“No God but the LORD”
Isaiah 44:6-8
7/20/08
How many of you when you were little were afraid of
monsters in your bedroom at night? Were you ever scared of what
might be hiding in the closet or lurking under the bed? How many
of you could not get to sleep until mom or dad came in and assured you
that there were no such things as monsters and then opened your closet
and swept under your bed to prove that there were none in your
room? Still, monsters can be very real to little children,
especially with all the movies, books, and computer games in which they
appear. Given this, it’s harder and harder for children to
distinguish anymore between what’s true and what’s
make-believe. And so they’re scared of what doesn’t
exist, while at the same time they fail to trust in what does exist -
their Savior, Jesus Christ. Because children see more images of
monsters these days than they do of Christ, monsters seem more real to
them than Jesus.
This was the case in the days of O.T. Israel, where
the false gods of the nations around them seemed more real than the
LORD. The peoples who served them seemed to be successful in
their military campaigns. They were strong, they lived in safety,
and they had what they needed. Thus, it seemed to many of the
Israelites that if the pagans lived under the blessings of their idols,
maybe if they were to adopt those gods and serve them they could also
enjoy the same kinds of blessings. In addition, if they
worshipped these false gods, they would no longer have to fear
them. Those “monsters” and the nations who served
them would leave them alone. One way to appease a monster, after
all, is to give him what he wants, and that’s what many
Israelites did with the idols of the nations around them.
But with today’s words from the prophet Isaiah
God assures His people that the idols of the other nations are just
monsters. They are no gods at all. In fact, they
don’t even exist. They are simply the products of the
imagination of sinful man. Therefore, neither they nor those who
serve them are to be feared. Israel’s God alone is the true
God. Though they might not have been able to see Him, He had made
Himself known to them through His work of delivering them from their
slavery in Egypt: He sent plagues on the Egyptians and their
gods, He brought His people through the Red Sea on dry land, He
miraculously provided food and water for them during their trek through
the wilderness, and He brought them into the promised land, driving out
all their enemies along with their gods before them. God had
proven to them that He alone was God, the King of Israel, their
Redeemer, and the LORD of hosts. He alone was the first and the
last, and besides Him there was no god.
Not only did He prove this by what He did, but also
by what He said. No other god can do what the LORD does in
telling His people what’s going to happen before it occurs.
What He says will happen will happen. Though the prophecies of
some of the false gods may come true some of the time, God’s
prophecies have a perfect track record of being on the mark 100% of the
time. Here He reminds His people of this when He asks them,
“Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare
and set it before me, since I appointed an ancient people. Let
them declare what is to come, and what will happen.” Here
God is challenging the false gods to do what only He can do and
foretell what will take place. It’s as if we’re in a
courtroom setting where the false gods are on one side and the true God
is on the other. The test for whether one is God or not is
whether or not he can predict the future. The one who proves that
He can do this is the true God; the others are fakes. Since
Israel’s God has shown that He is the only one who can do this,
He is God.
He has most clearly made this known through His Son,
Jesus Christ. Jesus is the ultimate proof that what God says will
happen will happen. The Apostle Peter in a sermon of his makes it
clear that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the prophecies of the
Scriptures and that the whole O.T. speaks of Him. He says that
“God spoke [of Jesus] by the mouth of His holy prophets long
ago,” that “Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up
for you a prophet like me from among your brothers,” and that
“all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came
after him, also proclaimed [the days of Jesus].” Jesus is
the fulfillment of God’s prophecy made to Adam and Eve that God
would send a Savior, the Seed of the woman, who’s heal would be
struck by the serpent, but who would in turn strike the serpent’s
head. He is the fulfillment of God’s prophecy made to
Abraham that in him all the nations of the earth would be
blessed. He is the fulfillment of God’s promise to David
that He would raise up his Seed after him who would build a house for
God’s Name, the throne of whose kingdom God would establish
forever. And yet, He is also the fulfillment of the prophecy God
made through Isaiah that the Messiah would be a suffering servant of
the LORD, one who would bear our griefs and carry our sorrows. He
would be stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God. He would be
wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.
Upon Him would be laid the chastisement that would bring us peace, and
with His stripes we would be healed. Yet, He would not stay
dead. Jesus also fulfilled the prophecy made through David that
God would not allow His holy One to undergo decay, so that just as
Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, so
Jesus would be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights,
only to rise again from the dead on the third day.
By fulfilling all that God prophesied in the O.T.
Jesus proved that the God of Israel is the true God and that the other
so-called gods are nothing but idols, imaginary monsters, nothing but
products of the minds of sinful men. Not only did Jesus prove
that there are no other gods but the one true God alone, but also that
Jesus Himself is that God. He is the LORD, the King of Israel,
our Redeemer, and the LORD of hosts. He is the first and the last
besides whom there is no god. He claimed He was the LORD by
calling Himself “I Am,” which is the english translation of
the Name Yahweh (or Jehovah). He accepted the title King of
Israel from both Nathaniel and then later from Pontius Pilate, who
wrote this down on the plaque that hung above His head on the
cross. He claimed that He would give His life as a ransom for
many; thus the N.T. writers call Him our Redeemer. And that He is
the LORD of hosts, the God of Sabbaoth, is affirmed by His words at the
end of the book of Revelation, where He again uses God’s titles
for Himself, saying, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and
the last, the beginning and the end.”
But Jesus didn’t just claim these titles for
Himself, as many false christs have. He proved that He was who He
said He was by rising from the dead. Christ’s resurrection
is God the Father’s confirmation that His Son, Jesus is who He
claimed to be. As the Apostle Paul puts it in Romans,
“[Jesus] was declared to be the Son of God in power according to
the Spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the
dead...” Thomas confessed this when he saw Jesus in the
flesh after His resurrection. Upon seeing Him alive again, Thomas
exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” And so, on the basis
of His resurrection the writers of the N.T. documents everywhere
confess Jesus to be God in the flesh, and they worship Him as such,
teaching us to do the same.
The comfort we receive from this is that this God,
our Maker and Redeemer, has by His death and resurrection, overcome all
monsters who would threaten us. As the Apostle Paul puts it,
Jesus did away with the monster of the Law by canceling our debt to it,
setting it aside by nailing it to the cross with Him. And He did
away with the monsters of the spiritual forces of evil, disarming the
rulers and authorities that were opposed to us and putting them to open
shame by triumphing over them by the cross. As a result, we no
longer have to fear these monsters. We no longer have to fear the
monster of God’s wrath; it was allowed to take Jesus instead of
us. Now, we live at peace with God under His mercy and
forgiveness. And we no longer have to fear the monsters of the
idols and false gods of this world. What harm can they do
us? They’re not real anyway. As for men, David
writes, “When I’m afraid, I put my trust in you. In
God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
What can flesh do to me?” God has conquered all monsters,
real or imagined, through His Son, Jesus Christ, crucified and risen
from the dead. He is the Rock of our salvation, the One upon whom
we have built by faith, who saves us not only from the waves and wind
of God’s wrath, but the wrath of the devil, the world, and the
empty hot air of their false gods and idols.
So, when the monsters of this world threaten you,
when the god of the Muslims, for example, seeks to take away your
peace, when the devil tries to disturb you with the accusations and
threats of God’s Law, look to Christ. He is your God.
He is the God, the God who has redeemed you with His blood, reconciled
you to the Father, and delivered you from all monsters. With the
Father and the Holy Spirit He dwells with you always, having made your
body His home by way of your Baptism, so that you are never alone, no
matter how dark and scary the times and places might be in which you
find yourself. So remember: Greater is He who is in you
than he who is in the world, and know that neither death nor life, nor
angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, can separate
you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
“[He] is the true God and eternal life. Little children,
guard yourselves from idols.” Amen.