Articles
Have You Not Heard?
Many Christians find the labor of studying the Old Testament prophets difficult and tiring. It is hard for them to transpose their modern patterns of thought back into the age and condition of the times in which the prophets wrote. However, there are occasional arresting words that catch their eyes, and draw them into a deeper study of the material. An example of such words is found in Isaiah, chapter 40.
The prophet was challenging his readers to compare what they had learned about God to the idols that attracted them. He asks, “To whom then will you liken God?” (Verse 18). In the next verse he scoffs, “An Idol?” Man-made gods that require the skill of craftsmen, goldsmiths, or sculptors; that can be destroyed, and that cannot move under their own power, cannot compare to the God revealed in the Bible.
Isaiah makes his case in verses 21-26, first saying in astonishment, “Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?” God “sits above the circle of the earth.” He sustains the heavens and the earth. He can cast down princes, and punish nations. No idol can match the creator of all things.
Then God asks, “Why do you say,...O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God’? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted.”
Then Isaiah records this great familiar promise to those who will hear, “But they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (verse 31).
Can these ancient words be edifying to a modern Christian? Certainly! Paul wrote to us that “...whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4).
Christians sometimes erect various kinds of idols in their hearts that tend to move them away from God. To abandon the God of creation for some tempting earthly obsessive devotion is perfectly foolish. “Have you not heard? Have you not seen?” Our magnificent, almighty, and magnanimous God stands in stark contrast to any impotent idol formed out of obsessive human invention.
