1. The elect kernel of Judah feared that God had forgotten them in Babylon.
2. They are captives, receiving what they know they deserve because of their past idolatries.

REMEMBER: GOD HAS BLOTTED OUT THY SINS

1. Remember what.
1. God uses the names “Jacob” and “Israel” to address the believers in Babylon.
1. God uses these names to designate the elect in the nation of Judah.
2. God uses these names because they were fearing that God had forgotten them.
2. He calls them to “remember” their sins of trusting in idols and the folly of trusting in wood or stone.
3. And they are to remember that Jehovah God “chose,” “made,” “formed” and “redeemed” them.
4. If God went through all this for them, then He does not just quickly forget them.
5. Emphatically says, “O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me.”
2. Wonderful reason for remembering.
1. They are to remember to identify correctly their past activity of worshiping idols.
1. It is a “transgression,” a breaking away or rebelling.
2. It is “sin,” the missing of the mark.
2. But these sins God has “blotted out as a thick cloud.”
1. Clouds come between the sun and the earth, separating God’s face from sinners (59:2).
2. God has blotted out, wiped out, obliterated, or exterminated the presence of our sins.
3. How? By having “redeemed” us.
3. After remembering our sins and God’s actions toward us, God commands: “return unto Me.”
1. To return is to turn from the direction in which we had been going.
2. It is to return to our God, to our first love, to our former joy.