Sermon #109           Series: Isaiah

 

Title:   A Challenge for Idolaters

 

Text:   Isaiah 41:21-29

 

Subject:   Some Clear Distinctions Between The Living God and Idols

 

Date:   Tuesday Evening - March 10, 1992

 

Introduction:

 

What do you have to say for your God?  Can you demonstrate that your God is God indeed?

 

The title of my message tonight is A Challenge for Idolaters.  In Isaiah 41:21-29, The Lord God speaks and issues a challenge to all who refuse to worship him and choose instead to worship gods of their own making.  Read this passage with me- (Isaiah 41:21-29).

 

I want to clearly demonstrate two things in this message:

 

1.  There is but one True God.

 

We worship one great, glorious sovereign God in the trinity of his sacred Persons:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (I John 5:7; Ps. 115:3).  This is our God.  He has revealed himself in his Word and makes himself known to his people by his almighty, efficacious work of salvation.

 

God the Father, in old eternity, before the world began, chose a people whom he determined to save and sovereignly predestinated all things that ever come to pass to secure, absolutely and infallibly, the salvation of his elect (Rom. 8:28-30).

 

God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, came into this world, assumed the nature of his people, lived in righteousness as their Representative, and died upon the cursed tree as their Substitute to “save his people from their sins”  (Matt. 1:21).  By the satisfaction of divine justice, through the shedding of his blood, Christ has put away the sins of his people and brought in an everlasting righteousness for them.  The Son of God, dying for God’s elect, has effectually obtained eternal redemption for them.  “That means that those for whom Christ suffered the wrath of God can never, for any reason or to any degree, suffer God’s wrath.  Justice will not allow it!  (Isa. 53: 8, 10-11; II Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13; Heb 9:12).

 

God the Holy Spirit regenerates, calls, and preserves each of God’s elect by infallible grace, effectually applying the blood of Christ to those chosen by the Father in eternity and redeemed by the Son at Calvary (Ps. 65:4; 110:3; John 6:63).

 

This is our God, the effectual, sovereign, saving God.  There is no other God but him.  That is the first thing I want you to see in our text.  Secondly, I want you to see clearly that…

 

2.   Any other god, called by whatever name, any god that is not totally sovereign, irresistibly effectual, and completely successful in the salvation of his people is no God at all, but only the idolatrous figment of man’s imagination.

 

Idols are gods which men invent and make for themselves.  But idols are always helpless.  And both the idols men make and those who worship them are an abomination to the Lord.  This is the teaching of our text.

 

Though the worship of physical idols, images, and icons is not, in a strict sense, prevalent in our society, except among papist and those who follow in the traditions of Rome, idolatry is as much a problem in 20th century America as it was among the heathen of Isaiah’s day.   I say, without hesitancy or apology, that the god of modern, Arminian, freewill religion, the god of our families and friends, the god many of us once claimed to worship is a false god, a base, abominable idol!

 

 

Note:  I do not say that you must know everything, or even a great deal about the Persons and Works of the Triune God before you can be saved.  But I do say, No one can be saved worshipping an idol, a false god!  Salvation comes by the knowledge of the true and living God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that One whom he has sent, the Son of God.

 

Proposition:  In our text tonight, the Lord God himself shows us that there are certain works and characteristics which will always identify the true and living God and distinguish him from idols.

 

Divisions:  I call your attention to three things in our text:

 

  1. God’s challenge to Idolaters (vv. 21-23).
  2. God’s character Identified (vv. 22-23, 25-28).
  3. God’s conclusions about Idolatry (vv. 24, 29).

 

I.  God’s challenge to Idolaters (vv. 21-23).

 

In these verses The King of Jacob, the Lord God himself, who is the King of his saints issues a challenge to those who worship gods of their own making to whom any reason for worshipping their idols.  Jehovah says to all the people of the world.  “Prove now that your idols are indeed gods, that they are worthy of adoration and worship!”

 

The idols themselves are called upon to bring proof of their knowledge and power.  If they are gods, let us see what they can inform us of and what they can do.  Even men consider their greatest distinctions to be accomplishments of understanding and power.  Do they not?  Surely, then, anyone or anything that is set before us as god must have infinite and perfect knowledge and power.  But all the idols that men have made are lacking in knowledge and in power!

 

A.  They can tell us nothing that we did not know before, for they are ignorant.  They have no knowledge (v. 22).

 

The God of heaven has told us plainly what has been, what is now, and what shall be, because he is the sovereign, omniscient God, who purposed and controls all that comes to pass.

 

1.       He has revealed his secret counsels.  (Eph. 1:3-6).

2.       He has told us how the worlds were made.  (Gen. 1:1-1;25).

3.       He has shown us the mystery of providence.  (Rom. 8:28; 11:36).

4.       He has told, with certainty, certain things that must come to pass in the future, and has already proved that his purpose stands forever.

 

God’s knowledge of things to come is perfect and sure, not only because he is omniscient, but also because he is omnipotent.  He brings to pass what he purposed must be.

 

·         His people must be saved (John 20:16).

·         His Son must be crucified (John 3: 14-16).

·         Christ must reign (I Cor. 15: 24).

5.      But idols, the gods of man’s making have no knowledge.

 

·         They cannot explain what has been.

·         They cannot tell us what shall be.

 

Note:  For the Arminian, the friend or, nothing future is certain, because nothing is determined!

 

B.  Not only are they without knowledge, all idols, all false gods are impotent. (v. 23).

 

They can do nothing good or evil, without the aid and assistance of those who made them.  They cannot bless.  And they cannot curse.  So there is no reason for anyone to floor them or worship them.

Note: Any god whose purposes, power, or performances depend upon man is no God at all!

 

II.  God’s character Identified.  (vv. 22-23, 25-28).

 

Here the Lord God produces five clear proofs that he is God alone by things that distinguish him and set him apart from the gods of man’s making.

 

A.  He is God who has Revealed Secret Things That could never be known except by Divine Revelation- “Former things” (v. 22).

 

B.  He is God who Knows and Determines “what shall happen”- (v. 22).

He that declares the end from the beginning, saying “my counsel shall stand, and I will do all  my pleasure,” and then tells us what shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure,” and then tells us what shall be, with absolute certainty, is God indeed- (Isa. 46: 9-10).

Did he not reveal…

 

 

C.  He is God who Saves His People by Himself, without the aide, help, or assistance of any (vv. 25-28).

 

I know that the historical person spoken of here was probably Cyrus, whose father was made from the north, whose mother was a Persian from the east.  This Cyrus, God sent to Babylon to deliver his captive people.  But Cyrus was a type of Christ, Jehovah’s Servant, our great Savior- (See 41:2).  So this passage speaks of God proving himself to be God by the accomplishment of salvation through the work of Christ alone!

 

1.      Christ came as a man, calling upon God’s name in righteousness (v. 25).

2.      Christ met and conquered all his enemies and ours, and still does-

 

·         In the Wilderness. (Matt. 4).

·         In the Garden.  (Matt. 18).

·         On the Cross.  (John 12; Rev. 20).

·         In Providence.  (I Cor. 10:13).

 

3.      Christ, by his life and by his death, revealed the Holy Lord God in the perfect righteousness of his character (v. 26).

“A just God and a Savior”.  (Rom. 3:24-26).

4.      Christ, who is the firs, the Beginning of the Creation of God, gives to his church the good tidings of the gospel and men to proclaim it (v. 27; Eph. 4:11-14).

5.      Christ has redeemed and saved us alone, without our aide, inspite of our inabilities.  (v. 28). (Isa. 59:16-17; 63:5).

 

·         He alone brought in everlasting righteousness!

·         He alone satisfied justice!

·         He alone put away our sins!

·         He alone ascended up into heaven!

·         He alone prevails with God!

·         He alone has made us accepted!

·         He alone preserves us!

 

E.  He is God who Proves Himself to be Just in All His Ways and Righteous in All His Works.  (v. 26).

This is our God - He is the God of…

 

 

If your God lacks any of these divine characteristics, your god is no God at all, but only a pump figment of your imagination!  An idol.

 

III.  Now, hear God’s Conclusions About Idolatry (vv. 24, 29).

 

A.  They are Nothing!

B.  They can Do Nothing!

C.  They are Worth Nothing!

D.  And All who worship them are an Abomination to God!

 

 

Application:  Let me try to make a personal application of this message to everyone here.

 

1.       To you who are yet without Christ - Trust Him Now!

 

2.       To you who are yet clinging to the gods of Babylon - “Come out of her.”

Our God demands and deserves that we make a clear decisive break with the vanities of Babylon. (II Cor. 6:17; Rev. 18:4).

 

       Illus:  Baptism - The Line of Separation!

 

3.       Children of God, “Dearly beloved, flee from idolatry” - (I Cor. 10:14).

 

·         Religious Images! Crosses, Pictures, etc.

·         False Religion!

 

4.       In this dark world of idolatry and superstition, we have a very great responsibility to make Christ known Rom. 10: 13-17).

 

·         How thankful we ought to be (II Thess. 2: 13-14)!

·         How zealous we ought to be as Christ’s witness!