My Strength and My Song

We continue on in Isaiah 12, if you want to go ahead and turn there.

And so, as I've been reminding you each week, we're in a section of Isaiah that's especially focused on the coming

Assyrian assault on Israel and on Judah.

And people have allied themselves with foreign powers, which God would not have, and

so he is punishing the people by sending them.

But at this point in this section, which goes from chapter 7 all the way here to chapter 12, at this point you

have some words of hope.

And here in chapter 12, we've kind of reached the climax.

If you think of Isaiah as being broken up into different chapters that are different than the ones the people who

actually came up with the chapter numbers came up with, you can imagine this as being chapter—7 through 12—being chapter

2 of like a good -sized chapter.

And this is the climax of chapter 2, right here, what we'll be looking at.

So if you'll go ahead and stand for the reading of God's word, we'll begin.

You may be seated.

God, I ask that you would bless the proclamation of your word this day.

We thank you for the word we heard earlier, and we thank you for this passage here.

I pray that you would uphold me and that you would open the ears of the hearers in the congregation, that they might

see the goodness of you and of your salvation, of your Son and his Spirit.

In Jesus' name, amen.

So beginning with a question, I'd like to ask you, what is your song?

What is your song?

Now, what I'm asking is not what is your favorite song or what is your theme song.

When I was… I used to be involved in Campus Crusade, and whenever one of the regular staff would come up, they would

always have a theme song for them.

So, you know, whenever this guy came up, they would always hit play his particular song.

That's not what I'm asking.

What is your source of strength, your source of joy?

What is your song?

And this is a phrase that people still use, people talk about their husband being their song or their

children being their song.

You know, it's their reason for getting up in the morning.

So what is your song?

Is it a hobby?

Is it family like that?

And then after you've answered that question, what does your song sound like if you were to imagine it as a real

song?

Would it be a loud song, a quiet song?

Would it be in a major key?

Would it be in a minor key?

Would it be really quiet?

Would it be perhaps no song at all?

In this passage, Isaiah declares that God is his song, and that God is the song of all

who have trusted in him.

And this song is not in a minor key.

It is in a major key.

It is a loud song.

It's a strengthening song.

This is declaration.

This is a song that we ought to be singing in our hearts, and we ought to be calling others to sing with us.

So as we go through, I want us to see that God is salvation to all who trust in him, and that

this needs to be our song, both inwardly and outwardly.

Both inwardly and outwardly.

It begins in verse 1.

You will say in that day, I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were

angry with me, your anger turned away that you might comfort me.

God was angry with his people.

God was quite angry with them, as I mentioned before.

They had lied themselves with foreign powers.

They had decided to not trust in the Lord and to instead trust Syria, trust Assyria, trust

all these different foreign powers.

This is used by the Holy Spirit who wrote these scriptures essentially

as an analogy for any kind of trust in something other than the Lord.

When you trust in yourself, you're not trusting in the Lord.

You might as well be trusting in a foreign power.

You yourself are not a nation that goes and makes alliances with other nations, but you make alliances with worldly

forces all the time.

And one who makes alliances with with worldly forces and does not—and that person

abandons the Lord.

We must have the Lord only as our hope.

And those who have abandoned the Lord, he is angry with them.

Those who have made alliances with other things, he has a great wrath against them.

You wonder why is it that so many people hate the Lord?

Why is it that so many, so many even literal songs in the world are

full of death and anger?

The reason is because God is against them.

They are not allied with God, and so in being allied with the world, they are against him.

And the only song that one has to sing is a dirge, a dirge being a song that you would sing on the

way to a funeral.

This is the song of all those who do not trust in the Lord, is one of death.

We are all doomed to die, and there will be no glorious resurrection for those who trust in themselves and do not

trust in the Lord.

But you will say in that day, I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for your anger turned

away so that you might comfort me.

Those who trust in the Lord, his anger has turned away.

And we know, we have been talking in the previous weeks about when this is.

He begins, you will say, in that day.

What is that day?

Look at verse 10 of chapter 11.

In that day, the root of Jesse.

Verse 11 of chapter 11.

In that day, the Lord will extend.

We spoke about this.

When does the root of Jesse arise and as a signal call the people to himself?

That is when Jesus Christ, on the cross, is a beacon for many nations to

come to him.

That is when that day is.

In that day, people will no longer ally themselves with worldly things.

They will come to the Lord.

If you have trust in the Lord, this is a picture of your life, that you have turned from

worldly things and you come to trust in him alone, to trust in that signal that has been raised

up, the root of Jesse.

Jesse's son, David, and his son far after him, Jesus Christ.

And for those who have not trusted in the Lord, this is

precisely what they do not have.

They do not have a reason to thank the Lord because he is still angry with them.

He has not turned to comfort them.

But God is merciful and good, and so while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

You know, it's interesting here.

It says, your anger turned away that you might comfort me.

His anger turned away so that he could comfort us.

There's a lot going on here in Isaiah.

He is angry because he must be angry, because he is holy.

If he is holy, he cannot allow sin to stand.

He must be angry at it.

Yet at the same time, he cares for his own people.

And so how can he comfort them if he is still angry with them?

He answers the issue of his own wrath by sending his son to

bear that wrath so that he is still a holy God, he is still just.

His wrath is poured out on his son.

And thus, Father, Son, and Spirit comfort, are able to comfort the people,

their people.

Now, in order that they may comfort, in order that you may comfort me,

what I would like to stress—and I say this often, so hopefully this is not new to you—but the cross

accomplished so much more than forgiveness.

The cross was not Jesus' death and resurrection, that whole picture.

Jesus did not go through this perfect life, die, be

resurrected again, just so that we might have forgiveness.

But that forgiveness is just stage one in that process of comforting us.

His anger turned away—that's forgiveness—so that he might comfort us.

God has much planned for his people instead of mere forgiveness.

Imagine if you were up to your eyeballs in debt

and you had to declare bankruptcy, and someone came and paid your debt.

And so now that's great, your debt is gone, but you have absolutely zero.

You have zero wealth, you just have the clothes on your back.

How would you be able to come up out of that?

Now, assuming you don't have any friends or any network of support, there's no way you can get a

job in that condition that you're in without, you know, being able to shower, have clothes, etc.

You just have no hope.

God is doing more than just putting us back at zero.

He is great comfort, a great salvation that goes beyond mere forgiveness.

And so that salvation must be our song.

It must be our song.

Verse two.

Behold, God is my salvation.

I will trust and will not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and my song.

He has become my salvation.

God has become my salvation.

God, like I said, is judgment on all those who do not trust in him.

For those who trust in him, he is instead salvation to them.

Paul captures this in 2 Corinthians when he says that the gospel is a fragrance of life

to those who believe it, and it's a fragrance of death to those who do not believe it.

You wonder why there's such a visceral negative reaction to good

news.

The answer is because it is not good news to those who trust in him because salvation comes through

judgment of the world.

In fact, you know, this whole next section of Isaiah, you know, I said we're kind of closing up the second major section of

Isaiah.

The next section we're going to go into is going to talk about how God provides that salvation, but it's going to talk about it

only in terms of judgment, that he's going to be judging the nations.

You're going to have the oracles of all the different nations—Babylon, Assyria, etc .—and this is,

once again, a picture of salvation, but not focusing on it being

life to those who trust in him, but focusing on it being death to those who do not.

Lord God is my strength, my song.

God, if you have put your trust in him, he is your source of endurance.

He is means by which you can continue on.

He is your reason for getting up in the morning.

He will hold you up through every sorrow,

through every persecution, through every affliction,

and he can be your song.

He can be your joy.

I would like you to consider

this phrase.

Is it memorable?

Hopefully it is, because we just read it when I read Psalm 118.

For the Lord is my strength and my song.

He has become my salvation.

That was there in Psalm 118, but that's not the first time this was used, and Isaiah is also not the

first time this phrase is used.

This comes from Exodus 15.

I'd like you to go ahead and turn there if you could.

Exodus 15.

Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed

gloriously.

The horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.

The Lord is my strength and my song.

He has become my salvation.

This is my God, and I will praise him.

My Father is God, and I will exalt him.

The Lord is a man of war.

The Lord is his name.

This is the song of Moses.

That's where that phrase comes from.

Now, if you were here last week, I'm hoping that maybe you might be connecting a few dots.

If you remember, the focus last week was on a second Exodus, that Isaiah is prophesying that God

will again save the people, and he pictured them as coming over the river Euphrates and

over the Nile, just as they went over the Red Sea.

And all the nations of the earth gathering to him.

And here we have a continuation of that picture, because what happens?

What is it that happens after God saves the people?

They sing this song.

They're filled with joy, and it is the reason for living, the reason for everything.

This is why there's a preface to the Ten Commandments.

You know, that's—the catechism goes through all the different Ten Commandments, and it makes sure to include the preface, because the

preface is so important.

It's, I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

That is the strength to obey the Ten Commandments.

That is the strength to do it with joy in your heart.

God is a glorious song to those who have been saved by him.

To those Israelites who came out of the Red Sea, who saw a horse and rider thrown into the sea,

they had no hope apart from God, and with him they had a glorious

future, a wonderful song to sing in their hearts and out loud.

Isaiah continues on in verse 3.

With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

When you think of water in a well of salvation, what my mind first goes to is John 4, where

Jesus talks to the Samaritan woman at the living water so that she

would never be thirsty.

That's the water that this is talking about.

It is that well of salvation.

I think a lot of people, even a lot of Christians, you know, are very dry and without joy.

Why is that?

It is a lack of drawing water from this well of salvation.

You know, the more we enjoy Jesus Christ through the means he has given us,

the more we have that living water, this water that keeps us from being thirsty.

I think many people are like a foolish man sitting beside a well, dying of thirst,

who doesn't just dip into the well.

Jesus is full of mercy.

He is full of love and compassion and grace and truth.

There is so much to be had from drawing from those wells of salvation.

If you find yourself dry and lacking joy, ask yourself whether or not you're taking advantage of the

means God has given you, of the Word he's given you, of the access to the Father he's given you through prayer.

He is accessible.

He is available.

He is our strength and song.

Just consider again how lacking in joy the world is.

And this is an opportunity we have to have a great joy, a joy that even the world will see.

And we see that in verse 4.

So this song is not just something that sits in our hearts and is isolated, but

it is instead something that overflows so that God's people call out.

And there's something else that's going on here, too, that I want to call your attention to, and I think your ESV should

footnote this even.

But in verse 1, it's a little interesting because it says, you will say in that day, and the you is singular.

You can't see that in English, but I think even if you were looking at a King James Bible, you'd be able to see that there's a difference in the kind of

these and thou's that are used.

But you, singular, will say in that day.

So there's kind of this poetic way that Isaiah is escalating the level of joy that's going on.

You know, if I were a more confident and charismatic speaker, you know, I might like run over here and

tell one person, you know, God is your salvation.

You know, if this mic worked at that range.

And then, you know, come back and say, God is your salvation, you know, to all of you.

Right?

There's a poetic way that Isaiah is illustrating this truth to us and

describing, you know, this bursting forward from one man in himself to

all the people, sharing it with others.

So now that this, now that they have the water from the well of salvation, it is overflowing from themselves

to others.

And so they call others, give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name.

This is a call to worship.

You know, we begin every service with a call to worship, and we read from the scriptures, and we

call people to worship the Lord.

Now, we call particularly those who can hear, who are already present to worship the Lord, but it

is a call to the whole, all the nations to come worship the Lord.

He is good.

He is merciful to all who trust in him.

He has provided a great sacrifice in Jesus Christ.

And that overflow is, that is

part of this picture of strength.

You know, if you find yourself lacking, you know,

lacking enough joy and love to accommodate others,

um, you know, for example, you're a parent.

You've got kids to deal with.

You've got a spouse to deal with.

You have to just give, give, give, love, love, love.

Where are you going to get all that love to give?

You, as a finite person, probably don't have enough.

You need love that's overflowing from a God who has an infinite store

so that you could overflow and share with others.

And this joy, of course, it's not just to share with a family, but to share with the world.

It's kind of a theme that's been coming up in the previous passages, and something I've been pointing to is that,

you know, if, as you think about your interaction with the world and your desire to

evangelize, your desire to share the good news, think about how good the good news is to you, and how

much joy do you have in it.

And that will probably explain your participation in evangelism.

If you, uh, yeah, if you lack a heart that desires to share with others, then it is

because the degree to which you have drawn water from that salvation is

limited.

And God has, has designed salvation in such a way that though, though he saves us, though he gives us living

water from the moment we are born again, he desires us to continue coming

back to these living waters, to rely on him throughout this life until we are finally with him

in body.

Verse 5.

Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously.

Let this be made known in all the earth.

Shout and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst

is the Holy One of Israel.

Now, I suppose it's not certain, but I think it here, at this point, the speaker's changed.

So in verse 4, it said, and you will say in this day, so he's telling Israel, they will call to the world.

And now I believe Isaiah himself is speaking, and I believe the reason he's to say that is because in verse 6,

when he's addressing, O inhabitant of Zion, I think he's going back to that singular you at the beginning of this passage.

And so this is, he's saying, you will call people to salvation in that day, and right now I am, I am

calling people to come praise the Lord.

Notice also here, this says, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

God's presence is very important here in this passage.

You know, this Holy One of Israel being this phrase that Isaiah uses frequently to

emphasize God's holiness.

This Holy One that is destruction to all his enemies is a salvation to those who

can dwell with him in peace, who have been granted the means by which to

dwell with him in peace.

And if you remember the start of this section of Isaiah in chapter 7, that was where the prophecy of

Emmanuel was given, God with us.

And that came up again and again in chapters 8 and 9.

You have repeated statements of God coming to dwell

with the people, the prophecy that God will come and dwell with the people.

And so I don't think this is one that is often read around Christmas time, like

Isaiah 7 or Isaiah 9, but this is appealing back to the same promise.

This is appealing back to that promise that God would dwell with his people.

And in this whole section where I have statements about the root of Jesse standing as a signal,

when it talks about God dwelling in your midst, it is talking about the presence of Jesus

Christ.

He has come.

He dwelt with his people.

He provided salvation.

And because of that, we have reason to sing.

And in dying on the cross and providing salvation for the elect, he has come and

dwelt in us by his spirit, and we have his presence now.

We have his presence.

He is with us individually, he is with us corporately, and we have much, much,

much reason to sing.

There is a world watching us.

You know, right before I walked out here, I looked up a statistic on

depression, just to see what it says.

It says that in the U .S., 7 % of people have major depressive disorders.

I don't know what exactly is entailed in that number, but I probably don't even have to tell you a statistic to let you know that

it is a major problem that exists today.

And with the state of the world and the way technology

tends to isolate people, there's a lot of… there's just a

lot of depression.

There's a lot of lack of joy, and people distract themselves for a little while, but

they don't find joy.

And of course, that is all exacerbated in….

I say of course.

I believe it's exacerbated in affluent areas, and I don't have a statistic to hand you, but

hopefully that resonates with you, that in affluent areas, that's especially exacerbated.

And we live in a very, very affluent area.

Think about how much of this your testimony is, what your song is, what your joy is.

What is your song?

What do people hear when you go by?

What song is playing?

And if it is a joy that they don't know, that they don't experience, that despite affliction,

despite the sorrows that you have and encounter, that you have an overwhelming joy because

God has taken you across the Nile and across the Euphrates, back to Jerusalem, think

about how much of a wonderful testimony that is to those who watch.

Think about your children as they are raised up in your home, what they will remember of your home.

There's a lot they're going to forget, but they will remember your song.

It will play in their ears.

They will know what your song was, and was it a marvelous joy and the

salvation that your God provided through Jesus Christ's death, burial, and resurrection.

And I pray that it will be, and I pray that anyone who listens to this message and does not have that joy

will find it through trusting in Jesus Christ.

Let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, you have given us a beautiful song in Jesus Christ, and I pray that he would be

our song, that he would be our salvation and our strength.

God, I pray we thank you for your mercies, and we pray that you would help us to sing this

song loudly so that the earth might hear it, the far, far reaches of the earth.

In Jesus' name, Amen.