Our help is in the name of the Lord, who has made heaven and earth. Grace be unto you and peace from him which is and which was and which is to come, and from the seven spirits which are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the first begotten of the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth. Amen. Our Scripture reading this evening is taken from the prophet of Isaiah, chapter 49. We'll read verses 8 through 17. A series of amazing promises that through the mouth of Isaiah, God is speaking to Judah for after the time when they will be restored back to Zion. We'll pick up at verse 8. Thus saith the Lord, in an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee. And I will preserve thee and give thee for a covenant of the people to establish the earth to cause to inherit the desolate heritages. that thou mayest say to the prisoners, go forth, to them that are in darkness, show yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places. They shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor sun smite them. For he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them. and I will make all my mountains away, and my highways shall be exalted. Behold, these shall come from far, and lo, these from the north and from the west, and these from the land of Sinai. Sing, O heavens, and be joyful, O earth, and break forth into singing, O mountains, for the Lord hath comforted His people and will have mercy upon His afflicted. But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, as she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands. Thy walls are continually before me. Thy children shall make haste. Thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee." Thus far, the reading of God's precious Word. Dear congregation, everyone loves to be loved. Everyone needs love. A person who feels unloved by everyone is often a person who contemplates taking his own life. And that is why a mother's love is one of the most beautiful things in all the world. Because nearly everyone can say My mother loves me. It's interesting, no matter what culture you go to in the world. A mother's love is one of the most tender of all subjects. I remember speaking in Italy to a group of a couple hundred ministers, and I asked them to raise their hand if their mother's love had a profound effect upon their spiritual life and their call to ministry. And it seemed to me from the podium that nearly every hand went up. A mother's love is truly the hand that rocks the cradle of the world. Your mothers are powerful people, by the grace of God. Your love is amazing. Simply amazing. When I was a boy, My dad used to always tell us, kids, remember, children, you can never repay your mother for all that she has done for you. And I tell my children the same thing. You just can't do it. What can be compared to a mother's love? Well, the Bible says there is something that is better. Better. than a mother's love. And that is the love of a covenant-keeping God. Tonight, with God's help, I want to stammer with you just a few words about this amazing, supernatural, mother-exceeding love The love of God. The words of our text, you can find in Isaiah 49, 14 through 17a. I'll read them again, but Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her second child? That she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will not I forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands. Thy walls are continually before me. Thy children shall make haste." With God's help, I want to look with you at God's covenant love for His Zion. In three thoughts, first, we'll see that love doubted by afflicted Zion. We'll see that love unequaled by a mother's love. And we'll see that love guaranteed by reassuring promises. God's covenant love for his Zion. Doubted. Unequaled. Guaranteed. Our text tonight is taken from the so-called second part of the book of Isaiah. Chapters 1 through 39. Referring to the first part and 40 to 66 of the second part, Isaiah probably wrote the second part several years after. The first part. And in his message to the exiles of the 6th century BC. Isaiah is actually projecting into the future. Similar to the New Testament, Apostle John. in Revelation 4 through 22, projecting many things into the future. Isaiah warns Judah that her sin would bring captivity at the hands of Babylon. Already we're told in chapter 39 that the visit of the Babylonian king's envoys to Hezekiah would set the stage for this prediction of Babylonian captivity. And although the fall of Jerusalem would not take place until 586 B.C., Isaiah assumes the demise of Judah and proceeds then to predict the restoration of the people from captivity. Well, this is amazing. He tells the people as a prophet that They're going to be carried away in captivity. But then he also goes on to prophesy that they will be returned. And that God would redeem his people from Babylon. Just as he rescued them from Egypt years before. Isaiah goes on to even predict the rise of Cyrus the Persian, who would unite the Medes and Persians and conquer Babylon and that his decree would allow the Jews to return home. Which happened in 538 B.C. A deliverance, of course, that Isaiah uses to prefigure the greater salvation from sin through Christ to come in the fullness of time. And so in chapter 49, what Isaiah is doing is giving promises from God, glorious, beautiful promises that God will fulfill to a people who will go into captivity to encourage them to cling to their faith so that they know they will one day return to the glory of God. So in a sense, all of this is future tense. And yet so much of it experientially today is present tense for a child of God. There's so much experiential richness here in these promises and in the struggles we have to lay hold often of these promises. And so when we come to verse 14, the beginning of our text, we are surprised and we're not surprised. We're surprised by the richness of the promises, actually, which begin already in verse one and go all the way to verse 13. And we understand, of course, how verse 13 breaks out and says, single heavens with such a God who promises you so many things, be joyful earth, break forth in this thing, you know, mountains for the Lord has comforted his people will have mercy upon his afflicted. We understand that. It's amazing, these promises. They shall not hunger anymore, thirst anymore. The sun won't smite on them. I'll make all my mountains away. My highways shall be exalted. On and on it goes. God will bring back his people. Therefore, sing, O Judah, and rejoice, O Jerusalem. But then you see verse 14. But Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me. So what happens, you see, is Isaiah is predicting that Zion will be so downcast in captivity that Zion won't be able to really lay hold of these promises as she should. She will not rejoice in God's covenantal promises in times of darkness and captivity. She'll discredit them. She'll doubt them. She shall say, the Lord has forsaken me and my Lord has forgotten me. So it seems that these promises come to Zion falling on deaf ears. And why is that so? Well, to understand this, we need to understand what the word Zion, first of all, means. Zion in the Bible actually has a kind of development of meanings, five different meanings, to be sure. The first meaning of Zion appears in scripture as one of the names of the Jebusite fortress conquered by David. An 11 acre portion in southeast Jerusalem. Later, secondly, under Solomon's reign, the word Zion came to also include the temple and the king's palace. In fact, the area of the temple became the primary meaning of Zion. And then thirdly, in the Psalms, Zion came to be developed as a reference to the entire city of Jerusalem. And in New Testament times, fourthly, Zion came to refer to the New Testament church, the living church, the invisible church, the elect. And fifthly, especially in the New Testament, sometimes Zion was extended to refer to heaven, a synonym of heaven. Referred to as the holy city, Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God, Hebrews 12, 22. Now, what do all five of these meanings have in common? Well, theologically, all five of them symbolize the place, the dwelling place of God in and through Jesus Christ among his people. God's Emmanuel, God with us, is really the meaning of Zion. God in our midst is the familiar refrain in the Psalms that refers to Zion. So just as a pillar of fire and cloud stood above the tabernacle during the wilderness wandering as a symbol of the presence of Zion, so we're told in Psalm 50 that God's glorious presence was in Zion. From Zion he will speak. Psalm 78 and 132 tell us the Lord loves Zion, chooses Zion. Psalm 9 and 99 say he's present in the temple in Zion, enthroned above the cherubim in Zion. And so Zion comes to be this very broad, beautiful word that encompasses the people of God. Who dwell with their God and their God who dwells with them, it's a covenantal word. And it's directed, sure, to this temple in the city of Jerusalem, but. It's extended beyond that as well. But you see, for Zion now in captivity, Zion remembers the former Zion, as it were, the temple and the city and Zion's complaint is now bitter. You see, how can all these promises be true when Zion, that is, Jerusalem, is lying in ruins and where God formerly dwelt? He seems to have abandoned and her walls are leveled, not one stone upon another. Her palace is torn down and above all the temple destroyed. Everything's a pitiful sight. No wonder, Zion says. The Lord has forsaken me and my Lord has forgot to me. The connection between the people of God and the temple of God is broken. We're in captivity. The word Zion seems to be torn asunder. So Zion says, my God has forgot to me and forsaken me. You know, these doubts are quite understandable. How can God's promises be true when the condition of God's church is presently so sad and desperate? Aren't the Jews still captive in Babylon? That's what they're going to be saying, Isaiah says, when these promises are read by them, when they're in captivity. They won't feel liberty. They'll respond in unbelief. They won't sing songs of Zion. They'll hang their harps on the willows and they'll weep by the riverside and say, where was the glory of Israel? Ichabod, the glory of God has departed, how rich are his promises. And yet we cannot embrace them. We are forsaken. And we are forgotten. The first verb here, forsaken, actually refers to an outward abandoning that you can see with your eyes. There is the walls broken down. Here's the people of God far away in Babylon. hanging their harps in the willow. The second word forgotten suggests an inner forsaking, the feeling of forsakenness that wells up within. All that I knew, as Job said, where I might find him. And yet. Zion's complaint, as understandable as it is, it is not justifiable. Zion had these promises in her hand. They were given to her by God. Zion would never be forsaken because the Messiah would be forsaken so that Zion would not be forsaken. My God, my God, he would cry out with a loud voice, why has thou forsaken me? And the deafening silence is a sermon in itself that Jesus Christ is forsaken so that the people of God, the Zion of God would never be forsaken. You see, Zion's problem was that she was looking to the human reasonableness of doubt due to circumstances around her rather than to the divine unreasonableness of doubt because of the promises of God. She was putting more stake in the circumstances than in the promises. That was her problem. And dear people of God, in our midst tonight, that is often our problem as well. You get in a tight spot in life, you get afflicted, you get sick, you get troubles and trials, and all of a sudden it seems like God's promises can evaporate in your hands and you feel forsaken and you feel forgotten and you act like it as if you really are. And it's dishonoring to the Lord. Or else an abiding sense of your own sins and your own weaknesses clings to you and cleaves to you. Or a consciousness of your smallness compared to God's majesty overwhelms you. Or you feel deserted. Or you get the dark night of the soul. And you cry out, has God forgotten to be kind? Shall I His promise faithless find? For me shall wrath henceforth replace His tender mercies and His grace. So how does God respond to Zion's unbelief? Does God become angry? Does God say this is ridiculous? Don't you know that I'm God? Think back. I led you through the Red Sphere. I did a host of things for you. Can't I bring you back from Babylon? Why are you so unbelieving? God had the right to say that, didn't he? Right, boys and girls? But God didn't say that. You know what God does? He gives to Zion instead four more amazing, even more powerful, even more comforting promises. That's amazing. He can only do that, of course, because he would wipe away Zion's unbelieving sin with the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, the first promise, let's look at all four of them, but the first promise comes in verse 15. God is saying here, my love is infinite, unfathomable toward my people, even more than a mother's love. Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me and my Lord has forgotten me. And the Lord says, can a mother forget her sucking child? Actually, in the original Hebrew, her sucking ill child, and how a mother responds when the child's sick, that she should not have compassion on the spread of her womb. Yea, a mother might even forget, rare though it may be, but I will not forget thee. And a mother's love is very special, as I said in the introduction. It's free. It's unbought. It's unselfish. It's constant. It's tender. How many times a mother gets up in the night for a child? However much pain the baby has cost her, the child is more valuable to her than gold. Matthew Henry said, The baby is as it were a part of herself, for it is her own, a part of herself. And very lately, one with her. Her physical needs will soon be put in mind. of it if she should forget her child. Day and night, a mother is ready to wait on her little one. Robert Murray McShane said, You must break the pieces of the mother's heart before you can change her love to her child. For she loves her child with all her heart. But God says, it's possible when a baby is suffering that there are moments a mother's love is just exhausted and she actually may fall asleep and or she may forget for a moment the needs for child. They may forget. Of course, some mothers. Abandon their children, that's just a dreadful thing, a dreadful thing. But it's still so unusual that it makes headlines in the newspaper. Although in Sacramento, California, when I did a conference out there recently, we went to the hospital and to see someone And there was what I thought a mailbox on the outside of the emergency room door, and I was amazed. What's a mailbox doing there? I said to my friend, he said, well, that's not a mailbox. You got to look closer. There's a picture of a baby there. And that box was put there so that if a mother wanted to abandon a child, she didn't have to kill the child, she could just drive into the emergency room, get the child out, open up the lid, put the child in and the baby would be rolled into a basket and she could drive away. It's enough to take your breath away, isn't it? A mother abandoning a child. But I, says God, I will never, no, never, no, never forsake thee. I cannot. I cannot abandon. I cannot abandon you even for a moment, even if I never sleep and I never slumber. My love supersedes the love of a mother. Isaiah 66, verse 13, As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort thee. My love supersedes because there's no sin in me. There's no degenerate tendencies in me. There's no conditions to my love. My love is more than motherly to my own in Jesus Christ. Think about it with me. A mother wraps her arms around her child frequently for a few short years. But my everlasting arms are always under Gertie, my Zion, for my eternal decree unto eternity future. A mother nourishes her child for a short time with food the Lord miraculously provides. But I am bright enough in despair, says Jesus, in my father's house. A mother clothes her child, her young child, with natural clothing. Jesus says, I clothe you with spiritual garments of salvation. A mother prays for the blessing upon her child, but Jesus prayers are always effectual. A mother seems unwearied in caring for a child in distress. Much more, the Lord is unwearied in nurturing distressed souls. The Lord compares Zion to a little baby, feeble and weak, afflicted, distress and misery. And he says, I will never, no, never. Forget you, I won't forsake you because I was forsaken for you. And so because of the love of Christ, you see, for a believer, that's one of the beautiful things about being a believer, a believer is loved by God with the very same love with which God loves his only begotten son. Which is a perfect love. That's why Jesus prayed in His high priestly prayer, and He says, My Father, I know Thou hearest Me always, that the same love, John 17, 26, the same love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them. I don't know if you ever thought about that, but that's just overwhelming. How can God the Father love His only begotten Son In such a way that the whole world goes round for that love. And John tells us that 15 times in his gospel alone, that God does all things because of the love he has for his son. How could God pour out that same love on such unlovable people as we are? And the answer is the gospel, because God. Has given. That son. So love the world that he gave that son. To suffer and to die. That those who truly repent and truly believe in him. Might have life everlasting in him. You can't comprehend it, I can't comprehend it. How could God love me, unlovable me, unlovable you? With this kind of love. individually and his people collectively. The answer is because his love is covenantal for the sake of his son, the second Adam, the last Adam, who represents all the people of God. He suffered for them and died for them and gave his all for them and loves them with love unspeakable. Zion says God's forsaken me, forgotten me. God says we forsake you, forget you. It's more than impossible. It's almost impossible a mother forgets her child, but I will never forget you. Don't even think about it. It's absolutely ludicrous. It would be to break my covenant. It would be to break my gospel promises. It would be to break who I am. I'm a God who never forsakes and who never forgets his own. My love. Will never. Not only die, but my love won't even take an intermission ever, ever, for I never sleep and I never slumber. And now, God, reinforces this glorious promise with three more wonderful promises. Look at verse 16. Behold, in case you're still doubting me, Israel, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands. You think I can forget you? Well, you know what you do on the fields. You know what you're going to do when you get into Babylon? This is what you're going to do. You're going to not want to forget Zion, to forget Jerusalem. And so what you're going to do is you're going to engrave an indigo paint when you go out to the fields to work, the walls of Zion on your hands. And as you're working from time to time, you're going to look at your hands and be reminded of Zion. And you're going to say, I would rather die than forget Jerusalem. But you know what? That indigo would wipe away over a period of time and you'd have to repaint it again. But I don't have to repaint and repaint and repaint. Israel, Judah, I love you. I love you, people of God. I love you so much, I've engraven you in the palms of my hands. From eternity past in my sovereign will, but also in the fullness of time on Calvary, in my nail pierced hands, the engravements that bring about my constant love on grounds of justice are unforgettable. And unerasable. Never, never, never can I forget you or forsake you. J.W. Alexander, the son of the very famous Archibald Alexander, has a wonderful section in his commentary here where he talks about how people in Israel who were felt abandoned and were far from the distant land, would often take that indigo paint and they'd paint things on their upper arms like a camel or a tent to remind them of Israel. And then on their lower arms, they'd paint the names of friends or pictures about friends and so on. But when they got down to their hand, because their livelihood was with their hands, their dearest objects would be painted on their hands. And so they'd paint the walls of Jerusalem on their hands. And so what God is saying to you, dear child of God, is you are my dearest object. I will engrave you in the palms of my hands and I will never, never forsake you. You see, it's reinforcing, reinforcing. The love of God. Which is more than the love of a mother. The walls of Jerusalem. Yes, that's the third promise. Look at verse 16 again. Thy walls are continually before me. I used to think as a boy that. What that meant was that people had obstacles, God, you know, like walls and God would God would help you get over the walls or get around the walls or get through the wall. I didn't know quite what it meant, but I just knew that God would help you with problems. But that's not really what it means. You see, Isaiah is predicting forward and what the exiles see, of course, in Babylon is nothing but rubbish in Jerusalem. Destroyed walls. Everything is in ruins. Everything is a colossal mistake. Everything is, well, there's just no hope. There's just no hope anymore. Jerusalem is destroyed. The place where God's honor is, the place where God dwelt. And we have sent it all away. What hope is there for us? We have forfeited everything. We're death worthy. We're hell worthy. The walls are destroyed. But God says. Oh, my people, remember, I will never forsake you. I love you more than a mother's love. I've been grieving you in the palms of my hands. And your walls are before me. I see walls. You see rubbish. I see walls, rebuilt walls, the rebuilt walls of Zion, the rebuilt walls of the temple, the rebuilt walls of Jerusalem. I will care for it. I will bring you back. And I will have you rebuild the walls. You know, I, well, Mr. Israel a couple of times, hope to go actually next spring a third time and take a tour group. And I love to go there because there's just so much to learn, so much to learn. And the first time we approached the walls of Jerusalem, there was a divine, a human craftsman there, rather an artist, and he was he was painting the walls of Jerusalem. It was actually beautiful. We actually stood and watched him. He'd look over at the walls and then he'd take his paintbrush and paint a few more strokes and look at the walls and he'd reduplicate, you see, the walls onto his onto his canvas. And you see, I thought, well, that's really what God is doing when he rebuilds. Zion, he's looking at his eternal decree and then he's taking that paintbrush in time and bringing it to pass with a few strokes here and a few strokes there and the walls are going up. But also in the life of every single believer, you see, he's got an eternal plan for you, your child of God. And he builds, he builds, he builds and he forms and crafts and molds you to be exactly what he wants you to be in his divine plan, saving you in Christ. and then conforming you to the image of Christ so that one day your sin clothes may be laid behind in the grave and you'll be clothed with the white robe of his righteousness and you may arise and glorify him in soul and body forever as the bride of Jesus Christ, sin free in Emmanuel's land. You see rubbish when you look at your life. You see sin. You see failure. God sees walls. He sees his promises. He sees his Zion rebuilt. He sees his heavenly Zion coming down as a bride adorned for her husband with every wall in place and every brick and every wall in place. Some high, some low, some high, some in the front, more conspicuous, some in the back. Doesn't matter. As long as you're in that building set apart by God, The subject of God's amazing love. He will not forget you. He will not forsake you. He will not take a brick out of His wall. There will not be an empty chair in heaven. It will be full and complete. Oh, stop looking at the human reasonableness of circumstances around you to make you doubt. But look to the divine reasonableness of not doubting because of the rich and glorious promises of God. That's what God's saying to Israel. That's what God's saying to us today in Jesus Christ. My covenant love for Zion supersedes every problem you will ever face, every tragedy, every affliction, every fear. I will never, no, never, no, never forsake you or forget you. Top lady put it this way in one of his poems, my name from the palms of his hands. Eternity will not erase impressed on his heart. It remains in marks of indelible grace. Yes, I to the end shall endure as sure as the earnest is given more happy, but not more secure. The glorified spirits in heaven. If you are a believer, it is. In God's eyes, it's as if you're already in heaven in terms of the security of your future place. It is impossible. For him to forsake you. Or to forget you. But now here's the capstone, capstone for you mothers and your fathers, but especially mothers in some ways. Verse 17, a guy, children shall make haste. Don't you love that promise? God is saying, not only will I take care of you and you won't fall away and you won't perish and my covenant love to you will be true and faithful to the end, but your children. Will follow you. And they will make haste, they will run to Zion, they will run to the new temple, to the new Jerusalem, they will serve the Lord. I will build the church from the rising generation, from those very children. on whom you have poured out all your mistakes and failures as a mother and as a father. Despite all your mistakes, I will raise them up. I'm a covenant keeping God. They will bow under my ways, they will repent of their sin, they will be converted, they will believe in my son, they will hate sin and love Christ and follow him. And many of them will outstrip us in holiness and godliness. by destroyers, and they that make thee waste shall go forth of thee." That is, those who persecute the church will cease. And your children will rise above your persecutors and false teachers who would subvert their faith and destroy their souls. And you shall know the great joy of the Apostle John who said, I have no greater joy than this than to see my children walk in the truth. Our children are pretty much grown now. Youngest is graduating from high school in a few weeks. Someone asked me recently, what's the biggest mistake you made as a parent? I made lots of them. It's hard to pick. But I think the biggest mistake was that I didn't trust God more in the process. I worried too much. When kids would get into little streaks of things that weren't kosher, weren't right, weren't acceptable, I'd always think that they're going to be in that streak forever. Why didn't I trust the promises more and enjoy parenting more? Because I was resting more in the promises of God. I'm embarrassed by that. It doesn't mean you don't train your children. It doesn't mean you don't mold them. It doesn't mean you don't warn them. It doesn't mean you don't direct them. It doesn't mean you're not very concerned about them. You don't pour out your hearts in prayer for them. But it does mean you learn by the promises of God. God in his faithful covenant keeping promises becomes the foundation of your parenting. You believe he will do what he said he will do. My children shall make haste. So let it be a prayer. Lord, don't pass by one of my children. Bring them all in. And when all the children are saved, Lord, bring all the grandchildren in. Let us be an undivided family. That's what my dad used to always pray. Let us be an undivided family. Reserve for the heavenly mansions above. Oh, what a blessing. To see your children make haste. Well, let me close this sermon with just a few a few applications. The first is this. You and I, dear child of God, are far too prone to think that God has forsaken and forgotten us, even at the very times when he's remembering us like. Like you wouldn't believe. He ever lives to make intercession for us and the times when we are the most needy is the very time when those intercessions are most fervent. Please, please don't dishonor him by thinking he's forsaken you and forgotten you. Learn to walk by faith. That's his goal with you and not by sight. Learn to let him conform you to the image of Christ. Learn that your very afflictions are badges of fatherly sonship, as Hebrews 12 tells us, not proofs of judicial condemnation. Encourage yourself with the covenantal promises of God. And don't despair when you are in darkness. He won't desert awaiting people. Even if a mother would desert you. He won't desert you. And then I want to give this application also to to the unconverted in our midst tonight. Some of you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ at all. You're not saved. If you were to die today, You would be lost. And that would be tragic to sit under the gospel and be lost. And one of your problems is that you don't see the rubbish. That you've created by your unbelief. You don't see that you've exiled yourself from God. You need to ask God to show you your sinfulness. You need to ask God to show you that every single moment, every single second the clock ticks and you don't love God above all and you don't love your neighbors yourself, you're sinning. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick You young people, you can be the greatest athlete in school. You can get straight A grades. You can be popular. Perhaps you young men could get any girl you wanted in the school. You have everything going for you, you think. But if you don't have Jesus Christ, you've got nothing but rubbish. Charles Spurgeon said a richest man in this world is without Christ. has a coffin on his back and will soon have grave dust in his mouth and will perish forever. You absolutely need the Lord Jesus Christ no matter who you are. All your popularity, all the good things you have going for you will just go... a laugh of smoke And we'll be gone in a moment. Now is the time, young people, to seek the Lord while he is to be found. So I warn you seriously, but I also invite you seriously, I invite you to come to the Savior tonight. You have tasted the mother's love in your life. You can't deny. You can't deny how special a mother's love is. And I suppose your fondness for your mother, you wouldn't sell for all the goods you own in this world. But I say to you tonight. There's a better love. There's a better love. There's an unchangeable love. The love of Christ, a love that's willing to receive rebels and sinners. You need to flee to him. Before it's too late. You know, there was a preacher. I'll close with this illustration. There was a preacher named Roland Hill, 19th century preacher, close friend of Charles Spurgeon. And he was kind of depressed because. Young people weren't coming to Christ under his ministry like he wanted to see a few here and there, but not many, and it really bothered him. And so one day he was looking out of his window, pacing the floor and he saw a pig farmer going to market. And all the pigs were just following him right into the slaughterhouse. He was amazed when the pig farmer came out, he met him. He said, well, tell me, how do you do it? How do you get pigs to follow you into the slaughterhouse to their death? And I can't get sinners to follow me to life eternal. Oh, the farmer said, it's not a problem. Did you notice as I walked along, I just had my hands in my pocket and I just let a few crumbs, a few crumbs fall out here and there as I walked along. And you know, those pigs are so stupid that for a few crumbs of a pig's food, they'll follow. They'll follow me right to their death. I plead with you, young people, older ones, too. And children. Don't follow the pig farmer devil, Satan. For a little pig's food from this world to your eternal death. But bend the knee before Jesus Christ. And don't rest until you, too, can say, I know his rich and glorious promises and his amazing, stupendous love. A love that supersedes the love of a mother. It's available tonight to every single person in this audience. Confess your sin. Seek his face. And don't rest until you, too, can say he has engraved in me the palms of his hands and on his high priestly shoulders and in his high priestly heart. And he's been I'm in his high priestly eyes. He is my security now and forever. Amen.