Please take your Bibles and turn back to the first passage that we read together in the prophecy of Isaiah, where we come in the course of sermons through this book to chapter 51. We've read the entire chapter and we'll be considering the whole. We'll begin by reading again from verse one. Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord. Look under the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. When you are in pain, here I mean acute, intense pain, all you want is relief. You may have a mind-splitting migraine and you want dark, you want quiet, you want stillness, and other aids that may relieve that. If it's back pain, similar, being able to find somehow a particular posture or position that will give a little bit of relief to ease the edge of pain. Pain drives us to look for a solution. You could say the same about fear. When we are afraid, we're facing some fear, what do we want? We want security. We want a sense of safety. We want a sense of deliverance. We want to see that which we fear to be taken away. People will go to great lengths in order to secure this. Or in times of sorrow, it's similar. We're afflicted, we're laid low, we're under loss, we have all sorts of acute sorrows. The heart in those moments longs for comfort. It's some salve, as it were, that would heal our wounded hearts, that would relieve our tears, that would restore a measure of consolation and joy. Well here in chapter 51, the Lord comes to his people and he comes to them as an afflicted, broken, fearful, weeping people. And he comes to them with an ability that none other has. to grant to them divine consolation, to deliver to them, for them, in them, with them, to deliver what no one else could, what they themselves couldn't muster and gather, what no one else could provide, He is able to provide, and He promises to do so in abundance, to provide consolation to Zion. You'll notice as you're reading through the chapter, there's a few, rhetorical markers, if you will, in the chapter. So notice the opening words, hearken to me. Well, that's repeated again in verse four, and then it's repeated again in verse seven. And then in verse nine, we have the double words, awake, awake. And then again, you'll see that in verse 17, awake, awake. So the Lord is grabbing our attention in these words. And the words I just cited underline that. The Lord is turning our chin, turning our faces toward himself. The Lord is fixing our eyes where he wants us to place them. The Lord is grabbing a hold of our ear, as it were, and saying, listen to me. So we'll note three things as we seek to cover the length of this chapter in the next few minutes. First of all, the past informs the present. So, verses 1 to 8, so this is the section that includes those first words, hearken to me, right? Verse 1, verse 4, verse 7. So, in verses 1 to 8, the past informs the present. The Lord is calling his people to look back. They are there in the soup, if you will. I mean, they're in a very tight, difficult spot in the present. And the Lord's saying, from that position, cast your eye backward, look back. In other words, he's saying, remember, remember, remember. See your roots. see where I've brought you from, see what I have already done for you." And he's speaking, of course, to those who are believing, hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye who are walking in the ways of the Lord, ye that seek the Lord, So those who are in earnest, whose faces are set to following the Lord, and seeking to please the Lord, and trusting upon the Lord, and walking by faith with the Lord. He says unto these, look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are dinged. He's saying, in essence, I have raised my church out of nothing. I've raised my church out of nothing. So you're concerned about whether I can care for you now. You're concerned about whether I can deliver you now. You're concerned about all of the circumstances that you're facing now. Have you forgotten? I have raised my people out of nothing. Look back to the rock whence you're hewn. Look to that chunk of dirty, shapeless, insignificant stone. which I gathered myself, and then as the divine sculptor, I am the one who fashioned you. into all that you are. I'm the one who shaped you with all of the beauty that I've designed to adorn you. You've seen it, no doubt. Some of the great works of art, this beautiful marble statue that's been designed, some great figure, whoever. It was one time laying in the ground. It was eventually quarried and was of no significance whatsoever. And then it becomes a piece of art. Here's the Lord. He's using this language. He's saying, look back to the hole of the pit whence you are digged. Do you see what I've done? Do you see who I am? He says, in verse two, look unto Abraham, your father, unto Sarah that bear you. I called him alone and blessed him and increased him. He's saying, think back. Where did all of this start? It started with one man. in Ur of the Chaldees, who was a descendant of idolaters, whose forefathers were born and lived and died worshiping dumb foolish idols. And I came and snatched him, as it were, out of all that. I called him to myself. I chose him, Abraham. And from this one couple, now I have built this enormous nation. I have gathered a people to myself." What's the Lord saying in verses 1-2? He's saying, can you not see what God can do with so little? Do you see what the Lord can do with so little? There is nothing, nothing, nothing that is too difficult for Him. Nothing at all. You think back to the days of our Lord. He's with his disciples. You have the 5,000. They bring him this handful of loaves and fishes. And what are the words to our Lord? What are these among so many? These are nothing. They're insignificant. But those are placed into the hands of the Lord. And the more the Lord multiplies the loaves and the fishes, and He feeds the 5,000 to their satisfaction, each one with 12 baskets left over, there's nothing too difficult for them. This is where the Lord's coming in His Word, and He's saying, can you not see? Remember the past. The past informs the present. Verse 3, for the Lord shall comfort Zion. He will comfort all our waste places. He will make her wilderness like Eden. and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness should be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody." The Lord is saying, I am capable of delivering, not just promising, but providing consolation that is mind-blowing. I can take you. You're in a giant sandbox. You're in the metaphorical equivalent of a desert. It's arid. It's dry. It's barren. It's fruitless. It's hot. You know, there's no water. That's where you are. That describes your circumstances, the Lord says. This is where you are. I will make it. like Eden, like the garden of the Lord. Nothing is too difficult for him. You know, we think back, we think of this, and I think for most of us, we try to picture Eden, we try to picture the garden of the Lord, and it's sort of equivalent to some super mega lush garden that we've seen somewhere. And the problem is, while that's helpful, it falls too short. Right? Even before the fall, before the entrance of sin, it would boggle the mind to be able to capture what it was like. I imagine that every breath brought in the sweetest, most delectable fragrance. Probably a multiplicity of them. Everywhere you looked would have been exquisite, unmarred, undefiled beauty. Abundant, productive fruitfulness. Bounty, abundance that the Lord has provided for his people. Spectacular. This is the picture the Lord's giving to us. He's saying, you're like in a desert. but I'm gonna make it not just like your ordinary English garden in some fancy estate, I'm gonna make it like Eden. And he's using very strong language to convey really beautiful truths. He's saying, joy, gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving in the voice of melody. This is a place of abundant consolation, of true, true joy. He goes on in verses four to six and he's saying salvation is very near. He says, you don't recognize hearken unto me and my people give ear unto me. Oh, my nation for a law shall proceed. And I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people. My righteousness is near. My salvation is gone forth, et cetera. The Lord is saying my salvation is way nearer than you think. You're looking at the immediate where your circumstances are. But I'm telling you there's my work is coming and an injustice will be removed. I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people. Allah shall proceed. out of my mouth what he has begun, he will complete. Reminds us, doesn't it, of the very beginning of Isaiah, this law that he's speaking of. There it says, opening of chapter two, verse two, and it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established, and the top of the mountains shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord. To the house of the God of Jacob, He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." He's saying, verse 6, lift up your eyes to the heavens. Look upon the earth beneath. For the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, the earth shall wax old like a garment. And they that dwell therein shall die in like manner. But my salvation shall be forever. My righteousness shall not be abolished." He's saying, look at what you think in your little world has the greatest sense of permanence. You cast your eye up into the skies. You see the canopy blanketed with all of the stars, celestial, you know, the sun and the moon and so on. And you know that going back to Abraham and before him all the way to Adam, that this is what has been and it hasn't still there. It's not gone. You look upon the earth. And here, you're walking over terrain that has been walked over by untold numbers of other people before you. It feels permanent. It seems permanent. And the Lord is saying, it will vanish like smoke. I mean, boys, you think about a campfire like you had this week, right there. You watch the smoke go up, and it's there coming off the flames, but it quickly gone. It dissipates. The smoke comes up and then it's gone. He says that's this permanent canopy of the heavens that you think of. That's what they're like, the earth underneath you. It's like a piece of wax. It is like a garment that will wax old. In contrast to my salvation, which shall be for absolute ever. everlasting, eternal, never diminishing, never dying, never being deterred, going on and on. My righteousness shall not be abolished. Can you see it? Can you see the strength, the permanence, the glory of what the Lord provides? He says in contrast in verses 7 and 8, in contrast, all of your opposition, your persecutors, and all of that are so very weak. Again, hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law. Fear ye not the reproach of men. neither be afraid of their revilings for the moth shall eat them up like a garment and the worm shall eat them like wool but my righteousness shall be forever my salvation from generation to generation he's saying you look at your opposition you look at your enemies the those who afflict you your persecutors all of the overwhelming enemies that you have and so on he's saying you can't see clearly you don't see how very weak they are You know, what is a moth? You could flick it off the pulpit and it would die. You can slap it with your hand. Moth is nothing. And yet a moth will come and eat them up. That's how weak they are. He's saying, don't fear. The past informs the present. Do not fear. All of the present difficulties need to be seen in light of all that is preceded in verses one to eight. One day, you'll look back. What is now present will then be past. And you'll look back upon it, and the Lord is saying, you will see it as nothing. It was nothing. It was nothing. The Lord's saying, well, see it now. All of this is transitory. All the enmity and opposition is transitory. God is permanent. God's righteousness, His salvation, is absolutely permanent. You think about how all these themes come together, for example, in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. We come to the Lord's Supper, and one thing that we do is look to the past. Do this in remembrance of me. Broken body, broken blood, and spilt blood. We look back. But we also look forward, because it's a precursor. to the great supper that is yet to come in glory. And it's embedded in the language. He says that we are to do this till he comes. That's forward-looking. That's looking into the future. And then, of course, there's the present, in which the Lord's meeting us, nourishing us, satisfying us, bringing a present supply to our soul. And so the past informs the present. That's true for us in terms of application. We do this at two levels. And both levels are seen here. At one level, we're thinking sort of the meta level, if you will, of the church corporately in history. So you look back, go back to the Old Testament Church, if you want, and trace all that. New Testament Church, trace that. But then you have 2,000 years of the post-apostolic church as well. And he's saying, look at my people. Look at my church. Look at all that I've brought them through. Look at all that I've sustained them in. Look at all that I've done with them. Look at how I've preserved them. Is the gospel and the true religion diminished in our own day in comparison to the past? No. I mean, are we in days of degradation and not days of reformation? Sure. But the gospel is still flourishing and sinners are being converted and the Lord is building up his cause. And we can see the Lord sustaining his people through high times and low times. And we can have confidence in remembering and tracing the finger of the Lord and his providence to strengthen our faith for the present. That's true corporately. It's also true at the micro level of the believer's own personal experience. However long the believer has walked with the Lord, whether short or lengthy periods, you can look back. And you can say, look at what the Lord's done. He's taken me through this season. He's taken me through that season. He took me through these. He preserved, He kept, He prospered. He brought beauty out of ashes here. He brought joy where there was mourning there. The Lord has shown Himself strong. We have Ebenezers. Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. We can recognize that. And that past informs, which is to say, it strengthens our faith for the present. We're gathering from the past reminders that strengthen our faith in the present. So first of all, the past informs the present. Secondly, the present prayer for past power. The present prayer for past power, verses 9 to 6. Really, verses 9 to 11 sort of capture the prayer, and then 12 to 16 capture the answer. But the end result is no fear. You have no cause for fear. Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord. Awake, as in the ancient days. in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep, and that hath made the depths of the sea away for the ransomed to pass over?" Here, the words, awake, awake, are a cry to the Lord. It's asking the Lord, Lord Jehovah, awake, awake. not in the sense of him being asleep or slumbering or inattentive, but awake, awake in the sense of manifest thy strength, manifest thy power, arise and show forth the glory of thy power. Awake in that sense. He says, Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab? Rahab here is a reference to Egypt, which we saw before in Isaiah. A reference to Egypt. Lord, aren't you the one that has cut Egypt down? The one who has wounded the dragon? The point is, the Lord alone is the one who can destroy chaos. The Lord alone is the one who can destroy the great powers. So if the Lord, the Lord destroy Satan, the Lord destroys the hordes of hell. The Lord is able to destroy all powers that rise against his people. So Egypt, what was that? What was Pharaoh? What was all of his, his military machinery before the arm of the Lord? It was nothing. He cut it down like a weed. It's like pulling a dandelion. The Lord came and he destroyed these monsters. Threw them into the deep. This is the Lord. Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion. Everlasting joy shall be upon their head. They shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and mourning shall flee away. This is the Lord which is able to dry up the sea and to allow his people to cross over on dry land. He's the one who's made the depths. He's the one who's redeemed his people in the past. He is able to do it now, this same God with these same resources and this same divine power. He is the one that shall make his present redeemed people to come with singing unto Zion. Now, if you're thinking about this, we just heard a sermon on Zephaniah 3 verse 17. And there it's describing the Lord. The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty. He will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy. He will rest in his love. He will joy over thee with singing. So there is the Lord rejoicing with singing and joy, rejoicing over his people. Here we have the counterpart. His people are made to enter into everlasting joy upon their head, obtaining gladness and joy, and sorrow and mourning are caused to flee away. This is exquisite joy that is unutterable, to use biblical language, inexpressible. You can't get your mind wrapped around it. How are you going to get your mouth wrapped around it? How can you adequately describe it? The Lord is saying, this is joy that is unlike any other, because it is from the Lord. And you'll notice it's not just that sorrow is removed. So we're in times of sorrow. We want comfort. We want relief from that. So we're in pain. You have a earth shattering migraine and you just want it to turn off. You just want it to go away. And if it did, and you were back to equilibrium, level of normalcy, you'd be happy. But the Lord's saying, no, no, no, no. I'm not just taking away sorrow. Yes, sorrow and mourning shall flee away. But I'm going beyond that. I am replacing it with exquisite joy, gladness. You're not going back to neutral. You're going way above and beyond on the other side of sorrow to joy. Now, the joy of the Lord Jesus Christ has promised that his joy would be in us and that our joy would be full. Of course, if it's Christ's joy that is put in us, then our joy is full. And that's true, and we have a measure of that. This is the fruit of the Holy Spirit who works joy in the souls of his believing people. And that joy, the joy of the Lord, is our strength. It bolsters us. But of course, it's a taste of what is still coming. It's foreshadowing the fullness that is to follow. When the Lord says, well done thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of the Lord. I've made this illustration before. But in John, in the upper room discourse, he's saying Christ's joy in us. And there Christ is saying in the gospels that we will be put into joy. So it's the difference between taking a cup of water and you drink the water. The water is in you. And the counterpart or the other picture would be you going out into a boat, out into the Atlantic Ocean, miles and miles and miles from shore, all you can see is ocean. And then climbing up on the edge and jumping into the sea. That's you in water. So here the Lord's joy is in us and there's something Phenomenal about that. But in heaven, we are, as it were, immersed in His joy. And so it's a taste of what's to come. The Lord is describing these beauties. He's saying in verse 12, I, even I, am He that comforteth you. I'm the one. It's not another. I haven't sent just an angel. It's not another creature. There are super sweet, consoling, big hearted, deeply feeling people. in this world who can provide a great deal of consolation to us. But none of them could ever approach or approximate the Lord. He's saying, it's I, even I, I, the infinite God, I'm coming. I'm the one that's going to comfort you. Who art thou that thou shouldst be afraid of the man that shall die? How is it that people which seem so big and so foreboding, so threatening, so mean, so terrible, who seem so Inconquerable, as it were. How is it that that's the case when I, Jehovah, am the one to comfort? They're just a piece of meat. They're gonna die. Right there, they're gonna be laid in the grave. Son of man, which is his grass, they're like grass that is mowed down. I'm the one who's coming to comfort. And forget us that the Lord thy maker that has stretched forth the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth and has feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor as if he were ready to destroy. And where is the fury of the oppressor? Notice here something. There's something here that we too often overlook, I think. the Lord directs our attention to himself as a maker, as the creator, the creator of the heavens and the earth. And of course, the Bible opens with that. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. But it's interesting. We think of that truth, that revelation of who God is and what God does by way of creation, we think of it as rather commonplace. And yet, when you're reading through the prophets, It's coming up all the time. The Lord as the Creator. And in the Psalms, it's coming up quite a bit. And you see it elsewhere. So, for example, you know, there's the early church. Christ is ascended to heaven. They've been sent out to preach. They hit sorts of opposition they're being threatened and flogged and you know told that they're going to be killed and so on and in Acts 4 they come back from from having been threatened and so on and They gather together and they pray and this is interesting. We should study the you know, the prayers of the Bible It helps us learn how to pray ourselves but you notice That they they've They reported all that the chief priests and elders said to them. Verse 24, And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord, thou art God which hast made heaven and earth and the sea and all that in them is. Now, you know, I think we should think to ourselves, if we were in their position and we came back together and we're going to pray, what would the first words be out of your mouth? How would you address God? How would you call upon him? What would it be that was highlighted? How would you, for what would you adore him? Do you see it there in Acts 4? They immediately turned to him as the creator of heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them. What's going on there? There's something here, the Lord's doing it again here in Isaiah 51, when he's saying, you forgot that I am the maker. Well, if we go back and we meditate on the glory of God, right? That common language that we all know so well, where the Lord has created everything out of nothing. Stop there and take a week to meditate and you'll be, your head will be blowing up before you get out of the first day. He created the entire cosmos out of nothing. Right? You think about that. God created heaven's earth, all that is in them. He created them out of nothing. He created them by the word of his power. He said, let there be light. He spoke into existence the entire universe. Speaking is what we think of as one of the weakest things. Breath. God spoke it into existence. He created the world in seven days, six days, all very good. You know, you meditate upon these things and the demonstrations of divine power and wisdom and goodness and glory and all that begins to sink into your heads and hearts. And then you begin to think, what is too difficult for him? In all of the perplexities and circumstances in which we find ourselves, those tight spots, those overwhelming spots, those impossible spots, the things that seem utterly unnavigable, if we can see Him as we ought by faith, as the creator of the cosmos, spoken into existence, then faith is fueled. And we're able to say there's nothing, nothing, nothing that is too difficult for him. This is Lord feeding our faith. That's what he's doing here. Verse 16, he goes on, verse 14, the captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, but I am the Lord thy God. I divided the sea. Verse 16, I have put my words in thy mouth. I have covered thee in the shadow of my hand, that I may plant the heavens and lay the foundations of the earth and sand of Zion. Thou art my people. Here is the Lord saying, I put my words in thy mouth. You think back to Romans 10, and it's like, you know, the Word isn't far from you. It's not far from you. It's near you, yea, in you. You think of, you know, there's Jeremiah, and the Lord's Word came, and he says, I took them and ate them, and they were the joy and rejoicing of my heart. I mean, Job's saying that he esteems the Lord's Word more than his necessary food. The Lord's saying, you're not left in the dark. I've given you the brightest light in my Word, and I've stuck it in your very mouth. He's speaking to them of covenant privileges, which comes out at the end of the verse, thou art my people. That's covenant of grace language. He's saying, thou art my people. And as the covenant God, he's saying, I've covered you. Under the shadow of my hand, you are hid, you are protected, you are kept. My word is in your very mouth. You know what I've promised, who I am and what I've said to you. Thou art my people. And so we see here the present prayer. for that past power to be manifest. But then we have verse, thirdly, the future destruction of enemies. The future destruction of enemies, verses 17 to the end. Awake, awake, there's our words again. Notice this time, last time it was awake, awake, calling upon the Lord and his arm. But now it says, awake, awake, and this time it's a reference to Jerusalem, God speaking to us. Awake, awake, stand up, oh Jerusalem. which has drunk at the hand of the Lord. So in verses 17 to 21, the Lord is looking them in the face with all of their present distress. And he's promising that they're going to be delivered. But more than that, that he's going to take the bitter cup out of their hand and give it to them and place it into the hands of their enemies and worse. Verses 17 to 20, you kind of got a description of their present condition. And verses 21 to 23, a description of what the condition of their enemies will be. So in verses 17 and 20, he's describing his chastening. And it's been a scourging. It's been a real beating. It's been painful, very painful. which has drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury, the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out. He's saying, look at you. It's so bad. You have no one to guide you. None of your sons. You get an old person. They need to be taken by the hand, by the arm. And you kind of support them. You bolster them up. And you kind of direct them and lead them in their most ancient part of their life and guiding them. He's saying, you don't have any. You don't have any sons that are going to lead you. Why? Where are all my sons? Well, they're They've fallen. They've failed. They're lying, as it says in verse 20. They fainted. They lie at the head of all the streets. It's a wild bull in a net. They're under the Lord's chastening as well, under His fury, under the rebuke of thy God. The Lord is describing here the chastening of His people. It's right, it's equitable, it's just. The Lord has brought the sting of the rod to chasten them. Babylonian captivity would be a serious chastening to His people. And he says, however, this needs to be placed in context. And in verses 21 and following, he says, hear now this, thou afflicted and drunken, but not with wine. The Lord thy God that pleaded the cause of his people says, I'm taking that cup away from you and I'm giving it to your enemies. those who afflicted you, those who broke you down, who were the Lord's rod, those who laid you prostrate in the street and drove over top of you, treated you like fodder. He says, I'm coming for them. I'm coming for them. And they're going to get the full sweep of my wrath. The point that this highlights for us briefly here, and the point that this highlights is this. There is a contrast between discipline and judgment. In the former, the Lord is chastening people, not fun. As Paul says in Hebrews, it is grievous. Right? In Hebrews 12. But it's discipline. It's the Lord's chastening. And the Lord chastens the sons. And he chastens those whom he loves. The other is judgment. And the point here is they can have a similar look. I'm taking the cup out of your hand and placing the cup into the hands of your enemies. And outwardly, there can be some measure of similarity in what that looks like in its outworking. but they have completely radically different aims and ends. Discipline of God's people, judgment upon his enemies. Because in the case of discipline, it is actually healing. The Lord wounds in order that he might heal. He's actually recovering. He's actually training. He's actually perfecting holiness in his people. Whereas in the case of his enemies, he's destroying them. Destruction doesn't have remedy built into it. Destruction doesn't have, you know, renovation built into it. Destruction is destruction. In the case of his people, when he's chasing his people, it's temporary. It's passing. The sting of the rod is for a brief period to be followed by great blessing. Whereas in the case of judgment upon his enemies, it's permanent. Not only in this life does he sometimes sweep souls out of this world in his wrath, But then all of his enemies are confined to eternal destruction in hell. No relief, no remedy. In the case of chastening his people, it is backed, fueled, undergirded with love. He only chastens those whom he loves. He loves them so much that he will not allow or permit them to carry on in their reckless, wayward, God-defying, soul-destroying sins. He recovers them. He brings them back to himself. It's love. Whereas in the case of his enemies, it's wrath. Pure justice and wrath. They may have some outward similarities at times in terms of the particular providence God meets out in a given situation, but they have radically different aims and ends. He's describing here, he's saying to his people, you've been under the boot, you've been under these afflictions, but I'm promising the future destruction of your enemies. They who have laid you to the ground and rode over you in the streets are those whom I, the living and true God, Jehovah, is going to arise and scatter them to the wind, to obliterate them and destroy them and wipe them from the face of the earth. Such a God puts things in context. The Lord's chasing is not pleasant in its outward administration. but as sweet as honey in the love that it conveys and the fruit that it produces. Not so for God's enemies. For those who are unconverted, woe be unto those who are heaping up wrath for a day of wrath, who know nothing of the love of a father to a son, but who rather look into the face of a judge and all of the fierceness of his righteousness. How desperately we need to be delivered from that wrath to come. That deliverance must be now. Once the wrath comes, once we are taken out of this world, the door of mercy slams shut and it is bolted. The day of mercy is now, but from hell there are no cries for mercy that are ever answered. When that eternal wrath comes, there is no relief, but now, here, In this world, there is deliverance from that wrath which is yet to come. And it is found in fleeing to the one who appeased wrath and himself, the Lord Jesus, and all of his saving work to atone for the sins of his people in order that he might take all of their sorrows and extinguish them and to replace them with limitless joy. May the Lord bring this home to our own hearts. Let's pray. We'll seek the Lord's face in prayer. O Lord God, Jehovah, the great comforter of thy people, we acknowledge that there is none that is able to comfort as thou art able to comfort. And, O Lord, we are thankful that thou hast determined to comfort, to cause sorrow to flee away. We look, O Lord, ultimately to that day when thou wilt stoop to wipe away every tear from the eyes of thy people permanently, finally. to banish all pain, all sorrow, all sickness. Lord, we rejoice in this glorious, gracious work of redemption. And we pray, give us to lift our heads up and to look to the Lord who is able to grant us all of these things and so much more we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.