“‘To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?’ says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.” (Isaiah 40:25-26 NIV)

The question God asked during Isaiah’s day is just as relevant today as it was 2,700 years ago. Who is God’s equal?

During the past 165 years people have been trying to replace God in their thinking and come up with other explanations as to how the universe was formed and how life originated. It was in 1859 that Charles Darwin published his The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection of the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (to give the book its original title) – and yes, it was a racist book. The scientific community at the time applauded it, as it still does – finally there was a way to explain how life began without having to use God. But was this really the answer?

The problem Darwin had, which is being highlighted more and more today, was that he relied on ‘comparative morphology’: looking at parts of animals and then proposing that one evolved into the other on the basis of what it looked like. The problem was that he did not understand genetics and DNA was unheard of. We now know that there is no ‘simple’ way an arm on a dinosaur can turn into the wing of a bird, even though they may look the same. It would have to be changed at the cellular level. Even the muscles and bones of two creatures, one reptilian and the other avian, are radically different. Although most scientists are aware that Darwin’s theory cannot work, it is still retained and taught because there is no other explanation. Without Darwin then God must have done it!

This is exactly what Isaiah wrote over 2,000 years before Darwin. When you look at the stars in the sky we rightly ask “who created these?” Who had the power to create the universe, creating each star and calling “them by name”? There are no naturalistic forces which could put all of this together. This leaves only one explanation: it had to be supernatural. It was God!

“Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no-one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” (Isaiah 40:28-31)

If God is powerful enough to create everything – and he is! – then we can rest assured that he is also aware of his people. This is the point Isaiah was making. People grow tired and run down. If we are only relying on our own strength we often struggle to keep going. But when we try to be self-sufficient we are ignoring the source of strength that we have: God is there for us!

If our hope is in God and we rely on him, he can revitalise us when we are flagging. We can keep going even when the going is tough.

What is the lesson for us? God exists. He created everything. And he is there for us. We need to put our hope and trust in him. He will not let us down.

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Readings for next week: Isaiah 31-40