The sermon 'He Who Has Mercy on Them Will Lead Them' by Scott Brown is based on Isaiah 49:1-13, exploring the relationship between God the Father and Jesus Christ in the redemption of sinners. The passage reveals a divine plan for salvation, orchestrated through a collaboration of mercy between the Father and the Son, emphasizing the central role of their relationship in the universe. Isaiah 49 is identified as one of the four 'servant songs,' focusing on the mission of Jesus to restore Israel and be a light to the Gentiles. The sermon highlights the perceived failure of Jesus' ministry, contrasting outward appearances with the ultimate success of God's plan. It emphasizes the role of mercy in leadership and guidance, encouraging believers to flee from Babylon and embrace the salvation offered through Christ. The sermon concludes with reflections on the nature of God's mercy and the call to be merciful in leadership roles.

Isaiah 49, 1-13, Listen, O coastlands, to me, and take heed your peoples from afar. The Lord has called me from the womb, from the matrix of my mother. He has made mention of my name, And he has made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of his hand he has hidden me, and made me a polished shaft. In his quiver he has hidden me.

And he said to me, you are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. Then I said, I have labor in vain. I've spent my strength for nothing and in vain. It's surely my just reward is with the Lord and my work with my God. And now the Lord says who formed me from the womb to be a servant, to bring Jacob back to him, so that Israel is gathered to him.

For I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength." Indeed, he says, it is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel. I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth. Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, their Holy One. To him whom man despises, to him whom the nation abhors, to the servant of rulers kings shall see in her eyes, princes also shall worship because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, and he has chosen you. Thus says the Lord in an acceptable time I have heard you and in the day of salvation I have helped you.

I will preserve you and give you as a covenant to the people to restore the earth to cause them to inherit the desolate heritages that you may say to the prisoners go forth to those who are in darkness show yourselves. They shall feed along the roads and their passage shall be on all desolate heights. They shall neither hunger nor thirst, neither heat nor sun shall strike them. For he who has mercy on them will lend them, will lead them, even by the springs of water he will guide them. I will make each of my mountains a road and my highways shall be elevated surely these shall come from afar look those from the north and the west and these from the land of sin.

Sing oh heavens be joyful earth and break out and sing your mountains for the Lord has comforted his people and will have mercy on his afflicted. Thank you for today Heavenly Father, thank you we could be here together to worship you. Thank you for Scott Heavenly Father, I pray he'd preach what you want him to and we'd receive it and you'd change us through this preaching in Jesus name, amen. Well Isaiah 49 shows us the inner workings of the Father and the Son and how they relate back and forth with one another. What you see here in this passage is that there's this mastermind behind the universe and everything is being orchestrated in order to exalt the love of God.

In this passage you'll see this Conspiracy the father is speaking to the son and the son is telling about what the father is Doing with him and that you can sense. There's this conspiracy there's this plan that's that has been concocted And the Father is using the Son, and the Son is submitting to His Father to be involved in this whole matter of redemption. And so our passage this morning, It just shows the way of salvation and the way that the Father and the Son have collaborated together to bring about eternal salvation to sinners. In this chapter, the Lord Jesus is actually telling the story of redemption and how it happened. He's explaining the nuts and bolts about redemption itself.

And we learn, you know, God the Father has an agenda. And his agenda is that the merciful will lead them. And this is the ground of the work of God in the whole universe and that is mercy. So in verses 1-13, you see that the Son of God is praising His Father in heaven for all the things that He's done for Him and how he has helped him to redeem sinners. And it's this relationship of the Father and the Son that's the center of the universe.

Matthew Henry said, all of our happiness results from the Son's interest in the Father. And you see this relationship there that's at the center of absolutely everything. You know it's not first of all ideas, it's not first of all theology that's at the center of everything. It's God and His Son. It's the relationship of a Father and a Son and the Holy Spirit.

It's a relationship that is at the center of the gravitational force of the whole universe. There's a Father who loves his son and who is sending his son on a mission and the son honors his father and he delights to do the will of his father. And the Holy Spirit is glorifying the work of the father and the son. That's really the beginning of all redemption. And it begins in the context of the relationship in a family.

This is the family in heaven. And it's this family of love and they've gathered together, they've collaborated in order to save sinners. And that's the picture that we see here. And we see, you know, he's saved us not on the basis of the deeds that we have done in righteousness but according to his mercy. That's what Titus 3 verse 5 says.

This passage is about the mercies of God the Father and his Son the Lord Jesus Christ, which is why we read in Lamentations 3 22, his mercies are new every morning. This is a text about God being rich in mercy as Ephesians chapter 2 verse 4 says, but God who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in trespasses made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved and not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." And so it's out of these tender mercies of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, that mankind is restored. And so this is the essence of this passage of Scripture.

But by way of introduction, I'd like to tell you five things about this passage beyond what I've just said. First of all, Isaiah 49 is one of the four servant Psalms. This is the second one we've encountered. Chapter 42 was the first one, but the four servant Psalms are Isaiah 42, Isaiah 49, Isaiah 50, and Isaiah 53. And each one of these has its own particular focus.

In chapter 42, We read in verse 1, behold my servant whom I uphold, my elect one in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. And he goes on and says, a bruised reed he will not break. And all the things that we covered when we were in chapter 42.

Chapter 49 builds on chapter 42 and and gives more detail about about the Gentiles. In chapter 50 you see this rising opposition against the suffering servant and then in chapter 53 the complete rejection of the Messiah which is really the rejection of God and it's it's that rejection it's his suffering that causes the redemption of sinners. So the first thing I think we should recognize is this is part of a matrix of servant solves in the book of Isaiah. Secondly, There's the context that's important to recognize, and that has to do with rescue from Babylon. Babylon was finally mentioned last in the previous chapter, and that really forms the context of what we have here.

In the previous chapter, Isaiah is making it clear that the people identified with God, but they had no heart for God. They had a heart for Babylon, but they had the look of the church. And that was the problem with them. Their affections had been captivated by Babylon and the consequences were more harmful than they thought. They were Israel in name only.

But Chapter 49 comes to us and we recognize that God's plan is not thwarted. In chapter 48 we see how the lostness of Israel is seen vividly. God sees into their hearts. And yet that's not the end of the story. Because there is a conversation in heaven between the Father and the Son in order to save sinners, in order to save some in Israel.

And so chapter 49 makes us clear that God, the Father and God the Son will not only rescue the Gentiles, but He will also bring in some of his people. All is not lost among the people of Israel. And then this brings us to the next thing, is that there are two categories of people that are spoken of in chapter 49, the Jews and the Gentiles. The Jews always had a difficult time conceiving of how God could love the filthy Gentiles, the people who had no concept of God, no sense of morality. Their whole background was totally contrary to God at all.

I just got back from Seattle, Washington, and it struck me while I was there that when you go to Seattle, Nobody believes in God, but when you come to North Carolina, everybody believes in God. What's that all about? And the truth is, there's probably just as much unbelief. But here is this conversation between the Father and the Son for how he is going to rescue some of the Jews and how he is going to rescue the Gentiles. And that really forms the structure of this great chapter, the Jews and the Gentiles.

And it's really a foretelling that the two will be made into one, that the Gentiles and those who are saved in Israel, that a dividing wall will come down and the two will be one. And then there's an interpretive grid here that we should recognize, because the passage could possibly be confusing. When God speaks of his Son, he is also speaking of his people, And he is also speaking of Israel itself. These three things he's speaking of in this chapter. When he speaks of Israel, he's also speaking of his son.

And because Israel is a picture of his son. And so those are the things that we see here. Now, let's get into the text, but I want us to read the text again. Because I want you to see how this conversation is being engaged in chapter 49. It's a fascinating passage, but you have to understand who is speaking, who is speaking to whom, and to whom is the speaker speaking about.

If you can see how that works, you'll understand what's going on in this passage. So I'd like you to get your eyes down on your Bibles because I'm going to take you through this passage And we're going to identify these three things of who's speaking, who's speaking to, and who's being spoken about. Because you'll really be able, I hope anyway, to get the sense of what's happening here. In verse one, this servant is telling the Gentiles of what God has done to save them and how he's going to restore his people Israel. So In verse 1, it is the Lord Jesus Christ himself speaking.

And he's speaking to the Gentiles. You got that? Jesus is speaking to the Gentiles in verse 1. Listen, O close lands to me, and take heed, you peoples from afar. Then, the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of what his father has done.

He says, The Lord has called me from the womb, from the matrix of my mother. He has made mention of my name. So Jesus Christ is speaking to the Gentiles and he's telling them of the virgin birth. He's telling them that he's a man that has come from the womb of a woman. And then in verse 2, he tells them what God has done with him.

That he, God, has made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of his hand he has hidden me and made me a polished shaft. Jesus Christ is boasting in God his Father for what he's done. And he's saying to the Gentiles, He made me, He made me a sharp sword. He hid me in His hand.

He's telling the story. And then also in verse 2, he says, in his quiver he has hid me. We'll get to that in more detail later. And then in verse 3, the Lord Jesus Christ tells the Gentiles what God said to him. He's recalling what God has said.

You can see this intimate relationship between the Father and the Son. And the Son is recalling what his father has done with him. And he said to me, and then we get the words that God said to his son, you are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. And so this is a picture of the Son knowing that his Father is glorifying him and that he is going to serve his father. Remember Jesus said, I say nothing unless I hear my father saying it.

I do nothing unless I see my father doing it. The Lord Jesus is recalling this conversation that he had with his father because his father said to him, you are my servant, O Israel. And then in verse four, the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of himself. He really reveals his own feelings. These are very surprising feelings that In order to hear the son express you you wouldn't expect him to say something like this, but here's what he says Jesus says then I said I have labored in vain I Have spent my strength for nothing and in vain, yet surely my just reward is with the Lord and my work with my God." So on the one hand, there's this kind of despondency that he's been a failure.

On the other hand, he casts himself back on God and his work and trusting in the sovereignty of God. And then in verse five and six, we learn from the Lord Jesus more of what the Lord says. He says, and now the Lord says, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, so that Israel is gathered to him. For I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord and my God shall be my strength." So here Jesus is telling the Gentiles about this Ministry that God had given him to bring Jacob back to him in other in other words to bring Some of the Jews back to him to gather them together and then in verse 6 We the Lord Jesus Christ says indeed he says and then He he quotes God. He's quoting God the Father.

Do you see how there's this back and forth? God the Son is speaking, he's recalling the words of his Father, and he quotes his Father. And that's what he does in verse 6. Here's what the father said to the son, it is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel. I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth so God told his son the gent the the Jews are To save the Jews is not enough glory for me.

I want to save the Gentiles. God the Father told that to His Son. That it wasn't... That He wanted more glory. It was too small a thing just to rescue the Jews.

But that he wanted more glory, more praise in the world for himself. So he designed to save the Gentiles. And that's what verse 6 says. This is what God said to his son. And then in verse 7, the Lord Jesus Christ says, Thus says the Lord, he speaking of his father, the Redeemer of Israel, their Holy One, to whom man despises, to him whom the nation abhors to the servant of rulers and then he quotes God again do you see it there kings shall see and arise princes also shall worship because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, and he has chosen you." And then the Lord Jesus Christ goes back to speaking in verse 8 and he quotes God again.

Jesus is always bringing forth the words of God, and that's what he does in verse eight. Thus says the Lord, and now the Lord says, in an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you I will preserve you and give you as a covenant to the people and then the whole rest of this is God declaring what he is how he is going to help his son to save sinners. So what you have here is this is this Trinitarian conversation where the son is remembering what his father has said to him about the redemption of the world. And so there's this divine conspiracy. It's a conspiracy of mercy.

The father and the son are working together. They're conspiring together. The Father is conceived of the plan and the Son is going to carry out that plan. He's going to pass through the heavens, He's going to come to the earth, He's going to live, He's going to hang on a cross, and He's going to bear the sins of the world as a substitutionary sacrifice. And so here the Father and the Son are collaborating in a conspiracy of mercy in order to save sinners.

Okay, so now let's sort of work our way through the text in a different way, but I wanted us to see the interaction between the Father and the Son that is there. The people who don't believe in the Trinity should go to this passage and see how you have two very distinct persons who are talking to one another, about one another, and they're explaining what one another are doing distinctly. That's what's happening. The Bible gives this picture everywhere where you have a father and a son and a spirit and they're all different persons and they have different roles and different functions. One speaks, another submits.

One loves, another delights in the other. And that's a picture of the Holy Trinity. So in this, if you have your outlines in front of you, you can see the basic flow of this passage. And first of all, we see in the first seven verses that the servant tells the Gentiles what God has done to save them and to restore the people of Israel. And so that's why we see this first word, listen, listen who?

Listen O Coastlands, he's speaking to the Gentiles, Listen you Gentiles to me and take heed you peoples from afar." And so the servant is speaking, he's appealing to the Gentiles to listen. And this is how God saves anyone. He speaks. He opens up his mouth. He casts out his word.

And people hear his word and they're converted. This is how God works in people's lives and this is how the Son of God is speaking to the Gentiles and he's using his voice. He speaks and this is the foundation really of the whole gospel that there is someone who speaks the words of God. This is how the gospel is transmitted. It's through words.

This is our great responsibility to do what the Son of God has done, to do it throughout the coastlands in the same way that the Lord Jesus Christ has done. You know, how shall they hear without a preacher? The gospel is spread by individuals who speak the word of God, and that's what the Lord Jesus Christ is doing. And so he speaks of the coastlands. This means of people who are far off.

The message is for the whole world. And what's the message? Well, it's a statement about himself, about the virgin birth, that he was born of a woman in order to preserve the seed of the woman. He was born as a man in order to have compassion on the sons of men. He would become a faithful high priest, a compassionate high priest who was born as a man.

In order for salvation to be complete, you had to have the God-man. You had to have God in the flesh. And That's what the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking of here. And then he says that God has done something with him, that he's made him a polished sword. Verse 2, he has made my mouth like a sharp sword.

In the shadow of his hand he has hidden me and made me a polished shaft. In his quiver he has hidden me." And so the Son of God is equipped like no other servant, like no other instrument, and that his mouth is like a sharp sword. And he is wielding his sword in the world. This is the essence of the duty of all followers of Christ, and that is to wield the sword of the Spirit. What is our message?

Our message is the messages of the Word of God. The Word of God does not return void. And the Lord Jesus Christ uses this same ministry that he has given to us. It's a sharp sword. Nothing can stop it.

And this picture of the sword is a picture of Jesus preaching. You remember when people heard Jesus Christ preach, they said no one ever spoke like this. No one ever had the authority like Jesus. In one place, the people just marveled at the gracious words that were falling from his lips because he was wielding this sword. It was a polished sword.

It says here that God hid his son in his quiver. There are different things that this could mean. It could mean that God was hiding him in the hollow of his hand as God was wielding the sword, the sword of his son himself. It could be that God was hiding his son throughout all of history, that God veiled his Son in images and types in the Old Testament. There are hundreds and hundreds of types of Christ in the Old Testament that God was revealing his Son, though hiding him.

Even in His incarnation, He was hidden. As the hymn writer says, veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity. God's Godhood was veiled in flesh. It was veiled in the Old Covenant, in the types and the shadows of the Old Testament. And he was even veiled in his incarnation.

And the Lord Jesus Christ was a sword. And then this whole matter of being hidden, You know, we were going through the book of Numbers last week with our interns, and there are a number of images of Christ in numbers. The bronze serpent, which Nicodemus actually connects with the new birth in John chapter 3. There's the rock. There's Balaam who prophesies of Jesus and a star, this evil man.

He says, I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob. A sector shall arise out of Israel. So the Lord Jesus Christ, he was hidden in shadows and in images in the Old Testament.

It's quite possible that that's what this means, that he was hidden. And then fourthly we see that he was a servant who was glorified. Verse 3, and he said to me you are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. Now this verse could be confusing because now it seems that the Lord Jesus Christ is Israel and that is exactly what the author is trying to communicate. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Lord Jesus Christ, but he is also Israel.

He is, Israel is a type of Christ and he is, he is Israel and he is also the one who will save Israel. This is why the scripture says out of Egypt I have called my son Israel the son of God is coming out of Egypt and so the Lord Jesus Christ is a type of Israel. The Lord Jesus Christ is a lived the life that Israel was meant to live but Israel did not live that life. Israel rejected the Son of God and did not live like the Son of God and therefore was condemned. And as a result, there had to be someone who did live perfectly and that was the Son of God himself.

Jesus was everything that Israel was designed to be in all of his perfect obedience. And he signified the obedience that God called his people to perform. But strangely enough, he's a troubled servant in verse 4. It's hard to imagine Jesus Christ, the Son of God, saying these things in verse 4. Then I said, I have labored in vain.

I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain. Yet surely my just reward is with the Lord, and my work with my God." Here the Lord Jesus seems to be claiming that he's a failure. And how in the world could Christ have failed? Why would this be in the Bible? And I think there are many ways that we can see that the Lord Jesus Christ had the outward appearances of failure.

You know, when he was young, they said, can anything good come from Nazareth? In other words, there's nothing about this man and his dwelling place that is compelling at all. In John chapter 6 the Lord Jesus Christ was giving hard sayings and many walked away and the Lord Jesus Christ said to his disciples, are you going to go away also? There's rejection of the Son of God all throughout the ministry of the Son of God. And for example in Matthew 21 there's the story of the rejection of the Vindressers.

The Vindressers saw the son and they said among themselves, this is the heir, come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance. So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine dressers? There was significant rejection of the Son of God. And On a human level, from outward appearance, his ministry was a failure.

Even his own disciples fled from him at the very end of his life. Even in the garden of Gethsemane, his soul was exceedingly sorrowful and he said, and later he would say, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? On the surface, the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ could have been seen to be a failure. And so there are different ways that his ministry could have been seen as a failure. Even in Isaiah itself you see evidences of it where Israel is so hard and God says to Israel, why should I strike you again?

You'll just revolt more and more. So on outward appearances, the ministry of Jesus was a failure in that sense. And when you talk about the rebellion and the captivity of Israel during those days, contemporary with Isaiah, and then even later on in the days of the disciples, on the surface it could look like the ministry was a failure. You know, parents often feel this way. Pastors sometimes feel this way.

They labor and they wonder, has anything happened at all? You know, think of even the great missionary, Adoniram Judson. You know, he went and he ministered for seven years. His wife died, his baby died, he dug his grave and he cried out to God to put him in that grave. He thought he was a total failure.

And yet later on, you could trace over a quarter of a million people that came to Christ after his death. But on the surface, it looked like a total failure. He had no converts, and he just wanted to die. And the Lord Jesus here is speaking as if his ministry is purposeless, that it hasn't produced anything of any substance. Now when we get to Isaiah 53, we'll read the promises that Christ's work was not in vain.

But what happens to us is that we often look around and we don't see the fruitfulness that we hope for. The outward appearances aren't there. You know, you look at the church and you say, how many sermons have just fallen on deaf ears? Or you're a father and you say how many of my councils have just been completely ignored? You know Martin Luther stopped preaching for 18 months.

He was so disturbed at the fact that he would preach and he would preach and he would preach and nobody's life would change. And he said, I'm not preaching. And so he did not preach for 18 months because he was so discouraged about it. By outward appearances, the work can look to be a failure, but it's not a failure at all, because it's God, It's this conspiracy of mercy that absolutely will not fail. And the Word of God doesn't return void, even though it might appear to be so.

And perhaps this is here so that we get a window into the Lord Jesus Christ himself and how it is that he's a compassionate high priest because he's been tempted in every way that we have. You know, how many times have you had been tempted to think, my life has done nothing? Well, even the Lord Jesus Christ himself communicates something like that. And I think that's how he can bear us up in our weaknesses. Because he knows our frame.

He knows we look around at the outward appearances and we don't really see what we had hoped to see. And we might even like Martin Luther just be tempted to quit because nobody's life is changing. That would be the wrong direction. Because God is faithful. Matthew Henry spoke of it like this, I've labored in vain, I've preached so many sermons, wrought so many miracles in vain.

And then Henry says, let not the ministers think it strange that they are slighted when the Master Himself was the same. But what you find here is that the Lord Jesus Christ, He communicates this human thought and then He says, yet Surely my just reward is with the Lord, and my work with my God." In other words, he's content with obedience. He's content to do the will of God and let God determine the fruitfulness of the work. This is the principle of sowing and reaping, that he was content that the work was in God's hands. He knows our weaknesses and he's tempted as we are.

You know, Mike and I, I guess it was last week, maybe it was two weeks ago, we were at the Banner of Truth conference and one of the preachers there, he quoted Count von Zinzendorf, who said, preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten. Preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten. Why could you say something like that? Because the gospel never dies. That's why.

The seed of the word of God and the power of the gospel does not die. It cannot be snuffed out. Governments have tried to do it from the very beginning. Families have tried to do it. People have tried to do it.

You cannot stop the gospel. And This is, I think, what the Lord Jesus Christ is saying, that his Father is going to complete his work. He will receive the reward of his suffering. And then in verses 5 and 6, we learn that he will not just simply restore Israel. Verse 5, and now the LORD says, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, so that Israel is gathered to him.

For I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. Indeed, it is too small a thing that you should be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel, I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth." And so here the Lord Jesus Christ tells what God the Father told him. Now the Son has just said that he's a failure, and now the Father speaks to the Son, and the Father affirms that he's not a failure. And he says, no, you will be a light to the Gentiles and you will bring Jacob back to God. So the father is answering the pain really of his son.

And he says here that he'll be a light to the Gentiles. And that means that he'll be joy, he'll be happiness to the Gentiles. Their eyes will be opened and their thinking will be no longer darkened and they will have light, they'll have new light. And that's why Simeon quoted this verse in Luke chapter 2 verse 32. In verse 29, Simeon says, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel." Paul and Barnabas quoted this very same phrase from Isaiah 49 in Acts chapter 13 verse 47.

Paul and Barnabas were boldly preaching and they said, For so the Lord has commanded us, I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth." Isn't that interesting that Paul and Barnabas, they applied that command to be a light to the Gentiles to themselves. It was for the Lord Jesus Christ, but they believed that they were in the line of Jesus Christ. And they would do the very same thing as the Lord Jesus Christ by being a light to the Gentiles. That was one of the great purposes of their lives, is to be a light to the Gentiles. To go to the people who did not know God, who had no heritage, who had no tradition.

They had no language to understand God, and to bring God to them, to be a light to the Gentiles, you know, it's It's so harmful when we find ourselves put off by the Gentiles When we're when we are really designed to be a light to the Gentiles by bringing the Word of God to the Gentiles. This is quoted in Matthew chapter 12 as well. The Lord Jesus Christ speaks of him in that same way, that he will declare justice to the Gentiles. You know, this is a picture of the prodigal son. This is a picture of God healing a people.

This is a picture of people growing up in non-Christian homes. This is a picture of people growing up in America and not really knowing about God. And then someday they hear the gospel and everything changes. It's a picture of broken people. It's a picture of North Carolina.

I mean, North Carolina is the coastlands. We are the coastlands. And then the Lord tells his son that kings will worship him. Verse seven. Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, their Holy One, to him whom man despises, to him whom the nation abhors, to the servant of rulers, kings shall see and arise.

Princes also shall worship because of the Lord who is faithful the holy one of Israel and he has chosen you you know He was despised and He was rejected by men, but at the same time even kings worship Him. And so the Father is telling His Son That his work will not be in vain, that kings will worship him, that there will be some who will despise him, that nations will despise him. And on the surface, the great nations of the world will hate the Son of God. But it's only on the surface, because God has a plan. He is redeeming His people.

And I think He's speaking of, you know, many of the monarchs who've turned to Christ and they've risen in his presence and they've worshiped Jesus Christ. And so in this first section, the servant is telling the Gentiles what God has done to save them and also the people of Israel, how he's going to restore them. Then there's a picture of God helping his son to accomplish the work, And that's in verses 8 through 12. And so this first section begins, Thus says the Lord, in an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you. I will preserve you and give you as a covenant to the people." You know, the Lord Jesus Christ is going to go to hang upon a cross and to be killed, but here God the Father is informing his son that he will be preserved and he will actually be a covenant to his people.

And what we see here is that the father is hearing his son, the father is helping his son, the father is preserving his son, And the Father is giving His Son as a covenant. And again, you see this intimate relationship of a Father who loves His Son, who's giving His Son work to do. And a father is actually setting up his son for success. And there are several things that He will do, and I've itemized them here. This is what the Son of God will do.

This is what God has equipped His Son to do. And it really is a picture of the power of the gospel and how beautiful the gospel is and how God secured these things for his son and the first is restoration to restore the earth and and he's not he's not talking about I think he's talking about the people of the earth. He's talking about saving sinners off of the earth, all over the earth, on this great planet, from every tongue and tribe and nation. This is this matter of restoring, of bringing things back to the way that they ought to be. To take people whose lives are completely out of kilter and out of balance and He restores them back to what they were meant to be.

This is the work of God in the soul of man. It's a restorative work. He restores my soul. That's what God does. Anybody who comes to God is being restored by God.

And then an inheritance, verse 8, to cause them to inherit the desolate places. Now inheritance here is a possession, it's what you have. You've got this baggage, it's called desolate places. And these desolate heritages are changed. Your desolate heritage, all the things you've done, all the things you've experienced that were wrong, your desolate heritage is healed by the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then prisoners are set free. That's in verse 9. That you may say to the prisoners go forth to those who are in darkness. Show yourselves. They shall feed along the roads and their pastures shall be on all desolate heights." You know, in the previous chapter, the admonition was, go forth from Babylon, get out of Babylon.

And now it's, go forth, get out of prison. God through his son sets captives free. They are prisoners. They are in darkness. And what this means is that God makes war against your enemies.

He makes a fight against those who have taken you captive. And He wages war against those. Which is why the Lord Jesus Christ said if if the Sun will make you free then you will be free indeed The Bible says it was for freedom that you were set free and And so now we learn that getting out of Babylon is really getting out of prison. It's being set free from the bondage of the past. You know, people think too highly of Babylon.

They think there's some freedom there when it's really nothing but a prison. But the Lord Jesus Christ sets free from prison. Notice these words here, to those who are in darkness, show yourselves. What does that mean? How do you show yourself in the context that's here?

It means to reveal, it means to lay bare, And it has to do with bringing yourself before God in confession, to show yourself for who you really are. To stop hiding, to stop putting on airs, but to walk in the light, to have no fellowship with darkness at all, but rather to expose it. It could be an allusion to the Lord Jesus Christ where he would say to someone go show yourself to the priest that you're cleansed Go show yourself that you've repented make it plain that you've turned that you've that you are now out of prison and then the prisoners are nourished, verse 10, they shall neither hunger nor thirst. And this is God's affirmation that he will feed his people, He will take care of his people. We already read in Isaiah 40, He shall feed his flock like a shepherd.

He shall gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom and shall gently lead those who are with young. God takes prisoners who had no hope and then and he promises that he will feed them and he will give them drink. That's why David said the young lions lack and suffer hunger, but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing. You know, God does favor his people. God does take good care of his people.

And then the prisoners are protected in verse 10. Neither heat nor sun shall strike them. This has to do with just debilitating heat and sun, the things that would put you out. He's saying that He will not allow you to be put out. And then number six, guidance, merciful guidance.

For he who has mercy on them will lead them. You see the word for? It's a critical term. For he who has mercy on them will lead them. This is this conspiracy of mercy.

That God, the Father, is conspiring in a conspiracy of mercy to rescue sinners, and He who has mercy on them will lead them. When you turn to Jesus Christ, He's the Good Shepherd, He's a merciful Shepherd, and he has mercy on all those who he walks with and He who has mercy on them will lead them You know, this isn't really the picture of of leadership that you find in corporate leadership today It's not that it's not it's not mercy That people are driving toward in their leadership It's selfishness they want to serve themselves But Jesus Christ is not like that. He's not serving himself. He's leading out of his mercy. You might think about that in your own life.

Everyone is leading someone. Fathers and mothers are leading their children. Some of you have companies. You know, there are officers of church here. And you know, How are we leading?

Are we leading as a result of our mercy? Or what is it? Why are we leading the way that we are? Is it Because we have mercy upon our children? Or are we just doing something for ourselves?

I was thinking about that, about everything that we do here. Why do we do it? Do the leaders lead because they have mercy on the people? Or because they have something else in mind. But here's what you can know about Jesus Christ.

Every step that He takes you, He is leading you in mercy. He leads you in the way that He has led you because He has mercy on you. Even your greatest hardships are as a result of His mercy. Until you can recognize that, I don't know how you can grasp the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. But Jesus Christ always leads out of mercy, even through the greatest hardships.

Has He exposed your sin? He did it out of mercy. Has he taken all your money away? He did it out of mercy. Has he caused someone to turn against you?

He did it out of mercy. God has mercy on his people and he super intends everything in order to serve the great mercy of his heart and it should be the ground of all of our own leadership in the different areas that he's given us. There's a seventh thing that God does for his son. Even by springs of water he shall guide them." This is refreshing guidance. And then it's well-defined guidance.

He says in verse 11, I will make each of my mountains a road and my highways shall be elevated. This is just another way of saying that when you get on his road, he is going to get you to the destination. He's going to make his road get there. And then there's guidance for those far off in verse 12. Surely these shall come from afar.

Look, those from the north and the west, and these from the land of Sinim. I think this is just simply a message that God is going to gather his people from the four corners of the earth, from every tongue and tribe and nation, that he'll even come to a place so far away like North Carolina, he's going to save souls there. He's going to go to Africa, he's going to go to Asia. He'll go everywhere and he'll save souls everywhere. And then he calls for singing in verse 13.

Sing, O heavens and be joyful, O earth, and break out in singing, O mountains, for the Lord has comforted his people and will have mercy on his afflicted." Now, I think there are several things here in verse 13. One is that it's a promise that the Great Commission will be successful, that the work will not fail, that God will accomplish all of His purposes in the world. And though it might on the surface look like a failure in the same way that the Lord Jesus Christ looked like a failure when his disciples left him, but it is not a failure at all. And here there's a picture of all creation is rejoicing, That from the heavens to the earth to the mountains there's rejoicing everywhere That is the result of this divine conspiracy of mercy God is going to have mercy on people and The whole earth is going to rejoice So, let me give you a couple of applications here. Let's talk about mercy.

You know, God has said, be holy for I am holy. And I think that applies to us. You know, be merciful as I am merciful. Psalm 116 says that our God is merciful. We learn from the book of Hebrews that He sympathizes with our weaknesses.

We know that He delights in mercy in Micah 7, 18. And he through the prophet Micah said, He has shown thee, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of thee, but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God. And it's why David said, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And here we find in God the Father and in God the Son and the work of the Holy Spirit, there is this design to have mercy on sinners. That is God's design.

And He comes and God, in His mercy, He sends His Son and He gives a sacrifice for their sins. He gives a perfect sacrifice. He acts in mercy. We have much to learn from God the Father about mercy, which is why in Luke chapter 6 we hear the command, be merciful even as your Father is merciful. You have this ground of mercy in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And that ground of mercy is designed to be the ground of all of our own work as well. In our families, in our work everywhere that we lead because of mercy. Another application. This is a reason to flee Babylon. I think Isaiah 49, It gives us the reason why we ought to flee Babylon.

Why should we renounce the world? Why should we admit the turmoil and the lack of peace? It's because of the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Because Jesus Christ is a river of life and he is able to rescue from Babylon. That's the whole logic of this section here, that God is going to destroy Babylon and his last words are, get out of Babylon, but he doesn't stop there.

And he sets up his son to say to the coastlands, I am the Savior of the world. You know, God in His mercy reaches out to the Gentiles. He reaches out to the filthy and the unwashed. He reaches out to those with all of the baggage and he extends his hand in mercy. And that is why you must flee Babylon because Jesus Christ is the Son of God and God's love was the motivating factor for the sending of a son so that the filthy, unwashed Gentiles would be saved.

And that's the message, at least this first part. And he continues on with many of the same themes in the rest of this chapter. Remember the whole context that we're in? Isaiah chapter 40 begins, comfort, yes, comfort my people, says your God. Speak comfort to Jerusalem and cry out to her that her warfare is ended that her iniquity is pardoned and That's the message of this servant song we're now in the in the in the section of the servant Psalms and We're going to see the various aspects of Jesus Christ as the suffering servant.

And here what we've seen is he is the obedient son of a merciful father. Would you pray with me? Lord thank you for these words of scripture. Lord I pray that you would use them, that you would multiply them in our hearts, that you would teach us your ways through them. Lord, that you would use these words to help us to turn evermore away from Babylon.

Amen.