THE EVERLASTING GOD

Who would dare to produce an image purporting to represent the Everlasting God, v. 18? The rich might lavish gold and silver on the image produced by his skilled craftsman, v. 19. The best the poor can do is to have one carved in hardwood, v. 20. Both do so in blatant disregard to the traditional knowledge of the Creator who sits upon the circle of the earth, vv. 21-22. He made all things and ‘without Him was not anything made that was made’, John 1. 3. The Everlasting God is the great Creator.

Who would dare to produce an image purporting to represent the Everlasting God, v. 25? They do so in blatant disregard of the wonders of creation, its orderliness, its fine-tuning, its beauty. The Everlasting God is its Creator and Sustainer. Every night He marches the stars into place, ordered like some great army on a battlefield. Each of them is named and numbered and necessary to His purpose. There is no gap in their ranks: ‘Not one is missing’, v. 26 NKJV. Such is the infinite care of the Everlasting God, the Sustainer of all things.

Bruised and bewildered, Israel would seem to have lost sight of the Everlasting God’s ability to sustain His own purpose and righteous standards. They think that the Lord does not see the dark way they take and disregards their just cause, v. 27. Now, through Isaiah’s ministry, they were being exhorted to ‘commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator’, 1 Pet. 4. 19. He is faithful to Himself, ‘he cannot deny himself’, 2 Tim. 2. 13. And He is faithful to His creation. In that creation the Creator cannot let sin go unpunished; He cannot ignore corruption, He must act. ‘Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily’, the sinning persecutor’s heart may be ‘fully set’ in him ‘to do evil’, Eccles. 8. 11, and the persecuted may despair.

Isaiah assures his troubled hearers that the Everlasting God will keep on upholding them, without fainting or growing weary, v. 28. He adds that the Everlasting God knows that all who wait for His public intervention may grow weary. For all such there is renewed strength, v. 31. For us there is the reaffirmation: He will keep on pouring strength into us, Phil. 4. 13.