You'll recall that last week
I pointed out in the course of my message that the one word
used more frequently than any other in direct connection with
salvation is that sweet, blessed, personal, possessive pronoun,
my. It's one of those things I had
not seen before my preparations for last week's message. And
that fact has been rolling around in my heart like a bag full of
Hershey's Kisses all week. I've just been enjoying it immensely,
talked about it a good bit. And I want to talk about it some
more today. Turn with me, if you will, to
Isaiah chapter 12. Isaiah 12. Now, while you're turning, I'm going
to address issues of the day that need to be addressed from
this pulpit and from others. I am not here to promote politics
of any kind. You know better than that. But
I am concerned as God's servant first, as your pastor and father,
grandfather, and as a citizen of this land, but as God's servant
first. I am concerned for the nation
before us. The nation God has been pleased
to give us in his good providence and the nation that has been
so tremendously blessed in so many ways. We live in a society
of moral perversity, incomparable to any age in history. Fornication
has become acceptable in this day as much as it was in the
pagan Gentile world of the Roman Empire, just common, just accepted. I had a friend some years ago
in another country who, as a matter of fact, I remember when it was,
just before Faith and Doug got married, he wrote to me. And
a believer, he wrote to me, and he said, it's so good to see
a young couple married. He said, here, most Christian couples even just
live together for a while first. And I wrote him back, and I said,
not Christian couples. No. Religious, yes. Not Christian. Fornication, though
today, has become acceptable and even promoted in our schools,
from the politicians right down to kindergarten. Homosexuality. is looked upon as an alternate
lifestyle, accepted and promoted, and you're a bigot if you say
anything against it. Well, let folks say what they will about
what I'd say against it. It is a moral, decadent perversion
incomparable to any moral, decadent perversion known to mankind,
and that includes murder itself. It is a moral, decadent perversion. I better stop there. Abortion, promoted commonly. And it's a signal of something
worse. It's a signal of a total lack of value for humanity. Thursday night, or Friday night
when it was, Friday night I guess it was, the presidential debates
were on. such as chemical stem cell research. Boy, that sounds
so intellectual, doesn't it? So brilliant, going to help so
many folks. That is, let's figure out a way to raise babies so
we can kill them and preserve the lives of old folks. It's
neither more nor less than that. Neither more nor less than that
because there's a total lack of any value for human life. That's the result of folks living
for me, me, me, my pleasure, what's good for me. And I'm concerned
for our society. I've been thinking about that
a lot in recent days. But I have something to tell
you that sustains my soul in the midst of this difficulty
and in the midst of all others. Here it is in Isaiah chapter
12, verse 2. Behold, God is my salvation. Back up to verse 1. In that day,
in that day, shalt thou say, O Lord, I will praise thee. Though thou wast angry with me,
thine anger is turned away. and thou comfortest me. Now let's stay right here and
let's look at these six verses together and I pray God will
this day make himself to become in your heart, in your experience,
your salvation. There is a day described here
as that day appointed by God from eternity when every chosen,
redeemed sinner will be called by His grace, and for that sinner
it is the day of salvation. And in these six verses, Isaiah
tells us by divine inspiration what happens in that day. Now
if you want to read the context, actually these six verses are
a conclusion to a sermon that Isaiah began back in chapter
8. The whole sermon goes from chapter
8 through chapter 12, and Isaiah here gives us the conclusion
to the sermon. It is about that day. It is a
prophecy of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in this gospel
age for the saving of his people. And at the same time, a prophecy
concerning the experience of God's elect in the day when Christ
comes to you in his saving power, in the operations of his grace.
This is the day the Lord has made for you. This is the day
the Lord ordained for you from eternity. Ezekiel calls it, behold,
thy time was the time of love. Isaiah speaks of it here as that
day, that day. Oh, that day. Now, I'm not talking
about a literal 24-hour day. It's totally irrelevant that
you be able to point to a calendar and say, there was the day God
saved me. That's totally irrelevant. Totally irrelevant. In fact,
if you have to look for assurance by looking back to a time when
God saved you, you don't have any basis for assurance, and
I suspect you don't have any salvation either. I don't go
get my birth certificate out once a morning and prove to myself
I'm alive. I just, yep, I'm still kicking. I'm still breathing. And my birth certificate doesn't
have any way to give me any confidence that I have life. It's just a
record of the fact that I was born one day back 54 years ago. Now, when we talk about our day
of grace, the day God saves us by His grace, it's talking about
the time when God comes and makes Himself known. And there is a
time appointed when Jesus Christ will come in the saving operations
of His grace by the omnipotent power of His Spirit and save
His own. He will save them. He will, in
that day, make Himself known unto them. Now, having said that,
please understand, there's no getting around this fact, and
we rejoice in it, don't want to get around it. Salvation is
an eternal work. The covenant of grace is an everlasting
covenant. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. God loved us with
an everlasting love and chose us in his son before the world
began. Now there's no getting around
the fact that salvation is an eternal work. Known unto the
Lord are all his works from the beginning. Our God declares the
end from the beginning and all that he does in time in the power
of his grace and in the exercise of his providence, he does for
the saving of his people whom he loved with an everlasting
love. someday soon. The Lord Jesus will stand with
one foot on the earth and one foot on the sea and will declare
that time shall be no longer, that the mystery of God is finished. We read about it in Revelation
chapter 10. The Lord Jesus Christ will come and he will make a
new heavens and a new earth. And in that great day the dead
shall be raised, all the dead, all God's elect shall be gathered
unto God, holy, unblameable, unreprovable, without spot, without
wrinkle, or any such thing in His sight. All the wicked shall
be cast into hell, and this corruptible shall I put on incorruption.
And this mortal shall I put on immortality. Then shall be brought
to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory,
and we shall reign with Christ forever and ever. Now, I've already
said more about that day than I know. Those are just things
I know. I've said more than I understand.
And that day, the purpose of God in eternal election will
be fulfilled. We shall be like Christ. in every
detail of his glorious humanity. Those whom he loved with an everlasting
love and eternity past will in that day be glorified by him. The salvation that he has purposed
and now has wrought will be complete in that day. It is an eternal,
immutable, irresistible work of sovereign grace. And this
eternal work is a lifelong work. There is a real danger of looking
to the past. Let's not forget the past, but
let's not look to it. Salvation is believing God. Salvation is trusting Christ,
not having believed, not having trusted. It's not having come
to faith in Christ, it is coming to Christ in faith. I have been
saved. There was a day when God revealed
himself to me. I have been saved. There was
a time when God gave me faith in Christ. But my experiences
yesterday give me no hope today. I am being saved. I am trusting Christ. I am being
kept by the power of God. Salvation begins in our experience
of it in regeneration. It is continued in preservation,
and soon we shall be brought finally to the completion of
it in resurrection glory. Paul puts it this way, now is
our salvation nearer than when we believe. The hand of God goes
upon us from the womb to the tomb. The Lord Jesus Christ is
revealed in the hearts of chosen sinners when it pleases God. As God said concerning Simeon
of old, he shall not see death till he has seen the Lord's Christ. So it is said concerning God's
elect, not one of them shall see death until they have seen
the Lord's Christ. Maybe the reason God's kept you
out of hell this long is because today He will make you to see
the Lord's Christ. You and I who've experienced
His grace lived with hell in our hearts and hell
in our hands, hating God all our days. I can look back over my life
and I can tell you there's absolutely no way on this earth I could
have possibly survived the things I went through except that God
would not let me go to hell. That's all. I'm so thankful. He wouldn't
take no for an answer, aren't you? So thankful. He would not leave
me to myself. And now, being saved by His grace,
called by His power, we are kept by the power of God. I had a cousin when I was a young
man. I think I've told you this before. Came in one day with
my cousin by marriage. No suspicion that it would happen.
Walked in the house and shot my first cousin, his wife, dead. Just shot her. Blew her brains
out. Left his children. Was out of mom or dad, either
one. A fit of rage, anger. The only reason I haven't done
the same thing, because God won't let me. The only reason you haven't done
the same thing is a fit of anger. Oh, how quickly we give in to
uncontrolled temper. No wonder our God called it murder. Isn't it amazing how honest our
Lord is when He gets right down to us? But he restrains us and
keeps us by his hand. We are kept, kept from ourselves,
kept from the power of the wicked one, kept from the evil that's
in our hearts, kept in grace by the grace of God. God's people
in the bent of their lives don't misunderstand me. Somebody says,
well, the believer may be an ungodly man. I heard a preacher
one time talk about a fellow that died in a drunken stupor,
never been inside a church during his life, never darkened over
church, had no regard for God or anything like righteousness.
And he said, I was able to give hope to his family. His hopes
are as good as mine. He's in the hands of a sovereign
God. God's people, in the bent of their lives, live for God's
glory. But the evil of hell is in you,
just like it is in anybody else. And the thing that causes us
to seek Him and walk in paths of righteousness is He graciously
forces us to do so. And graciously inclines our hearts
to want it that way. We have come to Christ. We are
coming to Christ. And by the grace of God, we shall
come to Him. God will see to it. Yes. He will
keep me till the river rolls its waters at my feet. And then
He'll bear me safely over where my Savior I shall meet, no matter
what comes down the pike. No matter what comes down the
pike. And that He will do for every one of His own, no matter
what comes down the pike. And yet there is a day. appointed
by God when he makes himself known, a day when he comes to
Abraham and makes himself known to Abraham, I am thy God. There
is a day when he comes to Jacob and wrestles with Jacob. And
understand, Jacob didn't wrestle with him. The angel of the Lord
met Jacob and wrestled with Jacob, conquered Jacob. That's what
happens. When God comes to you in saving
power, He is going to wrestle you to the ground, make you confess
who you are, and He will reveal Himself to you. There was a day
when He met a man named Saul of Tarsus, a religious man, but
a man chosen of God. And Saul of Tarsus was made to
cry out, What wilt thou have me to do, Lord? Isaiah met him and said, I saw
the Lord high and lifted up. He sent an angel with tombs from
off the altar and purged my lips and your iniquities taken away
by virtue of the sacrifice you now see. Now look at verse 1. In that day, in that day, this
deliverance that he's talking about, this salvation he's talking
about was portrayed by the deliverance of the children of Israel out
of Egypt across the Red Sea, as we read in Exodus 15. And
that's what Isaiah has been talking about in the preceding chapter.
This Egyptian bondage and the deliverance of Israel out of
it was itself a marvelous picture of our experience of grace when
God comes to deliver our souls from the bondage of sin, from
the death of sin, from the curse of his holy law, consciously
to deliver us. God brought Israel out of Egypt
and gave them a deliverance by promise. You remember, before
Israel ever went down into Egypt, long before that happened, God
told Abraham, Your people are going to Egypt. I'm going to
send them there. And I'm going to make them bondmen to the Egyptians
for 400 years. And after 400 years, I'll bring
them out." It was a deliverance by promise and the deliverance
of every redeemed sinner. It's a deliverance by the promise
of God who cannot lie, who promised eternal life in Jesus Christ
before the world began. You can read it in Titus chapter
1 verse 2. It was a deliverance by price.
The Israelites who were brought out of Egypt across the Red Sea
were every one delivered because of a sacrificial lamb whose blood
was spilt on behalf of that man who put the blood on his door
over the doorpost in the letter. It was the blood of the lamb
that brought him out. God said the blood shall be to
you for a token. And this is the token. When I
see the blood, I will pass over you. And you who are delivered
by his grace have been delivered because the Passover lamb was
sacrificed for you. And God Almighty had his eye
on the blood for all eternity. And it was deliverance by power.
Moses said to Israel, stand ye still and see the salvation of
the Lord. I read that again in Exodus 15,
and I thought, man, what a statement. God calls the waters of the Red
Sea to stand up as a heap. This God has become my salvation. He calls the waters of the deep
to be congealed so that Israel walked across the Red Sea, not
dragging their carts through the mud, but as though they were
walking on freshly paved asphalt, hard as it could be. And then
Pharaoh and his armies are drowned in the sea. Power. What is the power that it takes
to cause a sinner to believe God? Some of you can relate to what
I'm saying. I tried so hard to believe, and I couldn't. I even tried to convince myself
I did when I didn't. I tried. I kept trying. I kept
trying. I couldn't. I couldn't. God Almighty breathed life in
my soul. And believing wasn't something
I tried to do, I just did. Kind of like breathing is now. What power does it take to cause
a dead sinner to believe? Resurrection power. The power
that raised Christ from the dead, that's the power it takes. So
the deliverance he's talking about here in that day is deliverance. God promised from eternity, Christ
purchased at Calvary and God works in time by his spirit. Thou hast worked, wrought all
our works in us, the prophet said in Isaiah 27. This is God's
work. Now read on, verse one again. Isaiah chapter 12, verse one.
In that day, thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise Thee. I will praise Thee. Because God
is my salvation, I will praise Him. The first thing we learn
in this chapter is this fact. When God visits His elect in
saving grace, they praise Him with joyful hearts and praise
Him alone. We rejoice in Christ Jesus and
have no confidence in the flesh. We glory in the Lord, only in
the Lord. The scriptures speak plainly.
Turn back to chapter 2 of Isaiah. Chapter 2, look at verse 11.
Those who know the Lord, those to whom God makes himself known,
are people visited by him and glory only in him. Isaiah 2,
verse 11. In that day, the lofty looks
of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall
be bowed down. And the Lord alone shall be exalted
in that day. Find me a sinner who's seen Christ
in His glory, to whom God has made Himself known, and a sinner
whom God has made to know His own self. For that sinner you can't preach
Christ too high and Him too low. It can't be. I don't have any
question at all. Some of you, when I start talking
about the depravity of the heart, some of you have been listening
to me for years. You still cringe and inside you say, that's not
me. I'm not that bad. I haven't begun to tell you how
bad you are yet. I've just scratched the surface. But for the person who knows
God in his glory, In His heart, He knows Himself
the chief of sinners. He knows there's no evil in the
world that's not in Him. And He knows God is all-glorious. And He cries, not unto us, not
unto us, O Lord, unto Thy name be glory, for Thy mercy and for
Thy truth's sake. Now, look at this word, praise.
You got a place in your Bible, a marginal place you can write
it down? The word is confess. The Lord has become my salvation. Oh, Lord, I will confess you. That's what prophets say. This
is what it is to call upon the name of the Lord. You know, people
quote Romans 10. Thou shalt confess with thy mouth
the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart God hath raised him
from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. Confess on Him. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. Call on the name of the Lord.
Go ahead and call on Him now. It's not talking merely about
repeating His name or reciting a prayer or reading off of a
card somebody wrote out for you. Oh, no, that's not calling on
His name. That's religious mumbo-jumbo that will just give you a little
delusion so you can go to hell thinking you're saved. That's
all on earth it is. To call on the name of the Lord
is to worship Him. To confess Him is to worship
Him, to worship Him. It has the idea of reaching out
the hands, wringing them with adoration, with gratitude, with
thankfulness, worship, worship. Can you imagine somebody who
has experienced some great deliverance. I have a good friend by the George
L. I've never met him, but he and I are good friends. He's
an author. I correspond with a good bit
in Germany. He just had a major heart surgery, emergency surgery
last week. I got a letter from him yesterday. He's doing much
better. But in the middle of this thing,
he fell out of bed. All these tubes tied to him and fell in
a bed next to him. Had gone through similar surgery.
And he tried to get nurses to come, tried to get them to come,
and they couldn't raise him. So he gathered up all his tubes
and machinery and made his way to the door to try to get to
the nurses. And he got the nurses' attention
when he fell over dead, tried to help my buddy out. Dropped
dead right there. Can you imagine what George would
do if he could see that fellow? I will praise Thee. I will confess
Thee. We confess Him in our hearts. It's a confession of heart-faith.
And those who have heart-faith confess Him before me invocally,
with their mouths, and they confess Him in the waters of baptism.
I will praise Thee, for Thou art become
my salvation. Now look what it says. though
thou wast angry with me." You ever been there? I know the
theologians, or fellows who think they are, like to wrangle and
fight and fuss. Oh, you can't. And when you say
this, you've got to explain that there was a time when God was
angry with his people. Another one says, oh, no, no,
no, no, no. No, don't dare say that. No, no, no, no, no. God
never was angry with his own. We believe in election, predestination.
Well, I do. I do. I understand that. But
Paul said we had the sentence of death in ourselves. We were, by nature, children
of wrath, even as others. And you know, There was a time
when I had no idea God was angry with me. I heard folks talk about me being
a cadet. And I was raised with enough teaching to understand
that I deserved to die because I stole a watermelon, or I lied
to my mom or daddy, or I skipped school, or things like that.
You know you've done wrong. If you do wrong, you're going
to go to hell. Yeah, all right. But I had no clue God Almighty
was angry with me until the commandment came, and sin revived, and I
died. And I had the sentence of death
in my soul. And my screaming conscience said,
you ought to be in hell now. Thou wast angry with me. Have
you ever been there? I want to tell you something.
Until you have known God's anger, you haven't known His mercy. If all you know about God's anger
is lit service and a word and a creed, that's all you know
about His grace. Thou wilt stay angry with me. Thine anger is turned away. Thine anger It's gone. Christ turned it away when He
reconciled me to God by His death at Calvary, by His precious blood. And when He gave me life and
grace by the power of His Spirit, caused me to look on His darling
Son, His anger was turned away from me. Try to picture those folks in
the Florida coastal areas as they've had one hurricane after
another. A small one comes, and a larger
one, and a larger one, and then here comes a storm. And all the
bridges are washed out. They're stuck here in this, right
in the path of the storm. They've already seen the house
blown over and they've already seen the neighbors drowned. They've
already seen others died. Here comes a storm and the weather
forecasters are telling them this is the most terrible hurricane
that's ever hit the shore yet and it's coming right here. And
the man is doing all he can and hides and cringes with his family
and then visibly he sees the storm turns from him. God's anger, He turned away from
me. When I looked to His darling
Son, the guilt of my sin was gone. My conscience that terrified
me spoke peace to my soul, for God the Holy Spirit speaks peace
to my soul. And Thou comfortest me. when I had the sentence of death
in myself. And I had the sense that God in His
holy justice was angry with me, terrified of me. You could talk to me about the
love of God till hell froze over, if I could use such language,
and I'd never be convinced. Never! People talk about God's
love so flippantly. You can't know God's love till
you've known His anger to be turned away from you in the sacrifice
of His darling son. And now, believing on Christ,
The love of God is shed abroad in my heart. Is that what Paul
said in Romans 5? By His Spirit, which is given
to us now. I'm convinced. I'm convinced. I'm convinced. Can I tell you again? Larry Chris,
I'm convinced in good times and bad, in health and in sickness,
in happiness and in sorrow, in pleasure and in pain, I am convinced
God Almighty in the totality of His holy being, in the totality
of His omnipotence. God Almighty is my Father in
heaven, and His heart is nothing but love for me. Mmm, I'm convinced. Thou comfortest
me. Now, look at verse 2. Behold,
God is my salvation. Well, it looks to me like this
is just reasonable then. I'll put my trust, I will trust
and not be afraid. For the Lord Jehovah is my strength. He's my salt. He also has become
my salvation. Look at verse three. Therefore, with joy shall you
draw water out of the wells of salvation. The Lord Jesus said,
if any man thirst, let him come to me, drink out of his belly
shall flow living water. He is a fountain of living water. Jeremiah says so. Solomon says
so. The wells of salvation. are the
pages of this blessed book, all the revelation of God, all the
word of His grace. I draw water out of this book,
the wells of salvation, believing Christ Jesus by faith and prayer. Find grace and mercy to help
in time of need, waters to refresh my soul. Waters of life. You know, that which is so contrary
to the flesh. Merle, you're about the most
steady, even-tempered, moderate man I've ever met in
my life. And I don't flatter you, I'm just telling you what
I observe and others do too. But when you really get something
that bothers you, I mean really bothers you, and you hide it
from Charlotte, and hide it from your pastor, and hide it from
your family, because it's just gnawing at you. The last thing
your flesh wants to do is go to this monk. You'd rather talk
to me than talk to God. Talk to Charlotte and talk to
God. You'd rather go see some fellow who doesn't know God and
talk to him. Anything. Anything. Because we want to
handle things ourselves. And when God finally fixes it,
so you got nowhere to go except to this deep well. Now, now. Oh, okay. That wasn't so bad after all.
I think I can make it another day. Draw water out of the wells
of salvation. Oh, children of God, ask God
to give you grace. God make it. So first thing I
do is give up and seek grace. Give up and seek mercy. Draw
water out of the wells of salvation. Look at verse 4. And in that
day you shall sing. Praise the Lord. Give God the
glory. Call on His name. Worship His
name. Worship His name. His name, the
name of Jesus. Oh, how sweet. I love its music
to me. His name. Worship his name. Declare his doings. Turn back
to Psalm 40. I'll show you. Declare his doings. Declare his doings among the
people. What's he talking about? Well,
I can declare any of his doings he want to, that's all right.
But the psalmist here tells us what our Lord Jesus said he declared.
This is what he declared of his father, now let us declare it
of him. Verse 9, he said, I have preached righteousness in the
great congregation. Lo, I have not refrained my lips,
O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness. That's the righteousness he's
talking about. I began the message by talking to you about utter
unrighteousness, indecency. But I didn't come here to preach
to you about your righteousness. You hadn't got any, and you can't
do any. I've come to declare righteousness in Christ Jesus
the Lord, thy righteousness. I have declared thy faithfulness. Oh. Have you heard what I've
said to you? God Almighty, my God, is faithful. I declared Christ thy salvation,
salvations of the Lord. And I've not concealed thy loving
kindness. Oh, his loving kindness. Oh,
how great. And thy truth from the great
congregation declared your truth, your son, your word, your truth.
Now look back at Isaiah 12. Look at his last two verses. Sing unto the Lord. Sing to Him,
sing about Him. Speaking to yourselves in psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in
your heart to the Lord. Sing about who He is, what He
is, what He's done. Sing to Him. Sing unto the Lord,
for He hath done excellent things. He has worked out an excellent
salvation with excellent righteousness, by an excellent sacrifice, with
excellent glory, finally bringing us into heavenly glory. This
is known in all the earth, the gospel we preach. is that
which God uses through all the earth, so that wherever His people
are, this is what we believe. This is what we believe. Folks
sometimes ask me, what are you preaching to go to these other
places? Same thing I preach to you. Same
thing I preach to you. Why? How do you know folks are
ready for it? Man, if they're gods, they're
ready for it. And if they're not, they need to get ready. Declare His truth. Read on. Cry out and shout. Thou inhabitant of Zion, I say
to my soul and I say to you, free-born citizens of Zion, brought
up in Zion, fixed in Zion, cry out and shout for great is the
Holy One of Israel. Great. He is great. He shall be great. How great
thou art in the midst of them. I read some time ago about a
fellow who had died who was a wealthy man, very wealthy. And he was
an art collector. This is, I've forgotten whether
it's First World War era or the second, but he was an art collector.
And he had in his collection some very rare, rare paintings,
some Picassos, Da Vinci's, Rembrandts. He had some rare. rare pictures,
very wealthy man. And then he had another one that
hung always right in front of him in his office. It was a picture
of his son who had been killed in war defending his nation,
defending his father and his father's children and family
nation. It was a portrait done by an
amateur, but it was a fellow soldier. rough, didn't really
bear much likeness to him, but it was a portrait of his son.
And when he died, they announced that his estate would be sold
and they announced pictures, portraits would be sold. And,
of course, lots of folks were there, wanted to bid on these
things. And the first thing up was that
portrait. of that man's son. Wasn't much
to look at, not to anybody except that man. And folks kind of grumbled,
all these rich folks who thinks we want one of those things.
The auctioneer went through his sing-song that auctioneers do,
and he couldn't raise anything. Finally, somebody bid $5, and
he couldn't get it to go a penny above $5. And they sold it, and
folks got all excited, and the auctioneer said, the auction
is closed. Well, folks were upset, grumbling. One fellow stood up,
and he said, what about all these pictures, these portraits we've
come to bid on? And the man said, according to
the will of the deceased, whoever wants this portrait of my son
gets everything with that. Behold, God the Christ is become
my salvation. And with Him, God gives me everything. Everything.