God knows your Name

Isaiah 49:14-26

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me; my LORD has forgotten me.”

As we look at the verse above, it is many a follower of God that have experienced a time when it seemed no one understood and no one cared.  The Holman Study Bible, on page 1206 in the notes, has this to say about the verse above: “Zion, personified as a woman, represents Jerusalem.  She complained or lamented that God had abandoned her.  The verses that follow suggest that what she missed was her “children,” or the inhabitants of Jerusalem.  Their absence in exile led her to suggest that God had forgotten her.”

Most of the life of Israel, she has been surrounded by nations who wanted to remove her from this planet, and that has not changed, for on this very day she is fighting in a war with those who wish to destroy her.  So what is the world’s opinion of Israel?  Italian Journalist Giulio Meotti gives this insight: “The world doesn’t care if an Israeli tank holds its fire when facing a Hamas terrorist surrounded by children. The world doesn’t care if Israeli pilots are justified in hitting a UN school.  The world doesn’t care if a Golani unit finds weapons in a Palestinian kindergarten. For the world, Israel is the scapegoat. Jews are always unjust.” 

This is happening today as I write, so can you imagine how the people in captivity must have 

felt?  God has a reply, then and now,  “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should 

have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget 

you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually 

before me. Your builders make haste; your destroyers and those who laid you waste go 

out from you. Lift up your eyes around and see; they all gather, they come to you. As I live, 

declares the LORD, you shall put them all on as an ornament; you shall bind them on as 

a bride does.”  (Isaiah 49:15-18 ESV)  Now let me ask you a question, if your Creator spoke 

these words to you would you be encouraged?

Isaiah is speaking for the LORD and tells Israel that their returning numbers from captivity 

will be so large that Jerusalem will not be able to hold them.  God is telling them, you left 

in chains but will be carried back and they will serve you.  Though they doubted God’s power 

to rescue them from captivity, God made it very clear, He is not only going to do so but He 

will also subject their captors to the punishment they have given out to Israel.  

As a follower of Christ, do you need to be reminded that the Father, Jesus, and the Holy 

Spirit know your name; John 10:14-15, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my 

own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life 

for the sheep.”  To my brothers in Christ and in Israel, the chosen Ones, remember these 

words of King David, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit 

down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and 

my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, 

behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your 

hand upon me.” Psalm 139:1-5

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice