In verse 1, we are assured that salvation is by divine appointment. I just read it to you, but it says, in that day, in that gospel day, there's a song that is sung throughout the gospel day. It's a song of redemption. It's a song of salvation. It's a song that magnifies our God. It's a song about the blood and the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a song sung throughout God's Judah, throughout the land wherein the Lord has made himself known.

This is the city that is strengthened by God. Isaiah says, we have a strong city. We have a city, a city that's going to last. You see, the city of Jerusalem, it was destroyed. When Nebuchadnezzar and the enemies of Israel came in, they destroyed the city, they destroyed the temple, they took the people into captivity. That city was not a strong city. Oh, it had walls, but the walls didn't keep the enemies out. They had bulwarks. They had fortresses, but it didn't keep the oppressors of Judah out.

But as for the true Judah of God, for the city of God, we have a strong city because the builder and the maker of the church is God. This is the church that our Lord redeemed. We have a city that cannot fail. We're members of that city. Our citizenship is in that city. And our Lord protects us, and He saves us, and He preserves us.

For you see, it says, salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. God has appointed a people for salvation and He has appointed a salvation for His chosen people. We're His by divine ordination, full ordination. He is ours and we are His. And we sing the song of salvation. We sing it joyfully. We sing it with enthusiasm. Maybe not so much literally with our voices, but in our heart of hearts, the song of salvation, it stirs us and it's always there. We're always praising the Lord for what he has done for us through the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is spiritual Judah, the city of God, the city that's set on a hill. This is the true city, the true habitation of God. We are the city of God. All of the church of the redeemed, we're the city of God because He dwells among us wherever the people of God meet, anywhere in the world. The Lord is always with us.

What is the church? The church is a called out assembly. We've been called out group of people. We've been called out of darkness into the marvelous light of the gospel. We have been sought and found. We are a city, as it says later on in the book of Isaiah, a city not forsaken. The Lord will never forsake this city, spiritual Jerusalem,

Now the Lord forsook the literal temple. Our Lord Jesus said when He was on this earth, your temple is become vacant, vacated, deserted, abandoned by God. But we're the true temple of God and He dwells with us and He dwells among us by His Spirit through Christ. And He will never leave us. and he will never forsake us. We're a city called out of darkness into his marvelous light. We're a city that once was filled with just blindness. That was us. Blindness and deafness. We were dead in trespasses and sins, in fact. But he has quickened us. He has brought us to the Savior, who is our life. And He has made us alive, and He has protected us by His omnipotent grace, and He will never leave us, and He will never forsake us.

This is a strong city. Now, right now, the city is divided because some of the city is still on earth and a lot of the city is in heaven, but we're still all the one church of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have been bought by Him. We have been purchased by Him. He owns us, and He acknowledges that we are His people, and He is not ashamed to call us His brethren. Now, you think about that. Think of what you are. I think of what I am in my sinfulness, in my natural condition, and yet the Lord calls me His brother. And I can call him my brother, my elder brother. And he is not ashamed to be associated with me. Let me not be ashamed to be associated with him.

You see, being the inhabitants of the city of God, we are absolutely forever safe. Is this salvation of sinners the work of God? Of course it is. Paul says in Ephesians 2, for by grace are you saved, by grace are you saved, through faith. And salvation and faith, neither one are of yourself. You're not your own savior if you think you've saved yourself, that you have pulled yourself up by your own bootstraps, as the old timers used to say. You know nothing of the grace of God or right. When it comes to the true church of our Lord, all that we are and all that we ever shall be is solely of Christ. By grace are you saved. By grace have you been saved, by grace you're being saved, and by grace someday you will be thoroughly and altogether saved through faith. But that's not of yourself. It's a gracious gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

How safe are the people of God? How secure are the members of the Lord's true church? Hold your place here and just look at a verse over here in Isaiah 60. Isaiah 60. And look at verse 18. You see, we're totally surrounded And here's what we're surrounded with. Verse 18, Isaiah 60. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders, but thou shalt call thy walls salvation and thy gates praise. How safe are we? We're a city enclosed by the walls of salvation that shall never deteriorate, that shall never need rebuilding, that shall never be in need of repair. For the salvation of our God is a salvation. It's a wall that endures forever. That's how safe we are. That's how secure we are. He says that the walls that surround us, they're called salvation. Salvation. And indeed, that is our safety. The salvation of God. The salvation of God.

Do I believe in eternal security of the church? Absolutely. Because the walls that do surround us are the walls of God's work that He alone can do. And that which God does, Solomon says this, that which God does, He does forever. And nothing can be added to it and nothing can be taken away from it. Salvation. We're protected by the walls of God's salvation because He is the Savior of the body. You see, as you study the scriptures, and you folks know this, it doesn't matter where you study, in the Bible. It doesn't matter from which angle you look at this matter of salvation. Salvation in the Bible is described as being the work of God alone. It is not a work in which we have a part. We add nothing to it. Or as one old writer said, our part in salvation is the sinning part. God's part is the saving part. And it's all together by grace and all together in Christ. Whenever salvation is set forth in the word of God, it is acknowledged that salvation is of the Lord.

I trust that we won't have to go to a rather dismal and rough seminary as Jonah had to go to. But I promise you this, if you're one of the Lord's, He will teach you that salvation is of the Lord. And He will teach you You have no part in that. Salvation was purposed by the Father. Before the foundation of the world, trace the salvation of sinners back to the fountainhead, which is the covenant of grace, which I might add, very few people in religion today know anything about the covenant of grace. That's the fountainhead, that's where the Trinity, that august person of God, Father, Son, and Spirit, as it were, convened together. and agreed on salvation, agreed on who the Savior would be, agreed on who the people would be that would make up the city of God, a people chosen in sovereign free grace without any consideration for anything that they would ever say, do, or think. It was all of God.

David so rejoiced in the covenant of grace in 2 Samuel 23 that he said this concerning the covenant of grace. He said, this is all my salvation. That's what he said. And it's all my salvation too. I don't want anything else. I don't want some salvation that may have come out of the Baptist denomination or the Methodist denomination or something else. I want that salvation that came out of the covenant of grace wherein God himself ordained who would be saved how they would be saved, and how long they would be saved, forever. Forever. God purposed it. David said, this is all my salvation.

And this salvation was purchased and merited by our glorious Savior. He was faithful to do the work that Jehovah in the trinity of this person is a sign for him to do. He had to lay his glory aside as it were. He didn't lay his deity aside, but he stepped down out of heaven and took himself a body like we have. subject to some of the limitations that we have. Weariness, thirstiness, hunger, suffering, enduring pain, and finally dying. Dying because that's the penalty for our sins. He died for our sins according to the scriptures, Paul says. in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. We were redeemed by the blood of Christ. He bought us. And I'll promise you this, I know this from the word of God, whoever he bought, he's gonna have them.

One of the greatest heresies One of the greatest lies that Satan has spread ever since he was unleashed upon this world. The greatest lie is that Jesus died for everybody and paid everybody's sin debt if, if you'll accept what he did. In fact, I read something about salvation today by a writer that I read him because he can give some pretty good information. But this writer said, he's talking about salvation being all of God. And then he ruined it by saying, but we've got to seek it. That ruins it. Anytime you put man, you insert man in the salvation, even seeking salvation and make that a man, you've ruined it. You see, it wasn't that we sought the Lord, but the Lord sought us. He came after us. He arrested us by his grace. He got our attention. I didn't get his attention. How can I get his attention? He thought of us. I wasn't thinking about him.

Christ paid the debt. We're debt free. We don't owe anything to the justice of God. And this salvation is revealed to us and performed in us and preserved in every one of the chosen ones of God by the Spirit of grace.

There's so many Bible verses that I could show you that say that salvation is of the Lord. Psalm 37, 39 says that the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord. Well, who would dare to argue with that? This is the Word of God. Jonah said there in his short prophecy, he said, salvation's of the Lord. In Philippians, Paul said, for it is God which worketh in you to will and to do his good pleasure. Who works? Who does the work? The Lord does.

Look at Romans chapter nine. Let me just read a couple of verses here to you. Romans chapter nine. You see, here's our problem, one of our problems. We don't have the will to come to Christ for salvation. The Savior said that, John 5, 40, and you will not come to me that you might have life. And let's say we were made willing, we still don't have the ability. We will not and we cannot. Those are pretty simple words. I don't think we would have to define that for anybody. You will not come and you cannot come. Somebody who will not come for life is a person who's dead. A person who cannot come is a person who's dead. What's the problem? that all mankind have a spiritual deadness without the willingness to come to Christ and without the ability to come to Christ. If left to ourselves, we know we're absolutely hopeless.

Perhaps I'm speaking to somebody tonight in here or who's watching. You say, you know, I don't think I know the Lord. Well, I hope that the Lord will bring you to this realization. You have neither the will nor the ability to come to Christ. And the only hope you've got is the only hope any of us have, that the Lord will do a work within us, the same Lord who did a work for us at the cross of Calvary.

Here in Romans 9, it says in verse 16, well, verse 15, for he saith to Moses, Romans 9, 15, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. How could you make anything else out of that? How could you misunderstand that? And I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then, here's the conclusion. When it comes to this matter of the mercy of God and the compassion of God, the salvation of God, the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, it is not of Him that willeth. Don't tell me it is. When God says matter of factly, it's not of Him that willeth. How dare you say it is of Him that willeth? And yet people do. It's not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, of him who makes an effort. I'm trying. Well, let me tell you something. Your trying to be saved, trying to lift yourself up to heaven will end in utter failure. Because it's of God that showeth mercy, That's His. Mercy is His. Salvation is His. Grace is His. And He gives those things to whomsoever He will. And if He's given grace and mercy and salvation to you, know that He did it not because of something in you that attracted you to Him. He was out of His own loving kindness, and tender mercies.

Who are these people in whom God works? Well, they're the elect of God. They're the chosen of God. They're people out of every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue. That's who God saves. Who are these people that God saves? People who are undeserving of the least of God's mercies. Who are these people that God saves? They're the people Christ has already bought. He owns them. Who are these people? Who are these people that God saves? They're just sinners. Nothing special about any of us. Paul said, not many wise men are called. Not many mighty. A few. I'm thankful there was a Paul in his brilliance. Not many like that. Most of us are, our condition is summed up as it says there in my text in Isaiah 26, poor and needy. Poor and needy. But as my text says in verse 12, for thou also hast wrought all our works in us or to us. Something has happened to us that the world can't bring about that we can't bring about. There's a work that's been wrought within us. There was a work wrought for us. God chose us in grace. There was a work wrought for us. Christ died for us. And there's also a work that is of necessity to be done in us. In us.

You can't change your heart. Oh, you can change your ways. You can do like the Pharisees. They scrubbed the outside. It looked better. Looked like they were good holy people. Yeah, but that's outward. You can quit doing this and quit doing that and start doing something else, all those That don't affect you internally. It don't affect you spiritually. See, our problem is somewhere deep within where we can't get to. Bad heart. Perverse will.

But God has wrought a work within us. And that's the only kind of salvation's worth having. the work that God does. And we praise Him.

You know, it's said at the beginning of this chapter, the walls are salvation, or in chapter 60, the walls are salvation and the gates are praise. I'll tell you what, we have a lot to praise the Lord for. Shame on us for ever complaining or fussing or murmuring. We've got more than we'd be thankful for. And the greatest gift God's ever given us is a gift of His Son, and in Him we have all spiritual blessings. You've got everything in Christ. We want no more. We need no more than Christ, our Savior.

Well, let's sing a closing song.