Well let's read beginning in verse 14 tonight. We're going to read through chapter 50 verse 3 and try to cover this section this evening. We've had the second servant song, we just read some of it, Christ speaking. And in verse 13 we see them shouting for joy, O heavens, rejoice, O earth. Break forth into joyful shouting, O mountains, for the Lord has comforted His people and will have compassion on His afflicted. What do you suppose Judah's response is to all of that? Verse 14, But Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me. The Lord responds, Can a woman forget her nursing child, and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I won't forget you. Behold, I've inscribed you on the palms of My hands. Your walls are continually before Me. your builders hurry, your destroyers and devastators will depart from you. Lift up your eyes and look around, all of them gather together, they come to you. As I live, declares the Lord, you will surely put on all of them as jewels and bind them on as a bride. For your waste and desolate places and your destroyed land, surely now you will be too cramped for the inhabitants, and those who swallowed you will be far away. The children of whom you are bereaved will yet say in your ears, This place is too cramped for me. Make room for me that I may live here. And then you will say in your heart, Who has begotten these for me, since I have been bereaved of my children, and am barren, an exile, and a wanderer? And who has reared these? Behold, I was left alone. From where did these come? Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up My hand to the nations and set up My standard to the peoples. And they will bring Your sons in their bosom, and Your daughters will be carried on their shoulders. Kings will be Your guardians, and their princesses Your nurses. They will bow down to you with their faces to the earth and lick the dust of your feet, and you will know that I am the LORD. Those who hopefully wait for Me will not be put to shame. Can the prey be taken from the mighty man, or the captives of a tyrant be rescued? Surely, thus says the LORD, even the captives of the mighty man will be taken away, and the prey of the tyrant will be rescued. For I will contend with the one who contends with you, and I will save your sons. I will feed your oppressors with their own flesh, and they will become drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine. And all flesh will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. Thus says the Lord, Where is the certificate of divorce by which I sent your mother away? Or to whom of my creditors did I sell you? Behold, you were sold for your iniquities, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away. Why was there no man when I came? When I called, why was there none to answer? Is my hand so short that it cannot ransom? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, I dry up the sea with my rebuke. I make the rivers a wilderness. Their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering. God doesn't like to let Israel forget just who He is, does He? And what He's done. So after 39 chapters where the backdrop of Isaiah was the military threat posed by Assyria and others, Isaiah prophesied in chapters 40 through 48 primarily with a focus on the exile to Babylon and the deliverance of the people from exile by the decree of the Persian king Cyrus. Beginning in chapter 49, Isaiah has turned his focus to a subject which he had spoken of in passages in chapters 7, 9, 11, 28, 32, and 42. And what is that subject? Christ. And that's the second Scripture sheet you have. Those passages to which I just alluded. Isaiah has spoken of Christ in some detail in all of these places. He's also spoken many prophecies to this point of the eternal righteous kingdom which God will one day establish, which will include people who believe in Him. From where? every nation of the earth. And He's also given us prophecies of the righteous king who will rule in that kingdom. So in chapter 42, and now again in chapter 49, God calls this king by the name of what? My servant. He's the Messiah who would come and save His people from their... What? What do we learn in Matthew? You shall call His name Jesus because He will save His people from their sins. And the overriding message of the prophet in all of this has been to call the people of Judah to return to Him and to trust Him. But they've rejected God. And they've rejected His prophet Isaiah. And though they've been obstinate, God's plan will be fulfilled. So these chapters, 49 through 55, look to the coming and the work of the Messiah, which was alluded to throughout these passages that I've put in the Scripture sheet, but especially in chapter 42. In 42, what's known as the first servant song, Isaiah told us the servant is empowered not with a sword, but with the Spirit. And now we have in this passage, we've read it tonight, this second servant song. He's speaking to the people in Judah, but the message goes to every nation. And we've seen some things about this servant. If you look in chapter 42, in the first seven verses, we see The servant is, he's one who's chosen by God, he's filled with the Spirit, he's humble, he'll introduce the kingdom of God, he'll establish a new covenant between himself and God's people, which will include the Gentiles. The second servant song adds to this revelation. And he speaks in greater detail about the actual mission of this Spirit-filled servant and the resistance he's going to encounter. We're going to start to see that. In both servant songs, chapters 42 and 49, we see these things about the servant. He's a light to the nations. He's a covenant for the people. He will free captives. He will glorify God through his work. Can you think of anybody other than Christ who comes even close to this job description? Do you see the uniqueness, the special nature of Christ? Him and in him alone are all of these things in them and this is the message of hope that God will save his people Israel still suburban and rebellious But God is going to do all these things establish his eternal righteous kingdom and he's going to do it through this servant That's what Jesus did when he came he didn't just die he accomplished all of these things And He essentially is the very embodiment of God's love for us. Do you see that? He's the Lord's voice on earth. That's what Hebrews at the very beginning say, God who was long ago spoken to us through the prophets, now has spoken to us through His Son. And Jesus is going to conquer the two things that were essential for all of our salvation. Sin and death. And the one who brought them into the world. At least led Adam to bring them into the world. Satan. And he's not going to do it with any military type of means. He's going to do it how? With the word of the gospel. By the word of his mouth. This is a staggering thing for people particularly in those kind of times to understand. And he tells us here he was hidden in the quiver of God until the proper time. So this wasn't just something God decided on December 25, 2000 years ago. No. In the fullness of time, he was born of a woman. And in chapter 49, verse 3, we just read this. He refers to the Messiah by the name Israel. He said to me, You are my servant Israel, in whom I will show my glory. Remember, we've seen Israel was called to be God's messenger to the world. And how do we know that's the case? What's the evidence that Israel was called to be God's messenger to the world? All of this. These first 39 books of the Old Testament given through Israel. But Israel abdicated that call. And we saw that when we read Psalm 67 last week. The world was to be called to God and to its salvation through Israel. And Israel failed. But Jesus Christ, who is now called Israel, the true Israel, would fulfill what Israel had been called to. All that was foreshadowed in Israel and all that was promised to and through Israel. Every promise he fulfills. And the purpose of God is unaffected by Israel's failure and it's unaffected by our failures. If we don't witness properly, if our sharing of the gospel, if our evangelism isn't eloquent enough, do you think God is precluded or prohibited or in any way prevented from saving the person that we're sharing that gospel with? So when we go to do it, Do it from the heart. Make sure we talk about Christ's death, about their sin, and everyone's need for a Savior. But God isn't dependent on our talents, on our abilities, on our eloquence to save. And He wasn't dependent upon Israel's right response to His goodness and mercy and love. Those things would shine through Christ. Humility, goodness, mercy, love, all of them. And so the Israel of verse 3 is the Messiah. And I've heard wonderful sermons on Jesus Christ, the true Israel. And that's what he tells us right here. It's Christ who would fulfill what Israel was called to. We don't ever want to lose sight of the fact that that Old Testament, those 39 books, point to Christ. Verse 4. And this is kind of fascinating. We saw it last week. Isaiah revealed something of the frustrations that Jesus would experience on earth. I have toiled in vain, he says. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The Lord's servant was sent to call the nations to the Lord. Look at 49.6. This is one of the most important verses in all of Isaiah. It's certainly one of the most quoted verses. It says, It's too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the preserved ones of Israel. I will also make you a light of the nations, so that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. So the Lord's servant, verse 7, will meet with hatred and rejection, but He will be victorious. And He came in humility and with the Word, not with weapons. So God is not going to let His plan fail is what Isaiah wants them and us to know. And what He has declared must take place. And that's important for us to know and remember as we look to the promises of God. In verse 10, Isaiah showed us pictures of the New Jerusalem that we see in Revelation chapter 7. No more hunger, no more thirst. He will guide them to springs of water. You see, as God fulfilled and kept every promise He made to Israel, especially those promises of sending the Messiah, He leaves these ones that are still there for us. A place of no more hunger and no more thirst. And the Lord Himself guiding us to springs of water. And we must trust in these. Verse 12, another verse that says, the people of God are a people who believe in Him from every nation, tribe, and tongue. And so we saw this song of praise in verse 13. And after hearing this great news about the servant's task that we've just reviewed, to restore God's people, to be a light to the nations, one would expect that joyful response that we see in verse 13. Because God's work is eventually going to lead to the establishment and fulfillment of this glorious eternal kingdom. But Zion says, verse 14, the Lord has forsaken me. The Lord has forgotten me. What do you think about this response? Do you think this is an appropriate response to what Isaiah said? The Lord has forgotten me? The Lord has forsaken me? No. It seems way out of place. What does it indicate about these people who are saying this? What do they tell us about that person and what they think about God? Yeah, they want what they want, but they're not trusting God. These are people who do not believe and trust God. And they don't believe Isaiah. They don't believe the things that Isaiah has prophesied. And it does appear, as we're going to see, that these people were in some distress apparently at that time. But yet the thrust of the message is to provide what? Assurance to God's people. That's what Isaiah is doing. He's giving us words of assurance from God Himself. But Israel didn't see the salvation of the Lord in these words from the servant, Messiah. She thinks God has forgotten her and forsaken her. Isaiah doesn't tell us why this is, and he doesn't give us, by the way, any historical setting here. Some think this is after the exile, but we can't find that in the text itself. But God hasn't forgotten or forsaken His people. And Paul speaks of this more than 700 years later in Romans. And I put this in the Scripture sheet because this issue was still around as Paul is writing about 20 years after Christ had ascended to the throne. And what he says is, Romans 11-2, God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Now here he's talking about ethnic Jews. And he says in 11-5 of Romans, In the same way, then, there has also come to be at the present time, he's after he's spoken about Elijah, there right now is still a remnant of Jews according to God's gracious choice. But in 1123, he says, if they don't continue in their unbelief, they'll be grafted back in. He pictures Israel as the root of this olive tree, but the branches are cut off because of what? Because of unbelief. The Gentiles begin to be grafted in. But he says here, look, he can graft the Jews back in too if they believe. But look at 9-6, next page on the Scripture sheet. They are not all Israel who are descended from Israel. The sons of Jacob, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are not all part of God's Israel. Nor are they all children, because they are Abraham's descendants. Verse 8 of Romans 9. It's not the children of the flesh who are children of God. It isn't lineal descent from Abraham. It's children of the promise. It's those who believe, who are regarded as descendants. In Romans 9, 27, he says, Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, Who is it that's going to be saved? The remnant. It's the remnant that will be saved. Being Jewish didn't carry any more guarantee of being eternally saved than being a Gentile. What provides that guarantee is believing. Believing God and believing in His Christ. So Isaiah is going to tell us and God's going to tell us through Isaiah. He hasn't forgotten them. And Paul repeats this whole thing again. By the way, citing Isaiah quite a few times in these passages. God hasn't forgotten them. They're not all banished, but they must be grafted into this same olive tree of believing people, both Jews and Gentiles. This group of oracles that we see here in Isaiah is set in a context of a situation of Judah, remember, long before the time of Christ. Although, again, He doesn't tell us what the specific time is. But look what we see here. In verse 17, if you look down in 49-17, we see Judah had been oppressed by destroyers and devastators. Verse 19, we see the land is desolate. But the proclamation of salvation that we see in the same section that we're going to be looking at tonight focuses on what God will do for all His people in the distant future. So the relief from whatever their difficulty is lies in eternity. when God establishes His kingdom and when He welcomes people, not only from their city and their nation, but from every nation. So it's kind of a strange thing, this complaint in verse 14 after the praise of verse 13. But there's a reason here for this, at least from Isaiah's perspective, because this will now set the backdrop for what God has to say to them. And he has words of assurance for And they're the same words that he has for us. Zion is desolate after years of emptiness apparently. And it serves as a mirror of the people themselves. The city is broken. The people are broken. And we've seen this before. They're despondent. They're grumbling. They started their grumbling when? When was the first time we saw the sons of Abraham grumbling in mass in the wilderness? We've got the deserted ruins of Zion here, Jerusalem, personified as a woman, destitute of husband or children. And God says she's not deserted. God cannot forget her. This is a promise that holds for every Christian. God never forgets His own. You ever feel like God forgets you? He doesn't. He doesn't. He knows things are not exactly as we would lay them out. He doesn't forget. And if you're believing in Him and trusting in Him, He's not going to forsake you. Here's how he puts it. Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands. Your walls are continually before Me. God hasn't forgotten them. And in verse 17, he begins to speak encouraging words to them. This is like a rebuild now of Zion. Your builders hurry. Your destroyers and devastators will depart from you. Lift up your eyes and look around. All of them gather together. They come to you. As I live, declares the Lord, you will surely put on all of them as jewels. and buying them as on a bride. This passage describes a situation where Judah has been under some oppression, apparently from outsiders. But God assures them that one day the oppressors will depart, and that a city which had become desolate will one day be too cramped for inhabitants. Verse 19, For your waste and desolate places and your destroyed land, surely now you will be too cramped for the inhabitants. and the oppressors will be far away. This is not describing Jerusalem after exile. Anybody know why we know that can't be the case? We talked about it the other night. How many came back from the exile? A small amount is right. And about 45,000 some, I think, Nehemiah tells us. 45,000. So the city wasn't all that crowded. Nehemiah 11 says they had to take steps to get people to relocate in Jerusalem at that time. So he's not talking about that. And what he's really talking about, and we see it in the context of verses 14 through 26, is a much greater and magnificent return of people to a new Jerusalem far in the distant future. This situation hasn't happened yet. in heaven, and in the new Jerusalem especially, she, the people there who are faithful to God, will be surrounded by a new family. Verses 21 through 23, Isaiah uses this imagery of a ruined city, a captive exile, a barren woman, and a worldwide reunion as a contrast to the transformation that is in the fruit of the work of the servant. People and a world brought back to God. We would love to see this in our world, wouldn't we? We want to see everybody just come to Christ. How would that transform just this little town we live in? If everybody, tomorrow, got up and came to Christ, what do you suppose would be the activity How would it change? And how would that manifest itself? This is what lies ahead. It is such a wonderful thing to be able to look forward to. And so here we've got now this crowded place. In verse 21 he says, Then you'll say in your heart, Who's begotten these? Where did they come from? Where'd all these people come from? I've been bereaved of my children. My people were scattered, remember? The ten northern tribes were scattered all over the world already. And I'm barren and exile. I've been a wanderer. And where did these come from who are now part of my family? Behold, he says, I was left alone. This is Israel, Jerusalem. From where did these come? And I believe we see Israel and Jerusalem as symbolic as the mother of the church. Remember, Israel gave birth to whom? Jesus Christ. And to the church. The church is born right out of Israel. It's born in Israel. It's born in Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit is poured out in Jerusalem. Christ saved us just outside Jerusalem. Jesus said to his apostles, you shall be my witnesses. Beginning where? in Jerusalem, and then in all of Judea, and then Samaria, and then to all over the world. Jerusalem is what gave birth to the church. And since there's this loss of children, barrenness, exile, there's a feeling of aloneness there, as Isaiah is writing. So it's natural to ask, wait a minute, how did all of this change? who gave birth to these people, who raised them. Where were they? Where'd they come from? Chapters 2, 11, 14, 19, 42, 43, 45, and 49, among others, All of these passages we see that Isaiah understood that the future inhabitants of Zion would include both Jews and people from every nation of the earth. I'll give you the chapters. You can go read them yourself between now and next week if you'd like. 2, 11, 14, 19, 42, 43, 45, and 49. But in this symbolic picture, we see Zion astonished, surprised at all of these people who inhabit this land, which is a picture, of course, of the New Jerusalem. And the abundance of the grace of God in the New Jerusalem will accomplish far more than anyone could possibly expect, than we can possibly expect, even though we've got all the evidence in front of us. All of these prophecies fulfilled, so many of them. Well let's turn to Isaiah 2.2. This is typical of what Isaiah has been about. Now it will come about in the last days. The mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains and will be raised above the hills, and all the nations will stream to it. All the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. that He may teach us concerning His ways, and that we may walk in His paths. For the law will go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Isaiah is filled with passages like this about the nations coming to the Lord. Multitudes will be gathered into the church. How would you describe our spiritual condition at the time that we are gathered into Christ's church? What did Paul say in Colossians chapter 2? What was our spiritual condition? We were dead in our transgressions. While you were dead, we weren't almost Christians. We weren't halfway Christians. We were dead in our transgressions. And when we were dead in our transgressions, He what? He made you alive. Made us alive. It won't be our works or even our faith that grows the church. But you realize now, we're talking, I believe the number is 40 million around 1900. Around 1950, the surveys, few in these people, 80 million. Anybody remember the number two years ago? 650 million. The number of professing Christians on the earth has multiplied by eight times in the last 68 years. How's that happening? Is that because we're doing such good work? This is because of God's resolve to show mercy to more and more sinners. Both Gentiles and Jews. One body in Christ, as Paul writes. Can you imagine, God gathers us all together and we stand there and start slapping each other on the back. You know, we did a nice job building this church. How silly would that be? I'm glad to see some of you laughing at that idea because that's what that deserves. It's God's work. It's God's work. And so Jerusalem kind of personifies this saying, wait a minute, behold, I was left alone. Where did all these come from? I suspect we'll have a reaction something like that. How did this happen? And we'll know the answer. See this end gathering isn't going to be, it isn't like God got us started and said, okay, now see what you can do. It's not going to be an organic, natural development. It's going to be, it's always an act of God. And it's all over the world. Africa and Asia, China, don't spring up and start multiplying exponentially the number of believers because they're better Christians or better witnesses. It's because God's working there. And by the way, those states and those places where they pray to Hindu gods as they did in the Pennsylvania Senate yesterday morning, certainly should expect God to withhold His blessing if we're going to pray to invented gods. Gods invented by men. This is one of the lessons we see throughout the prophets, including Isaiah. If you're going to go pray to the false Assyrian god or Hindu god or whoever it is, don't expect my blessing. But this ingathering of people who are all coming together on this last great day, it's going on right now. That's all we are is a little part of that. And we come together to thank God for that. That's why we meet. That's why we meet. It's only two days a week, but that's why we do it. To thank Him for that. And to celebrate these things. And to remind one another of the truth of all that God has promised. And that this is all going on right now. Verse 22, God speaks of His calling of whom? All the nations to bring their sons to Zion. Here it is again, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations and set up my standard to the peoples. Nations and Gentiles are the same word. and they will bring your sons in their bosom, and your daughters will be carried on their shoulders. His call goes out to all the nations. By the way, we had some nations mentioned in chapter 11 and we'll have some mentioned in chapter 60. But this prophecy tells us that the nations, Gentiles, will respond positively to this signal God gives by bringing many children of Zion to Zion. Now you've got two possible views here. That this is the sons of many of the Jews who were scattered by God in His judgments against Israel and Judah. That's possible. The other view is to see your sons as the people of faith of the church that Israel gave birth to. But the thing is this, you know, sometimes we got to make sure that we are focused on the important thing here in Scripture. The important thing is to believe God and believe in what He has promised. We don't have to get everything about prophecy right. We have to get Christ right. And He wants us to know that far from neglecting us, God promises to bless us with the spread of the growth of His church. And it will be an enormous number on the day He returns. He portrays Israel as this childless woman who's delightedly astonished at the multitude that now seem to be gathering around her. This is the future of the church. This is what it's going to be. People love to be in the middle of crowds. There can be riots downtown. What happens? Here come people to go see the riot. People love to gather in crowds. Well this is going to be one for the ages. All these multitudes. His people are going to look around and say, how can this be? Where did they all come from? What happened? Kings will be your guardians, he says, and their princesses your nurses. They'll bow down to you with their faces to the earth and lick the dust of your feet. You will know that I am the Lord. Look at these words. Those who hopefully wait for me will not be put to shame. Will not be disappointed. If you just know that, your chances of eternal life are pretty good. Because that opens the door to all the other truths of God. Those who hopefully wait for me. That means to wait with an assurance, a hopeful expectation. But really it's an assurance. It's going to be a miraculous transformation of foreign nations from enemies of God, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, to sympathetic people who will come and be among the people. The figure of speech here isn't used in this domineering sense of bow down before me. It's talking about something that one of you mentioned earlier. It's the servitude, the servility of people who come. When you come into Christ's kingdom, do you kind of come in with your, you know, arms flexed? How does He want to see us come in? Humbly. And that's the picture I think we have here. It's a picture that teaches us a spiritual truth that those who would join among God's people must come in humble submission to God and to His church. The imagery, yes, is this political subservience, but the reality is spiritual humility. And those who put their hope in Him will not be disappointed. And they'll know that I'm the Lord. Once the Jews see these things happening, they will be finally convinced and they'll know that this is God at work. And this is one of the things Paul writes, isn't it, in Romans 11. He does these things, he has done this to provoke the Jews to jealousy. The goal, you know, they say it's the journey sometimes that matters. That's kind of a human thing. That's not the case when it comes to eternity. It's the end that matters. Yeah, the journey's important. What matters is that you at some point come to know this is God's work and that you trust in Him with trustful expectancy. And He provides them and us with further assurance of His salvation. Again, that word hope in Scripture, please see assurance when you see it. In fact, I wish they would scrub that word because we've changed the meaning of it from what it meant when it was used in these original languages. But here's the assurance he gives. He says, "...Can the prey be taken from the mighty man?" Now remember what the question is. Have you forgotten us? Well no, I haven't forgotten you. "...Could the prey be taken from the mighty man, or the captives of a tyrant be rescued? Surely, says the Lord, even the captives of the mighty man will be taken away, and the prey of the tyrant will be rescued. For I will contend with the one who contends with you, and I will save your sons." God is going to break and destroy every evil power that seeks to keep His people from coming to Him. Ultimately, it's sin and death and whatever power Satan has left that will be overcome and abolished forever. This describes God's act of claiming all these individuals who belong to Him. They belong to Him because they are His children. And God says, I'm going to take what belongs to me. And He has the ability to do it. Remember, what's humanly not possible, what's beyond human hope, God just routinely does. So he says, I'll feed your oppressors with their own flesh, and they will become drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine. All flesh will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. See, He tells us throughout. When He uses these words like Mighty One of Jacob, God of Jacob, He's telling us that the God we meet here in the Old Testament, these 39 books, is the true God. He's the Creator. And He's the one who sent Christ. Who we meet more literally in the New Testament, but who is spoken of throughout the Old. Pictures of eating their own flesh of God's enemies. Drinking their own blood. Gives us pictures, right, of the horrors of war. And the reality is those who oppose the Lord and His people are going to experience this destruction. A lot of the writers, when they come to this passage, they recall what happened when Jehoshaphat opposed the Moabites, the Edomites, and the Ammonites. And when Gideon's 300 men surrounded the Midianites in Judges chapter 7. Anybody remember what happened in those two places? Here we are at war. The people of God against the surrounding nations. In both cases, God caused the enemy armies to turn on one another. And so some of the writers cite those instances as to what will happen here in the end. The victory of Christ will be so glorious that all flesh will admit and see that God has stepped in. He's going to step into history and affect this. Once these people experience God's grace, they will know that I am God, he says. And so these eschatological or end times confessions of faith reveal the transformed nature of everything when God comes again. And He will bring a swift and decisive end to every force of evil. It is going to be gone. The things that make you sick, the things that make you sad, the things that give you physical pain, things that oppress you, they're all going to be gone. Gone. You won't be hungry. You won't be thirsty. God will fill these things. Isaiah is telling them and he's telling us that these things should cause us to be persuaded that even though some days may be difficult, God will never forsake us. And that all of these things he's promised lie ahead, a righteous kingdom where everybody helps each other. I don't know exactly what it's like any more than anybody else does. I know that it will be just. That there won't be any sin. That we'll all be conformed to be like Christ. Now these last three verses, which are the first three of chapter 50, seem to be a third response to this question. Has God forsaken us? Has God forgotten us? Well look what he says. He says, where's the certificate of divorce? I didn't send you a certificate of divorce. I didn't sell you into slavery for owing debts. It was because of your transgressions. Transgressions of your mother. She was sent away. God's saying to them. Now here's what He's saying to these people of Judah. I did not divorce you. I haven't ended things. I didn't give you a certificate of divorce. That's the way of doing it. I put, I think, a couple of passages from the Old Testament, Deuteronomy and Jeremiah, in your Scripture sheet. Practice of handing over a written document. And that's how you divorce someone. God says, I didn't sell you into slavery. I haven't forgotten a single word of the promises I have made. You were sent into exile as a judgment for your own sins against Me. But I did not at that time pronounce a final judgment against you. It's not over. Now for the ten northern tribes it was. Jeremiah 3.8, I saw all the adulteries of faithless Israel. I had her sent away, and I gave her a writ of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, and she went and was a harlot also. But he didn't give her, Judah, the certificate of divorce. She was living in a state of separation from God, but the blame lay with her. That was her decision at that point, not God's. God wants them and He wants us to think. You ever feel abandoned? Ever feel God forgot about you? He hasn't. They've been disciplined. And we should probably consider, usually when we get to a point where we're wondering if God has forgotten us, that maybe He's disciplining us. Maybe He wants us to learn something. But He hasn't abandoned us. He had some more questions for them though. And he wanted them to reflect on the real reason for their trials and tribulations. And here's what he says, the last two verses. Why was there no man when I came? When I called, why was there none to answer? Is my hand so short that it cannot ransom? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, I dry up the sea with my rebuke. I make the rivers a wilderness. Their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering. This is the question we don't want him to have to be asking us. Where were you when I came to you? Why didn't you answer? Did you think I could not protect you? Did you think I was powerless to do so? Did you think I wouldn't hear you? Look, for anyone for whom this is the case, it's evident they don't really know much about the true nature of God. They had still not learned that God is their Redeemer, their Savior. And he says, look, I've got the power to just speak a word of rebuke and the sea will dry up. The fish will die in the rivers. I can darken the heavens. I can cover them with sackcloth. God says flat out that He has the power to do anything He chooses to do. I hope we believe that. He doesn't lack the ability to hear His people or to save them. So what was the truth? What was the cause of their distress? The truth is they were blinded by sin and by their unbelief. It seems, and we've seen this, that in many instances they actually trusted more in what? Two things. Themselves and imaginary gods. Yeah. They trusted in imaginary gods, wicked empires, their own strength, rather than God. That's how we manifest our belief, by trusting in Him in trials and not other things. They turned away from Him. He hadn't forsaken and forgotten them. They had forsaken and forgotten Him. So Raymond Ortlund says Luther was right. The root behind all manifestations of sin is unbelief. Our own voluntary darkness concerning God, ourselves, His relationship to the fallen world, and His redemptive purposes. Ortland continues, and that was Luther. But the faith that God wants to find in us is a childlike. It's uncomplicated by our calculating grudges against God. Isaiah has shown us that we are chosen to be children in God's family, loved beyond calculation. And he asks, if God is our Father, isn't the greatness of His love for our faith to become simple. Jonathan Edwards, I very often think with sweetness and longings and pantings of soul of being a little child taking hold of Christ to be led by Him through the wilderness of this world. So Ortlund says if Isaiah's vision of God is true, and it is, why do we cling to our resentments and anger? Isn't this a way of passing the buck and excusing our own mediocrity? God has given His servant to us as a light to the nations. As a covenant and a personal fulfillment of His promises to us. His Son. That's what He is. And you know what? He loves us more than we love ourselves. I hope I'm communicating what God is saying to us here. And I hope that you hear it. Because the blessings that He has poured out on us are really incalculable. And they're really indescribable because we can only imagine what lays out there. And what He has got in store for those who love Him. Father, we give thanks. Give thanks that You've called us to be Your children. That You've opened our eyes and our hearts to the knowledge of You and Your truth. We thank You for Your servant, the Savior. Our kinsman, Redeemer. We thank You, Lord, for the prophets You've sent us. We thank You, Lord, that Your church, as You had promised, went forth from Jerusalem into the world. And Lord, we thank You that we know You'll return to gather us together into the new Jerusalem for all eternity. And a blessed and glorious eternity with You. In Christ's name, Amen. Amen.