The sermon titled 'Wearied by Idols, Carried by God' by Scott Brown explores themes from Isaiah 46, focusing on God's sovereignty, the burdens of idolatry, and His promise to carry and support His people. It contrasts the heavy burdens idols place on their followers with God's faithful support and deliverance. Brown emphasizes that idols offer no real help and only weigh down believers, whereas God, in His wisdom and kindness, offers salvation and carries His people from birth to old age. The sermon also discusses the role of Cyrus as a deliverer who unwittingly fulfills God's plans, illustrating God's control over history and His pleasure in bringing righteousness to His people. The speaker calls for self-examination of personal idols and urges believers to turn to God, who provides true rest and liberation.

Isaiah chapter 46 in God's wisdom, providence, and kindness. Today is the day he has ordained that we would hear his word from Isaiah 46. Bell bows down, Nebo stoops. Their idols were on the beasts and on the cattle. Your carriages were heavily loaded, a burden to the weary beast.

They stoop, they bow down together. They could not deliver the burden, but have themselves gone into captivity. Listen to me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been upheld by me from birth, who have been carried from the womb. Even to your old age, I am He. And even to gray hairs I will carry you.

I have made and I will bear. Even I will carry you and will deliver you. To whom will you like me and make me equal? And compare me that we should be alike. They lavish gold out of the bag and weigh silver on the scales.

They hire a goldsmith and he makes it a god. They prostrate themselves, Yes, they worship. They bear it on the shoulder, they carry it, and set it in its place, and it stands. From its place it shall not move, though one cries out to it, yet it cannot answer, nor save him out of his trouble. Remember this and show yourselves men.

Recall to mine, O you transgressors, remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. Calling a bird of prey from the East, the man who executes my counsel from a far country. Indeed, I have spoken it. I will also bring it to pass.

I have purposed it. I will also do it. Listen to me, you stubborn-hearted who are far from righteousness. I bring my righteousness near. It shall not be far off.

My salvation shall not linger and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel, my glory. Lord, please bless your word this morning. Please lead our brother Scott, Holy Spirit open our eyes and hearts do mighty things Lord we pray In Isaiah 46 we learned that God delights to carry his children and to bring his righteousness to them. And at the same time that your idols, they will, they'll do nothing but wear you out. And there's this brilliant picture of the weary beast and it's appropriate, a very helpful picture.

They cannot help you in your time of trouble and they just wear you out. And it's interesting to me that, it seems that week after week, it doesn't seem that week after week, but it is absolutely true that week after week, we've been confronted with the whole doctrine of idols. And idolatry has been put before our eyes in almost every section of Scripture that we've surveyed over the last several weeks. Remember when we were in chapters 1 through 39, if you were here, when we were there, how it seemed like Almost every week there was some element of the doctrine of judgment and chastisement because that's really the focus of Isaiah 1 through 39 is the judgment of God falling down upon his people and God's call for them to Repent remember he begins he begins with the judgment against his own people Judgment begins in the house of God in chapters 1-12, and then in chapters 13-24, I believe, he judges the nations using the same rule of law that he judges his own people. And so it's a picture of judgment, and you get a good theology of the chastisement of God.

And I think one thing that happened to us is that we began to change our thinking about the chastisements of God, and not hating them so much, but recognizing God's motivations, His kindness in all of His judgment. Well, now we're not having the judgment of God put before us. We're putting two things really before us. That is the beauty and the goodness of God and the stupidity of idols. So idolatry is before our eyes week after week after week.

And you have to ask Why is that? Why would God gather us together week after week and deal with our idolatry by explaining idolatry with dozens of vivid images? Why would He lay this before our minds so that we would continue to contemplate it. It can't really be for any other reason that God wants to examine our idols. We're not done yet with our idols.

We need to go deeper still in recognizing the idolatry of our hearts and the destruction that our idols have caused and the weariness that it caused and that somehow we need to see the weary beast more clearly. There's a beast there and he's weary, He's worn down, he's being weighed down by his idols. He's got 900 pounds on his shoulders and yet he dismisses his idols as nothing. But actually they're a great weight upon him. This is the kindness of God.

He continues to work with us in our idolatry. You don't just deal with your idols one time because they're so deep-seated, they're interwoven into our thinking and our patterns, They're embedded in our soul. And so you don't get to the bottom of your idols your whole life long. But God is kind to slowly unburden his people, to help them to see them one by one to cry out to God for mercy to throw them down throw them down before we're too embarrassed when we do throw them down as Isaiah says you'll be embarrassed you'll throw them down to the bats and into the holes. You'll hate them.

You'll see how ridiculous and foolish you were. You'll see how unprofitable it was. You'll see the waste of your life and your time right before your eyes. And so Isaiah is saying, see it, see it now. See it early.

Throw them away. And so we see this idle examination station that we're in, you know, week after week and we're here again. And in this passage, in its context, God is using Cyrus as an example. Cyrus is a deliverer. He's a freedom fighter.

He doesn't really know it in his paganism, but he's really a freedom fighter for God. He's going to go in and he's going to set in motion the release of the captives of Israel who are incarcerated in Babylon. In Isaiah chapter 44 verse 28, we understand how this works in our passage because really God is still speaking about Cyrus and all the things that are implied by his leadership. Isaiah 44, 28, God who says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd and he shall perform all my pleasure, saying to Jerusalem, you shall be built and to the temple your foundation shall be laid. So Cyrus is a figure, he's a type of the delivering power of Jesus Christ.

And what is he doing? He's building Jerusalem, he's building the temple, He's laying foundations, or at least he's used as an instrument to begin the process of the building up of the people of God. And What is God's pleasure? It's to build up his people. He finds pleasure in building up his people.

Problem. There's only one way for them to be built, and that is first of all for them to cast down their idols. And so in chapter 45, as we have been examining more recently, we learn more about Cyrus in verse 1. Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held, to subdue nations before him, and loose the armor of kings, to open before him the double doors, so that the gates will not be shut. I will go before you and make the crooked places straight.

I will break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the Lord, who called you by your name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob, my servant's sake, and Israel, my elect, I have even called you by your name I have named you though you have not known me I am the Lord and there is no other there is no God besides me I will gird you though you have not known me, that they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting, that there is none besides me. I am the Lord and there is no other." God is using Cyrus to present this love of God toward his people to rescue them so that they would know that there is only one God and he and there is no other. And that's why at the end of chapter 45, as we surveyed last week, we read these words in verse 22, look to me and be saved all you ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other.

Look to me and be saved. Look away from your idols. Look to me and be saved. Your idols will only incarcerate you and make you nothing but a weary beast. And you'll be weighed down by all of his weights.

So the question that's being considered here is, who is God and what is he like? And what has he done for you? What does God do for you? And you'll see here in this passage that God does so much for his people. In contrast, the idols are so burdensome.

But Jesus Christ is so different. He says, take my yoke upon you, for my burden is light, and you'll find rest for your souls. And those beasts who take on the Lord Jesus Christ find themselves delivered from their weariness. Now this is also a commentary on worldliness. The worldliness from which you get your pleasure in this world.

It will surely fail you. This is being said over and over again by Isaiah. You desire it because you think you will get your satisfaction and your fun there. And you will realize, hopefully not too late, that it was all smoke and mirrors and weights and hardships and pains. So as you can see, I've divided this passage of scripture up into five sections.

First of all, the burden of idolatry, verses one and two. Secondly, the God who carries and is not burdensome, verses 3 through 5. And then thirdly, the costly idols who cannot save you from trouble, verses 6 through 7. And the call for sinners to remember God, number four, verses eight through 11, and number five, the God who brings righteousness to those who are far from him, verses 12 through 13. So Let's begin with this brilliant description of the burdens of idolatry in verses 1 and 2.

Belle bows down, Nebo stoops. Their idols were on the beasts and on the cattle. Your carriages were heavily loaded. A burden on to the weary beast, they stoop, they bow down together. They could not deliver the burden, but have themselves gone into captivity.

Here the emphasis is on the burden of idolatry. Look at the words there. Stoop, bow down, heavily loaded. Do you see the language? Burden, deliver from the burden.

Captivity. This is the language of idolatry. This is what you get from your idols is what he's saying here. You know, in the previous section we read, Every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Perhaps this is a picture of the idols bowing down.

They finally, finally given up in this sense that the gods of the Babylonians are bowing down before the gods of Cyrus the Persian. Bel and Nebo are taken down and they're replaced and they're dejected and now the gods are bowing down. Remember how one of the prophets says that you become just like your idols? So the gods are bowed down and now the people will be bowed down, the beasts will be bowed down. You become just like your idol.

And the day will come when idols will be exposed for what they are. That they were nothing but burdensome to you. And you'll see it. And you'll throw them away. The images of weariness are remarkable here.

First of all, you have the idols. They're bowed down. They're in submission. They're not happy. You know, they have been refuted.

They have been defeated. And now they're bowed down. They're bowing down before another. They realize even themselves how ridiculous they are. But then you have the beasts, the cattle that are heavy laden.

You can just picture the beasts being way overloaded. If you travel to foreign countries, sometimes you'll see people carrying gigantic loads, huge loads beyond imagination on their heads or maybe even on their shoulders. And sometimes their beasts are weighed down as well And you see these gigantic, gigantic loads on the beast. But here you have the picture of a huge load, and it's just wearing down the beast. He's just plodding along.

If you put 700 or 800 pounds on my shoulders, I'm sure I could not walk. I don't know when the point would be where I could barely walk how many pounds that would be but picture that Picture the number of pounds where you can just barely walk You can take one step at a time and you're burdened down so terribly. That's the picture that we have here. And the beasts are burdened. It's such a remarkable picture.

You children here, just think about this for a minute. Think about a beast burdened down. Or have you ever seen a pickup truck that had so much weight in it, you know, it was bottoming out on the shocks and it was just, you know, barely able to move, trying to go up a hill. I've burdened one of my vehicles like that one time. It could barely get up a hill.

And The motor just wasn't big enough because of the burden that was there. Well, this is what happens to people. They become like an overloaded old pickup truck that just can't get up the hill. This is this picture here of the beasts, and the carriages are heavy laden. Imagine a carriage way overloaded in ancient times made out of wood and the wheels are bent out like this and the axle is bending, it's bending, any more weight and the axle is going to break and the wheels are going to fall off and wham It's going to slam to the ground.

That's what happens to you in your idolatry The wheels just go out out out a little bit more with with one more weight and then finally the beast nor the carriage can take it any longer and This is what happens To the beasts and their idols, you know, I don't you know we all walk in here with our burdens, with our idols. You know, I don't know what idols you dragged in here. And if you're a true Christian, you know that God has been revealing your idols to you. You know, when you were first saved, you know you especially saw your idol so vividly and you cried out to God, you repented, you turned from your sins, you saw how harmful it was, you saw what a terrible taskmaster the devil was, You saw how abusive he was to you and you turned to God from idols as it says of the Thessalonians. But here it says that they could not deliver the burden.

It was just too heavy. It was just too wearying. And of course there are two of the primary gods of the Babylonians that are mentioned here. I think it's interesting that Isaiah starts with a historical matter. He starts with a vivid picture of something happening there in that society.

He dissects the things that are happening around him and he interprets them. And this is what we ought to do as well. He speaks of Bel, the primary exalted God of the Babylonians, the Lord, the Master. He became the Babylonian God, Marduk, and he was considered the creator of the earth. Read the story of how he did it.

It's absolutely ridiculous and insane. And he's the god of thunder. He's a vindictive personality. He always wins. And he is here bowing down.

And Nebo, by the way, Belshazzar was named after the God Bel. Remember Belshazzar when Cyrus walked into Babylon? Belshazzar was having a great party. He had just read some words on a wall that were etched by a finger of God saying that you have been weighed in the balances and have been found wanting. Well, Belshazzar was named after the god Bel.

Then you have Nebo, the god of wisdom and writings. He was the keeper of the tablets of destiny which contained the fate of mankind. Nebo, Nebuchadnezzar was named after Nebo, Nebuchadnezzar the great king of Babylon. And so the Babylonians would take their their gods with them when they went into battle. And remember when the Assyrians came against Israel, remember their leader said, who can resist our gods?

In other words, your gods are nothing to us. So these nations would take their gods along with them in order to to display their power. You know, this is what people do with their gods. They carry them wherever they go. They carry them into battle.

They carry them to the places that they seem to have need. Your idols follow you, that's the problem. You know, God uses this imagery of these wooden idols for a purpose for us. A, to show us how stupid they are, but I think They are just this iconic representation of all the idols of your heart. And in this one kind of wooden, inanimate object that does you no good and only weighs you down, You have this one image of ancient idolatry.

And all of your idols are just like that. That's the picture that we have here. And So you have this picture of the gods. And there they are. The gods are fleeing.

Cyrus has come in, and the Babylonians are fleeing with their idols. And their pickup trucks are loaded down. Their carts, The wheels are about ready to come off because the burden is just so great. They've done nothing good for the Babylonians And so there they are bowed down axels sagging wheels out You're nothing but a weary beast without God and I think it I think it bears witness to so many things that come from our idolatry The mental suffering that they leave you with nothing but an ache They give you a just a they give you a grim shadow of some kind of pleasure that ultimately irritates you and makes you uneasy and it fills your heart with worry and chagrin. This is what happens when you pet your idols and not throw them away.

They don't help you in your tribulation. They pierce you with many a pang. They give you a broken heart. You become their victim. Your heart broken, your spirit left in despair and dejection because of your idols.

If you're mopish, you're glum, you're moody, you're sultry, you're crestfallen, you're spiritless, look for the idol. This is what idols do to the human heart. This is why we ought to lay aside everything that hinders. Hebrews chapter 12 says this, I think, so beautifully. Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

So first we encounter the burden of idolatry, the axel sagging the wheels out, nothing but a weary beast on the ground. And then we come to the God who carries and who is not burdensome, verses 3 through 5. Listen to me, O house of Jacob and all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been upheld by me from birth, who have been carried from the womb even to your old age, I and he. And even to gray hairs, I will carry you. I have made and I will bear.

Even I will carry and deliver you." The first thing we encounter here in verse 3 is a command, listen. Listen to me, O house of Jacob. You know this is such a wonderful word, listen, because It speaks of the most wonderful thing that can happen to a human being and that is to hear the voice of God say listen and This is the most wonderful revelation to mankind God opens his mouth and he tells you the truth about the world. You don't know the truth about the world and so you need someone to tell you. You are born into a world, a wicked and corrupt generation and you need some truth.

You need some way to interpret what's going on around you and what's happening in your heart. How do you interpret what's going on? There's really only one way. Stop listening to yourself. Listen to God.

And so he begins with this command, listen to me, oh house of Jacob and all the remnant of the house of Israel." He is speaking to the remnant for sure. Is he also speaking to the unrepented at the same time? Is he issuing the call to both? I'm not sure. But whatever it is, he's issuing a call to listen to him.

And it's the call to those who are weary and heavy laden. It's the call to those who would need to be unburdened and to find rest for their souls." There's this terminology, the house of Jacob and the house of Israel. You know, are these formulaic statements that means the same thing everywhere? I don't know. I intended to look more deeply into that.

I think some have made a case that he's referring to both, both the unrepentant and the repentant. But assuming he is addressing two categories of people, the true Israel and those who have repented, and those who are Israel by name only, because there are these two categories. And what we find here is that he wants them to listen to this in verse 3, who have been upheld by me from my birth, who have been carried from my womb. He's speaking to those who have been carried by God And this speaks of the difference between God and the idols. The idols, you carry them.

God, he carries you. What a wonderful thing. You know, perhaps, probably, I'm confident, probably almost everyone in this room has heard that very popular poem about being carried. You remember that poem, Footprints in the Sand? One night a man had a dream.

He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, one belonging to him, the other belonging to the Lord. When the last scene flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints and noticed that many times along the path there was only one set of footprints in the sand. He also noticed that this happened during the lowest and saddest times in his life.

This really bothered him. So he questioned the Lord. Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you would walk with me all the way. But I noticed that during the most troublesome times of my life, there was only one set of footprints. I don't understand why.

When I needed you the most, you deserted me. The Lord replied, My precious child, I love you and would never leave you During your times of trial and suffering when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you." Well, I think that poem has captured many hearts, but I think there are a number of things about this poem that are absolutely contrary to the Word of God. And it's very, it's absolutely contrary to what we just read here in Isaiah verses 46, 3, and 4. First of all, it seems to imply that God is following us around and when we get in trouble, then He springs into action. It's God reacting.

It's God reacting. He just wants to make sure that nothing bad happens in the world. And so He's following you. He's following you around. And He is your servant.

The second thing is that it communicates the idea that God only carries you when you get into trouble. Does God just carry you when you get into trouble? Well, there's only one set of footprints in times of trouble, so God only carries you when you're in trouble. But the rest of the time you really don't need him. That's really what this poem implies.

You know, when you're not in trouble, you got it. When you're not in trouble, I don't need your help, God. Don't bother me. I'm really fine, okay? I don't need to be rescued, but when I'm in trouble, that's when I need you.

And is this the way that the Bible describes the work of God in a Christian? No, not at all. The third thing is it just lacks a total sense of our dependency. The truth is we're always dependent upon Him. The Lord Jesus Christ said, apart from me, you can do nothing.

And so this whole idea that you can tap God when you need him or he shows up just when you need him implies that you don't really need him all that much, pretty much just in the tough times. So, you know, as nice and syrupy as the poem might sound, it's actually a complete, absolute, ridiculous contradiction to everything the Bible says about the way that he relates with his children. Because God doesn't just carry you when you're in trouble. He carries you all the way into the trouble, through the trouble, and on the other end of the trouble. And then he keeps carrying you after the trouble.

And you need him before the trouble, in the midst of the trouble, and after the trouble. Not just during it. At the end of verse 3 there's even more here he says you have been upheld by me from birth who have been carried from the womb. Now here's this whole matter of when did God begin to carry and we learn here that it happened from before birth in the from the womb. You know this is probably a really good pro-life verse if you want it.

You know, there are several. I sort of neglected this one in my studies. You know, when I was a young father, I made sure my children understood the top five pro-life verses, so they could understand that life does begin in the womb. But here's the idea. God doesn't become aware of you when you're delivered at birth.

You don't become a person on your birthday. It sounds almost ridiculous for me to say this but there's there there There are millions of people in this world who believe that but we don't believe that and this is one reason that we don't believe that God doesn't just observe your presence in the world He creates you to be present in the world and he knows and he has chosen you from before the foundation of the world. This is the biblical doctrine of humanity And this is spoken of all over the Bible in Psalm 139 verses 13 through 16 we read, You knit me together in my mother's womb. You formed my inward parts. Your eyes saw my substance before I was unformed.

Before I was unformed. In Psalm 22 verses 9 and 10 we read, But you are he who took me out of the womb. You made me trust while on my mother's breasts. I was cast upon you from birth. From my mother's womb, you have been my God." Isaiah understood that he was a person in the womb.

In Isaiah 49, 1, we read, Listen, O coastlands, to me and take heed, you peoples from afar. The Lord has called me from the womb, from the matrix of my mother. He has made mention of my name, and he has made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of his hand he has hidden me, he has made me a polished shaft. In his quiver he has hidden me." In other words, this is God's sovereign hand in forming Isaiah in his mother's womb and making him this polished shaft even from his mother's womb.

Solomon knew that it was a child in the womb. Ecclesiastes 11.5 says, As you do not know what is in the way of the wind, or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, so You do not know the works of God who makes everything. John the Baptist understood it as well when he was in the womb of his mother Elizabeth and he was filled with the Holy Spirit in the womb as Luke 1.15 speaks. This is why it's so important that we understand the commandments of God and the way that God has ordained the world. You knit me together in my mother's womb.

Therefore, there's a law protecting life in the womb. And it's in Exodus chapter 20 verse 13, Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not kill. Would you want to kill Jeremiah in the womb? Would you want to kill the Lord Jesus Christ in the womb?

Would you want to kill the Lord Jesus Christ in the womb? Would you want to kill the polished shaft of Isaiah in the mother's womb? This is such an important matter for us. I know so many of you labor weekly, some maybe even daily on your knees on this matter. But this is the reason God carries you from your womb.

This is the comprehensive caring of God which begins before you were born. You know David, David wrote of this, but he wrote really of the second part of this, that you're carried until gray hairs, not just from the womb, but also to gray hairs. You know, David was in his old age, and he was writing Psalm 71, probably when Absalom rebelled against him. Now remember, David lived about 300 years before Isaiah. What we learn here is that Isaiah is borrowing words from David.

And we also learn that David and Isaiah were borrowing words from Moses. This very same language of being carried was used by Moses and David, and now being used by the prophets. The prophets were being filled up with the knowledge of God. They were studying their Bibles. They understood what God had wrought.

And so David, he speaks of this reality of God carrying him in a time of trouble. And I just want to read the psalm to you. Go ahead and open your Bibles to it. Psalm 71. Psalm 71 verse 1.

What I want to demonstrate here is that when you get to verse 6 and verse 18, you realize that Isaiah is just bringing forward what he learned. And I believe this context was with him in his mind. Psalm 71 verse 1, In you, O Lord, I put my trust. Let me never be put to shame. Deliver me in your righteousness and cause me to escape.

Incline your ear to me and save me. Be my strong refuge to which I may resort continually. You have given the commandment to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress. Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. For you are my hope, O Lord God, you are my trust from my youth.

By you I have been upheld from birth. You are he who took me out of my mother's womb." This is the language that Isaiah is using. My praise shall be shall be continually of you. I have become as a wonder to many, but you are my strong refuge. Let my mouth be filled with your praise and with your glory all the day.

Do not cast me off in the time of old age. Do not forsake me when my strength fails. For my enemies speak against me, and those who lie and wait for my life take counsel together, saying, God has forsaken him. Pursue and take him, for there is no one to deliver him. O God, do not be far from me.

O my God, make haste to help me. Let them be confounded and consumed who are adversaries of my life. Let them be covered with reproach and dishonor who seek my hurt. But I will hope continually, and will praise you yet more and more. My mouth shall tell of your righteousness and your salvation all the day, for I do not know their limits.

I will go in the strength of the Lord God. I will make mention of your righteousness, yours only. O God, you have taught me from my youth, and to this day I declare your wondrous works. Now also when I am old and gray-headed, O God, do not forsake me until I declare your strength to this generation, your power to everyone who is to come. Also, your righteousness, O God, is very high.

You who have done great things, O God, who is like you, You who have shown me great and severe troubles shall revive me again and bring me up again from the depths of the earth You shall increase my greatness and comfort me on every side Also with the loot I will praise you and your faithfulness. Oh my God, to you I will sing with the harp, O Holy One of Israel. My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing to you, and my soul which you have redeemed. My tongue shall also talk of your righteousness all day long for they are confounded they are brought to shame who seek my hurt here in this passage you find many many of the same words and many of the exact same phrases that Isaiah is using in this passage. The righteousness that he speaks of, the burden, the gray hairs, the being carried, the being upheld from your mother's womb.

All these things are in Psalm 71, and Isaiah repeats them there in this chapter. I bring that out just to help us to see the continuity of God working in his people. He begins with Moses, he continues on in the prophets. And then in the Lord Jesus Christ and in his apostles, this very same language is used. In Deuteronomy 33, 27, we read about the everlasting arms.

In Deuteronomy chapter 4, we learn that God says, when you were in the wilderness, it was then that I carried you like a father carries his son. That's this whole matter of being carried. He carries your sorrows, He carries your diseases. Not with the idols. You carry their sorrows, and you carry their diseases.

And they weigh you down. And there you are, the weary beast with the wheels bending out and the axle ready to break. You're like that man staggering under too much weight eventually you can't bear it and it will take you down And then there's this question in verse 5 to whom will you liken me and make me equal and compare me that we should be alike." And so here the Lord is saying, so how do you rate me compared to Belle, compared to Nebo? Am I like Belle? Am I like Nebo?

Do I treat you the same way? He asked the very same question in chapter 40 twice. I am God and there is no other here I think I think he's saying you know take my yoke upon you and learn from me and walk in a different way. And so he gives the burden of idolatry in verses 1 and 2 and then the God who carries who is not burdensome at all. And then he speaks of how costly the idols are and how they cannot save you from trouble.

Verses 6 and 7. They lavish gold out of the bag and weigh silver on the scales. You know Here Isaiah goes back into mocking mode. He's showing how ridiculous it is. They take the gold out of their bag, they weigh the silver, they hire a goldsmith and he makes it a god.

A what? A god? Yes, a god. They prostrate themselves. Yes, they worship.

They bear it on the shoulder. They carry it and set it in its place. And it stands from its place. It shall not move. Though one cries out to it, yet it cannot answer, nor save him out of his trouble." Now this is one of the really bad things about idolatry.

Now there are four elements of idolatry that Isaiah exposes in these two verses, 6 and 7. And the first is the financial impact of idolatry. Well it's costly. Idolatry costs you not just in soul things, but in money things. They lavish gold out of the bag and weigh silver on the scales.

They hire a goldsmith and he makes it a god. Idolatry is a money losing proposition. And you might just ask, you know, how much of your money have you lost on idolatry? How much does your idolatry cost you. I shudder to think.

Someday, most likely, I'll know the number. I don't know the number now, but it's quite likely that God will tell me the number of what I wasted on idolatry. Second, the subjugation of idolatry, verse 6, they prostrate themselves, yes they worship. It's this whole Reality that you're attaching your affections to nothing and it makes you a fool your Your prostrating yourself before nothing, which is why the Apostle Paul said professing to be wise they became fools and they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for corruptible things, and they bow down to them. Thirdly, the burden of idolatry.

They bear it on the shoulder. Now we're back to this image again, the weight, the heaviness that you cannot bear. They bear it on the shoulder, they carry it and set it in its place. It stands from its place, it shall not move. Again, I think the question is how much of a burden have our idols been to us as we've carried them.

People often think that if they move to some exciting new place that things will be so much better there. Here's the problem. You always carry your idols with you. Go to some fantastic city. Problem, your idols are still with you in your heart.

And you left that place because of the pain of your idolatry and then your idolatry showed up again in that same old place. And so that's why Isaiah has been so argumentative about this, so belittling, so sarcastic about idols. You know, he's saying they are going to embarrass you. Let them go. You'll carry them from one place to another.

How it has slowed us down, how it has bent our axle, how it has overloaded the pickup truck of your life. The fourth thing is that there's the failure to save, The failure to save from trouble, verse 7. Though one cries out to it, yet it cannot answer, nor save him out of his trouble. You know, they don't save you, they don't even answer you. If you get an answer, you get the wrong answer.

And they can't help you out of your predicament. You cry out and the right voice doesn't come back to you. You really get no help. You just get more trouble from it. There's no comfort there's no direction there's no love in it there's no forgiveness in it there's nothing that you need in it.

Bow down, axel sagging, wheels out, nothing but a weary beast without the Lord. And then fourth, there's this call, Call for sinners to remember God. God never leaves a sinner. He calls out to him. He speaks to him.

Remember this and show yourselves men. Recall to mind you transgressors. This has to do with what men should do. Men should remember, they should recall. This is what men ought to do.

Show yourselves men. The effeminate, the effeminate and useless males of this world, They do not remember. They just keep on going. They don't think back. They don't ponder what's really going on.

They just keep on going. They don't remember God. They don't remember His works. They don't remember that they were created by him. They don't remember that he carries them.

And here he's saying, remember, men remember. What men remember makes all the difference in the world. He says in verse 9, remember the things of old, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. This is the whole matter of creation and history.

And then verse 10, he speaks of history, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do my pleasure. Here God is saying, remember what has happened in history. What I said would happen and what I have said will happen. Remember that, men. Be men.

Remember. And there's this remarkable statement here. My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure. I will do all my pleasure. This is one of the critical stopping points for the understanding of the sovereignty of God.

I will do my pleasure. I'm so grateful for a constant declaration of God's sovereignty and His majesty. But here he speaks about His pleasure. You know, in our confession, the Baptist Confession of 1689, in chapter 5, we've been reading it on Sunday nights, in paragraph 1 it reads, God, the good Creator of all things, in His infinite power and wisdom, doth uphold, direct, dispose and govern all creatures and things from the greatest even to the least by his most wise and holy providence to the end for which they were created. According to his infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness and mercy.

Paragraph 2. Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly, so that there is not anything that befalls any by chance or without his providence. Yet by the same providence he ordereth them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily freely or contingently, paragraph three. And we find in paragraph three this word, pleasure. God in his ordinary providence maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them at his pleasure." Here in this third paragraph, There's this doctrinal clarity about God's ways.

And there are two things about God's ways. One is he gives ordinary means. There are things that he gives, just ordinary means of grace that bring about his will. The preaching of the word of God, the gathering of the people of God, the prayers of the people of God, the worship of God, all these things are the ordinary means of grace and the work of God. But there are some that are not ordinary, that are of his pleasure.

It says God in his ordinary providence makes use of means to work without, above, and against them. It is good pleasure. In other words, There are ways that God works that are beyond the ordinary means. It's the parting of the Red Sea. It's the bringing manna to the children of God.

These are extraordinary, out of the ordinary means, the way that God saves His people. God is working behind the scenes. He gives sight to the blind. He heals the leper. He turns water into wine.

He takes a heart of stone and turns it into a heart of flesh. These are the extraordinary means of the miraculous works of God and His providence. He says, my counsel shall stand. I will do my pleasure. Remember in Isaiah 44, 28 about Cyrus?

He is my shepherd and He will perform all my pleasure." And His pleasure is all bound up in the rescue of those who are in bondage. In this case, this historical reality of the people of God in bondage in Babylon, Cyrus is doing God's pleasure by releasing them from their bondage. It pleases God to save sinners, and he does it by dismantling the gods of Babylon, showing the weary beasts and destroying the Babylonian empire, giving us here in this church another opportunity to consider our idols, to consider God's kindness to us, to give us one sermon after another on idolatry, just to say that He's not done with us yet, He's patient with us, that he still wants to wrestle with us regarding our idols, that he desires to do his pleasure, his pleasure is all bound up in delivering his people from their idols, to let them go free, to unburden them. God has pleasure in so many things. In Ezekiel 33 we read that he has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

In Isaiah 53 he had pleasure in bruising his son. These things are related. The pleasure that God had in bruising his son and the pleasure that he has in relieving the wicked are one and the same. His pleasures are all the same. The Lord Jesus Christ said it is His pleasure to give you the kingdom.

And this is the pleasure of God. God does please himself in all of his works. He pleases himself in his judgment of the wicked and he pleases himself in the salvation of sinners. He does it both ways. How do we understand this idea that God doesn't have any pleasure in the death of the wicked.

And I believe that while it does please God to save sinners, and it does please God to destroy the works of the devil and judgment. The way I understand this is that it's an explanation of the kind intentions of the will of God. And God takes delight and God he takes delight and pleasure in the saving of sinners, and he doesn't take delight in the destroying of the wicked in a particular way. In his character, which is summarized by the word love. He's not a sadistic tyrant.

He's not like man in his pleasure. There's a way that God can take pleasure in the destruction of the wicked and in the salvation of sinners at the same time. I think it gives the inflection point of his character and his nature. His character is to forbear. His character is to have patience.

His character is to have mercy and to extend it. This is in his very being. But his judgment is also bound up in his mercy at the same time. They're almost, they're inextricably held together. But his judgment is uniquely his and his pleasure is uniquely his.

He knows judgment and pleasure in a different way than we do because it's perfect. God is so patient. This is why 2 Peter 3.9 says that God is not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance. God is waiting, God is long-suffering, He waits because He desires more to come. And this is an explanation of his slowness to anger and how abounding he is in loving kindness.

And he gives two illustrations of this, verse 11. The calling of a bird of prey from the east. This is Cyrus who came to destroy Bel. Babylon is the prey and he sweeps in to disarm the powers and the principalities. Again, this is like the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's speaking of a historical moment with Cyrus where there is a deliverance of his people. I think it points to Christ who sweeps in. He passes through the heavens and he disarms the powers and the principalities and he lets the captives go free. The second illustration is the man, and this is still Cyrus but I think it's interesting that he calls him the man. The man who executes my counsel from a far country, indeed I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass, I have purposed it, and I will do it.

Here God is using a man to execute his counsel, to do his pleasure. He uses a man, he uses actually a king, a king of a man no less. And this is just God saying that he will use all kings of the earth, just like he did Cyrus, to do his will in order to bring salvation to his people. You know, in prayer on Wednesday night, we sang the song, Joy to the World. Do you remember that?

And it struck me as we were singing, the words say, He makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness and the wonders of His love. Righteousness, love, His glory, This is all of what Isaiah 46 is about. And what is he purposing? The answer is in verses 12 and 13. He's purposing his righteousness.

He finds pleasure in bringing his righteousness. Listen to me, you stubborn hearted, who are far from righteousness. I bring my righteousness near. It shall not be far off. My salvation shall not linger.

And I will place salvation in Zion for Israel, my glory." The heart of God's pleasure is to bring righteousness near. God sent His Son, the righteous Son of God, to bring righteousness to mankind in His unrighteousness. This is why Ephesians 2.13 says, But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Jesus Christ. He brings His righteousness near and brings his children near by the blood of Jesus Christ. Here he uses these extraordinary means to save sinners.

The sending of the Son of righteousness. God's pleasure is to send righteousness. His pleasure, His joy is to clothe His children with righteousness, that they would see their idols and throw them off, and His righteousness, His beauty, His glory would shine. And they would be found with a righteousness not of their own, but of His. His righteousness that unburdens us from our own unrighteousness.

He brings us righteousness. So in this whole section you have two things. Behold your God and behold your idols. Behold your idols bowed down, axles sagging, wheels out, nothing but a weary beast by hanging on to idols. And yet there's God, behold your God.

He speaks to you, He says, listen to me. He upholds you from birth. He carries you from the womb. He walks with you in your old age. He creates and bears those He created.

He delivers. He calls His children to remember. He declares the end from the beginning his counsel will stand He will do all his pleasure. He orders kings. He completes his plans He brings righteousness near he will save and he will glorify and he has done it for Israel his glory this is God's pleasure it's God's pleasure to unburden his children and to clothe them in righteousness in the righteousness of Jesus Christ This is the offer of the gospel.

You know, Isaiah is so passionate in calling out for us to throw our idols. He can never stop doing it. You know, I was reading of William Grimshaw, who was a preacher in the English evangelical awakening in the 18th century and 19th century. And somebody said of him that he was a Calvinist on his knees and he was an Arminian on his feet. He continued to grab the people of God and call them to repent, to call them to throw their idols away.

Isaiah is doing that with us in this church now. And he's been doing it week after week, that we would somehow find our axle going straight again and the wheels going back and we find ourselves not a burdened beast but a child before the Lord Jesus Christ hearing him say come to me come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Would you pray with me? Lord, I praise you for showing us the way the world works, the way our hearts are configured, the dangers that exist, your mercy, the opportunities that there are in repenting.

And oh Lord, the beauty of salvation, the righteousness of Christ, replacing all of our unrighteousness. Lord, we thank you for such a great salvation Amen.