songs and the truths that's contained
therein. Time's getting away from us,
so we're going to skip that worship hymn and go right into the message. If you would turn to Isaiah chapter
12, the 12th chapter of Isaiah, as we continue in our verse-by-verse
study through this Old Testament, which many Bible scholars have
referred to as the Romans of the Old Testament, this book,
inspired book written by Isaiah, Last week we laid a foundation
for our studies in Isaiah 12, only six verses there. But from
the closing verse of this chapter, which was our text last week,
we read, cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion, for great
is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee. And Jesus
Christ is the Holy One of God, and he's in the midst of spiritual
Israel, his blood-bought church. He is and always will be great
in our midst. You cannot ascribe too much greatness
to the Lord Jesus Christ. And only those who have experienced
the miracle of the new birth know this to be true. The name of Jesus Christ is above
every name. I shamefully confess with sorrow
in my heart that the name of Jesus Christ meant no more to
me than the name of Adolf Hitler in my unregenerate state. Matter
of fact, I hated Jesus Christ more than I hated Adolf Hitler. And I grew up right after, during
and right after World War II. And so his name was despised
by the majority of the people here in the United States. But
I never used the name of Adolf Hitler when something went wrong
in my life. Isn't that interesting? I blasphemed
the name of Jesus Christ, and I shamefully admit that. Why? Why would anybody do that? Why
would they use the name of Jesus Christ in anger when something
goes wrong, or we experience a painful trial? Why would we do that? because
we hate God and we hate the Christ of God in our unregenerate state.
We're totally depraved and want nothing to do with God. Jesus
Christ is God Almighty and we express our hatred for our God
by our hatred for His only begotten Son, our hatred for His true
gospel, and our hatred for His amazing grace that has been displayed
so beautifully in the lives of so many that we also hated in
our unregenerate state who are true followers of Christ. But
my hatred for Jesus Christ was replaced with undying love for
Him when God sent the Spirit of His Son into my heart. In
that day, that appointed day, When I saw the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ and my sins all forgiven because
of His precious blood that Mike was just singing about, what
joy flooded my soul. Now, only a child of God can
understand this. Only one who has experienced
the miracle of the new birth. Only those who can read And know
what verse one is talking about when it says, 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. And verse four. speaks of that
day again when it says, and then that day shall you say, praise
the Lord, call upon His name, declare His doings among the
people, make mention that His name is exalted. We won't get
to that verse this morning, but I wanted to read it to stress
this morning's subject, in that day. In that day, the day our
text is referring to, is the day our Lord delivered us from
the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of Jesus
Christ our Savior. And all of God's enlightened
children know this to be true because we've experienced this.
Salvation is of the Lord. But every chosen, blood-bought
child of God must experience this from the hand of God Himself.
And when we try to share this wonderful gospel, the joy that
we have, the peace that we have with those who've never experienced
the miracle of the new birth, it's like trying to describe
color to a person who's born blind, who's never seen color.
They just don't know what you're talking about. And that's exactly
What the unregenerate are ignorant of. They don't know what we're
talking about. The gospel is foolishness unto them. We were
spiritually dead in trespasses and sins until that day. Graveyard
dead, as Henry Mahan would say. Our carnal minds were enmity
against God. We hated God. The word of God
tells us that. There was no good in any of us.
Our sinful sacrifices were an abomination to God. Our wicked
ways were an abomination to God. All our thoughts were an abomination
to God. There is none that doeth good,
no not one, in their unregenerate state. The only good that we
have is Christ in us. And the only good that we do
is the result of Christ in us. God accepts nothing but that
which is produced by the Holy Spirit who dwells in the heart
of every believer. Therefore, Because of our totally
depraved, abominable, helpless, and hopeless sinful condition,
we not only would not praise the true and living God, we could
not praise Him. So, in that day, the first verse
of Isaiah 12 says, In that day thou shalt say, O God, I will
praise thee. So this has to be referring to
that day when God took the old stony heart out of us and gave
us a new heart to worship Him and to serve Him and to praise
Him. Now self-righteous false religionists go through their
hypocritical motions of pretended praise. join religious groups, get their
name on a church roster, sing with the congregation, even hold
positions in church, some even pastor churches. But all that
which they're going through is nothing but an abomination to
God. And why is that? Because they don't have Christ
in them. They don't know Him. They can't praise Him. How can
anyone offer praise to the Lord Jesus Christ if they don't know
Him? They can't. Under the preaching of His Gospel,
God sends the Spirit of His Son into our hearts at His appointed
time of love for us. That's the day our text is referring
to, as Pastor Don Fortner so wisely stated. That day was a
day of conviction. A day of revelation, a day of
faith, a day of assurance, a day of praise. Now speaking for myself,
but I truly believe this applies to all who have been raised from
an awful state of spiritual deadness. No other day can compare to that
glorious day when I was given faith to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. And I've had some pretty exciting days in my life. I'll never forget when my lovely
wife said yes to my proposal of marriage. We were in church. She was 17. I had just barely
turned 18. And I had proposed to her. We were engaged for a year. after
she said yes. But she was playing the piano
and had come back and I was sitting beside her and she told me that
she would marry me. And I was so excited. I was holding
her hand. I stood up. The preacher was
trying to preach. I was getting all the attention.
And I was just, those around me, They didn't mean anything. I didn't even notice them. I
didn't notice the preacher. I was just too excited. And Judy
was trying to pull me down, sit down. And that was an exciting
day in my life. But nothing compares to that
day when I was made known that I'm a member of the body of Christ,
married to him. When I laid eyes on my firstborn
son, I just cannot begin to express
how I felt. That was an exciting day for
me. There was a living human being that had my blood flowing
in his veins. But that does not compare. to that day that I was told that
I'm a child of God, washed in the blood of Jesus Christ, that
his blood was affectionately applied to my conscience, delivering
me from wicked works, that I might serve the true and living God. And that excitement occurred
for every one of our six children. And then when I laid eyes on
my first grandchild, I just cannot put into words
how I felt. But that does not even compare
to the joy that I receive when I see people come to Christ who
are just like me, running from God, hating God, living licentious
lives, embracing the truth concerning Christ, becoming aware of the
fact that they have received the spirit of adoption, have
been united into the family of those who were redeemed by the
precious blood of Jesus. Those were precious, exciting
days. But that day, in that day, when
I had my blind eyes opened, and I saw Christ and believed in
Christ, That's a day of all days and every day has been sweeter
than the day before with Christ as my Savior, my King. In all
things, Jesus Christ must have the preeminence in our lives.
And He does. He does. In the heart and in
the lives of all of God's enlightened children, He has the preeminence. We might not fully understand
this at first, but we're still babes in Christ when God reveals
this to us, makes this known to us that He must have first
place in our hearts as Brother Steve was bringing out in his
Sunday school lesson. That day, the day we experience
the loving hand of God's mercy delivering us from the power
of darkness because of Christ and for the glory of Christ,
was the beginning of our living, loving union with the true and
living God, a union that can never end. We are His blood-bought
children. We have been united to Him by
faith. And God has promised never to
leave us nor forsake us. We have the promise from God
Himself that we have eternal life because of Jesus Christ,
our Savior, who loved us and gave Himself for us. Now verse
1 says, And in that day thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise
Thee. This is a statement of fact and
an imperative declaration. It is not a question of will
you praise him. The Spirit of God dwelling in
us will move us by His grace, will give us a willing heart
to delight in giving our great triune God unending praise for
His unspeakable gift, eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord and our Savior. This is something that all of
God's children will bring forth for the glory of the one who
is seated on His throne in glory, the God-man, Jesus Christ, because
He dwells in our heart and the Holy Spirit will move us. to
give Him all the praise and all the glory. This is called the
fruit of the Spirit. Now listen to one of the reasons
our text says that we shall praise the Lord our God. Though thou
wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away. Now God's anger
has not been turned away from all of Adam's posterity. False
preachers have been lying to their congregations for thousands
of years, telling them that God loves everybody, telling them
that God has a wonderful plan for them. You didn't see that
bumper sticker on the back of Noah's Ark as it floated away,
while a whole world of ungodly people perished under the angry
wrath of God against them. Lot didn't go through the city
of Sodom telling everybody that God loves you and has a wonderful
plan for you. No. God showed his hatred for
those Christ-hating people after he delivered Lot and his wife
and their two children. Then he poured out fire and brimstone
down on them from heaven. And Pharaoh and his whole Egyptian
army never heard that God loves everybody. And God demonstrated
his hatred for them when he brought the walls of water down upon
them right before the eyes of the Israelites on the other bank.
God does love some of Adam's fallen race. And that's a great
wonder to all of God's enlightened children. We have no problem understanding
God's anger and his hatred toward rebellious, sinful, hell-deserving
sinners. But we will never fully comprehend,
I don't believe, the love of God for hell-deserving sinners. We were just like those reprobates. We ran with them. We hated God. We shook our fist in his face. We drank iniquity like water.
We deserve nothing but God's wrath. So we don't have any problem
understanding His anger and His hatred. But what a wonder that
God would love me, that God would set His affection upon me. This
is the greatest wonder of all. What wonderful love God has demonstrated
by sending His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to that cruel cross
to be the propitiation for the sins of His people. John described
that, he said, here in His love, not that we loved God, but that
He loved us. And sent His Son to prove His
love for us. In that day, that glorious day
when the love of God was shed abroad in our hearts by God the
Holy Spirit, by faith we received and embraced this wonderful truth.
That God loves me with an everlasting Immutable love. Does that bless
you? To know that God loves you? It
blesses me, and I'm amazed every day of my life since that glorious
day when the love of God was revealed to me, in me. We heard
the truth from the lips of God's ordained preachers, but it was
God himself who taught us the gospel of his amazing grace,
his love for his particular people. And the Holy Spirit revealed
to us why God is not angry with his people. There's a reason
why he's not angry. By his one offering for sin,
the Lord Jesus Christ appeased God's anger against his people
forever. It's because of Christ that God
is not angry with us. When our dying Savior, having
been made sin for His people, suffered the unmitigated wrath
of God, He met all the conditions of the eternal covenant of grace
and set His chosen people from God's coming wrath. We're set
free from the wrath to come because of what Jesus Christ has done
for us. Our Heavenly Father turned a deaf ear to this cry from the
lips of Christ our Savior, he cried out, my God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? And God did not respond to that
cry. Our father in heaven would not respond to the agonizing
cry from his only begotten son, so that he could respond to our
sincere cry for mercy, for the glory of his darling son. And
it's Christ in us that convicted us of our sin and our helpless
and our hopeless condition, showing us that we're bankrupt and have
nothing to offer to God, which moved us to see our need of mercy
that caused us to cry out to God for mercy. And He never turns
a deaf ear. to the sincere cry from a sinner
convicted by the Holy Spirit of their need of mercy. He did
turn his back on his son. He did forsake his son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, so that he would never turn his back on us and
would give us the blessed assurance that he will never leave us and
never forsake those who were purchased with the blood of Jesus
Christ. What love! Brethren, God's anger against
us has been removed, turned away forever because of what Christ
has done. We had nothing to do with that.
We played no part in that suffering sacrifice of our Savior. We had
nothing to offer God, not even our free will. That is such a
terrible doctrine that is is dominating most of so-called
professing churches today. That's a lie right out of the
pit. It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy. In that day, the day of divine
revelation, the Holy Spirit enlightened our new mind to the glorious
truths of the Gospel. That's when we begin to praise
our Lord Jesus for what He has done for us, for what He has
done in us, for what He is doing for us, and what He is doing
in us, what He will yet do for us, and what He will yet do in
us. It's God Himself that's working in us, both to will and to do
of His good pleasure. And He which hath begun a good
work in us, We'll perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.
Now our text closes with one more blessed truth that is directed
toward God's promised children who were purchased with the blood
of Jesus Christ, the blood of the everlasting covenant. The
closing last four words says, and thou comfortedest me. God
himself is the one who comforts the hearts of his enlightened
children. And he does so under the preaching of Jesus Christ
and his glorious gospel. And it's all according to His
amazing grace. And all of God's ordained preachers
are instructed by God Himself to comfort His people. We'll
get to that in our future studies, but in Isaiah chapter 40, verses
one and two, we read, comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith
your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, and that her
iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received of the Lord's hand
double for all her sins. Now it's a great honor and a
great privilege for hell-deserving sinners who have been ordained
to preach God's word to share these truths with you to tell
you your warfare is accomplished. Jesus Christ has already destroyed
all of our enemies for us. He took care of all of that back
at Calvary 2,000 years ago. When He came out of the grave,
He led captivity captive. He's our risen, exalted, conquering
captain. So He has already won the warfare
for us. Your warfare is accomplished
if you're in Christ. Lay down your weapons of warfare
against God. Quit trying to earn your salvation
and enter into that which Christ has done for us, His finished
work, receiving this glorious truth that Jesus Christ so fully
redeemed His people that not one thing can be laid to our
charge. Isn't that good? That's good.
God has given us a full pardon. All of our inequities have been
pardoned and we have received doubled from the hand of the
Lord for all of our sins. What does that mean? Well, first
of all, the pardon, the full pardon from God Himself because
of what Christ has done for us. He has forgiven us for Christ's
sake. Secondly, we have received the
Spirit of Adoption. It's not only that God has forgiven
us, He has united us by faith into the family of God. We belong
to Him. We're His, and we're united to
Him. We're His adopted children. He's
our Heavenly Father. Those are endearing terms. So
God not only has granted a full pardon to all of His, those who
were purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ, we're His children. We're of the family of God. Does
that bless you? Folks, there's only a selected
few who are in that number. They're called His elect. They're
called His chosen people. Our Lord Jesus made a clear distinction
between those who are His and those who are not His. He told
some non-believing Jews, you believe not because you're not
of My sheep. They were goats. And in the next
verse, He says, My sheep hear My voice. And I know them, and
they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall
never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
My Father which gave them is greater than all, and no man
is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father
are one." So there's a distinction in God's Word made between those
who are vessels of mercy which God afore prepared unto glory,
and those who are vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.
There are some who are appointed to stumble at the word. But God,
from the beginning, has chosen us to salvation through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth. And like I said before,
God's preachers are blessed of God in allowing us to preach
Christ and his gospel truths. But it's God himself who makes
the gospel effectual in our hearts. And when he does, in that day
when he does, we will praise him. We will give him all the
glory. We fell in love with the Lord Jesus Christ in that day. There was no love there before.
We hated Him. But when the love of God was
shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, we fell in love
with Jesus Christ. We haven't seen Him with the
physical eye. Peter said that. And whom have
not seen you love with joy unspeakable and full of glory. But we see
the glory of God in His faith by faith. So we fell in love
with Him. We fell in love with His gospel.
I love the gospel. Don't you? I love the truths
of the gospel. We fell in love with His people.
I love God's people. I love to be with God's people.
I love to fellowship with you. I love this wonderful union we
have together because of that common denominator, the blood
of Jesus Christ that has washed us clean. We have the same faith. We have the same Heavenly Father.
We have the same hope. the same blessed assurance, the
same full inheritance that's waiting for each one of us. So
we fell in love with the One who loved us and gave Himself
for us, and we manifest our love for Him by our love for each
other, by our love for the Gospel, by our willingness to support
the Gospel with our labors of love and our monies and our dedicated
continual attendance under the preaching of that glorious gospel. False religionists manifest the
hatred they have for God by the hatred for his gospel. They absolutely hate the doctrine
of the total depravity of man. You want to get their hackles
up? Tell them They had nothing to do with their salvation. Tell
them they were just as dead in trespasses and sins as Lazarus
was physically when God raised him from the dead. Tell them
they don't have a free will, that their will is bound by their
old Adamic nature, and that they will not come to Christ that
they might have life. Unless God the Father draws us,
we will not come. Tell them about God's unconditional
electing grace, that they had nothing to do with God electing
us. I know false preachers will say,
well God looked ahead in the future and he saw who would make
a decision for him and election is based upon that foreknowledge.
That's a lie right out of the pit as well. God loves us with
an everlasting love and he chose us in Christ, unconditional upon
what any man or woman would do. Peter tells us in 2 Peter 1.9
that God has saved us and called us with a 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 Paul,
writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, referred
to 7,000 that God Himself had reserved unto Himself, and said
that even at this present time also, there is an election according
to the grace of God. So the election is based upon
God's grace, and if man has anything to do with it, that destroys
the meaning of the word grace. They hate that. Ungodly self-righteous
religionists hate the doctrine of God's unconditional electing
grace. And they hate the doctrine of the limited atonement of Jesus
Christ our Savior. They try to shame you and shock
you. How can you teach that? How can
you teach that Jesus Christ just died for a particular people?
He died for the whole human race. Try to tell that to those who
are burning in hell right now. Try to tell that to those I mentioned
a while ago. Those during the days of Noah.
Those during the days of the destruction of Solomon and Gomorrah.
Those who were in that Egyptian army. Try to tell them that Jesus
Christ died for everybody. Folks, that's not true. If that
was true, nobody's going to hell. There's a particular people that
God set His love upon. And Jesus Christ redeemed us,
those people. God's elect. He didn't make us
redeemable. He obtained eternal redemption
for us. So we have a Savior who is not
some kind of a display of pity. when He hung there on that cross,
trying to get people to believe on Him. He actually saved His
people, and He's going to make that known to His people. And
those who are in these false camps of false religion, they
want to say that it was your free will, so they absolutely
hate the doctrine of God's sovereign, irresistible grace. Can you imagine A puny, helpless, sinful man
or woman resisting the power of God Almighty? I'm not teaching
that God grabs us by the nap of the neck and brings us to
Himself, kicking and screaming against our will. But I am saying
our will played no part in this salvation. But God makes us willing
in the day of His power. That's that day I'm talking about.
In that day, God came to us when we were helpless and hopeless,
dead in trespasses and sins, and quickened us, gave us life,
and drew us by the cords of love, by His sovereign, irresistible
grace, into the waiting arms of Christ our Savior. And false
religionists hate this. And many of them hate what we
have already heard and raised devotional and in Steve's Sunday
School lesson that God gives persevering grace to all of his
enlightened children. We will persevere to the end
by God's grace. Now I leave you with these thoughts
on the subject of God's amazing grace. In that day, the day our
great God delivered us by His sovereign grace, He made us gracious. Grace just works that way. Because
God has been gracious to us and will continue to be so every
day of our pilgrimage journey. We are gracious to those around
us. Christ working in us moves us to love one another, be kind
one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as
God for Christ's sake has forgiven us. I have problems with professing
Christians. We just cannot seem to be gracious
in their dealings, not only with ungodly people, but with those
who are brothers and sisters in the church. That's not of
the Spirit of God. That is a hateful, wrong spirit. God is long-suffering and patient
and gentle with us. Was before we came to Christ
by His sovereign, irresistible, drawn power. Has been with us
every day since. And grace just works that way.
We're patient with one another. Gentle and kind. Even with those
who persecute us. Those I mentioned that hate the
gospel, hate the truths of the gospel. They persecute those
who love the truth, but God's enlightened children persecute
no one. And we're gentle toward those
who hate us. Planting seeds and watering seeds
and praying that God will give the increase, that he will grant
them repentance unto life because we remember the pit that God
dug us out of, we were just like them. So we're gracious for the
glory of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. When visitors leave
our worship service shaking their heads in God-hating unbelief,
we are disappointed but not discouraged. We know that if we continue to
preach the gospel of His grace, and we will by God's grace, He,
in His own time, will give the increase. He brings visitors
into our little church here at Rescue from time to time. And He will use the Gospel either
to convert them to Christ by His sovereign power or against
them on the Day of Judgment. So we're not discouraged and
we'll keep on keeping on. By God's grace, we will not compromise
the Gospel in order to try to build big church just flowing
with ungodly ishmaels who hate the gospel. I'd rather be with
two that love the Lord Jesus Christ and 2,000 who hate him.
That's right. And God will give us that understanding
just to be faithful, to continue in the apostles' doctrine, and
in prayer, and in breaking of bread, and in the fellowship
of the saints, waiting, as we heard in Sunday school, wait
on the Lord, wait on him, Wait on Him to give the increase.
But keep on keeping on. Be faithful in what God has entrusted
us with. Be not moved away from the hope
of the gospel. Waiting for that glorious day
when faith gives way to sight and we see Jesus Christ with
the physical eye in all of His glory. and for all eternity. We began in that day, and we
will continue for all eternity to praise our God and give him
all the glory as we bask in the warmth of his eternal love for
all eternity as monuments of his amazing grace. So in that
day, our text says, thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise thee,
Though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and
thou comfortedst me. Does the gospel comfort you?
It comforts all of God's enlightened children, and knowing that it
is always well with the righteous, because Jesus Christ himself
has purposed and accomplished our redemption for us, and in
his righteousness we stand before God, accepted in the Beloved. Amen. Brother John, will you
come and lead us in the closing hymn?