https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermons/42325133211662

Hymns: RHC 565 Have You Counted the Cost? 461 O Zion, Haste 540 We’re Marching to Zion 

Isaiah 49

14 But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. 15 Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. 16Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. 17 Thy children shall make haste; thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee. 18 Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the LORD, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee, as a bride doeth. 19 For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. 20 The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell. 21 Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been? 22 Thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. 23 And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me. 24 Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered? 25 But thus saith the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children. 26And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine: and all flesh shall know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.

Christ’s Coming Foretold (3)

OUTLINE

• His Mission and Rejection (v1-8)
• His Glorious Work of Salvation (v9-23)
• His Salvific Work to the Gentiles (v24-26)

Continue…

• His Glorious Work of Redemption (v9-20)

14 But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. 15 Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. 16Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. 17 Thy children shall make haste; thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee.

When the nation undergo chastisement from the LORD, it seemed grievous but afterward it yields the fruit of righteousness.

Hebrews 12:5-7 (KJV) And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

The LORD assures His people in the midst of their incarceration that He has not forgotten them.

Hebrews 12:9-13 (KJV) Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. 11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. 12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; 13 And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.

A lame man needs a smooth path to walk in. The idea is here, that everything which would prevent those in the church who were in any danger of falling – the feeble, the unestablished, the weak – from walking in the path to heaven, or which might be an occasion to, them of falling, should be removed. Or it may mean, that in a road that was not level, those who were lame would be in danger of spraining, distorting, or wrenching a lame limb; and the counsel is, that whatever would have a tendency to this should be removed. Divested of the figure, the passage means, that everything should be removed which would hinder any one from walking in the path to life.

As in the case of lameness, pains should be taken to heal it rather than to suffer it to be increased by careless exposure to a new sprain or fracture, so it should be in our religious and moral character.

Whatever is defective we should endeavour to restore to Soundness, rather than to suffer the defect to be increased. Whatever is feeble in our faith or hope; whatever evil tendency there is in our hearts, we should endeavour to strengthen and amend, lest it should become worse, and we should entirely fall. [Barnes]

Observed Manton, “When a child falleth through infirmity, he presently rallieth, and recovereth himself again: Jer. 8:4, “Shall they fall, and not arise?” Surely to lie in the dirt argueth obstinacy.”

He further observed, “A worldly carnal bias upon the heart will make us warp and decline from our duty. There can be no spiritual strength and vigour of heavenly motion whilst sin remaineth unmortified; for the love of ease and worldly enjoyments can pervert us. Well, sin must be mortified before we can live unto God. On the other side, grace cureth sin, as fire refresheth us against the cold, and health taketh away sickness: so far as God is admitted, Satan is shut out… Nature in the general is against the bearing of the cross. No affliction for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievious. And besides, lusts, if they be not purged out, will tempt us to stumble, and we need to be armed with great resolution, or else after we have launched out into the deep with Christ, we shall surely run to shore again. Now most unchristian are not mortified, and so they trip up their own heels. Most christians are not resolute, and do but take up religion as a walk for recreation, not as a journey, so as to be prepared for all weathers.”

18 Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the LORD, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee, as a bride doeth.

Zion the mother is commanded to behold her sons returning to her. She is first to Life up her eyes round about (for she had been dejected), looking in all directions, because her sons are coming to her, not merely from the east but from the entire world.

All of them, that is, all her sons, are gathered together or have gathered themselves together.

Zion lifts up her eyes and sees that her lost sons are already gathered together and have come to her.

Still addressing Zion, God declares that she will wear all her sons as an ornament. 

The true beauty of the church is found in the work of grace in the hearts of believers. The true dignity of the church is internal, so far as it consists of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and of progressive faith and piety. [Calvin]

19 For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away.

The desolation will now come to pass, and the time will come when Zion will be too narrow to contain all her inhabitants. 

The last line contains a promise, backed up by God’s oath, that Zion will one day be so filled with the inhabitants that she will be too narrow for them. In addition, those who now swallow up the city will be removed far away that there will nothing remaining to fear from them.

20 The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.

During the exile Jerusalem was left alone, her sons having been deported to Babylonia and elsewhere. Even during the exile, the tide was turning. God was raising up Cyrus, who would make it possible for the exile to return to their home. In this return there us seen the fulfilment of this promise, but in the deeper sense the fulfilment takes place in the distant future when the Gentiles are brought into the Church of Christ. Zion is bereaved, but she has children, so many that there is no room for them as they are so numerous.

Zion regarded as a widow; as a matter of fact, her Husband, the LORD, had not forsaken nor forgotten her. The children who will one day crowd to her legitimate children, begotten  through a lively faith. [EJ Young]

 21 Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?

Thou shalt wonder at the multitude, and shalt ask with astonishment from where they all come. This verse is designed to describe the great increase of the true people of God under the image of a mother who had been deprived of her children, who should suddenly see herself surrounded with more than had been lost, and should ask in astonishment from where they all came.

Who hath begotten me these – The idea here is, that the increase would be from other nations. They would not be the natural increase of Zion or Jerusalem, but they would come in from abroad – as if a family that had been bereaved should be increased by an accession from other families.

I have lost my children – Jerusalem had been desolated by wars, and had become like a widow that was bereft of all her sons.

Isaiah 47:8-9 (KJV) Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children: 9 But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments.

A captive, and removing to and fro – A captive in Babylon, and compelled to wander from my own land, and to live in a strange and distant country.

These, where had they been? – The image in this entire verse is one of great beauty. It represents a mother who had been suddenly deprived of all her children, who had been made a widow, and conveyed as a captive from land to land. She had seen ruin spread all around her dwelling, and regarded herself as alone. 

Suddenly she finds herself restored to her home, and surrounded with a happy family. She sees it increased beyond its former numbers, and herself blessed with more than her former prosperity. She looks with surprise on this accession, and asks with wonder from where all these have come, and where they have been. The language in this verse is beautifully expressive of the agitation of such a state of mind, and of the effect which would be thus produced. 

The idea is plain. Jerusalem had been desolate. Her inhabitants had been carried captive, or had been put to death. But she should be restored, and the church of God would be increased by a vast accession from the Gentile world, so much that the narrow limits which had been formerly occupied – the territory of Palestine – would now be too small for the vast numbers that would be united to those who professed to love and worship God. [Barnes]

22 Thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. 

Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles – To lift up the hand is a sign of beckoning to, or inviting; and the idea here is, that God would call the Gentiles to partake of the blessings of the true religion, and to embrace the Messiah.

Isaiah 11:11 (KJV) And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

And set up my standard to the people – To the people of other lands; the word here being synonymous with the word Gentiles. A standard, or an ensign was erected in times of war to rally the forces of a nation around it; and the sense here is, that God would erect an ensign high in the sight of all the nations, and would call them to Himself, as a military leader musters His forces for battle; that is, He would call the nations to embrace the true religion.

Isaiah 11:12 (KJV) And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

And thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders – Referring, doubtless, to the manner in which children were carried. 

Thus may be seen the father carrying his son, the little fellow being astride on the shoulder, having, with his hands, hold of his father’s head. 

The sense is, that converts should come from every land – that the nations should flock to the standard of the Messiah. And why may it not be regarded as a legitimate interpretation of this passage, that those who come should bring their children, their sons and their daughters, with them? 

That they were borne upon the arm, or upon the shoulder, is indicative of their being young children; and that is no forced interpretation of this passage which regards it as teaching, that the parents who should be converted among the Gentiles should bring their offspring to the Redeemer, and present them publicly to God.

23 And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with theirface toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.

And kings shall be thy nursing fathers – The word means “nourishers.” 

That is, they would patronize the church of God; they would protect it by their laws, and foster it by their influence and become the personal advocates of the cause of Zion. The idea is properly that of guarding, educating, and proriding for children; and the sense is that kings and princes would evince the same tender care for the interests of the people of God which a parent or a nurse does for a child. 

They shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth – A posture indicating the profoundest reverence. This is the common posture of showing great respect in the East.

And lick up the dust of thy feet – An act denoting the utmost possible respect and veneration for the church and people of God.

For they shall not be ashamed that wait for me – They who worship me shall not be ashamed of the act requiring the deepest self-abasement, to show their reverence for me. Even those of most elevated rank shall be willing to humble themselves with the profoundest expressions of adoration. [Barnes]

To be continued….