Isaiah 49: Three Assurances That God Has Not Forgotten You

Introduction

"But Zion said, 'Yahweh has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me.'" The people of Isaiah 49 feel that God has let them down. Timothée O. admits that this is sometimes our thought too: "We go through hard situations, we struggle, trouble keeps piling on trouble, and it feels like we can't see the end of it."

At the Assemblée Évangélique de Strasbourg, the series through the book of Isaiah continues. After verses 1 to 13 of chapter 49, the preacher picks up at verse 14 and reads through verse 26.

His exhortation fits in one sentence: "God has not forgotten you." He gives three assurances to be certain of it: Jesus loves you, Jesus has set you free, Jesus is coming back.

Outline of the Message

1. Isaiah, a Book Where Several Layers Overlap

• What Timothée O. loves about the second part of Isaiah is that several things are woven together in it. God speaks to the people of Isaiah's time, he announces the return from exile, he speaks of the first coming of the Messiah and, sometimes in the very same verses, of the return of Christ.
• God does not speak only to his people at one given moment. He seeks to speak to different generations, and his prophecies reach all the way to the end of time.
• Isaiah 49:14-26 speaks of the restoration of Israel. But the end of the passage shows that it is not only about the return from exile: it is about entering the kingdom of God and the final war in which God fights the enemy nations.

2. "Yahweh Has Forsaken Me": The People's Incomprehension

• The passage begins with a complaint. The people are deported to Babylon, under cruel domination, and Jerusalem is devastated. To them, God is not reacting: he says nothing and does nothing.
• At bottom, it is a questioning of God's love: "God doesn't care about me. I have no value in God's eyes, or he wouldn't leave me in this situation."
• What makes us doubt God's love? First, his silence or his inaction. Sickness or a hard trial lasts for months, sometimes years. We pray, we ask why, and nothing changes.
• It can go further: "Does God have something against me? Is he almost becoming my adversary?" Job, an upright and blameless man, never renounced God. But in his incomprehension, he comes to say that God's anger tears him apart (Job 16:9).
• There is also God's discipline. If Israel is deported, it is because of its sin. The people probably think: "We went too far. We don't deserve God's love." We too can tell ourselves: "I really messed up. It's too much. God can't love me."

3. First Assurance: Jesus Loves You

• God answers with an image: "Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, these may forget, yet I will not forget you!"
• A mother carried her child for nine months. When she takes him in her arms, she is "almost obliged" to love him. The preacher remembers the birth of his daughter: "I was flooded with a love I couldn't even describe."
• Even if that natural love were to fail, God still loves. Maybe you never knew a mother's love, maybe your parents never showed you any. God loves you with a love that depends neither on circumstances nor on the good or bad you have done: an unconditional love.
• The proof of this love is Jesus Christ dying on the cross: "But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). The Father is ready to sacrifice his Son, and the Son is ready to sacrifice himself for us.
• "Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands." An engraving is made to last: it is not like writing on a board that can be erased. And it is on God's hands, a place of safety, as in John 10:27-30, where the Father and the Son keep the sheep in their hand.
• Some people carve a heart and their initials into a tree. But a tree can be cut down, it can die. Being engraved on God's hands is "something made to last."
• "Your walls are continually before me." God sees your life with compassion. If he takes time to step in, it does not mean he is far away or that he has closed his eyes. He is attentive to what you are going through.

4. Second Assurance: Jesus Has Set You Free

• In verses 17 to 23, God announces to the people that they will return to Jerusalem and repopulate the land. For exiles, the claim seems senseless: Jerusalem is destroyed, Cyrus is not yet in power, and there is no sign of deliverance. They are at the end of their rope.
• Yet God goes further than "I will deliver you." He is really saying: "I have already delivered you. My deliverance is certain."
• You can see it in the verb tenses. "Your children hurry back" is in the present; "your destroyers will go away from you" is in the future. "Lift up your eyes around, and behold, all these gather themselves together": God looks at the future as if it were already present, because it is already decided in his heart.
• For us too, this is a reality in Jesus Christ. When we accept that he died in our place and carried our sin, we are set free and we receive the ability to say no to sin.
• But sometimes there is still a sin we struggle against. We tell ourselves: "That sin feels stronger than Christ. God leaves me with it." That is not God's reality. In God's eyes, deliverance has already been accomplished, and one day you will live it.
• The same goes for a trial or a situation you are waiting to see change. "On the cross, Jesus accomplished everything." He did not pay for only some of our deliverances. Thinking that deliverance has not been secured leads to giving up and to ceasing to fight.
• Paul had this certainty: "I was rescued out of the lion's mouth. The Lord will deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me for his heavenly Kingdom" (2 Timothy 4:17-18). He looks back at the deliverance he has lived and forward to the one that is coming, without any doubt.

5. Third Assurance: Jesus Is Coming Back

• Verses 22 to 26 show that the reach of the text goes beyond the return from exile. Verses 19 and 20 announce a people so numerous that they will be crowded. "That was not the reality of the return from exile." On the contrary, there was room.
• The battle against adversaries, the persecutors who get drunk on their own blood as with new wine: these terms find their parallel in Revelation 19, in the final battle against those who oppose the Lamb. The passage points to the glorious return of Christ.
• God invites his people not to look only at their situation or at a "small deliverance," but at the final triumph the Messiah will bring. The return of Jesus will concern the nations, but also Israel, so that it will recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
• Zechariah is one of the preacher's favorite books on this subject. Jerusalem becomes a cup of staggering and a heavy stone for all peoples (Zechariah 12:1-3). God pours out on the house of David a spirit of grace and of supplication (Zechariah 12:10).
• In Zechariah 14, Yahweh fights the nations gathered against Jerusalem. His feet stand on the Mount of Olives, which splits in two. It will be a terrible day for those who oppose him: no one will be able to stop Jesus from accomplishing what is planned.
• Today, many Christians suffer and die for their faith, as the persecution index shows. Someone rejected by his family may ask: "Have you forgotten me?" God answers that he does not forget. Even if he allows it today, he will step in.
• For the nations, it will be a terrible day. For us, it will be a day of glory, lived with Christ. "All flesh shall know that I, Yahweh, am your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob." "That is our Lord. That is truly the savior we have."

Key Takeaways

• God's silence in trial does not mean he has forgotten you: your walls are continually before him.
• God's love goes beyond a mother's love for her nursing child. Its proof is the cross, and you are engraved on his hands.
• On the cross, Jesus accomplished everything. The deliverances you do not yet see are already secured in God's eyes.
• Isaiah 49 looks beyond the return from Babylon, toward the triumphant return of Christ.
• No one will be able to stop God from fulfilling his word: the day of Jesus' return will be a day of glory for us.

Personal Application

1. In what situation have you thought, or said: "God has abandoned me, God has forgotten me"?
2. What makes you doubt God's love the most: his silence, a trial that drags on, or the feeling of having gone too far?
3. What sin or struggle have you come to consider stronger than Christ? How can you look at that struggle through God's eyes?
4. Have you given up because you could not see deliverance coming?
5. Is the return of Jesus a concrete hope that sustains you in today's trials?

Verses Quoted

• Isaiah 49:14-26
• Job 16:9
• Romans 5:8
• John 10:27-30
• 2 Timothy 4:17-18
• Revelation 19
• Zechariah 12:1-3
• Zechariah 12:10
• Zechariah 14:1-6
• Zechariah 14:12-13

Frequently Asked Questions

What does "I have engraved you on the palms of my hands" mean in Isaiah 49:16?

For Timothée O., an engraving is made to last: it is not writing on a board that can be erased. And it is on God's hands, which are a place of safety, as in John 10 where the Father and the Son keep the sheep in their hand. Being engraved on God's hands is an assurance that his love for you will not fade.

Why does God speak in the present about a deliverance that is still future?

In Isaiah 49:17-18, God mixes present and future: your children hurry back, your destroyers will go away. He looks at the future as if it were already present, because the deliverance is already decided in his heart. For us, this means that on the cross Jesus accomplished everything, even the deliverances we do not yet see in our lives.

Is Isaiah 49 only about the return from exile?

No. The preacher points out that the people who returned from Babylon were never crowded in the land; on the contrary. The battle against adversaries and the blood drunk like new wine (verse 26) find their parallel in Revelation 19. The text points to the triumphant return of Christ, when all flesh will know Yahweh as Savior and Redeemer.