Open your Bibles with me once
again to Isaiah 43 as we continue in this wonderful prophetic word
of God, given to comfort His people Israel, and to give them
hope of a glorious future. Let's just read there those first
three verses. But now, thus says the Lord who
created you, O Jacob, and who formed you, O Israel, fear not,
for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name,
you are mine. When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you, and through the rivers they shall not overflow
you. When you walk through the fire,
you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you. For
I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I gave Egypt for your ransom,
Ethiopia and Cebu in your place. Now we considered last night
that we will pass through the waters. We will pass through
times of deep trials. It's not if we will. We will. We will. But even these times
are filled with the rich covenant blessings of the Lord our God.
To the natural eye, It may seem like your strength and your hope
have perished from the Lord. You may feel as if you walk in
darkness without any end in sight, and that you walk alone. But
this can never be. In Hebrews 13 we read this wonderful
promise reiterated in such powerful language. For He Himself has
said, I will never leave you nor forsake
you. Now as powerful as that is, it
doesn't even begin to approach the original force and emphasis
in this verse. It's wholly inadequate to give
what the Lord wants to communicate to His people. There are five
negatives given in this one phrase, and it would be more accurate
to translate it in this way, I will never, never leave you,
no, never, never forsake you. He wants us to understand how
important this truth We're given this particular promise
that even in the night of affliction, the Lord will be with us. He'll
be with us, surrounding us with bulwarks, surrounding us with
walls of salvation. All the powers of providence
and of grace protect the saints at all times and in all circumstances. Why? Why are we given such promises? How is it that we receive such
privilege Well, the answer is given right here in this third
verse. For I am the Lord your God, the
Holy One of Israel, your Savior. This is the only thing that matters
in life or in death. The Lord is my Savior. Out of the depths of suffering
and anguish the prophet Jeremiah called to mind the covenant mercies
of God. He remembered the Holy One of
Israel. He remembered His Savior. The Lord is my portion, says
my soul, therefore I hope in Him. He's our only help, our
only hope, the only hope we need. We are born dying, we will die. We have no strength, no wisdom,
and no ability to change that outcome. We are helpless and
have no hope. There was a time with Claire,
our daughter, after all the surgeries, the intervention radiology procedures,
CT scans, MRIs, drugs, lab tests, really the best technology in
medical equipment there in that level one trauma unit. All the
skilled surgeons, the SICU doctors, the nurses, the respiratory technicians. After all of that, we received
a call from the director of the ICU. I think it was fairly late. maybe around nine
or so after we'd returned from the hospital that day. And the
director of the ICU, who happened to be on the floor at that time,
was asking consent to turn Claire over on her stomach, because
they weren't able to maintain her vitals, even on the ventilator. And this is a last, last hope,
as it were, to sustain her life. Apparently, on the stomach, the
lungs are able to take in oxygen better and they also required direction
for resuscitation because Claire was so fragile at that point.
Just that action of turning her over on her stomach put her in
jeopardy of having cardiac arrest. I hope you never have to face
that with one of your children, or with anyone for that matter. But then, in the days following
that, all the frenetic activity stopped. Claire had been put
into a state of medical paralysis, so that all her... her... bodily resources would be directed
toward just surviving. And she just lay in the bed week
after week with the ventilator hissing and clicking as it cycled
air into her lungs. And the machines beeped as they
pumped drugs and nutrition into her body. There was nothing more
that they could do. They had exhausted everything
within their realm to save Claire. Everything that men trusted in
proved to be utterly impotent in the only way that mattered. The ICU director put it this
way. He said, it's like she's climbing
Mount Everest, medically. We just have to wait and see
if she's able to survive. I thought about the massive injuries
Claire had suffered, the equally massive surgeries, the overwhelming
infections, the double pneumonia in her lungs, and then the acute respiratory distress
syndrome. I looked at my little girl lying
there in the bed, and I knew she was never going to climb
a speed bump, let alone Mount Everest. She needed a savior,
a savior who could do for her all that man couldn't do and
all that she could not do for herself. The ICU director was right in
this sense. We were waiting. And we had been
waiting from the beginning. We were waiting to see not what
man could do, but what God would do. We waited to see simply what
the will of the Lord was for Claire. The Lord reveals to us, not only
in His Word, but also in His providential dealings with us,
that in this physical reality we have an analogy of the spiritual
reality. Only the spiritual reality is
much worse, so much worse. We are born dead, spiritually
dead. No eyes to see, no ears to hear,
no heart to beat, no breath to breathe. We are not on a spiritual
ventilator. We are dead, dead in trespasses
and sins. In Psalm 36 we read a wonderful
verse. It says, Thy righteousness is
like the great mountains. We need to climb the Everest
of the perfect righteousness of the Lord of Glory. To live,
we need to attain to the righteousness and holiness of the Holy One
of Israel. Have you ever seen a man without
sin? Have you ever seen a dead man
climbing? We need a Savior full of glorious
righteousness and beautiful holiness. We need a Savior who can fully
satisfy the divine justice of God, and a Savior who can make
us righteous in His sight. We need a Savior who is full
of bounteous grace and plentiful mercy, a Savior full of love,
a Savior who Himself will bear us up in His arms and carry us
to the high peaks of His holy hill in Zion. And we need a Savior
who has the strength to do all of that. One who is infinite
and eternal in His being, full of wisdom, full of power, who
does as He wills in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants
of the earth. We need a Savior who gives life
to the dead. Is there a Savior? What is His
name? Where can He be found? Well,
here it is. I am the Lord, your God, the
Holy One of Israel, your Savior. Listen to these words of David
in Psalm 20. He says, Now I know that the
Lord saves his anointed. He will answer him from his holy
heaven with the saving strength of his right hand. Some trust
in chariots and some in horses, but we will remember the name
of the Lord our God. Man will always trust in the
chariots and horses of his own wisdom, of his own strength,
his own ability, and his own accomplishments. And this is
especially true today. And as I went through all that
was attempted With Claire in that ICU, this is the reason
I wanted to point this out. This is an illustration of we
do trust in all of these things. But David says, now I know the
Lord saves his anointed. He will answer him from his holy
heaven with the saving strength of his right hand. I know the
Lord saves. The fact that the chariots of
men and the horses of men will never prevail and never save
is illustrated to us in one of the most remarkable and memorable
events in the history of the people of Israel. In fact, in
the history of all mankind. And this event is referenced
right here in this chapter of Isaiah 43. Look down there to
verse 16. Thus says the Lord, who makes
a way in the sea and a path through the mighty waters, who brings
forth the chariot and the horse, the army and the power, they
shall lie down together. They shall not arise. They are
extinguished. They are quenched like a wick.
The children of Israel had been brought up out of Egypt by the
strong arm of the Lord. Before them was an insurmountable
obstacle of the great sea. Behind them was the mighty and
powerful Egyptian army with all the formidable weapons of war,
the chariot and the horse, the army and the power. Think of
the terrifying sight and sound, the thunder of the hooves, the
clash of the weapons, the roar of the soldiers. The children of Israel were nothing
but a rabble of slaves, poor, ignorant, helpless. They had
no chariots, no horses, no weapons, no army, nothing, nothing. They were very afraid. Who is it who brings forth the
chariot and the horse, the army and the power? The Lord Himself. Why does the
Lord do this? Is it to destroy His chosen people,
Israel? It sure looked that way to the
children of Israel. They said to Moses, you remember,
Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away
to die in this wilderness? Why does the Lord bring forth
the horse and the chariot, the army and the power? Why does
God bring great adversity and affliction at times into the
lives of His people? He does so to show us that He
is the Lord our God. the Holy One of Israel, our Savior,
who makes a way in the sea and a path through the mighty waters. He will deliver His people. He
brings forth the horse and the chariot, the army and the power,
for one purpose. He brings forth the enemy to
destroy them. They shall lie down together. They shall not rise. They are
extinguished. They are quenched like a wind. In Exodus, we have a song of
Moses and the children of Israel after their great deliverance
out of the hand of the Egyptians. And the song begins in this way,
listen, Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the
Lord, and spoke, saying, I will sing to the Lord, for he has
triumphed gloriously, the horse and its rider, He is thrown into
the sea. The Lord is my strength and my
song, and He has become my salvation." What a Savior! You see, times of deep distress,
times of suffering and affliction are just a small, a very small,
taste of our true state apart from our Savior. We're helpless,
and we're hopeless, and we're perishing. And apart from Him, we'll perish
for eternity. But more importantly, these times
are just a small, a very small reminder of who our Savior is,
and all that He's done for us. He makes a way in the sea, and
a path through the mighty waters. Our Savior triumphs gloriously
over all our enemies. And as we come to see this more
fully in the midst of afflictions, we come to know a little better
that the Lord is my strength and my song, and He has become
my salvation. The people of Israel passed through
the waters. They passed through the mighty
Red Sea. But did the waters overflow them?
they pass through on dry ground. Why? Because the Lord, their
God, the Holy One of Israel, their Savior, was with them. How greater and more glorious
are the promises given by God in the Gospel. Here we are, just sinners without any righteousness
of our own, weak, helpless, and hopeless. Who may ascend into the hill
of the Lord, or who may stand in His holy place? The Scriptures
cry. Only one man. He is the King
of Glory. He is our Savior. He will lift
us up and carry us to His holy hill in Zion. Turn over to Zephaniah
3, and we'll close there. This is one of my favorite texts
of scripture. Zephaniah chapter 3, and I'll
give you a moment to find that. It's one of those small prophets
at the end of the Old Testament, following Micah. Nehem, Habakkuk, and then you'll
get to Zephaniah. Zephaniah chapter 3 and let's
read beginning there in verse 14. Sing, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O Israel. Be glad and
rejoice with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The
Lord has taken away your judgments. He has cast out your enemy, the
King of Israel. The Lord is in your midst. He's with you. And being with
you, you shall see disaster no more. In that day, it shall be
said to Jerusalem, do not fear. Zion, let not your hands be weak. And here's the reason. The Lord,
your God, is in your midst. The Mighty One will save! He will rejoice over you with
gladness. He will quiet you with His love.
He will rejoice over you with singing. The King of Israel,
the Lord is in your midst. He will save. And He will quiet
you with His love. Amen.