Let's go ahead and take our Bibles and turn to Isaiah chapter 64. Isaiah chapter 64 would remind you that these two chapters, chapters 63 and 64, actually form in intercessory prayer. And in fact, to my knowledge, this is probably the longest intercession recorded in all of Scripture. Now, the interesting thing is that we have these two chapters of intercessory prayer, really the prophet praying on behalf of the people. But in chapter 65, which we'll get to in a couple of weeks, God answers back. And so, in some ways, it's a very unusual part of Scripture where you have this very lengthy intercession and then God actually responding. And that's what He does in the first part of chapter 65. And then, towards the end, in verse 17, we get to, which is really part of God's answer as well, we get to the new heavens and the new earth. And what I'm planning on doing when we get there, will be to take a look at the eschatology of Isaiah and then do maybe sort of a sub-series in that part of Isaiah and cover some of the issues regarding eschatology. And so I'm looking forward to that. But as we get to this part, of the prayer in Isaiah 64. We need to just sort of recap what we looked at last week, verses 5, 6, and 7. In verse 5, we have this affirmation by Isaiah, you meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness, who remembers you in your ways. And what we have in those two lines in verse 5 is what we might consider to be an inviolable principle of God's unchanging standards. This states very clearly that there is a relationship here. God delights to meet in those who do righteousness gladly. He promises to intervene to hear them, those who remember God in His ways, that is, those who have God in the forefront of their minds. These are the ones who look at life and consider life in terms of the paradigm of God's ways. And in other words, God is the center of their worldview. And the passage teaches us that there is a relationship between loving to do righteousness and seeking God and remembering God, and God drawing near and meeting His people. And that is a principle that is embedded in scripture over and over and over again. We see it in a variety of places. We looked at some of those places last week. But the Bible is clear. God delights in the upright. He delights in the prayers of the upright. He delights in those who seek His face. He delights in those who remember Him in all of His ways. And it's a great principle and it's one that should motivate us to delight, to do righteousness and so forth. But the dilemma is that there's miserable failure on the part of the people. They say, here's this, it's like Isaiah says, here's this unchanging standard of what God delights in and whom he promises to meet. But the frank confession is, we're miserable failures at it. And we've not done it. Behold, the third line in verse 5, Behold, you were angry, for we sinned. We continued in them for a long time, and shall we be saved? As we noted last week, there's this expression, this confession, not just of failure, not just of sin and rebellion, but rebellion in the face of God's anger. It's not just a matter of Isaiah saying, we sinned and you became angry. It's a matter of saying, we sinned, you became angry, and we sinned some more, right in front of your face. with no regard to your anger, no regard to your displeasure. And then there's this note of despair. Shall we be saved? Shall we be saved? And of course, I told you last week, and I believe it wholeheartedly, this should be the natural question of anybody, whether they're a professing Christian or not, who's living blatantly in sin. It's not, yeah, we'll still be saved anyway. That's not the tone of scripture, by the way. The tone of scripture is that when we are in rebellion, that's a time to examine our hearts. And that's what that expression, that's what that last line is doing. Shall we be saved? And so here's the conflict of the passage. Isaiah has asked God to come down to rend the heavens, to make the mountains shake, to put on a demonstration so that everybody knows that God is God. And then he turns around and he says, now our very plight is worsened by the fact that you haven't come down, you haven't shown your face, we know who you delight to meet with, but that's not us, we've gone the other way, we've sinned right in the face of your anger, we've turned away from you even in the midst of your chastening of us. Here you're disciplining us, you're withdrawing from us, you're bringing on us the dark night of the soul and judgment and all of these things, and we know it, but yet we still continue in our own way just flagrantly, blatantly, doing what we want to do even though we know you are angry with us. And so there's this conflict in the passage. We know what God's standards are and we know how badly we failed. Verse six, there's this, what we might call a shocking analysis of sin. We're not gonna go back to the details of verse six. If you weren't here and you wanna hear the gory details, get a tape, but we're not gonna rehearse the gory details tonight. But the fact is, is that the analysis of sin in verse six is absolutely shocking. And it's not just a matter of corruption and pollution, which is bad enough. It's a matter of even the best that we have, our own righteous deeds, are still like filthy rags in God's sight. In fact, our sin is so bad that we are like leaves that are drying up, withering away, and one of these days, we're just gonna blow right off the tree in God's judgment, and you've given us up to our own iniquities. So the passage in verse 6 is staggering and verse 7 gives the depressing analysis of their spiritual condition. There's no one who calls on your name. It'd be one thing if we realized how bad we were and then we started to call on your name, but this is how bad we are and nobody's even calling on your name. Nobody's even trying to walk with you by faith. In fact, it's so bad that we can't even find anybody who's arousing themselves to simply take hold of you. Let alone those who are calling on your name. We can't even find anybody who's trying to kick himself awake saying, lay hold of God. The analysis of their spiritual condition is absolutely depressing and borders on utter hopelessness. As a result, you've hidden your face from us. God's turned away. Tragic language. Turned your face away. You've given us up. turned us over. It's interesting, the Bible teaches in so many words that oftentimes God will use sin as the judgment on sin. and that God will take those who are bent on going their own way and will judge them by allowing them to go deeper into sin. We see the pattern in Romans chapter 1. We see it in a variety of ways in different scripture. Augustine just summarized it in the confessions, sin is the judgment of sin. And that's where the prophet ends the confession, as it were. You're judging us. You're giving us over into the hand of our iniquities. Literally, the idea is we're melting in the hand of our iniquities. You've given us over to the power of them. There is an irony that exists in the human heart, and that is the deeper into sin we go, the more freedom we think we have, when in reality, it is exactly the opposite. It is bondage, plain and simple. This is one of the messages that we as parents and church leaders need to convey to our young people. Because there is an illusion out there that says sin is freedom. And the reality is, is that it is not. It's bondage. Sin is bondage. And there are literally millions of people walking the face of the earth today, and perhaps billions who are in eternal perdition, who engaged in sin thinking that this was the way of freedom and the way of liberty and the way of happiness, only to find out that they were in bondage to the very thing that they thought they had freedom in. And here, the picture is God simply judging them by giving them into the power or the hand of their own iniquities. Verses 5, 6, and 7 are depressing. In fact, last week, I'm sure that those of you who were here sensed just sort of a sense of heaviness after expounding this part of Scripture. And by the way, that's not always a bad thing. Sometimes a sense of heaviness when we are confronted with truth is the natural response that we should have. God's servants are not called to always make sure everybody feels happy and clappy. Sometimes we need to mourn. Sometimes we need to realize how bad we really are. Those verses bring us to this brink of absolute hopelessness. I mean, what possible hope could there be in light of verses 5, 6, and 7? God has his standards, and guess what? God doesn't change. Put those two things together. God has his standards, and God doesn't change. There's no hope for him to say sometime later on, you know what? I'm gonna go with a bell curve. Forget this 90 to 100 and 80 to 89. We're gonna go with a bell curve and I'm gonna grade on a curve because I realize that everybody did really bad. When I first started teaching up at the Bible College, I would give some exams and lots and lots of people would do really, really bad, except John, of course. John always did really, really well. Lots of people did really bad, and so you start thinking, well, if everybody's doing so bad, maybe the test was too hard. And so what I need to do is I need to go back and tweak things so that we get those that did really bad at least into the mediocre category. Now, that may be fine for a teacher, but we're talking about an immutable God who doesn't change, and his standards don't change. So if everybody gets an F, everybody gets an F, period. Period. So there's no revision. There's no going back and saying, okay, well, you know, I know, all right, you know, those commandments were a little tough. Let's see how we can change them around a little. That's just not gonna happen. God has his standards. God doesn't change. We've sinned with a high hand. The conclusion is what possible hope could there be? I mean, think about it logically. Think about verses five, six, and seven. What possible hope could there be? If the God of heaven doesn't change and His standards don't change and we've sinned with a high hand, what possible hope could there be? Interestingly enough, here's the only hope. God doesn't change. The Bible's funny like that, by the way. Sometimes the thought that God doesn't change is an absolutely frightening thought, but then it comes full circle and you realize this is indeed our only hope. Here's the only hope. God doesn't change, and He doesn't change who He is, and He doesn't change what He requires. And in verses 8 through 12, what we have is a plea that is absolutely and completely, and this is very important, stripped of self to the core, looking only to the unchanging God, who He is and what He does as the foundation for hope. Now, I will tell you That is the normal way that God works. God is not interested in having us come to Him like peacocks, preening our feathers and showing off our best works. God is not interested in us coming to Him like that. I think I told you, maybe I didn't, when we were in Missoula, Montana, there was a church that had a billboard or a marquee or whatever they call those things. And on the one side, it said, your picture is on God's fridge. And then on the other side, it said, God is wild about you. Well, here's the fundamental problem. My kids were absolutely confounded with the theological issue of God having a refrigerator, but I was trying to convey to them that this is not really the point. You see, when you say things like that, you're missing the whole way in which God deals with people. This is why, for instance, the gospel of self-esteem is no gospel at all. Because when we come to God, God does not want us there because we think we deserve to be there. When we come to God, he does not want us there because we think we have something to contribute to his glory or his worth. There's only one way to approach God. And that is absolutely stripped of self. to the core. And what is it that strips us of self? Passages like verses 5, 6, and 7. Passages that say, hey, you want to see what you look like? Take a look in the mirror. That's what God wants. That's why the preaching of the gospel is never good news unless the demands of the law have been set forth in some way, shape, or form. Do you know what you have if all you have is a gospel that says God's wild about you? Then why did Christ die for me? If my picture's on God's fridge, why does it say the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness in those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness? Does the gospel expound the love of God? The answer is, of course it does, but the love of God in the gospel makes no sense unless we understand that we have all become like an unclean thing that all of our righteous deeds are like filthy rags in His sight. In other words, the good news is only the good news until God has stripped us bare of all sense of self-righteousness. I'll never forget listening to a sermon by Pastor Albert Martin on entering in by the narrow gate. And he used an illustration of a turnstile that was so small and so narrow, you couldn't take any bags with you through it. It was just you. That's what God does. He strips us of self, He strips us of self-righteousness, so that we are brought to the brink of hopelessness, so that we realize, if this thing depends upon me doing righteousness with joy, if this thing depends on me doing good works, if this thing depends on me presenting myself as somebody that God is just wild about, then all of a sudden I begin to realize that I am utterly and completely hopeless, shut up to the God who does not change. That's where we need to be. When we say it's scary to realize God is unchanging and His standards are unchanging and we have failed, and then turn around and say, but alas, Our only hope is that God is unchanging. Then we're on to something. And that's what Isaiah is going to expound. Verse 8. But now, oh Lord, you are our father. We are the clay and you are potter. All of us are the work of your hand. Don't be angry beyond measure, oh Lord. Don't remember iniquity forever. Behold, look now, all of us are your people. Your holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and beautiful house where our fathers praised you has been burned with fire. and all of our precious things have become a ruin. Will you restrain yourself at these things, O Lord? Will you keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?" There is an argument in this appeal that should strike us and instruct us. Notice, Isaiah begins with a series of affirmations about our relationship with God. starts off with these words, but now, oh Yahweh. The plea begins with a huge contrast, doesn't it? Notice verses five, six, and seven, the deplorable condition we find ourselves in, the corruption, the sin, the absolute heinousness of our rebellion. But then there's this contrast, but now, but now, oh Yahweh, oh Yahweh, oh Yahweh. It is no accident that Isaiah addresses God right here at this point as, O Yahweh. He could have said, O Adonai, or O Elohim, O Elohim Adonai, or 101 different combinations of God's divine names, but he doesn't. Right now he says, but now, drawing the contrast, O Yahweh. Why Yahweh? Because Yahweh conveys the unchanging essence of the covenant-keeping God. No accident. Isaiah is not going to address God merely as generic deity. He's not going to address Him merely as Adonai, the All-Powerful One, or El Shaddai, or any of those names that convey God's might and strength. He absolutely knows God's might and strength. And the basis of... It's almost as if as Isaiah is praying and he is... pounding the filth and the sin of himself and his people, that he sees one little sliver of hope in front of him. And the sliver of hope is absolutely outside of himself. It's in the fact that his God is named Yahweh, who doesn't change. He is the covenant-keeping God of Israel. That is the only way he is going to have any hope whatsoever. Then he says, you are our Father. Now remember, as we were expounding chapter 63, there's this by and large overwhelming foreboding picture that's developing with these little glimmers of faith that come shining through. You remember that. And one of those glimmering sparkles of faith ends up being verse 16 of chapter 63. For you are our father, though Abraham doesn't know us, Israel does not recognize us, because we don't live like Abraham or Israel. But you, O Yahweh, are our father, our Redeemer, our Goel, from of old is your name. Now, you are our father at this point. O Yahweh, unchanging covenant-keeping God, you are our father. Smacks of audacity, doesn't it? I kind of like audacity. Righteous audacity, not a carnal audacity. Luther was kind of like that, wasn't he? He, of course, had one of the most audacious statements of all the history of the Christian church, sin boldly. We don't usually follow up though with what he said, but believe more boldly still. Sin boldly, but believe more boldly still. This, oh, Yahweh, you are our father, is akin to that kind of audacity. Why? Because he's just spent these words in verses five, six, and seven talking about how bad and how corrupt we are, and how God's turned away from us, and how God's delivered us over into the power of our iniquities. And you would think that the natural, The logical approach to God would be, you are our judge. That'd be the logical conclusion, wouldn't it? You've turned us over right into the hands of our iniquity. You've turned away. You are our judge. But that's not what Isaiah says. He says, you, O Yahweh, are our Father. And I love the, but now. But now, what a great contrast. Here we are, stinking, filthy bags of maggots, but now, oh Yahweh, you're our Father. Walking dunghills, but God, you're our Father. All of the sudden, this little sliver that Isaiah's moving to starts to open up. I mentioned when we were in chapter 63 that it was unusual in the Old Testament for God to be addressed as father. Later in the book of Malachi, God will refer to himself twice as father. But both of those times will be in terms of chastening his people. Very unusual way to address God in the Old Testament. The rabbis, for instance, Joachim Jeremias, a German Lutheran scholar, did a lot of work on rabbinic studies. And he says one of the most rare forms of addressing God by the rabbis, especially by Jesus' time, was the idea of father. But yet, to address God as father, indicates a loving relationship, doesn't it? That's why it almost seems audacious. It's a loving relationship. Indeed, Israel was God's son, wasn't she? Yeah, Exodus 4.11, Israel is my son. Hosea 11.1, out of Egypt I called my son." God viewed the nation as His Son. Therefore, it was really quite legitimate to address God as Father, although they weren't living like sons. And here the prophet begins to appeal Yahweh, unchanging, covenant-keeping God, You are our Father. We have a relationship with You, a relationship of love. Now do you see why I said the unchangingness of God ends up being our hope? Because if Yahweh, our covenant God, is our Father, He will always be our Father. Oh, Father, You are our Father. Implication, we're Your children. God's love does not change. This is the amazing thing. God's dealing with His people may change. The manners and methods in which He deals with His covenant people, His children, and the nations, those things may change, but God in His essence doesn't change, which means God's love doesn't change. And what we have, but now, O Yahweh, You are our Father, is the cry of the prodigal. And the only basis of the appeal is that God loves us, because he's our Father and our covenant-keeping God. You know, Micah chapter 7 and verse 18, the prophet tells us that God delights in what? Unchanging love. You start to see why God's immutability is the only basis of hope? You, O Yahweh, are our Father. Look at the next designation or affirmation about the relationship. We're the clay and you're the potter. Here we move from the appeal of God's divine essence as a covenant-keeping God and God as our Father, now to God as the sovereign God. You understand that's the imagery, right? Very clearly, God is the potter, we're the clay. Now, some people don't like that relationship and Isaiah knew it just as well as we know it. And in fact, he uses the very same imagery back in chapter 45. And he says that God is the potter, that we're the clay. And then he basically says, and so how often does the clay say to the potter, what are you doing? And why did you make me like this? That makes no more sense than the one who's being conceived saying, what are you doing father? And why am I being conceived like this mother? Those things are outside of the realm of the human will. And here the affirmation is, God, you're sovereign. You got to appreciate this. You have to appreciate this. We can appreciate Yahweh, we can appreciate you are our father, but let's appreciate we're clay and you're the potter. Notice that Isaiah does not fall into the devilish logic that says, well, since you're the potter, we can't do anything about it. Since you're the potter, why should we even pray? Since you're the potter, we can't repent. We have to wait for you to help us repent. By the way, all those things are what some have called the devil's logic. The Bible never takes the doctrine of God's absolute sovereignty and turn it into an excuse for not praying or not repenting or not believing. But right here, it's used not just as a statement of doctrinal truth, right here it's used as an affirmation that's designed to give hope. God's God, we're not. That's the point of Isaiah 29. That's the point of Isaiah 45. That's the point of Isaiah 40. That's the point of Isaiah 46. That's the point of Isaiah 47 and 48. And we could probably find a few other passages like Psalm 135 and 115. The point is that God is God and we're not. And so the question is, how in the world does that particular truth serve to motivate Isaiah to lay hold of God in the face of such hopelessness and despair because of his own sin. You see the question, don't you? What comfort is there in saying, I'm sinful, I'm undone, false and full of sin I am, and God's in absolute control. He's the potter and I'm the clay. What comfort is there in that? Well, I want to tell you that there is more comfort in that one line than you would ever need to sustain you in this life. When Isaiah says, we're the clay and you're the potter, we have to say, well, what comfort could there be in such an unchanging, sovereign God? Before I answer the question, let me just ask you another question. What possible comfort could you ever find in a changing, less than sovereign God? What possible comfort, whether you're a saint or a sinner, what possible comfort could you ever get in a changing, less than sovereign God? You understand that those, and there are lots of people, even people who call themselves evangelicals today, who no longer believe that God is unchanging. You understand that. You also know that there are lots and lots of Christians, and the movement is growing, that don't even believe that God is absolutely sovereign. There have always been some who believe that God is not sovereign, that you have man's will and God's will, and somehow they all work out together. But you also understand that there are more and more people all the time that are actually saying that God doesn't even know all things. He doesn't know what your choices will be, and He doesn't know what tomorrow holds. Let me just ask you, what comfort is there in a changing, less-than-sovereign God? There is none. The only comfort that is possibly derived from a changing, less than sovereign God is the false comfort that comes from thinking that God is like us. And that is an illusory comfort, isn't it? If you draw comfort from thinking that God's like you, you need a checkup. There is no comfort in that. Here Isaiah lays hold. Here's the comfort. God is sovereign. He's the potter. We're clay. You know what that means? By God's will, we've been brought into existence. Just stop and think about that. You have been brought into existence and you are you. Because God willed it. God decreed it. God did it. God made you. You exist because of God. What comfort is there in knowing that God is the potter? He brought us into existence. What comfort is there knowing that God is the potter and we're the clay? The comfort of knowing that God can change us. People, you gotta lay hold of this. There is more comfort in knowing that God is the potter and we're the clay because we realize that that means God can change us than in all of the self-help and pep talk books you can find. the fact that God can change us. If He's the potter, we're the clay, then we're the malleable ones that He can shape and change. That's good news. If you're tired of being what you are, And if you're tired of being like you are, and if you're tired of your sins, and you're tired of your failures, and if you're tired of your blemishes, your moral and spiritual blemishes, take courage. You are clay in the potter's hand, and God has the power to change you. Do you realize that there is more hope and there is more motivation in understanding that precept than in a billion others? God can change me. What hope is there? God is sovereign. He's the potter. Guess what? He has a plan. Should that give us hope? Of course. I'm clay. I'm a part of the plan. God's sovereign. When I recognize that I'm clay and I'm a part of the plan, that helps me be humble. And God does what to the humble? He gives grace to the humble. And so I bow before His sovereignty and I get grace because He gives grace to the humble. And all of a sudden I find out that this is the safest place to be. Verses 5, 6, and 7 being as true as they are, there's no safer place to be than to say, Father, I am clay in your hands. You are sovereign. I bow before you as the sovereign God, the potter. I'm just clay. I bank all my hope on the fact that you give grace to the humble, and so give me grace. And all of a sudden you realize that right there on the potter's wheel, in humility, is the safest place to be in all the world. Do you think that anyone who's ever cried out, God you made me, I exist because of you, you can change me, please change me. Do you think anybody that's ever prayed that has gone unheard? Do you think anybody that's ever prayed that God hasn't answered? I believe wholeheartedly that anyone, anyone who has ever come to that realization, you've made me, I exist because of you, change me. God delights to pour out grace on souls like that. This is good stuff. You feel hopeless? Look to Yahweh, our Father, the potter. But it goes on, all of us are the work of your hand. All of us are the work of your hand. God, you made us, and our assumption is you made us for yourself. You made us for your praise. The people whom I formed for my glory, Isaiah 43, will declare my praise. The assumption is, okay, we're the work of God's hand. We're on the potter's wheel and God is making us into something. And yes, we're full of blemishes and corruption and filthiness and all of that, but we're the work of God's hands and we're God's handiwork. ugly right now. Just a blob of clay, but we belong to God and God's shaping us and we're reflecting God's work. We don't do it real well right now, but God's at work. You understand this line is not, we're on God's fridge line. This is a God is at work line. which is what we really need to hear when we come to the realization that all of our righteous deeds are like filthy rags. God's at work. Oswald says, although our sin cannot be denied, neither can the nature of our relationship with you. You're the potter, we're clay, and you're making something out of your people. These affirmations in verse 8 are rooted in God's character and God's work. Why does Isaiah come to God like this? It's the only hope. It's the only hope. If verses 5, 6, and 7 are true, and they are, then our only hope is God's character and God's work. Period. Period. Then verse 9, we have this marvelous appeal for forgiveness. Don't be angry beyond measure, O Yahweh. Remember, you're our unchanging covenant God. nor remember iniquity forever. Behold, look now, all of us are your people." Again, verse 9 is the breath, it's the breathing of the penitent, of the repentant person. Verse 9 is the size of the one who recognizes how bad he is and his only hope is in God. Don't be angry beyond measure. That's not as if Isaiah is saying, we only deserve nine points of wrath, please don't give us ten. That's not what he's praying. What he's praying is, don't let the full weight of your anger fall on us. We know you're angry. And what we're asking is that you don't let the full weight of that anger come right down on top of us. He's got good grounds to ask such a bold request. Because God's anger lasts for a moment. but his favor for a lifetime. Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning. One of the great foundational hopes of the people of God has been the fact that God will not retain his anger forever. In Psalm 78, as the redemptive history of Israel is being recounted, one of the great pillars of hope of the psalmist there is, you didn't retain your anger with those in the wilderness. You didn't retain your anger with those you brought out of Egypt. Were you angry? Yes. Did your anger burn? Yes. But you didn't give us the full weight of it. Because it's momentary. It's momentary. Turn back just a few pages to Isaiah 57. Isaiah 57. Look at verse 17. Because of the iniquity of his unjust gain, I was angry and struck him. I hid my face and was angry, and he went on turning away in the way of his heart." And that's exactly the same concept that we have in chapter 64, verse 18. I've seen his ways. I know his righteousness is like filthy rags, but I will heal him. I will lead him and restore comfort to him and to his mourners. You see, that ends up being the very basis of this plea. Don't be angry beyond measure is simply this. God, we know that you're angry and you're justly angry, but we know that you also promise to show favor to your people. Nor remember iniquity forever. This petition to forget or not to remember iniquity is a petition for divine forgiveness. That's what it is, right? In fact, throughout Scripture, the very idea of, do not remember the sins of my youth, Psalm 25, for instance, the idea is that God would forgive me. And of course, what is the greatest promise, not spoken by a psalmist or out of the mouth of a prophet, but spoken by God Himself? What is the greatest promise of forgiveness, but that found in the New Covenant, where God tells us explicitly, I will remember your sins no more. That is, I will forgive you thoroughly. I will forgive you completely. Your sins will never be a point of contention with me ever again. Your sins will never be a foundation for condemnation ever again. I will remember your sins no more. Here, the plea is, don't let the full force of your anger come down upon us. In fact, we are asking you not to remember our iniquities forever. In other words, Forgive us. Forgive us. This is the plea of a penitent. This is a plea of one whose heart is broken because he's seen his own sin. And then you have this absolutely wonderful, behold, look now, all of us are your people. Again, you have to appreciate the audacity. Behold. The prophets telling God, look, pay attention, look at us, sin and all. And remember something, we are your people. Now, What is the point of that? I mean, shouldn't Isaiah be doing his best to redirect God's gaze? No. Because Isaiah is not asking God to look upon his people to see if he can find something that will move him to forgive. He's asking God to look upon his people and remember that these are the people with whom he is in covenant with. That language. If he were just to say, behold, look now at us, That'd be just downright frightening. But the fact that he says, behold, now look, we are your people. You understand that's covenant language, isn't it? That is the second part to the great covenant promise. God is our God and we are his people. The plea here is we're in covenant with you and God, we wanna be bold here. It's your covenant. And you made it. And you're God, and we're your people. You bound yourself to us. You can't get rid of us. You can turn away, but we don't have anywhere else to go. You can bring the darkest night of the soul upon us and you can burst forth the light of your holiness and let us see the depth of our sin and we will shriek and we will be ashamed because we haven't sought your face. But you know what? At the end of the day, we're not going anywhere. Where else are we supposed to go? We're in covenant with you, covenant ratified by blood, sovereignly administered by our covenant-keeping God, Yahweh. And in fact, what we know about you is that you are faithful and that you don't break covenant with your people. And so all we're saying is, look, here we are, your covenant people. You made a promise. You have to love the audacity. You made a promise, you made a covenant, and we're not going away. That's who we are, and that's what you do. Do you know that this very kind of language was used by Moses when God says, alright Moses, here's the deal, we're going to wipe these people out. I'll make a new nation from you. We'll make people that obey. Enough of this rebellion, enough of this autonomy. We can just start all over. And what does Moses say? First of all, Lord, if reports of this get back to Egypt, your name will be besmirched. But they're not my people. They're your people. They're yours. I don't make any claim to them. They're yours. You married them. You adopted them. You redeemed them. You entered into covenant with them. You gave your son for them. He shed his blood for them. They are members of a new and everlasting covenant. They are partakers of your spirit. They are partakers of your grace. Sure, they're miserable flops. Sure, they're miserable failures. But at the end of the day, Lord, do you know what? They're still your people. No matter what your day was like today, no matter what your sins have been, I hope that we all grieve over our sins. I hope that we can all have the faith to look at our sins in light of 64, 5 to 7. But at the end of the day, do you know what God says? You still belong to me. You still belong to me. And anyone who comes to me, I will in no wise cast out. My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me. I give eternal life to them. Now, are all sheep good followers? No. Are there dumb sheep? Yeah. Are there really stupid sheep? Yes. Are there rebellious sheep? Yes. And they shall never perish. Where is people? Then we get to verse 10, and we'll probably have to stop here. It seems like Isaiah is changing the argument, but he's really not. Your holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion has become a wilderness. Jerusalem, desolation. Our holy and beautiful house where our Father's praise has been burned with fire and all our precious things have become a ruin. Now the appeal ends up being God's love for Zion. Remember, your holy cities, notice the really important word here, your, your holy cities, the cities that belong to you, the holy cities, the holy cities, these people have been anything but holy, but guess what? By God's covenant and by God's grace, God has indeed set them apart and they belong to him. And now Isaiah is saying, you know what, Lord? These cities, these people that belong to you, whom you've set apart, do you know what? It's a wilderness now that hardly lives up to the promise of a land flowing with milk and honey. In fact, that's the land of curse. That's the land of barrenness. That's the land of sin. That's the land of destruction and desolation. So Lord, do you know we have a slight problem here? Your holy cities should be places flowing with milk and honey." Audacious? Zion's become a wilderness. You know, Zion has a special place in God's heart. I've got a bunch of scriptures here from the Psalms where God loves Zion. God loves the gates of Zion. There's a city whose rivers make glad the city of God. And there's a Psalm 46 and the idea that God loves Zion and God takes care of Zion. In fact, even in the book of Zechariah, it says that God is jealous for Zion and he guards her like a man guards, you know, the imagery, the apple of his eye. Zion's precious to God. Why? because that's where God said His name was going to dwell. Jerusalem, a desolation, it's the same theme. Jerusalem, Zion, it's a parallelism. God's special place, where His name dwells, where He dwells, where He enters into covenant with His people. In fact, Zion or Jerusalem ends up becoming the geographical symbol of the very zenith of covenant relationship. They will be my people. I will be their God and what? And I will dwell in the midst of them. Where does God do that? In Zion. That's why the church is Zion. That's why the church is the heavenly Jerusalem. Why? Because God dwells in the midst. And then he says, your house of praise has been burned down. God could have said, Isaiah, I know that. I sent those Babylonians. I mean, he did, didn't he? Doesn't the Bible tell us that he did, of course. But is God concerned about his praise? Is God concerned about his worship? This is where our father has worshiped God. That is, remember this long history. Remember these great covenant promises. This is where you delight to hear the praises of your people. And now it's burned down. Don't you care about your praise? Don't you care about your worship? In fact, all of these precious things are ruined. things that are precious to us, the things that are precious to you, they're all ruined. Do you see what's happening in verses 10 and 11? The appeal now is based on things that matter to God. The appeal is now based on promises that God made. Go back, not right now, but go back to Isaiah chapter 60, and what does God promise to do to Zion to make it beautiful in all of the earth and the center of his worship for the nations, and he's gonna beautify the place. And so here, the appeal is, God, you've made the promise. Now keep it. Will you restrain yourself? Verse 12. Look at how the petition ends. Will you restrain yourself at all these things, O Lord? Will you keep silent and afflict us beyond measure? You see the thrust of the petition, don't you? In light of all this, how in the world could you be restrained? How in the world could you continue to shut off your affection towards us? Don't you see what's at stake? Your own glory's at stake, your name's at stake, your covenant's at stake, your people are at stake. Are you gonna keep silent? Are you and your silence going to keep letting us be afflicted beyond measure? No, you can't. You can't do that. Do you know why? Because you've already told us, can a nursing mother forget her son? No more than I could forget you. No more than I forget you. Can't do it. The barbarians have been released. In verse 12, what we have are not legal questions. There is a time when legal questions are not appropriate with God. When the realities of verses 5, 6, and 7 come up, legal questions are not appropriate. The law's been broken. The questions that Isaiah poses here are personal, intimate, covenant questions revolving around God's character and God's glory. And the questions are the questions of a penitent who knows that at the end of the day, his only hope is in God's unchanging character. Do you know what this passage does? It stirs us up to pray and to pray boldly. Are we sinners? Absolutely. Are we undone? Absolutely. Are we covered in the filth of our own sin? Absolutely. But we're not going to God on our own merit. Sin boldly, but believe more boldly still. Enter into the presence of God based on who He is and what He's done. and he won't turn away. Let's pray. Our Father, we do thank you for this passage and the way that it grips our hearts. We thank you for the truth that's conveyed in it. And Father, we pray that even tonight for those who are struggling with their own sin, that they would be encouraged and motivated even tonight to seek your face Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the joy and the comfort that it brings to us. Thank you that it's a real book that deals realistically with who we are, but thank you even more that it reflects who you are. And therein lies our eternal hope. In Jesus' name, amen.