God Remembers His People

Isaiah 49:14-26 

14 But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me,
And my Lord has forgotten me."

15 "Can a woman forget her nursing child,
And not have compassion on the son of her womb?
Surely they may forget,
Yet I will not forget you.

16 See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
Your walls are continually before Me.

17 Your sons shall make haste;
Your destroyers and those who laid you waste
Shall go away from you.

18 Lift up your eyes, look around and see;
All these gather together and come to you.
As I live," says the LORD,
"You shall surely clothe yourselves with them all as an ornament,
And bind them on you as a bride does.

19 "For your waste and desolate places,
And the land of your destruction,
Will even now be too small for the inhabitants;
And those who swallowed you up will be far away.

20 The children you will have,
After you have lost the others,
Will say again in your ears,
'The place is too small for me;
Give me a place where I may dwell.'

21 Then you will say in your heart,
'Who has begotten these for me,
Since I have lost my children and am desolate,
A captive, and wandering to and fro?
And who has brought these up?
There I was, left alone;
But these, where were they?'"

22 Thus says the Lord GOD:
"Behold, I will lift My hand in an oath to the nations,
And set up My standard for the peoples;
They shall bring your sons in their arms,
And your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders;

23 Kings shall be your foster fathers,
And their queens your nursing mothers;
They shall bow down to you with their faces to the earth,
And lick up the dust of your feet.

Then you will know that I am the LORD,
For they shall not be ashamed who wait for Me."

24 Shall the prey be taken from the mighty,
Or the captives of the righteous be delivered?
25 But thus says the LORD:
"Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away,
And the prey of the terrible be delivered;
For I will contend with him who contends with you,
And I will save your children.

26 I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh,
And they shall be drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine.
All flesh shall know
That I, the LORD, am your Savior,
And your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob."

Israel’s continual sin led to dire consequences and seeming abandonment by the LORD, yet still He remembered His people and did not utterly forsake or forget them.  He had written them on the hand that created and called them to Himself and reassured them that they were not forgotten.  He promised deliverance from their enemies and the returning remnant would adorn them as a bride’s gown, beautiful and made white.  This is as a type of the bride of Christ who are the people of God clothed together as His bride, delivered and washed white in the blood of Christ.  They were promised to be fruitful and multiply once more as originally tasked at creation (Genesis 1:28), Noah (Genesis 9:1), and reiterated by promise through Abraham (Genesis 15:5-6, 17:5).  God’s mercy executed His grace for restoration.  They would be amazed and thoroughly surprised at His promises for forgiveness and fruitfulness on top of that!  He would use the surrounding nations to restore His people Israel as well as have the royalty of those lands serve them where they once oppressed them.  They who wait on God’s work would not be ashamed, a great lesson for us all as God’s people in Christ even now.  The end result would be for God’s glory in deliverance of His own and punishment for those rejecting Him as they learned with all the onlooking world that the LORD is the Savior and Mighty Redeemer of His people.  Such is the effect of the gospel even today in the heavenly places as angels look on and knees begin to bow to the Sovereign Lord Jesus Christ.  God remembers and keeps His people for eternity.  God Remembers His People, both Israel and the nations called out as the Church in Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.