Seeking for the help of the Lord, I direct your prayer for attention to Isaiah chapter 43, reading from text verse 21. This people have I formed for myself, they shall show forth my praise. Isaiah 43 and verse 21. Isaiah is often referred to as really the miniature Bible, Old Testament and New Testament because there are 66 books in Isaiah and they correspond to the number 27 of the books of the New Testament, 27 of those chapters that are are really the gospel, they point so clearly to Christ. And then the 39 are the first chapters which mirror the Old Testament. And so we have here the part of the Word that comes in mirroring the New Testament. And if those gospel promises and bring in the Gentile church, along with the Jewish church. And so, they have in this chapter, the two brought together, is designed to comfort the people of God.

In the verse one, fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I've called thee by thy name, thou art mine. And there's beautiful words of comfort and help for the people of God, passing through deep waters, insurance, that the Lord is their God, a reminder of how he brought them out of Egypt and he brought them to be a people for himself. Then we come to the verses that are near our text and we have a new theme that is being set forth in Verse 19, Behold, I will do a new thing.

Now it shall spring forth, surely not knowing. And there's a picture here in the illustration of a wilderness and rivers and beasts of the field that shall honor the dragons and owls that are a way of describing the Gentiles that are being brought in because immediately after those verses, or even in verse 20, I will give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give drink to my people, my chosen, and then this people have I formed myself.

And so he's bringing in the Gentiles because immediately afterwards in verse 22, then he's going back to his ancient people, to the Jews, but thou, has not called upon me, O Jacob." And when we think of how the Gospel, the word was taken away from the Jews because they rejected Christ, and so then it was brought to the Gentiles. But Paul is very clear that they are to be grafted in again, and there is to be one church, Our Lord in John 10. Other sheep I have which are not of this fold, not of the Jews, them also I must bring, the Gentiles, there shall be one shepherd and one fold."

And so in the verse of the text, though I see it as applying to the Gentiles, it really applies to all of the people of God. It's spoken in the earlier part of how He formed the nation of the Jews and how He formed them. And the Lord forms and deals with all of his people. It's good for us to realize that where the Lord begins with a sinner, he is beginning with one that is lost and ruined in the fall.

And it's really helpful for us to remember this, when the idea here of something being formed We think of maybe a potter with the clay, a scriptural description in that way. And if a potter had some clay that was real beautiful, top-notch, beautiful clay to work with, but he'd still be sovereignly, he would be forming it and winding his hands, whatever shape he wanted, whatever way he wanted, he'd do it. But if he was given some real substandard clay, something that was really difficult to work with, then still formed it into something beautiful, we'd admire the skill of the former, the potter, a lot more. That he'd been able to take something that is such a substandard and make it into something glorious and something wonderful. And especially If you had using that same illustration with a potter, sometimes you've been into a potter's shop, and there he is, and he's forming the pots, and on the shelves there's lots and lots of pots, and he's selling them. He's not making them for himself, he's making them for someone else. So yes, he might try to make a good job, but in the end, they're not in his home, they're not on his shelf.

In the illustration here, those that are formed, those that are made, they're for the Lord. They're for ourselves. I've still got in my home pots I made when I was 11 and 12 at school. They're all formed and on the wheel and they're glazed. We did them at secondary school. I've still got them.

And so when you have a picture like this with something formed, and for the person that's actually forming it, it's much more special to that person. And they're not just forming it and then it's going off where they won't see it again or someone else is using it. They take much more care over it. And so the picture here is something for me.

I can remember when I was talking about a people that is those that are lost and ruined in the fall. those that have lost the image of God, those that do not show forth His praise, those that are natural men and women, the natural man, the seed of not the things of God, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned, and the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it? natural heart is so full of darkness, there is no light there.

And this is where the Lord begins and is not even passive either. The people of God are by nature actively against the Lord. We will not have this man to rule over us. They're like the Apostle Paul, it's all that he was. Actively fighting against God, against the people of God, at enmity with God, at peace with hell.

I used to question my parents when I was in my childhood of one of our hymns in Gansky, Sync 76, at peace with hell, with God at war. In sin's dark maze they wander far. And I used to ask them, isn't that put wrong? Shouldn't that be at war with hell, at peace with God?

And it's not until the Lord began with me that I realized how true that was. Our hearts are redemptive. They do fight with the Lord. They do resist Him. And we are at peace with that. And them writing you, my experience, what they actually were writing, I did not know at that time. And so it's good when we come to a verse like this thinking about people being formed, what are they formed from? What are they like before the Lord starts forming them? How does he find them? Where does he find them?

And then we can see more clearly what a wonderful work is done. These people, have I formed for myself, they shall show forth my praise. I want to look with the Lord's help this afternoon. Firstly, a people formed by the Lord. This people have I formed. And then secondly, a people formed for the Lord. This people have I formed for myself. And then lastly, a people that shall show forth. God's praise, they shall show forth my praise. But firstly, a people that is formed by the Lord. In this it is good to go back to the early part of the chapter to think of what is being set forth there when the Lord literally formed Israel, formed his people.

What did he do? And first he called Abraham, and said, I called him alone. He brought him from Ur of the Chaldees. There might have been many others there he could have called, but he just called him. And then he gave him the promise of a child of a seed, and even that that seed should be as the stars, that it should be for multitude.

But for 25 years he had no children. But then he had Isaac, why? And then Isaac had two, the twins, and one was chosen. But then Jacob, he goes, because of Esau's intentions after him, he has to go to be in labor. Who would think that the Lord, in forming his ancient people, would take such a time over him? such a slow start if you like. Why did he do that?

Abraham and Isaac are really only one and one in that or with Ishmael that ended up fighting against Isaac because if you read the promises that thy seed they shall be estranged in a strange land and that they shall be afflicted in 430 years and bring them hence. The affliction started when Ishmael started afflicting Isaac. They were 215 years actually in Egypt. But 215 years before, they were a people that were persecuted and tried and being formed by the Lord to be a people.

And when we're thinking of how the Lord used circumstances, even Jacob, the supplanter, to stir up the anger of his brother, to lie to his father, But those things were used as goads to make him to go and be where the Lord would have him to be, where we'd find his two wives. And even then, the Lord overruled Laban how cruel he was to withhold Rachel and to give him Leah.

But you see, God's purpose, He would have the two of them, and then their handmaids and there comes the twelve tribes of Israel and you see the steps of what has been used and God is saying I formed Israel I made I brought those twelve tribes they didn't happen by chance it wasn't through Laban yes he used it wasn't through Esau yes he was used it's good for us to look at this because in our lives we can think are we being fooled by the Lord? Is it the Lord Himself, the God of heaven and of earth, He that is eternal, He that then was made manifest in the flesh and dwelt among us, is it His hands in my life, in my heart, guiding, directing, bringing those things They're even affecting where I live, where I worship, what I do, things that are painful things. And you think of poor Jacob, I don't know whether he ever saw his mother again, and coming back, the fear of, he saw coming with 400 men, the things that he went through, and yet the Lord was in it. And I often think of the idea of putting a thorn like in the nest, because when he had to come back from Laban, God had told him to return to his own people, but he saw that Laban was not toward him as he was before time. Now people naturally would say, well, it wasn't the Lord that told you to go, you just ran away from Laban, you just didn't like his wages anymore.

But the Lord uses those two things together very often. When my father immigrated to Australia in 1965, I was four and a half when we went over there, there was things that happened over here that my father wanted to get away from. And yet he had the Lord's Word to go, but the Lord used those things.

Years and years later, my own daughter, she's over there, in Australia as well. And the things that happened over here that made it to be, it was easier for her to run away, to go to another country. And we see, I saw that repeated from one generation to another. And we had it when we came back from Australia to here as well.

Very clearly, the Lord's direction, the Lord's providence, everything. But there were those things that, especially when we did make the move, that were used to make it difficult if we'd have wanted to run away back, the door was shut. And those things are good to notice, where the Lord uses providence along with His Word to hedge up our way, to either make us willing, more willing, to do His will than we would otherwise, Or once we've done His will, and then may have trial or trouble where we've gone, to stop us from running away back, and to retrace our steps. How many times we might have had regrets over a thing and thought, that was a mistake, we shouldn't have done that, or we shouldn't have done this, and we would try to unpick it. But the Lord doesn't make mistakes, and it's very seldom that there is a case for unpicking, undoing what the Lord has actually done.

But the Lord is doing this, the Lord did this with Israel, and he brings them into Egypt, and there they grow into a people, a people ready to be brought forth to the promised land. But then you find even individuals, we think of Moses, specially born, in a remarkable way, life preserved, and Moses knew God had a purpose for him.

He knew in Pharaoh's household that when he was 40, he thought, now is the time. Now is the time. And he tried to execute judgment between his own people and the Egyptians. Slew an Egyptian. Then when that was known, He had to flee into the wilderness. Why?

In Moses' idea, I'm already formed, I'm already a leader, I'm already in the position, I'm going to lead. Moses said, Lord, I have got more forming for you. I've got more lessons, more teaching, more instruction for you. And so Moses had another 40 years.

I first preached, I took a funeral service when I was 25. And the Lord's people at Melbourne, they tried and tried to get me to continue to preach. But the circumstances around that, I went into real complete bondage. And though exercised already for some six years in the ministry, I could not preach for another seven years. I had every opportunity to preach at Melbourne. I was taking reading services regularly. But the Lord used those seven years of which I was in, myself, spiritual bondage and couldn't go forward, to instruct and to teach me in the things of God.

The amount of times I took reading services at Mr. Philpot and they're very long sermons, so I had to read them all and shake them down from a two hour service to a three quarter an hour, still kept the introduction and three points, But I had to know how he'd done it so as I could condense it down. And that's why ever since in the ministry, I've always generally had an introduction, three points or two points, because I followed his pattern.

But the Lord used that. And we can think, well, we're formed, we're ready for what the Lord needs. But the Lord says, no, there's more instruction, there's more teaching, and I will make you to be what you are to be useful to me. I will form your character, your understanding, I will teach you, I will make you eventually in my image. And it is the Lord that is actually doing it and we are to look past the memes, look past what he is actually using and to think this is what the Lord is doing for me and for my benefit. we can't really go into and out of things without it having some effect on us.

The word speaks especially of the need of patience and we think of Job, you've heard of the patience or endurance of Job. One thing that seems to come in with the forming or teaching of the Lord with his people is always a time factor. We've said about how long with Abraham, how long with Jacob, how long with the children of Israel, how long with Moses. We think with Joseph as well, how long it was before he was brought forth to be in a position next unto Pharaoh. There's always a time. factor where the Lord is forming his people.

The Lord says your time is already. My time is not yet. We're always impatient to get on. I think with Bunyan in his pilgrim's progress and he has him go to the interpreter's house and there was a time there he was impatient to get on. He wanted to be more further on his journey but no, There were lessons he had to learn, and instructions, and is actually making a people to be what the Lord would have them to be. There's another aspect of this as well, and that is that the Lord begins forming his people before he calls them by grace. I've noticed this in my own life, things that happened in my own regeneracy, laid the ground for what I would be when caught. When we think of the Apostle Paul, as old as he was, he was sitting at the feet of Daniel.

He knew the Scriptures. He knew the Pharisees, what he'd been once before. He was in a position to be able then to minister to them because he knew where they were coming from, from a position of works, ignorant of God's own righteousness and going about to establish their own. But he also knew the Scriptures very, very well and only needed the Lord to, as it were, give him the key and show him what those Scriptures pointed to, and then he could immediately preach Christ.

But if you say, the Lord started to form him from the moment He called him by grace, we'd have lost all of that which went before. And so for the comfort of God's people, especially looking back, to be able to see the Lord's hand when we had no knowledge of Him, we were not doing anything ourselves in any way forming ourselves, but to look back and think the Lord had his hand in that. He brought me into that trial, into that trouble. He used these things, he formed me. And those things are a comfort to actually see because we're looking at the Lord's hand. That's the important thing of this first point.

It is formed by the Lord. If we were to look past men, past circumstances, past these things, and think, this is the Lord, under thy falling hands, O God, give me the frame that there lies space. And this is what the Lord is saying, this people have I formed, a people, his name shall we call Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins, a people chosen in Him from eternity, a people that have been loved with an everlasting love and therefore with love and kindness have been drawn by Him, that people that have a part in Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, those who are in that covenant of God's grace, which David said, for though my house be not so with God, yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things and sure. This is all my salvation and all my desire, though he make it not, to grow.

And you think with David. You know, David was probably 15, years away, 15 to 19, when he was anointed King by Samuel and yet for 15 years or so he was persecuted, chased by King Saul before he became King at 30 years of age. That time was needed. It was needed to formed David to be what the Lord would have him to be, to be a leader.

He was a man after God's own heart, but we have with our Lord as well. We sometimes forget that our Lord was a real man, that he grew up from obeying, and he grew in wisdom and in stature. God can't do that. But God and man, God manifests in the flesh. And we read in Hebrews that what the Lord went through makes Him a sympathising High Priest over the house of God. And so our Lord and His people, they bear that same part as fashioned by Almighty God, formed by God Himself.

May we be able to see this? I believe it will. It's a source of comfort. It's a source of help to overcome wounds, injuries. Think of Jacob, says of Laban, deceived him, changed his wages ten times. Thinks that David went through even from his own house, from Shimeon, let him curse. Why? The Lord hath bidden him. It may be he only quietened him well for his cursing this day. And he looks past Shimeon, casting dust and cursing, and he sees the Lord, the Lord's hand in it.

And it's good for us to see this, when we have a text like this, this people have I formed, and to have that prayer and desire, Lord, that I might be this people, that I might be able to see that they are forming me. Now, the way this is written here is in the past tense. Not I am forming, but I have formed.

And yet, it is prophecy, it's pointing to the New Testament. When we think that very often the prophecies are spoken in terms of the Lord has already accomplished it, He's already done it. And of course God's people, we are told this, that although the works were finished from the foundation of the world, God's people are predestinated. In other words, what they are to be in this world, the Lord has already said, that people shall be like this. But when they come into this world they're not, but I will form them to be like this. They shall be formed to a predetermined plan, what the Lord has in purpose for them. And we see that in many, raised up, Jeremiah taken from his womb, those of God's people, Moses we've mentioned, when they come into this world, They're not ready for the Lord's use, but the Lord brings them in and He fools them. And if you've seen His hand that gives us a true token, the Lord is my God. I am one of His people. The Lord takes knowledge of me. He notices me. He spends time with me. He moves providences with me. He turns evil for good. Balaam's curse for a blessing calvary the enmity of the Jews against Christ and turns it for the blessing of salvation.

This people have I formed, a people formed by the Lord. I want you to notice then, secondly, a people formed for the Lord. We mentioned that simple illustration in the pots before, of something that is made not to sell, not for someone else, but is for the person that is forming it, and that is the picture that is here. We think of what is said of the Lord, that the Lord's people are His inheritance, He is their inheritance, but for the Lord's people they are being so that the Lord will have them to be with Him for eternity as His portion forever. The Lord is their portion, but the people are the Lord's portion.

And so, we need to remember this when we think of an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, reserved in heaven, for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. And there is that inheritance. Inheritance comes through death, through the death of Christ, and we enter into it through Our death, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. This mortal must put on immortality, this corruption, incorruption.

And that people are a prepared people for a prepared place. The Lord says that I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I'll come again unto myself and receive you unto myself that where I am, there ye may be also." You think of the temple that was being formed, and each individual stone with a design formed in the quarry so exact that when they come to put it in the temple they didn't need to hammer it, they didn't need to chisel at it. It was exactly right for the place that was appointed for it, had it been formed in the quarry. because people are being formed here below to be placed in that building above. But before that, it's in the building of the church here that they're also formed.

And it's for the Lord to actually be with him. It's a blessed thing to be able to trace this, that this is not a forming for a church, an individual church, a gathering of a people, or forming for a man, but this is forming for God Himself. And a soul that is being formed in that way, they will be looking to the Lord, that will The real mark of that. Our Lord says that, none come unto me except the Father which sent me to draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. Those therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ, will look unto him, look unto me, or the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none else. Or Paul, that has won the race, is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our salvation. or the beginner of our forming, and we trace it to all what the Lord has done, how He can form a sinner, because He pays their debt first, He settles their balances, He endures the wrath of God for them, He sheds His blood for them, He settles that first, and then He's able to do with His own what He will. He are not your own, says the Apostle. ye are bought with a price, wherefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are His." When are the Lords His? When He finishes forming that? Or when He begins? Or before He begins? Before He begins, of course.

Can I not do it? Our Lord says, with my own, what I will. And that is one thing that we will Realize in our lives that we are not our own. We are not living our lives for our own. If the Lord is forming us, it is forming for Him. And sometimes it's hard. Sometimes we think, well, we really like to do this or that, be here or there, and you realize, no, our lives are not in our hands. The Lord will decide. And it is because we have been formed not for ourselves, but for the Lord Himself, for a design that He actually has in view.

His servants, His people, His church, His body, everything is His. I often like to think of what is to do the church as described, the Lord's day, the Lord's house, the Lord's table, the Lord's people, everything is the Lord's. And the Apostle Paul rejoiced in that, that we are the Lord's. You are not your own, you are the Lord's. So it's a people formed for the Lord, And because of that, in that forming, in all that he's done, there'll be one common thread. It'll be a drawing to the Lord, a looking to the Lord. It'll be a fashioning to be like him.

You know, if you were having someone naturally to be able to work with someone or live with someone, you'd want them to get to know each other, to think alike. to be at peace and oneness with each other. And all that was done to prepare in that way would be to that end, a courting couple, the idea of that courtship, they've got two lives to merge into one, that there be a forming and an adjusting so that they can be together and the desire of each one will be to the other. And so when the Lord is forming a people for Himself, that one asks, there may be many things we can't understand in His forming, but if the one thing we can say is that the trial we go through, the difficulties, the perplexities, whatever it is, is making Christ more to be desired, more to be led off self and unto Him. and more wanting to understand His ways and to see His footsteps and to see what He is doing. And of course, not only bearing His image, but we are to then glorify and praise Him. And this is our last point, what is set forth here. a people that shall show forth his praise. I want to think of it first here below, to bear his image.

If the apostles, they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus, by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples indeed, in that ye love one another. And sometimes that can be strange. as it was with Paul and Barnabas, who had a conflict between them. So Paul and Silas went one way, Barnabas and Mark went another way.

So how can God's people fall out like that? But the Lord used it. He used it to spread the gospel, and it was healed later on. But those are hard times when that is the case. Some of the hardest trials are between the Lord's people themselves. But even in those trials, even in those things that would mean that one goes one way and one goes another, like Abraham and Lot, the strife with the herdsmen. So Abraham took one way and Lot went another. The Lord overrules it and the Lord uses it for good. And so in those things we are to bear His image.

To be brought again to deserve spiritual things that by nature we don't. To have the mind of Christ, which we don't have by nature. To be spiritually minded, not naturally minded. To be of those that look for eternal things. Paul says, if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we've made all men most miserable. It is to be more like our Lord Jesus Christ.

And so the way the Lord deals with His people is also to show His grace. Often I try to use this illustration. In this building, in this chapel, we've got electricity. The only reason why you know it is because we've got lights, we've got heating, got sound, those things are used to evidence something that otherwise would be unseen. And the way God's grace is seen, the way His power is seen, is when He converts, He changes a sinner, He takes a mad Gadarene, He brings him to sit at His feet clothed in His right He goes and tells him to tell to his friends what God has done for him. When the Lord deals with the Apostle Paul, they see the effect, they see the difference. And that is how God is glorified one way. Because grace is seen in the lives of the people of God. And often it is in trial. Often it is in difficulty.

You look at Naomi. who fled Bethlehem because of the famine. She goes into Moab and then she finds her husband passes away, her son's passed away, she's left with her daughter's in-law and she goes back to Bethlehem. Don't call me Naamah, please don't call me Mara. Bitter. The Lord hath dealt bitterly with me. She traces it to the Lord's hand, but it humbled her.

It didn't push her away from her people, and what's more, it attracted Ruth to her, and to her God, and to her people. We might think if we're gonna attract others to want the same God as we have, then we want to say, well look, I'm a Christian, I've got a good job, I've got a good house, everything's going smoothly, everything's well, I've got a good health, Don't you want the religion I have? And how hard it is to say to the world, or say to her children, or those, to trust in my God, and they say, but you've had illness, and sickness, and affliction, and this person against you, and that person against you, and all these trials, and you still trust in your God. He said, yes, but I know my sin. He hasn't dealt with them as those sins deserve, and he's sprinkled mercies and helps through all of these things that he's done.

What could Ruth say now, am I? But still that cleaning to the Lord in adversity, like dear Job, though he slain me, yet will I trust in him. Lord Gay, the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And that's noticed by the world. It's noticed by those that the Lord draws, drawing to himself.

Paul says, be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ. You say, but Paul, you've been shipwrecked three times, you've suffered, you've been beaten with rods, you've had all these things happen. But Paul, when he says before Agrippa, he tells this Paul by grace. And the king says, almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. And Paul, he says, I would that thou, not almost, but altogether, such as I am, accept. this chain.

And there's things that all of the Lord's people would say that they want others to have the blessings, the grace, the God that they have, but except this chain, there's things in our lives we wouldn't wish on another. But the grace that God gives, He gives to bear the tribulations and troubles. Remember the Lord says in John 16 at the end there, These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. And in that overcoming he makes it work for good, and that grace shines, and he shows forth his praise.

And it's good for us to be able to glorify the Lord like Job did to glorify the Lord in the fires, like the children in Babylon did, like Daniel did in the lion's den. Those like the Apostle Paul, there he is in prison in Rome and chains and there is Onesimus and he's sick of being a servant to Philemon so he runs away and he goes to Paul. And there he finds a man. that is submissive to His chain and His circumstances and His confinement and the Lord uses it for His conversion and makes Him willing to go back as a servant, no longer as a servant but as a brother beloved. The Lord uses strange things with His people because His praise is seen in them, the grace, the evidence of God's power So Paul can say what I am, I am by the grace of God.

They are monuments to his praise, here below, right through to their dying day. How many have praised the Lord, honoured the Lord on a deathbed, and of course at last in heaven they shall show forth his praise. May we be of those that speak well of him. We read in the Psalms that the world They only consult the casting down from His Excellency, but within His temple every one doth speak of His glory.

Why? Because the Lord has formed them for that, and they do. So may we be of those, a people formed by the Lord, a people formed for the Lord, and a people that show forth His praise. Come and hear all ye that fear God, and I will tell what He hath done for my soul. May the Lord let us bless Him. Amen.