Thank you. Thank you. I do appreciate the honor of
being allowed to stand in this pulpit. I just can't begin to
express, speaking for my wife as well, how thankful we are
for your love and your hospitality. I used to tell folks, when we
would invite them to come to our church or come to our conferences,
I said, you come out and visit us, and we'll treat you so many
different ways, you'll have to like some of them. Well, we've
loved every way you've treated us here during this Lord's Day,
and we're so thankful. That room over at the Hampton
Inn is just plush. I'm telling you, it is plush.
I kind of feel guilty looking around. I'm a country boy, and
that's just pretty nice. So thank you. Thank you for.
the way that you've treated us and your love and your hospitality,
the dinner that we enjoyed this afternoon, the love offering
you gave is just so generous. Thank you so very, very much. I'll go back home and share some
testimonies for the glory of our God, of your love and your
hospitality toward us. So pray for us, pray that the
Lord will take us back home safely. Well, this is a A special time
for me to bring before you some thoughts from Isaiah 12 and Isaiah
14. If you would turn back to that
passage of scripture, please. Some have referred to the book
of Isaiah as the Romans, of the Old Testament. Brother Henry
Mahan said this about Isaiah's prophecy. He said there are more
testimonies and quotations in the New Testament taken out of
Isaiah than out of all the other prophets. Isaiah so fully describes
the person, offices, sufferings, and kingdom of the Lord Jesus
Christ that some have called him the fifth evangelist and
his book, the gospel according to Isaiah, end of quote. And
it is, it's a special, I don't know, I trust that you do, I
don't know, but if you have an opportunity, just start reading. Read through the book of Isaiah.
You might not be able to read through it all in one setting,
but just take time to read and ponder and think. Think about
Christ. It's all about him. And the whole
book is for that matter, but it's so obvious in so many different
places in Isaiah that it pictures our Lord Jesus. That just amazes
me and thrills me every time I get into this book. The word
of God tells us that our Lord Jesus, when he walked from Jerusalem
to Emmaus with two of his disciples, it says that beginning at Moses
and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures
the things concerning himself. Our Lord Jesus preached Christ,
and we're on pretty safe ground if we preach him. But if we don't
preach him, we're not God's preacher. Isn't that right? We're called
to preach Christ. We're to tell folks about Him,
who He is, what He has done. And so that's what I want to
do every time I stand before anyone the Lord allows me to
preach to is bring things to the minds of my hearers that
point to Jesus Christ and what He has accomplished for His people
for the glory of God Almighty. In verse 1 of Isaiah 12, we read,
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. In that day. What day? I believe this is referring to
the day of divine revelation. divine revelation to the child
of God. That day, in that day, our Lord
revisited us in such a way that we've never been the same since.
Is that not true? Just changed our lives completely. The day is not referring to a
24 hour day. It's a day of divine visitation
upon the Lord's people. And with some people, the Lord
might deal with them in just a short period of time before
he converts them to Christ. With some, he might just, you
know, over the years, and they cannot tell you when they first
trusted the Lord Jesus. With me, I had one of those experiences
that I can almost tell you when I saw Christ as my Lord and my
Savior, but I don't know when he began to work in me. Nobody
knows that. The kingdom of God does not come
with observation. Our children, grew up under the preaching of
the gospel. And some are Christians, and
I don't know about all of them, but I know at least three have
a good testimony for the glory of my Lord. But they don't know,
they don't know when the Lord converted them. They can't pinpoint
a day, and that's all right, as long as they know that their
faith and their trust is in the Lord Jesus Christ. So that day,
I believe, is a day of divine visitations, the day when we
experience the Holy Spirit convicting us, the Holy Spirit convicting
us of our bankruptcy. We had nothing to offer God,
nothing. We didn't know that before the
day of visitation. You could not have convinced
me that I was gonna go to eternal torment. I didn't do anything
real bad, sold a few wild oats, but my good outweighed my bad,
and I was convinced of that until the Holy Spirit convicted me
that I had no good in me, that I couldn't do anything that pleases
God. That's the day of visitation.
It's the day we saw our need of a Savior, when we saw that
if we don't find a way to have forgiveness, then we deserve
nothing but eternal torment. So it was that day when we saw
our need of Christ. It was that day when we saw Jesus
Christ as our only righteousness that God will accept. The day
we saw Jesus Christ as our perfect righteousness, the day we saw
Jesus Christ taking care of our sin debt when he hung there on
that cross. When we saw him as our S-U-B-S-T-I-T-U-T-E. Did I spell that right? It's
substitute. If I didn't spell it right, you'll
forgive me. But that's what we see in Christ. You can sum the
gospel up in that one word, substitution. He took my place. I remember
hearing a story about a missionary who was talking to some of the
Aborigines, and he wasn't sure that he was getting across to
them. this meaning of the word substitution. And so he asked him, do you understand
what I'm saying? And one said, yeah, he swapped
places with me. And that's right. That's exactly
what he did. He became sin in our room in our stead. that we
might be made righteousness in the sight of God. So it's in
that day when we saw Jesus Christ as our sin bearer. It's the day
we saw Jesus Christ as our risen, exalted King, sitting on his
sovereign throne of power, ruling over this whole universe and
everything in it. All things are under his feet.
He works all things after the counsel of his own will. He's
God Almighty. And he doesn't ask anybody's
permission when he does what he does. It's according to what
he purposed, and he's going to do it, and none can stay his
hand or say unto him, what doest thou? Brethren, I delight in
teaching this very truth. Jesus Christ is God Almighty. Great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh. Now our text says, though he
was angry, Thine angers turned away, and
thou comfortedst me." That's hard to explain. "'In that day
I will praise thee, though thou wast angry with me. Thine angers
turned away, and thou comfortedst me.'" You say, well, preacher,
how come that's so hard to explain? Well, in this respect, God loves
us with an everlasting love. There was a time when God didn't
love his chosen people, yet Our text says, though he was angry with me,
that anger is turned away. The only way I can explain that
is to share with you the truth which I've already mentioned.
We come into this world running from God, hating God, drinking
iniquity like water, won't have him to rule over, shaking our
fist in his face, saying, don't give me the kind of stuff, I
won't have that. We hated him. We absolutely hated
God. I heard a woman say one time,
I've loved God all my life. I said, that's too long. You
can't love God all your life. The whole human race fell on
Adam. We didn't just get our spiritual
toe dirty. We died spiritually, and that's
the way we come into this world. So in that respect, that anger,
God hates all workers of iniquity. In that respect, we have to see
that there was nothing, nothing in us, nothing we could do to
please our God. Well, that anger is gone, and
that's made aware to us by the power of God under the preaching
of his gospel. God's not angry with us. Isn't
that wonderful? I was delivered from darkness
close to 50 years ago. That old nature hasn't gotten
a bit better. Oh, I'm not the man I used to
be. The Lord has, by his grace, taken
a lot of those sinful actions away. But I still have wrong
thoughts, I still do things I shouldn't do, don't do the things I should
do. And I'm so thankful that God
sees me in Christ. And he's not angry with me, aren't
you? What a wonderful God. Now, verse 2 says, 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. And that first term, behold,
God is my salvation, could read this way, behold, God is my savior. And Jesus Christ is my savior.
I confess Him before you with love in my heart for Him. He
is my Savior. He didn't try to save me. He
saved me. Like I said this morning, God's
not trying to do anything. He didn't try to redeem me. He
redeemed me. The Word of God teaches us that
we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. When did
that happen? 2,000 years ago, over 2,000 years ago. I was reconciled
to God when Jesus Christ laid down his life for me. It tells
us, the word of God tells us in Hebrews chapter 10, that by
one offering, he sanctified his people. And that was according
to the will of God. That's just a big word that means
he set us apart, but it also means he made us holy. When Jesus
Christ paid the ransom price and fooled for our sin, he made
us holy in God's eye. He sanctified us. Jesus Christ
is our sanctification. And in that same chapter, just
a few verses down, It tells us by that same offering, He perfected
forever those that He sanctified. It's a done deal. He did this.
Jesus Christ is my Savior, and we rejoice in that. He's the
one who took care of our sin debt, so He is not only our Savior,
we trust Him, it says in our text. We won't be afraid. We
have absolutely nothing to fear. Do we? Do we have anything to
fear? The Word of God tells us in 1
John that as He is, as Christ is, so are we in this world.
God loves us with the same love he has for his darling son. Jesus Christ is the only begotten
son of God, but we're his children by the spirit of adoption. We're
sons and daughters of the most high God. There is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. That means
there's no judgment. And we'll have boldness in the
day of judgment because There won't be any sin in any of God's
people. We'll be before him dressed in
that perfect righteousness and where there's no sin, there's
no judgment. We have nothing to fear. Why
would we fear man? You know, I'm aware we're human,
but we're also God's enlightened children too. And the flesh is
weak. The spirit is willing. We know
the flesh is weak, but we have nothing to fear. We shouldn't
fear what men might think of us when we stand and tell others
that we're God's chosen people, purchased by the blood of Jesus
Christ, brought into a relationship with him by the sovereign power
of Almighty God according to his sovereign grace through the
merits of Christ our Savior. We should not be afraid. You
know, we need to let people know who our God is. We can say things
like, yeah, I believe in God. Well, even the devil believes
and he trembles. But who is my God? Jesus Christ. He's my Lord and my God, and
we have no reason to fear anything. The Lord Jehovah is my strength
and my song. He also has become my salvation."
And folks, we have a new song in our heart. Yeah, even praise
unto our God. And I just despise songs that
dishonor my God. We, in our hymn book back home,
we had songs that we wouldn't dare sing. We wouldn't dare sing
them. I took pen and write, mark them
out. I didn't want people to know
that we would even think about singing those songs. And in some
of the songs, we would change a few words. Because in some
of the songs that are good, a few words destroys the meaning of
grace. And so we just take a pen and
scratch out a word and write in another one. One of our faithful,
dedicated brothers, his name is Steve Doyle. He's
moved to North Carolina. very prominent man, used to be
in the White House, up there with the top politicians, but
anyway, God humbled him. And we were singing a song And
he asked me, before we sing that last stanza, can we change one
word in that? He, your Savior, wants to be,
be saved today. Can we sing, He, your Savior,
died to be? Ha, just leap with joy. He, your Savior, wants to be?
No, He is your Savior. And He died to be. And we sing
it that way now. Every time we sing that song,
we change that word once to die. He, your Savior, died to be.
So I'm thankful for those who realize and are aware of the
fact that the songs that we sing are very, very important. They're part of our worship service.
And He, Jesus Christ, is our song. He's our strength and our
song. Without Christ, we can't do anything.
But with Christ, we can do it all. He is our all. If we have
Christ, we have everything. If we don't have Christ, we don't
have anything. Jesus Christ is Jehovah God.
The last part of verse two says, He also has become my salvation. How can we be so confident? Well, we're the circumcision
which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and
have no confidence in the flesh. To say that Jehovah God is my
salvation is not being presumptuous. We believe God, amen? Abraham
believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Well,
we believe God. People say, how can you be so
sure you're a Christian? How can you be so sure you're
saved? Because God tells me that I am. He tells me if my faith
is in Jesus Christ, if I believe on the Christ of God according
to the scriptures, then God promises me that I have eternal life,
and God cannot lie. That's not being presumptuous.
That's being confident in the Lord. And so he, Jesus Christ,
is my salvation. Now, verse three says, therefore
with joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation.
Well, what are the wells of salvation? Now, there are a couple of things
I'd like to mention. First of all, we serve a triune
God. When I say that, I mean there
are three divine persons in the Godhead, Father, Son, and the
Holy Spirit. One God, yes, one glorious God,
but three divine persons. You can't deny that. The Word
of God teaches that. So the wells of salvation could
refer to the great three-in-one and the part that they have to
do in salvation, drawing water out of the well of truth concerning
God my Father who chose me in Christ before the foundation
of the world. As I mentioned this morning,
heirs of promise, knowing that Jesus Christ had a promise from
God the Father of a particular people that would be his based
upon what he would do for them. Drawing water out of the very
fact that Jesus Christ is the one that God made the promise
to. And according to the scripture, God cannot lie. And if we've
been promised to Christ by God the Father, we're drawing water
out of that well of salvation for the glory of the one that
loved us and gave himself for us. Drawing water out of the
well of salvation through Christ our Savior, which we've already
mentioned, how He by Himself purged our sins, how He redeemed
us with His own precious blood, how He took care of everything
that was needful to bring us into a living union with Him,
drawing water out of that well, drawing water out of the well
of salvation according to the blessed Holy Spirit and His work
in bringing us to Christ. It's the Spirit that quickens.
The flesh doesn't profit a thing. It's the work of the Holy Spirit
to take the things of Christ and reveal them, those wonderful
truths to God's chosen people. And he does that. Drawing water
out of that wonderful well of truth, knowing that we didn't
contribute anything. It was all God's doings. But
also, drawing water out of the well of this holy book. Everywhere you go, it talks about
God's truths and what He has done for His people. And it doesn't
matter if you're in Genesis 1 or in the last chapter of Revelation. There's water, the water of life
that points to Christ our Savior that will satisfy the spiritual
thirst of God's people. So it's just one of those truths
that we lay to heart and we could go on and on if we had the time
about drawing water out of the wells of salvation. Now I wanna
quit here as far as going through this 12th chapter of Isaiah,
but I do wanna draw your attention to verse 5 where it says, And
I want to take you over to Isaiah chapter 14 and share some thoughts
and bringing this message to a close
concerning the excellent things that our Lord Jesus has done,
or I should say concerning some of the excellent things. How
can we talk about all the excellent things that he has done in one
minute? How can we talk for all eternity, for that matter, of
all the excellent things our Lord has done? Our God is great
and greatly to be praised. And here in Isaiah chapter 14,
in verse 24, we read, the Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying,
surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass, and as
I have purposed, so shall it stand. Now, I don't know when
I read that for the first time, and I don't know that it really
sunk in the first time. But I've been giving thought
to that, and I've thought about that over the years. Our Lord
is so great, He never had to give a second thought to anything.
That's how perfect He is. Now, if we don't just ponder
that truth, it might not become as meaningful as it should. Consider,
if you will, his creation when he created
this earth. And we sung that song a moment
ago, summer, winter, time of spring and harvest. Our Lord
Jesus put this world right where he wanted it to be where it would
orbit around the sun to give us the four seasons that's needful
to sustain life on this earth. The winter brings in the rain
and the snow to fill our reservoirs, and the snow-capped mountains
are winter reservoirs for our summer water. He did that without
giving a second thought to it, knew that's what this world would
need to, sustain life. Then the springtime comes, the
green grass starts growing, that provides food for the grass-eating
animals, which provides food for coyotes and wolves and lions
and those flesh-eating animals. It's just amazing. And it also
brings a warm weather that softens the earth for the farmers to
be able to plow the ground and plant the seeds. And in the summertime
comes, the crops grow. Then autumn comes, fall weather. where the farmer doesn't have
to bear that awful heat. It's still hot, but not the heat
of the summer to harvest the corn and the wheat and all of
those things that God has created. And that's another thought. The
Lord didn't give a second thought to that. It just, as he thought,
it came to pass. That's how great he is. And all
of this that he's created, all of the different species of birds,
It's just amazing, just amazing. Some birds are so beautiful that
you just are in awe when you look at them. Others aren't quite
as pretty, but God's the one who makes them to differ. Did
you know, let me just share this. I thought about this earlier.
Did you know that a robin runs across lawns Do you get the worms to come
to the surface? They think it's raining from
the pitter-patter of the robin's feet. The worms think it's raining.
They have to come to the surface. They'll drown in water. And God
has given the robin such a keen way of hearing that they can
hear the worm crawling up to the ground. They'll run over
and get that worm. And God didn't give a second thought to that.
You say, well, that's not quite important. Well, it is to me.
Because our Lord tells us that not one sparrow falls from the
ground without our Heavenly Father's permission. And we're of much
more value than sparrows. And I watched a bird, I was looking
out the window about two weeks ago, and I watched a bird just
fall through the grass and get him a bug. And this went through
my mind. God created that bug and reserved
that bug for that particular bird. And that was in his mind
before he created anything, and he didn't have to give a second
thought to it. And that's the way he takes care
of us. All of that which I've been talking about as far as
the corn and the wheat and the animals, all of this which God
has created, he's done that for us to sustain life. And he uses
ranchers who raise the cattle and the sheep and those people
who raise turkeys and chickens and all of those flesh-eating
birds. And all of those people who raise
the crops, those people who harvest the crops, those people who take
the crops to the markets, all those people that are putting
the food out on display, everything's under God's sovereign control.
And he's reserved a portion of his creation just for me. I'm telling you the truth. God
had this in his mind before he created the world and didn't
have to give it a second thought. When Judy goes to the store and
buys groceries, puts those groceries in the cupboard and in the refrigerator,
takes them and fixes my breakfast, my dinners, my supper, when she
does that, that's a portion of God's creation. He's used everyone
that had any part in bringing that food to market. He used
them for me. Whatever it is that you are allowed
to consume to sustain our physical life, God has reserved that for
you. And he didn't give a second thought
to that. A second thought to it. It was
in his mind. That's how great he is as he
thinks it comes to pass. Now, I could go on and on and
on. It's just wonderful to talk about
his excellent work. But how about this gift of salvation? How about the relationship we
have with God? God thought on us before time
began. How do I know? He wrote my name
in the Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation of the world.
I read that in his book. So he had to think on a particular
people. He chose being Christ before
the world was created. So he thought on a particular
people with love, like I mentioned earlier. And he didn't give a second thought
to what was needful to bring us into this living union with
himself. where we would give him all the
praise for this wonderful salvation that he's bestowed upon us. Not
a second thought. Jesus Christ is the one that
God has ordained to receive all the glory. He purposed that,
and he has a particular people that he enlightens. that he gives
an understanding concerning the greatness of our God so that
we will do just that. Bow down to his darling son and
praise him and thank him for his unspeakable gift. I've had
people tell me, you're a Jesus only person. No, I believe in
the Father and I believe in the Holy Spirit, but I also believe
in this. If we don't honor the Son, even
as we honor the Father, we don't honor the One who sent Him. We
don't honor God at all. And when we worship Jesus Christ,
we're worshiping the Great Three-in-One. Like I said this morning, in
Jesus Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And so
all of this was purposed by God. Our text in verse 24 says, And
I know He purposed my salvation. He tells me that in His Word. He saved us and called us with
an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. And God did not have to give
a second thought to this. It was in his mind. He thinks
on us, and he always thinks on us with love and delight because
it pleased him to do so. Now folks, we don't understand
this unless the Holy Spirit guides and directs us into this truth. It's like a man who was born
blind. Try to describe color to him.
Well, he can't understand difference between red and green. He has
no way. He's never seen color. And you
try to explain these wonderful truths to an unregenerate person,
they can't understand it. It's foolishness to them, because
these things are spiritually discerned. It takes the Spirit
of God working in us to enlighten the mind to these truths. But
when he does, when God does. And sometimes we just need a
little something, like I've shared with you this evening, concerning
the greatness of our God. As He thinks on something, it
comes to pass. He doesn't have to give a second
thought to it. And brethren, for all eternity,
we'll be in the mind of our great triune God as a people that he
thinks upon, that he loves with an everlasting love. What a God,
what a salvation, what a wonderful truth to have revealed to the
heart by the power of God the Holy Spirit under the preaching
of his glorious gospel. Trust Him, love Him, serve Him,
until that day, which is also appointed, when we'll be delivered
from the body of this death and be ushered into the presence
of the One who thought on us, the One who loved us and gave
Himself for us, where we'll see Him in all of His glory. What
a day of rejoicing that will be when we will never, ever,
ever, ever again sin against our God, but give Him all the
praise and all the glory. You know what Jews said? unto
him who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless
before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. To the only
wise God, our Savior, be glory, majesty, dominion, and power,
both right now and forever. Amen. Thank you for the honor
of allowing me to stand before you during this wonderful Lord's
Day. God bless you folks. We love
you.