Symbols Of Salvation

Well, please turn your Bible to Isaiah 38. When you have that, I would ask that you go ahead and stick your bulletin inside there and also turn to 2 Kings chapter 20. I'd like to read both of those before the preaching of the word of God.

You'll notice that this passage in Isaiah is broken up into two sets of two verses, verses seven and eight, and then 21 and 22. So you look at this passage, you'll realize that Isaiah describes the narrative and then has a couple of postscripts that he wants to add afterward that he had not said earlier.

2 Kings spells it all out in order in a more full manner and gives you the bigger picture of what has happened, 2 Kings being written later. So I would like to read both of those today. When you have Isaiah 38, please stand for the reading of God's word and then we will also read 2 Kings 20, the beginning of that.

Isaiah 38, verses seven and eight say, this shall be the sign to you from the Lord that the Lord will do this thing that he has promised. Behold, I will make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of Ahaz, turn back 10 steps.

So the sun turned back on the dial, the 10 steps by which it had declined. Skipping ahead to verse 21. Now Isaiah had said, let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil that he may recover. Hezekiah also had said, what is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord?

Amen. Please turn to 2 Kings 20. I'll begin reading in verse one. We will go all the way to verse 11. 2 Kings 20, verse one. In those days, Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him and said to him, thus says the Lord, set your house in order for you shall die, you shall not recover.

Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord saying, now O Lord, please remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart and have done what is good in your sight.

And Hezekiah wept bitterly. And before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him. Turn back and say to Hezekiah, the leader of my people, thus says the Lord, the God of David your father, I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears.

Behold, I will heal you. On the third day, you shall go up to the house of the Lord and I will add 15 years to your life. I will deliver you and the city out of the hand of the king of Assyria and I will defend the city for my own sake and for my servant David's sake.

And Isaiah said, bring a cake of figs and let them take and lay it on the boil that he may recover. And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, what shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord on the third day?

And Isaiah said, this shall be the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he has promised. Shall the shadow go forward 10 steps or go back 10 steps? And Hezekiah answered, it's an easy thing for the shadow to lengthen 10 steps, rather let the shadow go back 10 steps.

And Isaiah the prophet called to the Lord and he brought the shadow back 10 steps by which it had gone down on the steps of Ahaz. Amen. You may be seated. So we've already seen in this passage the context that every city around Jerusalem has fallen captive to Assyria.

Sennacherib has come and destroyed everyone and only Jerusalem remains. In addition to that, Hezekiah has fallen sick to death. If he dies, it is very clear that the whole nation will die. So he has turned to the Lord, he has prayed to them and God has answered his prayer.

He has delivered him from death. Now there are several signs, several symbols that are given in this passage. While not mentioned explicitly in Isaiah 38 but mentioned in 2 Kings is the fact that the healing happens on the third day.

We also have this cake of figs that is applied to the boil. There's also the sign of the shadow that moves backwards. There are these several different ways that God memorializes this healing. We are called to interpret God's word to the fullest.

If He gives us a symbol or a metaphor or a parable, these are things that ought to be understood. Many people see difficult passages in scripture and they believe that it is speculative and bold and beyond our place to look into those things and try to understand them.

But this is not the case. Jesus spoke in parables so that some would not understand but so that His people would be able to understand even though others could not. So when God gives us symbols, we should interpret them.

Today I would like to present to you meanings for these symbols so that we can understand why God decided to memorialize this healing in this particular way. Each one of these is invested with some kind of symbolic value.

In addition to that, this is a significant healing in the history of Israel. Hezekiah is a king of Judah following after David, the one who is an ancestor of Jesus Christ himself. Every last city has fallen and only Jerusalem remains.

This is a healing of an entire nation, not just of Hezekiah himself. And so when these different symbols are given to us, there is an implicit fact communicated that they have meaning. They are not arbitrary.

They're to be understood, and if they are understood, then we can better appreciate the salvation that God gives His people. The salvation that He has given in resurrecting Jesus Christ from the dead and bringing us to new life in Him.

And so just considering the gravity of this situation, Hezekiah sick to death, particularly because of a sin, him having trusted in foreign nations like Egypt, turned away from the Lord, his sickness, the whole sickness of the nation, is a sign of his sin.

This is a, his impending death is a demonstration of his guilt. And this is true for us. If there is a great sickness, scripture even encourages us to go talk to the elders. Says in James 5, is anyone among you sick?

Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.

And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. So if there is some great illness that you are afflicted with, the right course of action is to go speak to the elders so that you can see whether or not it is demonstrative of something wrong with your soul.

It may not always be, but it may. Now, in addition to that, it is the case that every single one of us has a death sentence hanging over us. Every single one of us, should the Lord tarry, will eventually die a physical death.

And this is indicative of our guilt as well, that we have sinned against the Holy God. It is because of this that our bodies are corrupt and must die, even though they one day be raised to new life should we have the forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

It is a sign of our death, a sign of our guilt. And so you should, it is a good and healthy thing to contemplate the reality of your finitude, to contemplate your mortality, the fact that you will die.

And one of the things that should be a reminder of is your guilt before God, your need of the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Even those who have the forgiveness of Jesus Christ ought to be reminded of their continual need for his intercession for them, that they are not right in and of themselves, even after that salvation, they are not right in and of themselves.

They are only right being counted in Jesus Christ as righteous. So let us consider these things in order. First, and I'll just spell these all out up front so that it'll be easier for you to keep track of.

First, he symbolizes his mercy with this third day salvation. Then he symbolizes his claim on us with the cake of figs. And then lastly, he symbolizes his power to save, his power toward us with the sign of the shadow moving.

Okay, so that is, once again, I'll go over those again. With the third day resurrection, he is symbolizing his mercy toward us. With the cake of figs, symbolizes his claim over us. And then with the moving shadow, symbolizes power salvation.

And we'll go over each of these in order. So first of all, him symbolizing his mercy toward us with this third day salvation. Not mentioned in Isaiah 38, but mentioned very clearly in 2 Kings. He is raised to new life on the third day.

Now this should call several things to mind. Perhaps most obviously, the fact that Jesus Christ was raised to life on the third day. He had died, laid in the tomb for three days. And on the third day, he is resurrected from the dead.

Yet we have many other examples of this sort of third day salvation. And even a third day delivery from death or a third day resurrection to consider. Isaac, the third day after God has told him to, told Abraham to take him and sacrifice him.

On the third day, Isaac is delivered from death with a sacrificial ram that's offered instead. Hebrews 11 says that this is a resurrection, him having been as good as dead. So scripture even describes that as a resurrection.

And it was one that happened on the third day. It's a third day resurrection. Jonah spat out of the belly of the whale on the third day. And having described himself as being in Sheol, having described himself in the song that comes out, and Jonah too, as him being one who is dead, he is one who is at least as a type raised from the dead on the third day.

There's the baker and the cupbearer. The cupbearer on the third day. This is in the story of Joseph. On the third day, he is pardoned while the baker goes and hangs on the tree on the third day. Okay, there are, I could list many others.

Okay, there are many others. What does all this mean? What does all this mean? These third day salvations are signs of God's mercy. Jesus says in Luke 24, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead.

So he says it is written. It is not just something that he had spoken to his disciples privately. It's not just something that he had let them know. It's something that scripture was telling us all along.

And where did it tell us this? There's one verse in particular that some have pointed to that says this perhaps more clearly than others. It says in Hosea 6 -2, after two days he will revive us. On the third day he will raise us up that we may live before him.

Now that, speaking of all God's people, talks about them being raised from the dead on the third day. And yet, in talking about God's people, where does that say that the Messiah will be raised from the dead on the third day?

Is there not simply a pattern which grants us a principle that says that God's mercy toward us is properly symbolized in a third day deliverance from death that would necessitate that his most faithful servant, Jesus Christ himself, would be one who would be delivered from death on the third day.

This is not just a Christian observation. I was recently reading Jewish sources on the life of Joseph and Joseph having put his brothers in jail when they come and visit him in Egypt, he puts them in jail for three days.

So reading Jewish sources on this, and they identify this as a mark of the mercy of God, not letting people be afflicted for more than three days if they are righteous. This is one Jewish source, one non-believing Jewish source, Bershit Rabbah.

The Holy One never leaves the righteous in distress for three days, as with Joseph, Jonah, Mordecai, and David. And likewise, it says, he will revive us after two days on the third day of the tribes he will raise us, Hosea 6 -2.

This is a symbol of God's mercy, these third day deliverances from death. It is an encouragement to us that God does not allow his people to be afflicted for too long, but delivers them. Whatever kind of trial that you go through might feel like it is too long, you do not know how swiftly the Lord will deliver you from it.

Just because the end is not in sight does not mean there is no end. It means you have bad vision, means you are myopic. So you should not look at a trial that has no end in sight and say that this is not worth it.

You should look at that trial knowing the mercy of the Lord, knowing that he swiftly saves his people, and be willing to endure it, trusting in the mercy of God. Now beyond this third day deliverance from death, there is also this cake of figs.

Now this is interesting and cryptic. It says, now Isaiah had said, let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil that he may recover. Now this is something that he's supposed to do before he goes to the priest, and it has something to do with his recovery.

Now, what is this, some kind of salve, some kind of poultice that draws out the impurities from the boil? Maybe that is the case. However, consider these things for why we should take this as more than just an arbitrary natural detail.

First, why is it Isaiah that would tell him to put the cake of figs on the boil? Isaiah is not a doctor. Isaiah is a prophet. Okay, when a prophet says to do something like this, it is symbolic, it is supposed to mean something.

This is how prophets act, this is how prophets represent things. Secondly, why does Isaiah, not being one of the figures in this narrative, but being the one authoring this narrative, why does he find it so necessary to include this detail after he had neglected to mention it earlier?

He describes a story, gives the psalm of Hezekiah that praises the Lord, and then sees that this was such a necessary detail, I better throw that in before moving on to the envoys from Babylon. Okay, this is more than just an arbitrary detail about how Hezekiah was healed from his sickness.

This is something that seems to have real symbolic meaning. Now, what could it mean? There is one instance in the history of Israel that I believe sheds much light on this. I'd like you to turn, I'd like you to turn to 1 Samuel chapter 30.

1 Samuel 30, we'll read all of verses one through 15. Now, it's the last paragraph that has the primary importance here. However, all of it will be useful for you to understand what's going on in this passage, so I'd like to read the whole thing.

Ziklag has been attacked, and David is going to rescue people from Ziklag having been attacked. And he comes across an Egyptian in the open country who has information, and he turns the Egyptian to rebel against his Amalekite master.

Here, and you'll see some details that seem familiar here. Now, when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day, interesting that this is on the third day, the Amalekites had made a raid against the Negev and against Ziklag.

They had overcome Ziklag and burned it with fire, and taken captive the women and all who were in it, both small and great. They killed no one, but carried them off and went their way. And when David and his men came to the city, they found it and burned with fire.

And their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. Then David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep. David's two wives also had been taken captive, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal of Carmel.

And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself and the Lord his God.

And David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelech, bring me the ephod. So Abiathar brought the ephod to David, and David inquired of the Lord, shall I pursue after this band, shall I overtake them?

He answered him, pursue, for you shall surely overtake and shall surely rescue. So David set out, and the 600 men who were with him, and they came to the Brook Besor, where those who were left behind stayed.

But David pursued, he and 400 men, 200 stayed behind, who were too exhausted to cross the Brook Besor. They found an Egyptian in the open country, and brought him to David. And they gave him bread, and he ate.

They gave him water to drink, and they gave him a piece of a cake of figs and two clusters of raisins. And when he had eaten, his spirit revived, for he had not eaten bread or drunk water for three days and three nights.

And David said to him, to whom do you belong, where are you from? He said, I'm a young man of Egypt, servant to an Amalekite. And my master left me behind because I fell sick three days ago. We had made a raid against the Negev of the Karathites and against that which belonged to Judah and against the Negev of Caleb.

We burned Ziklag with fire. And David said to him, will you take me down to this band? And he said, swear to me by God that you will not kill me or deliver me into the hands of my master, and I will take you down to this band.

All right, several things to observe there. Some of them perhaps more obvious than others. There's a man who was sick to death, healed on the third day, revived in part by a cake of figs. Some other things to observe, connections to Isaiah 38.

In Isaiah 38, God reports himself as being the God of David. In 2 Kings 20 that we also read, it says that he will save him for the sake of David. These are passages that are very much concerned with the honor of David and his name as it will be ultimately revealed in the Messiah.

And this is a passage right here that is about David. Now, he finds an Egyptian in the open country. What is Hezekiah's guilt? What is the reason that he is sick? The reason that he is sick is because he has allied himself with Egypt and has trusted in Egypt.

And here is an Egyptian is found in the open country. And what is Hezekiah's other situation? Hezekiah's other situation is that he is a servant of Sennacherib, the king of Assyria. Now, if it seems odd that I would call him a servant of the king of Assyria, this is the way scripture speaks.

Scripture speaks of ones who give tribute to another as being either a slave or a servant of them. And Hezekiah finding himself imposed upon by Sennacherib, king of Assyria, giving tribute to him, has made himself a servant of him.

And his father, more specifically, makes the nation a servant of Sennacherib. It says in 2 Kings 16, so Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, saying, I am your servant and your son.

Ahaz, Hezekiah's father, saying, I am your servant to Assyria. I am your servant, your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Assyria and from the hand of the king of Israel who are attacking me.

So he has made himself a servant. And here in 1 Samuel 30, what's the situation? There is an Egyptian who is the servant of the Amalekite, the one who are the enemies of Judah. And what does David have him do?

David would have him to betray his master. And the man says, swear to me by God that you will not kill me or deliver me into the hands of my master and I will take you down to this band. So he rebels against his master.

Now, interestingly enough, this is precisely how scripture describes Hezekiah. Scripture describes Hezekiah ultimately after he is healed by the Lord in this instance. It says, and the Lord was with him.

This is Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18, verse seven. And the Lord was with him wherever he went. He prospered, he rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him. He refused to be a servant of that man.

So what is Isaiah doing given that Israel, Israel has a fairly short history at this point in time. And he is a prophet, symbolically gives Hezekiah a cake of figs to revive him on the third day from his sickness.

Hezekiah who has sided with the Egyptians, he is likening him to the Egyptian who is the servant of the Amalekite. Hezekiah being a servant of the king of Assyria. What is this speaking of? This is speaking of the claim that God has on him.

What does David say to this Egyptian? David says, turn against him and I agree that I will not turn you back over. And so Hezekiah is being told, you are like that Egyptian. You must completely rebel against the master.

You know, do not, you will not go back to him. I will save you completely. It is that confirmation. Now, so many people, when they are saved by the Lord, they do not do so with a complete rebellion against their former master as they ought.

You know, they turn, they realize that they're mastered by their own flesh, by the devil and his works, by the world. And when they turn to Christ, often it is a half-hearted turning to Christ because they still have some allegiance to the former master, right?

They still continue in wicked ways. So few people recognize how serious it is to serve the Lord that it's something that must be done wholeheartedly or else there will be destruction in your own life.

What would happen if this Egyptian man were to go back to the Amalekite? What would happen if David were to return him to the Amalekite? He would be destroyed because he had betrayed him. And we understand this with our own friends even, right?

You do something wrong to one of your friends and you avoid them as much as possible, right? You stay away from them, right? There's the old joke where if you, what is it, if you lend your brother-in-law $20 and you never see him again, was it worth it?

Right, there's a, we do this with our own friends and loved ones where we stay away from them as much as possible if we have wronged them. And yet with the enemy, and I'm not saying that's good, but with the enemy, we'll often do the opposite where we will go back occasionally, try to make friends with the world.

Do not devote yourself 100 to a full rebellion against your former master. Do that with a complete commitment to God's people, to God's ways. One way in particular that is worthwhile of thinking about this is committing yourself to the activities of the church.

You know, the church is God's people drawn out from the world. You ought to dedicate yourself completely to those activities. As a church, we've covenanted together to be a part of the meetings of the church.

This is something that you should devote yourself to completely and not half-heartedly, thinking of it as something to do occasionally or most of the time. It is something to devote yourself to. It is something to, the people of God, the ways of God are something to devote yourself completely to, not returning to your former master.

So with this fig, Isaiah is calling back to this Egyptian servant of the Amalekite, Hezekiah having sided with the Egyptians and being a servant of the king of Assyria, to no longer do this, to completely rebel, completely rebel against the king of Assyria.

Now, lastly, there is the matter of the shadow. I'll read this text again for your benefit. This shall be the sign to you from the Lord that the Lord will do this thing that he has promised. Behold, I will make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of Ahaz, turn back 10 steps.

So the sun turned back on the dial by 10 steps by which it had declined. Now, it's not entirely clear what this mechanism is. We don't have any other record of it other than these parallel passages that we've looked at, but some kind of timekeeping mechanism by the sun.

The ancient world had all kinds of different methods of keeping time. I was recently reading a book on Roman history, and by the second century, they had moved away from sundials and they were using water clocks, things where water would slowly drip out of a device until at certain points of the day it would either make a whistle or launch a rock or even an egg.

Can you imagine that, like an egg reminding you that it's noon or something? So as the shadow, so there's some structure that casts a shadow and it's going across various steps. Now, what does this symbolize?

This symbolizes the power of God. There's one way that this is obvious. One way that this is obvious is that if this is measuring time and it's turning back time and Hezekiah is getting 15 years to his life, then it seems very clear that God is communicating to him his mercy and his power to give him more years to his life.

And Hezekiah, as we read in 2 Kings 20, was offered an option of whether it would go forward or backward, and he said that it would be a small thing if it just went forward. It would be a much greater thing if it went backward.

Recall that Ahaz, Hezekiah's father, who was unfaithful, was given a sign from Isaiah, the sign of Emmanuel, but he was offered a sign before that, and he was told, you can have any sign, as great as you wish, as high as the heavens themselves.

And he did not accept the offer from God for a sign to confirm his faith. He chose to be faithless and not even ask for a sign. Hezekiah here, given this option, asked for the highest heavenly sign that he can ask for, opposite of what his father Ahaz has done at this point.

And God has confirmed his power with this sign, memorializing not just for him, but for us, this report. Now, this sign is a localized sign. In 2 Chronicles, it speaks of the envoys from Babylon coming to hear about this sign because they had heard that this was done in the land of Israel.

If this had been a heavenly sign that was global, in other words, it was actually a moving of the sun or a change in the earth, other people would have seen this, okay? So this is a localized sign that is happening that they had heard of and that they come to see.

So one way it's representing God's power is that he can add more years to Hezekiah's life. He adds more years to our life. He grants us eternal life through Jesus Christ. However, I believe there's something else, more that is happening here that is very much worth considering.

If you consider what is, it's not clear where this structure is. Is it something attached to the palace? Is it something attached to the temple? Somewhere else? It's not entirely clear, but consider this, that this is stairs that he's talking about when he's talking about steps.

In fact, the word for dial that a lot of translations will translate sundial, this is not a round object, okay? This is the same word for steps, the same word that's used for steps when it says turn back 10 steps, it's the same word used for dial.

It's ma 'alut, okay? So when it says, I will make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of Ahaz, turn back 10 steps, what that more literally says is, by the declining sun on the steps of Ahaz, turn back 10 steps, okay?

Every time you see the word dial, just replace the word steps, okay? And that's what's being said more literally here. This is a word that is used frequently to describe ascents to the temple. The songs of ascents are Psalms hama 'alot, okay?

They're songs of steps, they're songs of ascent, okay? So this is the same word even used to describe the Psalms of ascent leading up to the temple. Now, if you have a structure that's going to cast a shadow and tell you what time of day it is, how does that work?

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, as we do, as Israel is, you place it to the south of an object, and then that pole, or whatever it is, will be able to cast a shadow that moves throughout the day, right?

While the sun is in the east, the shadow will point towards the west, and as the shadow moves, it moves towards the east as the sun goes to the west, right? Now, this is said that it had gone down the steps, right?

It had the declining sun on the dial, right? And 2 Kings also talking about it going down. It speaks of the shadow going down the steps. What does that mean? The shadow has gone to the east, okay? So these are steps that are going up to the west and down to the east.

These are steps that face the east, okay? So, which is significant if you know about the nation of Israel, because the nation of Israel, their temple, is a temple whose entrance faces the east, representing Eden, you know, Eden having had its entrance to the east.

Now, we're told in Ezekiel 40, in the vision that Ezekiel has of the temple, the length of the vestibule, this is talking about the entrance to the temple, so the whole entrance to the temple with its steps.

The length of the vestibule was 20 cubits and the breadth, 12 cubits, and the people would go up to it by 10 steps. The people go up to the temple by 10 steps. In Psalm 15, when it describes who is it that can dwell in God's temple, who is it that can go to the Lord, was it described 10 requirements, the one who would go be before the Lord, someone who has fulfilled the tenfold law of God.

What this is describing, when it speaks of 10 in particular steps, whether or not these steps are attached to the temple or something else, I believe this is describing access to God. And consider that this is something that is a theme in this passage.

Isaiah 38, 20 says, "'The Lord will save me and we will play my music "'on stringed instruments all the days of our lives "'at the house of the Lord.'. Now Isaiah had said, "'Let them take a cake of figs "'and apply it to the boil that he may recover.'.

"'Brother Hezekiah also had said, "'What is the sign that I shall go up "'to the house of the Lord?'. God has been merciful to him. Numbers 13 through 15 describes the length of time that you would have before going up to the priest to be cleansed is seven days.

And yet here God has made it in three days. And on top of that, he has symbolized it in these various ways, including this shadow. The shadow that goes up steps that lets Hezekiah know that he will have access to the Lord.

Okay, so this is symbolizing God's power to save not just in adding years to Hezekiah's life, not just in his ability to give eternal life even, but also that he gives access to himself. It is a cause for us to delight in the access we have to God through our salvation.

What does it look like to delight in access to God? Those who delight in access to God are eager to spend time with him privately. They love spending time with the Lord. If you've ever sung the song, Sweet Hour of Prayer, it might strike you that the the eagerness with which those lyrics are written to go to the Lord in prayer are not always the emotions that line up with your heart and your eagerness to go to the Lord in prayer.

But the one who loves the presence of the Lord loves spending time alone with him. The one who loves the presence of the Lord also loves spending time publicly with him. It's someone who delights in the Lord's day, who delights in spending it together with the people of God in the presence of God.

When we gather here for worship, we gather here in the presence of God. This is something that you ought to delight in. If it is something that you lack delight in, you should ask yourself why. Perhaps it is something that should convict you that you are not right with the Lord.

Perhaps it is something that should let you know that there are other things competing that need to be removed out of the way. They are snares that entangle. There are other things grabbing for your attention right now as you're here in the service, other things grabbing for your time.

You ought to remove those things so that you are free to delight in the Lord. This is not a burden. This is a joy, and it is something that should become more of a joy. I would say that this is one of the, there are different things that I've noticed in my growth and maturity and sanctification over the years.

I would say my joy of being in the presence of the Lord is one that was unexpected and very welcome. I think this is something that has really, that marks me now in a way that it did not in former years.

And I would encourage you that it is such a good thing that you should pursue it wholeheartedly. You should, when you read messages like this, passages like this, that talk about the goodness of God's presence and even try to symbolize it with great signs like this dial that goes backwards, like the shadow moving backwards on the steps, that it should encourage you to delight in the presence of God, to delight in access to him.

Now, all these things together should remind us of the greatness of our salvation. Last week, we looked at how Hezekiah, being king of Judah, being delivered from death on the third day and saving all of his people with him should remind us of Jesus Christ who was delivered on the third day, saves all his people with him.

And this is the case. God has been merciful. He is merciful to us, representing this in a third-day deliverance. He has made a claim on us. He's represented this with a fig. We should wholly rebel against our former master.

And he is powerful towards us as he is represented by the shadow moving backwards. We ought to remember these things, these things symbolized by these signs that on one hand, while not easy to understand on their face, the process of digging deep and learning these things makes them that much more memorable.

And so I hope as we have looked at these today that those, that character of God, that goodness of God in his mercy, in his power will be more memorable to you today having understood what these things are designed to call to mind, what these prophetic symbols from Isaiah are supposed to mean so that we would greatly delight in the presence of God and the joy of our salvation.

Amen. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you today for your great kindness to us, for representing the goodness of your salvation, your mercy, your claim over us, your great power toward us. With these symbols in Isaiah 38, we ask that you would call these things to mind and that it would give us a great zeal.

In Jesus' name, amen.