In that wonderful chapter, the 40th of Isaiah, we have a most vivid representation of the power of God, and the greatness of His creation. Take, for instance, the fifteenth verse: "Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, He takes up the isles as a very little thing." (Isaiah 40:15)
More literal and more forcible is the rendering in the margin of the Revised Version, "The isles are as the fine dust that is lifted up."
That is, the islands are no greater to God than the fine dust is to us; more than this, they are no greater to God than the dust, because with God there is no such thing as comparison; nothing is hard for Him. "Darkness and light are both alike to Him;" (Psalm 139:12) great and small have no difference between them in His sight. The greatest thing in our eyes is as easy for Him as that which seems to us easy. What an idea of the immensity of the universe is given by that expression, "Behold, the isles are as the fine dust that is lifted up." (Psalm 139:15)
All the islands of the sea are no greater, in comparison to the universe of God, than the fine dust that every breeze lifts up is to the whole earth. Truly, "The Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is His also. The sea is His, and He made it; and His hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand." (Psalm 95:3-7)
But this is not all. Our minds are directed to another evidence of His greatness. "Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these, that brings out their host by number: He calls them all by names by the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power, not one fails." (Isaiah 40:26)
With the natural eye innumerable stars can be seen; the telescope reveals innumerable others, but even the most powerful telescope reveals only an exceedingly small fraction of the number of stars. Photography, however, enlarges our ideas. By exposing plates for several hours, the light is accumulated so that stars too distant to be discovered even by the telescope, record their existence. In a photograph of a very small section of the heavens in which no stars could be seen, many thousands were revealed. If our camera were placed on the most distant of the stars, we doubtless should have the same thing repeated.
Millions upon millions in number are the stars of heaven; yet God calls them all by name, because He made them; and the word of His power keeps them from falling. (Hebrews 1:3) They hang upon His word. Well might the psalmist exclaim, "O Lord, how manifold are your works! in wisdom have You made them all." (Psalm 104:24)
All this shows the power of God; for the Lord by the Apostle Paul assures us that ever since the creation of the world, the invisible things of God, namely, His eternal power and Divinity, are clearly seen through the things that He has made. (Romans 1:20) It is because He is great in power that none of the host of heaven fall from their places. They do not collide, because His hand guides them in their various orbits.
With this view of the power and wisdom of God, how forcible are the words that follow: "Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, Israel, my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed away from my God? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary; there is no searching of His understanding. He gives power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increases strength." (Isaiah 40:27-29)
No one need fear that he is in danger of being forgotten by the God to whom the names of the infinite number of worlds are as familiar as the names of children are to their parents. The stars are God's flock, which He guards and we are His flock also. That is one point of encouragement. The other is that all this power is for the use of the man who is in need. The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation. The power by which God is able to keep the soul from falling, is the power by which He keeps the host of heaven in their proper places. "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth." (Psalm 33:6)
By that same word they are kept. (See 2 Peter 3:5-7) And this is the word of the Gospel which is preached unto us. (1 Peter 1:25) Therefore we may know that all the power of the universe is pledged for the redemption of those who believe God. The existence of the universe depends upon the fulfillment of God's promises to us; for the same word that brings the promises to us, is the word that upholds all things; and if that word were broken, everything would return to chaos, and vanish from existence.
And this comfort is for the poorest and the weakest and most sinful; for God's word would be broken just as surely if it failed to the least, as if it failed with the greatest. So the existence of the stars in the heavens is a pledge to even the weakest soul, that God has not forgotten His promises, and that every prayer of faith will be answered.
Thus it is that God's people in the last days, when troubles thicken, and wicked men and persecutors become more rampant, are directed to "Look up." (Luke 21:28)
Strength comes from looking up. Therefore, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fades not away, preserved in heaven for you, Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." (1 Peter 1:3-5)--Present Truth, January 4, 1894--Isaiah 40:15, 26-29
E.J. Waggoner