verse is the first use of servant in a very in a

new and a very important theme that we're going to now see

throughout the rest of Isaiah. Sometimes this chosen servant is

referring to the people of Israel, sinful and yet chosen by

God. And sometimes the the chosen

servant is the ideal servant, the ideal and true Israel, the

the suffering servant who is none other than Jesus Christ.

So we'll hear more about this this servant next week in Isaiah

42. So brothers and sisters, if you

put your trust in God and your faith in Jesus Christ, you need

not fear because that means that God has chosen you to be his

beloved servant. He has set his heart on you as

as a husband does for his bride. And so he will provide for you.

He will protect you no matter what evil you may face.

That's the first reason. The second reason we are to not

just to fear not is in verse 10. Fear not, for I am with you.

I'm with you when you put your faith in Jesus Christ.

He has promised to never leave you or forsake you.

He, Emmanuel, God with us. He promised in John 14 to send

His Spirit, the Comforter, to be with us and in us so that His

presence could always be with us as He is reigning on His throne

in heaven right now. So fear not God says He is with

you. A third reason to assuage our

fears comes in the next line of verse 10.

Be not dismayed, for I am your God.

I am your God. When you put your faith in

Jesus, you need not fear because God has promised to be your God.

To have God as your God is to have the most loving, most

powerful person on your side. He is for you and not against

you, although yes, you have sinned against him.

Yes, you have at times turned to other idols by faith in Jesus

Christ. God is your God and you are His

forgiven child, so you will not face His wrath.

Jesus Christ took upon Himself the punishment for our sins,

that with the sins, the punishment that we deserved.

And so you then we then are at peace with God.

So take heart and do not be afraid.

God is your God. Fourth reason for peace to rain

down on our troubled souls comes at the end of verse 10.

I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with

my righteous right hand. When you put your faith in

Jesus, it says if God dumps on you all of his promises one

after another after another, the all just heaped upon you like a

kid just buried in birthday presents.

And here we have three I will promises heaped 1 after another.

God promises his aid to all who trust in him.

He he, he promises he will strengthen us.

He'll strengthen you to do your to do his will.

You will mount up with wings like eagles to do what He has

called you to do. He will be your helper.

He will uphold you with His mighty and just hand.

Our security and our help comes from the Lord.

No matter what situation we are in.

God will be our aid as we continue to seek first His

Kingdom and His righteousness. The fifth reason comes in verses

11 through 13. As we read, See how God comforts

us by promising to bring justice on all our enemies. 11A Behold,

all who are incensed against you shall be put to shame and

confounded. Those who strive against you

shall be as nothing, and shall perish.

You shall seek those who contend with you, but you shall not find

them. Those who war against you shall

be as nothing at all, for I, the Lord your God, hold your right

hand. It is I who say to you, fear

not. I am the one who helps you when

the Almighty is on your side. There is no enemy that you have

in the heavens or on earth that will not be destroyed when Jesus

comes again to judge the world. Although our enemies mock us,

impede us, tempt us, and even kill us, they can never fully

defeat us. Their doom is sure.

Fear not your enemies, O Christian.

The worst they can do is destroy your body, but they cannot

destroy your soul or separate you from your Savior, or take

away your inheritance in the Kingdom of heaven. 6th reason

reasons not fear comes in verses 14 through 16.

Now before I read it, I I want to I need to explain one

illustration that Isaiah uses in verse 15.

He talks about a threshing sledge.

A threshing sledge was an ancient agricultural tool.

Let me read this description of it.

This was a heavy wooden platform fitted underneath with sharp

stones and pieces of cutting metal which was dragged over the

crop to chop the straw in preparation for winnowing.

OK, so we've got this flat wooden platform.

It's pulled by rope and underneath that platform is

sharp rocks and metal that then chop the crops into smaller

pieces. So let's read about how God will

make his people into a threshing sledge and how on earth that

could be comforting to us. Verse 14 If you're not, you

worm, Jacob, you man of Israel, I am the one who helps you,

declares the Lord. Your Redeemer is the Holy One of

Israel. Behold, I make of you a

threshing sledge, new, sharp and having teeth.

You shall thresh the mountains and crush them, and you shall

make the hills like chaff. You shall winnow them, and the

wind shall carry them away, and The Tempest shall scatter them,

and you shall rejoice in the Lord.

In the Holy One of Israel you shall glory.

We are not to be afraid because our God transforms us from being

worms to being mountain threshers.

Now what on earth does that mean?

Well, the Lord disses Israel with a fitting insult by calling

them worms, and that could also be translated maggots.

These small, weak, pitiable creatures in incapable of any

significant work. And that's kind of a fitting

kind of a fitting title for us. Sometimes we're afraid because

we see our weaknesses, our inadequacies.

We we see them when we get, we get so fixated on what we can't

do, so fixated that we become immobilized with fear and we

just don't do anything at all. We're not good enough.

We've just then become a bump on the log while God's harvest is

plentiful and ready for reaping. Here in this passage, God says

that he will transform his people from worms into threshing

slush sledges that thresh mountains.

Imagine that he says his that his people will make the hills

like chaff, and the pieces will be so small that the wind shall

carry them away. Now a little worm can move tiny

amounts of dirt right? But here it's as if God is

saying that he'll transform a little worm into one of those

giant sandworms like in Dune or one of those giant where worms

from The Hobbit. These worms that are so large

they can destroy hills and mountains.

Now what does that mean for the Christian means simply this.

When you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you can be at peace that

although you are weak and inadequate, God uses exactly

those kinds of people to advance his Kingdom.

Jesus used a child with only five loaves and two fish to feed

5000 people. Jesus used uneducated fishermen

as the foundation of his church. And he said to those disciples,

For truly I say to you, if you have faith, like a grain of

mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to

there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for

you. Fearful Peter became the bold

apostle and martyr and the apostle Paul when he could not

shake that thorn in his flesh, the Lord said to him, My grace

is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in

weakness. In our weakness, God's power is

made perfect. It's on display how often it is

that we all we just get all obsessed about our weaknesses

and we assume that God cannot use a worm like us.

We fix our eyes on our weaknesses instead of looking to

God. To the God who said I will make

of you a threshing sledge that will thresh the mountains.

It is he that can make maggots into mountain threshers, not by

their own might, but by the strengthening power of God.

God's spirit is in you and that is where the power of the

Kingdom comes from. It's not in you, it's in God's

Spirit. So serve God in the spheres of

life that God has put you in, and do not be surprised if he

moves a mountain. The seventh reason to fear not

is found in verses 17 through 20.

Here Isaiah paints a very beautiful picture of God

creating life where there is no life.

And for some of you here today, this might be the most

comforting promise for you to hold.

On to verse 17. When the poor and needy seek

water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with

thirst, I, the Lord will answer them.

I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

I will open rivers on the bare heights and fountains in the

midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a

pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.

I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the Acacia, the Myrtle,

and the olive. I will set in the desert, the

Cypress, the plain and the pine together, that they may see and

know, may consider and understand together that the

hand of the Lord has done this, the Holy One of Israel has

created it. Brothers and sisters, we need

not be afraid because even when we live in a bleak situation

facing a desert, our God creates life out of nothing by the power

of His Word and Spirit. So what poor condition are you

in, dear Christian? Are you afraid of the bleak

outlook in a certain area of life?

Or maybe, maybe that's just every area of your life right

now. When you are suffering with

fear, respond rightly to God as Jesus did in the garden.

Pray to your loving Father. Call out to Him with your

parched voice. He has promised to answer you.

Submit to His will. Wait upon the Lord.

He makes new creations. He speaks into the darkness and

creates light. He speaks into the void where

His Spirit is hovering and creates something that was not

there. This is our creator God.

We often fear when we see the absence of life and hope.

We see a desert and so we despair.

But when God sees the desert, what is he able to do?

He speaks, and there in the desert is a pool of water.

He speaks and there's a spring of water.

He speaks and above you, all of a sudden there's there's shade

from the scorching sun. There's the shade from a cedar,

the Acacia, the Myrtle, the olive, the Cypress, the pine.

Where there once was no life, God can speak and bring about

life abundant. This is our creator God.

Do not despair when you see a desert call out to God and he

will answer, Do you get afraid? When you look at the hard heart

of somebody that you, someone that you love, you just feel

like there you get afraid that there there could there could

never, there could never be any spiritual life there.

It's such a desert. Do you get afraid?

Is your marriage a desert? Is your relationship with a

child or, or a relationship with a parent?

Is that a desert? You look at your own heart and

you see a lifeless desert. This void of, of, of, of

spiritual vitality, void of perhaps a love for God, void of,

of, of, of, of prayer and worship, void of faith.

There's just a dryness in your soul.

Do not be afraid. Call out to God.

You are poor and needy and He is rich and generous and can create

light out of darkness. So come to the water waters,

come and drink. Come to Jesus by asking for His

life. Ask Him to speak His life,

giving words into the desert hearts of those that you love.

Ask Him to speak into your very own heart, to speak into your

broken relationships, and then wait upon the Lord.

For those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength.

They shall mount up with wings like eagles.

They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.

This is the promise of God, the Word of our God that will stand

forever. These seven reasons are just the

start of many more reasons why we can trust in the loving and

comforting heart of God. Let's now turn to the final

reason in God's case for trusting Him above any other

reason #3 trust in God, because all other gods are powerless.

Look with me at the last major section of this chapter, verses

21 through 29. God turns His attention now

again to those who trusted in idols, and He calls for them to

make their case that their gods have have power.

Verse 21 Set forth your case, says the Lord, Bring your

proofs, says the king of Jacob. Let them bring them and tell us

what is to happen. Tell us the former things, what

they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their

outcome, or declare to us the things to come.

Tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know that

you are gods. Do good or do harm, that we may

be dismayed and terrified. Behold, you are nothing, and

your work is less than nothing. An abomination is he who chooses

you. I stirred up one from the north,

and he has come from the rising of the sun, and he shall call

upon my name. He shall trample on rulers as on

mortar as the Potter treads. Clay, who declared it from the

beginning that we might know, and beforehand that we should

sit, might say he is right. There was none who declared it,

none who proclaimed, none who heard your words.

I was the first to say to Zion, Behold, here they are, and I

give to Jerusalem a herald of good news.

But when I look, there is no one among these.

There is no counsellor who, when I ask, gives an answer.

Behold, they are all a delusion. Their works are nothing.

Their metal images are empty wind.

Only a few words here for this section.

We we read here that God challenges the idolaters to

prove that their idols can do something.

Challenges them to to prove that they can do anything.

Can they predict the future like God?

No. Can they do anything at all?

No. All of the idols are nothing.

Their work is less than nothing. Idols are an empty wind.

All of our idols, they they might feel powerful, they might

feel pleasurable, they might feel secure to us, but on the

day of the Lord they will all be exposed as shams.

They are empty, powerless, vanity of vanities.

That is Isaiah 41. The case has been made.

Who will you trust? The evidence demands A verdict

and I I think the choice to trust the Lord Jesus Christ with

your whole life, with your eternity is a clear the the the

verdict is clear. No one is stronger than God and

no one has a bigger heart of love than God.

And he offers himself to you in the person of Jesus Christ.

If you'd like to follow Jesus for the first time, or if you

have unanswered questions about God or Christianity, definitely

come. Please talk to me after the

service or or one of the pastor's.

We'd love to talk to you. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that though we are poor and

needy, though we are but worms, we thank You that you are

mighty, You are strong, You have a loving heart of comfort.

Lord, we we thank you that you are the God who can speak into

the darkness and there's light. And so Heavenly Father, we pray

that you would turn our hearts away from idols and turn them

towards trusting in you, towards praying to you.

Lord, I pray that you would quiet the fears of our hearts in

you. Help us to trust your mighty

hand and your mighty heart of love.

We pray this all in Jesus name, Amen.