Seeking for the help of the Lord, I would draw your prayerful attention to the passage we read, Isaiah 41, and reading from our text, verse 17. When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not, forsake them. Isaiah 41 and verse 17, a poor, a needy people not forsaken.

The Word of God often uses illustrations, illustrations that are natural ones. Here it is a picture of a person, people that are poor. And our mind goes naturally to those that do not have much money, do not have anything of this world's goods, and they are needy, they need things, and here is specifically that they need water, and there is none, and they fail for thirst. But we look past that which is natural, though many of the Lord's dear people literally are poor, and do lack those basic necessities of life, but the Lord does supply the needs of his people naturally, but especially this is speaking in a spiritual sense.

The things that are set forth in Isaiah, really it is the gospel. It's pointing to Christ, and it's pointing to the people of the Lord. The whole work of the Gospel is to bring a people that are far off near, a people that have nothing to have everything in Christ, a people that shall be with the Lord forever and ever.

But here below, as this word is proclaimed, those people They feel so unworthy, they feel so much sin, so much poverty, that they need the instructions, they need the encouragement of the Word of God, of the Gospel, to assure them, to draw them, to comfort them and help them. This is one of the work of the ministry, to comfort the people of God. to address the needs of those whose eyes are opened, whose hearts feel their sinnership and their need.

And I hope it will be so this morning as we look at this verse here. When the poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them. I the God of Israel will not forsake them. So on to look, three points. Firstly, a poor and needy people who is being described here. And then secondly, a people the Lord will hear. I, the Lord, will hear them. And then lastly, a people God will not forsake. I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. In the Word of God, we do not have people that are named.

Yes, there are many names, there are many chapters full of names, but as concerning the Gospel, they are described by character, by how they feel, by what God has made them by grace, rather than by a name. And we need to remember this and to be taking notice of how God's people are described in the Word of God. If we are to be blessed and we are to know that the promises and blessings are to us, then in some way we are to recognise our own image, looking at the Word as it is a mirror and recognising that this is us. Maybe we might see it in one of the characters, one of the Lord's people, and they are given a name, perhaps David, and through David's writings we read of how he feels and what he goes through. and we can recognise that the Lord has made us to be like him. We find a union, a fellowship with him and it may be others, with a Ruth or a Rahab or some of the others in scripture.

But here the description is those that are poor and those that are needy. When our Lord spoke on the Sermon on the Mount, he pronounced a blessing upon those that were poor in spirit. In Matthew 5 verse 3, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So that is spiritually poor.

Going back to what I said about natural poverty, if we had a debt that we owed and it was demanded of us that we pay that debt, but we went to our bank and we had no money in it, we did not have anything to pay, it would illustrate to us what the meaning of poor was. something that we needed but did not have.

And especially in a spiritual way, there is many things, everything really, that we need that we do not have. We have nothing to recommend us to God whatsoever. We are poor of any spiritual good at all, no spiritual life, no spiritual graces, no righteousness at all of our own. We have but little faith. If we do feel our poverty, we've got some faith and little grace. We are poor in our knowledge, our understanding, in our feelings. We lack those things that are needed. for the people of God to believe, to walk with the Lord and with his people.

One sense of our poverty will make us humble and low, taking away our pride, giving us a sense of our sinnership and a lack of all that God could look upon us and see any beauty or loveliness in us. By nature, we do not feel our poverty. We are poor, but we do not feel it. It is when we have brought before us what is required by the holy law of God, that then we begin to feel our poverty.

The Apostle Paul, a Pharisee, when he was a Pharisee, he did not fear his poverty, just like the Pharisee in prayer that our Lord spoke of. He could speak of all his good works. very different than the publican. We sang in our first hymn of the mercy of God, and the publican, beating upon his breast, couldn't say anything in his favour, anything good, anything that he had or had done to recommend himself to God, but just beat upon his breast, God be merciful to me, a sinner. The sense of sinnership in one, the sense of poverty and need in one, but not in the other.

And this is mirrored right through the Word of God. All the time we view just our own selves in the light of natural light. We think that we've got sufficient and countless millions think that, well, just to do a little charity work and some good feelings or some good works, we'll recommend them to God.

But when God brings his holy law, the law as a schoolmaster under Christ, when he brings us to that plumber, you know, we could have, as a builder perhaps, we might have built a wall. I think, well, that's a nice wall. And then someone comes with a spirit level or a plumb line and puts it next to it, and we find that it's not straight at all, it's leaning. And it's only when you put something that is really straight that then you see the crookedness of it.

And it's in this way that God brings his people to feel their luck. One day, every one of us, shall stand before Almighty God. Every one of us shall be in His presence, in His holiness, and see the absolute perfections that He is and what He requires of man.

And then everyone shall feel their lack. For the mercy is that here below God will bring a people to His holy law to see a perfection that they do not have, to see that which they need but do not have, and to make them to feel their poverty. And so this is not just a poor people, but is poor and needy. and they're seeking. They're seeking what they do not have. May we be helped to see and to pray that the Lord would put us into the characters of those that blessings are joined with.

And I would say this, it's not a pleasant thing to feel spiritually poor. There is a need for joining with this, promises, because when we feel in that way, we think, how can ever God look upon us? We are not like God's people. We do not have what they seem to have. And we feel our emptiness, our distance from the Lord. We feel that before God's holy eye, we have nothing at all to recommend us to him no reason why he should look towards us.

If this is your case this morning, if this is how you feel, how you groan from day to day, when you go about your prayers and you feel your poor prayers, when something comes up, maybe a question concerning the Word of God, and you feel what little I know of the Word of God, How little I understand of the doctrines of grace. How little I know, even of my own heart, I'm surprised again and again by what is found there. And you feel your wretchedness, your sinnership. Is that the case? Is that real with you? Not just learned, but felt day by day.

And it's heightened, especially when we come before God. When we come in prayer, when we come to the Word of God, when we come into the house of God, when we come with the Lord's people, that's when it's heightened. I often think of Hannah in 1 Samuel chapter 1, and she couldn't have children, she hadn't got children, but her husband's other wife, he had two wives, she did have children, a lot of children. Now it would have been a running sore all the time, but it was heightened when they went up yearly to the house of God. When Elkanah, her husband, then he gave gifts to all his children. And it was heightened then that she did not have children to bring up to the house of God. And in the end, she comes a time when she crying, unto the Lord and praying unto the Lord in the temple. And the Lord does hear and does answer.

But the point I'm making is this spiritual poverty is highlighted by times when we are engaged in spiritual activity, when we seek to do What we cannot do is like the man that owes money. We might go about his life and he feels, well, I'm not too poor. I'm getting on all right. But then the man comes up and says, look, you owe us 100 pounds. Where is the money? And then suddenly his poverty is right brought before his face. He hasn't got any. And so there are times you might think, well, I'm so inconsistent. I'm so changeable. One time I'm concerned, and the other time I'm not. One time I feel my poverty, and then not.

But if you use that illustration, it is when we come before God, it's when we come in a spiritual way, seeking to worship Him, seeking to come into His presence, that is when we keenly feel our poverty and our lack, that is when we feel ashamed. And so here is a people, a poor and needy people, and if this is a description of you, then I want to go to our next point, a people the Lord will hear.

Our text says, when the poor and needy seek water and there's none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I, the Lord, will hear them. Of course, what they have been longing and looking for, we think of the woman at the well of Samaria, was living waters, those streams that flow forth from Calvary, half toward the former sea, half toward the hinder sea, half to the Jew, half to the Gentile, those living waters of life. Our Lord said, if thou knewest the gift of God, and who it says unto thee, give to drink, thou wouldst ask of him, and he would have given thee living water. And it is this life, giving waters of the gospel, the grace of God, that those are needy, that they seek after. Here it says, a people that God will hear, I the Lord will hear them.

And the first thing, of course, which is obvious here, is that he will hear them because they are crying. There are countless millions on this earth, the Lord is not hearing them because they're not praying. And by nature, we don't pray, we don't call upon the Lord, we don't ask. But just the very statement here, I the Lord will hear them, as if the Lord would say, they are beginning to cry and to pray, and therefore I hear them. In Song of Solomon, let me hear thy voice. The Lord uses means and ways so that his people cry and the Lord hears, and he delights to hear them cries. A good thing to remember, dear friends, however poor our prayers are, may be described as cries the Lord delights to hear. Not the eloquent prayers of the Pharisee, but of those that are poor.

But then, not only will he hear it, but hear it in the sense that he will help them. I will open, we read in verse 18, rivers in high places. He says, fountains in the midst of the valleys, I will make the wilderness a pool of water and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness and all the trees that he will plant. And the Lord, when he hears his people, the implication is this, that he doesn't just hear, and they cry and he takes no notice but that he does actually act and does that which they are crying unto him for.

There's some beautiful passages in the Word of God that speak to this end of such an assurance and I want to look at a few of them and beginning with the prophet here, Isaiah. In Isaiah 66 we read, Thus saith the Lord, is from verse 1, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house that ye build me? Where is the place of my rest? For all those things have mine hand made, and all those things have been saith the Lord.

To this man will I look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my word. What an encouragement for us to be told from the Lord that the Lord will look upon such a one. If we go back to the book of Psalms, and Psalm 68, then we have this word in verses 9 and 10.

Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain, whereby thou didst confirm thine inheritance when it was weary. Thy congregation hath dwelt therein. Thou, O God, hast prepared of thy goodness for the poor. The Lord gave the word, great was the company of those that published it. What a picture to think of the Lord preparing for those spiritually poor, a provision for them. and it is through the Word of God. We may say in these Gospel times it's through the preaching of the Gospel, it is through the Word that is brought to them. And in that provision there is a confirmation, that is confirmed thine inheritance.

The Lord uses the poverty of his people that they feel and the Lord satisfying that with his goodness, his riches, His righteousness, His grace, the fullness that is with Him, every blessing comes to us through Jesus' precious blood. And He uses that giving as a confirmation of who His people are, who are His inheritance, who have been given to Him through His death, and those that are His. by purchase.

Then we have, going on into the psalm, Psalm 72. Psalm 72 verses 12 and 13. For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth, the poor also, and him that hath no helper he shall spare the poor and needy, he shall save the souls of the needy, he shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence, and precious shall their blood be in his sight. These are sweet encouragements to cry unto the Lord when we feel our poverty, When we feel that there's no help in self, when we feel there's no help from man, but we have a God to go to, one to cry unto. We have Psalm 102 as well. Psalm 102, verses 16 and 17.

When the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory. What a picture. The Lord is building up Zion. He's building up the church of God. And his glory shall appear. How shall his glory appear? And how shall he build up Zion? He will regard the prayer of the destitute and not despise their prayer. This shall be written for the generation to come and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord.

And later on, you hear, what do you do even to the prisoner? To hear the groaning of the prisoner, to lose those that are appointed to death. These are precious words that are spoken, a real encouragement to those that feel their poverty is not, those that feel themselves rich and godly and upright and worthy of the Lord's blessings and able to speak well of themselves. These are those that, like the publican, beat upon their breasts, that feel their poverty. This is a real instruction to us, encouragement to us, to pray. You say, I can't pray. Well, groan. And it says here, cry, to cry unto the Lord. where we feel that need, that need of life. We feel that thirst for the things of God.

The thirst is one of the most strongest feelings that we can have. We often don't have it in this land because we have such a supply of water. But those times that I have felt it, and especially at times over in Australia, it is very, very strong. Very strong feeling. You can't not feel it. It is there.

A craving, a longing. And it's a blessing if the Lord has made us to have that craving and longing after the Lord, after life. And yet the strange thing is, Now some will say, well, if only I had that longing. One sense of the poverty is to feel, well, I don't long enough. I don't feel enough. As if that would then rule us out from this.

There's no spiritual strength or sense that we could have, that we would say, well, we have now got the qualities that God will bless us. We're now in a position where he will, and I feel comfortable and good that that is so. In all our seeking, in all our feeling, we will feel poor and needy. And it's only as the Lord satisfies and the Lord blesses And the Lord shows his word, shows himself, gives us those spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, blesses his word to us, open our eyes, feeds us with the bread of heaven, sent down from heaven, the words that I speak unto thee, they are spirit and they are life, giving us that grace that we need. Giving us His righteousness, making us to clearly see that we are clothed in His righteousness, not our own. Giving us to know that the life that we have is bound up with His and not in ourselves. Without me, you cannot do nothing, because I live, you shall live also. To feel that all that we have It comes forth from the Lord, he opens his hand, he satisfies the desire of every living thing.

The crumbs that fall from the master's table, to have those, to have the cleaning amongst the sheaves, to have a handful of peppers. You know what a picture there of Ruth the Marlbite is, poor, nothing. The only way they could live was going out after the reapers and gleaning. And that's how they lived. But Boaz took notice of her, commanded his reapers to let fall those handfuls of peppers.

This is a picture of the Lord, our great heavenly Boaz, feeding his people, feeding his gleaners. satisfying their want, bringing them to the gospel table and giving them his word. My words were found and I did eat them. They were to the joy, rejoicing of my soul. The Lord will hear. What an encouragement. When we come to the throne of grace, when we come to the house of God, when we come to the word of God, that we shall not seek in vain, we shall not hear in vain, but the Lord will open our ear and the Lord will satisfy our soul through his word. I want to look lastly at a people that God will not forsake. A people that God will not forsake.

We read of a complaint, a few chapters on, of Zion in Isaiah 49. And Zion says this in verse 14. And it's in answer to what the Lord has said in verse 13, sing, O heavens, and be joyful, O earth. Break forth into singing, O mountains, for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted.

There's a promise, there's a blessing there, and you may have thought in our second point, the Lord will hear, but you say, but this is not what I see, this is not what I look, and this is not what I feel. And this is what was said in Isaiah 49. But the Lord answered Zion, well Zion said this, but Zion said, the Lord hath forsaken me and my Lord hath forgotten me. So there's the Lord saying it, he's gonna bless and he's gonna favour the people, but Zion is countering that with saying, no, the Lord has forsaken me.

Maybe that's you. You hear the blessings, you hear what the Lord will do, you hear the promises, and you look at yourself and you say, yes, but the Lord's forsaken me. These are not for me. These are not blessings for me. But the Lord then answers, can a woman forget her sucking child, that 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 make thee waste shall go forth of thee.

And the Lord assures his people that he has not forsaken them. In Isaiah chapter 61, We have that which our Lord began his ministry with. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. You can read the account of that in Luke 4, but these are the words. Because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek, he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn, to appoint unto them that morn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. And the work of the Lord is that work. This is the gospel of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, not forsaking his people, but being with his people.

The Apostle Paul had to address this with Israel of old in Romans chapter 11, And verse two, we read this question. Well, if we read from verse one, I say then, hath God cast away his people? God forbid, for I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. He uses himself as an example.

He was called, he was quickened, he was of Israel. the seed of Abraham, he had not been cast away. And then he says, God had not cast away his people which he foreknew. What ye not, what the scripture saith of Elias, that's Elijah, how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets and digged down thine altars, and I am left alone, they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him?

I have reserved to myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then, at this present time also, There is a remnant according to the election of grace. So Paul is saying of God's ancient people, even though they had rejected Christ, even though as a nation, as it were, they have been rejected and in darkness even to this day, yet amongst them there are those that are truly saved and those that believe, and later on we believe that there shall be, when the fullness of most of the Gentiles have been brought in, that then there shall be an acknowledgment amongst the Jews, and a grafting them back in again, and a real marked turn unto the Lord.

The Lord does not forsake his people. He still abides with them. when we think of what the Lord has done for his people. He has chosen them from eternity. He has been made like unto them, a near kinsman. He has come, he has sojourned on this earth, wrought a righteousness for them, suffered for them, shed his blood for them, His whole honour, His glory is at stake, that He might save that people and bring them safe to glory. Father, I will that they whom Thou hast given me be with me where I am.

How can the Lord forsake the work of His own hands? How can He disown them? How can He not continue that work which He has begun? He began it when they did not even feel their need. And when He began, they then began to feel their need. Will He then, now that they feel their need, forsake them? Of course not. He shall hear them. I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. And then we are told of those things that he will do, opening up those rivers, supplying their need.

May we be helped to continue to cry and to pray, to not be discouraged by our poverty and our need, but rather encouraged to further press our case. Seek of his fullness and his grace. Use even our poverty as an argument with God, as a reason why we need him to appear for us and come in for us and to deliver us. That he fill us with his life and his good pleasure and that we might be then to his honour and glory as Paul says, what I am. I am by the grace of God.

We have nothing ourselves. We have everything in Christ. As a branch in the vine, without being united to that vine, has nothing. But when it's united, then it draws everything from the vine. May we be united with Christ, and no feeling poor and needy, deriving life and sap and strength and everything from him. that He will be inquired of, that He do it for us. He will have us come and press our case. And this verse, this word this morning is an encouragement for us to do that, to come just as we are in all our poverty and all our need and to cry unto Him. May the Lord bless us with these cries and with these answers that we might receive of His fullness, grace and blessing. Amen.