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Amen. Well, please remain standing for the reading of God’s word as we continue to dive into Isaiah. This morning, we consider a very comforting portion of scripture, Isaiah chapter 43, verses one through 13. You’ll find that on page 717 in your pew Bible. I’m gonna begin reading in the previous chapter, 42, chapter 42, verse 18, and I’ll read through chapter 43, verse 13.

Dear friends, this is the word of God. Let’s hear it with reverence and awe. Hear you deaf, and look you blind, that you may see. Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as my dedicated one, or blind as the servant of the Lord? He sees many things, but does not observe them. His ears are open, but he does not hear. The Lord was pleased for His righteousness’ sake to magnify His law and make it glorious.

But this is a people plundered and looted. They are all of them trapped in holes and hidden in prisons. They have become plunder with none to rescue, spoil with none to say restore. Who among you will give ear to this, will attend and listen for the time to come? Who gave up Jacob to the looter and Israel to the plunderers?

Was it not the Lord against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, in whose law they would not obey? So he poured on him the heat of his anger and the might of battle. It set him on fire all around, but he did not understand. It burned him up, but he did not take it to heart. But now, thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you, for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you, because you are precious in my eyes and honored, and I love you. I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not, for I am with you. I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, do not withhold. Bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the end of the earth.

Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. Bring out the people who are blind yet have eyes, who are deaf yet have ears. All the nations gather together in the people’s assemble. Who among them can declare this and show us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to prove them right, and let them hear and say, it is true.

You are my witnesses, declares the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no God was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior. I declared and saved and proclaimed when there was no strange God among you. And you are my witnesses, declares the Lord, and I am God. Also, henceforth, I am he. There is none who can deliver from my hand. I work, and who can turn it back? The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.

Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the proclamation of his word. Our gracious Lord and Father in heaven, how wonderful to know that you are with us, that you are our helper. You will never leave us nor forsake us. How we thank you for your redeeming grace to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank you, God, for giving us your word, both to convict us and show us our sin, that we might flee to Christ and also to declare to us the mercy that you’ve given to us in Christ our Savior. We thank you, O Holy One of Israel, the true and living God, that though you are holy, infinitely holy, yet you do not destroy us, for you are our Savior.

Be with us now as we consider this portion of your word. Edify us, build us up, strengthen us in our most holy faith. and exalt the Lord Jesus in our hearts and in this assembly, we pray in his glorious and majestic name, and all of God’s people said, amen. You may be seated. Title of my sermon this morning is The Holy One of Israel, Your Savior. And give the children three words to be listening for today. Those words are redemption, ingathering, and witnesses.

Well friends, as those who have come to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for our salvation, we as believers, as disciples of Jesus, we know that God’s grace makes all the difference in the world. For example, God’s grace makes all the difference between eternal salvation and eternal damnation. For Holy Scripture teaches us that we are saved by grace through faith apart from works. We are taught that in many places in scripture, but one very familiar passage that I’m sure you folks know is taken from Ephesians 2, verses eight through 10, where the apostle Paul writes, for by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. With God’s grace, there is no boasting. And it goes on to say, for we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. We’re not saved by good works, but we’re saved for good works.

And so, again, when it comes to our salvation, when it comes to our justification, it’s all of grace and grace alone. And this is why we celebrate God’s grace. This is why we rejoice in God’s grace. This is why we preach the gospel, the good news of God’s grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is why we proclaim singing in that wonderful song, Amazing Grace. We sing, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

But not only does God’s grace make the difference between eternal salvation and eternal damnation, grace also makes the difference between godliness and ungodliness. For grace is not, contrary to what some might say, God’s grace is not an excuse to sin. Rather, as the scriptures tell us, God’s grace trains us to renounce sin and to pursue godliness.

Again, as Paul writes in Titus chapter two, 11 to 14, let me just get there. Titus chapter 2, 11 to 14, it says, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from what? From all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. And so friends, the reason why God’s grace is able both to justify and to sanctify us is because of the redemption that was accomplished by our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. For it is through the redeeming work of Christ that we believers are able to enjoy these rich benefits of God’s amazing grace in our own lives. Again, if I may quote once again from Paul in Romans 3, verses 21 to 25, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified, how? By his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

Okay, pastor, grace is important, but what does all of this have to do with our passage from Isaiah for this Lord’s Day morning. Well, let’s consider the context of our passage, shall we? Beloved, our passage for this Lord’s Day morning from the book of the prophet Isaiah is a passage that highlights the amazing grace of God toward his covenant people, Israel. And how does it do that? You know, this is a passage that throbs and pulsates with the grace of God. How does it do so? Well, it highlights God’s amazing grace by setting his gracious redemption of his people against the black backdrop of their spiritual deafness and blindness, of their faithlessness and disobedience, of faithlessness and disobedience, which would ultimately lead to their exile in Babylon.

That’s why I began reading at the end of chapter 42, because at the end of that chapter, Isaiah confronts, the Holy Spirit through Isaiah confronts the people with their spiritual deafness, their spiritual blindness, their disobedience, the fact that they had disregarded the holy law of God.

And yet, The people in Isaiah’s time, though they had grievously failed in their calling and their mission to be a faithful servant of Yahweh their God, the Lord, they would have been faithful if they had brought spiritual light to the Gentile nations. That was their mission, that was their calling as the servant of the Lord, to bring spiritual light of God’s revelation to the Gentile nations and thus to be faithful witnesses to the nations. of the fact that Yahweh the Lord is the only true God and therefore the only Savior. But they were not faithful in their calling, they were not faithful in their mission as the covenant nation. Yet in spite of their faithlessness and their utter failure, Yahweh their God, the Holy One of Israel, whose holiness might justly consume them in righteous wrath, that Holy One of Israel has graciously redeemed them and called and saved them and has promised always to be with them no matter what. this glorious prophetic passage where the Holy One of Israel is identified as your Savior in verse three.

This passage ought to remind us, brothers and sisters, that Israel’s failure as the Lord’s servant points to the need for a true and faithful servant of the Lord, a messianic suffering servant of the Lord, who we will read about a little bit later on in chapter 53, a servant who would serve as the true and faithful Israel of God, and thus redeem the faithless people of God. And that brings us to our passage for today, as we consider, first of all, a gracious redemption, a gracious redemption. It says in verse one, chapter 43, but now, Now, thus says the Lord. That word now is a contrast to what has immediately preceded it, where God confronts the people with their blindness and their deafness and their disobedience and their failure to be the Lord’s faithful servant. He says, but now, thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel, but now, what does God say to them? Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine.” Now, the emphasis here is on the term redemption. What does that term mean?

What does redemption mean? One Bible dictionary defines it as follows. It says, redemption means deliverance from some evil by payment of a price. Now, of course, it is certainly true that God predicted deliverance for his people from their Babylonian exile, and that could be viewed as an act of redemption on God’s part, but keep in mind, that the Lord’s historical deliverance of his people from their historical exile in Babylon, that’s merely a type, a shadow, a picture of the greater redemption that God would accomplish through his suffering messianic servant, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that redemption that we all need is redemption from the guilt, the penalty, and the power of sin. Now as we consider the words that Isaiah uses here in verse one to describe his people and the Lord’s calling of his people, we notice that Isaiah uses this powerful language of creation in describing how God had raised up and formed his covenant people. He says, now, thus says the Lord. Remember the word Lord, it’s all capital letters.

That’s Yahweh, the faithful covenant-making, covenant-keeping God of Israel. Now, thus says Yahweh, your faithful covenant God, He who did what? He who created you, O Jacob. He who formed you, O Israel. The term here, created, indicates created as if out of nothing. like the original creation, and formed, well, this is the same kind of language that is used of God’s creation of man back in Genesis 2, verse 7. The Lord says that I have formed you, O Israel. We’ll look back at Genesis 2, verse 7, where it says this, then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. Why does the Holy Spirit through Isaiah here describe the formation of God’s covenant people with this creational language? Well, the implication seems to be that God’s people are to be viewed as his new creation.

Again, it reminds us from a New Covenant perspective of what Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5.17. But notice how God’s people are described here in verse 1.

First of all, the Lord speaks to them as O Jacob. First the name Jacob and then the name Israel. Jacob and Israel, of course, referring to the same individual as the representative of the people as a whole. But why the name Jacob? When you think of the name Jacob, what comes to mind if you know your Bible well? Well, the name Jacob may be used here to remind Isaiah’s readers of their own unworthiness. Since Jacob himself, the patriarch Jacob, was he a good fella?

Was he a worthy guy? Well, Jacob lived up to his name. Jacob was a deceiver. He was a deceiver. He was morally unworthy of God’s mercies, if anyone ever was. And yet, God graciously, out of sovereign grace, had mercy upon Jacob. And God graciously transformed this deceitful man. He graciously transformed deceitful Jacob into godly Israel, a man of faith. This is just one of the ways that the theme of God’s grace toward his wayward people is highlighted in this section. And what does God say to Jacob slash Israel, his people, his faithless, wandering, spiritually blind, spiritually deaf people? He says to them, come on, get your act together. Do better. Try harder, be better, do more. No. What does he say to them? Fear not. Fear not.

I mean, based on the spiritual deafness and blindness and failures of God’s people that the Lord had highlighted at the end of the previous chapter, we would expect that Israel would have much to fear at the hands of Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, this God of infinite white-hot holiness, the God of holiness who, remember how Isaiah responded to the holiness of God when he caught that vision of the Lord? in the temple, as recorded in Isaiah chapter six. Even righteous Isaiah, when he saw the Lord in the temple, he says, woe is me, I am undone.

I am a man of unclean lips. I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. Certainly the people should tremble before the Holy One of Israel. After all, they had forsaken the Lord. They had ignored His law. They had fallen into religious compromise and even blatant idolatry. Instead of being a light to the nations around them, they allowed the nations around them to influence them and their practices and they turned away from the Lord.

And yet God says to them, fear not. Why? Why should they fear not? Well, God gives a very clear answer. Fear not, for I have redeemed you. Their sin, their rebellion incurred a great debt. They deserve God’s wrath. They deserve the exile. They were gonna get exile, yes. But the exile would not mean, as we will see, the exile did not mean that God would wipe his hands clean of them and say, okay, that’s it, I’ve had it.

I’ve tried with you people for so many centuries and you continually turn away from me. I raise up prophets, I send the prophets to you to call you to repentance. Usually, you know, there’s a faithful remnant that repents, but most of you just keep stiffening your necks and hardening your hearts. I’ve had it with you, I’m done with you. No, he doesn’t say that. He says, I’ve redeemed you. I’ve called you by name. You are mine. I’m not gonna give up on you. I have bound myself in covenant love to you. I have redeemed you.

Has he redeemed them because they deserved it? No, they didn’t deserve to be redeemed. They didn’t deserve to be called. They didn’t deserve to be possessed by the Lord. But in spite of the fact that they didn’t deserve the least of his mercies, God in sovereign grace shows them mercy. God is free to do. He’s free to show mercy on whom he wishes and wills to show mercy.

That brings us to consider what the meaning of grace is. Let me ask you this, dear friend. If someone were to ask you, what is grace? How would you define grace? My suspicion is that many of you would answer that question, and I’ve heard many preachers answer it this way, and it’s a true answer as far as it goes, but many would say, well, grace is God’s unmerited favor, right? And it certainly is God’s unmerited favor. We don’t deserve his favor. He gives it to us even though we haven’t merited or earned it, and so forth.

But I’m reminded, and I know I’ve shared this in the past, so some of you may recognize this illustration, but I had a professor in seminary, Dr. Meredith Klein. I remember he would stress, and this really stuck with me, he made mention in his classes that, look, grace isn’t just God’s unmerited favor.

In that sense, your pet dog or your pet cat or your goldfish are recipients of grace. They all have life and breath and food and so forth. They don’t deserve it because they’re creatures. But God’s grace goes beyond that. It’s not just his undeserved favor. It’s his demerited favor. It’s his favor and love given to a people who deserve the opposite of his favor and love. Namely, they deserve his wrath and condemnation and judgment because of their sin and rebellion. Yet God gives them grace nonetheless. And that’s what we have displayed in this very comforting and powerful passage.

And then it goes on to say in verse two, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned and the flame shall not consume you. God’s gracious redemption of his people does not mean that they will escape trials or suffering. As Dr. E.J. Young points out this imagery of water and fire, he says, water and fire taken together form a picture of every danger that would come and include above all the water and fire of judgment. Indeed, as Isaiah warned the people of his time, God’s faithless people would experience the deep waters and the fire of Babylonian exile. Yet even though God would allow these afflictions to come upon his faithless people, even though they would go through these fires of afflictions, these waters of judgment, yet God’s promise remains, and that promise is, I will be with you. As he says in verse two, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you.

Your exile to Babylon does not mean that I’ve abandoned you, but Lord, you’ve kicked us out of the promised land. The temple will be destroyed. We’ll be thrown out of the promised land. We’ll go into exile and have to live in a pagan land that worships false gods. Certainly that means you have abandoned us, that you’re no longer with us. God says, no, I will be with you. Yes, he’s going to judge them. He’s going to chasten them, but he’s not going to abandon them. I will be with you, he says.

Now the term waters, of course, may hearken back to the Lord bringing his people through the waters of the Red Sea, and then later on, bringing them through the Jordan River in the days of Joshua. In both cases, the waters represented the waters of judgment. Think about the Red Sea. God made a way for his people to pass through the Red Sea on dry land. For them, the waters that parted provided a way of deliverance. But what happens when the Egyptians pursue the Israelites into the Red Sea? The waters of judgment come over them. We go through the waters of judgment in Christ. Christ went through those waters for us and he brings us out to the other side. He is our Joshua. He is our salvation.

And fire, of course, might lead us to think of a later time when Daniel’s three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, would be cast into the fiery furnace for refusing to engage in the idolatry commanded by King Nebuchadnezzar. You can read about that, of course, in Daniel chapter three. He says, I’m gonna be with you, even through the water, even through the fire. And then verse three, for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. What’s this reference to Egypt and Cush and Seba? Well, Dr. Young writes that the thought here is that instead of Israel having been given up, three nations have been offered in its place. They are its substitutes. Quite likely, the three are mentioned as representatives of the heathen nations at large. The judgment that resulted in destruction fell not upon Israel, but upon these nations.

So the point here, friends, that God is making when he mentions these other nations, I give Egypt and Cush and Seba as your ransom. The Lord has made a distinction between his people and other peoples. There’s an election here, a choice here that God makes. And the point is that Yahweh moves history and is even willing to sacrifice other nations in order to bring his people safely home. That is how determined he is to save and deliver his people. And then verse four.

It says, because you are precious in my eyes. Why are they precious in his eyes? Why are they honored? He says, because you are precious in my eyes and honored and I love you. I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. But they were so faithless. They were so blind. They were so stubborn. But the Lord was not going to give up on them.

This verse, verse four, along with the previous one, highlights God’s sovereign, redeeming love and his gracious election. His people are precious, his people are honored, his people are loved, not due to their own works or merits or worthiness, but because of God’s sovereign, gracious choice. And this, by the way, shows what a misrepresentation of the teachings of Scripture it is when you hear folks say, well, you know, the Old Testament, it’s all about law and wrath and judgment. The New Testament’s all about grace and mercy.

That’s nonsense. Read Isaiah 43. Consider also Deuteronomy 9, 1-6. In the backdrop of Isaiah’s mind here, as the Spirit inspires him to pen these words, may be this passage in Isaiah 9, verses 1 to 6. If you’d like to turn there, I welcome you to do so.

Moses addressing the children of Israel as they’re about to embark upon the venture of conquering the promised land. He says this, here, O Israel, you are to cross over the Jordan today to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to heaven, a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim whom you know and of whom you have heard it said, who can stand before the sons of Anak.

“‘Know therefore today that he who goes over before you “‘as a consuming fire is the Lord your God. “‘He will destroy them and subdue them before you. “‘So you shall drive them out and make them perish quickly “‘as the Lord has promised you.'” But then he gives a warning.

He says this in verse four, “‘Do not say in your heart “‘after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, “‘it is because of my righteousness “‘that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land. whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you.

Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God is driving them out before you and that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Know therefore that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people. Three times he says, it’s not because of your righteousness. It’s not because you deserve it. It’s because these folks are wicked and I’m using you as an instrument of my judgment, but ultimately it’s because of God’s covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is because of his mercy. This is also, we are reminded of this if you stay in Deuteronomy and go back to chapter seven. Let me read verses six through eight of Deuteronomy chapter seven.

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who were on the face of the earth. Why did he choose them? Well, he must have chosen us because we’re a great and mighty nation and we are worthy.

No. It says in verse seven, it was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. It’s not because you’re great. It’s not because you’re worthy.

It’s simply because the Lord loves you. And friends, If the Lord, if you know Christ is your Savior, then the Lord has set his everlasting love upon you. You may give up on yourself, others may give up on you, but the Lord in sovereign mercy will never give up on you. Dear friends in Christ, let us remember that our God has graciously redeemed us in Christ, and therefore he is always with us, even through the waters and fires of affliction, trials, and tribulation. Let us therefore not fear, for the Lord is with us.

This reminds me, and we’ll bring my sermon to a close today, The time is limited and there’s a lot more to consider from this passage. We’ll come back to it the next time. But I’m reminded of that wonderful stanza in that hymn, How Firm a Foundation. And in that hymn, the hymn writer basically paraphrases scripture. And there’s one stanza, I think it’s the third stanza, where he’s sort of paraphrasing what we read here in chapter 43 of Isaiah.

The hymn writer says, when through the deep waters I call you to go, the rivers of sorrow shall not overflow, for I will be with you, your troubles to bless, and sanctify to you your deepest distress. God says, dear brother, sister in Christ, God says to you, fear not, for I have redeemed you. Oh, but you don’t know, pastor, I’ve wandered so. I’ve been so faithless, I’ve been so scattered, I’m like a prodigal.

Your Heavenly Father welcomes you home. He welcomes the prodigal home. And if he has set his love upon you and drawn you to Christ and you’ve come to receive and rest upon Christ and Christ alone is your Savior, and if God by his Spirit is working in you, repentance, the Lord is calling you back.

And he says, fear not. Fear not, I have redeemed you. I have redeemed you. That means all that past junk, it’s been nailed to the cross, it’s been buried in the tomb, it’s been cast into a sea of forgetfulness. He has removed it from you as far as the east is from the west, because he’s such an amazing, gracious God. Fear not. I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. And when you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

Why? Because it consumed Christ on the cross, the holy wrath of God was poured out on Christ in your place, in your stead, as your sin bearer, your substitute. If you’re here this morning and this sounds foreign to you, and you’re like, what is this pastor talking about? talking about Jesus, I’m talking about the only Savior. He is the Holy One of Israel, but He is also the Savior of sinners like me and like you. And if you come to Him in faith and repentance, He will receive you, He will forgive you, and you will know that He has redeemed you, and you will know at that point that you have nothing to fear, for there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

And all of God’s people said, amen. Let’s pray. Our Lord and Father in heaven, sovereign and eternal God, we thank you, Lord, that you give us the grace to believe We thank you that through Christ you have redeemed us with an eternal redemption, an unshakable redemption, a firm salvation. We ask, O Lord, that we might take these truths to heart, and we pray, Lord, that you would give us the grace not to be fearful or anxious, but to know that even if we go through the fires or the waters, even though we go through trials and tribulations, distresses, and even persecutions, that you will never leave us nor forsake us. You are always with us. We thank you, Heavenly Father, that nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Help us to believe this always. In Jesus’ name we pray and all of God’s people said, amen. Let’s close our time of worship by rising and we’ll sing together number 262, one there is above all others, 262.