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[0:00] Next Sunday we will be getting back to 1 Peter in the morning and Romans will be getting into Romans 9 next Sunday evening.

[0:17] ! But I wasn't sure just how many we'd have here and I wanted to take the opportunity this being the first day of the year to speak on another subject tonight.

[0:28] Again, from the Old Testament, like this morning, not Proverbs, but tonight Isaiah. Crisella read a portion of the text we're going to be looking at tonight. Isaiah chapter 40, and I'm going to begin with verse 12.

[0:44] It would be great to take the entire chapter. It does go together. But what I want to do tonight is emphasize what is being emphasized in these verses in what I guess we could say a little better than half of this chapter in Isaiah chapter 40.

[1:04] And the emphasis is God and specifically His greatness. And I think that's a good subject to be on here at the beginning of the year to let Scripture remind us of fresh and anew just how great our God is.

[1:22] And really, His greatness is not something that we can totally comprehend. In fact, our comprehension of the greatness of God really is just a small measure.

[1:42] Barely scratches the surface, if we could use that term or that expression, of the greatness, the full greatness of God. And we're not going to ever, I'm convinced, ever fully plumb and understand the depths of God's greatness, even on the other side of eternity.

[2:03] Now, the Bible does nowhere promise that we're going to know everything once we die and go to heaven. There will still be the mystery of godliness. And His greatness is beyond our comprehension.

[2:15] And yet, we do have Scripture that tries to help us and to lay before us some descriptions of His greatness.

[2:28] Now, tonight in this text, the descriptions are primarily by way of comparison, where His greatness is compared to some things that we do somewhat understand.

[2:40] Now, first of all, His greatness is going to be compared to something we think we understand, but yet we still have not fully comprehended, and that is creation, our universe.

[2:55] And that's where we'll begin tonight. And I've kind of divided the text, and I'm not going to read it to begin with. We'll read it kind of as we go along. But I've divided this text into three parts.

[3:09] And the first one is this. If you could just think of our God in these terms, that He is our unfathomable God in His greatness.

[3:23] Unfathomable. Now, that's hard enough just to say, okay? In fact, I'm recalling kind of an amusing time years ago when my father was serving as interim music minister for my church down in Mississippi.

[3:40] And I brought a message, and one of my points, not the same message, but one of my points was I did employ this word unfathomable. And I just got stuck.

[3:52] I couldn't say it. And I kept trying and trying. I finally, you know, like the idiot that I am sometimes, I kept trying. When I should have just moved on, I think everybody understood what I was saying.

[4:02] But so far tonight, I've said it twice, and I've not muffed it. All right. Should I try again? Dare I? Unfathomable.

[4:13] All right. See, our unfathomable God in His greatness. And we find that in verses 12 through 17. So let's take that a step at a time and see if we can begin, at least begin, to grasp some of or measure of the greatness of our God.

[4:35] And this is how the prophet was inspired by God to lay this out for us. To help describe this. Again, by way of comparison.

[4:47] And he compares, actually compares, the greatness of God here by comparing Him or what He is able to do, comparing what He's able to do to kind of our standards, our way of thinking.

[5:05] All right. Let me show you what I mean here in verse 12. We'll start there. And the question is asked. It's a rhetorical question. That means the answer is clearly implied here.

[5:19] Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand? Now, think about that expression for a moment. Who has measured the waters?

[5:31] And the idea here is the waters of the earth, all the oceans, all the bodies of water here on our planet.

[5:41] Who has measured them in the hollow of His hand? And by the way, I want to point out that it's one hand. Singular.

[5:53] Now, that's unfathomable, isn't it? Even consider that endeavor. That is, if you're looking at it from the perspective of man, the answer to the question is, well, no one, no one could possibly do that.

[6:12] And you would be a lunatic if you set out to try to do that. To measure all the waters of the earth in the hollow of one hand.

[6:24] You know, a little more than two-thirds of the surface of our planet is water. You know that, don't you? That's basic, isn't it? Basic knowledge about our planet. Everybody knows that. That's a lot of water, though.

[6:36] Two-thirds of the surface of this planet, planet earth, is made up of water. And they say in some places, the water on our planet reaches the depth of six miles.

[6:51] At its deepest point. Six miles. Now, just in that one spot or spots where the body, where the water reaches that depth, that's a lot of water just there.

[7:05] But then when you add it all together, according to best estimates, the world's oceans combined equal 321 million cubic miles of water.

[7:19] I can't get my brain around that idea. 321 million cubic miles of water on our planet.

[7:30] I don't know who measured it. Obviously, they didn't go out there and measure it. And that's the whole point here, isn't it? No matter what unit of measurement you use or what approach you take, this is the best estimate, 321 million cubic miles of water.

[7:47] Do you happen to know how much water you can hold in the palm of your hand? About a tablespoon. Now, would it vary from person to person?

[8:00] I've known some men, for example, had quite large hands, and maybe they could get a little bit more than a tablespoon, but still that's not very much water, is it? Humanly speaking, one tablespoon of water.

[8:13] Now, just, you know, just imagine how long it would take you to measure the waters of this earth with the palm of your hand, one tablespoon at a time.

[8:28] And even if you were to attempt that, I'm not sure where you'd put that tablespoon of water. In the meantime, while you took another one, you know. It would be impossible.

[8:39] And how long would it take? It could not be done. So, how unfathomable... There we go. Unfathomable. I'm really, really pressing it here.

[8:54] It's our God who can measure the water in the palm of His hand. Singular. And by the way, the way this is written, the idea is not that He has ever attempted to do that or not that He would endeavor to scoop it up and scoop it up.

[9:11] The idea actually is that it would all fit in one of His hands. And God does not have hands in the sense that we have hands, though the Bible uses those anthropomorphisms.

[9:25] That's what it's called to give God human-like features and such. You know, He has hands, eyes, ears, and so forth. And God's not interested in measuring the water to do that.

[9:37] That's not the point. The point is by way of comparison to show us how great is our God compared to us.

[9:48] What else does Isaiah say? Well, the next thing he says, he has... Who has... And again, it's continuing the question. The answer is implied.

[9:58] Who has measured heaven with a span? Or you might have another translation. A more literal translation would be... Who has, with the breadth of His hand, marked off the heavens?

[10:12] And the heavens, in this case, is a reference to the universe. And that is the idea being who's measured it with the breadth of a hand.

[10:24] Now, that was the way that they measured things. Not the only way, but one major way. That in Bible time, certainly in Isaiah's time, things would be measured, most things would be measured with a hand breadth.

[10:35] And a hand breadth was the distance between the tip of the little finger to the tip of the thumb when the fingers are spread out. Have you ever measured your hand width?

[10:47] On average, a hand width is about 8 to 9 inches. I measured mine. It's exactly 9 inches. So I'm above average. Or on the... I'm not sure how that helps me.

[10:58] And I might help a person like Jonathan. And I'm not sure what his reach is. Probably more than 9 inches. You know, piano players, they... But that's a hand breadth.

[11:11] 9 inches. Now, can you imagine, then, measuring this vast universe with your hand? Well, you can't, can you?

[11:23] It would be ridiculous to think in those terms. You know, we use different... Units of measurement, depending on what we're measuring, don't we?

[11:35] If we're measuring people, the height of a person, then we use feet and inches, right? I'm 6 feet. I think I'm shrinking. It may be under 6 feet now.

[11:45] But we think of it in terms of feet and inches. If we're measuring a road trip, and you're going to take a trip down to San Antonio or Houston or wherever, and then you...

[11:56] How do you measure it? In terms of miles, don't you? Now, if you were in another country, you might use kilometers. But that's how you would measure it. Now, scientists, those who do this kind of thing, they measure distances within our solar system, and they use a measurement called astronomical units within our solar system.

[12:19] An astronomical unit, I'm told, is 93 million miles. That's a big unit to start with. That's the smallest unit. Then you just add on from there, you know.

[12:31] That's within our solar system. Now, when you go beyond our solar system, those who do this sort of thing and speak in these terms, then you are now going to be measuring things in light years, in terms of light years.

[12:46] And you've heard that before, haven't you? A light year, that's a measurement just simply based upon how much distance it takes for light to travel, traveling at 186,000 miles per second, and how long it takes, how much distance it would travel in a year, traveling that fast.

[13:08] You know how much a light year is? 5.88 trillion miles. Did you jot that down? Because you might want to measure our universe.

[13:22] You know, and you have to measure it in terms, at least we do, in terms of light years. 5.88 trillion miles. That's the beginning point. Okay. So we might say a certain object is a light year away, or two light years, or a thousand light years, or even further than that.

[13:41] Take, for example, our galaxy. It's called the Milky Way. And it's huge. It's so huge that our little solar system, and our solar system is not one of the larger ones.

[13:54] They say it's about a medium size in our galaxy. And you take our solar system, it's just, in relation to the galaxy, it's just a speck in this section of our galaxy that is, by the way, 30,000 light years from the center of our galaxy.

[14:15] That's where our solar system is, in our galaxy. 30,000. Remember I said a light year is 5.88 trillion miles? And we're 30,000 light years from the center of our galaxy.

[14:30] And in 1995, just some facts that might wow you, the Hubble telescope focused on a certain portion, a section of our known universe.

[14:47] In fact, technically, one twenty-fifth of one degree of space. It focused on, and guess what? It found 2,000 galaxies. 2,000 of them.

[15:01] Just in one section of our universe. They are now estimating that the universe contains 100 billion galaxies. A hundred billion.

[15:13] Can you fathom that? You just can't get a hold of that. A billion galaxies. And with each galaxy, by the way, containing somewhere around 100 billion stars.

[15:29] Like our star. We call the sun. Some larger. In fact, a lot of them are much larger. Some smaller. A hundred billion of them inside a galaxy, and there are a hundred billion of those.

[15:44] Incredible. The Hubble telescope has found star clusters, is what they call them. That means they just don't really know what they are. They're so far out. In their star clusters, they have found them estimated 11 million light years from Earth.

[16:04] And they have found what they call quasars, or something like stars. We're not going to get that technical tonight. And you don't want me to be, because I don't have any idea what they are.

[16:15] But the quasars, and they estimate about a thousand of them, and they're way out there. They've been found, or they have found them, two billion light years from Earth.

[16:25] Now, what I'm trying to do here is have us realize just how big our universe is. And then having done that, imagine measuring it with a hand width.

[16:42] And God is able to do that. Not that He is doing that, or wants to do that, and not that God has a hand width.

[16:53] But in comparison to us, to show the greatness of God, that if He wanted to. As a matter of fact, just like with the waters, that could fit in the hollow of His hand, the idea here, the implication here is that it would just take one hand width to measure this vast universe.

[17:18] The greatness of God are unfathomable. God, unfathomable in His greatness. We're really not through yet, because He says next, and again we're carrying on the same question, who has, though it's implied from here on out, but I'll just insert it again, who has calculated the dust of the earth in a measure?

[17:46] And believe it or not, this is even more incredible than measuring our universe with a hand width. A measure. Now we don't really know what this measurement is, but the idea is that it, to us, would be small.

[18:04] It's literally a third of a measure is the idea here. It would be like us saying a quart, meaning a fourth of a gallon. Something along that line. And God has calculated the dust with a measure.

[18:19] And He has, and we'll just add this next one, weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in the balance, like a balancing scale. He knows how much they weigh.

[18:30] He's great. Think about the Rocky Mountains, as beautiful as they are, and extensive.

[18:42] The land mass involved there with the entire range called the Rocky Mountains. Think on a grander scale, think of the Alps.

[18:55] And even on a grander scale, think of the Himalayas. And add them all together, all the other mountain ranges as well, and know that God weighs them on a scale.

[19:07] He's able to do that. Verse 26. We kind of skip forward, and I'm kind of grouping this together because it relates to, you know, our universe.

[19:24] Verse 26. Lift up your eyes on high. Lift them up. Kind of like at nighttime. Look up into the sky and see who has created these things.

[19:36] And these things really are references to stars. It's a reference to stars. Planetary bodies and such, but primarily the stars. Who has created these things?

[19:49] Who brings out their host by number? That is, one by one. And calls them all by name. Can you imagine?

[20:02] I don't know if you remember a certain fact I gave you a moment ago that, best estimates, the universe contains 100 billion galaxies and each one has 100 billion stars.

[20:13] All right, so 100 billion times 100 billion, it equals, I don't know. You just get a calculator, okay? And then you can tell us.

[20:24] But the point is, God put them there. We know that. And God numbered them one by one and He gave them names. All of them.

[20:35] And then He adds this little thing, not one is missing. Not one is missing. I'm not sure exactly what that means. We hear about stars that have died, but we just don't know it yet because their light takes that long for the light to reach us and so we still see the light but the star is dead.

[20:56] But we don't really know that. If I take this literally, God placed all the stars in their place just exactly where He wanted them because the idea here is order, complete order and design.

[21:09] It's not a random thing. It may look random when you look up into the sky, but even most scientists tell us that the entire universe is moving in some special order and you get one thing out of culture and the entire thing just goes haywire.

[21:29] And so, I think the idea here is not only, not just that all those bodies, heavenly bodies that God has placed there and numbered there one by one and named one by one, not only are they all still there and will be there because God has control of that, but the suggestion that He has ordered all of it and it's in perfect sync and moving and working just exactly the way He designed it.

[21:56] This is what our God did. And just the thought about Him naming all of the stars. I don't know, this past Christmas several times I'd hear on the radio this advertisement from the National Star Registry have you heard these commercials?

[22:12] I mean, what a gift. I was so disappointed that I did not get a star named after me this past Christmas. The problem is they're already named. We're not already named them.

[22:23] We don't know their name. We've given some names and I guess we still are naming them. You know, I guess I could have a star named Don out there. You know, I think it's probably a sham but anyway.

[22:39] And God's named them. But then imagine there are now seven, they say, seven plus billion people living on this earth and imagine coming up with a different name for each one.

[22:51] there are not seven billion names on this earth. A lot of them are repeated, aren't they? In fact, someone has estimated there might be as many as 300 million names.

[23:06] And that might be a stretch. But imagine coming up with seven billion different names and yet there are many, many more stars than that.

[23:16] and God has named them all. What's the idea here? The greatness of God. And then, you know, Isaiah brings it more down to earth here and the greatness as compared to the nations on earth.

[23:34] The great nations that have existed and great civilizations on this earth that exist today. I mean, think of our own nation, as great as it is. We probably have seen greater days and maybe we have great days ahead of us.

[23:48] I hope so. But this great nation and there are other great nations, powerful nations on this earth and in years past throughout the history of man, there have been great, great nations, powerful nations.

[24:04] And so, Isaiah the prophet is led to compare these with God. There is no comparison because He is unfathomable.

[24:15] Verse 15, behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket. You decide upon the greatest nation that has ever existed on this planet.

[24:29] And maybe most of us would like to say our nation. And maybe we would be right. Greatest nation that has ever existed in all of history. And yet we're just a drop in a bucket compared to God before God.

[24:44] In fact, literally, it's a drop of moisture. That's the idea, literally, the language. A drop of moisture that might fall from a bucket if you turned it upside down.

[24:58] And of course, the imagery, the idea is insignificance as compared to God. Infinitis, infinitesimal. I'm about muffed that word too.

[25:11] And this is what the nations are before God according to Scripture. Notice what he says next. The nations are counted as the small dust on the scales. I mean, this, you know, Isaiah 40 is just chock full of these images, these metaphors that we would even say hyperboles.

[25:33] They are extreme exaggerations that help us understand the great, well, at least help us to recognize the greatness of God.

[25:46] All the nations, not just the greatest of them, but all combined are like dust on the scales. Imagine going to Walmart and buying a, you know, you pick up a bunch of apples, you know, put them in the little baggie there, and you head up to the cash register, and you come and you say to the clerk, imagine saying to the clerk, now, I want you to wipe the dust off those scales before you weigh my apples.

[26:11] I'm not paying for the dust on those scales. Well, you wouldn't do that. If you would, you really are. Tight wad. Anyway, bordering on crazy.

[26:27] I've just offended maybe someone in here, I don't know. Now, there might be other things on the scales, you kind of want them to get off, and maybe there's some point there, but the dust is insignificant.

[26:40] And God is saying, as compared to me, the nations, the greatest of nations, and all nations combined that have ever existed in all of the history of man, past, present, future, you put them all together, and they're just like dust on a scale.

[26:54] That is, they don't measure. You can't measure dust. Not on the scales you have at Walmart, anyway. Maybe some scientific scales could tell us the weight of a single speck of dust.

[27:08] I don't know. Now, of course, Horton heard a who on a piece of dust at the time, but that's fiction, right? A person is a person no matter what.

[27:23] All right, so we're getting far afield here. The dust. And this, again, is the unfathomable God in comparison to any and all the ruling nations of past history, present history, all the nations that have existed in the world.

[27:41] And what about their natural resources? There's something said here about that too. Verse 16, look at it. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering.

[27:56] This is a word about natural resources. What do we know about Lebanon? The cedars of Lebanon were known for their cedars, their lumber, their wood.

[28:10] Solomon had the cedars of Lebanon brought to build the temple. Tremendous resource. Now, I guess that would compare today to oil.

[28:23] people. And then he says a word about, you know, the livestock. And they're not even enough to make an adequate sacrifice to the Lord.

[28:37] They're natural resources. And what about their power? Verse 17, all nations before him are as nothing. Nothing.

[28:48] And they are counted by him less than nothing and worthless. Now, think about that. Look at it again.

[29:02] All nations, that is the aggregate total of them, before God, before him, are as nothing. Nothing. What is nothing?

[29:13] Well, it's non-existent. Nothing is non-existent. It's not a little bit of something, it's nothing. Or, as one person put it, it's a zero with the edges trimmed off.

[29:32] Nada, zip, zilch, whatever term you want to use, is nothing. But it's not through. He says, here, the nations, for him, are as nothing, and they are counted by him less than nothing.

[29:49] Come on. What would that be? Less than non-existent. And then, to cap it all off, worthless.

[30:05] Or, in the sense of meaningless. Totally meaningless. non-entity.

[30:17] We might put it that way. Now, he's not being disparaging. The idea is not to be critical and disparaging of nations.

[30:29] And we love our nation. We are proud to be Americans. I am. And there's anything wrong with that. And God is not saying that we should not be proud citizens of this great nation.

[30:40] and we want it to be a great nation and even greater than it is. That's not the idea. What we're talking here about is not the nations, but God and His greatness.

[30:51] That is beyond anything we could fathom. And we can only get this close to compare Him to the things that we do see and know. And the greatest of nations in comparison to God is like a non-existent thing.

[31:14] And nations rise and fall and they're gone and God endures and is forever. And what about the kings of these nations?

[31:31] Does He say something about the governing entities, leaders? That's what we have in verses 23 and following. He brings the princes to nothing.

[31:46] That is, the leaders of nations to nothing. He makes the judges of the earth useless. Scarcely shall they be planted. Scarcely shall they be sown.

[31:58] Scarcely shall their stock take root in the earth. That is, just almost as soon as they rise to power. God breathes on them and they wither and they're gone and the whirlwind takes them away.

[32:15] It's not a statement about the quality of the leaders. It's a statement about the greatness of God in comparison to any and all the leaders, call them kings, call them queens, prime ministers, dictators, despots, call them presidents, whatever term that you might use in comparison to God.

[32:40] They rise to power and fall and it's over just about that quick in light of God and His greatness. Our unfathomable God.

[32:55] The second thing, very quickly, and I'm not going to spend near as much time in the next two, the last two, but the second thing that I would have you consider is our incomparable God.

[33:09] Incomparable. Verse 18, I will, excuse me, wrong page, to whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to Him?

[33:24] Now the subject here is, the idea here is idols. Graven images. Whether they are in a spiritual sense, actual physical idols or anything else that we might place as an idol to be our idol, to be our God.

[33:46] And He's saying, who, who, who, what idol, what God could you devise that could compare with God, the one true God?

[33:59] That's what He's saying, to whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to Him? The workman molds an image. And goldsmith, this goldsmith overspreads it with gold.

[34:13] And the silversmith casts silver chain. The idea being the best possible, the most extravagant kind of idol that man could devise.

[34:25] works. On the upper end, and then He goes to the other end, whoever is too impoverished for such a contribution, that is, you can't afford an idol that's overlaid with gold and has silver chains, then you choose a tree that will not rot, a certain kind of wood that endures, and seek for himself a skillful workman.

[34:50] And I just love this phrase, to prepare a carved image that will not totter. It means, you know, if you want to have a wood craftsman make for you an idol for your God, you want to make sure, even though you can't afford the best, you still want to make sure that he's skilled enough that when he's finished with it, he'll stand up and not fall over.

[35:19] I mean, that would be the worst thing for your God, you know. Come home one day, and you're about to have your time of worship, and your God is laying on its side, because, you know, it wasn't a put together right, and crafted right, and you want to make sure it's good and level, stand straight, and sure, and it won't fall over.

[35:39] How ridiculous. How could any of that compare to our God? He's incomparable people in that sense.

[35:53] Have you not known, he said, verse 21? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? By the way, it has been told us from the beginning.

[36:05] Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? Go back to Genesis. It's very clear there. The greatness of our God.

[36:18] It is he, verse 22, who sits not on your table or on the floor. He sits above the circle of the earth.

[36:33] It's not trying to identify a certain place where God is sitting. He's above all of his creation. He sits there. He's the supreme ruler.

[36:46] absolute sovereign over all of his creation. And its inhabitants, as the inhabitants of the earth, are to him like grasshoppers.

[36:59] And he stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. That's our God. Incomparable.

[37:13] And though, you know, we chuckle and think how silly those people who carve images for their God and burn incense to them or bow down to them and pray to them and they look at them and they just sit there.

[37:33] They don't move. They can't hear. They can't see. How ridiculous for people to do that. And yet, we have all kinds of idols in our life. In the strictest sense, an idol is anything you put before God.

[37:46] And though you don't think of it in terms of worshiping, anything you put before God, you trust more than God, love more than God, you worship.

[38:00] Anything in your life that has your heart, any part of it, has you. God is and that's idolatry.

[38:14] But our God is incomparable. And when we think about it, how silly we are, how foolish.

[38:25] And then one last thing, our unconquerable God, in His greatness, God is and that extended toward us, His people.

[38:39] And this is how the prophecy ends, starting with verse 27. Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel?

[38:52] My way is hidden from the Lord, and my just claim is passed over by my God? God. Now, what's the idea here? The idea is how foolish for you to think such a thing.

[39:09] The point is not that our way is hidden from the Lord, the point is just the opposite. And the idea is, why do you say that? Why do you even think that somehow the things that are going on in your life are hidden from God?

[39:22] He does not see. And that's just one step away from believing that He doesn't care. about your life and the things that are happening in your life.

[39:34] These things are not hidden from Him. Not any of them. And to think that your claim, your just claim, that is what really is right, that somehow it's passed over your God and your requests to Him that are very reasonable and just and very biblical because He's not necessarily answered immediately or answered in the way that you would like.

[39:59] Somehow it's just passed over Him. And so Isaiah is saying, how foolish to think that. Have you not known? Have you not heard?

[40:11] The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, what about Him? He never faints. Nor is He weary. He never passes out, never gets tired.

[40:26] His understanding is unsearchable and in the context is understanding of what's going on in your life. Even those things and especially those things that no one knows but you.

[40:40] The struggles that you have, the burdens that you bear, fear, yes, even the temptations that you really grapple with every day.

[40:57] And your worries and concerns, all those things, the things you get anxious about. And the real life difficult things that are going on right now in your life.

[41:09] God has an understanding of those things that you don't have. That's what it means. They're unsearchable. You can't search out the wisdom of God, the knowledge of God.

[41:25] They're unsearchable. Have you not heard? Have you not known? And He gives power to the weak. And to those who have no might, He increases strength.

[41:37] Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But those who wait on the Lord, here's our favorite part of this chapter, those who wait on the Lord.

[41:53] Wait. What does that mean? Well, it's not happening right now, so I just keep on waiting. It's more than just waiting.

[42:06] In the sense that we use the word. It's expectation. Those who expect God to be involved in their lives, they're expecting Him.

[42:21] They are hoping. We could use the word hope. That's the idea behind this word. Wait upon the Lord. Hope in Him. Place all your hope in Him. Not hope so, but your faithful hope.

[42:35] hope and your expectation that all of God's promises are true and that He loves you and that He has a great plan for your life and that He's involved in your life and He knows everything about your life, even those things you don't know.

[42:53] Those who wait on Him in that way shall renew their strength. not just take the old strength and make it brand new or new or more vitalized.

[43:08] It's not revival in this sense. It's a whole new change. It's unfortunate the word renew here. It really means, well, the idea is like changing clothes.

[43:20] To take off the old clothes and put on the new clothes. The Bible uses that metaphor in terms of our salvation. And it's used here in terms of our trusting Him.

[43:35] And our strength then is replaced with His strength. And that's what we need in order to mount up with wings like angels.

[43:51] Run and not be weary and walk and not faint. Have you ever considered this kind of series of statements? Mount up with wings like the wings of eagles and fly.

[44:10] That's where it begins. But then from flying we go to running. Now, flying is a lot better than running. Wouldn't you agree?

[44:24] I mean, we know that. Just get in a plane, hop on a plane, a lot better. Fly to your destination than it would be to run. And then we move from there to walk.

[44:35] It would be a lot better to run than walk. Well, I'm not so sure about that. But in terms of getting somewhere and arriving where you want to arrive, running is better than walking, flying is better than running, and running is better than walking.

[44:50] running. But here's the idea, I think. Sometimes with life, like eagles, sometimes we're able to run.

[45:08] Run, and God gives us the strength so that we won't tire. Sometimes life is characterized by walking. Just kind of, you know, clotting along.

[45:26] But God gives us even the strength to do that. And we can walk and not faint. Don't think of this in terms of physical weariness.

[45:40] Think of all of this in terms of spiritual truth. God gives us wings like ingles. And we experience those flying times in life.

[45:55] I know maybe it's been a while for you, and you have even forgotten it, but God does do that. Sometimes we just soar, soar over the challenges of life, and the difficulties of life, and sometimes we have to run.

[46:13] We're more on the ground, but yet we're still running, and we are progressing, and we're not getting weary thanks to the strength of the Lord, and often times we have to just clod along, but we're still making progress, and we don't faint, don't faint, don't faint.

[46:33] That is, we don't give up. And the success in all of this, we attribute to our unconquerable God, unconquerable in His greatness.

[46:48] Thank you.