Isaiah chapter 12 And in that
day Thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise thee. Though thou wast angry with me,
thy anger is turned away, and thou comfortest me. Behold, God
is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. For the Lord Jehovah is my strength
and my song. He also has become my salvation. Therefore, with joy, shall you
draw water out of the wells of salvation. And in that day, shall
you say, praise the Lord. Call upon his name. Declare his
doings among the people. Make mention that his name is
exalted. Sing unto the Lord, for he hath done excellent things.
This is known in all the earth. Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant
of Zion, for great is the holy one of Israel in the midst of
thee. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for this beautiful,
beautiful passage of scripture. What a blessing. to have you
as our salvation. May we indeed shout it and tell it forth and praise
you, Lord, in all things. In Christ's name we pray, amen. To know what day Isaiah is speaking
of here in verse one, we have to look back at chapter 11, verse
10. What day is he talking about?
1110 says in that day there should
be a root of Jesse. We shall stand for an incident
of the people. And to each other Gentile seek. And his rest should be glorious.
This route is incidentally. And His rest is glorious. And
because it is, because He is our rest and He is our glorious
salvation, even in the midst of the dark
language that we read in Isaiah, when you know what a hope these
Jews held onto in these beautiful words from the Lord, how precious
these promises must have been to them. And this day is spoken
of again here in our text in this whole chapter And we learn
four things about the one Who makes this day what it is in
verse 10 there where we just read and so this is important. This is why We're going to do
what we're going to do as we saw there in that day You shall
say oh lord Oh Lord, I'll praise you. He's a root of Jesse, that's
the first thing, and that reminds us that though our Lord took
not on him the nature of angels, yet he took on him the seed of
Abraham. He did it for a very specific reason, and the fact
that he did has taught us, as we partake at this table tonight,
that what he accomplished by doing it is set forth in this
table. Hebrews 2, 16, for verily he
took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the
seed of Abraham. Wherefore, in all things, it
behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might
be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to
God. To make reconciliation for the
sins. In order to make reconciliation
to his father for mercy. He became flesh and blood. The
root of Jesse, a man. And we see also he should be
an ensign. Which literally means something
lifted up. Lifted up. It's hard to hear
that and not think of our Lord's words from John 1232 and I If
I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto me. He said, of those the father
gave me, I will lose nothing. I'll draw them all. The word
signifies a banner, which our Lord is unto all his people.
There's nothing wrong with pledging allegiance to an earthly flag,
the banner of our nation, but there is no Christian flag. Our
Savior's kingdom is not of this world. It is he himself that
we rally around. And he to whom we pledge allegiance.
Thirdly, we see that even the Gentiles under whom he was not
sent. He said, I'm not sent to the
but to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. Yet they shall seek unto him.
And he'll receive them in his grace and love. Gentiles were grafted in because
of the unbelief of the Jews that the grace of God might be glorified
in them. In John 1 and 11, he came unto
his own, and his own received him not, but as many as received
him. A bunch of old Gentile dogs were
glad when they heard the gospel. And by his grace, they received
him, and to them gave he power to become the sons of God even
to them that believe on his name, which were born not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but born
of God. Acts 15, seven, when there had
been much disputing, Peter rose up and said, men and brethren,
you know how that a good while ago, God made a choice among
us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word. of the gospel and believe God
chose. I like the choices God makes,
don't you? Peter said God made a choice. And God, which knoweth
the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost as
he did unto us, even as he did unto us, and put no difference
between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now, therefore,
why tempt you, God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples,
which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we
believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we
shall be saved even as they. What a magnifying of his grace
that even the Gentiles seek unto him. The outcasts. Those without the camp. Fourthly, his rest shall be glorious. What are the Gentiles seeking
unto him for? Rest. Rest from their endless laboring
for a righteousness before God, their endless laboring for meaning.
The Gentiles were, they had all these philosophers and great
scholars always searching for some meaning. for life and for answers apart
from Christ. Also, you'll never find him.
Let me tell you about the unknown God. His rest is a glorious rest because
it's rest unto the soul. No one else can give that. Perfect
rest, eternal rest. 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, lowly in heart, and you shall find rest
unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden
is light. Now, when we see all of that
from verse 10 there of chapter 11, It helps us understand the
language of chapter 12 so much better in that day, when that
one comes, when he reigns, when he's lifted up. Lifted up, I
love that word. He's an ensign in me. And when
he is, when he's lifted up, all of his people are going to say,
oh Lord, I will praise you. Though thou wast angry with me,
my anger is turned away. and thou comfortest me. That's
the gospel, isn't it? That's the gospel. We see God's
anger under the old covenant. They couldn't approach Mount
Sinai, the thunderings and the lightnings. There was fear then,
but now comfort. Now he comes, this ensign is
raised up. This root of Jesse is born, and
we see him open his mouth, and the first thing he says is, blessed,
blessed. Blessed are they blessed are
my people So we praise him because of his comfort to us the good
news the gospel What we read there in chapter 11 tells who
he is And what he will do And now chapter 12 tells us what
we're gonna do We're gonna praise him when we see him and we see
what he did I See who he is. We see why God was made flesh,
why he's the root of Jesse. We see him lifted up when we
seek unto him like the Gentiles did. And indeed, in him find
rest. We'll open our mouth then and
say, oh. Oh, Lord, I'm going to praise
you. I'm going to quit exalting this flesh. And I'm gonna exalt
you. Like Nebuchadnezzar, you know.
We're gonna quit walking around and bragging about what we've
done, and we're gonna say with him, now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise
and extol and honor the king of heaven. I'm gonna shut up
about myself and what I've done, and I'm gonna praise you. All whose works are truth and
his ways judgment, And those that walk in pride, he's able
to obey. Aren't you glad he brought you down? Aren't you glad he
put you in the dust right where you belong? When he does, we're
gonna praise him for it. God was angry with us like Israel
in chapter nine. He was angry. He expressed his
anger against them, didn't he? God was angry with us, and for
the same reasons. We were idolaters by nature. You know, people balk at that. I've never worshipped an idol.
People think. Did you ever trust in your own
works to please God? Covetousness, the book says,
is idolatry. You ever coveted anything? Have
you ever been guilty of will worship? We all were idolaters. Ungrateful and vile, as they're
described in chapter one. You remember the language of
Isaiah chapter one, all the things God describes us as being? He
said, ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of
evildoers, children that are corruptors. They have forsaken
the Lord. They've provoked the Holy One
of Israel into anger. They are gone away, backward. And we talked about how that's,
the picture there is someone approaching somebody that they
love. And yet that person shuns them, pulls away. rather than
embrace them. Why should you be stricken anymore?
You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, the whole
heart faint. From the sole of the foot, even
into the head, there's no soundness in it but wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores. They've not been closed, neither
bound up, neither mollified with ointment. But now, our passage
says tonight, his anger is turned away. How he comforts us now
it says he comforts us. How does he do that? He says
to us come now and let's reason together also in chapter one
Come now and let us reason together though. You are a sinful nation
though your sins be as scarlet They shall be as white as snow
And though they be red like crimson They shall be as wool you see
for god's anger to be turned away and From us, our sins must
be dealt with and put away, got to be put away. And how can that
happen? Who's going to, who's going to
do that? We're not going to, we saw that this morning and we
can do about it. Yeah, but chapter nine, unto
us a child is born. Unto us a son is given and he'd
be called the prince of peace. We're going to have peace with
God by the blood of his cross. He's called the everlasting Father,
the mighty God. He shall make peace. And we'd
have to skip ahead to chapter 53 to get more detail about that. But we're going to get there
one of these days, I pray. God will lay on him. How's he
going to take away our sin? How's he going to make peace?
God's going to lay on him the iniquity of all of us, all of
his people. He shall be smitten stricken
of God and afflicted He'll be wounded for our transgressions
and crushed that word bruised bruised for our iniquities Crushed
and with his straps will be healed That's why we're gonna praise
him because of that comforting gospel of peace And in verse 2 behold God is
my salvation I will trust and not be afraid. Those two things
kind of go together, don't they? If you're not going to be afraid,
you're going to have to trust. For the Lord Jehovah is my strength
and my song. He also has become my salvation. He hasn't made salvation available.
He just hasn't. He doesn't do things that way.
He is my salvation. And since God himself is my salvation,
I'm gonna trust. I will trust. I will rest my
soul. You know what, that's what Paul
was talking about when he said, I'm persuaded that he's able
to keep that which I've committed. That's trust. I commit everything
to him, my soul, my body, myself, all my hope. I commit everything
to him, I trust him. He's able. He's able to keep
me. He's able to bring to the uttermost
those that come to God by. Save them to the uttermost. I
don't trust in a religious system. Don't trust in doctrinal statements
or formulas. Bless God by his grace. I trust him. You see that there? Behold, God is my salvation. God is my salvation. I will trust
and I'm not going to be scared. That's true trust now. True trust
if you really trust him. You'll be scared. I don't pretend
not to be afraid of anything. You know this flash is. instinctually
fearful. But you know what? I'm not afraid
of. I'm not afraid of Satan, not afraid of going to hell, not afraid of that, not afraid that he'll ever let
me go. I'm not afraid that his blood won't be enough. I'm not afraid that his righteousness
is insufficient. Doesn't bother me a bit by his
grace. Trust I trust him. I'm not afraid he's not strong
enough to keep me. I'm not afraid that he'll ever
go back on his word. I don't lose any sleep over that. I trust him by his grace. He came down here to save me.
That's what he said. He said, I've come. And I see
who he is, and I see what he did, and I'm persuaded. I'm convinced. I know that he's able. He saved
me when I was without strength. And now he is my strength. You
see that there? My joy, my song, my delight. I love that song we just sang,
Oh, to lie forever here. Therefore, verse three with joy,
shall you draw water? out of the wells of salvation. Isn't that beautiful? Did you
think of the woman at the well in John chapter four? The Lord
told her about this water. She was sitting on the well.
The one in chapter Isaiah that's described in this chapter in
Isaiah that's described in our first there in chapter 11 verse
10 that we read about in the one here in our chapter tonight,
he came to a well when he was born as the root of Jesse into
this world. He was a man just like us, only
not, but made like unto our flesh,
bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, tempted in all points
like as we are, yet without sin, the God-man. He got thirsty and
he came to a well and there's a woman sitting there or he was
sitting there when she came And he said to her give me to drink
Can you imagine that? And she said in john 4 9 How
is it that thou being a jew askest drink of me which am a woman
of samaria? For the jews have no dealings
with the samaritans And Jesus answered and said unto her, if
thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee,
give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would
have given thee living water. It's so beautiful. He said to
her, give me something to drink. If she had had any idea who he
was. You know, John the Baptist He
knew who he was. And when he came to John and
said, baptize me, you remember what John said? I have need to
be baptized of you. That's what that woman would
have said if she'd have known. You give me to drink, Lord. I've
got nothing for you. What a beautiful picture. He
told her of that water of life that only he can give. You're drawing water from a well
because you need it to live Got to come back to that well, but
that water can't give you the life that you really need he
told her Only I can give that Christ is the water of life the
water drawn from the wells of salvation And in that day verse
4 shall you say praise the lord? Now, this is not a repeat now.
He said in the first part, you're going to say you're going to
praise the Lord. Now you're saying, praise the
Lord. You're not just going around saying, praise the Lord, like
religious people do. You're telling everybody that
will hear, praise the Lord. Call upon his name. You see that?
Religious people go around saying, praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
praise the Lord. That's not what David's doing in the Psalms.
He is himself praising the Lord. But he's still telling you he's
instructing sinners. Praise the Lord. Quit praising
yourself. Quit admiring yourself and trusting
in yourself. Praise the Lord and call upon
his name. Call upon his name out of a deep
need. I must have him. I need him like
like like a thirsty man needs water. Declare his do it. You see this is the context of
verse four. Declare his doings among the people. Praise the
Lord. Call upon his name. Declare what
he's done. Make mention that his name is
exalted. Talk about him as sovereign.
Talk about him as on the throne, because that's where he is. Make
mention that he is lifted up, that he is the one who has all
authority in heaven and earth, and he gives life to whomsoever
he will. He is the judge of all the earth.
He's the one who decides who lives and who don't. When you
get some of that water, it'll make you start talking, won't
it? That woman at the well, that's what happened. He gave her some
of that water while they were sitting there talking about water,
didn't he? She drank. She realized who he was and she
went and said, she started talking about it, didn't she? That's
what our text is doing. You're going to draw water out
of the wells of salvation? And then you're not only going
to be praising the Lord, you're going to be telling everybody
else to praise Him and to call on Him, to trust Him like I have,
to hear His voice, to see what He's done, declare His doings
among the people, and make mention that His name is high. Make mention that He's the King
of salvation, the King of life. That's what she did. She dropped
her water buckets and she ran to town and spoke of that one
she had met by that well. Is not this the one, she said?
Isn't this the Christ? Praise Him. Praise Him. Call upon His name. Don't we
say that? We tell others to trust Him.
We've come. And what do we do now? We say come. The Spirit and the
Bride say come. And let him that's thirsty come.
And let him that heareth say come. And we do come to the water
of life. And let him that's thirsty come
and take of the water of life freely. I've drank from the wells
of salvation. Come get some. Come get some
of it. You won't ever be the same. And when you've tasted that the Lord
is gracious, tell everybody that'll listen to you. And make mention
that he is exalted. His name is exalted. He is to
be had in reverence of all them that are about him. Don't speak
of sweet little Jesus doing his best. We're ambassadors of the
king the king of glory Verse 5 sing unto the Lord The Lord
likes to be sung to have you noticed that in scriptures how
many times have we seen this He likes for us to sing to it
It praises it glorifies him And here's what don't don't sing
unto the Lord look what I've done I Don't sing of the Lord. Lord, I'm taking it one day at
a time. Just shut up about you. Sing unto the Lord for he hath
done excellent things. That's the subject of our song.
And everybody knows it. Don't you love that about the
scripture, about the gospel? It's so insistent. Even when
Paul was talking to Agrippa, he said, I know you believe what
I'm telling you. I know you do. You can't deny
it. Isn't that what he said? I know. Do you believe the prophets?
I know you do. Up here, everybody knows it,
don't they? They know he's the king. They
know he's sovereign. They know he's the only savior.
They just don't like it. But even if it's known in all
the earth by those who do like it, though, too, everywhere out
of every kindred, tribe, nation and tongue under heaven, sing
unto the Lord. Not because you just have so
much talent, you know, that you just can't help but use it. No,
it's not about you and me. Whether you, even if you don't
have any talent like me, if you can't hardly sing, he is to be
sung unto because of what he's done. You see that? Sing unto
the Lord, not because you're good at it, but because he has
done excellent things. And I'll tell you what's beautiful
to him. You don't have a beautiful voice. You know what's beautiful
to him? What we like is somebody that
sings all the notes right, you know, and sings with passion.
What's beautiful to the Lord is something different. Beautiful to God is a song that
glorifies his son. Sing of his precious blood. I
guarantee you it'll be sweet to the God of heaven. Worthy
is the lamb that was slain. You are worthy, oh Lord, for
you were slain and has redeemed us under God by that precious
blood. That's beautiful. I don't care if you're just croaking
like a frog. If you can croak that out, it'll be precious to
the God of heaven. Sing unto him because of what
he's done. We must sing of him. We sing
to him and we sing of him. Everybody knows about Christ.
The whole world knows. superficially what he did. They
know that he died on a cross. But not everybody can sing about
it, not like the redeemed can. There is such a thing as the
song of the redeemed. The redeemed know what he actually
accomplished when he died on that cross. And only they can
sing about that. Even the angels can't sing that
like we can. I bet they can sing technically
better than we can, don't you? They can't sing that song like
we can. Thou hast redeemed us to God
by your blood. You washed my sins away in your
precious blood. You perfected forever all whom
you sanctified with that precious blood. In verse six, cry out
and shout. Cry out and shout. Hallelujah. Thou inhabitant of Zion. Beautiful
for situation you are. For great is the Holy One of
Israel. In the midst of thee, Zion's a great city because he
lives there with us. He dwells in our midst. This
church is what it is, I pray. Nothing else matters about it,
but this is the Lord in the midst of us. That's what matters. This is an urgent and an insistent
cry. Cry out and shout. Our song is
bold and strong. And again, the subject is a person.
And that's why we're so bold and strong and insistent about
it. If you are an inhabitant of spiritual
Zion, the city of God, and the holy one of Israel, the Lord
Jesus Christ himself is your king and savior and dwells with
you there and is your king. And you ought to do a lot of
singing. There's much to sing about when he's the subject of
your song. David said, I'm going to sing of the mercies of the
Lord forever. I'm not going to shut up about
it. That's pretty good, isn't it? That's pretty good policy.
I'm gonna sing of his mercies forever. With my mouth, will
I make known thy faithfulness. I'll sing of his mercies. I'm
gonna sing about this, his faith. What he promised, he'll perform.
Thy faithfulness to all generations. He said in Psalm 59 16. I will sing of that power. Yeah,
I will sing aloud of the mercy in the morning. But that has
been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble. These
are the things we sing about mercy, the faithfulness, the
power, the strength, the fact that he saved us and defends
us and is our hiding place. Not only is God merciful to defend
me, he's mighty to do so. He's powerful. He keeps me. By his power unto salvation.
Ready to be revealed in the last time. Psalm 145 7 they shall
abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness. And shall
seeing here's one more thing we hadn't mentioned yet shall
seeing of thy righteousness. I'll sing of his righteousness. I'll sing a song about how and
what the law could not do because of my sinful flesh. God sent
his son down here and he accomplished it. Righteousness for his people. I'll sing of how that he did
always those things that pleased his father. I'll sing of his
holiness as he reveals to me the truth of it. I'll sing about
it. I will sing of how that he is
himself. The Lord my righteous. Sing of his righteousness. I've
drank. From the wells of salvation.
And now I'm gonna sing. By his grace. There's a song that I like that
says this. I heard the voice of Jesus say. Behold, I freely
give. The living water, thirsty one,
stoop down and drink and live. Well, I came to him and I drank
of that life-giving stream. My thirst was quenched and my
soul revived. And now I live in him. You see,
that's what we do. We come together and we take
the singing for granted sometimes. But the reason we're able to
sing what we do is because we've drank from that well, that fountain filled with his
precious blood, that river of water of life, clear as crystal
that flows from the very throne of God. We've tasted that the
Lord himself is gracious, and that his body is meat indeed,
and his blood is drink indeed. And we can't keep quiet about
it. And we never will be from now on we're gonna be singing
and shopping His praises he's worthy Let's pray