Okay, so that main point is that God is God, there are no other gods. We're not going to stray from that main point at all. And so there's going to be five points. For those of you who need everything kind of planned out in front of you, out of those five points, the first one is going to be the longest.

So halfway through the sermon, if you're kind of getting nervous that we're going a long time, the last four will go a lot quicker. The first one we're going to be spending a lot of time in there. And so that first point is this though, that He is sovereign over kingdoms.

That's our first point. He is sovereign over kingdoms. Now as we look at the text in Isaiah, what we see is that there's a lot of historical things going on. And so there's Israel, and Israel has been at this point in history separated from North and South. So the Northern Kingdom is called Israel and the Southern Kingdom is called Judah.

There's 10 tribes up North, 2 tribes down South. As you see this, we can see through the unfurling message of scripture that God has been sovereignly working in His people, Israel. He's been moving them, He's been kind of taking them in and out, and a lot of it had to do with their obedience to Him, their obedience to His covenant promises.

So if you're familiar with Leviticus chapter 26 or Deuteronomy chapter 28, we see a lot of that. He says, "If you obey my commands, if you love me, if you follow after me, then I'll bring to you prosperity and success." He says, "However, if you disobey, if you are not faithful to me, if you are adulterous against me, then you will find my calamity." And so that's how it's been.

He's been sovereignly working in His people, in His nation. So specifically in this time of Isaiah, we find that the tribes have already split. Now in this split, what we see, yes, is Israel's unfaithfulness. That's why there's a split with the 10 and the 2. What we also see in the midst of this historical fact, though, is that God's preserving, gracious, and merciful hand is continuing.

From the time man falls, God has been promising over and over again that a Messiah is going to come, that He is going to send the anointed, chosen one to save His people. And with that, Isaiah was written in 740 BC. It was written to the southern kingdom. And in the middle of this preaching that Isaiah does, because it does encompass a few decades, in the middle of his preaching, what he's saying is, "The northern kingdom is going to fall." And he tells this to the southern kingdom.

"A foreign nation is going to come and take you over, and that foreign nation is going to be Assyria." And the northern kingdom was meant to be a case study to the southern kingdom. That the southern kingdom is going to see the northern kingdom fall, see God's sovereign hand at work, that if we are unfaithful to God's covenant promise, then He will do, sovereignly, according to what He sees fit.

Now the reason why we're talking about this is because we see God's sovereignty clearly at work with Israel. But in many of the pages of Isaiah, we also see God's sovereignty, God's sovereign hand at work in foreign nations. In 722 BC, so Isaiah was probably written somewhere around 740, and it spans through the captivity of the northern kingdom.

But in 722 BC, the northern kingdom finally falls to Assyria. And the southern kingdom witnesses this. Assyria becomes one of the many foreign nations that God uses to sovereignly bring justice, a judgment against Israel. But after Assyria, there comes another country, another nation called Babylon. And after Babylon, another one called Persia.

Now Persia is very interesting. There's Assyria and Babylon are used to enact God's judgment and justice against Israel for breaking His covenant promise. But Persia comes in and does something very differently. God uses Persia to bring Israel back into the promised land, that He might continue to be faithful with them.

Why are we talking about this? Well, if you look at Isaiah chapter 45 verses one through three, there's a man that comes out by the name of Cyrus. It says this in verse one, "Thus says the Lord to Cyrus, his anointed," that's a very interesting word used there, "whom I have taken by the right hand to subdue nations before him and to loose the loins of kings, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut.

I will go before you and make the rough places smooth. I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut through their iron bars. I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden wealth of secret places so that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name." Again, putting ourselves in the position of during the time of Isaiah, the southern kingdom, at 700 BC-ish, they are told that Assyria is going to come and conquer, that God will use Assyria in His sovereignty to conquer the northern kingdom.

And then in the midst of Isaiah, they're also shown that Babylon will come in and take over the southern kingdom if they continue to remain unfaithful. But here, Persia is 200 years in the future, and by name, this man by the name of King Cyrus is mentioned here, that the Lord is going to use Cyrus as His anointed one, that He is going to sovereignly use Cyrus and this country of Persia to enact His sovereign purpose and will, His desires.

The reason why we're talking about all this is to show that God is ultimately sovereign over all kingdoms, all nations. And this is a very important point. We understand that God is sovereign over Israel. That's easy. And we see it clearly written. He causes Israel to succeed, He causes Israel to fail.

We see kings come up and they buck against the Lord and they rebel against Him and He just drops them down. So over and over and over, we can see God just rising and lowering, rising and lowering. But also, what I want to mention is that God is sovereign over all these other kingdoms.

God is sovereign over every kingdom in the world, every nation. Not a single country is outside of God's sovereign hand, rule and control. God is the one who causes nations to succeed. God is the one who causes nations to fall. I'm sure that Assyria and all her kings, and if you think about kind of just the short timeline Babylon and all her kings, and Persia and all her kings, they all had their own endeavors.

They all had their own desires and ambitions, their goals for where they wanted their country to go, that they wanted power, they wanted land, they wanted rule and prestige and fame. They wanted prosperity for their people. What they don't realize is that none of it comes to fruition outside of God's sovereign hand.

Israel, yes, is under God's sovereign control, but every other nation works under His power, His control, His will, and His timing, and all of this is in accordance to His perfect sight over everything. What does it mean to be sovereign? We throw around that term a lot, and I think many times we throw it around very lightly, that God is sovereign.

We believe it, we say amen to that, we will mention it all the time. What does it mean? As an adjective, sovereign is to possess supreme or ultimate power. That's used as an adjective. It could also be used as a noun, that the sovereign, He is the sovereign. That is that God is the supreme ruler.

He has ultimate authority in His hands. He is the sovereign one. He will do and He can do according to His will, and nothing falls outside of His will. He is the sovereign one. When we see kings in power, when we see presidents and prime ministers and governments and authorities, they all kneel before the sovereign one.

God is sovereign. The one who uses all things to His purposes, goals, and will, every single king, every single nation bends to His sovereign control. No one can withstand Him. These kings, these nations might have their own ambitions. They might think that they're bucking against God's sovereign will, but they're not.

In Colossians 1.15, it talks of Jesus. It says that Jesus, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Here it is. Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through Him and for Him.

Those words, I hope, are sticking with you. Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities were created through Him and for Him. In Ephesians 1.20, that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places. It's talking of Christ.

This is what God does for Christ. Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

This is the truth. It can't be clearer than this. All rule, all authority, power, dominion falls under the feet of Christ. Let's try to picture this a little more. Psalms 2, Psalm 2, verse 1-6 says, "Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together." See this is an image of all these kings and rulers coming together and they're like counseling each other.

And they're talking with each other. And they're setting themselves together, combining together to rebel against the Lord. To me it kind of sounds like Babel, the Tower of Babel. But in verse 2, continuing, "And the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, against God Himself, against His anointed." And this is what they say, "Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us." They're saying, "Under the sovereign God, we will come together, we will take counsel together.

Let us burst our bonds aside. Let us burst it apart. We will not follow under His rule any longer. We will follow under our own rule, our own law, under our own desires, our own ambitions. We will say what we will do. We will say what we will not do.

We will say what is right. We will say what is wrong. I am going to live in accordance to what I want to do." And then in verse 4, you see all of these people coming together. In verse 4, "There's God sitting in His throne. He who sits in the heavens laughs.

The Lord holds them in derision. Then He will speak to them in His wrath and terrify them in His fury, saying, 'As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.'" When I first read this, I think, "Man, it kind of sounds rude, you know? Like, with God laughing." I think that the picture that's being shown here is just like, it's just, you're like, "God looking at all these kings coming together, like little ants coming together, saying, 'We will overthrow.'" Like, you can't help but laugh.

It's just like, dude, you know, it's like, if you imagine like this little toddler walking up to the side of a mountain and just endeavoring, "I am going to move this mountain." And he pushes with all his might, and pushes and pushes. You're sitting there, you're looking, and you're like, you laugh.

It says here that God sits in heaven and He laughs at these nations that are bucking under His rule. It's not only kingdoms, but all that we see in the world, God is in complete and perfect control of everything. The nations are raging today. But it's not just the nations.

We rage from the moment you and I are born. We rage. This is what we say. Let us burst our bonds. Everything in our sinful heart says, "I will not kneel before Him as my God." As soon as we come alive, we say, "I am God." And many times we take counsel together, and we come together, and we say, "Let's do this together." That's how nations happen.

Don't we do this? Don't we buck against God's sovereignty? In our own little minute lives, we buck against it, and we fight against it, and we rebel against it. We assert our own sovereignty. The nations are just a ballooned example of what's going on in our individual little hearts.

It starts in the individual's heart. The individual asserts his own will. The individual says that he will live what he wants to live for. The individual says that he will live according to his own purposes. The individual says, "I will erect my kingdom in my life. I will do what I want to do.

I will make my name great. I will bring pleasure to myself." James chapter four, verse 13 then says, "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.'" This is where God kind of laughs.

Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You're just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanish away. What do you think you can do? Do you have sovereign control over any decision that you make in your life? Restore sovereignty to where it belongs.

Verse 15, "Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.'" As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. It's evil. Saying I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, I purpose this, I endeavor in this without God in it, it's evil.

Why is it evil? It's evil because you are saying God is not God. You are saying I am God. You are saying my purposes, my kingdoms do come. What is it that we actually think we can do? What is it that we actually think we can accomplish with our hands?

In today's culture, they say you can make a difference. The smallest voice matters. I understand what's being said. But to what extent? We come to realize that all of it falls under the power and rule of the sovereign one's ultimate will. We can't even keep ourselves alive. Try as we might with all our technology, we can't stop a disease from killing us.

We can't control the stock market. We can't make mother nature move in accordance to what we want. I can't even get my two-year-old to obey me. He won't do what I say. What do we think we can do? We wake up, from the moment we wake up, we're planning and we're endeavoring.

The nation's raging is a ballooned up example of this, that all these individual hearts that try to live out their own existence according to their terms, try to assert their own will and sovereignty to accomplish what they desire. It says in Psalm 127 verse 1 and 2, "Unless the Lord builds the house, unless the Lord builds it, they labor in vain who build it.

Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain." It is vain for you to rise up early. It is vain for you to retire late. It is vain for you to eat the bread of painful labors. It is vain for you, for he gives to his beloved even in his sleep.

God is the one who gives and takes away. He is the one who brings up and establishes and he brings everything down into calamity. He's the only one and that's our first point. He is sovereign over kingdoms. Our second point is that he is the creator of the world and all that is in it.

So remember, the main point is, God is God. So this point number two is, he is the creator of the world. He is the creator. No one else can claim that title. There was only one who created all things that we see and from everything that we see, it just comes under what he made.

So Isaiah is continuing to speak to the southern kingdom and these are the ones, again, he's continuing to preserve and choose his people. The ones who are not just chosen of God but now what they're doing is they are kind of, even after the northern kingdom falls, the southern kingdom, if you're familiar with the kings and the Samuels and the Chronicles, as you see it playing out, even the southern kingdom eventually ends up falling.

These are the ones, he's talking to the ones here who continue to live out their own existence. He's talking to the southern kingdom and he's saying, "Do you not understand that God is God? Don't you see what's happening to the northern kingdom? Don't you see what's going to happen to you?" In this context, he reminds them, God is God, yes, he is sovereign, yes.

Remember that he is also the creator. Verses seven through eight in chapter 45 says this, "The one forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity, I am the Lord who does all these. Drip down, O heavens, from above and let the clouds pour down righteousness. Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit and righteousness spring up with it.

I, the Lord, have created it." Jumping to verse 11 and 12, "Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel and his maker." Every time titles are used, you have to just stop and look. Verse 11 again, "Thus says the Lord, he is the Holy, set-apart One, the One unlike any other of Israel and the Maker of Israel, the Creator.

He says, 'Ask me about the things to come concerning my sons and you shall commit to me the work of my hands.' It is I who made the earth and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with my hands and I ordained all their hosts." See, God made the world and he made the world with purpose.

He made it good. The purpose is not to accomplish and pursue as creation. God's created work is not to go off and live out according to their own purposes and wills. When God looks at creation and says it's good, is that everything in creation understands that there is creator and there is purpose in it and the purpose is in accordance to the creator's purpose.

Not for the creation to go out and live in accordance to their own purpose. Our purpose as creation is not to accomplish and pursue our own little heart's desires. To purchase the newest phones and cars, biggest houses, go after the best educations. Only pursue our own kingdoms, our own wills, to build up our own name and our own prestige.

Very much like what happened at the Tower of Babel. We were created by the creator with a purpose. To worship God, to love him, to be loved by him, to be in a perfect relationship with him. Everything just makes sense in that schema. Point two, he's God. He is the creator of the world and all that is in it.

Point three, then there are no other gods. There are no other gods. That seems like a pointless statement. There are no other gods, of course. God is God. There are no other gods. In Deuteronomy 6, there's this thing, it's called the Shema. This was the center point of Jewish worship.

Every morning and every night, they would say the Shema. It was a phrase. This phrase went like this, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one." In the morning, they would wake up and say that. Every single person, they would say that. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God." Why do you have to say that?

The Lord is our God. Yeah, of course, he's our God. At night, "The Lord is our God." Wake up the next morning, "The Lord is our God." Go to sleep again, "The Lord is our God." The Lord is one. One. There are no other gods. There is no Baal, there is no Moloch, there is no Ammon or Dagon.

These were idols set up by the nations. Remember, it begins in the individual heart. There might be the collective idol that we set up as a culture, as a society. It's all the same. It's all anti-God. All of creation bucking against the fact that he is God. It's all rebellion against him.

It's all perversion of what was meant for good. When we look at idols, this is kind of a significant chunk of text. I'm going to ask you, you do have to engage with this text. It's a story and it's kind of satire-like, starting Isaiah 44. I didn't realize it was so small.

In verse 12, if you can't see it, then you could listen. "The man shapes iron into a cutting tool and does his work over the coals, fashioning it with hammers and working it with a strong arm. He also gets hungry and his strength fails. He drinks no water and becomes weary." This is talking about this man who's making an idol.

"Another shapes wood. He extends a measuring line. He outlines it with red chalk. He works it with planes and outlines it with a compass. He makes it like the form of a man, like the beauty of man, so that it may sit in a house. Surely he cuts cedars for himself and he takes a cypress or an oak and he raises it for himself among the trees of the forest.

He plants a fir and the rain makes it grow. Then it becomes something for a man to burn, so he takes one of them and warms himself. He also makes a fire to bake bread." Here it is. He also makes a god and worships it. He makes it a graven image and falls down before it.

Look at the absurdity of this. Verse 16. "Half of it he burns in the fire. Over this half he eats meat as he roasts, roasts and is satisfied. He also warms himself in front of this fire and says, 'Aha, I am warm. I have seen the fire.' But the rest of it he makes into a god, his graven image.

He falls down before it and worships. He also prays to it and says, 'Deliver me, for you are my god.' They do not know, nor do they understand, for he has smeared over their eyes that they cannot see and their hearts that they cannot comprehend. No one recalls, nor is there knowledge or understanding to say, 'I have burned half of it in the fire and also have baked bread over its coals.

I roast meat and eat it. Then I make the rest of it into an abomination. I fall down before a block of wood.' He feeds on ashes. His deceived heart has turned him aside and he cannot deliver himself, nor say, 'Is there not a lie in my right hand?'" And yet, when we idolize things of this world, this is exactly what we're doing.

We are celebrating and worship something as God when they are but creation. Figments of the imagination. There are no other gods. This is the God that society wrecks. They are not real. That's what the Shema was. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one." This was a story of a man worshiping an idol.

But a few chapters later in 47, Isaiah swings around and tells us the end of this. So Isaiah 47, verse 8 through 11. This is a shorter text. It says, "Now then, hear this, you sensual one." That's the ones who go after your own sensual lusts. He says, "Who dwells securely, who says in your heart, 'I am, and there is no one besides me.' I will not sit as a widow, nor know loss of children." Man, what a statement.

This man who sits there and says, "I am." Wow. Actually we're not going to go into it, but I'm sure that's triggering in you a memory of a name. "I am, and there is no one besides me." Verse 9, "But these two things will come on you suddenly in one day, loss of children and widowhood.

They will come on you in full measure in spite of your many sorceries, in spite of the great power of your spells. You felt secure in your wickedness and said, 'No one sees me.' Your wisdom and your knowledge, they have deluded you. For you have said in your heart, 'I am, and there is no one besides me.' Great evil will come on you, which you will not know how to charm away.

And disaster will fall on you, for which you cannot atone. And destruction about which you do not know will come on you suddenly." Ultimately though, this is us, isn't it? Our casting ourselves before idols, worshipping idols, is actually us worshipping ourselves, isn't it? Because we worship our desires. And so we worship idols only because they promise to give us our desires.

We worship them as gods, but actually we are worshipping ourselves. Back then, people worshipped false gods because they promised personal success. That is to bring rain upon the crops, to increase the yield of their land, to end the famine or the plague, to give pleasure to people. People would even create gods just so that they could live out their pleasures.

Their own sexual perversions and twisted desires was very common in the form of temple prostitutes and orgies. Like there were no bounds to it. And today though, it's still that. People still worship sensually. If I worship this god, will I ultimately get what I want? That's still today. See, we look at something called the prosperity gospel.

Prosperity gospel is all of that, right? I will worship the god of the Bible, Yahweh, the same one, same Bible that we read. I will worship if he promises me prosperity and wealth. And so it looks like they're worshipping the god of the Bible, because they're using our scripture, but they might as well be worshipping a golden calf.

Notice that in the story of the golden calf. Aaron says this. In Exodus chapter 32, verse 2. Now remember, Moses went up this mountain. He's been gone for a long time. The people of Israel are waiting for him, and now they're terrified. They think he's dead. And so they're like, what are we going to do?

So Aaron said to them, tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters, and bring them to me. And then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took this from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf.

Up to here, this is outrageous, but it makes sense. They created a god. Here is the twistedness of this. And they said, this molten calf that they just created, they said, this is your god, oh Israel. Heavenly Father, I pray that we truly would kneel before you. You are our Lord, our God, and our maker.

You are the creator of all things, and you alone sustain all things. Father, we know this. You are holy and set apart. You are second to none. You are so different. Father, you alone take that mantle. God, thank you for being God. And Father, I pray that we would be a church with such a simple truth, even when we start our prayers, dear God, that everything in our prayers would align with that.

God, you're God. I'm not God. So Father, help us because our hearts are so fickle and prone to wander. We need your help to be a church that does this. We pray God for conviction and boldness to be able to live in accordance to what we proclaim and believe.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Would you take a moment to pray on your own? Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.