1. "And as physical pain tells us that there's something wrong in our bodies, so fear tells us that there's something perhaps wrong in our hearts. What we fear shows us what we love, what we trust in, what we hope for. In short, fear is a window into our souls, showing us what we worship, what we put above everything else in our loves, in our allegiances, in our hopes."

2. "Friends, what you are afraid of and how you deal with your fears tells you a whole lot about what you worship. But the Bible is God's kind word to fearful people. He has given us ample resources to use our fears, in fact, to guide us to Himself and to ultimate satisfaction in Him."

3. "I think the big idea of Isaiah 44, and this will be the main point of what we're thinking together, is this: no one is like the Lord, so worship him alone. What should we do when we are afraid? First, we should take refuge in the only God."

4. "Isn't it striking how the Lord, and this is a pattern throughout Scripture, when we are afraid, he doesn't come to us in censoriousness. He doesn't primarily come to us with rebuke. He doesn't come to us with law. Rather God comes to us graciously. He comes to us with his promises; he reminds the fearful hearts of his people: This is who I am, and this is who I am for you in Jesus Christ."

5. "So one of the things, as a Canadian, that I love about America is the buffet. The buffet is the most American thing around because it's the American ideal of freedom applied to food, and you just have anything you want. It really whets your appetite, doesn't it? But then to go back to your table and not have anything on your plate to eat—friends, that's just going to leave you hungry. Well, the same thing with God's Word."

6. "When we talk about idols, we are talking about things that are the creation that we treat like they are the Creator. It is to take the created things and to love them more than we love God, to trust them more than we trust God, to obey them more than we obey God."

7. "This is an especially good reminder to us if idolatry seems to be working really, really well for you right now, when it seems like the things of this world really are fulfilling you, when it seems like everything really is going well, that your vision of the good life is just within your grasp. God is reminding us even if you get all that you want in this life now, it won't last into the next."

8. "Our idolatries largely, if not exclusively, end up being ways of worshiping ourselves, entrusting in the work of our hands to give us what we long for. We don't recognize that we don't have something that we want, and so we think, if I only work hard enough, if I just make a greater version of myself, I will get all that my heart desires."

9. "There is a plenteous redemption in Jesus Christ for all of our sins. And so for the adulterers among us who have broken faith with God and man, for the self-righteous among us who thought that we could put God in our debt by doing good works, for the liars among us who twist words to exalt ourselves—for all of us in all of our sin, God says, come."

10. "In all of our fears, friends, let's run to the Lord and see him to be faithful, to be great and to be one who will bring us home to be with him forever."

Observation Questions

1. In Isaiah 44:1–2, how does the Lord describe Israel (using names, roles, and actions He has taken toward them)?
2. According to Isaiah 44:3–5, what specific images does God use to describe the new life and blessing He will give to His people?
3. In Isaiah 44:6–8, what titles and descriptions does God use for Himself, and what challenge does He issue concerning any other supposed “gods”?
4. In Isaiah 44:9–11, what does the text say about those who make idols and about the idols themselves?
5. In Isaiah 44:12–17, how are the craftsmen and their work described, and what ironic contrast does the passage make about how the wood is used?
6. In Isaiah 44:18–23, what does the passage say about the spiritual condition of idolaters, and what does God promise to do about Israel’s sins?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is it significant that in Isaiah 44:6 God calls Himself “the first and the last” and insists that there is no God besides Him, and how does this highlight the Creator–creature distinction emphasized in the sermon?
2. How does the command “Fear not” in Isaiah 44:2 and 8 connect to God’s self-description as Israel’s “Rock,” and what does that teach us about where true security is found?
3. What is the point of the detailed description of idol-making in Isaiah 44:12–17, and how does it expose the irrationality and degradation of idolatry?
4. How do Isaiah 44:18–20 explain the blindness and self-deception involved in idolatry, and how does this relate to the sermon’s use of Romans 1?
5. In Isaiah 44:21–28, how do God’s promises of forgiveness, redemption, and the future work of Cyrus together reveal His gracious character and absolute sovereignty over history?

Application Questions

1. Thinking of Isaiah 44:2, 8 and the sermon’s opening, what recent fear in your life might be revealing what you actually love, trust, or hope in most?
2. Based on Isaiah 44:9–20 and the sermon’s discussion of “deep” and “near” idols, what is one deep desire (e.g., control, approval, comfort, success) that tends to rule you, and what “near” idol (job, parenting, reputation, etc.) do you often rely on to get it?
3. In light of Isaiah 44:3–5, what is one concrete way you could this week “feed” your faith by meditating on a specific attribute or promise of God (e.g., journaling, memorizing a verse, praying through a passage)?
4. Considering Isaiah 44:18–20 and our natural blindness to our own idols, who is one mature Christian you could invite to help you see patterns of sin or misplaced trust, and what specific question could you ask them?
5. Reflecting on Isaiah 44:21–28 and the example of Guido Debray, what is one area of your future (health, family, finances, death, etc.) where you need to entrust yourself more consciously to God’s promises, and what step of obedience or surrender would that look like this week?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Exodus 14:10–31 — The Lord delivers Israel through the sea, displaying Himself as Redeemer and Rock, echoing Isaiah 44’s picture of the God who saves and says, “Fear not.”
2. Romans 1:18–25 — Paul describes how people exchange the glory of the Creator for created things, illuminating the spiritual dynamics behind the idolatry mocked in Isaiah 44.
3. Isaiah 53:4–12 — The servant’s suffering and atoning death explain how God can say in Isaiah 44:22 that He has blotted out His people’s sins and redeemed them.
4. Romans 8:18–25 — Creation’s groaning and future liberation connect to Isaiah 44:23, where all creation rejoices in God’s redemption of His people.
5. Revelation 1:12–18 — The risen Christ identifies Himself as “the first and the last” and says “Fear not,” directly applying Isaiah 44’s divine titles to Jesus.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Fear Reveals What We Truly Worship

II. When Afraid, Take Refuge in the Only God (Isaiah 44:6-8)

III. When Afraid, Do Not Turn from the Living God (Isaiah 44:9-20)

IV. When Afraid, Trust in the Gracious God (Isaiah 44:1-5, 21-28)

V. Trusting God's Promises Amid Our Fears

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Detailed Sermon Outline

What do you love the most?

What is the ultimate object of your trust? What's your vision of the good life? And what do you hope will get you there? If you're anything like me, I find those questions pretty hard to answer. I'm not especially introspective.

I find my heart difficult to discern. And yet there are ways in which we can tell what we truly love, what we truly trust in, what we truly hope in. One of those things is fear. Fear comes so very natural to us and as physical pain tells us that there's something wrong in our bodies, so fear tells us that there's something perhaps wrong in our hearts. What we fear shows us what we love, what we trust in, what we hope for.

In short, fear is a window into our souls, showing us what we worship, what we put above everything else in our loves, in our allegiances, in our hopes. It works this way in the Feather household. My wife Katie says she is fearful every time I carry my daughter Maria down the stairs. She loves me and Maria and she is not very trusting of my clumsiness. When I was talking to her about it this morning, she said, To be fair, I'm also fearful when it's just you going down the stairs.

And so I take some solace in that. More seriously in my own life, after I became a Christian and called I soon got the chance to be able to teach God's word and the Lord was very kind, people who benefited from it, he was very gracious. And as people just kind of poured in encouragements and that sort of stuff, I think my heart subtly shifted from loving getting to serve people with God's word to loving the praise that I would get from people. And one of the ways that my heart was exposed in that was that every time I would finish preaching, I would feel like I had to vomit. I had some vision, some perfect vision of what the sermon would be like, and it never lived up to what it was in my head.

I thought I had let everybody down, and the sense of value that I had in being a good preacher was ultimately to be dashed. Our fears can show us both wrong ways we get to things and wrong goals. Both the deliverance and the destination can be exposed by our fears.

Friends, what you are afraid of and how you deal with your fears tells you a whole lot about what you worship. But the Bible is God's kind word to fearful people. He's given us ample resources to use our fears, in fact, to guide us to himself and to ultimate satisfaction in him. Would you turn with me to the book of Isaiah chapter 44. If you're using a pew Bible like I am, you'll find that beginning on page 604.

The book of Isaiah, which we've been doing an intermittent study of throughout the year, we're thinking about how God's great purposes for his people is to bring them from the worldly Jerusalem stained by sin and sorrow and death and bring them to the new heavenly Jerusalem marked by righteousness and life. And the way to get there, the Lord maintains, is by trusting him alone. Israel was prone to trust everything around them. They looked to other things to get them to that great destination, but God would remind them, to remind them, oh no, only he is trustworthy. The first half or two-thirds of the book from chapters 1 to 39 major on the note of judgment.

God's people are indulging themselves in idolatry. They're worshiping the creation rather than the Creator. They're trusting the nations around them rather than trusting the Lord and the Lord is showing that judgment will come as a result. Chapters 40 through 66 though major on the theme of comfort and hope. There is a great God who could deliver even his idolatrous people and bring them into his heavenly Jerusalem as they trust in him.

And so we pick up there in Isaiah 44, beginning in verse 1. But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen, thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you: Fear not, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen; for I will pour water on the thirsty ground, and streams on the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. They shall spring up among the grass, like willows by flowing streams. This one will say, I am the Lord's; another will call in the name of Jacob; and another will write on his hand, the Lord's. And name himself by the name of Israel.

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no God. Who is like me? Let him proclaim it, let him declare it and set it before me, since I appointed an ancient people. Let them declare what is to come and what will happen.

Fear not, nor be afraid. Have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my witnesses. Is there a God besides me? There is no rock.

I know not any. All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know that they may be put to shame. Those who fashion a god or who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing. Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame, and the craftsmen are only human.

Let them all assemble, let them stand forth. They shall be terrified, they shall be put to shame together. The iron smith takes a cutting tool and works it over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry and his strength fails.

He drinks no water and is faint. The carpenter stretches a line. He marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man.

But the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house. He cuts down cedars or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself.

He kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also, he makes a god and worships it. He makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire; over the half he eats his meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also, he warms himself and says, Aha, I am warm; I have seen the fire.

And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, Deliver me, for you are my god. They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes so that they cannot see, and their hearts so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals, I roasted meat and have eaten, and shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?

He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself, or say, 'Is there not a lie in my right hand?' Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant, I formed you, you are my servant, O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me. I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like a mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you. Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it. Shout, O depths of the earth, break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it.

For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and will be glorified in Israel. Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself, who frustrates the signs of liars, and makes fools of diviners, who turns wise men back and makes their knowledge foolish, who confirms the word of his servant and fulfills the counsel of his messengers, who says of Jerusalem, She shall be inhabited. And the cities of Judah, they shall be built, and I will raise up their ruins. Who says to the deep, Be dry, I will dry up your rivers. Who says of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and he shall fulfill all my purpose, saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built, and of the temple, your foundation shall be laid.

This is God's word and thanks be to him for it. I think the big idea of Isaiah 44, and this will be the main point of what we're thinking together, the big idea is this, no one is like the Lord, so worship him alone. No one is like the Lord, so worship him alone. I'm gonna unpack that in three points, think about one question here. What should we do when we are afraid?

What should we do when we are afraid? First, we should take refuge in the only God. We should take refuge in the only God. You see it there, verses 6 to 8. We begin there, verses 6 to 8.

We take refuge in the only God. God here is reminding his people Isaiah is prophesying in and around 700 BC. He's prophesying not only for the people of his day, but also for the generation of exiles to come, those who would be brought into Babylon in 586, and for their descendants, those who would be going out from Babylon back to Jerusalem. And he seeks to remind them and indeed remind us of who he is for them, that he is the only God.

And what follows in these verses is just a waterfall of God telling us who he is, attribute after attribute, of the God who is both good to us and near to us, and the God who is so great and transcendent that he causes us to worship him in awestruck wonder. You see at the beginning of verse six, he uses his covenantal name, the Lord, the name Yahweh. This is the name that he revealed to Moses in Exodus three. This is the God who had entered into covenant with his people to be their savior and their Lord. He is the king of Israel, the one who rules over them and his redeemer.

This is the God who saved Israel from Egypt, the great superpower of the day. He had brought them out through the great exodus. And he is the Lord of hosts, the one who has unbounded power. This God had brought himself near to his people Israel. And yet, this God is also transcendently high above all of our imaginations.

You see there in verse 6, I am the first and I am the last. That's a phrase that we'll see throughout the Bible and it is packed with meaning. I am the first, essentially here we're seeing that God is eternal. Where everything else came into being, God always is. He simply is the God who lives.

And from that we can also deduce something that theologians called God's aseity, that he is from or of himself. Nothing gives God his being. God simply is. All the rest of us are dependent creatures. We all come into being and go out of being, but not God.

God simply is. And also, as we see that he is the last, this is not merely thinking that he will last for all of eternity, but rather that he is the sum of all of creation. All of creation finds its source in God and its goal in God. He made all things for himself and in him all things find their right satisfaction and order. He is the first and he is the last.

So too, if we continue to look down the passage, he's gonna stress his uniqueness, that he is one of a kind. Besides me, there is no God. And so when he says in verse 7, who is like me? He's not asking for us to give an application or maybe an analogy from creation. He's kind of like a three-leaf clover or he's kind of like this thing or that thing.

Oh no, he's saying this because there is no one like him. And he calls for these idols, these fake-o gods to compete with him. Let him proclaim it, these ones who would think that they are a god. Let him declare and set it before me, since I appointed an ancient people. So God here is saying, I have proven myself through my ancient people, and this is talking about the people of God throughout the centuries, throughout the millennia, beginning in Adam and then growing in Isaiah's day to the people of Israel.

God had so related to his people that they were a great sign that God alone is God. Who's God of the nations had so cared for the nations as God had cared for the people of Israel, who brought them from nothing and took them from the great superpower of the day as a slave state into this great people who knew the Lord their God. He's challenging these gods of the nations that they would show that kind of care for their people. He also challenges these so-called gods, let them declare what is to come and what will happen. Evidently, these gods cannot declare the future, they don't know it.

And yet in verse eight, Have I not told you from of old and declared it? God knows the future because he decrees the future. He's in entire control. And so he can say to his people, this is what I will do. These are my promises.

And his people had seen his promises come true. No one indeed is like this God. Is there a God besides me? I know not any. Indeed, at the end of verse 8 there, there is no rock.

When we think about a rock, we think about something that is immovable, that doesn't change, that is always trustworthy. This God who simply is, is himself at all times. He's not different today than he is tomorrow. The same God who cared for Israel in the exodus would care for them in the exile in Babylon. This God is unlike anything else.

Friends, when we think about this God who is so different from the creation, we kind of get into a key concept that animates all of Christian theology. That's what we call the creator-creature distinction.

That when we look at all the things that are, they can be divided into the God who is the Creator and the creatures that he has made. And having that separation is really important because we are prone to take the things of the creation and make them God-like, to invest them with special powers. And what the Bible would keep us from doing is precisely that. It would say, oh no, God is unique. He is entirely different.

And so we, human beings who are made in God's image, there are real ways in which we resemble God and we can represent him here in the world. But we are more basically creatures who resemble the Creator, not creators who resemble the creation. As one theologian, I think rightly said, we cannot speak of God merely by speaking of man in a loud voice. He is not simply a greater version of us. He is altogether different and altogether glorious.

This big God who reveals himself to us is one that we were made to worship in joy and glory in. This is the fitting end of our loves and our trusts and our hopes. As Augustine would rightly say in his confessions, oh Lord, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until we find a rest in thee. This great God is so much better than the other things we should worship. We should set our hearts on him.

Strikingly, it is amazing how many of these descriptions are used of Jesus in the New Testament. One of the ways in which the New Testament authors show us that Jesus is the eternal Son of God is by using Old Testament descriptions of the God of Israel and applying them to Jesus. And so you can read in Revelation 1 how Jesus says, Fear not, I am the first and the last. He's quoting exactly here from Isaiah 44. So one of the great ways that we can see the glories of Jesus is by seeing these passages reflected there.

On a side note then, if you you over the holidays want a somewhat dry and academic but edifying read, Jesus and the God of Israel by Richard Bauckham, simply looks at all these different kinds of Old Testament descriptions of God and shows how in the New Testament that's how the authors present Jesus. So if someone tells you, oh man, the New Testament doesn't see Jesus being God, you can just look back to the Old Testament and say, oh yeah they do. Here is the great God of Israel taking on human form to be the Redeemer of his people. That is enough of the sidebar. So why does God tell his people all of these glorious things and remind them how great he is?

Well, he does it so that we would take refuge in him. You see it there beginning in verse 8, Fear not, nor be afraid. It is also implied there at the end of verse 8 when he calls himself the Rock. He is saying that when we are afraid, we should go to him. We should not go to the things of the creation, we should go to him.

And as we go to God in prayer, as we go to God in trust and in love, our hearts are reformed. We who are so quick to put ultimate significance in the things of the creation, as we go back to our Creator, we see, oh, here's the object of my trust. Here's the one that I love. Here's the one who is truly excellent. The one in whom there is no flaw.

Every aspect of God is unendably glorious. It's that when we get into the new heavens and new earth, God's people will praise God for all of eternity and we will not last fact for subject matter. Every bit of God is glorious. And he's reminding us of precisely that fact. Isn't it striking how the Lord, and this is a pattern throughout Scripture, when we are afraid, he doesn't come to us in censoriousness.

He doesn't primarily come to us with rebuke. He doesn't come to us with law. He doesn't tell us to stop it as Bob Newhart would.

Rather, God comes to us graciously. He comes to us with his promises. He reminds the fearful hearts of his people, this is who I am and this is who I am for you in Jesus Christ. It is, as one theologian has rightly noted, as if God were saying, God is bigger than the boogeyman. He's bigger than Godzilla and the monsters on TV.

Oh, God is bigger than the boogeyman. And if you're in Christ, he's watching over you and me. That's VeggieTales. But it's right. It's entirely right.

God is showing his people his greatness and his goodness to alleviate them of their wrong fears and to bring them into right fear of him. This God is so kind and great to us. I think we should also note then that if we are to find comfort in God, we need to store up all sorts of truths about God. And that's why the Lord gives us his Scriptures that we can learn more about Him. It is a good and right thing to read the Bible, but beyond even reading the Bible, we need to study and meditate on the Bible.

So one of the things as a Canadian that I love about America is the buffet. The buffet is the most American thing around because it's the American ideal of freedom applied to food. You just have anything you want. It's amazing. And it would be great at a buffet to go up and do this glorious buffet, see all the different things, and say, oh, wow, that looks really good.

And that looks really good. It really whets your appetite, doesn't it? But then to and go back to your table and not have anything on your plate to eat on? Friends, that's just gonna leave you hungry. Well, the same thing with God's word.

As we read God's word, oh, it's whetting our appetite with all sorts of things, but it's meant for you to take something from here and eat on it. For you to take great truths about God and to just give your heart to thinking on it and praising him for it. So as you read through the Bible this week, maybe one thing you can do in your quiet times or devotional times is just read through a chunk of Isaiah 44. And just pick out one truth about the Lord. Just one truth about the Lord each day and just be praising the Lord for it.

Think about how it would apply to your life. How would I live differently if I consistently believed that God knows the future and communicates it to his people? That he does not have a beginning nor will he have an end. That's how God means to sustain us in this place where we are so prone to fear all the wrong things. So when we fear, we should take refuge in the only God.

But secondly, when we fear, we should not turn from the living God. When we fear, we should not turn from the living God. And this is that large section in the middle about the folly of idolatry. You see it beginning there in verse 9, All who fashion idols are nothing. Now, a few brief words about idols.

When we talk about idols, we are talking about things that are the creation that we treat like they are the creator. It is to take the created things and to love them more than we love God, to trust them more than we trust God, to obey them more than we obey God. It is not to say that we shouldn't love things in creation. We think even about the great commandment that Mark read at the beginning of the service, to love God and to love neighbor. We really are to love our neighbors.

We are to care for them and to trust them in our relationships. But we can't love and trust them like we love and trust God. We must always treat God differently than we treat the created things. And yet, we are so prone to taking any created thing and making it into a God-like thing. Sometimes we do it with physical objects and so we see here described ways in which an idol, a statue could be made that people would bow down and pray to it.

Of course, people continue to do this today in Hinduism, in various forms of animism. There are members of our congregation who once worshiped these kinds of idols and that the Lord delivered them from that.

So too, friends, if you come from a Roman Catholic background, the ways in which physical objects are prayed to, when we pray to a thing, we make it a God, or at least functionally we treat it as such. God would warn us of those things. Secondly, it's important to note that throughout this passage, God has somewhat of a mocking tone as he speaks about the idols, these things that would compete with his people for their affections and their trust. I think that we should read this carefully, noting first and foremost that God is not cruel. One of the primary, if not the primary, reasons why God has this long section in Scripture is in kindness, not in cruelty.

He knows the kind of cruel taskmasters that idols are. He knows the emptiness of them. He knows how terrible it is to be a slave to a dead thing. And so he says, oh, don't trust in those things. Those things are foolish.

Those things are empty. Those things will not lead to life. Be careful. And so friends, while this kind of passage might be helpful when we're doing cultural critique and we're looking at the idols around us, it is going to be most helpful when it's applied to your own idols. When you see how foolish they are, how they will let you down, and how they will let down the people around you.

Lastly, another word just briefly on idols is to think that we can have two different kinds of idols. And I'm getting this largely from Tim Keller's counterfeit gods, those far idols and near idols, deep idols and superficial or surface idols. Those deep idols are those things that we most love and desire. Maybe it's a desire to be loved or to be respected, to have power, to have control. It's that thing that we want, the destination, the kind of good life that we envision for ourselves.

But then there are near or close idols. Those are the things that we trust will deliver us to that glorious destination. The things that if only I do this, if only I worship this kind of idol, it will bring me all the way there. And so we can think of someone who longs to be respected, admired, praised by people around them. That would be the kind of deep idol.

And maybe the nearer idol would be something like your work. You pour all of your effort into getting a good college degree, and then from that college degree you go and get a good job, and then you just labor, you work your hands to the bone to be as good at your job as possible. Now in some ways that's not a bad thing, but when we're doing that in order so that we can ultimately be loved, so that this will really satisfy this thing that we so long for, friends, that idol of work will let us down. And so God is warning us of those different kinds of idolatry. With all of that, we should now jump into the passage once again equipped to know how to read it well.

We see that first paragraph essentially is talking about the futility of idols. They won't work, they're nothing. You see it there, beginning of verse 9, All who fashion idols are nothing. They're vain, they're empty. And the things they delight in, namely these idols, do not profit.

Their witnesses neither see nor know that they may be put to shame. Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame, and the craftsmen are only human. Let them all assemble, let them stand forth! They shall be terrified, they shall be put to shame together.

The Lord here is saying that idols are ultimately futile, they're useless, they're not going to do us any good, because at the end of the day we all have to appear before the Lord. We will have to answer for the lives that we have lived in the body. And when we stand before the judgment seat of God, the Holy One, our idols will not help us then. Our idols will be, as they truly are, dead and unable to deliver us. We who so long to have our fears abated by turning to our idols will then be terrorized by the true living God that we forsook.

These idols that promised honor will lead us to be ashamed. We will become like our idols, dead and deaf and dumb. This is an especially good reminder to us if idolatry seems to be working really, really well for you right now. When it seems like the things of this world really are fulfilling you, it seems like everything really is going well, that your vision of the good life is just within your grasp, God is reminding us, even if you get all that you want in this life now, it won't last into the next. What a sad thing it would be to give your soul in exchange for the world.

What a poor treasure. If that's perhaps your case or you really do think that idolatry is going well for you, the book of Ecclesiastes is written for you. That is someone who writes the book and says, Man, I've had everything. I've tasted of every worldly pleasure. I had it all, and it proved to be vanity, to be useless, to be empty and void.

If you want a good guide through that wonderful book of the Bible, Bobby Jamieson, former associate pastor here, his new book on it, Everything is Never Enough. The title alone is great. Everything is Never Enough is a great, sure guide through the book of Ecclesiastes. Thank you, Jess Bufford, for the email letting us know about that this week. Available for pre-order.

So we see the futility of idols, verses 9 through 11. And then we see in verses 12 through 17 the Lord describing the way that idols are made. And he shows us first that they are merely human and second that they are degrading. They are merely human and that they are degrading. So you see the description here in verse 12.

The ironsmith takes a cutting tool, works it over the coals. He fashions it with the hammers and works it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry and his strength fails. He drinks no water and is faint. You see here that the idols depend on human strength.

The gods that we form for ourselves do not give us strength, they take strength from us. And he's mocking the people who make it. Oh yes, your idol will be great as long as you don't forget to eat your lunch, because then you might faint as you're making your idol. Or the next verse, it depends on human skill. The carpenter stretches a line, he marks it out with a pencil, he shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass, he shapes it into the figure of a man.

It takes the carpenter's skill to make sure that the idol will look beautiful and not just look beautiful, but it will stay standing. I've never been to a pagan worship service, but I imagine it's quite embarrassing when your god falls over in the middle of the service. You've got to run up there, come on, little guy, and get him up. Does anyone have something to put under his left side? Gary, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, measure twice, cut once.

You try it, Denise. Anyways.

You might not see the movie playing out in my head but you can see the folly of idolatry here. Our idols depend upon our skill and our strengths. And then notice at the end here of verse 13, he shapes it into the figure of a man with the beauty of a man to dwell in a house. Oh, human beings are wonderful creatures. We are different than all of creation in that we are made in the image of God but we ourselves are not gods.

Our idolatries largely, if not exclusively, end up being ways of worshiping ourselves and trusting in the work of our hands to give us what we long for. We don't recognize that we don't have something that we want, and so we think, Man, if I only work hard enough, if I just make a greater version of myself, I will get all that my heart desires. Our idols are merely human. But then he notes that our idols are also degrading. You see that in verses 14 to 17.

That first verse, he talks about the tree that is chosen for the idol. It could have been just any tree of the forest. It's a tree that needs to be planted and then the rain has to nourish it. It's dependent on all these factors for life. It doesn't exist in itself.

Verse 15, it becomes fuel for a man. He takes part of it and warms himself. He kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also, he makes a god and worships it. He makes it an idol and falls down before it.

And this is the striking thing here between verses 15 and 17, namely, that there are good ways to use created things. Taking a tree and making a fire so that you can be warm, so that you can be well fed, those are good uses of God's created things. But it is a terrible thing to take a tree and make a god out of it and worship it. Indeed, it's a degrading thing that a human being made to rule over creation would in fact bow down to creation. We were made to be satisfied in God and instead we turn to puny created things that we ourselves shape and form and create in order to satisfy those longings that will never be satisfied by them.

Verse 17 is tragic, isn't it? And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, Deliver me, for you are my God. Friends, those of us who make idols and who bow down to them are doomed to have idols as our gods and as our saviors, saviors that are doomed to fail. But when we worship the creation in this way, we dishonor the great God that we read of in verses 6 to 8.

He alone is worthy of our worship and we, in our sin, wickedly turn the love that should be towards him to the created things. We honor them instead of honoring the Lord. And we will pay for those sins. Our sins most basically are wicked not because of the harm that we do to others, but to the dishonor that we do to God. God should be praised and yet we praise the creation instead.

And finally, we see very sadly in verses 18 to 20, our blindness in our idolatry. Why would someone, when it's so plain in verses 12 to 17 that the created things shouldn't be worshiped, why would someone do that? Why would we do that? Well, we see it there in verse 18. They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes so that they cannot see, in their hearts so that they cannot understand.

We read, Eric did it from Romans chapter 1 about how in idolatry we suppress the knowledge we have of God and instead turn to honor the Creator. That God, in His just judgment over us, gives us over to the things that we wrongly give our honor and love to. Essentially, as we trade the honor of God for the creation, God says, Fair enough. It allows us to pursue those wicked things. We should note here that it is striking that we cannot fundamentally trust our wicked hearts and minds.

If we are the rule for ourselves, if our thinking and our feeling is the rule for life, how will we ever know if we go astray? How will we know if we are going in the right direction at all? We need something else outside of ourselves to tell us where to go. It also means that we need people in our lives who will love us enough to point out sin in our hearts. This may just be a good application for us this coming holiday break, feel free to get together with a close friend, a parent, a Christian in your life who you know well and who you love and just ask them to point out sin in your life.

Tell them about some of the fears or some of the sins that you seem to be coming into over and over and over again and just ask them to help you understand your own heart better. Help them to take off the blinders that might be keeping you from seeing your own sin and the causes of it.

I think another good way that we can encourage one another in this is just to share with one another about ways in which our idols have let us down. It's a good thing, maybe even over lunch, to be asking parents or friends, what is one thing that you've trusted in in this life that has let you down? Let it be a warning to all of us that we can turn away from it. We should also note in verses 18 to 20 that though there is this envisioned state of us being darkened in our minds and blind from seeing the glory of God and instead fixed on the creation. That this is not necessarily a permanent status.

All of us who once served idols before we were Christians, we were delivered miraculously from that blindness. Friend, if you are in the midst of idolatry even now, there is a gracious God who is willing and able to save. And that's what we turn to now. When we are afraid, we should not turn from the living God But lastly, we should trust in the gracious God. We should trust in the gracious God.

And we see this throughout the passage on both sides of what we've just been studying. First, we should see it in verses 1 to 5. Essentially, God here turns to his people who had been in sin, a people who were mired in all of their idolatry, and God responds to them with gracious promises. Fear now, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen, thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you: Fear not, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen. Jeshurun there likely means upright or righteous one.

God here evidently is looking at idolatrous, sinful Israel and saying, I'm not going to see you according to your sins. I'm going to see you according to my grace. Those who I have made and remade. For my own glory. And he responds to them with promise, verse three, For I will pour water on the thirsty land and springs on the dry ground.

I will pour my spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants. They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams. God looks at dead hearted people and says, I will make you alive. And this is true in the national story of Israel. God will bring them a kind of national resurrection in the exile, bring them out from the place where they had been in bondage.

But friends, it is much more true in redemptive history as the resurrected and ascended Christ pours his spirit upon his church, that he gives them his very self. And as they participate in loving union with the resurrected Christ, so they are made alive by the power of the Spirit. This is why in the Nicene Creed we happily confess that we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord Lord and Giver of Life. The Spirit of God who brings life from the dead can do so in dead hearts like ours. Friends, that's true if you are a Christian too.

If you are mired in some kind of sin, some kind of habitual sin you just seem to have no hope in, friends, is your sin and your love for it greater than the power of God to bring life? This great God promises that he will bring life to his people and he'll do so through the Spirit that he has given you.

In the Lord Jesus. But as that Spirit comes to his people and brings life, he also brings blessing. My blessing on your descendants. At the end of every service, we end with a benediction. We could end with a whole bunch of other things.

We could end with a doxology praising God. We could end with a commission. Go and get them, guys. Share the gospel. Those would all be good things to do.

We could praise God in any of them, but we end with a blessing specifically to remind you that if you have heard God's word and received it in faith, you go out not under God's curse, but under God's blessing. You go not alone, but in fellowship with the triune God. That for all of your sins, for all of your weaknesses, for all of your failures, if you are in Christ, then you have the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. One of the dear friends that I have in this church is Todd Lazaro. He's sitting up there.

And one of my favorite things about Todd is that in most of our interactions, most of our emails or texts, he tends to end it with, We have Christ. He lists all sorts of things that we could be discouraged in, all sorts of real hardships that we're going through, but he reminds us at the very end, We have Christ. And that's what happens at the end of our services. Oh friends, for all of the many sorrows, for all the many sufferings that we are in, friends, we have Christ. We have his blessing.

And you notice what that spiritual life looks like in verse 5. This one will say, I am the Lord's. Another will call on the name of Jacob, and another will write on his hand the Lord's and name himself by the name of Israel. This is likely especially applying to the Israelites who had given themselves to other foreign gods. These people are reclaimed and made alive.

Spiritual life looks like being in real living fellowship with the loving God of eternity. As John 17:3 would put it, this is eternal life, that you might know God and his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That kind of living fellowship, that identification with God and with his people, that is the substance of spiritual life. And so, we see that God brings life. We can trust him in his promises to bring life.

We can also trust him in his promises to forgive us our sins, to redeem us. See it there in verse 21, Remember these things, O Jacob and Israel, for you are my I formed you; you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me. So God has Israel on his mind, and what will he do for sinful Israel? Verse 22, I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like a mist. The picture here is that you have a deep, dark cloud that's over the sky, but then the wind just easily blows it away.

You have this foggy mist that keeps you from seeing your hand in front of your face, but the sun burns it off. In the same ways we are surrounded by our sins. We could say with David in Psalms 51 that our sins are ever before us. Maybe you came into church today not needing anyone to tell you that you were a sinner, that your sins are ever before you. You can see it on your hands and in your eyes and in your heart.

But the Lord says, oh, I've removed these things. I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like a mist. And so he says in verse 22, Return to me, for I have redeemed you. Now, the Lord is promising some great redemption. The way in which God would deal with the sins are later recorded in Isaiah as this great servant, the promised servant who would not be like the servant corporately of Israel who would give themselves to idols, but a faithful servant.

One who would love and honor the Lord above all. A servant who would not only keep God's law, but who would suffer for the sake of God's people. As we read already in Isaiah 53, note there what the servant does to take away our sins. Verse 10, yet he was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days.

The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Jumping down to verse 12, I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors, that he bore the sins of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, would be that servant. He would obey God's law and not only obey the law for us but suffer in our place on the cross. That for all those who had sinned and yet would put their faith in Christ, Christ would could bear their punishment away and so purge them of their sins.

And not only that, but he was raised again on the third day and now reigns in heaven holding out his pierced hands saying, All who come to the Son, I will receive and bring into glory. Now, what glorious truth then that this is put into the perfect tense. I have redeemed you, so return. He doesn't say to sinners, Clean yourselves up a little bit, Put your sins away first. He says, Come.

He says, Return. There is a plenteous redemption in Jesus Christ for all of our sins. And so for the adulterers among us who have broken faith with God and man, for the self-righteous among us who thought that we could put God in our debt by doing good works that he would have to repay us, for the liars among us who twist words to exalt ourselves, for all of us in all of our sin, God says, Come. He says, Return, there is redemption for you. We can trust the promises of such a gracious God.

But not only does he deal with our sins, you see in verse 23 how this results in the praise of all of creation. Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it. Shout, O depths of the earth, break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it. For the Lord has redeemed Jacob and will be glorified in his All of creation was created to glorify God and as God redeems a people for himself, he reverses idolatry. Not only do former idolaters come to rightly worship the Lord, but all of creation which is wrongly worshiped as idols come to worship God too.

This sounds like Romans 8, doesn't it? The creation subjected to futility is freed into union with God, that they come to worship him in the freedom of the sons of God. God is working for himself a glorious name and he does it through the salvation of sinners like us. This ought to be one of our great motivations in evangelism. We really should share the gospel with others because when people die apart from Christ they will suffer for their sins as idolaters.

That's a good reason to share the gospel. But a deeper reason, a reason that perhaps precedes that in preeminence, is the fact that God should be praised. There is a great God who deserves praise from every people in this world and yet he is dishonored. Idols are worshiped in place of the living God. So as we go out, as we send missionaries, as we ourselves share the gospel with people around us, we are calling for them to come and worship the one true God.

We work to see God's name hallowed here and around the world. Maybe one small step you can take for that is inviting someone to night. A friend or a neighbor, bring them with you and talk about the sermon afterwards. Ask them about the gospel that they've heard, about their sins, about the God who promises to save us in Jesus Christ, and offer them in faith and repentance, Jesus Christ. You can take hold of him by turning from sins and by trusting in him.

But you know, notice that last great promise in verses 24 to 28. Not only does he promise to bring them to life by his Spirit, to deal with their sins through his Son, but he promises to bring them home to himself. Verse 24, thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb, I am the Lord who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself, who frustrates the signs of liars and makes fools of diviners, who turns wise men back and makes their knowledge foolish. God here is emphasizing his sovereignty, his control over all things. This God who made all things rules all things, and he bends all of history for the good of his people, to bring about his promises.

He speaks of these liars and foolish diviners, these people who would speak false words against the people. God would shut their mouths and show them to be fools. But look verse 25, sorry, 26, who confirms the word of his servant and fulfills the counsel of his messengers. So God is using his sovereignty to fulfill all of his promises. And what are the promises here?

Who says of Jerusalem, she shall be inhabited, and of the cities of Judah they shall be built, and I will raise up their ruins. Who says to the deep, be dry, and I will dry up your rivers. He's using pictures here of the Exodus, that just as in the Exodus, God delivered his people through the Red Sea and brought them to their homeland, so God would deliver his people from exile in Babylon. The sovereign God would be faithful to fulfill his promises to bring his people home. And to reconstitute them as the people.

And we see an instrument in verse 28 of his sovereign purposes. Who says of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and he shall fulfill all my purpose, saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built, and of the temple, your foundation shall be laid. Cyrus is Cyrus the Great of Persia. So if we think that Isaiah is prophesying sometime around 700 BC, somewhere between 740 and maybe 686 BC or 681 BC, Cyrus comes onto the scene in 539 BC, when he leads the Persians to overcome the Babylonians. And then in 538, he declares that the Jewish people can go home.

You can read about that in the book of Ezra and Nehemiah. They talk about this historical event that actually happens. What God is showing them, even hundreds of years before it would happen, is, I've already prepared your deliverance. You're gonna come home. I'm gonna use a pagan king to accomplish my good purposes.

I will reconstitute my people. I will bring them to myself. And friends, of course, these things did happen, but more basically, they are a type, a shadow, a looking forward to what would really come. That this reconstitution of the people and the land is looking forward to the way that the Lord Jesus would bring us not only out of sin, but back home to God. That he has promised us a heavenly home, a one that he has gone to prepare for us, and it will surely be prepared.

That as we go to Jesus, so we trust him that he will bring us home to be with him. Jesus will fulfill all of his promises, even his promise to bring us all the way to heaven. Friends, one of the ways that we can be encouraging one another here in this church is by sharing about how you have seen God's good promises fulfilled in your life. Ways in which you have trusted in him and he has shown himself to be faithful. God gives us these little bread crumbs of answered promises and prayers throughout our lives that we can trust him for these promises that he has not yet fulfilled.

But soon one day will. More important than all the things going on in our lives right now is that there is a God who promises to fearful people like us that he will be faithful to all of his gracious promises. And so we can trust him. One example of that trust comes from the reformer, or at least the Protestant pastor, Guido de Brès. Guido de Brès was on the run ministering the gospel in the mid 16th century in Catholic ruled ruled Netherlands.

And as he was on the run, he was eventually caught in 1567. And as he lay in his cell, he wrote a letter to his wife, Catherine. You can imagine De Braye, knowing that his martyrdom was soon in front of him, faced all sorts of fears. That his life would soon end, that his wife and his five children would be left without their husband and father. But De Braye writes this letter to his wife.

Not only to help his own heart, but to shepherd her in the last act of faithfulness, to help her in the midst of all of her fears to trust in the Lord. He writes to her this: I became overwhelmed until my spirits were raised by meditation on the providence of God. Then my heart began to feel a great repose. I began then to say, My God, if at present my hour has come, in which I will pass from this life to you, may your will be done. I cannot escape from your hands, and if I could, I would not, since it is happiness for me to conform to your will.

God has extended His hand to receive me into His blessed kingdom. I shall see it before you, and when it shall please the Lord, you will follow me. This separation is not for all time. The Lord will receive you also to join us together again in our head, Jesus Christ.

This is not the place of our habitation. That is in heaven. This is only the place of our journey. That is why we long for our true country, which is heaven. We desire to be received in the home of our Heavenly Father, to see our brother, head, and Savior Jesus Christ.

Since such things have happened, my dear sister and faithful wife, I implore you to find comfort from the Lord in your affliction. And to place your troubles with him. He is the husband of believing widows and the father of poor orphans. He will never leave you. Of that I can assure you.

Debre, in the midst of all of his potential fears, takes those fears and he runs to the Lord. He sees that the loss of all things, including his life, will ultimately prove to be gain as God faithfully fulfills his promises and brings him home. He believed so much in that that he would lead Catherine to do the same. Friends, we have different kinds of fears and different kinds of sufferings than the de Brays, but our hope is the same. That God is the great God who should be worshiped.

That we need not give ourselves to idols, but that we can trust God's gracious promises. We can all say with the Psalmist, Blessed is he whose help is the God of whose hope is in the Lord his God. In all of our fears, friends, let's run to the Lord and see him to be faithful, to be great, and to be one who will bring us home to be with him forever. Let's pray.

Father in heaven, we thank you that you are so kind to us in our fears, that though we are so prone to run to other lesser things and treat them as God's you do not forsake us, that you continue to remember us in our weakness. We pray that even now you would be filling our hearts with joy in you and trust in your promises. In your name we pray, amen.