The Meteorology of Grace and the Shepherd King Text: Isaiah 44:21-28
Introduction: The Amnesia of the Modern Soul
We live in an age of manufactured identities. Modern man believes he is a blank slate, a self-creating godling who can define his own reality, his own morality, and his own past. He is told by the high priests of our secular cult that he is the captain of his soul, the master of his fate. But this is a terrible and lonely lie. In this quest for absolute autonomy, he has developed a peculiar form of amnesia. He desperately wants to forget who made him, and he is terrified that his past sins might actually be real and might actually define him.
So he runs to two different, but equally futile, hiding places. Some run to the therapeutic couch, where their transgressions are redefined as traumas and their sins are explained away as unfortunate coping mechanisms. Their guilt is not atoned for; it is medicated and managed. Others run to a works-based religiosity, where they try to build a tower of good deeds tall enough to distract God from the rubble of their past failures. Both are attempts to deal with the past on their own terms. Both are doomed.
Into this confused and anxious world, the prophet Isaiah speaks a word of absolute, sovereign grace. This passage is a divine declaration against the amnesia of the modern soul. God does not tell us to forget our past; He tells us that He has dealt with it. He does not tell us to create our own identity; He reminds us of the one He forged for us before we were born. This is not a message of self-help. This is a message of divine demolition and reconstruction. God is the great iconoclast who smashes the idols of human wisdom and the great architect who rebuilds ruined cities and ruined lives according to His unbreakable blueprint.
Here, God lays out His resume. He is the Creator, the Redeemer, the Lord of history, and the one whose Word alone is effectual. He does not offer suggestions; He issues decrees. And the climax of this declaration is one of the most stunning prophecies in all of Scripture, where God names a pagan king, by name, a century and a half before he was born, and calls this unbeliever "My shepherd." If that does not rearrange your tidy categories about how God runs the world, then you have not been paying attention.
The Text
Remember these things, O Jacob, And Israel, for you are My servant; I have formed you, you are My servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me.
I have wiped out your transgressions like a thick cloud And your sins like a cloud. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.
Shout for joy, O heavens, for Yahweh has done it! Make a loud shout, you lower parts of the earth; Break forth into a shout of joy, you mountains, O forest, and every tree in it; For Yahweh has redeemed Jacob And in Israel He shows forth His beautiful glory.
Thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb, “I, Yahweh, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself And spreading out the earth all alone,
Causing the omens of boasters to be annulled, And making fools out of diviners, Causing wise men to turn back, And making foolishness out of their knowledge,
Confirming the word of His servant, And the counsel of His messengers He will complete, And being the One who says of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be inhabited!’ And of the cities of Judah, ‘They shall be built.’ And I will raise up her waste places again.
It is I who says to the depth of the sea, ‘Be dried up!’ And I will make your rivers dry.
It is I who says of Cyrus, ‘He is My shepherd! And all My good pleasure he will complete.’ And saying of Jerusalem, ‘She will be built,’ And of the temple, ‘Your foundation will be laid.’
(Isaiah 44:21-28 LSB)
The Covenantal Anchor (v. 21)
The foundation of our security is not our memory, but God's memory.
"Remember these things, O Jacob, And Israel, for you are My servant; I have formed you, you are My servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me." (Isaiah 44:21)
God begins by commanding Israel to remember. But what are they to remember? They are to remember the foolishness of idolatry that Isaiah has just finished mocking. But more than that, they are to remember their fundamental identity. Notice the repetition: "you are My servant." This is not a status they achieved; it is a status God assigned. He says, "I have formed you." This speaks not only of their national creation in the Exodus but of His intimate, personal formation of them. Our identity is not self-generated; it is a divine gift.
The names Jacob and Israel are significant. Jacob was the supplanter, the trickster, the heel-grabber. Israel was the new name given after he wrestled with God, the one who strives with God. God is acknowledging their entire history, the crooked and the straight. He is not saving a sanitized version of them. He is saving Jacob.
And the ultimate promise is the anchor of it all: "you will not be forgotten by Me." In a world where we are terrified of being canceled, of being forgotten, of becoming irrelevant, God says that His covenant people are unforgettable to Him. Our names are graven on the palms of His hands. This is not because of our intrinsic loveliness, but because of His covenant faithfulness. He remembers His promises, even when we forget them.
The Gospel in a Cloud (v. 22)
Here we find one of the most beautiful descriptions of forgiveness in all of Scripture.
"I have wiped out your transgressions like a thick cloud And your sins like a cloud. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you." (Isaiah 44:22)
Consider the metaphor. Your sins are like a thick, dark, ominous cloud that blocks out the sun and threatens a deluge of judgment. What does God do? He does not just ignore the cloud. He does not just wait for it to pass. He "wipes it out." He obliterates it. One moment, the sky is black with your sin; the next, it is clear blue. The sin is not relocated; it is annihilated. This is not pardon in the sense of a governor letting a criminal go free, though the record remains. This is expungement. The record itself is gone, dissipated into nothingness.
Now, pay close attention to the grammar of the gospel here. The command is "Return to Me." But the basis for that command is a completed action in the past: "for I have redeemed you." He does not say, "Return to Me so that I might redeem you." He does not say, "If you clean yourselves up, I will wipe the slate clean." No, the logic is precisely the reverse. Redemption is the cause; repentance is the effect. God acts first. He pays the price, He secures the redemption, and on that basis, He calls us home. We do not return to God in order to get on His good side. We return to God because, in Christ, we have already been placed there.
Cosmic Doxology (v. 23)
The effect of this redemption is not a quiet, private, internal feeling. It is a cosmic explosion of joy.
"Shout for joy, O heavens, for Yahweh has done it! Make a loud shout, you lower parts of the earth; Break forth into a shout of joy, you mountains, O forest, and every tree in it; For Yahweh has redeemed Jacob And in Israel He shows forth His beautiful glory." (Isaiah 44:23)
When God saves His people, all of creation gets in on the celebration. The heavens, the earth, the mountains, the trees, all are summoned to a Hallelujah chorus. Why? Because redemption is not just about saving souls for a disembodied eternity. It is about the restoration of the whole created order. When man fell, he dragged creation down with him into futility and corruption (Romans 8:20-22). When man is redeemed, creation itself anticipates its own liberation.
And what is the ultimate purpose of it all? "For Yahweh has redeemed Jacob And in Israel He shows forth His beautiful glory." We are saved for the sake of His glory. Our redemption is the stage upon which God displays His character, His beauty, His justice, and His mercy. We are not the center of the story. He is. We are the rescued, and He is the glorious rescuer.
The Sovereign's Resume (vv. 24-28)
God now launches into an extended declaration of His own sovereignty, a divine "I am" that silences all rivals.
"Thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb, 'I, Yahweh, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself And spreading out the earth all alone...'" (Isaiah 44:24)
He identifies Himself first by His relationship to us, Redeemer and Former, and then by His relationship to everything else. He is the Maker of all things, and He did it "by Myself" and "all alone." This is a direct assault on every form of paganism, which always posits multiple gods or chaotic forces at work in creation. Our God is the unassisted, unrivaled, absolute sovereign of the universe.
Because He is the sole Creator, He is also the sole arbiter of truth. He demonstrates this by making a mockery of all other claimants to knowledge. He annuls the omens of "boasters," He makes fools of diviners, and He turns the arguments of the "wise men" back on themselves, revealing their knowledge to be foolishness (v. 25). This is the great antithesis. The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God (1 Corinthians 1:20). The world's experts, its talking heads, its court prophets, are all peddling nonsense, and God delights in exposing them.
In stark contrast to their empty words, God's Word is powerful and effective.
"Confirming the word of His servant... And being the One who says of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be inhabited!’... It is I who says to the depth of the sea, ‘Be dried up!’... It is I who says of Cyrus, ‘He is My shepherd!..." (Isaiah 44:26-28)
God's Word does not describe reality; it creates it. He confirms the words of His true prophets because they are His words. He decrees the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the cities of Judah when they are still in ruins. He commands the deep, reminding them of His power in the Exodus. His authority is absolute over history, over nature, and over nations.
And then comes the final, breathtaking proof. He names His instrument: "It is I who says of Cyrus, 'He is My shepherd! And all My good pleasure he will complete.'" Cyrus the Great, the Persian king, would not be born for about 150 years. God calls him by name and assigns him a task. And what a task. He calls this pagan conqueror "My shepherd," a title reserved for Israel's own leaders, like David, and ultimately, for the Messiah. God declares that this unbeliever will do all His "good pleasure," specifically commanding the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the laying of the Temple's foundation. This is God's world. He runs it. He uses whomever He wants, whenever He wants, to achieve His purposes. He can use a Nebuchadnezzar to judge His people and a Cyrus to restore them. This is not a God who is wringing His hands in heaven, hoping things work out. This is the God who orchestrates the rise and fall of empires to ensure that a foundation stone is laid in Jerusalem at the precise moment He has decreed.
Conclusion: The Unshakeable Kingdom
What, then, are we to do with such a God? We are to do exactly what the text says. We are to remember our identity in Him. We are to believe that our sins have been vaporized by the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ, the ultimate fulfillment of this redemption. We are to return to Him daily, not to earn His favor, but because His favor has been irrevocably set upon us.
And we are to join with all creation in a loud shout of joy. We are not to be timid, fearful Christians, fretting about the latest headlines or the pronouncements of the world's "wise men." Their omens will be annulled. Their wisdom will be shown to be foolishness. Our God is confirming the word of His servants. He is building His church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.
He is the one who says of our ruined culture, "It shall be inhabited." He is the one who says of our desolate institutions, "They shall be built." He is the one who raises up waste places. And He will do it using the most unlikely instruments, perhaps even the Cyruses of our own day. Our job is not to figure out His secret counsel, but to trust His revealed Word. He has redeemed us. He is glorious. And He is in control. Therefore, let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice.