Well, let's turn in our Bibles
to Isaiah chapter 49. I think it's been about since
about 2005 since I was here the last time. Maybe it won't be
so long between now and the next visit. Isaiah 49. This chapter is such a rich,
rich chapter. We've been camped out in it back
home for about a month now and it declares to us the good news
of our successful Redeemer and what he's accomplished in perfecting
the elect of God forever by his one offering. I'll give you some
of the highlights. Verse 8 says, God has raised
Christ from the dead, and he's given him a covenant of the people. He gave Christ for a covenant
of the people, of his elect people. Now you get that. Christ for
the believer. Christ is our covenant. He is
our covenant. Everybody who believes, Christ
is the fulfillment. He's the fulfillment. of all
of our covenant responsibilities to God. Christ is the fulfillment. And Christ is God's covenant
to the believer that we're accepted of the holy God. as righteous
and as holy and as accepted as his own son. That's his covenant. Christ is a covenant to us. Our
covenant guaranteed that that's so with the Father. Then verse
9 declares to us that Christ is our covenant liberator. That
thou mayest say to the prisoners, go forth. To them that are in
darkness, show yourselves. He came to us when we were dead
in our prison, in our sin nature. And we thought we had a free
will. And we could get up, we could
walk around, we could eat, we could sleep, we could lay down,
and we thought we were free. And we were just like a man in
a prison cell. He can do all those things, but within the
confines of that prison cell. And that's what we were in our
sin nature. But he came and spoke life into us, and he brought
us out of that prison. And now we're on our pilgrimage
to our heavenly city. We've been set free out of prison
and we're going through this wilderness on our way to the
city. And verse 9 through 12 tells us he's our covenant shepherd.
It says there he assures us that he's our provision. Verse 9 says
they shall feed in the ways and their pasture shall be in all
high places. They shall not hunger nor thirst.
Then he assures us he's our shield and defender. Verse 10, he says,
neither shall the heat nor sun smite them. And then he assures
us he shall give us refreshment by his spirit. And verse 10,
for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them even by the springs
of water shall he guide them. And then he assures us that every
mountain of trial that we face, they're his mountains. He put
them there for our good and this is what he promises to do with
his mountains. Verse 11, and I will make all
my mountains away. And he's that way, and when he
does it, we see in everything he's done in putting that trial
before us and that great mountain in front of us, we see his ways
exalted. We see everything he does high
and lifted up and wise, and it says there, and my high ways
shall be exalted. And then he assures us of fellowship.
with brethren, with sheep that he calls out, verse 12. Behold,
these shall come from far, and lo, these from the north, and
from the west, and these from the land of Sinai. And so then
we rejoice. We have all this covenant assurance
from our great Redeemer and what he's done. And verse 13 says,
Sing, O heavens, and be joyful, O earth, and break forth into
singing, O mountains, for the Lord hath comforted his people,
and will have mercy upon his afflicted. The Lord has, our
warfare's accomplished, believer. The Lord has pardoned our iniquity,
and we've received of the Lord's hand double for all our sin. You take a look at all the sin
you are, and you double that. And you get some indication of
how much he's blessed his people. Not only justification, but the
righteousness of God in him. And he will have mercy on his
afflicted. He, if you've tasted His mercy,
then you know He will have mercy on you. You're His afflicted. When we're afflicted, we're His
afflicted. And He'll have mercy on His afflicted.
And yet, even after all this, after all this we know, all this
we rejoice in, all this we know in our heart is so and true and
we believe and we rest in Him, yet sometimes, This is where
we find ourselves. I'm saying this right here, verse
14. But Zion said, the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath
forgotten me. We wouldn't say it, probably
wouldn't say it to anybody, probably wouldn't speak it audibly and
let anybody know it. But we get to thinking sometimes,
and sometimes it's big trials, sometimes it's not any trials.
Sometimes it's in, in when things are good. Sometimes we just can't
put our finger on it, on what it is. But we just, we don't
have that assurance. And we thank in our heart. And
this is what we're saying. The Lord's forsaken me. The Lord's
forgotten me. Well, the point I want for you
and me to get this morning is my title. This is the point. This is what God says. This is
Christ speaking in this text. And this is what He says. I will
not forget you. Now that's what He says. That's
the point. I will not forget you. Now let's hear what He says to
us here. And this will be our text. Verse 15 through 17. Verse
15 through 17. 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 you. Behold, I've graven thee upon
the palms of my hand. Thy walls are continually before
me. Thy children shall make haste,
thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth
of thee. Now here's the first thing. Christ's
redeemed child is as precious to him as a newborn baby is in
her mother's arms. Christ's redeemed, his child
is as precious to him as a newborn baby is in her mother's arms.
He says there, can a woman forget her sucking child that she should
not have compassion on the son of her womb? You see the picture
here? He's making an analogy here of
a mother and that newborn baby, and he's showing us this is how
much care and love I have for my child. Now, you that are true
believers, you've been born a God. We've been born of God, born
of the incorruptible seed of God. He prevailed, Christ prevailed
to bring us forth, to give us life by his work and what he's
accomplished for us. And we've been born of the gospel,
born of his incorruptible seed through the gospel. That means
he's your father and you're his child. John couldn't get over
that. John said, behold, what manner
of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called
the sons of God. He said, now are we the sons
of God? It's not something we're looking
forward to happening someday. We are right now. And it doesn't
appear what we shall be, but we know when He comes, we're
going to be like Him. We're His children right now.
When the scriptures tells us that Christ is our everlasting
father, you just think about that. The first Adam was our
first father. But He's not our everlasting
Father. He was mean to us. Adam cast
us out. Adam made us fall into sin. Adam made us be cast out into
the field. But Christ is our everlasting
Father because God predestinated His children unto the adoption
by Jesus Christ to Himself. So that Christ is our everlasting
Father. That means He will not ever stop
being the Father of his children, ever. Now, brethren, will the
Lord cast away his own child? Think about this. Can God the
Father, can he deny the chief desire of God the Son? And can
God the Son deny the chief desire of God the Father? And can God
the Holy Spirit deny himself? The chief desire of the triune
God is the salvation of his elect. That's his desire that they might,
because in saving them, he's glorifying his great name. He's
making his perfections known. And so the chief desire of God
is the salvation of his elect. Now, so our God and our father
cannot be indifferent to his child without being indifferent
to his own holy character. Listen to this scripture, 1 Samuel
12, 22. The Lord will not forsake you for his name's sake, for
it pleased the Lord to make you his people. Do you understand
that? He won't do it for his own name's sake. His own glory
is attached to it. We care for our children. We
can't stand by to see our children suffering and not do something
for our children. And yet the Lord told us, and
we're evil. You being evil, you know how
to give good things to your children. And we're evil, and we do that
for our children. How much more shall our Father,
which is in heaven, do it for us? He's not a man that He would
lie to us. He's made us willy by His power
and by His grace to put all our trust into His hands. Now, He's
not a man that He would lie. What benefit? You know, when
men tell us they're going to do something, There's always
in the back of your mind that, well, they might be benefiting
themselves somehow in what they're doing and, you know, might go
back on their promise if it's more beneficial to them another
way. What would it benefit God to lie to us? It'd be no benefit
whatsoever. Not only that he cannot lie,
but what benefit would it be for him to lie to us? Now, when
he's called us and made us put our trust in him, I trust him. to keep me even when I'm so cold
and dead that I can't even trust him. My trust is that he's going
to keep me when I don't trust him to keep me. And that's what
he promises to do. The scripture says, thou will
keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because
he trusts in thee, because you, you, he by his power and grace
has made you to trust him. And because you trust him, he
gonna keep you. That's just, that's just what
he says now. You remember when you first,
when he first revealed himself in you? You remember how your
heart just, remember how you just, you just fell in love with
the Redeemer? You, it was like, like the, these
two lovebirds sitting right here last night. And I said to her,
in your heart, you just was, oh, you just overwhelmed with
him. And in your heart, you just, you just delighted. You just,
you's dancing in your heart. like Joe last night at the wedding
reception. That's what you call dancing
like nobody's watching, Joe. That's joy. That's true joy,
though, to dance like nobody's even watching. That's how we
felt in our heart. Now, he's not going to forsake
that, what he's put there. He said, I've drawn you in love
and kindness. And I've brought you to myself,
I've loved you from everlasting. He's not gonna let us go. Look
at the second thing. God's love for his child is unconditional. It's unconditional. That's the
only unconditional love there is, is his. Now look at verse
15 again. He says, yes, now that mother
may forget. Yeah, I won't forget you. A mother will forget her newborn
child if it doesn't benefit her. That's sad, but we like to think
that we love unconditionally, but we don't. We don't love unconditionally. God's the only one that loves
unconditionally. He's the only one that does that.
And because he loves unconditionally, he will never, never leave his
child. Never leave his child. Now, the
Lord doesn't love all men. He doesn't love all people. Now,
if he did, if he did, and some men perish in unbelief, in spite
of him loving everybody, then what would the love of God have
to do with salvation, period? What would be the point of even
mentioning his love if he loves folks and wants them to be saved
and they perish anyway? He said plainly in the scriptures,
the wicked and him that loveth violence, his soul hateth. He
said, Jacob have a love, Esau have a hated. But now for those
that he did love, those that he loved, he loves us without
any condition in us whatsoever. There was nothing about us that
made him look at us and set his affection on us and made him
to love us. The Lord didn't set his love
upon you nor choose you because you were more in number than
any people, but because the Lord loved you. All the cause was
in him. And if he was going to reject
us at any point, he would have, from eternity, he would have
rejected us. Because we gave him every reason
to. He knows the end from the beginning.
Our sin didn't surprise him. He knew the hardness of our hearts
from the beginning. He knew the disposition of our
character from the beginning. So if he was going to reject
us, he would have never chosen us in the first place. He's the
only one who truly loves unconditionally. His love's in his son. And we
think it's awful, and it is awful, when a mother abandons her child. That's an awful thing. And you
may have had a loving mother who cared for you and did everything
for you, but the truth is, even for us who had that, we were
like an abandoned child by our first birth. We were, because
we were born in Adam. You know the scripture, but look
over to Ezekiel 16. He says there, In verse 3, he says, thy birth
and thy nativities of the land of Canaan. Thy father was an
Amorite, thy mother a Hittite. As for thy nativity, in the day
thou was born, thy navel was not cut, neither was thou washed
in water to supple thee. Thou was not salted at all, nor
swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee to do any
of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee. But thou was cast
out in the open field to the loathing of thy person. in the
day that thou was born. Now that's my case, that's your
case. That's the case with all men. That's where we were when
we was born, dead in sin. And he says, verse six, when
I passed by thee, I saw thee polluted in your blood, polluted. And I said unto thee, when thou
was in thy blood, live. Yeah, I said unto thee, when
thou wast in thy blood, live, and I've caused thee to multiply
as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased, and waxen
great, and there come to exceeding excellent ornaments. Look down
at verse, there in verse eight, towards the end, he said it was
the time of love when I came to you. He said, I spread my
skirt over you, I covered your nakedness. I swear unto you,
and entered into a covenant with you, saith the Lord God, and
you became mine. And I washed you with water,
and I throughly washed away the blood from you, and anointed
you with oil, and I clothed you with broided work, and shod you
with badger skin, and girded you about with fine linen, and
covered you with silk, put ornaments on you. You're here. That's what
he did for us. I won't ever forget it. I was
in the room when my firstborn child was born. And Emma came
forth, and she looked like a drownded rat. I mean, she looked bad.
And that doctor took her, though, and went over there. And they
went to work on her over there, boy. And came back, and they
had her all cleaned up. And they had sweet smelling lotion
on her, and had her wrapped up in that pretty snow white linen.
And he walked up there and handed her to me. Boy. I thought nothing is precious
in the whole world. Nothing. That's what Christ has
done for his people and presented them to the Father. We've already
been presented to him. He's going to present us to him,
but we've already been presented to him. He won't forget us, brethren. Now listen, when you don't have
any assurance, when you feel forgotten and you feel forsaken,
you remember this, if nothing about us made him love us in
the first place, then nothing about us can make him stop loving
us. His love is unconditional love. He said, since thou was precious
in my sight, me looking at you, you were precious to me. He said,
even when I saw you polluted in your blood, he was precious
to me. And he said, and you were honorable to me, and I loved
you, and therefore I've given men for you and people for your
life. That's what he's doing right
now in this world. All right, here's the third thing.
The first thing is he loves his child like a mother loves her
baby. The second thing is he loves
his child unconditionally. It's of his sovereign free grace
that he chose us. He pities his children like a
father pities his child. And here's the third thing. This
is the best thing to think of. Christ went to the cross for
us. He went to the cross for us. Verse 16. He says, Behold,
I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands. Now you imagine
if you spent everything, great, great sum, to prepare something
for somebody that you love dearly, to show them how much you love
them, show you how greatly you love them, and you got it all
prepared for them, and then they keep saying to you, I'm just
not sure you love me. I'm just not sure you love me. You think after I've done all
this for you, you're not sure I love you? I know we don't think
that's what we're saying. We think, no, when I say I don't
have a sure, I'm not saying I don't think he loves me, but that's
really what we're saying. We're really saying we're not
quite sure if he's gonna really save me. If he's not, if he's
really gonna do what he said he'd do. Here's our assurance,
brethren. This is our assurance. Think
about what Christ has done. Think about what Christ has done.
He took our nature. He veiled himself. The God of
glory veiled himself so that there'd be nothing about him
that would attract anybody, nothing about him that would make men
want to flock to him. And he made himself of absolutely
no reputation. And he came to where we are,
and he walked through this world where we are. I want you to think
about that. We take that for granted. Pick
out the worst possible neighborhood you can think about. Would you trade everything you've
got right now and go live there? We got lost one day, me and Melinda,
trying to find a place to eat. We got down in Center City, Trenton,
New Jersey. And I'm talking about rough.
I'm talking about pimps and prostitutes walking down the street together. We couldn't even, I was scared
to pull over and look up on her phone how to get out of there,
just to take the time to do that. Now imagine what Christ did.
Everywhere he walked when he was in our presence, was just
that same kind of thing. He was in the presence of sinners,
enduring a contradiction of sinners against this holy one who knew
what it was to have no sin and no thought of sin, nothing but
a perfect holiness in and out. And here he is walking among
sinners that couldn't do anything but sin and hate God. The Hebrew writer said, consider
him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest
you be wearied and faint in your minds. You've not resisted unto
blood striving against sin. And then he was tempted in every
point like as we are. without sin. And the reason he
was tempted like that is he's God and he knows all things.
But the scripture said, it says, though he were a son, yet learned
he obedience by the things which he suffered. He experienced in
flesh and blood as a man, everything that his people experienced as
we walk through this earth. So that now as God, he not only
has the power to comfort his people, he knows us having walked
right where we walked, felt just what we feel as a man, so that
he can comfort us and know just how to comfort us. Somebody gets
hurt, somebody gets sick, or going through something, and
you call them up, you want to try to comfort them, you want
to try to tell them a story that lets them know you can empathize
with them and sympathize with them, and you're trying to comfort
them some way, but you just can't do it. You just can't. But He can. He can. He's come right where we are.
He knows everything about us. But above all that, He suffered
to satisfy divine justice for us. He went to the cross to satisfy
divine justice for His people. You know, here's something for
me and you, Larry. When you get to feeling like
you're working and you're working and you think, man, it's just
I've spent all this labor for nothing, and you feel you just
get down sometimes. He knows that. Look back up there
at verse 4. Then I said, I've labored in
vain, I've spent my strength for naught and in vain. That's
Christ speaking. As a man walking this earth,
that's Christ speaking. But look at what he said. Yet,
surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God. When it feels like you're spinning
your wheels and it feels like you've done what you've done
for naught and you don't see any good coming of anything.
Remember when he was walking along and he was all rejecting
him and he said, he was just walking along and he said, Father,
I thank you that you've hidden these things from the wise and
prudent and revealed them on the back. You know what he was
saying right there? He was saying, My judgment is
with the Lord, and my work's with the Lord. He said, all that
the Father gives me, they will come. They will come. He had
the power to draw, but as a man, he's trusting the Father. He
said, all that he's given me will come. So he's teaching us,
he knows what we felt, so he's teaching us, leave it all in
his hand. Our judgment and our work's with
him. He's gonna make good on his word. But then let's get
to this thing. He went to the cross. That's
the thing. The name of his elect was written in his book before
the foundation of the world. But he went to the cross and
wrote our names on his hands. He engraved them on his hands.
When you feel your assurance wavering, don't look to yourself. Don't look to yourself. You won't
find, we won't find assurance in ourselves. And if we have
found something that we call assurance in ourselves, you can
be sure it's not assurance. It's something else, but it's
not assurance. But go to Gethsemane's garden. When you feel like, I
don't know him, I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm fearful, I'm afraid,
I'm frightened. Go to Gethsemane's garden and
see him in that garden sweating great drops of blood. and see
Him in that garden doing it for you. And then go with Him from
there and go into Pilate's hall. And see Him who has everything
in control, who's in charge of everything. See Him giving His
back to the smiters. See Him giving Himself to them
to scourge Him. And see Him doing it for you.
And then follow Him from there and go to the cross. and see
Him there hanging on that cross, not with the afflictions that
men inflicted upon Him, but see Him hanging on that cross with
the afflictions that we afflicted on Him, by Him being made sin
for us, by Him bearing in our bodies our sins that God might
be just to punish Him. And that God, in punishing him,
might put away all the sin of his people. See him there. But
don't stop there. Then go from there and go to
that empty tomb. And look in that empty tomb.
And when you don't see him there, don't see yourself there. Because
you're not there because he's not there. And then when you
leave that empty tomb, then you go to the right hand of the father
and see him seated there at the right hand of the father and
see the father's smile of approval, smiling upon this one who's completely,
thoroughly put away your sin and see the father as pleased
with you as he is with his own son. That's what he said. And
then Reach forth your hands and put your finger in his hand,
thrust it in his side, and be no more unbelieving, but trust
him. Trust him. Leave it all in those
hands that have been pierced and have your names engraven
in them. Leave them right there. Leave
it all right there. And then hear him speak what he's saying
right here in this text. And hear him say, my dear child,
do you really think I bore all of this for you to let you go? I will not forget you. Your sins and your iniquities
Oh, I will forget though. I have forgotten though. But
you, no, no, no, no. I will not forget you. And you can camp out right there.
And you can just. That's where we want to find
our assurance. That's where we want to find
it. We don't want to find it in us. We want to find it there. We want to find it in Him. Listen
to the scripture. Look at Colossians 3. Colossians
chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3. And look at verse 1. If ye then be risen with Christ,
seek those things which are above. where Christ sitteth on the right
hand of God. Set your affection, your innermost
longing, your desire, set your affection on things above, not
on things on the earth, for you're dead, and your life is hid with
Christ in God. And when Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. Now one last thing. Remember
this. Our assurance is not what saves
us. Our assurance is not what saves
us. It really doesn't matter if you have assurance or not,
because your assurance is not going to save you. He is. He is. Look now at verse 16 back
in our text. Thy walls are continually before
me." And you think about his children are living stones that
he's built up, that he's placing right together, right putting
them together just like they put the bricks in this wall right
here. He's put them together. I thought Joe was supposed to
be in New Jersey in that wall but he was supposed to be in
this wall so god put him down here in this wall arranged everything
put him right here in this wall and he says now your walls are
before me continually he's the one building them up he's the
one protecting them he's the one keeping them standing and
he's the one that's going to perfect them he's the one that's
going to bring this thing to completion now listen to this
if one's missing in his body he's not complete and he shall
call and he shall keep each of his children because his completion
depends upon him doing that as much as our completion depends
upon him doing that. He won't be complete if he doesn't
have every one of his members of his body, and he will. So
this thing of our assurance, it's in his hands. It's not in
our assurance, it's in what he's doing. And then look, he says
he's gonna draw all his children to himself and join them with
us. Thy children shall make haste. In the set hour, in the set time,
when he calls them, they're coming. All your children, your brethren,
those that he's going to bring to you, he's going to bring them,
and they'll be here. They'll be joined together. And
then look at this, and he's going to make all our foes to flee.
Thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth
of thee. Now all that's done by him. None
of that's done by us. So get this settled in our hearts.
He says, I will not forget you. Were our acceptance, if it was
that our acceptance with God was determined by the quality
of our faith, we'd perish. We'd perish. But thanks be to
God, our acceptance is in the object of our faith, Christ Jesus. Our assurance is Him and what
He's doing. and he spent too much on his
work to stop and not finish. If he's begun a good work in
you, he will finish it. All right, so look away from
yourself, and listen to this now, look away from your doubting,
and look away from your not doubting. Remember the Lord said, if your
right eye offends you, pluck it out. And you'll hear a preacher,
he'll say, now, oh, pluck that eye out and don't be looking
at the woman. And so it gets you so proud that
you're not looking. And now you're confident that
you're not looking. If you don't have an eye, you
can't look, but you can't have any confidence in not looking
either, because the eye has nothing to do with it anymore. You don't
have it. That's what I'm saying. Put off the old man. The flesh
has nothing to do with it. What we do and what we don't
do has nothing to do with our salvation. So don't put any confidence. Don't get discouraged by your
doubting and don't put any confidence if you don't doubt. Look away
from your confidence and look away from your lack of confidence.
Look to Christ. And that's it. That's it. Christ
is our covenant. All his virtues are our virtues. They're ours. Everything he is,
is ours. That's right. And he's God's
covenant to us that we are accepted in the beloved. That's the end
of the story. Nothing else to be done. And
just rest right there. He says, I will not forget you.