(Isaiah 40:27-31) (Vs. 27) “Why do you complain, Jacob? Why do you say, Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God”? (Vs.28) Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. (Vs.29) He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. (Vs.30) Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; (Vs.31) but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
There will be times in our walk with the Lord when we are tempted to blame God because of unanswered prayer. Even though we have scrutinized our hearts and found no unconfessed sin lurking in its depths, yet we feel as if God has disregarded our desires and longings for the answer to the dilemma we are facing that has been prolonged and persistent. In this passage in Isaiah 40:27-31 God is encouraging His people to remember who He is and that He has absolute sovereign power over the whole Universe with everything under control. In the previous verses of this chapter God has declared once again the greatness of His awesome power unmatched in the whole universe.
He who tends His flock like a shepherd and gathers the lambs in His arms, and carries them close to his heart, and gently leads those that are pregnant among his sheep. He, who has brought forth creation, and to whom the nations are as a drop in a bucket of water and as a speck of dust on the scales, and who weighs the islands as though they were fine dust. He who regards the jostling of the nations for power as nothing, and who sits enthroned above the circle of the earth and its people that are like grasshoppers in His sight.
He, who stretches out the vastness of the heavens and who brings princes to nothing and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing and who are blown away even in their prime by His powerful word, which in itself brought forth the creation of the universe out of nothing that existed. He who brings out the starry host one by one and knows their names because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.
Stars in the Bible are symbolic of believers and just as He knows each star in the vast universe by name so He knows every name of those He has redeemed by the blood of the Messiah, whose names are written in heaven. (Genesis 46:21) (Philippians 2:15) (Hebrews 12:22-23). He has engraved their names on the palm of his hand (Isaiah 49:16). He has declared the greatness of His power and now appeals to His weary, discouraged and fainthearted people to remember who He is and what He can do and that what is impossible with man is possible with God, and that all things are possible with Him. Now let’s look at these verses.
(Isaiah 40:27-31)
(Vs.27) “Why do you complain, Jacob? Why do you say, Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God”?
How often have we found ourselves in a difficult situation or circumstance we cannot overcome, or find ourselves wrestling with a problem that is so personal that we cannot share it with anyone, and in our distress feel as if not even God Himself can really see the conflict raging deep down in the depths of our afflicted soul? Now complaining is a companion to being unthankful and ungrateful, if we are honest. Israel’s long and troubled history bears witness to the fact that they were often complaining in the wilderness and for most of them things did not end well. Job a man of God if ever there was one in the Old Testament, who suffered terribly, understood that whatever came his way whether good or bad that God still had everything under control. We read where Job’s wife said to him, “Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die!” “You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept from God only good and not adversity?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said (Job 2:9-10).
No one can make a light thing of suffering in the life of a New Covenant believer, however, a thankful heart and a right understanding of the character of God will be the means of sustaining us in the hour of affliction. If God knows when a sparrow falls to the ground, and knows the number of hairs on our head, then He most certainly knows all about us and already has the solution. If we can come to the point where we can thank God in all and in every circumstance then we are well on our way to see the deliverance of the Lord in His time and in His way and when He does respond there will be joy unspeakable full of the glory and the praise of God with a heart of thankfulness.
Offering to God the sacrifice of praise delights His heart and causes Him to send us the deliverance we need. As God spoke through the psalmist; “Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; And to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God” (Psalm 50:23). The only thing that will prevent God from hearing us is cherishing sin in our heart (Psalm 66:18). And then we read…
(Vs.28) “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.”
God never slumbers nor sleeps but watches over His redeemed saints day and night (Psalm 121). Several things we are told about God.
“He is everlasting.” He has always existed and will always exist and does not change. His Word will say the same thing tomorrow as it does today and we can trust His Word that He will always bring it to pass (Malachi 3:6) (Isaiah 55:11). Being eternal in nature He knows the beginning from the end. Then we are told…
“He is the creator of the ends of the earth.” Does not a creator know intimately all about his creation? Well, God knows all about us as He wove us together in the womb of our mother and familiar with all of our ways and nothing takes Him by surprise (Psalm 139:1-4, 13-16). When you consider the works of His hands and the universe He created what is our problem to Him? If in His will He decides not to work things out in the way we expect He will work things out in His time and in His way and at the end we will rejoice at His divine and loving wisdom. Whatever our state down here we have the age to come where we will all have brand new resurrected, indestructible glorified bodies the same as our Lord Jesus has, and after that we will live on in the final and eternal state! Then we are told…
“He will not grow tired or weary.” How easily we get tired with people who afflict us or with unchanging circumstances or tired of waiting on God when the heavens seem to be silent? At such times the compulsion is to make things happen can kick in and we end up making a real mess of things. If we had waited on God then He would have worked everything out far above anything we could ask or imagine by his mighty divine power at work in our regenerated inner spirit man (Ephesians 3:20) (John 3:3) (1 Corinthians 6:17). The Psalms make much of waiting on God by faith as this will increase our expectancy that when God moves He will never be too early or too late but always on time! We are also told that..
“His understanding no one can fathom.” As for His understanding it is far beyond the comprehension of man and God knows our human condition and remembers that we are dust and that to dust our bodies will return. Having said this no one understands us better than the Triune God, the Father, the Son and the blessed Holy Spirit, the Triune God! Now let’s continue…
(Vs.29) “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.”
God never intended that once we have been spiritually reborn and received the Holy Spirit to then go it alone. Much weariness and weakness in our work for the Lord can be the result of using our soul power which is using our intellect, our emotions and our will to do the work, but not speaking and acting under the direct control of the Holy Spirit dwelling in our regenerated inner spirit man which is separate from the soul. The soul is corrupt and in our flesh there dwells nothing good (Romans 7:18). Even though the soul can generate a power that can move others, it cannot be relied upon in spiritual matters. Our feelings and moods change, our wills often give in, and our minds are often bombarded with all kinds of conflicting and even inappropriate thoughts, and pride is always lurking at the door of our souls.
Strength and power must come out from the inner spirit man where the Spirit of God has fused Himself with our regenerated spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17). When we are filled with the Spirit we will be speaking and acting out of our inner spirit man and not out of the fleshly fallen nature being the power of the soul. The soul must be made subject to our inner spirit and while our mind our emotions, and our will expressed through the actions of our human bodies are engaged by the Spirit, they will be the vehicles through which He will do His work of salvation and sanctification.
We cannot experience this work overnight as it takes time and patience, a will constantly being submitted to God by faith, and a desire to please Him in everything and to obey His Word. If we seek moment by moment to walk in and by the blessed Holy Spirit then He will impart His strength increasingly in our weariness and weakness. And then we read…
(Vs.30-31) “Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
Human power and effort in the prime of life do not last. Over time we gradually lose the sharpness of mind, the passions and desires of the emotions and the body and the steadfastness of the will to persevere as we get older year by year, and our faculties also are in decline, a process we inherited in Adam, the first human being created. Whenever we attempt to do God’s work or to resist temptation by the power of our wills, we will fail because “flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom of God.” We live in a world where hope is diminishing quickly for multitudes of people as we see the breakdown of society and the nations in turmoil with political leaders not knowing the way out.
The world’s idea of hope is “I hope so” whereas the Bibles definition of hope is a radiant certainty, an inward assurance deep down on the inside, a deep-seated conviction of an unseen reality, that our times are in God’s hands, that our ultimate destiny is to co-reign with the Lord Jesus in our resurrected, glorified immortal bodies on earth in the age to come and then to be with Him forever in the final and eternal state! The world cannot match this! As we put our hope and trust in the Lord, and as we seek to walk after the Spirit and not give in to the dictates of the soul we will not stumble and fall, like those in the world who do not seek God. Of course we will not be perfect.
At times we all stumble and that badly but with the help of the blessed Holy Spirit and by His power, and by the power of the cleansing blood of Jesus, and by the quickening power of the Word of God we can stand to our feet, shake off the dust of defeat and despair, kick the devil out of our affairs, and continue to walk in the strength and power only God can supply!
At such times we will once again have our strength renewed and discover afresh that God’s mercies are new every morning and that great is His faithfulness. Our hope will cause us to soar like the eagle into that heavenly realm where, like the eagle, we will see from great heights those spiritual things that are the blessed privilege of all of God’s elect saints and in this have spiritual insight as God opens our eyes to see wondrous things out of His law! We will be empowered to run the race God has set before us and not grow weary as we aim for the goal being the fulfilling of the upward call in the Messiah our Lord Jesus, and to finish the course He has set for our lives even before we were born.
We will also walk in the Spirit moment by moment kept by the power of the blood of Jesus, by the power of the blessed Holy Spirit and by the enduring and unchanging power of God’s Word! Did you know that at the end of its life on earth when the great eagle is about to die that it spreads out its wings and soars into the sky towards the sun, so we, just like that eagle at the end of our life on this earth, will fly upwards towards the Son of Righteousness with healing in His wings and so we will ever be with the Lord!
