Isaiah 12, verse 1 begins with
these words, "...and in that day..." I want to speak to you
this morning about that day. The former chapter ends with
the declaration that in Christ, by Christ's person and work,
God would utterly destroy the accusing tongue of our adversary
and that Christ Jesus, the enzyme, our banner, the Son of God Himself
would stretch forth His hand a second time so that all His
children whom He delivered, whom He redeemed by and bought and
purchased with His shed blood shall hear the Gospel and He
shall exalt Himself in their eyes, in their hearts, so that
they shall come out and be free and be saved. It
says, verse 16, there shall be a highway for the remnant of
His people which shall be left from Assyria, like as it was
to Israel in the day that He came up out of the land of Egypt.
And in that day thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise Thee. You know, Israel, it says in
Exodus 14.31, Israel saw that great work which the Lord did
upon the Egyptians. They saw that great work which
the Lord did upon the Egyptians. And the people feared the Lord.
That was the result. And they believed the Lord. That
was the result. And His servant Moses, they believed
the messenger He gave them. Then sang Moses. God put a song
on their lips. Then sang Moses and the children
of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will
sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously. And the
Lord tells us here, just as it was in the day of Moses, so shall
it be in that day when the Son of God has come and has accomplished
the redemption of his people and has risen to the right hand
of the throne of the majesty on high and sets forth his hand
again the second time through the preaching of the gospel and
begins to gather in his elect from the four winds. So shall
it be that in that day he will create in our hearts a new song. a new song. And that's what we're
going to look at today. Now, I didn't set out in preparing
this message to preach to you on the subject of sanctification
and of holiness. I didn't really set out to do
that. And my subject's not really the doctrine of sanctification
or the doctrine of holiness. But, what you're going to see
right here is sanctification of the Spirit. And it is what
true holiness is. Exactly what true holiness is.
Now you have in your mind right now an idea that comes just naturally
from what you've been taught or the flesh that comes into
your mind when you hear the word holiness. And it generally has
something to do with these fingers and these hands and these bodies
and all of this thing. I hope by the end of this message
you see that it has more to do with the heart. than anything
else. Now listen, this is what the
Lord says, and I pray that each of you this day will be made
to sing this song. Now this day that's spoken of
here is the day of divine visitation. It's the day when God sanctifies
your soul by His divine presence within you. That's what this
is about. It's the day when the Lord Jesus
Christ commands the Holy Spirit to pour grace into your lips
so that you can sing this song. And in that day, the Lord God
promises. This is not a maybe. This is
a promise. The Lord God promises that you
shall do three things. Look at verse 1. Thou shalt say,
O Lord, I will praise Thee. That's the first thing. Verse
3 says, Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells
of salvation. That's the second thing. And
then the third thing is verse 4, And in that day shall ye say,
Praise the Lord. Well, I thought that's what he
said in the first day. No, no. Not at all. Let's go
on. We'll see it when we get to it. First of all, you shall
sing praise unto the Lord. Verse 1 says, Thou shalt say,
O Lord, I will praise Thee. The word here is, you shall praise
none but the Lord. That's what the meaning is. You
shall praise no one but the Lord. Every day up until this day,
you praised everyone but the Lord. Up until this day of divine
visitation when God works this work in the heart, we praised
everyone but the Lord. We were like Hosea's wife, Gomer. Though Hosea was the one who
laid the corn and the wine and the oil and the wool and the
flax at her door, she didn't know he did it. And all she did
was say, my lovers have done this. This is the reward that
I've gotten from my lovers because of my goodness and what I've
done. So then, This is one of the things that He promises that
He will do where He will make us to see that the goodness that
we've received has been at His hand. So that we'll be no more
praising ourselves, but we'll be praising Him. Now, through
this, the way the Lord does this here is it says, verse 1, "...though
thou wast angry with me." You see what the Lord has to do is
He has to make you see that you are the sinner. He has to make
me see I'm the sinner. He has to make us see that. You
know, it makes us feel good about ourselves to complain about others. It just makes us feel good about
it, to find fault with others. We've learned the doctrine of
total depravity. We've learned that God declares
that we all by nature are self-righteous. But have we learned it? Do I
realize that that's me it's talking about? I know you wouldn't dare talk
about anybody, but when we complain about the actions of that other
political party, you know why? Because they're not our political
party. When we complain about how that other family lets their
children do this or that, you know why we do it? Because we
don't let our children do this or that. Last week I was talking with
Chris and Kevin, and we were talking about the North and the
South. I've had this conversation for the past five years, ever
since I've been coming up here. I'm so tired of it, but we were
just talking about the North and the South and the differences,
you know, and how people act, whatever. But when we do that,
whether you're in the North or you're in the South, you know
who always is spoken of in a more favorable light? The ones where
you were born and where you live. Those are the ones. But don't
we realize that depravity doesn't have a thing in the world to
do with geography? It has nothing to do with family bloodlines. It has nothing to do with any
of the distinctions that we make. And the first thing God does
is to put us, me, the sinner, and you, the sinner, on level
ground or worse than everybody else. And He makes us to behold
that we got no business to criticize anybody. I can't say a word to
find fault with anybody because I'm talking about myself when
I do. That's me. It's so amazing to
me how you turn on the news and you hear about the crime and
it's almost like the folks giving the news and the folks who are
sitting there at home watching their television and hearing
about it are just sitting there thinking, well, we're not like
those people. You know why we have to have locks on our doors?
You know why we have to have laws? You know, God gave one
law. He gave one. And then in the garden, he gave,
what, 600? I mean, on Mount Sinai, he gave 613 or something like
that. And we've been inventing new
laws, legislating new laws and new laws and new laws ever since.
You know why? Because law won't make us obedient. We broke one
in the garden and ever since then the book has gotten thicker
and thicker and thicker and it gets thicker and thicker in our
civil government because the law never made us so obedient.
The more laws we have, the more ways we figure out to break them.
And God has to make us see that's who I am. It's not those other
people that I'm putting locks on my door to keep out. That's
who I am. They're putting locks on their
doors to keep me out. Don't you see that? This is us. This is who we are. Isaiah was
brought to see, I'm a man of unclean lips. Just like every
one of these people I've been saying, woe is you, woe is you,
woe is you. I'm just like them, he said.
In Ephesians, Paul said, we all had our conversation in time
past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and of the mind, and we were by nature the children of
wrath, even as others. And God makes us to discover,
I'm the one who was conceived in sin. I'm the one who was shaping
an iniquity. I came forth from my mother's
womb speaking lies. I went astray as soon as I was
born. In my throat, my throat is an open sepulcher. Under my
tongue is the poison of asps. And until you have discovered
that, by God's grace, you don't need a Savior. You don't need
a Savior. That's why you don't know THE
Savior, because you don't need a Savior. But when you discover
that God had every right, every right to deal with you in His
fierce anger, then He reveals something else. He reveals something
else. Verse 1 says, And that day thou
shalt say, O LORD, I will praise thee, though thou wast angry
with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest me. You see, the reason that this
song is a certainty, the reason it speaks in language of shall,
that this shall happen, is because you shall behold that God has
turned away His anger from you. Now listen to me here. When we
behold this, what we behold is, is what he told Jeremiah. The
Lord hath appeared of Olun to me saying, I have loved thee
with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn
thee. When God blessed us with all spiritual blessings by putting
us in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world, Though
we were children of wrath even as others, though we walked wrathful
towards others and were deserving of the wrath of God, when He
put us in Christ in divine election by His sovereign choice, He turned
away His anger from us. And He didn't deal with us in
His fierceness of His wrath, but He dealt with us according
to His loving kindness and His everlasting love. Listen to the
psalmist. He hath not dealt with us after
our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. Another place
it says, He hath not dealt so with any nation. As for His judgments,
they have not known them. Praise ye the Lord. You see this
is a distinguishing a particular grace of God to a particular
people. That's what He taught us all
throughout the Old Testament in that nation of Israel. All
the other nations around them didn't even have one thing given
to them to know who God is. Nothing. You know what He was
declaring loud and clear? I'm dealing with my people. True
Israel might elect as a particular people because I've everlastingly
loved them in Christ Jesus my son And I will not deal with
them according to their sins according to that which they
deserve But I'm gonna deal with them according to my mercy and
my grace And that's what he does we behold God had every right
to be angry with me But where the comfort comes in is we realize
that He's loved us with an everlasting love. And that's why He drew
us and wouldn't leave us alone. And He made this a certainty. And that's why He speaks of it
as a certainty. How did He hide His face from
us? How did He not deal with us according to our sins? Look
at 2 Corinthians chapter 5. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. You may know this, you may have
read this time and time again, but I pray this morning the Lord
will teach it to you. Now look, 2 Corinthians 5.17.
First of all, he says in verse 16, Wherefore henceforth know
we no man after the flesh. Paul said, we're not judging
after the outward appearance of things. We don't discern anything
by the outward appearance of things. Yea, though we have known
Christ after the flesh, we saw Him bodily, yet now henceforth
know we Him no more after the flesh. Therefore, if any man
be in Christ, listen now, this is how he turns away his anger
from a sinner. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. And all things, that he's speaking
of, are of God. Now wait a minute. That's going
to fly in the face of that holiness that you imagine in your mind.
That you've thought about. That you've been taught about.
That this world teaches incessantly. All things are of God. Now listen. Who hath reconciled
us to himself by Jesus Christ. That means all those that he
blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ, all those for whom
Christ died, they have been reconciled unto God in Christ Jesus. No,
maybe they will be if they do something. These works are of
God and he's done this. And he hath given to us, to Paul
and to his messengers, and to you who are witnesses of him,
he's given to us the ministry of reconciliation. To wit, here's
what it is. God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto himself. not imputing their trespasses
unto them, and hath committed unto us this word of reconciliation."
That means this world that he's speaking of who they have been
reconciled. Their trespasses shall not be
imputed to them. They are righteous in God's name. in God's court of justice. You
know why? Because God did something for
them. And He's given this ministry
of reconciliation so that now men go forth and declare what
God has done and through that message of declaration of what
God has done, God does what He's doing in Isaiah 12 and He puts
this song in our hearts and our lips so we behold He's done it.
Now listen. Now then, we, me standing right
here today, as an ambassador for Christ, as though God Himself
did beseech you by us, we pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye
reconciled to God. He's reconciled His people to
Himself. They're going to be brought to
see Him. But He sends forth a man to say, now you be reconciled
to Him. You know, He tells us in numerous places. Believe on
Him. He tells us, repent. He tells us, follow after holiness.
And He tells us that because as He tells us that, He gives
us faith, and He gives us repentance, and He sanctifies us, and He
causes us to follow after Him. He does it. And He says, Be ye
reconciled to God. Now here's how it came to be,
brethren. Look at verse 21. God had made Him, His Son, Christ
the Lord, sin for us. He knew no sin. He was spotless
or else He couldn't have taken that body that God gave Him to
offer as a sacrifice to God and He could not have been made sin
in that body. That's why it was given was so
that He would have something wherewith to lay down, to offer
to God, to sacrifice to God. It did nothing whatsoever to
change His holiness, to change His perfection, As the Son of
God, He was given that body for one purpose. To be made sin for
us. To offer it up as a sacrifice
and an offering to God Himself. And that's what He did. He did
it that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Listen to Isaiah 53. Surely he
hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem
him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded
for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement
of our peace was upon him and with his stripes. We are healed. This word is when God reconciled
His people to Himself, they were healed, they were justified,
they were made the righteousness of God before Him before they
ever knew anything whatsoever about it. Go back and listen
to the messages out of Isaiah 11 and see that everything God
said He would do preceded Isaiah chapter 12. Isaiah chapter 12
is the revelation of what God has done in His Son and this
causes the song. This is the whole of salvation.
There's nothing for me to do. It's done in Him. He did it.
He perfected it. He accomplished it and therefore
now I can just rest in Him. Do you see that? His people could
never turn away God's wrath. What the law couldn't do in that
He was weak through the flesh. Us, we couldn't do anything.
Do you realize that all of Paul's epistles They're not taken up
with trying to teach men to do something in their flesh to be
more holy. They're taken up with telling
men there's nothing you can do in your flesh. Colossians, he
had to deal with it. Ephesians, he had to deal with
it. Even in Philippians, he had to deal with it to a degree.
It is constantly, continually not not the preaching of you
doing something to become more holy, the preaching that you
can't do something to become more holy. But the carnal mind
hears what Paul says and because all we can think of holiness
is this flesh and something we do and something we accomplish,
We twist the very Word of God backwards because that's what
we are by nature until God makes us to see. This has all been
done in His Son. Then we find out true holiness
is parting from those things we once considered holiness and
those things we once considered righteousness and those things
that we once thought made us more and more and more and more
ripe for heaven and seeing that it's growing in knowledge and
understanding of my Redeemer that causes me to want to put
those things behind me. and pressed toward the mark of
the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. That's
the issue. And that's holiness. Now, let's
see that here. And this song is certain. Look
what it does when it does this. Verse 2 in our text. Isaiah 11. The song is certain because God's
comfort reveals that God our Savior is all. Look at verse
2, Isaiah 12, 2. Behold, God is my salvation. This is not just a statement
of fact. This is a statement of astonishment. This is a statement of amazing
grace. When God opens up this heart, behold, God's my salvation. God's my salvation. You realize
we're not just being saved from something, from hell, from sin,
from death, though we are saved from those things, but we are
saved to God who is our salvation. A person. Christ Jesus the Lord. I needed light. He's my light.
I need life. He's eternal life. I need wisdom. He's my wisdom. I need righteousness. He's my righteousness. I need
sanctuary. He's my sanctuary. I need a defender. He's my shield and my defender.
I need an advocate. He's my advocate. I need an intercessor. He's my intercessor. I need a
high priest. He's my high priest. I need somebody
to be all and fill me with all because I don't have anything. And He's all and in all. He fills all in all. It's a person. This salvation is a person. Adam,
I told you I have looked and looked and looked for a message
that I could preach that would be of comfort to you, to these
brethren here. But I'll tell you why I don't
think God's given it to me. Because I've been seeking it
in these scriptures, in His Word, in something he says about the
doctrine of sovereignty or the doctrine of predestination or
how he works all things together for good according to his purpose
and I hadn't been simply trying to bring you a message about
our consolation, Christ. That's what Paul said. Blessed
be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforted us in
all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which
are in trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted
of God, because as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, the consolation
also aboundeth. Christ. There's the consolation. That's how we console one another.
That's how we comfort one another, is by declaring Christ to one
another. Now, so he says here, because
He is my salvation, I will trust. I won't be afraid. For the Lord
Jehovah is my strength. He's my song. And He also has
become my salvation. That's why the Lord says in this
day, you're going to praise Him. You're going to praise Him and
nobody else. Now, I don't have to, and you
don't have to wonder about somebody, whether or not they really rejoice
in Christ Jesus the Lord, or whether they rejoice in themselves.
Who do they rejoice in? The Lord didn't say, sometimes
they'll rejoice in me, and sometimes you'll rejoice in your flesh.
He said, you go and praise me. That's what He said. It's a certainty. Now here's the second thing.
The Lord says in the day He visits you in mercy and grace, You shall
forever be satisfied. Look at verse 3. Therefore with
joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. Now listen
to this. The Lord God who cannot lie says
in that day he shall replace your sorrow with joy. He will
replace your sorrow with joy. We like to have a remedy. We like to find a remedy for
something. Have you found one in this life? Have you? Whatever
remedy we find in this life is going to create a temporary comfort. That's all it is. I've tried
them all. I've tried them all. I can tell
you this. Every buzz that you can get in
this life is going to stop being a buzz eventually and it's going
to become pain and sorrow. I can guarantee you that. And
that's what we're seeking for, whether we're seeking it in religion,
whether we're seeking it in a bottle, whether we're seeking it in a
pill, whether we're seeking it in philanthropy. We're seeking something that'll
give us a temporary fix, or a fix, and we think it's gonna last,
but it won't last. It won't last. And the going
up ain't worth the coming down, I can tell you that. It just
won't last. I see Emma's bracelets and things. BFF, Best Friends
Forever. I can't remember most of mine.
I don't even see them, talk to them, hear from them, know them,
and I don't call them. I don't even know half of them.
And at one time, I would have said, oh, this would be Best
Friends Forever. But this one, he said, you'll
draw water out of the wells of salvation. Have you ever noticed
this? Salvation, grace, mercy, that which comes from God is
always in the plural. So many times the scripture is
in the plural. Wells of salvation. Listen to Isaiah 49.10. They
shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor sun
smite them. For he that hath mercy on them
shall lead them even by the springs of water. He shall guide them.
Oh, everyone that thirsts, come ye to the waters. My people have
committed two evils. They've forsaken me, the fountain
of living waters. The reason is because God our
Savior is all fullness. I couldn't have picked a better
scripture for you to read. In fact, I picked the scripture
you read. It says, by Him all things were created. It says
He's the head of the body. He's before all things. By Him
all things consist. For it pleased the Father that
in Christ Jesus the Lord should all fullness dwell. And John said, and of His fullness
have we all received. Grace for grace for grace for
grace for grace. Has it stopped yet? Has this
joy stopped yet? It hasn't stopped, has it? It's
the one thing, the one joy that has never ceased. You know why? Because it comes out of or it's
according to His fullness. Listen to Philippians 4.19. Paul
said, My God should supply all your need according to His riches
in glory by Christ Jesus. That means not You know, you
picture riches, you picture a treasure chest, and you picture, well
if I'm going to have some riches out of that, then some is going
to be taken out of that chest and given to me. So that they're
not in that chest anymore, now they're given to me. It don't
say that. It says according to his riches. Meaning, he's never diminished
from being rich, he just made you more rich. And it don't ever
stop. He just keep making you more
rich, and more rich, and more rich. These are wells of water
that don't stop. Now, here's the third thing.
The Lord says that in that day, you'll call on others to rejoice
only in the Lord. Not only will you start saying,
I'll praise Him now, but now when you talk of Him to others,
you're not going to talk about you, you're going to talk about
Him. And in doing so, you're going to call on others to talk
about Him. Now watch. Verse 4, And in that day shall
ye say, Praise the Lord. This is not I will say. This
is you shall say. This is going to be your gospel.
This is going to be your testimony from now on. You want to praise
somebody? You want to glorify somebody?
Glorify the Lord. Call not upon other people's
name. Call upon His name. Declare His
doings among the people. Stop talking about our doings.
Talk about your doings. Talk about His doings. Make mention
that His name is exalted and not anybody else's. Sing unto
the Lord, for He hath done excellent things. This is known in all
the earth. Open your eyes. It's because,
you know, I sat here this morning as I was preparing this, I thought
it's sort of, I don't know, ironic that what I'm doing here is I'm
saying what this is saying. You know why I'm doing it? Because
I have no other choice. I got no other gospel. I got
no other message to tell you. But if you want to glory, glory
in what He's done. Look at the wonderful works He's
accomplished. I can't talk of anything better. I have nothing
else to talk about but Him. In that day, He said, call upon
His name, declare His doings among the people. Every time
you come here, You hear me talking about Christ. Some aspect of
what he's doing. You know what it is to meditate
on scripture. You know what it is? It's to
consider a different aspect of it. Look at it in a different
way. Come at it from a different angle. When me and Melinda were
going to get married and I was going to surprise her and propose
to her, I went to look for a diamond. And it's nothing fancy. If you
looked at it, some of y'all probably have ones that are a lot bigger. But I'll tell you what I did
with that diamond. I scrutinized that diamond. I
took that diamond and I looked at it from every angle. I went
to the jewelry store two or three times. I looked at it from every
angle. I got a magnifying glass that you can look at a diamond.
I looked at it. I looked at that diamond and
examined it really close and looked at it. You know what I
did? I meditated upon that diamond. I upset my heart to see it from
every angle, from every direction, from every way that I could see
it. Well, looking at Scriptures and talking about Him is looking
at Him from every direction. It's coming at Christ from every
direction. It's looking at His work before
the foundation of the world. It's looking at His work in what
we know as time. It's looking at the work that
He's doing right now. It's looking at the work He's doing in our
hearts. It's looking at the work He did on the cross. It's looking
at the work He does through the Holy Spirit. It's looking at
the work that's attributed to the Father. the work to the Son,
the work to the Holy Spirit. It's the work He shall yet do
in saving us and bringing us to Himself. It's the work He
shall do when He calls us out of the graves and raises us a
glorified body to be with Him. Have you run out of things to
talk about His works? Have you run out of things to
talk about to rejoice in concerning his work that you gotta turn
to a rotten, stinking, corrupting, dying, decaying, worthless piece
of flesh and talk about it? Man! Listen to this. When the Lord descended in the
cloud and He showed Moses His glory, the Lord passed by before
Him and He proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God. And this is what
He said. This is His name. He said, Merciful and gracious,
long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for
thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and
that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children, upon the children's children,
unto the third and fourth generation, And Moses therefore spoke to
the people about nothing else but the name of his God, about
the wonderful works of his God, about the excellent things of
his God. And the people came out of that,
they came out of, through that Red Sea, and they came out on
the other side, and they began to sing with Moses. They began
to rejoice with Moses. But something was different about
them. Their heart had never really left Egypt. And so in a little
while, they put up with it for a little while. And then they
said, He gave them bread from heaven, typifying that continual
food, that continual feeding on Christ Jesus, the bread of
life. And they finally said, Our soul
loatheth this light bread. They said it against God and
against Moses. They said, Our soul loatheth this light bread. And you know what God's answer
was to them? You know what God's answer was
to them when they said that? Now let this be a lesson to me
and you. You think, if it enters into your heart and you think,
well, people might get tired of me just talking about Christ
all the time. Just talking about the excellencies
that He is and that He's performed all the time. When the people
did that in the wilderness and they said, we hate this like
bread. They were saying, we hate this
constant, continual food that you're giving us. We want something
else. The Lord said, he sent serpents
into their midst to bite them, to make them cry out because
of the sin and the plague of their flesh. And he said, now
Moses, do what you've been doing all along. Take a serpent, beat
out a brass serpent, hold it up on a pole and tell the people
the only way you're going to live is look, is look. He'd been telling them that all
along. He'd been giving them bread, saying the only way you're
going to live is to eat the bread from heaven. He gave them water
and said, the only way you're going to quench your thirst is
to have the water of life. And then when they murmured and
complained and said, we're tired of it, we're sick of it. He said,
Moses, just go lift up to Him who was made sin that they might
be made to righteousness of God and say, the only way you're
going to live is trusting Him. Keep telling them the same thing.
Keep showing them the same gospel. Keep showing them the same work
that I've performed. That was God's answer in the
garden. That's God's answer from the garden of Eden all the way
to the end of this book. And that's what every messenger,
every prophet, every evangelist, everyone that Christ has ever
sent, that's the message they preach. It's His excellent work. His excellent work. I get emails
and this is kind of how it runs. I'm seeing a pattern. And folks
will listen to some messages and get excited at what they're
hearing about Christ. And they will send a an email,
and it'll be just, oh, brother, this rejoicing in what you're
saying, oh, just keep preaching Christ, keep preaching Christ.
Then, over time, you'll get an email from the same people, and
it'll say something about, now, are you going to ever say anything
about sanctification, about holiness, about our works, about something
that the sinner has to do, the believer has to do? And it will
run something like this, you say salvation is all of grace,
what about my holiness? You can take the word grace and
holiness out of that sentence and replace it with Lord and
man and you will have the heart of every single question that
every single Pharisee asked Christ when he walked this earth. You
say salvation is of the Lord, what about What about me? What about what I'm doing? He
said, in that day that I have put this song in the hearts of
my people, they're going to draw water out of the wells of salvation,
and they're not going to talk anymore about themselves. They're
going to talk about His excellent works and what He has accomplished,
and that's all they're going to talk about. You see, this
is how I respond to something like that, when somebody says,
What about holiness? Scripture says that without holiness
no man, no man shall see the Lord. It says follow after holiness
for without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Now, do I understand
English correctly or does no man mean that there will be absolutely
no man that sees the Lord who has not followed after holiness? Isn't that what it means? It
means none, right? So, my reply is yes. We shall be saved only by God's
grace and only by God's grace will we follow after holiness.
The very same holiness that the repentant thief on the cross
followed after when he hung there with his hands and his feet nailed
to a cross so that he couldn't do one thing with his body. We got to follow after the very
holiness He followed after. That tells me that the holiness
God says no man can see Him without is nothing like the holiness
that men ascribe as holiness. Nothing. Nothing. Because that
man wasn't doing anything with his body. Nothing. Nicodemus said, The Lord Jesus
Christ said the same thing to Nicodemus when He said, unless
you've been born new within, you can't see the Kingdom of
God. Not just the Kingdom, you can't
see the Lord. You can't see the King of the
Kingdom unless you've been created in righteousness and true holiness. And the Lord says here in our
text in Isaiah 12, when this happened, When this happens,
you're going to follow after holiness. And that's what's going
to be the tenor of your being. What is it then? Verse 1 says,
you're going to say, I'll praise His name. You're going to say,
I take comfort only in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who comforts
me continually. Verse 2 says, God is my salvation. I'm going to trust Him and I'm
not going to be afraid. I'm not going to let my flesh,
my downfall, my falling, my wavering, I'm not going to let these things
hinder me and cause me to fear. I'm going to trust Him. I'm going
to trust the Lord Jehovah because He is my strength. He is my song. God the Father,
God the Son, God the Holy Spirit dwelling in complete fullness
in my Savior Jesus Christ. He is my song. That's who I'm
going to sing about. That's where my joy is. Verse
3 says, I'm going to follow after holiness by drawing living water
out of the wells of salvation. Because He said He's going to
give it to me. Verse 4 says, I'm going to follow after holiness
by by talking about His doings and His wonderful works and what
He's done and His excellences. Verse 4 says, I'm going to follow
after holiness by exalting His name and singing of the excellent
things He's done. Now, let me ask you something.
Isn't that message how God put the Spirit in you and created
you anew in righteousness and true holiness so that you actually
could see the Lord? Isn't that how He did it? Isn't
the gospel of Christ in him crucified, the power of God unto salvation? Isn't it through the gospel that
you began in this spirit? Are you now going to be made
perfect by the flesh? The so-called holiness that natural
man regards is in his hands. He follows after the flesh. He
walks after the flesh. He's a debtor to the flesh because
he's a slave to the flesh. He knows other men after the
flesh. He judges after the flesh. He rules other by the letter
of God's law thinking holiness is fleshly touch not, taste not,
handle not. And that's not walking after
holiness. That's walking after the lusts of the flesh. What
God's teaching us here in his 12th chapter is This is a certainty. This is sanctification of the
spirit. This is what it results in. You
start yourself beholding, God's my salvation, and stop thinking. You have salvation in something
you've done. And you stop going to this flesh
to try to draw comfort, to draw out of the empty, dry, dusty,
dried up fountain of this flesh, and you go to the well where
you get wires of salvation from Him continually. And all you
want to talk about, all you want to glory in, all you want to
tell others about is Him. and His excellency and what He
has done for you. Now, you want to follow after
holiness? The Lord says, you shall. You'll follow after this.
You will follow after this. And that other mess, you'll leave
it alone. That's what He says. This is
how He does it. Well, Hannah said this, My heart
rejoiceth in the Lord. My horn is exalted in the Lord.
My mouth is enlarged over my enemies, because I rejoice in
thy salvation. There is none holy, ask the Lord.
None beside thee, neither any rock like our God. Talk no more,
so exceeding proudly. Let not arrogance come out of
your mouth, for the Lord's a God of knowledge. By him actions
are weighed. The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they
that stumble are girded with strength. They that were full
have hired out themselves for bread, and they that were hungry
have ceased to be hungry anymore. You see, the barren hath born
seven, and she that hath many children is waxed feeble. Why?
Because it's the Lord that killeth and the Lord that maketh alive.
It's the Lord who's going to bring you down to the grave to
behold that His anger is turned away in Christ so that He might
bring you up to Him out of this pit of corruption that men call
holiness. Do you see that? And it's not
a maybe. It's a certainty. It shall happen. It shall happen. Well, let me
read this to you again. Here's the three things that
the Lord promises you shall do in that day. Verse 1, Thou shalt
say for yourself personally, O Lord, I will praise Thee. Verse 3 says, With joy shall
you draw water out of the wells of salvation. And verse 4 says,
And in that day shall you say to everybody that listens, Glory
in the Lord. Stop glorying in yourself. Glory
in the Lord. His work is the work, not yours.
And here's the application that the Lord calls on you to practice. Put this into practice now. You
ready? You ready? Put this into practice. Number
one, you praise the Lord. Here's the second thing. You
go to the fountain of life and draw water out of His never-ending,
never-diminishing supply of salvation for He promises He'll give it
to you. Here's the third thing. Speak
no more arrogantly, exceedingly proud, but tell others the same
thing. Call on the Lord. Talk of His
work to others. In other words, follow after
holiness. Because if this is not who you
are, and who you've been made in the newness of spirit, by
the Holy Spirit of God, through the blood of Christ Jesus, by
the God of peace, and you're walking after the
lust of your flesh. This is following after holiness. If you can, if
you can put this into practice, it's because he said, in that
day, ye shall. Ye shall.