Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 10, 2019 | Can I Help? - The One And Only

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March 10, 2019 | Can I Help? - The One And Only · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: How are you today?
0:04
SPEAKER_00: Hi, good to see you.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: Welcome this morning, Mulvaine and College Avenues.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: We're in a series.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: This is March the 10th, and we're in a series entitled, Can I Help You Look Like You Need It?
0:16
SPEAKER_00: It's an Isaiah series.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah, the greatest book in the Old Testament, perhaps.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: 66 chapters.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: The first half of the book, chapters 1 through 39.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: The second half, 27 chapters, 40 to 66.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: Derek Rowe kicked that door open last week.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: So we're taking an Isaiah challenge.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: I hope you're reading this book with me.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: How many of you are reading this book with me?
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Would you raise your hand?
0:40
SPEAKER_00: Oh, come on.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: Every one of you should be reading this.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: So we're reading four to five chapters a week, and we'll finish on Palm Sunday.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: So I got on an argument with my grandson yesterday on the way to the cake game.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Papa, 40 chapter, 44 was great.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: I said, You're ahead.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: You shouldn't have read that, you know, this week.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's next week.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: No, he says, no, no, no.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to read up to, and I said, no, you're wrong.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: And he said, no, no.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I'm bigger than you.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: Shut up.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, chapters 40 through 48.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: This coming week.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: Each of the, each of the, out of the 27 chapters, there are three sections of nine chapters each.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: Three times nine is 27.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: So we'll read four chapters and then five, four and then five, four and five, and be done.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: This next week, five chapters, 44 through 48.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited about this.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: I absolutely love and could swim the rest of my life in the swimming pool of Isaiah 40 through 66.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: My title this morning, The One and Only.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: The One and Only.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: And I am, of course, speaking of God.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: So let's look at a little bit of history because I need to tell you that this is an absolutely unique section of Scripture.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: In chapters 1 through 39, the Assyrian Empire was in charge.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: It ruled the world.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: There are three dates, by the way, that you can hang your knowledge on: 700, 600, and 550.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: In 700, which is when Isaiah the prophet lives, Assyria is dominant.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: Israel is scared of Assyria.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: Israel won't trust God like it should.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: Judea is scared, so it's making deals with Egypt and other nations, chapters 1 through 39.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: Would you please trust God instead of the nations?
2:29
SPEAKER_00: Hezekiah comes along.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Hezekiah trusts God.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: 186,000 Assyrian troops fall dead outside Jerusalem's city walls.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: They are delivered in about 700 BC, 701 to be exact, from Assyria.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
2:44
SPEAKER_00: But the nation of Judea keeps going downhill.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, rules for 50 years, is the worst king ever.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: And finally, 100 years later, God's had enough.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: He allows Babylon, which was in existence during the days of Assyria, was a little bit of a rebel state, and has now become the ruler of the world in 600.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Babylon comes and destroys the city of Jerusalem, takes Israel captive, and in 550 BC, Israel is captive.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: And Isaiah 40 through 66 is an absolutely unique passage of Scripture in this way.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: Lots of prophets throughout the Bible, lots of inspired writers, predict the future.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: They stand here, they talk to their people, they say, this is going to happen one day.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 40 through 66 is absolutely unique.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: For even though Isaiah is speaking to the people of his day, he is actually sending a word of comfort 150 years into the future to the exiles who he knows are going to be depressed and think that there's no hope.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: So we're reading in Isaiah 40 through 66, 27 chapters that are actually directed to a letter into the future.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: He's not clairvoyant, he's just inspired.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: All right, written to people living 150 years later.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: So the fall of Jerusalem happens in three stages: 605, 597, 586.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: Each time Babylon takes a stream of captives 500 miles to the east to Babylon.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: It takes Daniel, it takes Ezekiel, it takes the Krim de la Krim of Israel's young people.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: And it takes them up north.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: You always avoid the desert, takes them up north and then follows the great Euphrates River down to Babylon, which is surrounded by the Euphrates River.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: The captivity of Judah is going to last, as the prophet Jeremiah predicted, 70 years.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: In 516 BC, Cyrus, who will then be the new ruler in Babylon, because Persia will have defeated Babylon, he will say, You're free to go.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: Cyrus, an absolutely unique ruler.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: He always was telling the countries he conquered that they should live, they should go back and live where they were.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: He ruled with friendship rather than with an iron fist.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: So this is just an astounding thing.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: But the Israelites from Judea, from Jerusalem, were as depressed and heart sick and questioning their faith the way a sweet little western Kansas kid does when they come and go to the big university, and they feel absolutely beset by people who are a lot smarter, who completely dismissed their religion and their God and everything that mommy taught them.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, Israel is thinking they're in Babylon, and here's Babylon, which controls from Africa to Asia to Europe, and they're thinking, who were we to think that our religion, our God, was anything?
6:12
SPEAKER_00: We had this little city of David, but look at Babylon with the hanging Babylons of hanging gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the world in that day, with these huge idols, with these hundreds of thousands of people, and the surrounded by the river Euphrates.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: Jews, well, they weren't called Jews yet, but the Israelites were in a suburb north of Babylon, but I'm sure as they looked at it, as they looked at those walls, which were, depending on which historian you read, 80 to 100 feet high and 80 feet thick, with ramps up to the top, so chariots had chariot races on top of their walls, right?
6:58
SPEAKER_00: And every brick in those walls was labeled to the honor of Marduk, that was their number one god, sort of a combination of the god Thor and uh we won't get into Marvel comics, but anyway, he was a tough dude, cool, all right.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: They must have thought no one will ever conquer Babylon.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: And so, uh, and here was the Tower of Babel, by the way, which is rebuilt thousands of years later.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: And here's the they had uh dozen of these bridges which would be locked, and they would go through into uh through the walls into Babylon, crossing the river Euphrates, and you had these mighty Babylonian rulers.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: It must have been absolutely depressing.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: So Isaiah 40 through 66 begins comfort, comfort my people.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: First 39 chapters, all j all about judgment.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: Last 27 chapters, hope.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna redeem you.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Hang on.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Let me prove to you that I really am your God.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: All right, so that's what I'm gonna talk about today: that the God of Israel is the one and only God.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: What I'm doing is I'm taking excerpts from the first five chapters.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: I am dragging out the number one theme that God starts with, which is that I am still God, and I am the one and only God, and I am greater than anything you see in front of you.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: And I'll give you eight reasons for that, and we're gonna move fast.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: The first reason he gives is the God of Israel is the one and only God because he created the entire earth and he did it by himself.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 40, verse 12.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?
8:38
SPEAKER_00: When you were young, did you ever go by a stream and you were thirsty and you dipped your hand in, or maybe whatever, and took it to your mouth to drink from the hollow of your hand?
8:50
SPEAKER_00: You didn't get much water, did you?
8:52
SPEAKER_00: It just kind of dribbles out.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
8:55
SPEAKER_00: Because the waters spoken of here are the seven seas of the earth, which cover 70% of the world's surface, 350 million cubic feet of water that go down 33,000 feet in the oceans, and God is saying, My hand, just one hand is so great that I can hold all that water in the palm of my hand.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, Who has marked off the heavens with the span of his hand?
9:22
SPEAKER_00: By the way, what's the answer to each of these questions?
9:24
SPEAKER_00: There's going to be five of them.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: Only God, right?
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Marked off the heavens with the span of his hand, which is from the tip of your fifth finger to the tip of your thumb.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: Now, you can you can cover the span of the heavens by if you stick your hand right over your face at night, right?
9:42
SPEAKER_00: And then you can cover the whole sky, you know, from one side to the other.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: Imagine for a moment that I was Elastigirl or whatever, and I could stretch my span of my hand over this whole stage.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: You'd go, he's got a really big hand.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: And then maybe I could stretch it down to the Capitol, or maybe to Kansas City.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: You'd go, he's really got a big hand, and then maybe to Washington, D.C.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: And what if I could stretch it around the earth?
10:09
SPEAKER_00: Or what if I could stretch it 25,000 miles to the moon?
10:14
SPEAKER_00: Or eight light minutes, 93 million miles to the sun.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: What a huge hand he has, you'd say.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: But see, God, for God, that's just a start.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: He can stretch it over the entire solar system, which is a minor solar system in a galaxy called the Milky Way Galaxy, which has a hundred million stars in it.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: But it's a minor galaxy.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: It's a one of a grouping of 17 galaxies.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: The next closest one, as you know, is the Andromeda Galaxy.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: Four and a half million light years away, and get the span of God's hand can just easily fit over that.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: And these 17 galaxies, they're part of a rich cluster of galaxies, it's called, with a hundred plus galaxies, and they're discovering new rich clusters of galaxies every year.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: And if the average galaxy has a hundred million stars in it, we're talking about 10 billion trillion stars in the universe, and somehow God's hand.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: Just one, because the other one's holding the seven seas, yeah, plus Lake Perry, you know.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: But this hand is covering the whole sky.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: That's how big God is.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: He holds the whole world in his hands.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: And God says, yeah, I made that stuff.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: Now he has three more questions because he has five questions in a row here with five measurements.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: Who has gathered the dust of the earth in a measure?
11:45
SPEAKER_00: Number four, and weighed the mountains on a balance.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: Number five, and the hills on the scales.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: So now he says, uh, who's gathered the dust of the earth in a measure?
11:56
SPEAKER_00: And this is a court jar.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: This is about a third of a bushel.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: So can you imagine lift trying to lift the dust of the earth?
12:03
SPEAKER_00: And he says, I can stick it all in a court jar.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's like Paul Bunyan, you know.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: He's he's like this gigantic, you know, giant or weighed the mountains on a balance.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, he plucks up the rockies that our high school kids are skiing on, you know, today, and then throws in the Alps and then the Himalayas.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: And he just puts them on his balance and the hills on the scales, including Burnett's Mound.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry, that's there too.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: But God's in charge of all of this, and he's so big.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: And his point is, I've created all this, and then so the next question is now, did he get help in creating it?
12:44
SPEAKER_00: It's just so amazing.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, Lake Perry's got all of these little fingers, you know.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: Who's directed the spirit of the Lord?
12:50
SPEAKER_00: Who gave him counsel?
12:51
SPEAKER_00: Who did he consult?
12:52
SPEAKER_00: Did God go, not quite sure how to create today?
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Can you help?
12:58
SPEAKER_00: But it says he did it without any help.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: Who gave him understanding and taught him the paths of the right order?
13:04
SPEAKER_00: Justice is the heavenly pattern brought down to earth.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: Who taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding?
13:10
SPEAKER_00: Three different words that sort of express the picture of a teacher and a student, a sage and his followers, and a therapist and his counselee.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Who was God's therapist?
13:21
SPEAKER_00: Who was God's teacher?
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Who is God's wise man or mentor?
13:25
SPEAKER_00: Nobody, right?
13:28
SPEAKER_00: Number one, God is the one and only because he made everything.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: Number two, he's the one and only God because compared to him, the nations are nothing, which is pertinent because people go, well, uh, the nature doesn't scare me and the oceans and so forth, but it's, you know, to be honest, it's the Islamic State and it's China and some of the other stuff.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: Not long ago, a man said to me, he'd recently married, he says, I don't think I'll have kids.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: Said, why not?
13:54
SPEAKER_00: He says, I just don't think it'd be.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I could defend bringing in them them into the kind of a world we live in, where America, who knows where America is going to, but China's getting stronger and ISIS and so forth.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: I just can't bring them into a world like this.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: He's living his life in fear, was until I slapped some sense into him.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: But so, no, I mean, can you imagine living your life in fear before the nations?
14:20
SPEAKER_00: But God says, I mean, compared to me, the nations are zero, are less than nothing.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: Look, he says the nations are like a drop in a bucket.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: One drop, dry bucket.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: You know what China's saber rattling sounds like in heaven?
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Answer plink.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: Message brought to you by China today, which has supplied your entire store with clothes and plink, that's all they are to God.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it doesn't matter who you are, a drop in the bucket.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: Second of the three pictures, they're a speck of dust on the scales.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: By the way, literally, this is actually hovering above the scales.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: You know how you have these little dust flecks that you see in the sunlight that sort of hover over?
15:00
SPEAKER_00: This is how small a nation is to God.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: It's hovering over the surface of the scale, okay?
15:06
SPEAKER_00: And he lifts up the island.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: The islands in the Bible represent those far-off countries like America before they knew about it, the far-off countries they had that they knew were there, but they had never explored.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: So he lifts up the islands that would include America back then, like fine dust.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: That's how small the nations are to God.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Illustration, Lebanon, they respected it for two things, their amazing forests of cedar trees and their prime cattle herds.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: Lebanon's cedars aren't enough for fuel, or it's animals enough for a burnt offering.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: The picture being if you cut down all of those cedars, made an altar, set it on fire, and put their cattle herds on top, I wouldn't even notice it.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean, really, can you imagine that?
15:52
SPEAKER_00: If you took all the redwoods of California, cut them down, built an altar a mile high and a hundred miles long, then took all the longhorns of Texas, slaughtered them, put them on the top to offer a sacrifice to God.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: God's saying, I'd look down from heaven, go, oop, looks like a twig on fire.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, it's that small.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: We're so small to God.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: He concludes all the nations are as nothing before him.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: Literally, that's part of nothing.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: It's like a zero with part of the ought rubbed out.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
16:22
SPEAKER_00: That's how small we are.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: They're considered by him as empty nothingness.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: This is how great is our God.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: All right?
16:33
SPEAKER_00: That's number two.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Number three is the God of Israel is the one and only God because all other deities are created things.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: Anything else that we worship is something we manufacture.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: Chapters 40 and 44, and he really starts making fun here.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: He's making fun of these other gods.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: He starts off with whom will you compare God?
16:59
SPEAKER_00: What likeness will you set up for comparison, comparison with him?
17:02
SPEAKER_00: An idol?
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Here I've got two of the idols of Egypt, and in the middle, you may notice an Oscar just for kick.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I'm not saying anything, not saying anything, not saying anything.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: Okay, just happen to put the picture there.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, so an idol, something that a three thing, three took three people to make one of these metal idols.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: A smelter casts it, a metal worker plates it with gold, because you know it's gotta be worth something, and make silver chains for it, because that's what real people wear.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, they wear silver bracelets, so we've got to put that on an idol, pretend like it's a real person.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
17:36
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have the money for a metal one, a poor person contributes wood for a pedestal that won't rot.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: So you gotta check the wood because you wouldn't want your God getting termites, right?
17:46
SPEAKER_00: And he looks for a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that won't fall over.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: So you better work on the base and hammer it down with a 24-penny nail or whatever, so that it doesn't fall over, because you don't want the God you worship falling over.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: But of course, you say, since we're not living in India or Nepal or any of those places where they actually have idols today that you set up, you say, I didn't set up an idol like that when I went to in my dorm room at college, and I don't have any of those sitting up, I don't worship those in my house.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: So this is when you remind yourself that since an idol, as Jesus said, is anything that sucks your devotion and loyalty away from God that replaces him on the throne of your heart, that's an idol, therefore you realize, well, I need to check myself.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: Is my husband my idol?
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Is my wife my idol?
18:43
SPEAKER_00: Are my children my idol?
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Is my job my idol?
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything in my life, oh yeah, my money?
18:52
SPEAKER_00: Silver change.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: I put a pedestal on it, I try to put it in equities so it won't topple over and I lose it.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: What is on the throne of your heart, on the throne of your life?
19:07
SPEAKER_00: Is it God or is it something else that's man-made?
19:12
SPEAKER_00: Number four, the God of Israel is the one and only God, because from on high, he is transcendent above us.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: From on high, he rules the world.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: Don't you know?
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Haven't you heard?
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Hasn't it been declared to you from the beginning?
19:26
SPEAKER_00: Haven't you understood from the foundations of the earth?
19:29
SPEAKER_00: A whammy of four drumbeats of questions in a row that get more and more specific.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: Saying that, yeah, you know what?
19:37
SPEAKER_00: You we all have known from the very beginning, just by looking at nature, that God exists, that he sits enthroned above the circle of the earth.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: Don't know that this is teaching 700 BC, that the earth is round.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: That would be amazing.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: But that phrase is used oftentimes to refer to the semicircle of the vault of the earth that you could see from horizon to horizon, and saying that God sits enthroned above that, and to him uh we are all like grasshoppers.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: Grasshopper.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Now, and uh if you've flown in an airplane, sorry about that, if you've flown in an airplane, he go, wow, even smaller than grasshoppers, right?
20:25
SPEAKER_00: You look down, you can't see the biggest person on earth, the coolest person, you can't even see them from a plane.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: And God's farther up, and because he's got better eyesight than you and me, we look like grasshoppers, which is not really flattering.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: But the point here is that he reduces princes to nothing.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: He's the ruler that's above, and he makes judges of the earth like a wasteland, and they're barely planted, barely sown, their stem barely takes root in the ground, though, you know, become president of the United States, that's great, but just barely have you started when you're out.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: When he blows on them and they wither.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: Every May, about mid-May in Israel, the wind, the Hamcin, the hot wind comes from the east and turns everything that's green, red, into something brown.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: And that's the picture here, the hot wind, some places called Sharakko.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: He blows on us, on the leaders of the world, and they wither.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: And a whirlwind carries them away like stubble.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I had to think of a tumble.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: Oh, do you like the eyes I put in there?
21:29
SPEAKER_00: Because this is a person.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: This is the person you and I really admire.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe this is us if we become famous and we just blow away.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: Pretty good looking, if I say so myself.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: So that's verse 24.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: So now, then number five, the fifth reason why the God of Israel is the one and only God in chapters 40 through 45 of Isaiah is because he made the stars and he shepherds them.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: He actually cares about all 10 billion trillion stars.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
21:58
SPEAKER_00: He says it like this.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: To whom will you compare me?
22:01
SPEAKER_00: Who is my equal?
22:02
SPEAKER_00: asked the Holy One.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is nobody, right?
22:07
SPEAKER_00: Why not?
22:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, he gives another illustration.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: Look up and see who created all these.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: He brings out the stars by number, calls them all by name.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: Like a shepherd with his sheep, brings them out, calls them all by name.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe like a general with his soldiers.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: He brings them out, calls them all by name because of his great power and strength, not one of them is missing.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is unbelievable, all of these stars.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: And I gotta ask myself, though.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've ever thought about this.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: I love reading science.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: I love reading these journals.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: I love I took an astronomy course here at Washburn when I came, even though I didn't, and so forth.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: But have you ever wondered when you read the every year there's a discovery of a new star cluster, a new black hole or something, do you ever go, why the waste in space?
23:02
SPEAKER_00: Why is why is this why is space so vast that you never get to the end of it, and there always seems to be more and more?
23:12
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't seem to be bringing scientists anywhere closer to God.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it seems to make them more secular.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: This expanding universe, right?
23:22
SPEAKER_00: And you ask them, I mean, why why would God, if if I believe if you believe God is the creator of all this, why would He make it so vast and so large?
23:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, even the Hubble telescope, will they admit, only sees an infinitesimal part of it.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: What's the deal there?
23:41
SPEAKER_00: I think the Bible answers that.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: I think the answer has to be a God-centered answer rather than a man-centered answer.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: Then the answer is that God does that, and he reveals a little bit more of it, allows scientists to discover more of it every year to give us more of a chance to glorify him, to realize how great he is, to honor him in the way that he wants us to honor him.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: Because he says so clearly, doesn't he, in Romans chapter 1, that since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and godness, godhood have been clearly seen, being understood by what's been made so people are without excuse.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: Don't argue with people who say there's no God as you stand there looking at the night sky.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: They're arguments with God.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: They know it in their heart, right?
24:28
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they've been sold a bill of goods.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: Why is the universe so vast?
24:33
SPEAKER_00: Why does there seem to be a waste?
24:35
SPEAKER_00: Because it's not a waste.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: Our profligate, our amazing God, the one who puts millions of beautiful flowers in mountain meadows that we never see.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: Loves to have one person come over the top of a mountain, look down at that, and they say, How great thou art.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's there, so that you and I will see it with eyes of faith.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Abraham, 4,000 years ago, couldn't see anything like what we see.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: He had no telescope.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: He's standing other, he could have counted 700 or 1,000 stars, perhaps.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: But he asked the right question, and he gave the right answer.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: The question was not the question that scientists say is the question today.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: That is, what's the measure of the universe, or how big is it, or how fast is it expanding, or how many black holes, or what's the reason for the, you know, for the black space there.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: That's not the question.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: Now the question is, okay, if there really is a big bang, where did the material come for the big bang and who made that material and why did he make that material and why is it here?
25:43
SPEAKER_00: And the answer that Abraham understood, because we all innately understand it, is because of God, who wants us to glorify him.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: And Abraham did that by faith.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to see a million billion stars to accept and understand the waste and space, the vastness.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: It's also that God's name will be glorified and we'll sing how great thou art.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: Number six, the God of Israel is the one and only God.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: Gotta hurry because he's the only savior.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: He's the only one who could possibly arrange to have tiny little Judea escape from Babylon and come back home.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: We read, besides me, I'm the Lord.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: Besides me, there's no Savior.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm the one and only.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: I alone declared saved and proclaimed, and not some foreign God among you, so you're my witnesses.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: This is the Lord's declaration.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: And I am God.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: I predicted it, I'm gonna make it happen.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: No other God or deity could do either one of those things.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: Number seven of eight, the God of Israel is the one and only God, because none can stand against me, nobody can stop it.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: If I've got something in my plan, if I've got something in my mind, if I'm gonna deliver my people, if I'm gonna conquer Babylon by an amazing miracle, nobody can stop it.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: From today on, I am He alone, and none can rescue from my power.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: I act, and who can reverse it?
27:15
SPEAKER_00: And now we come to the Peace La Resistance, what I've been waiting for this whole time.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: The main theme in chapters 40 through 45 is God says, I am the one and only, because I control history.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: I control history, and the proof is that I am the only one you know who can predict the future.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: No one else can predict the future.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: If you read the January columns, you know, the end of December, January columns, you know, I wrote in one of my devotions that they predicted, who was it, J-Lo is supposed to marry this year, and Vesuvius is supposed to erupt this past year, 2018, and kill 60,000 people, and on and on and on.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: Every one of the prophecies struck out, except for there will be variable weather changes.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, so um, well, only God can predict the future.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: And he says it again and again and says the idols can't.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: What he does is he calls everybody into court and he says, I want to prove to you I'm the one and only.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: You submit your case, you present your arguments, you show that somehow you can control history, that you are God.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: Let them come, your deities, and tell us what will happen.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: Tell us the future, tell us the coming events, then we'll know that you are legit, that you are God.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: And he waits and he waits and they can't do anything.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: And he yells out in the a few verses later, he says, Do anything, move to the right, move to the left, stick your foot in, stick your foot out.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, he says, Do the hokey pokey do anything, but they can't.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: They just sit there tottering on their base.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Look, you're nothing.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: Your work is worthless.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who chooses you is disgusting, detestable.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: Why would you ever worship anything else other than me?
28:57
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, I'm the first and I'm the last.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: There's no God but me.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: Who like me can announce the future?
29:03
SPEAKER_00: Let him say so and make a case before me.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: Let these gods declare the coming things.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: They can't.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: The God of Israel is the one and only God because, and he says, He even names, get this.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: Here it comes one of the great prophecies of the Bible.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: He even names the future deliverer, Cyrus, that he will send to deliver Israel from captivity a hundred and seventy-two years later.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: Catch this for just a moment, will you?
29:34
SPEAKER_00: I have, first of all, for a while, he hints at who he is, he doesn't identify him.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: He says, I've stirred up one from the north, and he's come, one from the east, who invokes my name.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Who is that?
29:43
SPEAKER_00: How can you be from the north and the east?
29:45
SPEAKER_00: People laughed.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
29:46
SPEAKER_00: Cyrus's mother came from the north.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: She was the daughter of the king of Media, Styades, and that was his mother.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: She was from the north.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: But his father, she married a Persian prince, Persia's to the east, Iran, today.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: So he was a child of a northern mother and an eastern father, by the way, the historian Herodotus used to call Cyrus a donkey, you know, which is a merger of sort of two opposites for this very reason.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: And that's God saying, 150 years ahead of time, I'm gonna bring someone like this, and he's gonna march over rulers as if they were mud, like a potter who treads the clay.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: But then we move on to chapter 44, and he's getting close to actually naming him.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: He starts by reminding us that he's the creator.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm the Lord who made everything, who stretched out the heavens by myself, who alone spread out the earth, who says to Cyrus, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, Cyrus, Cyrus, my shepherd, he'll fulfill all my pleasure, and says to Jerusalem, she'll be rebuilt, and of the temple, its foundation will be laid.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: A man named Cyrus, who'd become king of Persia in 550 BC, comes down against Babylon.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: And after he conquered Babylon, and we'll talk about that for just a second, he graciously said, Israel, go home, rebuild Jerusalem, rebuild your temple.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: And we have the books Ezra and Nehemiah that talk about that.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: And God's predicting it 150 years ahead of time.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: And then he says in the first verse of chapter 45, the Lord says this to Cyrus, his anointed, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him, to open doors before him, that gates may not be closed.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: I think that might be significant.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's an accident, but do you remember how Cyrus conquered the great city of Babylon in May of 539 BC?
31:56
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've read the book of Daniel.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: You'll remember the feast of Belshazzar, where they had no worries about the Persian army outside their gates.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: After all, how could they ever get across the river Euphrates?
32:08
SPEAKER_00: How could they ever get through the 80-foot walls and get across the Euphrates and then get in?
32:13
SPEAKER_00: In fact, they left some of the gates open of the dozen gates around the inside and around the city because it really didn't matter.
32:21
SPEAKER_00: But what happened is that Cyrus, who developed this amazing plan, he was a great engineer, and that was to divert the river Euphrates.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: And about the same time that in Belshazzar's feast, as Daniel is interpreting the hand of God, remember the disembodied hand that writes many, many tickle eupharson, your days are numbered, you're done for.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: About the same time that he's speaking, the troops of Cyrus are crossing the dry, semi-dry, muddy riverbed.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: Herodotus writes about this, of the Euphrates, and they're going in the open gates, the open doors, as God goes on before them.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: And he conquers Babylon in one night, and God predicts that Cyrus will do this.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: So long ahead of time.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: And then God says, I'm the God of Israel, and I call you by your name.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: I call you by your name, Cyrus, for the sake of my servant Jacob and Israel, my chosen one.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: I give a name to you, though you do not know me.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: Cyrus knew about God, but Cyrus wasn't what we would call a believer.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: But God uses all kinds of people.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, I am the Lord, and there is no other.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: There's no God but me.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: I'll strengthen you though you don't know me, so that all may know from the rising of the sun to its setting, there's no one but me.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: I am the Lord, and there is no other.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: And that's our message today.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: The God of Israel is the one and only God because he alone can predict the future, even naming Cyrus as the future savior of his people Israel.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: But you know the danger of him naming Cyrus is that alerted God's number one enemy in the universe of a person he needed to get rid of.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: The same person who, when Jesus was born 600 years later, did his best to kill him at birth by having Herod kill all the babies in Bethlehem, who tried to kill him at the beginning of his ministry by having the people in Nazareth throw him off of a cliff, finally succeeded in killing him.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: But of course, Jesus rose again from the dead to save us.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: But now it's 600 years beforehand, and God's reputation and glory are on the line, and he has named a person, and now the great enemy of God wants to eliminate that person, and that person we know is going to be in great danger.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: And we find that Herodotus speaks about the great danger.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: Without being a Christian, the great danger that the baby Cyrus was in.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: The characters in this story very quickly are Astyages, the king of meats, Mandane, the beautiful princess daughter of Astyages, Cambyses, remember, she's Median.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: He's Persian, Cambyses, a Persian general, her husband.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: Cyrus, their little baby, Harpagus, a trusted general of Astyages, and Mithridates, the king's shepherd.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: Those are the characters in an amazing drama told by the historian Herodotus.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: But behind those characters is the prince of the power of the air, is the king of the earth who would like to kill this little baby.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: And the story goes like this.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: The story goes that the daughter of King Astyages was pregnant with a baby.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: And Astyages had had some horrible dreams, and he had heard that if his daughter had a baby, that he needed to kill that baby, that baby would do him in, would cast him off his throne.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: And so he prevailed, expressing love to his daughter from far away.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you come from Persia with your husband and have your baby here in the palace?
35:46
SPEAKER_00: Not suspecting anything, she did.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: And then he said to her, Now that the baby is born, why don't you let us raise the baby for a little while?
35:53
SPEAKER_00: You go back home.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: Let the royal grandmother take care of little Cyrus.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: We'll handle it.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: And so they say, okay, and they go back home.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: And two weeks later he sends a message to them by a servant.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, but your little baby took very ill and has died.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what happened at all.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: After they left, Astyages got Harpagus, his trusted general, and he says, I want you to take this baby and I want you to kill it.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: And Harpagus didn't want to kill the little baby, and so he summoned the King Shepherd from his home up near the forest.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: He summoned Mithridates.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: Mithridates came and he said, I'd like you to take this baby.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to save the royal clothes, and I want you to save the necklace, the jeweled necklace, and bring those back.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: We're going to need proof.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: I need you to put this baby out in the forest and let the wolves eat it.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: Mithridates, the chief shepherd, agreed to do that, and he went to his home and he found his wife sobbing inside his home.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: He said, Honey, what's wrong?
36:57
SPEAKER_00: She said, You know, our new baby, that baby, our only child, the child we've been trying to have for so long, while you were gone.
37:05
SPEAKER_00: Our baby has died, and she absolutely was bereft.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: She was so sad, and they together hatched a plan.
37:12
SPEAKER_00: They hatched a plan that they would trade babies, that they would take this little baby, whom he did not know was the royal prince, that they would raise this baby.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: They named this baby Darsh.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: They took the clothes back and said, Yes, that baby has died.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: Harpegus took it to Astyages and said, The baby has died.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: And they raised this little boy Darsh.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: And Darsh grew up to be a remarkable young man, a leader, great at all sports and athletics and military events.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: And he found his way to the capital.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: And there, as he was playing with boys, he beat up the royal prince, a very sickly boy that had been born after him, a boy showing no leadership promise, but a boy who was snotty and defiant.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: And they got in a fight and he beat him up.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: And Darce was called before Astyages, was very angry at him and said, Who's your father?
38:02
SPEAKER_00: And he said, The shepherd.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: It's all he knew.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: Your shepherd, Mithridates.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: And Mithridates came in.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: Astyages said, I why should I not kill your son for beating up the prince?
38:14
SPEAKER_00: Mithridates said, Well, actually, he's not my son.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: I got him from Harpegus, your trusted general over here.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: My baby had died.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know who this son is, but we've raised him.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: He's been a wonderful boy.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: And at that point, Astyages knew, and Harpagus knew, and the whole court knew who this baby really was, that this was Cyrus, and he could not kill him.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: And within a few years, Cyrus overthrew Astyages and took over the throne.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: And that's why he was outside the city of Babylon.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: A few years later, and that's how God helped him get underneath the walls of Babylon and how God could fulfill his prophecy.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: This God, who is the creator of the entire earth, this God is so amazing, his hand spans all of creation.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: He can hold all the waters of the sea in his hand, but most of all, he controls history, and he alone can predict history.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: And we come to him today tending to worship so many other things.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: And God says to us, Why would you do that?
39:17
SPEAKER_00: Why would you do that rather than worship the one and only God?
39:21
SPEAKER_00: Why not say, because you're the one and only God, I will live in your presence, I will live under your authority, I will live for your glory.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: This morning is a morning for you to reaffirm to God how great you believe He is, how determined you are to live in His presence.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: Corumdao, to live before your face.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: I will live under your authority, for you are my king.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: And I will live to glorify you.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: Will you do that with me?
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, I ask as we're about to sing how great thou art that you would hear our worship.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: We know you are far above, and to us and to you, we are just grasshoppers.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: We are so small, but when we raise our voices and glorify and honor you, because that is the purpose of everything, why we were created, why you created the earth, because that's the purpose.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: We know you hear us, we know you lift us up, we know you call all the angels to peer over the balustrade and listen to us worship you.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: Father, let us elevate you as you should be elevated this morning and all week long in Jesus' name.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: Amen.