If someone – it could be anyone around me – was bemoaning the state of the world, with all the wars and the suffering and the politicking going on, and I responded by excitedly asking them, “Don't you know? Haven't you heard? Hasn't anybody told you? Don't you understand?” – their curiosity might rise. Perhaps you can imagine having a conversation like that with someone at your workplace or on your street.
And then what if I mentioned that there's someone out there who is high above everything around us, and who’s capable of bringing all the leaders of this earth, who all think they're so important, to nothing. It’d be fair for that person to ask, “Who are you talking about?”
That’s how Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 40:21-23 as he wrote about “He who sits above the circle of the earth” (v. 22) and He who “brings princess to nothing. He makes judges of the earth useless” (v. 23). But before identifying who he was writing about, he described Him as “the Holy One.” If that's how I described who I was talking about, people would still wonder who that is.
But as Isaiah carried on writing of the greatness and the power of “the Holy One" he had in mind, he suddenly asked his readers again, “Have you not known? Have you not heard?” – and then declared that “The everlasting God, the LORD” – that's the name, Yahweh – “the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable” (v. 28).
Isaiah finally gave a name to who he was writing about! And by describing Yahweh as “the Creator of the ends of the Earth,” he made it clear to readers today that he was writing about Jesus! Isaiah didn't know Jesus, but he was prophesying of Jesus, because centuries later, Jesus's disciple, John, wrote about Jesus as he wrote that “all things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made that was made” (John 1:3). And Colossians 1:16 says, “For by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.”
In other words, Jesus is “the Holy One” that Isaiah was writing about! And as Isaiah wrote that “The everlasting God" – Yahweh – "gives power to the weak,” that was also a description of Jesus! We see that by reading what Paul wrote about Jesus when he wrote “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man” (Eph. 3:16). Yahweh gives power to the weak. Jesus strengthens us with might. And both Isaiah and Paul were writing about the same Creator of all the earth who John also identified as Jesus. It's amazing passages like these that help us to realize that Yahweh is Jesus, and Jesus is Yahweh.
Then as Isaiah continued writing, he wrote, “those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint" (Isaiah 40:31). Isaiah was still writing about Jesus without knowing it. He gives power to the weak, but it's those who actually "wait on the LORD” – who commune with Jesus – who abide with Jesus – who will find their strength renewed.
So remember those all questions that Isaiah asked about “Have you not known?” and “Have you not heard?” as he wrote about the Holy One who sits above the earth and he who brings its leaders to nothing? That was Jesus he was wanting his readers to know about, even though he didn't even realize it!
And in our life situations, as we grow weary amidst life's challenges, it's as we wait on Jesus that we can rise far above our challenges and renew our strength. Jesus wants to give us His strength as we draw near and commune with Him so that we can truly run and not be weary, and walk and not faint.
