Good evening. All right, we're
going to be in Isaiah 12. Isaiah 12, I'm looking at the
entire chapter, verses 1 through 6. Isaiah 12. Now, as you know as the church,
we rejoice in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. because Christ
is our beloved and we, the church, are his beloved. And in being
in love with her husband, she speaks of and sings of his strength. and the salvation that he has
wrought for her. You know, we're going to look
a little later in Song of Solomon, but I'll just quote one of the
verses now. In Song of Solomon 516, she says,
His mouth is most sweet. Yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this
is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. So, this is the song
that the Redeemed sings of her husband and her Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ. So tonight, in declaring the
Gospel, we are actually singing the triumphs of our Savior and
our Husband, the Lord Jesus Christ. We're singing His praises, and
we're declaring the triumphs and the praise rather the blessings
that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our title is Christ the
Song of the Redeemed. Christ the Song of the Redeemed. Because when we are preaching
the gospel, when we are singing, when we're declaring what Christ
has done for us, we're singing the song of the redeemed. We
are singing that song that the redeemed sing and praise the
Lord with in heaven that we read in Revelation. We'll see that
later. All right, so Christ, the song of the redeemed. Now,
the first point is the day of our salvation, the day of our
salvation. The scriptures reveal to us that
for every child of God, there comes a day when they will be
given life by God. They will be given life. And
I'm not talking about our first birth. Yes, indeed, we all come
forth, we're all born naturally speaking, but I'm talking about
that spiritual birth, that work of God that only He can do for
His people, and all of His children will be born of Him spiritually. Our Lord was going through Samaria,
and He spoke with a woman that He met there at the well, a Samaritan
woman. And in John 4, 24, He told her
something that's true of us all. He said, Ye worship, ye know
not. And that's how we all come forth
naturally. We do not know what we worship.
We might be very religious people. We might go to church services. We may speak of God. We may even
speak of Christ and say some nice things about him. But in
our flesh, we worship we know not. We don't understand God.
We don't know the things of God. So the reality is the Lord has
to reveal. He has to give us life and give
us spiritual life. He said, The hour cometh to this
woman, and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the
Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to
worship him. And I looked that word up, seeketh,
and what I found is that what it means here is he demands,
he requires us. to worship Him in spirit and
in truth. And you see that actually in the next verse, 424, God is
a spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit
and in truth. So when it says seek it, He's
requiring it of us. If we're going to worship Him,
we must worship Him in spirit and in truth. And so He gives
it to us. He gives it to His children to
do that very thing. And that's because in Adam we
are all dead. We all sinned in Adam. We all
sinned in the garden. We all rebelled against God and
threw off God and wanted to do our own thing. And that's why
you see it so prevalent in the culture around us about being
free of constraint and restraint with young people and even older
people. They want to do what's in their
heart to do. They just want to be free and
they want to throw off the things of God, and until we're born
again, we don't have that spiritual life. We only have a natural
life, a natural knowledge, natural life. It's just fleshy, and the
flesh is enmity against God. God says it's just enmity, because
we don't know him, and so when we hear what he says, we really
don't care for it. We don't want to hear about those
things. So He's got to give us life.
And for every chosen, elect child of God, He will give them the
Spirit. He will send the Gospel. He will
call them through the Gospel, causing them to hear the Gospel,
and they will believe. They will follow Christ and confess
Him. So in the day of His choosing,
He does this. Turn over to Ezekiel 16. Ezekiel
16. You have Isaiah, then Jeremiah
and then there's a small book of lamentations and then Ezekiel
right before Daniel Ezekiel 16 and we'll start in
verse 8 the Lord is speaking now and to his church, to each
child, this is true of us all. And he says in Ezekiel 16, 8,
Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy
time was the time of love, and I spread my skirt over thee,
and covered thy nakedness. Right? In the same way that the
Lord, when dealing with Adam and Eve, After he told them what
they had done, and he died, the Lord had to cover their nakedness. And that's what the Lord does
for us. He covers our nakedness because we come forth without
any works, without any righteousness, and we're naked before the God
who is holy. He said, yea, I swear unto thee
and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and
thou becamest mine. So we see there that the Lord
God did all the work in seeking us out and finding us and drawing
us to himself and covering us with his righteousness. Verse
nine, then washed I thee with water. And that's the Word of
Christ. And that water is His Word, and
it's His grace, which is shown to us through the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we hear it, and we believe
it through the preaching of the Gospel. Yea, I throughly washed
away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil. so
that we understand that Christ, because of what Christ did, he
gives us his spirit, and the spirit is the oil with which
we are anointed and made alive by God to know the things of
God, to know what truth is, to know that God is a spirit, to
understand that we ourselves are not righteous. And the Spirit
washes us in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, which was
shed for his people who put away their sins. And he gives us life. He says, I clothed thee also
with broidered work, and shod thee with badger skin, and I
girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. All a beautiful way to speak
of that righteous robe. that white righteous robe that
Christ robes us with and makes us fit to stand before God who
is holy and righteous and perfect in all His ways, so that we who
are enemies and imperfect and unrighteous and unholy in all
our ways, we're now made fit by the righteousness of Christ
to stand before the throne of God and worship Him. We stand
before Him faultless, it says in Revelation, faultless before
the throne of God. I believe that's Revelation 14,
5, I believe. And it says, And he goes on enlisting
the jewels and all the gold and the silver he gives to her. And these all picture the fruits,
the gifts of the Holy Spirit which are wrought for the child
of God by the Lord Jesus Christ when he did that perfect work
and rose up from the grave and gave gifts unto men. So that
we now have the Spirit of God which produces in us all those
rich blessed fruits, which we can't boast of, but give Him
all the thanks and the praise and the honor and the glory for
working that work in us. So this is the day of our salvation. So back in our text now, Isaiah
12, 1. Isaiah 12, 1. With that understanding,
we look at this day of our salvation. Isaiah 12, 1, And in that day
thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise thee. Though thou wast
angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst
me. So naturally we don't even understand
righteously. We don't understand rightly that
God is holy, that he is perfect and just. And that's why men
and women think that there are things that they can do to please
him. They think that God is pleased
with that outward obedience that so many of us are pleased with,
with our workers or our children and things like that. They, you
know, we're often fooled or persuaded by the works of people, even
though it may not be in their heart. And the Lord knows the
heart. He knows what's in our heart. He knows what's in our
thoughts. He knows what we are, and that we are wicked and unrighteous
by nature. So God isn't impressed with our
works. He, we don't even understand
that, but the Lord makes us to know that He is not pleased with
the works of man. And so many don't even have an
idea that the Lord is holy, that our works are imperfect, even
our best works are imperfect, and they don't earn us any favor
or righteousness with God who is holy. It says in Psalm 11
that God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked
every day. day. And people don't believe
that. They don't think that. They think
that they're pretty good and that things are going well for
them, and in the end, when they stand before God, their works
will speak well for them. That's what they think. But they're
going to be very sorrowful, and that's why it says that that
day will be a day of terror and a day when they shall gnash their
teeth and weep and wail because they don't know the true and
living God, and they put forth their works thinking that surely
God will remember these and God isn't impressed or pleased by
these works at all. In Revelation 4.8 we read of
the holiness of God. This here is a picture of the
seraphim which Isaiah spoke of in Isaiah 6, but here in Revelation
4.8 it says, And these four beasts, each of them had six wings about
him, and they were full of eyes within. And Isaiah even says
that they cover their face with two of their wings. They don't
even look upon God who is holy and perfect. And they rest not
day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,
which was and is and is to come. So it's the Lord who in mercy
makes it known to us by the flesh. We don't understand these things.
I mean, there's been in history people that in the flesh thought,
understood that God was angry and upset, and so they did sacrifices
and things like that, but it was all in the flesh. But the
Lord makes the child of God to know in themselves that their
works are not pleasing him, and they're not going to be able
to approach before God in their works. He makes that known to
us so that we aren't surprised when we stand before Him in that
day. That's why He's declaring the
gospel to you. That's why you're here, to hear
that gospel, to be reminded that it's not my works, Lord. It's
not anything I'm doing. I'm coming to you in the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ, because that's what He's shown us. In
Isaiah 64.6, Isaiah 64, 6, the prophet makes
this known to us, this truth. He said, But we are all as an
unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. And we all
do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. But did you catch that when he
said about our works? He said, Our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. He didn't say that about our
wicked works. That's easy. Many people know,
oh yeah, when I do something wrong, that's a wicked work,
that's filthy. But he says our righteousnesses,
our best efforts are but filthy rags in his sight. And the natural
man doesn't typically receive that truth unless the Spirit
of Christ gives that to them. And there are some that understand
that in head knowledge. and can understand that in a
system of theology, but their works don't show that they really
believe it, because they go about seeking to please God in the
law, and looking to the law of Moses, and proving to others
and themselves that they are pretty good, and that their works
are speaking well for them, and they don't understand those that
are resting fully and entirely and completely in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the reason is that Paul said
if you turn over to Romans, we'll look at a couple verses there. In Romans 10, Romans 10 verses
3 and 4, Paul says that they being ignorant of God's righteousness,
and going about to establish their own righteousness, have
not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believe it. Alright, turn over to Romans
3. Romans 3 verses 4 and 6. Many don't think that God is
right in this or true in this, but Paul says in Romans 3 verse
4, he said, let God be true, but every man a liar as it's
written that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings and
mightest overcome when thou art judged. But if our unrighteousness
commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God
unrighteous who taketh vengeance? I speak as a man. God forbid,
for then how shall God judge the world?" You know, people
think that because so many people agree with them, that surely
a thing must be true. If they can get everyone else
to agree, then it must be true. And Paul's saying it doesn't
matter if all of us, everyone in the entire world says one
thing, and God says another. God is the one who is true, and
every man is a liar. There's only one that's true,
and that's the Lord God. And he says that God's going
to judge the world because this world lies in wickedness and
darkness and in sin and iniquity. And we don't know this until
the Lord reveals it to us. And what the Lord, He shows us
that, and He shows us that He is a willing Savior. He makes
it known that it's not our works, that it's not by us doing religious
things. We should attend upon, as they call it, the means of
grace, but it's not really Christ is the means of grace. But we
should open our Bibles and read the Bible. We should pray and
we should be thankful and praise the Lord for what he's done for
us each day. And we should come to hear the
word preached. But these works don't save us
and they don't work up a righteousness in us. They teach us and we should
give ourselves to these things. But it's the Spirit. It's the
Spirit. And He's the one that teaches
us and brings that Word home to the heart so that we understand
that it's not our works. And we don't retreat back to
religious things when we know that we've sinned or done something
wrong. We don't retreat back to those works. We retreat to
Christ. We look to Christ and say, Lord,
have mercy upon me. Forgive me for my sin and my
iniquity. He shows us that he's righteous
and he shows us, and this is what's so blessed, is that he
shows us what true righteousness is, who true righteousness is,
that it is Jesus Christ. He brings Christ to us. and makes
us to feed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, to know that He is the
very righteousness of God, and that He's the one who sent Him
to do this work of salvation for us, that Christ laid aside
His glory and His honor to glorify and honor the Father in all things,
so that He took upon Him flesh and became obedient to the will
of God. and obeyed God in all things
and worked righteousness perfectly so that he proved and verified
that he is that perfect and fit sacrifice, the Lamb of God, and
willingly continuing to do that which the Father worked with
Him in eternity when they covenanted together, the Son came forth
and fulfilled all that work that they agreed to do. And the Son
laid down His life, went to the cross, bearing the shame of our
sin, bearing the punishment and the wrath of God, and justly
putting away our sins so that God now is justified. There's no sin or iniquity in
God. He is justified to forgive us of our iniquity because it's
all been put away by the Lord Jesus Christ. He paid all the
wages of sin that we committed, that we did. He bore that punishment
and so that now we are made the righteousness of God in him.
And God is just to forgive us, and he's willing to forgive us.
And he's put it in your heart to show you that it's not your
works that do it, it's his grace and his mercy that does it freely
and willingly, having sent his only begotten Son, which To the
best that I can explain, it means that he is the only one who is
very God. He is the only son that is very
God. One with the Father, one with
the Spirit, one with the Son. They're all one. They are God. And he sent his only son to do
this work for us. All of us are sons by adoption,
but Christ is God by nature. And so, he shed his blood so
that we are now reconciled to God, and he sends his spirits,
that spirit gives us life, making us alive to the things of the
living God. And in Romans 3, 25 and 26, We read that Christ is the one
whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith
in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission
of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, to declare,
I say at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. So the Lord is making
it known to us that None of us saves ourselves. We need a whole
salvation, a complete salvation, and that is completed in the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's why he sent his son to
do this very work, and the Lord showed it to us just to save
a little time, but in Zacchaeus, in Luke 19, the Lord did that
for Zacchaeus, and Zacchaeus was so thankful and so joyful
for what Christ had done in coming to him. He knew he was a sinner. He knew he was hated of the people
being a tax collector. And the righteous, the self-righteous
people murmured when Christ went to him. But he was so thankful
that he said, Lord, I'm giving half my goods to the poor. And
if I've done anybody any wrong through extortion or lying, I
restore it back to them fourfold. And the Lord said, salvation
has come to this man's house this very day. And he was so
thankful. And it's because Christ said,
I've not come to I've come to seek and to save that which was
lost." And that's where we are, and that's what the Lord makes
us to know. Alright, back in our text then,
Isaiah 12-2. Isaiah 12-2, Behold, God is my
salvation. I will trust and not be afraid,
for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song, and He also is become
my salvation. And that's because the Lord in
Isaiah, Isaiah 59, the Lord showed us in Isaiah 59, 16, that he
looked and saw there was no man and wondered that there was no
intercessor. Therefore his arm brought salvation
unto him and his righteousness. It sustained him for he put on
righteousness as a breastplate and helmet of salvation upon
his head. And he put on the garments of
vengeance for clothing. and was clad with zeal as a cloak. And that's exactly how the Lord
is described. The zeal of the Lord hath eaten
him up. He was full of the zeal of the
Lord. And he did that, which what he heard the Father say,
that's what Christ did in fulfillment and in obedience to the Father
in all things. All right, now next point is
the well of our salvation. Look at verse three, Isaiah 12,
three. Therefore, because of this salvation in Christ, therefore
with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. He's saying, brethren, we have
wells of salvation that never run dry. They're full of grace
and full of blessings all being poured out upon us through the
Lord Jesus Christ. As the Lord said in Ephesians
1, 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly
places in Christ. And that's showing to us that
only in Christ is the Lord gracious and merciful to us, only in Christ
and never outside of Christ. We never grow beyond Christ,
we never go outside of Christ, and we see that so often in religion
where people make a profession of Christ and then the so-called
church begins to get them focused on the law and doing all kinds
of things to ensure that they really are saved, to do works
to sanctify themselves and to Well, what it does is it takes
their eyes off of Christ and focuses it on the flesh and what
they need to be doing better and what they need to do more
of and what they need to stop doing. But all our spiritual
blessings are in Christ. So we're to go to Christ and
sing of Him and praise Him, continually thanking God for Him. And He
works that love in us. He's the one who gives us love
just as He's the one who gives us faith. And he's the one who
reveals to us that Christ is our sanctification, just as he's
our justification, that Christ is our redemption, and that because
we are his, he's He's going to bear fruit in us, and we will
confess Him, and we will bear fruit. We will love Him. We will
love our brethren, and we won't forsake the brethren, even in
the face of opposition, and we'll look to Him. So there's a plurality
here, wells of salvation, just as we read there in Ephesians
1-3, that all spiritual blessings are shown to us. Now turn over
to Song of Solomon. Let's just look at a couple verses
here in Song of Solomon, verse 4. That's right before Isaiah. Just stay here in Song of Solomon
with me. Now, verse 12, he's showing to
us that the believer is a garden, a garden that's hedged about
by the Lord, meaning the Lord's protecting it. The Lord's provided
a hedge about us so that we're not, that fruit isn't taken away
and stolen by some beast or something. And verse 12, it says, a garden
enclosed is my sister, my spouse, is where the bride of Christ
A spring shut up, a fountain sealed. And that's a picture
of the fact that Christ abides with us. He's given us his spirit. And through that fountain, he
sends forth the water of his word. His grace is shown to us. Just stay here, but I'll just
quote this. In John 7, 38 and 39, our Lord
said that he that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said,
out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this he
spake of the spirit, which they that believe on him should receive. So we have the spirit dwelling
in us, out of which are rivers of living water." That is, all
the grace of God is shown to us through the Spirit of Christ,
revealing it to us, making us to know what Christ has done
for us. Alright, back in Song of Solomon
4.13-15. Here we read Thy Plants, speaking to the Bride of Christ.
Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits,
camphyr, with spikenard, spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon,
with all trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes, with all the
chief spices, a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and
streams from Lebanon. So that this is a picture of
all that righteous fruit that the Lord bears in us. He's planted
these fruits in us, in us as a garden. He's planted these
fruits that are spiritual fruits, that goodness, faithfulness,
kindness. longsuffering, joy and peace and longsuffering,
love, hope, faith, all these things are planted in us and
they're brought forth upon us. And as we read, you know, we
are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works
which God hath before ordained. that we should walk in them.
So this work is a work that the father, he's going to prove it.
He's going to show that he's planted this garden, that we
are his garden, and that these are his fruits which are brought
upon us. Look at verse 16. Here it is. Awake, O north wind, and come
thou south. Blow upon my garden that the
spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his
garden and eat his pleasant fruits. And so we see there that picture,
that north wind is that picture of opposition and harshness that
blows against us. And that south wind are the comforts
and the peace and the resting that we receive by the Lord who
comforts us with the Lord Jesus Christ. In Christ he comforts
us. But that opposing wind comes in and whips up and casts up
and flows out as a result of that wind. It's all that fragrant
spices, all that precious fruit that the Lord has planted there
to show that we are the Lord's. And that even in the face of
trials and troubles, whether it be just long-suffering with
a brother or sister in Christ, or it be some other trial in
this world and some opposition, we are kept and remain faithful.
And we show love, and we show patience, and hope, and faith,
and faithfulness, and we're trusting in the Lord. And everything that
we see Him doing, we praise Him. We sacrifice with these lips,
not speaking of what we did in the face of danger, but what
he did in the face of danger, in us, how he kept us and kept
us looking to him. So all that fragrant spices are
blown up and the bride here who's a gardener says, let my beloved
come into his garden. Let him eat of the pleasant fruits.
Let him enjoy them. Because He's worked that in us.
They're His, to bring forth and to enjoy and to show, look. Look at this one. Just like to
Job, what He did with Job. Have you considered Job? It's
not like him, because the Lord sustained him. And the Lord is
glorified in that work. Even in 1 Peter, you can turn
over to 1 Peter now. 1 Peter 1, verse 6. 1 Peter 1, 6-8. We're blessed with
faith in Christ first, and we're given that salvation, shown that
salvation in Christ, and then he says, wherein ye greatly rejoice,
though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through
manifold temptations. There's that exercise, and that
proving to us that we are the Lord's, and that this is real,
that He's done this work in us, and He's the one sustaining us
in Christ. that the trial of your faith,
being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though
it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, so that even now
we we praise him and we thank him for the salvation that that
he's shown to us whom having not seen he loved there's that
precious fragrant fruit of love which he bears in us though now
you see him not yet believing we have faith you rejoice all
right with joy unspeakable and full of glory and that's what
our text is is showing us that in joy we rejoice in the lord
we give him thanks and praise for what he's done so that he
makes it known, this salvation to us and that we are indeed
his very people and that he is the one who is our salvation.
All right, now, our last point is the day we sing his praises. So in that day, when the Lord
makes known to us his salvation, then we sing his praise and we
glorify him, we glory in him. Look at there at verse 4, Isaiah
12, 4. And in that day shall ye say, Praise the Lord, call
upon his name, declare his doings among the people, make mention
that his name is exalted. So you see, we confess Christ. The Lord's going to bring us
to confess Christ because it pleases the Father that we confess
him. He doesn't save us and call us
a garden and then keep us bare and barren and in darkness and
bearing no fruit." We're going to confess him and confess him
before men so that they know too that we are the Lord's. The
Apostle Paul said in 2 Thessalonians 2, 13 and 14, but we are bound
to give thanks always to God for you brethren beloved of the
Lord because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation
And usually we use that verse to show that we're chosen, that
we are the elect of God. But it also reveals to us that
the way that we've been set apart for this salvation is by the
Spirit, through sanctification of the Spirit, setting us apart
unto this salvation that God has provided in Christ, and belief
of the truth. God chose us to believe the truth,
to confess the truth of Christ, to bear his name before others,
to bear that fruit in confessing his name, whereunto he called
you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ. As he said, It's given to us
in the end of Philippians 1, it's given to us not only to
believe on his name, but to suffer for his sake. So there will be
that fruit that's born in us. And so the Lord is the one who
did this work, as we saw earlier, and because he took on him, our
flesh, and did this work, and humbly coming and laying down
his life, It says, the Lord God has exalted His name and given
Him a name above every name. And every tongue is going to
confess, whether we believe Him or we don't believe Him, every
tongue is going to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And every
knee is going to bow before Him and confess that He indeed is
the Lord God who did this great work. Alright, now back in Isaiah
12, verses 5 and 6, 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." And I was saying how when
we declare his gospel and sing his praise, that's what we see
there in Revelation 5, verses 9 and 10, where they're singing
the song of the redeemed. We who are redeemed, we're the
only ones that can sing that song, because we're the only
ones that know what God has done for us freely and abundantly
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that verse, it says there
in Revelation 5, 9, and 10, and they sung a new song saying,
Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof.
That's their confessing to Christ saying, because you did this
work, you're the only one now worthy to implement the God's
kingdom, to establish his kingdom, you've been given authority,
you are the king, you're the one now who is able to establish
the kingdom of God and send it forth through his gospel. reaching
all the lost sheep. And he says, for thou wast slain
and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred
and tongue and people and nation and hast made us unto our God
kings and priests and we shall reign on the earth. So if you
can sing you'll sing his praises. And if you can sing, the reason
is because he said, you shall. You shall do it. Look there at
verse 4 once more. In that day shall ye say, praise
the Lord, call upon his name, declare his doings among the
people, and make mention that his name is exalted. So because
he said, ye shall, we shall. We shall bear that fruit before
others. We're not going to be kept hid.
We're going to learn that song of salvation, and we will confess
it before others. And the reason why is because
it pleases the Father that we confess Him, that we know Him
and confess His name. I'm going to just close with
Matthew 5, if you want to turn there. Matthew 5, verses 14 through
16. Our Lord said in Matthew 5, verse
14, Ye are the light of the world.
A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men
light a candle, but put it under a bushel, nor put it under a
bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all
that are in the house." Right? If the lights go out and you
light a candle, you don't then stick it under a bucket so that
you can't see. You put it on a candlestick so it lights the
whole room and gives light to everybody. And he's saying if
man does that, how much more does God? If you do that which
is right. So then he said, verse 16, let
your light so shine before men that they may see your good works. Smell that fragrant spices which
the Lord has planted in the garden of his people and glorify your
Father which is in heaven. So I pray the Lord will bless
that word to your hearts and help you to rejoice in Christ,
to confess Him before others and not hide that word and be
able to sing that song of redemption and praise before others. Let's
pray. Our gracious Lord, we thank You, Father, for Your salvation. We thank You for the love and
the mercy and the grace which You have poured out upon us abundantly
through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Father, we ask
that you would watch over your flock here, Lord. Help those
that are sick and not well. Lord, help us to be able to make
services even more regularly, Lord, and to worship and fellowship
with the brethren. And we thank you for this, Lord.
Father, we ask that you would bless the work here, that you
would bless the work in the hearts of your people. And Lord, that
you would indeed bring out that love and that faith and that
hope and that joy in the salvation that you've given to us in Christ.
And that, Lord, we would be a thankful people. Help us indeed to be
a thankful people and to praise your name. And Lord, we pray
this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.