“Can a woman forget her nursing child, or lack compassion for the son of her womb? Even if she could forget, I will not forget you!“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, these may forget, yet I will not forget you!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 thee.Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, these may forget, yet will not I forget thee.
8 sermons cite this verse
… usually used. I'll get back to this in a second. For mothers, with regard to mothers, there's two particularly memorable places where the word's used. One is in Isaiah 49, verse 15, where it's talking about a nursing mother. And God speaks to his people and says, can a woman forget the baby nursing at her breast? Can she fail to have compassion on the child that's sucking at her breast. Yes, she may forget, but I will not forget you. Now, what's going on here? First of all, the word compassion, as I said, it's hard to really get across, but I'm beginning to. It's talking about an incredibly visceral love. There's a kind of love. There's a kind of compassion. It's overwhelming. It's visceral. And here, God has the audacity to identify this word, rightly, actually, with this word, which has to do with the biologically rooted, overwhelming love that a mother has for an infant as her milk's coming in. And there's another place where this very same word is used with regard to mother love. …
… Let me get out a score. One of my favorite scores is Isaiah 49, verses 15, 16, and 17. In Isaiah 49, 15, it says, Can a mother forget the baby nursing at her breast? She will forget, but I will not forget thee. Now, you know what that says? Mothers, I hate to, can I tell the secret? I mean, this is a dirty little secret. Mothers do get something out of their infants. And your love for your infant can fail. In fact, God says it will fail. It is not pure. It's not perfect. that demands of that infant can get you to the end, even of mother love. Mother love, of all things. He says, mother love isn't perfect. Mother love isn't pure. Mother love will fail, but not my love. I love you for who you are. I love you infinitely. I love you to the bottom. My love will never fail. And then you can go down to verse 16. It says, I've engraved you on the palms of my hands. …
Then this man of prayer, after using prayer and meditation, betook himself to these employments. If you notice, he spent his time in self-examination—"In communion with my own heart and my spirit, I made diligent search." Show me why You contend with me. Lord if I am chastened, tell me why. If I have lost the light of Your Countenance, why do You hide Yourself from me? For what sin is it that You are rebuking me? What Grace is it that You would strengthen in me? What idol is it that You would take away from me? What duty have I neglected, of which You would remind me? I commune with my own heart, and look within to see if there is the cause of the distress—and look up to God, my Father, and say, "Why do You leave me? Why have You forsaken me?" And then I repeat to myself, "Why are you cast down O my Soul? Why are you disquieted within me?" "Oh," says one, "I don't care much about self-examination. Mark you, I do not think much of your religion." There are a great many people in the world in trade that do not like looking at their books and when a man does not want to know the position of his trade, I think we can, most of us, make a pretty shrewd guess at where he is! And when a man is afraid of self-examination, when he is afraid of a heart-searching discourse or heart-searching Providence, he may be pretty sure there is something rotten within. God deliver us from being unwilling to know the very worst of our position! May we be always anxious to know the worst, than for a moment to be flattered! Let us, then, if we would get comfort, get to self-examination! …
"Streams of mercy never ceasing Call for songs of loudest praise." So fear not, now that at this particular season God is about to alter His previous dispensation! Out with them, poor Little-Faith! Away with your doubts! Put away those black suspicions! He is a God that changes not and, having helped you until now, He will help you even to the end! Why how true this must be! "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." How can God forsake that which has cost Him so much already? He has given His Son's blood to redeem us and His Spirit's power to renew us—and if He were to leave undone the work which He has begun—why a tower has been commenced and He has not been able to finish it! A man who has spent much money upon one enterprise will spend yet more to finish it because of what he has already spent. Now God will not lose the work of Christ and the precious blood of His Son—having begun, He will certainly carry on even to the end! Besides this—God cannot leave His people because He calls them His children—and how could He leave His child? "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, she may forget, yet will I not forget you." Even when the son has dishonored his father's name and lost his own character, that father's love still holds on and still follows that child with tears of sorrow, but still with faithfulness and truth. And God will not cast away His own begotten sons whom He has begotten again unto a living hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead! Beloved, Christ is married to His people and, therefore, how can He leave them? He says, "As a young man rejoices over his bride, so shall your God rejoice over you." And will He leave them to whom He is knit by so near and dear, so tender and affectionate a union? It cannot be! "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." Now, if He did leave His people, what would it be? It would be giving up the whole quarrel between Himself and Satan! It is in His people's hearts that the great battle is being fought out between good and evil. To give them up would be to give up the battleground to His great enemy—and what laughter there would be in the vaults of Hell! What mockery in the halls of Pandemonium if it could be said, "God has forsaken His people! Given up His elect! Suffered His redeemed to perish! Cast away His regenerate and forsaken the souls that trusted Him!" The very thought of it is blasphemy! Far, far from us, let us put it away. "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." …
Fourthly, Grace was poured into the lips of Christ as the faithfulPromiser. I look upon all the promises of God's Word as being the promises of Jesus as well as the promises of the Father and of the Holy Spirit. All the promises of God, we are told, are yes and Amen in Christ Jesus, unto the Glory of God by us. And as the promises are all made in Him, so they are all spoken by Him. Now, will you not concur with me when I say that, verily, Grace is poured into His lips as the faithful Promiser? We have sometimes read His promises. We have heard them with our ears, and oh, what Grace there is in them! Take, for instance, that great honeycomb promise—"The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from you, neither shall the Covenant of My peace be removed, says the Lord that has mercy on you." Turn to another—"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you: when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you." "Fear not, you worm, Jacob, and you men of Israel; I will help you, says the Lord, and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel." Listen to such sweet words as these—"Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls." Beloved, you do not need that I tell you how precious these promises are! The best way to preach of the faithful …
Again, a mother's comfort has this point about it—she usually comforts in a most efficient manner—and the child goes away smiling, though it seemed to say before, "I shall never be happy again." Five minutes of a mother's wise talk and sweet comfort, and the child is as happy as before! "Ah," you say, "that will do for children, but it won't do for men." But God keeps His saints as children before Him. May God grant us Grace to be as little children, or we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven! Then, when our God comes to comfort us, I am quite sure He will do it more effectually than the most tender mother can. But, once more, a mother comforts all her life. "A mother is a mother all her life," says an old proverb. There is no change there. "Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?" It seems impossible, but the Lord says, "Yes, they may forget, yet will I not forget you." A mother casts not away her child. Fathers sometimes have done such a thing, but mothers, I should hope, never! But even if they have— "Yet," says the Lord, "should Nature change, And mothers monsters prove, Sion still dwells upon the heart Of everlasting love." God will not cease to comfort His people! Perhaps there is a Brother who is passing through a very severe trial and he thinks he shall never be comforted again. Well, but your mother will not forsake you—and do you think God will? "But," says one, "you do not know my difficulty. It is a crushing one." My dear Friend, I know I do not know it, but your heavenly Father knows it. And do you suppose if an earthly mother sticks fast by her child, that He will leave you? Go to Him! His heart is as near to you, now, as when you were on the mountain rejoicing in the full sunshine of His love. The very shadow of a change is unknown to Him. Go to Him with confidence and humble faith and you shall find the text, true, "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you." …
But such a text as this is to be preached hundreds of times! It is quite impossible to exhaust it, and if we should run over the same circle of thought in some measure, the thought suggested is of itself so precious, it were well to have our pure minds stirred up by way of remembrance. The apprehension that God might forget us would be very horrible to a child of God. As to the ungodly, they care not whether God thinks of them or not. He is nothing to them and they care not whether they are anything to Him. To the Christian, it is far otherwise. He could imagine no greater calamity than for him to be forgotten of his God. He knows there are many reasons in him why he shouldbe forgotten, and though those reasons are all met by the promises of God, yet there are times when those reasons exercise great effect upon his mind. As, for instance, the Christian knows how insignificant he is. It is always a wonder to him that God did ever think of him. Like David, when he considers the heavens, the works of God's fingers, the moon and the stars which God has ordained, he says, "What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You visit him?" The ungodly man has large ideas of himself, but the Christian has very humbling notions of his own condition and he marvels, therefore, that God ever should have remembered him—and he fears, sometimes, lest he should be forgotten. So, too, the Christian is aware of his own unworthiness. He knows something of his natural depravity. He remembers somewhat of things done in his youth, his former transgressions—he sees that even now he is not clear from sin in his daily life—and he says within himself at times, "If the Lord were to deal with me according to my desert, He would certainly appoint me a portion with the unbeliever, discountenance me and cast me away." Yes, and when he thinks of his unthankfulness to God for His many mercies, and remembers what a sting there is in ingratitude, and how it cuts sharp the person who is wronged by it, he sometimes wonders that God has not turned against His ungrateful servant and said, "You are not mindful of My goodness. You make such a slight return for it, that I will henceforth no more remember you! The streams of My mercy shall be dried up and the sunlight of My favor shall be taken away forever." Oh, what would we do if God did forget us for any of these reasons, my Brothers and Sisters? We could bear, it might be, to be forgotten by the dearest heart that beats in the fondest bosom of our nearest relative— bitter, indeed, would be such an affliction, to find a Judas where we hoped we had a friend—but let all creature friendships go sooner than God should forget us! It would be a calamity if death should visit our habitations, or if sickness should come and lay us low, if some calamity should strip us of our earthly comforts. But let them all go without reservation, let us be reduced to Job's extremity and sit upon a dunghill and scrape ourselves with a potsherd, sooner than God should forget us! That were Hell itself! Oh, may we rejoice in heart by faith that this calamity cannot occur to us! And let this text help to remove any fear that any Believer here has ever had, that he may be forgotten of God! The text was meant to meet that case, for so it runs, "Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion upon the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet will I not forget you." And here is the reason given, "I have engraved you upon the palms of My hands." …
It is some comfort also, that though He is gone, He is not gone out of earshot. Jesus Christ can still hear the cry of His people. No, He is not gone beyond the reach of His eyesight. He is looking upon His poor deserted one to see what the effect of His hiding Himself is. And there is this to be said, that He is not so far gone but that at any moment He can return, and His return can at once make our souls like the chariots of Aminnadib! He can rise upon our darkness and that in the next instant if so it pleased Him. He is gone, but He is not altogether gone. He has not taken His love from us, nor shall His loving kindness utterly fail. Still on His hands He bears the marks of His passion for our salvation. Still on His breastplate glitter the jewels that bear our names. He cannot forget us, though He hides Himself! He may be asleep, but it is in the same vessel with us—and near the helm. He may appear to have utterly deserted us, but, "can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?" Yes, they may forget, but Christ shall never forget His saints! But now, lastly— IV. WHAT IS OUR DUTY IN SUCH A PLIGHT? …