Isaiah 63 verse 17 That what God's people see as
the remedy Really for every problem for
this crying out that's clearly being done They're crying out
to the Lord and here's the here's what will solve everything return
For the Lord to come to us If we've sinned It's because the
Lord Let us go for a little while
That's what they said in verse 17 Oh Lord, why hast thou made
us to err from thy ways? He didn't force us to sin. That's
what we do naturally But they're saying Lord you we need you to
keep us From our own evil if we're discouraged it's because
he's hid our face from us. We see that language also here
Not that it's his fault it's not that we're blaming God we
just know that He has every reason to forsake us all together. He
doesn't do that. He hasn't done that. But he does
give us a taste now and then of what it would be like without
him. And that's good for us. It's not good what we see when
we're, when he does that, we see that without him, it wouldn't
be good for us. But it's good for us for him
to show us. If it wasn't, he wouldn't do
it. But we don't like not seeing
him, not feeling his presence, not having the comfort of the
Lord in our hearts. And so what is our prayer? All
of that in that last chapter is leading up to this. What is
our prayer? That's our cry, Lord, return, come. We need you. Without
you, we're nothing. Without you, we'll leave you
and we'll be, we'll see nothing good. We'll be discouraged And
downhearted and brokenhearted and so here's our prayer. Oh
that thou wouldest rend the heavens That thou wouldest come down
Same cry really return to us come Where we are That you would
come down that the mountains might flow down At that presence it's a cry and
again you always have to look at a the essence of what this
is, that God would rend the mountain. We need God to do something we
can't do. He's not talking about physically
rending mountains. What help would that be? That'd
be a great display of God's power if he broke a bunch of mountains
into pieces, but that's not what we need for him to do. What he's
crying for here, and remember when you're praying, to pray
like this, that you come with an attitude of dependency on him. If any
mountains are gonna get ran, it ain't gonna be me doing it,
how about you? So we need him to do it. That's what it's saying.
It's a spiritual attitude of dependency on him, that you would
come down and rend these mountains. That you would come down and
rend the heavens and dissolve the mountains as you... And here's the thing, here's
what's pictured in this. You could just as soon rent a
mountain or the heavens as do anything about your situation
or your circumstances. You think you have control over
it, but you don't. You might as well try to tear
a mountain in two as to do anything without God. So you see where
this puts us in our attitude of prayer. Did he not say without me, you
can do nothing? I don't see any way to misunderstand
that. I don't see any other way to
understand that than just the simple truth of it. Without me,
you can do nothing. And so we pray knowing that.
We think there are things that we can control. We pray for things
that we think are beyond our control, and then other things,
we've got that part. We don't. We don't. We've got nothing. We feel like
we don't need God for most aspects of our lives. We're wrong. Mountains are immovable. That's
what you think of when you think of a mountain. And that's why we pray, because
mountains can't be moved. And so we pray. With men, it's
impossible, but with God, it's nothing. I need God to save me. So you
know what my prayer is? Lord, save me. That's what Simon
prayed. I need more faith. So what are
you going to say? Lord, increase my faith. The
disciples prayed that. Prayer is resignation. It's confession
of inability. It's confession of our dependence
upon him. So you see what he's saying.
Oh, that you would come down rend the heavens and cause the
mountains to flow down. I need his mercy. So what do
I pray? God be merciful to me. You don't
have to get eloquent. Prayer is a simple and beautiful
cry to God. I need for my loved ones to be
saved. And so what do I do? People that
I love, I'd love to see them be saved. You'd think it was
silly if I told you some of the people that I wish would know
God. I really do. They're not really
in my life at all, but I know who they are and I pray for them. Here's what this woman of Canaan,
she came out of the coast where the Lord was traveling. and cried unto him, saying, Have
mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David, my daughter. Have mercy
on me, my daughter, is grievously beckoned,
my son, my husband, my wife, my friend. Have mercy on me and do something
for them. Grievously vexed with a devil. All of these are actual prayers
from the scripture. You need the Lord to save you?
Then pray, Lord, save me. Lord, increase our faith. Simple
to the point and utterly resigned to our own inability. But it's
something else, too. It's not just a acknowledgement
of our inability, but it's an expression an acknowledgement,
a hoping and trusting in his ability. I can't run the heavens or melt
mountains, but that's no big deal for God. And I acknowledge
that when I say, Lord, oh, that you would do that. I'm saying
you can do that. Something that's impossible for
me, Lord, if you will, you can cure
the incurable. If you want to, that's how we
pray too, right? Confessing our inability, but
acknowledging and praising him in his power. Think about that. I thought about
this verse. When we pray, don't pray small. Rending the heavens and melting
the mountains, that's kind of a big thing, isn't it? Don't
pray small, because you're not praying to a small God. Listen
to what Paul wrote in Ephesians 3, 20. Now unto him that is able
to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. Unto him be glory. You can't even think of anything
that he can't do. And unto him be glory in the
church. That's who cries to him, this
world doesn't. By Jesus Christ throughout all
ages, world without end. May we, as long as the Lord leaves
us here and we gather in his name, May we glorify him for
that, for his power to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. Look at verse two back in our
text. As when the melting fire burneth,
the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known
to thine adversaries. that the nations may tremble
at thy presence. That the nations, that to make
thy name known to thine, to your enemies. Prayer acknowledges
a commonality of purpose and desire. We want God's adversaries
to know who he is, because His adversaries are our adversaries.
But we don't say, Lord, that our adversaries might know. It's
saying the same thing, but we enter into a commonality of purpose.
We know God's enemies are not gonna stand before Him, and so
we say it that way. It's because they're His enemies.
That's really the problem, isn't it? If they weren't His enemies,
then they wouldn't be our enemies. But he didn't say our adversary. The world hates us because of
him. John 15, 19. If you were of the
world, the world would love his own. But because you are not
of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore
the world hates you. It's because of him and what
he did for us. Christ is the issue. And so that's
the way we pray. You're enemies, you're enemies.
And you see what a beautiful position that puts us in for
prayer. Lord, just make your presence
known to your enemies. He's going to do that. We know
he's going to do that and we desire that. And when we say
that, that takes care of our enemies too. And of course, there
are two ways that God can make his presence known to his enemies.
Think about this. He can do it the way he did to
Pharaoh. I'd say God made his presence
known to Pharaoh, wouldn't you? No question about that. He made
his name known unto Pharaoh, or he can do it
the way he did to Saul of Tarsus, a great enemy of the Lord in
the New Testament, an enemy of God's people. When the Lord made
his presence known to his enemy, It eliminated one of the great
enemies of his people at the time. It's in the book of Acts. Either way, it's fine with us.
Either way, God wants to make his presence, his name known,
who he is, make himself known to his enemies. If God takes
down a Pharaoh, we're going to praise him for that, aren't we? We'll rejoice, won't we? We'll
worship him. But if he stops a saw of Tarsus on the road to
hell, how much more even would we rejoice to see him do that
and worship him? As the fire causes the water
to boil, it says there in that verse, it's just simple cause
and effected. If God exerts his power, To get
something done, it gets done. Cause and effect. We need God
to do something so that the desired effect is realized. And that's just
what he's saying there. In verse three, when thou didst
terrible things, past tense now, how many times
have we seen that? When the people of God are praying
for the Lord to do something, they talk about what he did.
When thou didst terrible things, which we look not for, thou camest
down, the mountains flowed down at that, you've done that before.
You've melted the mountains before. And again, not physical mountains.
He's talking spiritual things here. When thou didst terrible
things, we think of the word terrible as something bad, but
that's not what this is here. It means to inspire fear or reverence. It really pretty much means awesome. We use that word so commonly
now that it doesn't really mean a whole lot. But to inspire awe,
to inspire reverence, that's what, when the Lord does something,
it gets people's attention. Parting of the Red Sea is mentioned
so many times by these Old Testament saints. Terrible things. They
weren't looking for that to happen, were they? When they saw the
Red Sea there and the Egyptian army on their heels, they said,
we're done for. They didn't have any idea. Not
only can't we do anything to save ourselves, we couldn't even
figure out a way to do it if it wasn't for God. If he didn't
reveal the gospel to us, we never would come up with that, would
we? things that we look not for. They didn't never, here we are,
there's the Red Sea and there's the Egyptians and we're in the
middle. They weren't looking for God
to fold back the Red Sea like the black curtains, but he did. And also when a sinner is saved,
there's no greater miracle than that, a sinner. being justified before God. Remember now, that's really the
most awe-inspiring. You say, well, for God to inspire
awe and fear, you know. if he would come in judgment
and kill a bunch of people. Well, he does that, too. And
that would inspire awe in her. But you know what the scripture
says? Listen to this. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark
iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness
with thee that thou mayest be feared. The most awesome thing
about God is that he would have mercy on a sinner, that he would
forgive my sins. Oh, my. Nothing inspires awe
and reverence more than the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
all of the accomplishment, all of the victory of his cross. And think about this now, if
God has done that, if God has done that, and that's what he's
saying here, look what you've done. We know you're able. You can make me clean if you
want to. We know that you can melt the mountains if you want
to do that. And what could we not hope for? You see the past
tense there, when thou didst terrible things that we look
not for. And so think about that when
you're praying. Look at what God has done for you already. Nothing's gonna give you more
hope than that. Because think about this. He that spared not
his own son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not
with him also freely give us all things? What are you gonna
pray for that's too much if he gave you his son? So think about the past and talk
about that and mention that to God. Look what you've done for
me. If he spared not his own son
for us, what are you afraid to ask for tonight? What is beyond hope? What's too
big now? Things we looked not for. We don't really even know how
to pray, do we? We don't even know what to pray
for. And I don't mean that our prayers are futile, that there's
no use praying because you don't know what to pray, I'm not saying
that. But we're often just, we don't know what we need, we don't
know when we need it, we don't know why, we don't know anything. What we maybe thought would be
too good to ever be true, God may just do it without us even
asking for it. Does that ever happen to you? There's things
I wouldn't even dare pray for and God just did it anyway. Sometimes we ask for what we
want and he gives us what we need. That's a whole lot better than
getting everything you want, isn't it? That's a whole lot
better. Salvation by grace. through faith in Christ and his
precious blood is something we never could have looked for.
Never in a million years could we have looked for that, for
God to come down here and become us. A terrible, awesome thing that
we look not for. If God hadn't revealed it to
us, we never would have known anything about it. Now, if he does reveal it, then
we do look for it, don't we? The Simeon looked for the consolation
of Israel. You know why? Because God told
him, you're not going to die until you see him. And then he
saw him and he said, Lord, I am ready to die. There's a lot in
that, isn't there? Once you've seen him, you're
kind of ready, aren't you? I enjoy life, but I'm ready too. And he looked, he saw, he did
look for the Lord because the Lord revealed him before he ever
even saw him. And then verse four, back in
our text, for since the beginning of the world, men have not heard
nor perceived by the ear. Neither hath the eye seen, O
God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth
for him. Now you know that Paul quotes
this verse in the New Testament. I hath not seen nor ear heard,
neither hath it entered into the heart of man the things that
God hath prepared for him that loved him, that love him. But
look at that word for, for since the beginning of the world, that
refers back to what was talked about before, which is what God
has done for us already, what he's done for. He's already accomplished
what we're praying for, the impossible. So considering that, because
of that, our minds and hearts are drawn to think of what he's
promised to do. You see that? You did things
that we didn't look for. So wonderful, terrible, awe-inspiring
things. And now we look to his promises,
I have not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the
heart of man the things that the Lord has promised to those
that love him. But Paul said, but he's revealed
them to us. We didn't look for it, but he
showed it to us anyway. And so considering the past and
what God has done, we look to the promises that he's prepared
to bestow upon us in the future, which And this is important,
it's just a continuation or an experience of what he's already
done. When he spared not his own son for us, the things that
he hath prepared for us are a result of what he's already done for
us. Everything pointed forward to
the cross. And now everything points back
to the cross. And what I simply mean by that
is this, what God has prepared for us is what Christ purchased
for us with his precious blood. And
so you see past, and then we don't even know. It hasn't entered
into our hearts. It's beyond imagination, but
God reveals it. Paul taught that. Look at verse
five. in our text. Thou meetest him
that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness. Those that remember thee in thy
ways, behold thou art wroth, for we have sinned. In those
is continuance, and we shall be saved. But we are all as an
unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all
do fade as a leaf. And our iniquities, like the
wind, have taken us away "'And there's none that calleth upon
thy name, "'that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee,
"'for thou hast hid thy face from us "'and has consumed us
because of our iniquities.'" Now think about, there's a lot
in that, but I wanted to kind of look at it together because
it's a natural separate aspect of this prayer. So think about
this though first. Prayer, as we saw, acknowledges
inability. Lord, we need you to do things
we can't even think about doing. If mountains are going to be
moved, we're not going to move. You're going to have to come
down here and move them. But also prayer always acknowledges
not only inability, but undeserving. We need you to do what we can't
do for ourselves and what we don't deserve for you to do for
us. That's always part of prayer too, isn't it? We can't do it. We need you to do it, but you
ought not do it. You ought to put us in hell,
but we need you to do it. That's it now. We not only can't
do what we need done, but we don't deserve it to be done for
us. We've sinned. You see that? We've
sinned. Our iniquities like the wind
have taken us away. If you don't come down, if you
stay right where you are, and leave us to ourselves, you'll
be doing the right thing. You have every reason to leave
us in our sin, but we pray, Lord, calm down, calm down, and have
mercy on us. Now, the first phrase in verse
five, You see how kind of mixed up this part of this chapter
was? First it's talking about one
second, the Lord receiving and meeting with people, righteous,
and then our iniquities like the wind, we're sinful, we're
wretched. So it's back and forth, isn't it? But think of it this
way. Those that are blessed of him, this is a general statement.
in the beginning of verse five, you meet the ones that you do
come down and meet with on the mercy seat. He said, I'll meet
with you there. I'll commune with you there. Who does he do
that? Those that work with righteousness, rejoice in righteousness and
work righteousness. That's why only the high priest
could go in there. He had been sanctified. The blood
had been applied to him. He wore the high priestly robe.
He represented Christ and only he can go in there. Nobody, you don't want to meet
God. You want your representative to go in for you. And then, now
the veil is rent. And we come boldly to the throne
of grace. But look, that's a general statement. If God's going to
meet with somebody, they better be righteous. They're going to
have to be righteous. But then he turns around and
says, we're not. Look at us. Behold, you're wroth
with, we've sinned. That presents a dilemma, doesn't
it? It's the same dilemma all through the word of God. So when
that sounds kind of like he's going back and forth, it's just
a simple dilemma of the gospel. And the answer to the dilemma,
of course, is the high priest. There is a man who can meet with
God. And he represents a whole bunch
of people. So he's saying, the ones that
you come to and meet that are blessed of you are those that
are righteous. And then he turns right around and acknowledges
that we're not, it's not me, it's not us. Who shall ascend
into the holy hill of the Lord? He that hath clean hands and
a pure heart, not me. You meet with him that worketh
righteousness, but we've sinned. We've sinned. We're reminded
again, aren't we, of that woman of Canaan. When the Lord said
to her, she's crying out for mercy. My daughter's grievously
vexed with the devil. He said, it wouldn't be right
for me to do anything for you. That's just to the point of what
he said, isn't it? It's not a hypothetical. It isn't right to take the children's
bread and give it to dogs. And you know, you remember what
she said next? That's what Isaiah is saying right here. That's
what the people of Israel are saying. You only meet with those
that are righteous. And we're exactly what you say
we are, unrighteous. We've sinned. We've sinned, truth
Lord. We don't deserve anything from
you. When he says there in those is
continuance, He's talking about our sins. We've sinned in those
as continuance. They never stopped. He simply
said, we're not getting any better. We're not making God any promises
tonight, are we? Well, we've done some bad things,
Lord, but come on down, we'll do better. No, I don't recommend
that. It's not true, is it? We're not
gonna do any better. We're gonna need him to have
mercy on us anyway in those is continuance and Will be saved And we are saved. We are saved
from our sins, past, present, and future. We've never done
anything but sin. And we're quite honest with God
by grace, because we're real good at justifying ourselves
by nature. But by grace, we're honest with
God. We're not ever gonna stop sinning, not in this body. And we're saved. We're saved
in spite of, we're saved anyway, we're saved. by the precious
blood of God's lamb. He's washed us from our sins,
all of our sins. The ones we haven't even committed
yet. You ever think about that? I hope I don't ever sin again.
But we're gonna, aren't we? We're gonna. Past, present, future. He's got
to wash them all away. If we're gonna be saved, we're
not gonna be saved because we're not sinners. We're gonna be saved
in spite of the fact that we're sinners. Well, he taught us to
pray, didn't he? Forgive us our sins. Forgive
us our sins. John wrote in 1 John 1.9, if
we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Why would it be a faithful thing
for God to forgive sin that we confess? How is that faithfulness? Well, there's only one way, because
he said he would do that. He said, if you confess your
sin before me, come unto me. Ask. He's faithful. In other words,
he's faithful to his promise. That if we come to him wretched
in vow, begging for mercy, he'll give it to us. He's faithful
and just to forgive. I'll forgive you. And just, how
is it just for him to forgive a sinner? The blood of Christ. So because of his word and his
blood, We come. And we say to him, come. And never forget that even what
we call righteousnesses, don't ever forget this. Even what we
call righteousnesses, those are sins too. We just don't know
any better than to call them that. Hmm we need forgiveness for the
best thing we ever did False and full of sin I am thou
art full of truth and grace. I Like that song Verse 8 but
now Oh Lord thou art our father Hmm We are the clay, and thou
our potter. When you pray, remember what
another one of the prophets said, God is in heaven and you ain't.
Let your words be few, let your words be select. Choose them
carefully, come before him with reverence. He's to be had in
reverence. We're to come before him saying,
we are the clay and you are the potter. Is there any more way,
more clear and powerful way to express our utter dependence
on him? You need him for everything.
And you need him completely. You don't need his help. You
need him to do it. He don't need your help either.
So just cry to him Just cry to him We're the clay and you're the
Potter We all are the work of thy hand We pray to the sovereign
God for salvation I Want to read you a couple of passages of scripture
about that or at least one of them and refer to the other if
we if we get close on time, but Jeremiah 18, one, listen to what
Jeremiah wrote here. The word which came to Jeremiah
from the Lord saying, arise and go down to the potter's house.
The way the Lord taught in the Old Testament and in the New
Testament, you remember in the New Testament, he used the trees
and bread and things like that. In the Old Testament, he would
give these these visions of things, or he would, like in Hosea's
case, he said, I want you to go fall in love with that harlot. Why? Why in the world would God
say something horrible like that? So you'll understand something
of my love for you, that's why. Isn't that amazing? And he told
Jeremiah, I want you to go down to the potter's house, I've got
something to show you. Arise and go down to the potter's
house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words. And then
I went down to the potter's house, and behold, he wrought a work
on the wheels. God did something, the potter
did something. And the vessel that he made of
clay was marred in the hand of the potter, not on the wheel,
not accidentally, in the hand, in his hand, he marred it with
his hand. So he made it again another vessel as seemed good
to the potter to make it. Whatever he wanted to make, that's
what he made. And then the word of the Lord
came to me saying, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you
as this potter, saith the Lord, behold, as the clay is in the
potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. You
see why? The prayer is what it is there
in our text. Lord, you're the potter and we're
the clay. We're in your hands. Do with
us as you will. Into thy hands we commend our spirit. We cry for mercy. We cry for
the Lord to come to us and to give us grace to come to him
and to trust him. but he's sovereign, he's gonna
do what he wants to do. That's why that leper prayed the way,
Lord, if you will, you're the potter, you can make me a vessel,
a clean vessel. And then Romans 9, 13, you remember
the argument there in Romans 9 is that if he's the potter
and we're the clay and he made us the way we are, then how can
he blame us for what we are? Do you remember Paul's, Paul
saying, who do you think you are to reply? Shall the thing
formed say to him that formed it? Why hast thou made me thus?
Well, that's a no. That's a silent no. We have no right to speak against
God. But if you read that passage
later, Romans 9, 13 through 24, especially that whole chapter,
but especially those verses 13 through 24, God was pleased to
make vessels unto dishonor and vessels unto honor. And he shows
in making vessels of mercy, he shows the riches of his glory.
But rather than reply, here's the thing, when presented with
that truth, most are gonna do what Paul anticipated there in
Romans 9, they're gonna reply against God. He said, who are
you that replies against God? and says to God, why have you
made me thus? That's what most people are gonna do. When you
say God's the potter and you're the clay, and he'll do with you
as he will, he saves who he wants to, when he wants to, the way
he wants to, they'll say, why did he make me the way he made
me? But you know what we say? Lord, you're the potter and we're
the clay. And that's fine with us. We pray
that way. We gladly acknowledge that, don't
we? That's grace. If you can bow
before God as the clay, God has done something for you. You're the potter and I'm the
clay. Come down here and do something for me that I can't do for myself. I'm a marred vessel. And I'm
never gonna be able to fix myself. I can't, I got no power at all.
And then verse nine, we'll look at the last few verses together
here. Be not wroth, very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity
forever. Behold, see, we beseech thee. We're all thy people. You're
the potter and we're the clay, but Lord, we're your clay. We're your clay, we're thy people. Thy holy cities are a wilderness.
Thy holy cities are a wilderness. Zion is a wilderness. Jerusalem,
a desolation. Our holy and our beautiful house
where our fathers praised thee is burned up with fire. And you
can imagine the spiritual things here. He's talking about things
that actually happened. The temple was destroyed. The
place of worship was destroyed. But listen, without God, Think
about the places of worship of this world. They're burned up,
aren't they? Many true churches have been
burned up. And so we're crying out to God,
that's what we do. Pleasant things laid wait, wilt
thou refrain thyself for these things, O Lord? And again, your
house, your holy, your Zion, your family. Your people, your children, don't
remember our iniquity. If the Lord should deal with
us after our iniquities, who shall stand? And so we pray, Lord, don't do
that. Don't remember my sin. Remember your covenant. Remember
mercy. Now, what we suffer in this life
is not punishment for sin. We can see in this verse, the
spiritual truth here, and this is a sinner crying out for salvation
in our affliction, and the affliction of the soul when the Lord shows
us we've sinned, our iniquities like the wind have taken us away.
Even the good stuff I've done is evil too. That's all sin too. You see the cry of the sinner
here. We need you. You're the potter, we're the
clay. We need you to do a work. We need you to make us vessels
of mercy. But don't ever think that the
affliction that we suffer in this life is punishment for sin. That's not what he's saying here.
Sin is infinite because we've sinned against the holy God.
Our sin is infinite and we don't really know what punishment for
sin is and we never will. I don't want to know, do you?
I don't want to know. And by his grace, I won't. But all of our problems are because
of our sin. Every one of them. We really
just have one problem. The other ones are just part
of that one. And so he's crying out here because, and that's
what this passage is saying, we've sinned and we're not even
getting what we deserve. I started to say we're getting
what we deserve. What we deserve is hell. But everything that
we suffer is because of our sin. We know that it's not punishment. Remember the disciples said,
who did sin? This man or his parents said he was born blind.
Somebody's not living right. Something bad happened. This
is the way it is so that the glory of God will be seen in
him. And so we don't assume that,
but we know there's no sin, no trouble, no sin, no affliction, no trial, no anything
bad. And he's crying out here because
of these earthly trials that they were suffering at the time.
And we know something of the history of Israel. There were
a lot of them. They went through a lot of horrible, horrible things. But the spiritual lesson here
is what we're interested in. All of our problems are because
of our sin and we can't do anything about our sin. And so we cry
to God. When we try to do something about
our sin, we just sin more. In fact, that's the worst sin.
If God can hate one sin more than another, what's the one
he hates the most? Self-righteousness. You trying to do something about
your sin is the worst sin you can commit, if that can even
be said. We know that's right, don't we?
That was the Pharisee. And everybody liked him, all
of us by nature. So when we try to do something
about our sin, all we do is just heap more sin on top of sin.
And furthermore, we don't deserve, Lord, For you to come and bless
us. But we cry anyway for mercy. Oh, that thou wouldest come down.
This chapter began with a plea for God's presence. Lord, oh, if you would just come
down where we are. And it ends with a question.
Will you? Will you hear us? Will you have
mercy on us? Will you help us? Will you save
us? Will you do what we need done, what we can't do, the impossible? And we wait on God's answer.
We wait. And so this chapter left with
a question is kind of appropriate because we wait on God, don't
we? Will you be silent? Will you
not speak to us anymore? He asked that question. Are you
gonna just not speak to us anymore? And so this question, and we
wait on God's answer in chapter 65 is God's answer. And we'll
see that in the next probably several weeks. But I'll tell
you right now, I'll tell you in advance, it's good for some
and not good for others. And the difference is Christ. There are some that he's not
gonna speak to. There are some that he's not
gonna help. The reason he afflicted Israel is because Israel hated
God. And there was only a remnant
that the Lord saved. And so this is Israel as a nation
crying out, And the answer in some cases is not good, but in
others, it's real good. And the difference is Christ. What was the prayer? Lord, don't
remember our sins. If you're his, if you believed
on Christ, here's your answer to that one. Will you remember
our sins? Hebrews 8, 12, for I will be
merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities
will I remember no more. You know what that is? That's
a covenant promise. That's one of the promises of
God's covenant of grace toward his people. And all of the promises
of God are yay and amen, where? In Christ. And if you read that
chapter, Hebrews chapter eight, where he said, your sins and
your iniquities, that's what they cried for. Lord, don't remember
our sins. And the Lord answers to his people.
I will remember them no more. And if you read that chapter
of Hebrews there, chapter eight, you'll see that the covenant
promise, that one among others is yea and amen in Christ. That's
true because we have such a high priest. and entered into the
holy of holies, not made with hands, with his own precious
blood. Amen, let's pray together.