Can a Mother Forget - Timothy Keller Sermons

this morning's scripture reading is from Isaiah 49: 1-16 listen to me you Islands hear this you distant Nations before I was born the Lord called me from my birth he has made mention of my name he made my mouth like a sharpened sword in the hollow of his hand he hid me he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver he said to me you are my servant Israel in whom I will display my splendor but I said I have labored to no purpose I have spent my strength in vain and

for nothing yet what is due me is in the Lord's hand and my reward is with my God and now the Lord says he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength he says it is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept I will also make you a light for

the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the Earth this is what the Lord says the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel to him who was despised and abored by the nation to the servant of rulers Kings will see you and rise up princes will see and bow down because of the Lord who is faithful the Holy One of Israel who has chosen you this is what the Lord says in the time of my favor I will answer you and in the day of salvation I will help you I will keep

you and will make you to be a covenant for the people to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances to say to the captives come out and to those in Darkness Be Free they will feed beside the roads and find past Ure on every Barren Hill they will neither hunger nor thirst nor will the desert heat or the Sun Beat upon them he who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside Springs of water I will turn all my mountains into roads and my highways will be raised up see they

will come from afar some from the north some from the West some from the region of Awan shout for joy Joy o Heavens Rejoice O Earth burst into song Oh Mountains for the Lord Comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones but Zion said the Lord has forsaken me the Lord has forgotten me can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has born though she may forget I will not forget you see I have engraved you on the palms of my hands my wall

your walls are ever before me this is the word of the Lord in the weeks up to Easter as a church we're going to be focusing on this question why did Jesus Come into the world what was his mission what did he come to do and what we're going to be doing during these weeks is looking at the final chapters or the last chapters late chapters of Isaiah because in the prophecy of Isaiah a mysterious figure called the servant of the Lord is prophesied predicted and he's going to bring Salvation into the world and the

New Testament writers repeatedly identify this servant of the Lord as Jesus and uh this is the second of the servant songs uh last week we looked at Isaiah 42 this is 49 and verses 1- 13 is a sweeping panoramic comprehensive statement of the Salvation that God is going to bring into the world through the servant now look carefully you'll see there's a Salvation soon and then eventually and then ultimately because in verse five and verse eight it says to the Jews who at that point were in Exile in Babylon that God is going to bring

the Jews back he's going to bring Israel back and and the desolate inheritances of the land will be restored but he goes beyond that in verse six which is so striking he says it is too small a thing for you to be my servant and restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I will also make you a light for the Gentiles that you will bring my salvation to the ends of the Earth and what a he say too he said I have I have greater ideas of Salvation than just return of

the Jews from Exile as great as that's going to be I'm going to bring Salvation to all the nations of the earth and in verse 12 you see that vividly uh described because in verse 12 it says that when through the servant God begins to gather his people together notice they don't just come from the east from Babylon which is where they would have come from to go back to Jerusalem they come from the north and they come from the west and they come from Awan in the South which means eventually God says I'm going

to bring my salvation to All Peoples I'm going to draw uh Believers from every nation I'm I'm going to create a an international multi-ethnic people of God but when you get down to verse 13 and we talked about this last week when the mountains are actually rejoicing we have a vision of the new heavens and new earth in which everything all suffering all decay all disease and even death is put away so there's my salvation's coming soon and here's the Salvation coming later and here's the Salvation coming ultimately it's panoramic and sweeping but I don't

want to look at verses 1 to13 I want us for the rest of our time to look at verses 14 15 and 16 because there we have a fascinating skeptical response it says but Zion has said now Zion was a little Hill in Jerusalem within Jerusalem where the temple was built but the temple had been destroyed you know and when when the Babylonians had come and knocked into and sacked the city but the Zion uh the hill had become uh a way of speaking about not only Jerusalem but all of Israel so to say Zion

said it means Israel says and in spite of this panoramic promise of Salvation in verse 14 we see Israel saying skeptically but I don't feel loved all these promises of loving action but I don't feel loved and in verse 15 and 16 we see God responding and I would like to to look at this because I think verse 14 is a very very typical condition that we find ourselves in and therefore looking to see how God deals with it is incredibly practical so let's look at verse 14 which is a painful question verse 15 which

is an answer to the question and verse 16 which is a cure for the pain verse 14 a painful question verse 15 an answer to the question and verse 16 a cure for the pain first let's take a look at the painful question but Zion says the Lord has forsaken me the Lord has forgotten me look at all these promises look at look at verse 1-13 it's amazing but here's what the people are saying yes salvation soon salvation eventually salvation ultimately but what about now see he says I feel forsaken you forsaken forgot me I'm

surrounded by needs now I've got needs now I'm surrounded by tragedy now look at Zion Zion is in Ruins now and the temple was our assurance that you love us and therefore we have no assurance that you love us you don't love us you just don't this skeptical question represents a very important condition of the human heart that we need to look at you know what what is that condition it's this do you notice that they don't actually in verse 14 say we don't believe all these predictions uh you know verse 14 says well I

don't even believe in God nor do they say um uh these things aren't ever going to happen no I think they believe it they they there's no indication they don't believe it but it doesn't affect them doesn't affect them now it is possible for the human heart to live in the presence of truth that you believe and it not affect the way in which you feel or live at all it's possible to say and I see this all the time in fact I think this is true of many many many of us in fact it's

true of all of us sometimes that we say with our head oh I believe in a god of love I even believe in the biblical god of love but it doesn't affect the way in which we live at all it doesn't affect how we are it doesn't affect how we feel about ourselves or about life it doesn't shape us uh Richard lovess my old teacher in one of his books said it is an item of faith that we are children of God but there is plenty of experience in us against that so the faith that

surmounts this evidence and is able to warm itself at the fire of God's love instead of stealing love and self-acceptance from other sources is actually the very root of Holiness it's an item of faith that we're children of God there's evidence against it the faith that surmounts this evidence and is able to warm itself with the fire of God's love instead of stealing love and self-acceptance from other resources is the root of Holiness what do he saying it's the same he's he's talking about this very condition we see here in verse 14 he says we

may say oh I believe I'm a Child of God I believe God loves me but he says there's all kinds of evidence against that there's evidence inside you that's against that sometimes you see stuff in there you say I don't know how God would love me considering what I feel or am or have done there's also a lot of evidence outside which is unanswered prayers and and dis ter terrible disappointments and so we he says yeah we believe we're children of God we may believe with our head we subscribe to the belief that the god

even maybe the god of the Bible is a who's a god of love I believe in that he says but I see all the unanswered prayers around me I see all the failings inside me and therefore he said I don't feel in any way this this this love of God is not a reality to my heart it doesn't transform my affections in the way in which my heart operates and therefore Richard Loveless says you can't just live with that because if you don't surmount that evidence if you don't find a way to get over that

if you don't find a way to move Beyond just mental subscription to Doctrine to Heart affecting lifechanging transformation of your life by that Doctrine you're going to steal self-acceptance and love from other sources so you're going to say oh I believe God loves me that's your heart doesn't believe that and as a result what does he mean by stealing you're going to choose careers poorly you're going to stay in relationships you shouldn't be in you know you're going to overwork you're going to do all kinds of stuff because at bottom you really have to steal

love and steal a sense of your acceptability from all these other sources because you're getting none from the thing you say you believe and one way you do and another way you don't that is that God loves you that's why this has to be addressed and of course this sense you know I when things are kind of going well the fact that our mental belief in God's love is not affecting us doesn't necessarily uh create a problem but the minute things go poorly then suddenly this painful question I feel forsaken I feel forgotten no matter

what the Bible says and even though I actually kind of believe it I don't sense it so there's the painful question so how does God deal with this how does God deal with this despondency the sense of forsakenness and and and of being forgotten well as I said there's two things he does he gives an answer to the question and a cure for the pain first the answer to the question in verse 15 can a mother forget the baby at her breast can a nursing mother forget the baby at her breast though she may forget

I will not forget you now this wonderful verse I want you I want to stand back for a minute before I actually look at what he says and I want you to see the principles about that this embodies about how God deals with a despondent despairing person first of all I want you to see something God doesn't do God doesn't say well just suck it up in fact verse 15 and 16 represents God turning aside and letting himself be interrupted you realize this is a great great theological discourse this is Isaiah this is prophecy and

he's going along and suddenly incomes verse 14 yeah it doesn't feel I don't believe it I I it's like here's the great professor and he is lecturing in class and somebody raises his hands and say I I I just I just can't buy that and what does the professor do you know ignore it say excuse me or I don't know that's not what God does what God turns aside and he takes the out seriously he doesn't just say suck it up he lets himself be interrupted he attends to it he he deals with it but

the other thing I want you to see is he doesn't just give emotional support but he gives a very very very challenging kind of Truth he appeals to the mind uh what we actually have here again if just for one second before getting into it it self I want you to see what he gives him is a theological metaphor on the one hand to say I want you to see how I am like a nursing mother and on the other hand how I'm not like a nursing mother that's a metaphor that's a similar if you're

in a if you've ever taken a a class on poetry or literature uh there are an infinite number of possible relationships between when when you when you bring this together with this and say this is like this the god of the universe is like a nursing mother how is the god of the universe like how is the god of the universe unlike on the one hand that leads to enormous that requires to answer that question requires an enormous amount of thought hard thinking see God at this point is he's he's say I want you to

think I want you to think on the other hand in this case this idea of I'm like a nursing mother it's it's thinking yes it's doctrine of yeah it's theology but it's theology designed to get to your affections this verse 15 is God saying I want you to bring my truth and my theological truth into the closest possible connection with the affections of your heart until it begins to change them John White who was a um a psychiatrist a Christian psychiatrist many years ago wrote a book called The Masks of melancholy on depression and he

says this he says years ago when I was seriously depressed the thing that saved my sanity was a dry as dust grappling with hosea's prophecy the thing that saved my sanity was a dry as dust GL grappling with hosea's prophecy I spent weeks morning by morning making meticulous notes checking historical Illusions in the text and slowly I began to sense the ground under my feet growing steadily firmer I knew without any doubt that healing was springing from my struggle to grasp the meaning of the passage if sufferers have any ability to concentrate they should do

solid inductive Bible study rather than devotional reading because in most depressed people devotional reading is stopped allog together or degenerated into something unhealthy and unhelpful see for example what is devotional reading devotional reading means you read something that gives you a sense of inspiration but he says when you're despondent in some cases for physical and chemical reasons you you can't feel anything so what are you supposed to do he says not devotional reading get the truth get the truth of who God is get the truth that you know and just drill it drill it drill

it but drill it down toward your heart or put it another way there's thinking a cognition there's feeling emotion there's willing volition so there's cognition emotion and volition you can see here that God does not go directly to the volition he doesn't say suck it up but he actually also doesn't go directly to the emotion and just give emotional support there there there poor baby he goes goes after the thinking but he drives the thinking toward the emotion toward the affections and he says I want you to think I'm going to give you a very

serious theological uh challenging uh idea but it's going to be an image of the most intimacy and vividness that's I want you to think and think and think until you feel something I don't want you to just do I don't want you to just feel I want you to think and think and think until the thinking begins to affect the feelings and direct the feelings you see that's what you have here in verse 15 but now let's actually see what he does in this case let's take a look not just at you know how he

you know let's not look just at the principles of how God deals with despondency but how he actually does it in this case can a mother forget the baby at her breast she may forget but I will not forget you as we already said first of all if we're going to be helped by this God wants us to meditate and to reflect on the nature of the bond between a nursing mother and her suckling her infant and I'll give you at least three even though you could go on forever that's the that's the reason why

these metaphors these similes uh as those of you know who you know uh Read Literature read poetry that kind of thing that there's uh your mind can go on endlessly in fact Kathy and I have worked on this particular metaphor for 30 years many many many years there's three things three reasons why a mother can't forget her infant and why the bond between a mother a nursing mother infant is so strong it maybe as strong as any human Bond at all the first is a mother cannot forget physically her infant right nursing mothers or for

former nursing mothers you don't need an alarm to say oops time to nurse the baby because you feel uncomfortable if you don't nurse the baby because the milk comes in because of your prolactins impressed that a man knows about prolactin be the more you nurse the more you have to nurse right the more you nurse the more the milk comes in you feel uncomfortable in other words there's the mother can't forget the child because physically the very the mother's physical nature starts to move moves moves the mother toward the child but that's not it's not

just that it's not just that the mother can't forget physically she can't forget emotionally because uh nursing doesn't just uh release prolactins which make make for more milk they also uh release oxytocin which is a chemist a chemical that in your body makes you feel delight and incredible contentment especially as you see the child so not only can't the mother forget the the child physically we can't forget the child emotionally there's enormous forces inside her being move her toward the child and and as a result a mother's love for a child is not just physical

and emotional it's unconditional you know think about every other kind of relationship friendship let's think about marriage in marriage you make vows right you get up and you make vows I'm going to be faithful but let's face it even marriage there's got to be give and take if there's not give and take if it's not mutual there's not give and take eventually the marriage just falls apart but look at the relationship between a mother and infant is are give and take yeah oh yeah lotss of give and take the infant all take and the mothers

all give the mother listen what what does what do you get oh mothers from the infant nothing nothing and even though the infant's giving you nothing there's no give and take it's just take take take the infant gives you nothing the infant is doing nothing at all in order to Merit or to uh your uh you know your love and yet if you're a nurse mother 24 hours a day 7 days a week your entire life revolves around that infant absolutely revolves you can never forget the infant you can never be away all the time

all the time all the time how unconditional how sacrificial how indestructible is a mother's love for her child and now God says now I want you to compare that to me and here's the punchline it says I know that you know all in fact almost all modern translations say this yay she may forget but I will not forget you but that doesn't actually by the way Hebrew doesn't say she may forget it says she will forget what does that mean and you say what do you mean a mother will forget well there's a here's what

God is saying I am both like and unlike a mother here's how I'm unlike a mother human mothers forget you so what do you mean well some human mothers are bad in spite of the prolactin in spite of the oxytocin in spite of everything some human mothers abandoned children but you oh I had a good mother yeah but eventually what if she keeps on you know if she's old enough eventually she'll forget you she'll go scile and then she'll die because you see eventually you lose your mother you lose all mothers there is no mother

love seems unconditional it seems indestructible but it's not because human beings aren't indestructible they're eminently destructible and they will be destru destroyed he says but my love will not be destroyed my love is is unconditional it is indestructible but let's go on God is saying do you know what he's saying here he says you see Mother Love it's nothing compared to my love for you you see her physical love you see her very being moves her toward you do you know that everything about my glory everything about my faithfulness everything about my very nature drives

me powerfully toward you I'm a god of love I'm a God of faithfulness I love all that I have created see but then beyond that emotional to for God to compare and then say I'm infinitely greater than a nursing mother when you know a nursing mother just dots on the child sometimes if you ever watch a nursing mother you can just see it in a way that the mother herself can't say it you see the the radiance in her face God has the audacity to say I that that's just a dim hint of my delight

in you you know when he says your walls are ever before me he's talking about Jerusalem he's talking to Jerusalem who had walls but you know what he's saying to you he's saying your life is ever before me everything about your life is ever before me I never forget you can a mother forget a child a mother is fixed on the child I am more fixed on you than a mother on her nursing mother on her child and then of course unconditional it's a horrible insult to say I love you like a nursing mother loves

her infant this is what God's way of saying you give me nothing it's nothing but take take take take you're completely completely selfish you add no value to my life at all and I absolutely love you unconditionally forever and ever amen if let me ask a question you if you knew that a love of this mag magnitude by a person of this magnitude was really really yours if the reality of this kind of love was an abiding reality to your heart Moment by moment existentially consciously what kind of person would you be and the answer

is way different than the one that's sitting right here now at the very least I can tell you this there would be a fountain of Joy at the foundation of your life that no circumstance and no tragedy could put a cork in no not at all but guess what God's not done because ultimately this is still talk so here is a painful question and there's a good answer to the question a brilliant answer to the question see an argument and yet it's still just talk and we have to get to verse 16 if we're going

to see a cure for the pain and not just an answer to the question and here's why because in the end what really convinces You That Somebody Loves You is not talk but action I mean even the Bible says in first John it says uh beloved let us not love in word only but in deed and in truth and isn't that right and you know when you're trying to find out does somebody love me words are very important very important you know when a person say oh of course I love you words of affection are

really important but what you really want to see is action and if you only have words and not action in the end you don't believe the person loves you and that is a problem here see because words words words words and they said but I don't feel love why because forsaken means you're not doing anything for me I want to see action ah but this creates a problem and let's stick with the metaphor that the Bible's giving us here about parent and child one of the most frustrating things about being a parent is in some

ways uh the infant as absolutely draining as an infant is and how you completely Orient your entire life around the you get nothing that's not quite as frustrating as when the child gets old enough to actually talk because by the time your child is like five six seven eight years old you've already been you know you've already completely oriented your life around them you've utterly made sacrifices I mean your whole life has changed but it all your sacrifices are completely invisible to the child you know a child doesn't understand what you have done your sacrifice

is any more than a fish could understand what water is because it fish knows nothing but water and a as far as a child's concern is adults are there to meet my every need that's what adults are for that's why God made adults and there are moments there are times in which you cross the will of the child you don't give the child something the child wants you say no you can't eat that no you can't go there no you can't do that no you can't visit him or her and the child screams out sometimes

uh explicitly sometimes just implies you don't love me and when he does that or she does that this is what you want to say you little twerp the sacrifices I have made for you are invisible to you and the most crucial sacrifices the most crucial Deeds of love I've done for you are not these things you're asking for now but don't you see that we do that with God don't you see that we read the Bible we say words words words words words and we say well why aren't you doing something for me right now

you don't love me because you're not answering my prayers now and through this text God is saying because he's asking you to think you along through this metaphor it takes a long time it it takes thinking but if you do it will change your life because God says to us he usually leaves out the part about twerp but not always in the Bible you have not seen the magnitude of my sacrifice for you and the most crucial deed of love that really matters is not the one that you're worried about right now well what is

it well it's in verse 16 and what is it in verse 16 the metaphor changes and says see I have engraved you on the palm of my hands now at first at first that looks like just another lovely metaphor about his devotion and here's the reason why it was sometimes true in ancient times that the name of a uh Master might be tattooed on the servant the name of the master might be tattooed on the servant but never ever ever is the name of the servant tattooed on a master that would mean a master that

was so was devoted to the servant and of course well that's what we have here isn't that beautiful another metaphor of God's love but no it's not a beautiful metaphor it's a horrible metaphor you know why it doesn't say tattooed it says I have engraved you on the palm of my hands and that word engraved is a very specific Hebrew word that means engrave with a hammer and a chisel or a spike and now suddenly the metaphor is terrible horrible why in the world would you have a you know conjure up the image of someone

out of love letting people take a hammer and drive a spike right into the palm of their hands isn't that horrible yes it is horrible isn't that make you cringe yes it makes you cringe isn't that isn't that crazy no it's not crazy centuries later there was a man named Thomas and Thomas was like this guy here I mean verse 14 he was filled with doubts filled with doubts I can't be sure I can't be sure and all of his friends were saying he is risen he is risen you everything's going to be okay Thomas

yet Thomas was filled with anxiety and doubts he couldn't be sure he couldn't be sure and what happens Jesus Christ appears to him and he says look at the palms of my hands see my love for you look at what's on the palms of my hands see that's your final argument because it's more than an argument it's a deed this is not just talk this is action you know why it's a final argument what if you say oh I can't believe God loves me because look at all the awful stuff in me the things that

I have done but you know what Jesus says you're afraid that God's going to forsake you on the cross I was forsaken my God my God why has I forsaken me I was forsaken I got the forsakenness that you sense that you deserve so that now no matter what you do God will never forsake you he loves you as unconditionally as a mother loves her nursing infant well you say well what about all these other things out here but don't you see I've done the thing that you really need if you see I've done that

will you please trust me I mean this is what parents want to say to a seven-year-old when you see everything else I've done will you please trust me you don't need that you think you need that you don't need that oh please go to your room I love you you'll figure it out later this is the final argument and you know what if right now your Soul's Restless if right now your soul is like Thomas's Soul filled with doubts if right now you feel Forsaken and forgotten and abandoned you're like a Restless infant it's whining

and crying and you know just Restless until it gets a hold of the milk and this is the milk this is your choice now friends I don't care whether your parents really have forsaken you you know Psalm 27:10 says my you know though my mother and father forsake me the Lord will bear me up you know maybe your mother did forget you maybe your father did forget me forget you it doesn't matter what's happened to you none of this has to darken your life it's your choice now you can through meditation through contemplation through taking

the raw material of the word of God and working it toward your heart drilling it down toward your affections you can be melted by spiritual understandings into blazing Joy about what God about God's love for you you have to live in holy consciousness of this or if you don't you'll have to take your identity from what people say to you you'll be crushed when you're insulted and you'll toss and turn in bed at night when you've been slighted and you'll be elated when something goes right and you'll be destroyed when you put on weight because

you're taking your identity from how you look and how people say you can be free from all of that none of that has to darken your life God is like a good mother and you know how those are they those good mothers are they're always after you but they will move Heaven and Earth they will do anything that you flourish well this great mother can move Heaven and Earth has moved Heaven and Earth and uh you will flourish Comfort yourself with these words Comfort your hearts with these words Comfort one another with these words let

us pray thank you Father for um the uh again uh from this passage in Isaiah a an astonishing demonstration of your Saving Grace uh Lord we know that we don't know the gospel we know the gospel well enough to know that we don't know it we don't understand it we don't understand it it hasn't its power hasn't been released in our lives uh but we see here today more ways for us to do that and in some ways it has been released even as we've been listening to your word even as we've been putting ourselves

under it and we ask now Lord that you would just drive down deep into our hearts what you have said to us that in Jesus Christ you love us that you will never forget us you will never forsake us because Jesus himself was forsaken took what we deserve on the cross so now we belong to you our lives are ever before you we're engraved on the palm of your hands and we pray Lord that you would help us to know that and be shaped by that in Jesus name we ask it amen [Music] oh [Music]

oh [Music] no [Music] oh [Music]