"Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the Lord has comforted His people, and will have mercy upon His afflicted. But Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget you. Behold I have graven you upon the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. Your children shall make haste; your destroyers and they that made you waste shall go forth of you. Lift up your eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to you. As I live, says the Lord, you shall surely clothe yourself with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on yourself as a bride does. For your waste and your desolate places, and the land of your destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed you up shall be far away. The children which you shall have, after you have lost the other, shall say again in your ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me, that I may dwell. Then shall you say in your heart, Who has begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been? Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall be your nursing fathers, and queens your nursing mothers: they shall bow down to you with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of your feet; and you shall know that I am the Lord: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me." (Isaiah 49:13-23)
Different Calls to the Earth and Heavens
"Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the Lord has comforted His people, and will have mercy upon His afflicted." (Isaiah 49:13)
This is not the first time that earth and heaven have been called upon to take part in something pertaining to men in their relation to God. In the 1st chapter of Isaiah we read, "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord has spoken. I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me." (Isaiah 1:2)
The call is very much more emphatic in the 2nd chapter of Jeremiah: "Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be very desolate, says the Lord. For my people have committed two evils: They have forsaken me, the Fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." (Jeremiah 2:12-13)
In Deuteronomy 32:1-3 the heavens and earth are called upon to listen to the good doctrine which the Lord imparts to His rebellious children. "Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass: Because I will publish the name of the Lord: ascribe greatness unto our God." (Deuteronomy 32:1-3)
But in the text before us the heavens are called upon to sing, and the earth to be joyful, and the mountains to break forth into singing, because the Lord has redeemed His people.
The Earth's Existence Depends on the Gospel
It is easy to see that the heavens and earth are deeply concerned in man's salvation, since they are called in to witness every step in the transgression, and in the progress of redemption. Not only so, but they tremble with terror at the sight of man's causeless rebellion, and sing for joy when he is brought back saved. From these things we can see that the stability of the heavens and the earth depends upon the success of God's work of saving men. "The earnest expectation of the creation waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of Him who subjected it in hope That the creation itself shall also be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God." (Romans 8:19-21,RV)
When God comes to Judgment, "the heavens and the earth shall shake," (Joel 3:16; Isaiah 13:13, Haggai 2:6,21) "The heavens shall depart as a scroll when it is rolled together," (Revelation 6:14) "[And] the earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage, because of the transgression that is on it." (Isaiah 24:20)
But when God's people come to their own land in peace, the mountains will greet them with songs of rejoicing, and all the trees of the forest will clap their hands in delight. "For you shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." (Isaiah 55:12)
The Earth Given to Man
Why is all this? The answer opens to us a fine, large truth, which is full of encouragement to every soul. "In the beginning the Lord laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of His hands," (Hebrews 1:10) and at the same time "He made man, and crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of His hands," (Hebrews 2:7) that is, over the heavens and the earth. "God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." (Genesis 1:27-28)
But all things are not under him now. Nevertheless, man having been placed in authority in the beginning, as the ruler of the things that God has made, so far as they have intimate connection with this planet, it must needs be that they can of right have no other ruler than man; because: "Whatsoever God does, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it." (Ecclesiastes 3:14)
God never takes back a gift; He never undoes what He has once done; He is never forced to retreat from any position that He has taken. Should such a thing ever be necessary, it would show that He was not supreme and all-wise. Man, therefore, has been placed in authority over this earth, once for all.
The Earth Lost
But behold, what a sad state of things has occurred. Man, the ruler, has lost control of himself; he can no longer control his own body or spirit, much less the heavens and earth. Therefore they are left without a ruler, so far as man is concerned.
That is why we see earthquakes, and disturbances in the heavens; and the nearer we approach the end, and as the wickedness of man increases, the greater and more frequent are these disturbances. Creation is groaning in pain because of man's sin. "For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now." (Romans 8:22)
If it should be that "the redemption which is in Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:24) should fail, and men should not be saved, then the earth would have been created in vain, that is, for chaos, for nothingness. "Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth. And it shall come to pass, that he who flees from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that comes up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake. The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly." (Isaiah 24:17-19) "All nations before Him are as nothing; and they are counted to Him less than nothing, and vanity." (Isaiah 40:17)
We are sometimes told that God could have destroyed man at once, as soon as Adam sinned, and could have peopled the earth with another race of beings. Those who say that, do not understand the works and gifts of God. He could not have destroyed man without destroying the earth also. They both belong together. One was created for the other. In the days of Noah, when "the earth ... was corrupt, because all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth, God said, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth." (Genesis 6:12-13)
When man is destroyed, the earth must perish with him. God's word made them both in the beginning, and placed the earth under the dominion of man; the same word destroyed them both together in the flood; and, "The heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men. ... Nevertheless, we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness." (2 Peter 3:7,13)
This is the reason why the heavens and earth mourn when man falls, and rejoice when he is redeemed. Their salvation is bound up with man's.
The Universe Pledged for Man's Redemption
But this is not the whole story. "When God made promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no greater, He swore by himself. ... For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, wherein it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolidation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us." (Hebrews 6:13,16-18)
God is the One whose great power upholds the earth and heavens. His ability to hold them up is given as the reason why His people need not be discouraged, but always be strong. "Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who has created these things, that brings out their host by number: He calls them all by names by the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power; not one fails. Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God? Have you not known? have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (Isaiah 40:26-31)
The word which created the heavens and the earth in the beginning, and which now upholds them, is the same word that brings salvation to man. In swearing by himself, God placed the heavens and the earth in the balance against man's salvation. If "the word of truth, the Gospel of salvation," (Ephesians 1:13) should fail, then the heavens and the earth would fail. Not only would they be deprived of man's sovereignty, but God's word having been broken, they would be no longer under His dominion, and would at once vanish into nothing. But they will not be annihilated, because God's word cannot fail. "He cannot lie." (Titus 1:2)
This is our "strong consolation." (Hebrews 6:18)
The weakest and meanest soul on earth has this consolation in fleeing to Christ for refuge. He may know that if God should refuse to pardon him, and give him overcoming grace, the heavens and earth would instantly cease to be. If he asks in faith, and does not instantly hear the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds, he may know that his prayer is answered, and that his sins are forgiven.
Then let men join in the song of the starry host, and shout for joy over the fact that "God ... has visited and redeemed His people." (Luke 1:68)
God Cannot Forget His People
Who has not heard the complaint, almost in the identical words, "The Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me." (Isaiah 49:14)
Impossible. "Behold, I have graven you upon the palms of my hands." (Isaiah 49:16)
In the hands of the Lord are the prints of the nails that fixed Him to the cross. But it was our sins that nailed Him there. It was our sins that He bore on the tree. Therefore we are crucified with Him, and in the nail prints He sees us. It is not simply a few people who "belong to church," that the Lord remembers; but every sinner on earth is engraved upon His hands, carried in His heart. Zion's walls are continually before Him. What are her walls? "Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks." (Isaiah 26:1)
Salvation, the salvation of sinners is continually before the Lord, for "with His stripes we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5)
He has reminded himself of mankind, and of each individual, in such a way that He cannot possibly forget.
The Story of Zion
"But Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget you. Behold, I have graven you upon the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me." (Isaiah 49:14-16)
Zion is here represented as speaking. Where is Zion? It is the place where the sanctuary of God was built, in Jerusalem. That place is now forsaken, and desolate, given over to strangers. The city of Jerusalem, and its temple, might have stood for ever, if the people had obeyed the Lord; for that was the promise of God. "And it shall come to pass, if you diligently hearken unto me, says the Lord, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the sabbath day, but hallow the sabbath day, to do no work therein; Then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and this city shall remain for ever." (Jeremiah 17:24-25)
But they disobeyed. They slew those who foretold the coming of the Just One, and when He came they betrayed and murdered Him. So Christ, just before His crucifixion, said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kill the prophets, and stone them which are sent unto you, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, You shall not see me henceforth, till you shall say, Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord." (Matthew 23:37-39)
Forsaken it is indeed, but not for ever. Nay, it is not really forsaken at all; because as we have just read, its walls are continually before Him. Christ is anointed upon the holy hill of Zion, in "the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem." (Hebrews 12:22)
That city is yet to come down "from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." (Revelation 21:2)
Its adornment will be her inhabitants, "the nations of them that are saved," (Revelation 21:24) "For Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all." (Galatians 4:26)
When the city is restored, and her children "come again to their own border, ... from the land of the enemy," (Jeremiah 31:17,16) there will be so many more inhabitants than old Jerusalem ever had, that they will say, "The place is too strait for me: give place for me that I may dwell." (Isaiah 49:20)
A few hundred thousand people inhabited old Jerusalem at the time of its greatest prosperity, but the New Jerusalem will be peopled by a "a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues." (Revelation 7:9)
Of the enlarging of the place of the city, to make room for its great increase of population, we read in: "Behold, the day of the Lord comes, and your spoil shall be divided in the midst of you. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle." (Zechariah 14:1-3)
When the Lord goes forth to fight against the nations that fight Jerusalem,
"And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley." (Zechariah 14:4)
Of the greatness of the valley thus formed we can get some idea when we read that "The city lies four square, and the length is as large as the breadth; and he measured the city with a reed, twelve thousand furlongs." (Revelation 21:16)
Taking this at the smallest, that is, not as the length of each side, but as the distance round the city, we find that it will be three hundred and seventy-five miles square,--a very fair sized city. It is not generally supposed that all of the inhabitants of any country will be able to find room in its capital; but the New Jerusalem will be so large that it could contain every person that as ever been born since the days of Adam; so that none will have been crowded out for lack of room. It will therefore hold all the inhabitants of the new earth, as they come up from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, to worship before God. "For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, says the Lord." (Isaiah 66:22-23)
The Inhabitants of Zion
Who will inhabit this city? The answer is, Israel. The city has twelve gates, three on each side, and on these gates are "the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel." (Revelation 21:12)
All who enter that city will have to enter as members of some one of the tribes of Israel. "Then shall you say in your heart, Who has begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been? Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders." (Isaiah 49:21-22) "After this I will return, and I will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, says the Lord, who does all these things." (Acts 15:16-17)
And this is done by visiting the Gentiles, "to take out of them a people for His name." (Acts 15:14) "Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles to come in. And so all Israel shall be saved; as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob." (Romans 11:25-26)
Israel is now scattered among all the nations. That is, there are in all nations on earth some who will allow ungodliness to be turned away from them, and that will constitute them Israel, and they will dwell in the New Jerusalem. "Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness." (Matthew 8:11-12)
Who will come to the standard which God sets up for the people? All who will, may come, and none who come will ever be put to shame or confusion because of their confidence.--Present Truth, February 15, 1900--Isaiah 49:13-23.