‌Note: This is a slightly edited sermon manuscript. This sermon was originally preached at Pioneer Bible Church on April 7, 2024. The text being considered is Isaiah 40:6-8.

Context: This is in the same section as Isaiah 53. Isaiah is the Lord’s prophet. He has received the Word of the Lord to deliver to God’s people. The message is a serious one. The people have rebelled against the Lord, and they will have to go into exile for it. They are going to be taken captive by Babylon.

Isaiah 39 actually tells us about the Babylonian envoys who come and spy on Judah. And Hezekiah, in a moment of pride shows off the riches of Jerusalem, and it will prove to be the downfall of Judah.

Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 39:5-7:

Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord of hosts: Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”

Isaiah 39:5–7

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However, Isaiah 40 begins a shift. You remember that I told you on Good Friday that the Lord did not only prophesy judgment, but he also prophesied deliverance, and ultimate deliverance found in the servant of the Lord.

‌So, although Isaiah brings a word of impending captivity in Isaiah 39, Isaiah 40:1 says, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” There is a word of comfort and it takes up the second half of Isaiah’s prophecy.

‌That brings us to our verses in Isaiah 40:6-8. Hear the Word of the Lord.

A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

Isaiah 40:6-8

‌Let’s begin with this…

‌1. All Humanity Is Short-Lived

‌We may claim to know this is the case, but all of humanity is running away from it. We act like we are more than a blip on the radar of history. We act as if James 4:14 is not true which says, “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”

‌Even when we believe this to be true we do everything we can to change it. We do everything we can to ignore death or act like it is something we will not have to face.

‌This is an unavoidable reality – We are short-lived. I have yet to talk to anyone, regardless their age who believes that their life has dragged by. When I have spoken to people in their nineties and even who have lived past one hundred, I hear comments, “Where has the time gone? I can’t believe I am this old. I don’t feel this old.” Even if a person lives to be over one hundred their life seems short. And in reality, in the grand scheme of things, it really is a short time. Especially in comparison to God, which we will see in a moment.

‌All humanity is short-lived. We are here and then we are gone.

‌A. Compared to grass – withers

‌There are really few places where this truth could be better illustrated than Oklahoma. Our text tells us that all flesh is grass. Grass withers.

There is nothing like a good Oklahoma summer to wither grass. I can barely keep up with mowing right now, but if things continue like they have the past three years, summer will come and mowing will stop, because the grass with be brown and shrivelled up. Even if we lived in a greener place like New York, the fact remains that the grass lives for a few months, then it withers with winter. It is short-lived.

Humanity is also…

‌B. Compared to flowers – fade

We are compared to flowers. I have joked with some of you that I have a brown and shrivelled thumb. I have never been able to make anything grow. This is especially true of flowers. Unless the flowers need no care or my wife is the sole caretaker, all my flowers die. But even if you are the best gardener and put hours each day into caring for flowers, they are seasonal. They die and fade and fall from the plant. If the normal season doesn’t cause this, then it is only a matter of time that some kind of natural disaster like hail will destroy them.

‌Grass and flowers do not last forever. They are here today and gone tomorrow. It takes very little to get rid of them.

So, all of mankind, every one of us, is short-lived. We do not last forever. We may last a few decades, maybe, under special circumstances, the grace of God may allow us to live to be one hundred. But when we consider the thousands of years since creation, what is one hundred years. It is a blink of an eye. Things that are considered recent history, no one lives who remembers them. World War I was barely over a century ago. It is considered recent in terms of world history, and there is no one alive today who was an eye witness to it. The numbers are smaller and smaller of individuals who can remember events in World War II. We all have memories that stand out to us as happening yesterday, but they happened thirty years ago and they are long gone.

‌In the grand scheme of things, man is temporal. Humanity is grass in terms of our longevity. We are fading flowers. We are mist.

‌This is clearly contrasted with God.

‌2. God Is Eternal and Almighty

While the attributes of God are not specifically talked about in verses 6-8, his attributes are discussed throughout this section.

‌A. God Is Forever

Look at Isaiah 40:28: “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.”

‌He is the everlasting God. He is El Olam. This is not only the testimony of God here, but it is the witness concerning him in the whole Bible.

‌In Isaiah 57:15, the Lord is said to inhabit eternity.

‌In Genesis 21:33 we are told that Abraham called on the name of the Everlasting God.

‌Deuteronomy 33:27 says, “The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”

‌Jeremiah 10:10 says, “But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King. At his wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure his indignation.”

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In Romans 16:26, he is called the eternal God.

‌And we could continue with this thought, but I will leave it with this word of praise from 1 Timothy 1:17: “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”

God is eternal.

‌Not only is God eternal, but…

‌B. God Is All-Wise

‌Again, we find this in our section. Look at Isaiah 40:13–14: “Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?”

‌Clearly, the answer is no one.

‌As Paul said of God in Romans 16:27: “to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.”

‌Isaiah 40:28 tells us that God is the everlasting God and his understanding is unsearchable.

We also see that…

‌C. God Is Authoritative Forever

He is all-powerful and he rules over this world with absolute authority.

Look at Isaiah 40:22, a most humbling assessment of humanity in light of the greatness of God, “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;”

‌Not only is humanity grass, but we are grasshoppers. You can relate. You are a child running around in the yard and there is a grasshopper. You either try to squash him as he frantically hops along or you try to catch him. Even in comparison to a little child, the grasshopper is a small thing.

All of humanity are like grasshoppers before God. He sits above the circle of the earth reigning over his world, and its inhabitants are grasshoppers in his sight.

‌Look at verse 15: “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.”

That is all the nations put together, all their strength and longevity combined, they are all together no greater than a drop in the bucket to God. There are many world leaders in our time who think they are great. Who would even defy God. But all the strength of every nation on earth today is no more than a drop in the bucket to God. All the nations put together are a dust particle.

‌No wonder Psalm 2:4 describes God responding to the rebellion of the nations in this way: “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.”

God is authoritative forever.

‌D. He Creates and Sustains Life

As we already saw in verse 28, the everlasting God is the Creator of the ends of the earth.

‌Isaiah 40:12 tells us, “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?”

He stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in (v. 22).

‌Isaiah 40:26 says, “Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.”

So, he not only Creates, but it is by his might that not a single star is missing.

‌He gives and sustains the strength of humanity.

Isaiah 40:29 says, “He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.”

‌But not only is he the giver and sustainer of life, but…

‌E. He Ends Life

‌You and I are fleeting. You and I are short-lived, and the number of our days is determined by the Lord and no one else.

‌Before we were born Psalm 139:16 says, “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” All the days that God formed for me were handcrafted by him and numbered before they began.

‌Our own text tells us in Isaiah 40:7, “The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass.” The Lord has breathed life into mankind, and it is the Lord’s breath that blows on each person that ends their life. The picture I get of this is like a man plucking a dandelion and blowing its seeds to the wind.

‌This is true for everyone. No one is exempt. Not even princes. Notice verses 23-24: “…who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.” He blows on them and they wither. Even royalty.

‌Haven’t we seen that recently. King Charles and Princess Kate, may God grant them recovery, are not exempt. The wealthy and powerful must all face death as well.

‌We are not only short-lived, but our days are numbered by God himself, and when the time comes, he will blow on us and we will wither.

‌As our text puts it so profoundly in Isaiah 40:18 we read, “To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?”

‌Since this is the character of God we see in our text that this is also the character of his Word. God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). His Word can never be out of step with his character. Everything that he is and does is what his word is and does.

‌Notice in our text…

‌3. God’s Word Is Eternally Authoritative and Trustworthy

‌A. God’s Word Exists forever

‌While mankind is like the grass and flowers, God’s Word is eternal. It stands forever. There is no end to his Word. There will never be a time when this Word is irrelevant. There will never be a time when we need to look outside the Bible for answers. Mankind is in a continual tizzy looking for the answers. Why do men and women behave the way that they do? Why is humanity in despair? Why do people die? What is the ultimate answer to our soul’s needs?

‌Every single one of these questions has been answered in the Bible for centuries and the answers will remain forever the same. God is a holy God. Mankind is separated from God because of our rebellion against him. We live such destructive lives, because we are in rebellion against life himself. But the Lord God has sent his Son, the eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ to live the perfect life that sinners cannot live and die the death that sinners deserve to die, so that everyone who turns from their evil way and turns from their own solutions and trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ alone is saved.

‌When Peter quotes Isaiah 40:8 in the first chapter of his letter he says that the word is the good news that was preached to his audience.

‌The Lord Jesus said that he is the key to understanding the Bible. He is the one that all the Bible speaks of (Luke 24:44-8; John 5:39). All the Word of God speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ who is said by John to be the Word of God. Jesus is the personal Word of God.

‌How is that? Everything that God wishes to say to the world, he says through the Lord Jesus Christ. The one who sees Jesus has seen the Father. Every one of the characteristics of God’s person mentioned before is true of Christ. He is eternal. In the beginning, when the beginning started, God the Son already existed, because he is the one who started the beginning. He is the creator of all things and he is the sustainer of all things as John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16-17 tell us.

‌God is all wise, and the Lord Jesus is said to be wisdom from God (1 Corinthians 1:30). He is the one with all authority in heaven and on earth who sits in the place of honor and authority at the Father’s right hand.

‌This word of God that is everlasting, points us to the eternal Son, through whom we may have eternal life through faith in him. He is the central theme and message of this entire book.

‌B. God’s Word Is Authoritative and Trustworthy Forever – Stands

‌Notice that the word of God not only exists forever, but it stands forever. It stands. There is no end to it. There is no change in it. There is not a time when it does not apply. What God says in the Bible is authoritative forever.

‌And all of mankind will be held to it.

‌Although humanity is trying everything they can to change this, it is true. Mankind is trying to make the Bible say so many things it never said. They are trying to change the message. They are trying to make it more culturally relevant and sin-excusing. They are trying to make it more culturally acceptable. They are trying to soften the message.

‌But the Word of the Lord stands. It does not bow to our opinion. It does not lay down to cultural expectations. It does not turn around and apologize for offending. The Bible stands.

‌So, I want you to take a few moments and really consider…

‌4. The Contrast – Take It All In

‌A. Man Is Temporal; God Is Eternal

‌Mankind is like grass and flowers. We wither and fade.

God is everlasting. Not only does he never wither or fade, he never even grows faint or weary. His understanding is unsearchable.

‌Hebrews 1:10-12, speaking of the Lord Jesus, says, “And, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands; they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment, like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will have no end.””

‌Not only is man short-lived and God is eternal, but we see in our text, God is the one who has absolute authority, even over the length of our lives. He blows on us and we wither and fade.

We live in a time where mankind is struggling for control of everything, including the length of our lives. The fact of the matter is that none of us can extend our lives even a millisecond. The second has been set and the same God who breathed life into us will blow on us and we will die.

‌And of course the Scriptures teach that is not the end. We will either spend forever in bliss in God’s presence because of the Lord Jesus Christ, or we will continue in rebellion against God and find ourselves in eternal fire of condemnation. The temporal opinions of mankind may disagree with me, but the Word of God is certain.

Revelation 20:15 says, “And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

2 Thessalonians 1:6–10 says, “…since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.”

As for those in Christ, Revelation 21:3–4 tells us what will happen in the end… “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.””

‌B. Man’s Word Is Temporal; God’s Word Is Eternally Authoritative

While men may disagree, their words are like them – grass quickly withering. When God’s Word blows on their words, their words shrivel up before the Bible. While men have temporal wisdom and words, the Word of our God stands forever. Again, notice that it lasts forever, but there is more. It stands forever. It will never change. It will never be irrelevant. It never needs to be updated. It does not need to be tweaked to match the opinions of people in our day. The opinions of people will fail, but the Word of the Lord endures forever.

‌5. Applications/Considerations

We behave as if we will live forever. We put off eternally important decisions. We wait to be certain that we are right with God until a later time. But a day is coming when our souls will be required of us. We will die and our forever will already be determined when that happens. There will be no way to change it. My friend, be certain that your trust is in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Run from the sin that separates you from a holy God and come to Jesus to be delivered, because he has died in the place of sinners. All who take refuge in him are saved.

The Bible tells us in Acts 17:30–31,“The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”” Jesus lives and there is a day God has fixed that the Lord Jesus will judge the world rightly. He will not misjudge. Every sin will be judged. Every misdeed accounted for. All will be found wanting. The only ones who will stand in the judgment are those who are in him. Repent and believe on him.

Believers in Christ, we act as if we will have eternity to live this life on earth. We wait to read the Scriptures until we feel like it. We wait to tell our neighbors and family about the Lord until a more opportune time, because certainly we will have another opportunity. We build little empires for ourselves and build up larger barns and say to our souls, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” We think that all our provisions and efforts have been enough for us, not realizing at any moment the Lord may say to us, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” And the Scriptures tell us in Luke 12:21, “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

We are temporal. We are grass. We are here right now. We plan ahead. We have no idea when we will fade, but it is always soon. Are you rich toward God, my friend? Are you rich toward God, brother and sister? Are you laying up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal? Or are you laying up treasures for yourself in heaven, where moth and rust cannot destroy and thieves cannot break in and steal?

As we see that Mankind is temporal and broken, so his word is short-lived and broken. By what wisdom will we live this life. Will we depend on what is falsely called science? Will we look at what mankind says and try to thrust that back into the Bible to make it more modern and acceptable? We spend so much time on podcasts, on TV, on the internet, on social media, looking to the wisdom of people to run our lives. What an unsure foundation. Just like man is short-lived so is his word and wisdom. So much of what humanity has deemed certain throughout the ages has proven completely wrong.

We live in a time where discussion and opinions are the rule of the day. Its crept into the church. Let’s have a discussion. Let’s discuss what this passage means to us. What I am finding more and more is how little God’s Word governs those discussions and it is just a time for people to sound smart and give their two cents on everything.

Do you know where discussions normally get us? Discussions rarely give us anything except the knowledge of how wrong we all are.

We live in a time where people need to share their experiences. Experiences have shaped us. I have had this experience. Certainly the Christian life has experiences – conversion, walking with the Lord, prayer. However, what I have most run into with experience is that people put it on a higher level than the Bible. You can show people something from the Word of God and they will look at you and say, “You can’t tell me I am wrong. I experienced it.” they will hold to that even if what they experienced contradicts the Bible.

Oh limited human! Oh frail soul! You are grass and you will wither. Your experiences will all die with you. The Word of God stands forever.

We look to entertainment and streaming for the answers. Men and women are flocking to The Chosen, a television series that claims to portray the life of Christ but whose creator has said that Mormons and evangelicals love and worship the same Jesus. Run away from it, Christian! Man’s opinion is not only limited but it is damning. Anyone who claims Christians and Mormons believe in the same Jesus is a false teacher. True Christians do not worship the brother of Satan who was conceived when God had relations with a virign woman, which is exactly what Mormons teach. Christians do not worship the same Jesus as Mormons.

So many will flock to that TV series and say, “Oh it helps me understand the Bible better!” What would help you understand the Bible better is if you spent the time you wasted watching the program reading your Bible and asking the Lord to open your heart to receive it! Don’t base your faith in the opinions of a human who is clearly at odds with God. Base your faith in the Word.

Christian, why waste our time with man’s wisdom and man’s opinion when we have Christ, who is the wisdom of God? Why look to mankind for answers when the All-Wise God has written a book for us? Why waste time building treasure in this world when we have Christ? Why waste time watching a fake Jesus on TV when we have the true Jesus revealed in the Word who indwells us by the Holy Spirit? Why think that the Lord Jesus needs to be changed to meet the world’s expectations when he has come to bring sinners into a right relationship with God and transform us into his image?

The issue is, one of these days, you and I and every other human, we are all going to die and our opinions are going to die with us.

What the world needs more than anything is to be silent and hear the Word of God and his Gospel message. That we have rebelled against a holy God and deserve his wrath forever. The world needs to hear the danger it is in. If you have never trusted in Jesus, you need to know, you are always less than a second away from facing the wrath of God. What will you depend on? Your opinion? Your goodness? You are grass. You and your opinions and goodness will fade. No. You need a surer foundation. You need to rest in Christ, his righteousness, and his death in the place of sinners. The Word of God tells us about this Jesus who is Lord who has come and was “…pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). He is the only refuge for sinners that will stand. Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. Reject yours and every man’s opinion and rest in the promises of God that all who come to him through Jesus Christ will never be cast out. Run to him to be saved from your rebellion today.

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What the church needs more than anything is to be silent before our God. To stop being concerned about being heard. To stop being bent on giving our opinions. We are grass. We are flowers fading. It is the Word of our God that stands forever. We need to be silent and listen with hearts ready to receive and to trustingly submit to what we hear. And I would say we need more time with just that. We will spend hours on facebook, in the woods hunting, on the riverbank fishing, in front of the TV watching, on our phones vegging, but when it comes to the Word we will often act like once a week for thirty minutes is too long to listen. We need more and more occasions to sit before the Lord’s Word and in silence receive it as Paul said the Thessalonians did in 1 Thessalonians 2:13

“And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.”

Where will you and I go Christian? Will we depend on our own opinions and worldviews? Will we depend upon our own wisdom? Will we look to the world? We are grass. We are flowers fading. The only reasonable thing to do is to reject all our wisdom and depend on the Word of our God which stands forever. Amen.