God's Sovereignty Over Nations and Leaders

This is not the only place where God's sovereignty is described as being in control over nations and over leaders. The whole reason Pharaoh lived, the whole reason he existed, was so that God's power would be made known and his name would be proclaimed. Can you imagine the entire summary of your life as an Egyptian Pharaoh not being about the greatness of the kingdom you built—your borders secured from here to the Euphrates with no threat at all? Yet what really is the summary of your life? You were nothing but a vessel for God to proclaim himself.

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” (Psalm 2:1-3)

The rulers are saying, “Let's break free of his sovereign control. Let's get out from underneath his sovereign reign over our lives.” And God's response? He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision (Psalm 2:4). Who thinks they could do this? Imagine playing a game of Risk against God. The only thing that ends up happening is that you find out he's been in control of the entire board the entire time. He's had all the continents under his own possession. Not only that, but you find out that God has actually been in control of the board and he owns everything and he's only been the one who's been playing. You weren't even really playing the whole time. God is the one in complete control over everything. He was setting the borders. He was setting the armies. He was setting the nations—all at the sheer pleasure of his will.

Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’ (Isaiah 46:10)

This is our God. This is the greatness of our God. One of the things that comes to mind is being out in a storm. What would be more valuable? To have the idol in the ship that's probably weighing the ship down and sinks in the water, or to have the God who's in control of the storm? At that point you can ride the waves.

The Idols Offer No Counsel

Notice verse 28 because this kind of goes in a peculiar direction. God says, “When I look, there is no one among these, there is no counselor who, when I ask, gives an answer.” The idols don't have the answer. Our God has the answers. In fact, in the Greek translation for the word counselor, it uses the word parakletos, which means to comfort, to come alongside someone, to lift someone up and to carry someone through. It's a word that is used of both Jesus and the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. There's no one to do that among the idols. There's no one to really lift you up in your circumstances among all of the idolatry of the world. There's nobody who can give you the comfort and the encouragement that you need.

I would wager that there are those in this congregation who need the Counselor. There are those who need the answers. There are those who need an Almighty God to hold them up and to carry them through their circumstances. In fact, every single one of us needs the Counselor and needs the comfort, the answers to be able to be carried through our situations. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is our propitiation, our atoning sacrifice that pleases God, that placates his wrath and brings us into correct fellowship and relationship with him. There's nothing like that anywhere else.

You might say, “I find comfort, encouragement, all the things you're saying are only found in God—I find those in excessive amusement, in being arrogant, in all the various comforts and luxuries or different things going on in my life.”

Behold, they are all a delusion; their works are nothing; their metal images are empty wind. (Isaiah 41:29)

The best idols in our lives are the idols that we are unaware of or unwilling to get rid of—or both. That's why it's important to engage in this activity regularly, because it's not as though we don't have idols. All of us have idols. The question is, where are they and what are they? It's not do I have idols, but where do I have idols? What are my idols? The safest place to be is assuming that there are idols that already exist so that we compare everything in our lives to God in his courtroom and he can interrogate what's in our lives. The most dangerous place is thinking there can't possibly be any idols in our lives.

John Calvin said, “Hence we may infer that the human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols.” We've mentioned before that the book of Ezekiel uses a term for idolatry which also means imagination. It talks about how the rulers even of Israel had brought their idols into their hearts. They internalized their idolatry. So the idols are definitely there. But notice again that verse 29 said, “they are a delusion.” It's the intention of idolatry to deceive us. The best idols are the ones that we don't even know are there.

The Promise of the Servant

Not only God's acknowledgment, but notice into chapter 42.

Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law. (Isaiah 42:1-4)

It's interesting because in the Greek translation the term for servant is a wonderfully ambiguous term meaning both son or servant. This is a very high Old Testament Trinitarian passage talking about the Father commissioning his Son, putting his Spirit upon him, and bringing us justice. So not only does God show us the absolute wonderfulness of himself but also promises us his own Son to work all things together for good in our lives and to provide us with salvation which no idol can provide. In a few weeks we're going to see how he's accomplishing that as we look at Isaiah 53. But this is beholding God to behave godly for God's glory—recognizing that God is the greatest good that we can have, providing his own Son for us to be brought into fellowship and relationship with him.

I wonder if there's anything in our lives causing us to miss out on God in his supreme, soul-satisfying excellence. May we take what's in our lives into the courtroom of God. May we behold God in his courtroom that we may behave godly and live for God's glory.