The Folly of Despair and the Logic of Hope Text: Isaiah 40:27-31
Introduction: The Sin of Spiritual Amnesia
We live in an age of curated despair. Our news feeds, our political discourse, and our academic institutions are all geared to produce a particular kind of exhaustion, a spiritual weariness that concludes that God is either absent, impotent, or unjust. And it is a great temptation for the people of God to breathe in this polluted air and begin to echo the complaints of the world. We look at the state of our nation, the apostasy in the church, the troubles in our own lives, and we are tempted to conclude that our way is hidden from the Lord.
This is not a new temptation. It is as old as Jacob. The people of God in Isaiah's time were facing the prospect of exile. They were looking at the apparent triumph of pagan empires and the impending judgment of God, and they drew a foolish conclusion. They concluded that God had lost track of them. They believed their case file had slipped behind the divine filing cabinet. This is the sin of spiritual amnesia. It is the deliberate forgetting of who God is.
The world's despair is logical, given its premise. If there is no God, or if God is a distant, deistic clockmaker, then of course we are on our own. Of course history is just one meaningless thing after another. But when a Christian despairs, it is not logical. It is a contradiction in terms. It is like a fish complaining of thirst. For a Christian to say, "My way is hidden from the Lord," is to deny the very grammar of our faith.
Isaiah confronts this sinful despondency head-on. He does not offer them a shoulder to cry on or some sentimental pablum about things getting better eventually. He calls them back to theological sanity. He confronts their feelings with facts, their despair with doctrine. The cure for our spiritual weariness is not a vacation or a self-help book; it is a massive dose of the truth about God. This passage is a series of thunderous reminders about the character of God, designed to shock the people of God out of their self-pity and back into the fight.
The Text
Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel, “My way is hidden from Yahweh, And the justice due me passes by my God”? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, Does not become weary or tired. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weary, And to him who lacks vigor He increases might. Though youths grow weary and tired, And choice young men stumble badly, Yet those who hope in Yahweh Will gain new power; They will mount up with wings like eagles; They will run and not get tired; They will walk and not become weary.
(Isaiah 40:27-31 LSB)
The Absurd Complaint (v. 27)
The prophet begins by quoting the complaint of the people directly.
"Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel, 'My way is hidden from Yahweh, And the justice due me passes by my God'?" (Isaiah 40:27)
Notice the names he uses: Jacob and Israel. This is deliberate. "Jacob" is the name of the conniver, the heel-grabber, the man who lived by his wits. "Israel" is the name God gave him after he wrestled with God, the name that means "he strives with God." The people are living down to their old name. They are thinking like Jacob, full of anxiety and human scheming. They are complaining that God has misplaced them, that He has overlooked their case. The phrase "the justice due me passes by my God" is a legal term. It's as if they are saying God has missed their court date. He is so busy running the universe that He has forgotten their particular, pressing needs.
This is a profound insult to God. It accuses Him of either incompetence or indifference. Either He can't keep track of everything, or He doesn't care. This is the root of all our grumbling. We grumble because we secretly believe we would run the universe better, or at least our little corner of it. We think God is making a mess of things. But this complaint is not just an insult; it is profoundly illogical for the covenant people. To say that the God who marked them out, who redeemed them from Egypt, who gave them His law, has now somehow lost them in the shuffle is a form of madness.
The Doctrinal Rebuke (v. 28)
Isaiah's response is a rapid-fire series of rhetorical questions. He is not asking for information; he is expressing astonishment at their ignorance.
"Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, Does not become weary or tired. His understanding is unsearchable." (Isaiah 40:28)
"Do you not know?" This is knowledge they should possess by reason, by looking at the creation. "Have you not heard?" This is knowledge they should possess by revelation, by listening to the prophets and the Scriptures. They are without excuse. He then lays out five foundational truths about God that make their complaint utterly ridiculous.
First, He is the Everlasting God. He inhabits eternity. He is not bound by time. He sees the end from the beginning. To think that He could "miss" something is to misunderstand His very nature. He is not a creature reacting to events; He is the author of the entire story.
Second, He is Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God. This is not some generic deity. This is the God who has bound Himself to them by promises. His name and His reputation are on the line.
Third, He is the Creator of the ends of the earth. He made everything, from the grandest galaxy to the smallest insect. If He has the power to create the entire cosmos out of nothing, it is absurd to think that managing your personal affairs is too much for Him. He has the whole world in His hands, and that includes you.
Fourth, He does not become weary or tired. God is pure act. He is not a battery that runs down. His power is infinite. We project our creaturely limitations onto Him. We get tired, so we assume He must get tired of us, tired of our problems, tired of the cosmic struggle. Isaiah says this is a category error. He never flags, never faints.
Fifth, His understanding is unsearchable. We cannot fathom His wisdom. His plan is intricate, vast, and far beyond our ability to comprehend. When we complain that our "way is hidden," we are precisely right, but for the wrong reason. Our way is hidden from us, but it is not hidden from Him. We see one frame of the movie; He sees it all. To demand that His plan make sense to our pea-brains is the height of arrogance. We must trust the storyteller.
The Divine Exchange (v. 29-30)
Having established who God is, Isaiah now explains what this inexhaustible God does. He shares His strength.
"He gives power to the weary, And to him who lacks vigor He increases might. Though youths grow weary and tired, And choice young men stumble badly," (Isaiah 40:29-30)
Here is the great paradox of the Christian life. God's strength is not given to the strong; it is given to the weak. God's power flows into a vacuum. He doesn't top off our already existing strength. He waits until we are at the end of our own resources, until we are "weary" and have "no might." It is only when we admit our bankruptcy that we can receive His infinite supply.
To make this point, Isaiah uses the strongest natural example of human strength: "youths" and "choice young men." These are the prime specimens, the ones at the peak of their physical power. And even they, Isaiah says, will grow weary and stumble. The best that humanity has to offer is insufficient. Natural strength, human effort, youthful optimism, it all runs out. It all hits a wall. This is a foundational truth. If you are relying on your own strength to live the Christian life, you are going to end up flat on your face. It is not a matter of if, but when.
The Logic of Hope (v. 31)
The final verse provides the alternative. If human strength fails, what is the solution? The solution is to exchange our weakness for His strength through faith.
"Yet those who hope in Yahweh Will gain new power; They will mount up with wings like eagles; They will run and not get tired; They will walk and not become weary." (Isaiah 40:31)
The key phrase here is "hope in Yahweh." The Hebrew word for hope is qavah. It doesn't mean a passive, fingers-crossed kind of wishing. It means to wait actively, to bind together, to expect. It is the picture of a rope being twisted together, gaining strength from the sum of its strands. To hope in the Lord is to entwine your life with His, to align your will with His, to actively depend on Him for everything.
And for those who do this, there is a promise of exchanged strength. They will "gain new power." Literally, they will exchange their strength. They give God their exhaustion, and He gives them His inexhaustible might. This results in three levels of supernatural endurance.
First, "they will mount up with wings like eagles." This is soaring. This is the exhilarating experience of being lifted above your circumstances by the power of God. This is for the moments of crisis, the sudden emergencies, where God gives you the grace to rise above the threat in a spectacular way.
Second, "they will run and not get tired." This is for the demanding seasons of life, the marathons of ministry or hardship. This is the steady, supernatural pace that allows you to keep going when everyone else would have quit. It is a sustained, high-level output of energy that is not your own.
But the climax of the promise is the most mundane, and for that reason, the most profound. "They will walk and not become weary." Soaring is rare. Running is for a season. But walking is for a lifetime. This is the daily grind. This is getting up, reading your Bible, loving your wife, raising your kids, going to work, and doing it all over again the next day without giving up. This is the hardest part, and this is where God's grace is most profoundly demonstrated. He promises the strength not just for the spectacular crisis, but for the glorious ordinary. He provides the power for plodding, the grace for the mundane, the strength to simply keep walking in faithfulness, one step at a time, all the way home.
Conclusion: From Complaint to Confidence
The movement in this text is from the absurd complaint of verse 27 to the confident assurance of verse 31. And the bridge between the two is sound doctrine. The cure for our weariness and despair is not found in navel-gazing or in changing our circumstances. The cure is found in remembering who God is.
He is the everlasting, covenant-keeping Creator whose power never wanes and whose wisdom is absolute. Our weakness is not a problem for Him; it is a prerequisite. Our exhaustion is the very place where He loves to demonstrate His power. The world tells you to look inside for strength. The Bible tells you that you don't have any. The world tells you to muster up your resolve. The Bible tells you to confess your weakness and wait on the Lord.
So when you are tempted to say, "My way is hidden from the Lord," you must preach Isaiah 40 to yourself. You must answer your faithless feelings with everlasting facts. Your God has not forgotten you. He is not tired. He holds you and all of your circumstances in His unsearchable wisdom. Confess your weakness, exchange it for His strength, and learn to walk. And in that daily walk, you will find the strength to run when you must, and to soar when He calls you to.