Colossians 4 is just as an introduction
to this morning's message. Our Lord Jesus said this before
I read this verse in Colossians 4. Our Lord said this. Remember Lot's wife. Whosoever shall seek to save
his own life shall lose it. And whosoever shall lose his
life shall preserve it. Now most of us are familiar with
the story of Lot's wife. Lot, that just man, his wife,
and their two daughters, youngest daughters who were not married,
were taken by the hand of the angels and delivered from Sodom
by irresistible force. They were lingering. I can understand
that, humanly speaking, a lot. And his wife had two other daughters
and sons-in-laws and probably some grandchildren in that city. But the angels took them by the
hands and led them out of the city. And they said to them,
the angels said to them, escape for thy life. Look not behind
thee. haste thee, escape thither, for
I cannot do anything till thou become thither." After he had
delivered, after the angels had delivered those four people,
God rained upon Sodom, Gomorrah, and three other cities there
in the plains, fire and brimstone from heaven. But Lot's wife looked
back behind him and became a pillar of salt. Now I ask you a question,
did God pour out His wrath on a woman who was a vessel of wrath
fitted to destruction? Or did He manifest His preserving
grace on a woman who was a vessel of honor He had aforeprepared
unto glory? I am not wise enough to be dogmatic
one way or another. But before you come down too
hard on Lot's wife, give some thought to this. The angels of
the Lord had taken Lot, his wife, and their two daughters by the
hand and delivered them from Sodom. He couldn't do anything
until they were safe. Lot's wife looked back. I don't know if she looked back
with a desire to be back in that awful city with a concern for
her daughters and those who married her daughters and, like I said,
maybe some grandchildren. But Lot's wife, like all of us,
had that old, sinful, fallen nature to contend with. She had
weaknesses in the flesh. Do you? We all do. All of us do. Why did our Lord
turn Lot's wife into a pillar of salt? Why didn't He just rain
fire and brimstone down on her? Why didn't He just destroy her
or let her go back to that wicked city? It seems to me, if we'll
give some thought to what salt represents, it could very well
possibly be that God just stopped her in her tracks and preserved
her from that in the sinful attempt to go back into Sodom. Well,
with that in mind, let me remind us that all of God's enlightened
children, all of His chosen blood-bought children, are sanctified by God
the Father, preserved in Jesus Christ, and called. God has preserved us. Look at
the sixth verse of Colossians 4. It says, let your speech be always
with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought
to answer every man. Now turn to Isaiah 12, if you
will. Isaiah chapter 12. The six verses
of that chapter instructs God's enlightened children how to answer
every man. This twelfth chapter is every
believer's personal confession that God Himself, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit is our salvation. And we laid the foundation for
our studies in this twelfth chapter by looking at verse 6 first,
which says, Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion, for
great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee. This is
how we ought to answer every man. Jesus Christ is our salvation. He is great in the midst of His
church. All of His enlightened children
give Him all the glory and all the praise. We attribute nothing
to this great salvation to the works of our hands. It is the
Spirit that gives life. The flesh does not profit anything. So this is our personal testimony
that Jesus Christ, according to the eternal covenant of grace,
the conditions that were set forth in that covenant, Him meeting
all of those conditions, He has saved His people. He didn't make
it possible for us to be saved. He saved us. He redeemed us with
His own precious blood. Last week we looked at verse
1 of Isaiah 12 and we titled that message, In That Day. That
day refers to the glorious day our Sovereign Lord raised us
from a state of spiritual deadness, when He performed the miracle
of the new birth in us, enlightening our minds to who Christ is and
what He has done for us. In that day, we learned that
God's anger was turned away from us because of the perfect redeeming
work of Jesus Christ our Savior. In that day, we were given faith
to believe that Jesus Christ Himself is the head of all the
members of His blood-bought church. In that day, God moved us to
bow down to His exalted Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, confessing
Him as our Lord and as our Savior. In that day, we began to praise
the true and living God. There was no praise in our hearts
before that day. The old black stony heart is
filled with enmity against God. We could not praise Him. We didn't
know Him. But in that day, when our God
enlightened our minds and by divine revelation made us to
know Jesus Christ and who He is and what He has done for us,
we began to praise Him from the heart. And in that day, Our great
merciful God comforted us by revealing to us that we're citizens
of that heavenly Jerusalem, inhabitants of Zion, and that absolutely
nothing can separate us from God Himself. Nothing can separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And if we're in Christ, God loves us as much as He loves His darling
Son, and we're comforted with this. Not only did God comfort
us in that day, I don't know about you, I think I do, but
He has comforted me every day since with these Gospel truths.
So let's take a look at verse 2. We won't have any time for any
other verse but verse 2. This is so full. Verse 2 of Isaiah
12 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. Listen to these words from that
great theologian Robert Hawker that he penned in his commentary
from this second verse of Isaiah 12. He said a gospel song actually
called a whole chapter, not just this one verse. He said this
12th chapter of Isaiah is a gospel song of the triumphs of Christ
and the church's triumphs in him suited for all ages for the
whole of Christ's body in one collective mass and for each
individual. He went on to say, reader, take
a special notice of what the hymn expresseth, namely that
the Lord God is the sin of salvation. It is not enough to say or sing
that the Lord has brought us to salvation, but that He Himself
is our salvation. Not that we have salvation from
Him, but salvation in Him. He Himself is the whole of it."
Isn't that good? That is so wonderful. In the
very first word of our text we read this word, Behold, Behold
signifies our heartfelt admiration and adoration of our great triune
God who is our salvation. We love Him. We adore Him. We
admire Him. Behold signifies that. Behold
is the word that declares and affirms that God alone is my
salvation. I have no hope anywhere else
but in God who is my salvation. Behold that. Behold is the word
to draw attention to our amazing God who is Our salvation. His amazing grace in our salvation. His amazing love. in our salvation. The Apostle John said, Behold
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we
should be called the sons of God. That's in 1 John 3. He uses
the same word, behold. It's a good word. We ought to
stop and behold this. Our text says, Behold, God is
my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid.
So brethren, listen, if God is our salvation, we have absolutely
no reason to fear. I'm not saying that we won't
have fear. Well, all of us do. We're human. I've heard people say that those
graveyards are full of dead people. And walking by that graveyard
in the middle of the night, that won't hurt you. Those people
are dead. It's the live people that you
have to be afraid of. Well, I don't care. I still don't
like walking by a cemetery in the middle of the night by myself.
I used to walk home from school. We didn't have a school bus where
I went to school. It was two miles uphill both
ways. And I had older siblings. They liked to run away and get
away from me to try and scare me. And they did a good job of
it. walking through the woods, shortcut
on the way home, if a little lizard rustled in the leaves,
I jumped. So we have fear, that's natural.
But we have nothing to, really, fear is sinful if we stop and
think about it. If God is my salvation, I have
absolutely nothing to fear. The same apostle who wrote, Behold,
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, also wrote
these words in that same epistle of 1 John. Herein is our love
made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment.
Because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear
in love, but perfect love casts without fear. That's the Word
of God. Jesus Christ our Savior by Himself
purged our sins from God's sight forever. He took care of our
sin debt, paying that debt in full with His own precious blood
by His substitutionary death. God's Holy Spirit working in
us should move us to love righteousness and to hate sin. And we do. But sad to say, and I'm sure I speak for all of God's
enlightened children, sin is what we are, and we still sin.
But God help us not to be afraid of sin. All our iniquities were
laid on the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. He has removed them
from God's sight forever. God remembers them against us
no more. Don't love the world. God tells us in His Word, Love
not the world, nor the things of the world. If any man love
the world, the love of the Father is not in him. So don't love
it, but don't be afraid of it. We're in this world. We're not
of it, but we're in it. Just remember that we're only
passing through as pilgrims and sojourners on our way to our
heavenly home. Don't be afraid of the world.
Recognize Satan as a powerful enemy. But don't be afraid of
him. God has already taken care of
him. He's like a dog on a leash. He can only go as far as our
Lord Jesus will allow him to go. He goes about like a roaring
lion, seeking whom he may devour. But a roar of a lion never hurt
anyone. And He can't devour us. We're safe in the arms of Jesus
Christ our Savior. Death is a door that all of us
must go through unless our Lord comes back before we go through
that doormarked death. But don't be afraid of it. Don't
be afraid of death. Death has no power over God's
children. The Lord took the sting out of death. And He tells us,
He that believeth on Him shall never die. Do you all believe
that? So don't be afraid of death. Judgment day is coming. But don't
fear that day. Romans 8, 1 says, There is therefore
now no condemnation, no judgment to them which are in Christ Jesus.
And so, God Himself has given us the blessed assurance that
all of our sins were laid on our Savior, And He took God's
wrath in our room and in our stead. God has already punished
us in our substitute. He could not be a just God and
punish again those for whom Christ died if He has already punished
us in our substitute. He cannot do that. He will not
do that. We should never fear judgment
day. We will stand before God, dressed
in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, with God Himself saying
to each one of His blood-bought children, Well done, thou good
and faithful servant. Enter. into the joy of the Lord. If we believe these words from
God to His blood-bought people, we should have no fear of coming
judgment. For He, God the Father, hath
made Him, God the Son, to be sin for us who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. The songwriter
put it this way, bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place
condemned He stood, sealed my pardon, with His blood. Hallelujah. What a Savior. Our text says,
behold, God is my salvation. Do we believe that? Then we should
trust God and be not afraid. That's what our text is telling
us. Trust Him. Be not afraid. Our Lord Jesus
is on His throne during the raging storms as well as the calm. He
is still able and He does that. as it pleases Him to say, Peace,
be still. Don't you know that His disciples
who were with Him in that boat when He stood up and spoke to
the wind and to the seas and both obeyed His voice. Don't
you know they had a personal testimony as they were allowed
to tell others about the power of their Master? We should have
that same testimony. I know it's not easy to go through
a raging storm, but don't lose sight of this. He's still on
His throne. Even when we're on the mountaintop
of success, or in the valley of despondency, even when things
are going smooth, or things are going rough, He's still on His
throne, and He's still working all things after the counsel
of His own will, and in His own appointed time, as He allows
us to go through these appointed trials and testings, He will
say, Peace, be still. And we'll give Him all the praise
and all the glory, not only for those smooth highways, but for
those rough, bumpy roads as well. Our Lord Jesus has told us time
and time again to put our trust in Him. What a testimony! We have the honor of bringing
before others. Our Master, when He speaks, must
be obeyed. You all believe that? Obedience
must follow. Where, how does the scripture
go? There's, where the king is, there's
power. I think that's the way it goes.
Well our Lord Jesus is king of kings and lord of lords and the
word of a king is powerful. How much more the word of our
exalted king. He has the power to do whatever
He is pleased to do and He will accomplish His purpose. God help
us to recognize our need of His strength. Our text says, Jesus
Christ is my strength and my song. Without Him I can do nothing.
But I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. God
help us never to forget that. That in our flesh we are nothing
but weak vessels. Our Lord Jesus said, without
Me you can do nothing. But we can do all things through
Christ who strengthens us. He is every believer's strength.
We need the strength of our Lord Jesus when we're young as well
as when we're old. We need His strength when we're
resting behind the doors of our own home as well as when we are
laboring out in the world for the glory of the One who loved
us and gave Himself for us. We need His strength at all times. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Don't rely on the arm of the
flesh. It will fail you every time. Lean back into the strong,
everlasting arms of Jesus Christ our Lord and our Savior. Trust
Him. He's our strength. He's our song. We make a serious, painful mistake
When we think we can do anything without the strength of our Lord
Jesus. Anything. Anything. Our Lord is not only
our strength, He's also our song. That's what our text says. We
don't just sing from our lips. Oh, we do that. God help us to
express ourselves in song from these mouths that He has given
to us. But He is our song. We sing to Him from the heart. Our songs of deliverance, of
courage, of strength is to Him. God help us to sing not just
about Him. We do that. But sing to Him. Not just that He is our God. but sing to our God. Not that
He is just our great creator, and I don't even want to use,
that's a wrong word. Not that He is our creator. We
don't sing about that. Well, we sing to our creator,
the one who loved us and gave Himself for us. The songwriter
said, and we just sung this a moment ago, I will sing of my Redeemer
and His wondrous love to me. On the cruel cross He suffered
from the curse to set me free. I will tell the wondrous story
how my lost estate to save. In His boundless love and mercy
He the ransom freely gave. I will praise my dear Redeemer
and His triumphant power I'll tell. How the victory He giveth
over sin and death and hell. I will sing of my Redeemer and
His heavenly love to me. He from death to life hath brought
me, Son of God, with Him to be. Lift up your voices to Him. in
song, but sing from the heart to Him because of who He is and
because of what He has done. The last part of Isaiah 12.2
says, He also has become my salvation. God Himself has become my salvation. What does that mean? Well, it
means, as John McGill stated, salvation is brought out by Christ. and believers have it in Him
and they know it and believe it and so are already saved in
Him. Pastor Henry Mahan put it this
way, in the light of our weakness, failure and flesh, how can we
have such confidence and assurance of our security and acceptance
before God? Because He is our salvation. He is our strength. He is our
song. God set Him forth to be a mercy
seat. God laid on Him our iniquities. God made us accepted and a beloved. How shall He not with Him freely
give us all things accomplished by our Redeemer God? It would
be nothing short of blasphemy to reckon that God would renege
on His promises to Christ and His Church. So God has become
my salvation. In other words, He's worked it
all out for me. I just rest in Him. Let me take
you back to the book of Leviticus. If you'll just turn back to Leviticus
chapter 3 just for a moment. I'm sorry, chapter 13. Leviticus
chapter 13. And let me repeat something I
said earlier in our introduction to this message. Why did our
Lord Why did our Lord turn Lot's wife into a pillar of salt? Why didn't He just rain fire
and brimstone down on her? Well, I've got the wrong chapter.
I said 3, then I said 13, and now I'm looking at my notes and
it says chapter 2. Leviticus chapter 2. If we believe God, we'll believe
His Word. And God tells us that He's a
covenant God and that we're His covenant people. Before the world
began, our God purposed our salvation. We read that in 2 Timothy 1.9.
We also read in Isaiah 43.13 that God Himself says, I will
work and who shall hinder it? I will accomplish all that I
have purposed, God tells us in Isaiah 46.9-13. And so we're members of the body
of Christ, but we're His covenant people. Those who were given
to Christ in the eternal covenant of grace before this world began.
The Lord Jesus Christ in the fullness of time was sent by
God to be made of a woman, made under the law to redeem us, his
chosen people, from the curse of the law. That was according
to the eternal covenant of grace. Now there are some, and you'll
read it in Don Forner's article in today's bulletin, there are
some who do not believe that the perfect obedience of Jesus
Christ as he walked on this earth from the mother's womb, the womb
of the Virgin Mary, to the time He said, it is finished. There
are some who do not believe His perfect obedience to the will
of God had anything to do with our salvation. That is terrible. We need a righteousness that
we cannot produce. And Jesus Christ and His perfect
obedience to God's law, God's will, is our righteousness that
He gives to us. We're in Christ. We were in Christ
all the way from His mother's womb, all the way to the grave. Everything about Christ belongs
to His blood-bought children. When our Lord was obedient to
God the Father, we were obedient to God the Father in our substitute. So that's all according to the
eternal covenant of grace. Our Lord Jesus met all the conditions
of that covenant. The blessed Holy Spirit of God
quickens us, gives us life. He is giving life only to those
who are given to Jesus Christ by God the Father in that eternal
covenant of grace. And when He comes to us, when
the Holy Spirit comes to us, He finds nothing but enmity in
us. Enmity against God. He sees no
good in us. There's nothing in us to move
Him to give any one of us eternal life. But He does. He quickens us. He gives us life. He raises us from that state
of spiritual deadness according to the eternal covenant of grace
which was established between the great three and one before
this world was ever created. So we're His covenant people.
We should never lose sight of these wonderful God-honoring
truths. Jesus Christ is our Savior, yes. But God the Father is our Savior
as well. God the Holy Spirit is our Savior
as well. Jesus Christ is the fullness
of the Godhead. In Him dwells the Father, in
Him dwells the Son. We bow down to Jesus Christ.
When we bow down to Him, we bow down to the Great Three in One. But all of this, all of what
we have in our relationship with God, is according to the eternal
covenant of grace. And back to Lot's wife being
preserved by salt. Listen to this, if you will.
Verse 13 of Leviticus 2. And every oblation of thy meat
offering shalt thou season with salt. Neither shalt thou suffer
The salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat
offering with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt. Salt is
a preservative. And salt not only points to the
fact that God has preserved us, it points to that offering. The
offering of Jesus Christ. Every offering under the old
Mosaic economy pointed to the one offering for sin, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And those offerings had to be
offered with salt. Every child of God comes out
of darkness into the marvelous light of Christ because of God's
eternal covenant. God has preserved us in Christ
Jesus. Salt signifies that preservation
that's ours. And in this 13th verse, it even
refers to salt accompanying the covenant So let your speech be
seasoned with salt, so you should know how to answer every man.
And here's how we answer every man. God has become my salvation. Everything that I have in this
relationship with God is because God has become my salvation.
He has ordered all things steadfast and sure. Nothing happens apart
from God's permissive will. And our coming out of darkness
into His marvelous light was according to His own purpose
which was decreed before this world began for the glory of
His darling Son Jesus Christ our Lord and our Savior. So don't
lose sight of this. I once again say, I don't know,
I'm not wise enough to know if Lot's wife was a vessel of wrath
fitted to destruction or a vessel of mercy which God
afore prepared unto glory and He preserved her showing us that
even though she looked back, she had been delivered. Give
some thought to that. And along with that thought,
think about this. We sin every day. But we have an advocate with
the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He's our heavenly
lawyer. He's pleading for all of His
elect at this very moment. And He doesn't have to say a
word. The nail prints are in His hands
and His feet. The wound from the sword in His
side is still visible. He redeemed us. In His own body,
in His own body, He took the wrath of God because He was made
to be sin for us. Now, because God has accepted
that offering, we've been made accepted in Christ. And it's
all because of the covenant of God's grace. So let our hearts
be seasoned with this salt. We're covenant people that serve
a covenant God who've been brought out of darkness into his marvelous
light because of that covenant. God is my salvation. He's my
strength. He's my song. I will trust him
and be not afraid. God has become my salvation. Amen.