Please remain standing for the reading of God’s word. We continue our study of the book of the prophet Isaiah as we’re in the latter part of Isaiah, which begins in chapter 40. And we’ll consider this morning, Isaiah chapter 40, verses 12 through 24, though I’m gonna read from verse 12 through the end of the chapter to fill out the context a bit. You’ll find that beginning on page 712 in your Pew Bible. Isaiah chapter 40, beginning at verse 12.

My friends, this is the word of God. Hear it with reverence and awe. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice and taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding?

Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are accounted as the dust on the scales. Behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before him. They are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness compare with him? An idol? A craftsman casts it and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains. He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot. He seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move.

Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to dwell in, who brings princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble. To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him, says the Holy One? Lift up your eyes on high and see, who created these?

He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one is missing. Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, my way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might, he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted. But they who wait for 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.

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the preaching of his word. O Lord and Father in heaven, you are the great, the awesome, the incomparable God. We would ask, O Lord, that by your spirit you would cause this word to grip our souls, that our sense of awe at your glory might be deepened and that our faith in you might be strengthened. We pray that you would bless the preaching of your word now. Grant me, your unworthy servant, the grace to declare and speak forth your word with the clarity and power and assistance and grace of your Holy Spirit. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen.

You may be seated. Well, children, there’s three key words that I want you to listen for in my sermon today, and those words are sovereign, omnipotent, and incomparable. By the way, the term omnipotent means all-powerful. God is all-powerful. And you’ll also hear me use the word omniscient. That word means all-knowing. God knows everything. His knowledge is absolutely exhaustive.

Well, dear ones, one of the most neglected but spiritually strengthening devotional exercises is the practice of meditating upon God and His Word. In fact, for example, Psalm 1, verse 2 says of the blessed man that his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he does what? On his law, he meditates day and night.

Now, biblical meditation is very different from other forms of meditation. Such biblical meditation is far, far different, for example, from the kind of meditation promoted by Eastern religions and philosophies, or New Age philosophies, or secular psychology. For those kinds of meditative practices often involve attempting to empty your mind of all thoughts, so that your mind is basically a blank slate. But biblical meditation does not involve emptying your mind. Rather, biblically Christian meditation involves filling your mind and thus filling your heart with the word of God and therefore filling yourself with great thoughts about God and especially great thoughts about the Lord Jesus Christ and his glorious gospel.

Let me ask you, do you have great thoughts about God? Dear listener, have you ever spent time seriously reflecting upon just how great, just how awesome, just how grand your God is? Brothers and sisters, when you, for example, when you think about the utter vastness of the universe, when you think about the immense variety of creatures that God has created and placed within the animal kingdom, when you think of the intricate design of the human body, as the psalmist says, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. And when you consider just how complicated, the amazing complexity of even a single living cell. I mean, do you realize what an incredible machine even a single cell in your body is? It’s like a supercomputer. It’s an amazing machine.

Brothers and sisters, when you consider all of these glorious works of God’s creation, do you consider just how much greater, indeed, infinitely greater God the creator must be? in comparison to His creation. When you consider, brothers and sisters, the creator-creature distinction, are you overwhelmed with a sense of the greatness and the glory and the grandeur of your God? And when you think of God’s sovereign reign over the nations of mankind and the fact that even great and powerful nations are subject to the Lord’s sovereign sway, when you consider these truths, does this cause you to stand in awe of the sovereign God whose all-powerful hand guides and governs and judges the nations of humanity, so much so that even the wicked nations of mankind ultimately accomplish His holy, sovereign purposes? Well, beloved, our passage for this Lord’s Day morning is a beautiful and sublime passage that powerfully highlights the greatness, the grandeur, and the glory of our omnipotent, incomparable God.

Our passage is found toward the beginning of this latter section of Isaiah, where the prophet, through the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, anticipates a time in redemptive history when God’s people are coming to the end of their Babylonian exile from the promised land.

Remember, the people had been faithless. They had been covenant-breaking. They had run after the idols of the nations, and God disciplined them by basically kicking them out of the promised land and sending them into exile. in Babylon, where they were humbled, where they were chastened, where they were punished and disciplined. But Isaiah foresees a time, prophetically foresees a time when this exile will come to an end.

This will be a time when God’s word to his people, his people who were humbled and chastened by their exile, God’s word to them will no longer be a word of judgment and rebuke. but a word of comfort, a word of salvation, a word of eschatological hope. God will deliver his word of comfort and salvation through the promised Messiah. who Isaiah will describe as the suffering and victorious servant of the Lord. And they will experience that comfort as they turn in repentance from the foolishness of idolatry, and as they renew their faith in Yahweh, the true and living God, their faithful covenant Lord. Friends, our passage for this Lord’s Day morning may be understood as a development and even a fleshing out of the proclamation that Isaiah penned in verse nine.

The proclamation, behold your God. It is my hope and prayer, brothers and sisters, that as we consider this passage of God’s word, that we would behold the greatness, the glory, and the grandeur of our incomparable, sovereign, omnipotent God. First of all, as we turn our attention to our text for this morning, I want us to consider our sovereign God versus insignificant nations. Our sovereign God versus insignificant nations.

For God’s people during the time of the exile, the powerful Babylonian Empire would have seemed to them to be almost indestructible. Babylon was tremendously powerful in military might, in influence, and in its expansion in that part of the world. They seemed at the time to be absolutely indestructible. But this passage is a reminder that even proud and seemingly indestructible nations like Israel’s arch foe Babylon are actually insignificant and powerless in comparison to our great all-powerful Creator God. And if the nations of mankind are insignificant in comparison to our Almighty God, then as God’s people, what do we have to fear?

That’s the point that Isaiah is driving at here. The people that he is speaking to would be fearful. They would be tempted to think that all hope is gone. But Isaiah is trying to assure them, the Lord is on your side. Reminds me of the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 8, which I preached on the last Lord’s Day evening. If God is for us, who can be against us? Verse 12 starts off by saying this. It asks a question.

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand? What man is there who has measured the waters, meaning all of the waters on planet Earth, the seas, the waters of the seas and so forth. Who has measured? The obvious answer to that rhetorical question is none but God. Only God knows the measure and extent of the great waters. Again, the waters here meaning the waters of the sea in general. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?

And notice how effective Isaiah is in driving home his point. He asks questions. He is the master pedagogue, the master instructor. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand or marked off the heavens with a span? We’ll talk about the vastness and glory of the heavens in a few moments.

Not only that, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains, the mighty mountains, weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance. Again, the answer is none but God, for no man could do such a thing. This verse underscores the omnipotence of God, that God is all powerful. And then it goes on to say this in verses 13 and 14. Who has measured the spirit of the Lord? Some versions say the mind of the Lord.

Or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice and taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding? Dear ones, this underscores the omniscience of God, that God knows everything. He’s all-knowing. You see, the question is, what man shows him his counsel? What’s Isaiah driving at here?

Who has ever needed to counsel the omniscient Lord? Now, friends, in the ancient world of Isaiah’s time, kings relied upon wise counsel from others. In fact, kings would sometimes demand and require loyal citizens to give him wise counsel. But almighty God, the great king of the universe, he needs no counselor. He is the source of all wisdom, the source of all counsel. As Dr. E.J. Young puts it in his commentary, no one the prophet is declaring can serve as a counselor of God to cause him to know what is necessary in as much as he is omniscient.

And then it goes on to say in verse 15, behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket. Think of a great big bucket that could hold a number of gallons and there’s just a little drop in that bucket. It says, the nations, the great nations, like ancient Babylon, great and powerful and mighty nations, are like a drop from a bucket. From the divine perspective, the nations are teeny, infinitesimal, insignificant. They are accounted as the dust on the scales. If you have some scales, there’s probably gonna be dust on them. Does the dust move the scales? No. Behold, he takes up the coastlands or the aisles like fine dust. And then he draws our attention to Lebanon. Lebanon was known for its great cedars, its great cedar trees and forests.

In verse 15, God’s perspective on the nations of mankind is shown to be very different from the human perspective. Again, from a divine perspective, the nations of man are infinitesimal and insignificant. As Jung says, what Isaiah means is that in comparison with God, the nations are of no significance. He needs them not for he is their creator.

But then what about verse 16, this reference to Lebanon? Why does he bring that up? Because that would have resonated with the original audience that he’s writing to. They would have been familiar with the great cedars of Lebanon, the great forests of Lebanon. And it says this, Lebanon would not suffice for fuel.

That is, all of these trees, all of these mighty cedars, if you cut them down and use them for fuel, to fuel the sacrifices that you would offer to the true and living God, Yahweh, It says, Lebanon will not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering. You see, friends, unlike the so-called gods worshiped by the Gentile nations, Yahweh was not in any way dependent upon man or upon the sacrifices of his worshipers.

Yes, God in the Old Covenant commanded sacrifices, but those sacrifices illustrated spiritual truths pointing to Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away our sin. But the pagan gods, they needed the sacrifices because they would get hungry. And if you didn’t feed the gods or goddesses, they might get angry and they might curse you and make trouble for you. So you had to make sure that you fed them by offering them sacrifices.

Not so the Lord. Lebanon again was famous for its great cedar trees, but if all of the forests of Lebanon were burned to sacrifice all of the animals that lived in Lebanon, even that would not be sufficient to form a worthy offering to the Lord. And then verse 17.

Isaiah kind of brings this all together and he says, all the nations are as nothing before him. They are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. Think about that, less than nothing. How would you get less than nothing? But from the divine perspective, that’s what the nations of man are like.

Again, all of this underscores and intensifies what has already been stated. Now let’s skip down briefly to the latter part of this passage, verse 21, where he asks, do you not know? Do you not hear? And this implies that you ought to know this. This is something that you want to know. You have no excuse not to know this.

It appears that here Isaiah is referring to God’s revelation to his people through the prophets. Prophets like Moses, of course, and prophets like the prophet Isaiah himself. Moses and all of the prophets of Israel have declared the truth that Yahweh alone is God and that he is the creator of the heavens and the earth. And therefore they had no excuse for they ought to have known better than to turn from the true and living God to lifeless, worthless idols.

And then it goes on to say in verse 22, it is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.” What are we like before God? Well, what would grasshoppers be like in your presence? That’s how small and insignificant we are compared to Almighty God. He says, He stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in, who brings princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

Now this passage, verses 22 and 23, refutes the notion called deism. Deism is the belief that God created everything, sort of like a watchmaker builds a watch and winds it up, but then the watch runs on its own. That’s what a lot of people think about God, that, well, yeah, God created the universe, but he’s distant, he’s uninvolved. He’s wound the universe up so that it runs on its own, but he’s basically hands-off. Well, friends, the God of deism is not the God of the Bible.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the blessed Father, Son, and Holy Spirit revealed in this book, the Word of God, is a living God who is sovereign, not only in creation, but in providence, as He moment by moment sustains and governs the universe, causing all things to work out for His glory and for the good of His people. So these verses refute deism, for the point of this kind of language is that the God who created the universe also sovereignly upholds, maintains, and governs it, and governs the nations of mankind as well. And one thing I want us especially to focus on.

Notice the language that Isaiah uses here to describe how God created the heavens. Now, have you ever been outside on a dark, cloudless night, far from the city light, where you can see the stars in the sky? Have you ever tried to count the stars in the sky? You can’t count them, there’s so many of them. And yet, notice how God’s creation of the heavens is described. Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain. Like a curtain? The point here of this illustration is that God effortlessly stretched out the vast heavens like an ancient nomad might stretch out his tent curtain.

Now, I did a little research this last week, and did you know, brothers and sisters, that it is estimated that there are somewhere between 100 and 400 billion, that’s billion with a B, stars in our own Milky Way galaxy alone. And children a billion is a one followed by nine zeros. That’s a lot.

That’s just in our galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy. Well, how many galaxies are there in the universe? Well, based on data from the Hubble Space Telescope and deep space surveys done by astronomers, it is also estimated that in the observable universe, that’s just the universe that we’re able to observe, there might be many unobservable regions of the universe that we’re not aware of yet. But in the observable universe, did you know, that there are somewhere, it’s estimated there are somewhere between 200 billion and 2 trillion, that’s trillion with a T, galaxies in the universe. Each of those galaxies with multiple billions, probably hundreds of billions of stars in them themselves. Again, children, a trillion is a one followed by 12 zeros. That’s a lot of galaxies, that’s a lot of stars. Think about it, this universe is inconceivably immense, beyond our wildest imagination. Compared to the size of the universe, our little solar system, which seems so huge to us, is comparable to a drop of water in a vast ocean.

Yet God is so great that his creation of the heavens is compared to a nomad effortlessly stretching out a tent curtain. Isn’t that awesome? Isn’t our God glorious and great and awesome? Since as the scriptures tell us, the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows forth his handiwork. And since these heavens are so vast and great, how much greater must our God be?

And then it goes on to say in verse 24, scarcely, Are they planted? Again, he’s speaking of the nations. He says in verse 23, he says, who brings the princes to nothing. This God who stretched out the heavens like a curtain. This God is certainly sovereign over the princes of the nations of mankind. And he said, it says in verse 23, that he brings princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

Scarcely, verse 24, scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth when he blows on them and they wither and the tempest carries them off like stubble. If you study human history, empires rise, empires fall. Nations rise, nations fall. And it seems that just as nations start to get stable and rooted, they get overthrown sooner or later. This omnipotent sovereign God is a God who brings princes to nothing and rulers to emptiness. And that must have been comforting for Isaiah’s contemporaries because it means that even the mighty king of Babylon was nothing compared to their God.

Now there’s many applications that we can glean from these truths that we’ve considered so far, beloved. But first of all, this truth ought to humble us before God, our creator. What are we to do in view of the greatness and grandeur of our glorious, incomparable God? We are to bow before Him in worship and awe.

And you know, one of the wonderful things about the new heavens and the new earth, sometimes people think heaven is going to be a boring place. You know, there’s often depictions of heaven where, you know, each of you will get your own cloud and your own harp, and we’ll spend eternity playing our harps and just kind of lounging around on our cloud. Sounds kind of boring to me. Heaven is not going to be boring because God is going to be there.

Jesus, our Lord, is going to be there. And we will spend eternity being everlastingly wowed by the glory and the grandeur and the awesomeness of our God. It’ll be a wonderful thing. to be able to see again loved ones who’ve gone home to be with the Lord, loved ones who’ve died in the Lord. That will be a wonderful thing.

But even more wonderful about heaven is that Jesus will be there and we will see him in his divine glory forever. And so these truths about our incomparable sovereign God ought to humble us before God our creator. But this also ought to humble those in positions of governing authority as well among the nations of mankind. For if the nations are as nothing before him, and God will bring the nations before his throne of judgment, How ought that to impact those whom God in his providence places over us in positions of leadership and authority?

I’m reminded of what the psalmist writes in Psalm 2. If you turn to Psalm 2, the end of this psalm in verses 10 through 12, the psalmist gives advice to the kings of the earth in view of the greatness and sovereignty of God and his anointed one, the Messiah, the Son of God. Now, therefore, O kings, be wise, be warned, O rulers of the earth.

Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son. To kiss the son is to submit to him. Kiss the son, lest he be angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Many of Earth’s tyrants and dictators are arrogant and proud and think they’re the greatest. But if they were wise, they would take this advice to heart. Be wise, be warned, serve the Lord with fear. Not yourself, not your glory, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry.

But sadly, instead of kissing the Son, instead of submitting to and serving the Lord, Yahweh The nations of mankind often follow after impotent idols. And that brings me to my next brief point, the omnipotent God versus impotent or powerless idols. The omnipotent God versus impotent idols.

In verse 18, Isaiah says this. He asks this question, to whom then will you liken God? Who are you gonna compare God to, in other words? Or what likeness compare with him? An idol attempts to make a likeness of the divine. But Isaiah says, who are you gonna compare this great and awesome God to?

An idol, then he describes the process of making an idol. He says, an idol, a craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains. A craftsman has to use the material creation of God himself in order to create an idol. Verse 20, he who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot. He seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move.

Idolatry, my friends, is foolishness because no one and nothing can be compared with the true and living God, for God is the incomparable one. Dr. Young writes, there can be no comparison between the living eternal God And any man, for man is but a creature. Man is limited, finite, temporal. God is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in all his attributes and perfections. In our thinking about God, the infinite distance, that is to say, the fact that God is so very different from us. He’s the creator, we’re the creature. In our thinking about God, the infinite distance between God and the creature. must ever be kept in mind.

In verses 19 and 20 here, Isaiah is engaging in a polemic, an argument against idolatry. And in this polemic against idolatry, Isaiah exposes the utter foolishness, indeed the stupidity of idol worship. This is a theme that he will return to throughout this later section of his book.

And think about it, what does idolatry involve? Idolatry involves man who was created in God’s image seeking to create God in his own image. You’ve perhaps heard the saying, God created man in his own image, and ever since then, man has been trying to return the favor, right?

The idol worshiper has to use the very materials that God himself has created in order to fashion a useless, impotent, powerless, lifeless idol. What utter folly, what utter spiritual blindness, and what a blasphemous denial of the infinity, eternity, and omnipotence of the true and living God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we might think, well, you know, we’re not like the ancient Israelites. They were stupid. They went after the idols of the surrounding nations. We won’t do that. We’re too smart for that. Oh, are we? We may not bow down before a block of wood or a statue of gold, but there are mental idols as well.

For example, if you believe in a God who is all love but no judgment and wrath, You’ve erected an idol in your heart. If you believe that you can approach God apart from the mediation of a perfect, sinless Savior, namely Jesus, then the God you worship is not the God of the Bible. The God you worship is an idol that you’ve created in your own heart. Oh, dear ones, let us flee from idols, whether they be material or mental idols. Let us flee from idols and instead embrace the true and living God, the Heavenly Father, and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit.

I like what the Apostle John writes at the end of 1 John chapter 5. If you’d turn there, 1 John chapter 5, verses 20 to 21. John closes off his marvelous epistle with these words. He says, and we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true and we are in him who is true in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God. I believe that John here is speaking of Jesus. This is one of the clearest statements of Christ’s full deity in all of scripture.

He is the true God and eternal life. And then John closes his epistle with this exhortation, little children, keep yourselves from idols. Keep yourselves from idols. Don’t look. to your own ideas of God, look to the God revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ, the God revealed in the Word. For He is, Jesus is the God-man, He is the Savior. He paid the penalty for sin and rose from the dead so that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting life.

And so, beloved, as we wrap up our time in the Word today, behold our incomparable God. Behold our incomparable God. There are so many ways in which God is incomparable. I just want to end by focusing on three ways that God is incomparable. First of all, God is incomparable in his being and perfections.

As our shorter catechism states in answer to question four, which is the question, what is God? The Bible-based answer is this. God is a spirit, capital S. God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchanging in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Children, I wanna focus on two attributes of God.

God is eternal. That means he’s not limited by time like you and I are. And God is also omnipresent. So what that means, children, is that all of God is present everywhere at all times. Think about that. All of God, see where I’m pointing? All of God is right here at this moment. All of God is also in the kitchen freezer. All of God is present over across the street in the field, across the street.

All of God is present yesterday, today, and tomorrow because God is not limited by space. He’s not limited by time. Children, can you be in more than one place at one time? I know there are times that you might wish to be at two different places. Maybe you wish you were in bed. You can’t be at home in bed and be here in church at the same time, because you’re not omnipresent. And likewise, you can’t exist today and tomorrow today, because we’re limited by time. But God is unbounded by time. God is unbounded by space. He is the transcendent, awesome, eternal God. He is incomparable in His being and perfections.

God is also incomparable in His works of creation and providence. We spoke of, we considered the vastness of the heavens that God has created and stretched out like a curtain, like a tent to dwell in. And by the way, as an aside, when Isaiah speaks of spreading the heavens like a tent to dwell in, this points to a biblical theme of the creation as a cosmic temple of the Lord, a temple where God dwells in. But in any case, God’s works of creation and providence are truly awesome and amazing. But friends, God is especially incomparable in his amazing love and grace to us sinners.

Think about it, the infinitely immense creator of the heavens and the earth took upon himself a human form in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He did so in order to come down to us to rescue and redeem us from our sins. God the Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity, became a man. He took upon himself our humanity in the person of Jesus of Nazareth so that he might die on the cross for our sins and rise again from the dead to give us a new life, indeed to give us life eternal.

How much he must love us. how much he must care. He is so great, but he is also so good. He is so awesome and holy and powerful that he is so compassionate and kind and merciful. As we meditate upon our great and glorious God, Let us especially reflect upon the grace that he has demonstrated to us in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. And may that grace spur us on to deeper worship, greater love and service to our neighbor, and a more consistent obedience and discipleship.

Do you know Christ as your Savior? If not, come to Him today. May God give you the grace to turn from your sin to Christ. Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. For if you confess with your lips, Jesus is the Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, the Bible says you will be saved. And then meditate upon and glory in Him, both now and forever. Amen.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, We praise you and thank you, Lord God, that you are so great, great beyond our wildest imaginations. We will spend eternity plumbing the depths of your grandeur, your greatness, your glory, your awesomeness. We pray, Heavenly Father, that these truths would grip our hearts and draw us closer to you, draw us into a closer personal relationship with you. We pray these things, Heavenly Father, in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen. Let’s close our time of worship by rising and we’ll sing together hymn 227, how great thou art, 227.