For many people, God is bad news, and religion is the cause of all the problems in the world. But Christianity is not about religion. It’s about the reality of God as a person who is awesome and incomparable. He has no equal. There is no one like Him. God is able to help you, your family, our culture and our world because He is far above any and every human problem we may face. His greatness is beyond human comprehension.  

Today many of us may be busy, discouraged and depressed. Looking at ourselves, looking down, comparing ourselves to others. Busy with our to do lists, our work, the piles of laundry, or discouraged by the state of the nation and of society. But everything changes when we get a new perspective of the greatness of God. What is so big to us is so small to Him. What has impressed, impacted and impeded our lives so far is as nothing to Him.  

We’ve seen in Isaiah 40:1-5 that God is a God of consolation who wants to comfort us. He’s a God of preparation – He wants to get us ready and shape us up for the best lives. And He wants us to have a revelation of His glory to come. But the rest of this opening chapter of the second part of Isaiah lays the foundation of who God really is. We see: 

1. Far above natural creation (Isaiah 40:12 ,22,25-28) 

2. Far above all idols (Isaiah 40:18-20; Romans 1:25 ; Genesis 1:31 ) 

3. Far above human understanding (Isaiah 40:13-14,27; 1 Corinthians 1:27 ) 

4. Far above the nations (Isaiah 40:15-17) 

5. Far above human rulers (Isaiah 40:23-24,28; Daniel 7:14 ; Isaiah 6-11)

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1. Far above natural creation (Isaiah 40:12 ,22,25-28). We are told to ‘lift your eyes and look to the heavens…’ The more we know about our world and its relationship to entities beyond our world makes us realise how much we don’t know. Even though we can travel quickly around our world there is no disguising that the oceans and deserts and continents of our world are simply vast. Even bigger is the universe. So how much greater is the God who made them? The Bible is clear that there is a God and that He is the Creator of all we know. (See: Bill Bryson ‘A short History of nearly everything’; Olivier Bonnaissies and Michel-Yves Bolloré ‘God: Science, the Evidence’; Lee Strobel ‘The Case For A Creator’). If you want to study the arguments in more depth, you can read the books, but basically their conclusions are very much in line with the vision of the prophet Isaiah who gives us a picture of the almighty creator of a vast creation.  

2. Far above all idols (Isaiah 40:18-20). Almost half of Isaiah chapters 40 to 55 talk about rival gods and the idol of the people had turned to worship. Here Isaiah compares how ridiculous it is for someone to worship a lump of wood with some gold or silver attached to it over the greatness of the one true God. The apostle Paul also highlighted this (Romans 1:25 ). Of course God ‘saw all that he had made, and it was very good’ (Genesis 1:31 ) but that does not mean we should exchange our worship of God to worship things created by Him or for His glory – such as looking to the stars for guidance through horoscopes, instead of looking to God who created the stars. Idols can topple. And when we put anything in place of our God, those things will eventually fall. Only our God endures forever. 

3. Far above human understanding (Isaiah 40:13-14, 27). The mind of God is far beyond the intelligence of any human cleverness (1 Corinthians 1:27 ). No-one can understand the mind of the Lord, except the Lord reveals a portion of His thinking to us through His word the Bible.  The most qualified academic, or the most convinced rationalist, the most so-called ‘enlightened’ spiritualist, may be publicly celebrated for the brilliance of their intellect. But compared to God they are nothing.  

4. Far above the nations (Isaiah 40:15-17). Nations are nothing that will make a difference in the big picture. This gives us a good perspective! Through history nations and empires have arisen in great power. The Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans etc. Yet walk around the Acropolis or the Coliseum today and they are ruins. The Romans thought they could persecute Jesus and Paul and the early Christians in such violent ways as they saw fit, but pagan Rome is gone and Christianity survives today. Even the British Empire ‘where the sun never set’ seemed impossible to change, yet now look at what humbled and humiliated state our nation is in. Look at the nations today and it’s still the same – India and its 1.46 billion people, China and its more than 1.4 billion people,… it might sound big to us, but to God it’s all just a drop.  

5. Far above human rulers (Isaiah 40:23-24). So many rulers of this world have been so proud and arrogant. Alexander the Great, Napolean, Stalin, Hitler who boasted of a 1000 year Reich that lasted little more than a decade. Hitler committed suicide in a bunker. Mussolini was strung up by his own countrymen. Ceausescu of Romania seemed an all-powerful dictator but saw his rule collapse in days. Everybody, even the great Queen Elizabeth II, has a limited reign. Only God is eternal (Isaiah 40:28 ). Daniel had a great vision of the God whose rule was eternal (Daniel 7:14 ). So do not be so impressed with the powers of this world. They will all pass away.  

Our God is far above natural creation, all idols, and all human understanding, He is far above the nations and above human rulers. But what does this mean for us? Well Isaiah says to the people that this God is your God. He is bigger than your sad history of captivity. He is bigger than your sadness and depression. He is bigger than your worries. He is bigger than your debt. This is why God is good news (Isaiah 40:6-11). God is with you, God is for you. This great and almighty God gently wants to lead you and keep you close to His heart. So decide to put your confidence is this great God today and every day.