WWUTT 1899 Yahweh is My Strength and My Salvation (Isaiah 12:1-13:22)

We're reading two chapters from Isaiah today. In one chapter, we are reminded of how

God is our salvation. And in the next chapter, we are reminded He is still a righteous judge when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, teaching through a New Testament book on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, an

Old Testament book on Thursday, and a Q &A on Friday. With our Old Testament study today, here's

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. And being Thursday, we are in our Old Testament study in the book of Isaiah.

Today we set in on chapter 12, which is a much shorter chapter, just six verses. And we'll see how far we get into chapter 13 as well.

But let me begin by reading the first six verses of Isaiah 12 out of the Legacy Standard Bible.

Hear the word of the Lord. Then you will say in that day, I will give thanks to you,

O Yahweh, for although you were angry with me, your anger is turned away, and you comfort me.

Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not dread, for Yah, Yahweh Himself, is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation.

Therefore you will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation, and in that day you will say,

Give thanks to Yahweh, call on His name, make known His deeds among the peoples.

Make them remember that His name is exalted. Praise Yahweh in song, for He has done majestic things.

Let this be known throughout the earth. Cry aloud and shout for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the

Holy One of Israel. Now remember, coming off of chapter 11, what we're singing about here in chapter 12 is that the

Lord has come, that we are in Christ, that He reigns, that He is enthroned over all of creation.

This would have been after His death, after His resurrection, His ascension into heaven, and He is enthroned on high.

And we will say in that day, I will give thanks to you, O Yahweh.

Now once again, as I mentioned last week, this is not in reference to a future millennial kingdom. This is something present.

This is something right now that we are experiencing. Because remember what we read in chapter 11 is that the nations will seek after Him.

That is not some future reality. That's going on now. That's been going on since the spread of the gospel.

So the gospel is going out into all the earth. There are people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, as we read about in Revelation, that are seeking the

Lord, that are singing His praise, that come to faith in Jesus Christ and are saved.

So it is in that very day, which would be our present day, that we celebrate

God for His goodness. I will give thanks to you, O Yahweh, for although you were angry with me, your anger is turned away and you comfort me.

How is it that the Lord's anger is turned away from us? Because of what

Christ has done for us. By His death on the cross, He has taken the wrath of God upon Himself and God's anger is turned away.

Remember John 3 .36, He who has the Son has life. He who does not obey the

Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. The anger of God is against those who do wickedness every day.

As it's said in Psalm 7, I believe this is verse 11, that God feels indignation every day toward those who do wickedness.

And that's who we were. We were in that unrighteous state. We were in a constant state of rebellion against God, committing cosmic treason against the

King of the universe, and His anger was toward us. But as is said in Romans 3, by His divine forbearance,

He looked past former sins. He looked over those sins. That's kind of like Passover language there.

He passes over our sins in that Christ's blood has covered us.

So the judgment of God that would be upon us because of our sin against God, He does not count that against us.

Christ has paid it, and therefore His anger is turned away from us. Although you were angry with me, your anger is turned away and you comfort me.

In Christ Jesus, we are not the objects of God's anger. We are the objects of His mercy and His grace and His love.

Because we have become the children of God, we have been adopted into His family as His children.

As it says in 1 John 3, how great the love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God, and so we are.

We go on in verse 2 to read, Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not dread.

Or the translation I grew up reading from and memorizing this out of, it was,

I will trust and not be afraid. For Yah, Yahweh Himself, is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation.

You recognize that in Christ Jesus, God has gone from being our judge to our deliverer.

From being the one whose anger was against us, to now being the one whose love is upon us.

He has saved us. He saved us from Himself. And really, when we call Jesus Savior, that's ultimately what we are declaring.

When we recognize that Jesus has saved us, we declare that first and foremost

Christ has saved us from Himself. God is holy.

He is righteous. He is just. For Him to pour out His wrath on us,

He would be right in doing so. But He sent His Son Jesus to die for our sins, so that His blood would cover us.

As John the Baptist called Him, behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

And the Apostle Paul referred to Him as our Passover Lamb, who has been sacrificed.

He has become my salvation. Verse 3 goes on to say,

Therefore you will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation.

That reminds me of the words Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4.

If you knew who was asking you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.

He said to the woman, whoever draws from this water will be thirsty again, but whoever draws from the water that I give him will never thirst, but that water will well up to a spring of eternal life.

I have to wonder if Jesus was quoting somewhat from Isaiah 3 there. You will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation.

And in that day you will say, give thanks to Yahweh, call on His name, make known

His deeds among the peoples, make them remember that His name is exalted.

And sure enough, that is our current day. Just as Jesus had said to the woman at the well, a day is coming and is now here when you will worship

God neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. Worship will happen all over the place, in spirit and truth, for these are the worshippers that the

Father is seeking. And we give thanks to Him. We call on His name.

We make known His deeds among the peoples, spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, so that others who hear of it may come to faith and believe and be saved.

Verse 5, praise Yahweh in song, for He has done majestic things. Let this be known throughout the earth.

Cry aloud and shout for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the

Holy One of Israel. That is Jesus Christ, and He is in our midst even now.

As He said to His disciples, I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. And again to His disciples, behold,

I am with you always to the very end of the age. And so we know that Christ is with us even now.

He is in our midst. He tabernacles among us,

His Holy Spirit dwelling within us. Now that concludes chapter 12 of Isaiah.

I wish I had included chapter 12 with last week's lesson as we finished up 11, because it would have gone better there.

Chapter 13 represents quite a turning point here, as from chapters 13 through 23, we read prophecies as to foreign nations.

The 13th and 14th chapters here are in reference to Babylon and Assyria. Listen to John Gill's note on this particular section.

This is referred to as the burden of Babylon, because what we have here in chapter 13, verse 1, is the oracle concerning Babylon, which

Isaiah the son of Amoz beheld. Oracle is most rightly interpreted burden. And so here's what

Gill says. The burden of Babylon, that is a prophecy concerning Babylon, as the word is rendered.

The Septuagint and Arabic versions translate it, the vision. It signifies a taking up with a speech against it.

And pronouncing a heavy sentence on it, such as one as should sink it into utter destruction, which will be the case of mystical

Babylon, when it shall be a millstone cast into the sea never to be brought up again, Revelation 18 21.

So as we have just read in chapter 12, how the word of the Lord is a salvation to us.

It is sweet to the ears who love God and desire to do righteousness. Those who do wickedly, the word of the

Lord is a burden to them. It is dreadful to hear what God would say to those who do wickedly and the judgment that will come upon them.

Here is Gill once again, after some prophecies concerning the Messiah and his kingdom and the church's song of praise for salvation by him, others are delivered out concerning the enemies of the people of God and their destruction.

And begin with Babylon, the chief of these enemies and into whose hands the people of Israel would be delivered for a while.

Wherefore this prophecy is given forth in order to lay a foundation for comfort and relief when that should be their case, by which it would appear that they should have deliverance from them by the same hand that should overthrow them.

So here we go. As I begin reading in Isaiah chapter 13, starting in verse one, the

Oracle concerning Babylon, which Isaiah, the son of Amoz beheld, lift up a standard on the

Bear Hill, heighten your voice at them, wave the hand that they may enter the doors of the nobles.

I have commanded my set apart ones. I have even called my mighty warriors, my proudly exalting ones to execute my anger.

A sound of tumult on the mountains, like that of many people, a sound of the rumbling of kingdoms of nations gathered together.

Yahweh of hosts is mustering the host for battle. They are coming from a far country, from the end of the sky,

Yahweh and his instruments of indignation to wreak destruction on the whole land.

Wail for the day of Yahweh is near. It will come as destruction from the almighty.

Therefore all hands will fall limp and every man's heart will melt. They will be terrified.

Pains and labor pangs will take hold of them. They will writhe like a woman in labor.

They will look at one another in astonishment, their faces aflame. Behold the day of Yahweh is coming, cruel with fury and burning anger to make the land a desolation and he will exterminate its sinners from it.

For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not flash forth their light.

The sun will be dark when it rises and the moon will not shed its light. Thus I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity.

I will also put an end to the pride of the arrogant and bring low the lofty pride of the ruthless.

I will make mortal man scarcer than fine gold and mankind than the gold of Ophir.

Therefore I will make the heavens tremble and the earth will be shaken from its place at the fury of Yahweh of hosts in the day of his burning anger.

And it will be that like a hunted gazelle or like sheep with none to gather them, they will each turn to his own people and each one flee to his own land.

Anyone who is found will be pierced through and anyone who is captured will fall by the sword.

Their infants also will be dashed to pieces before their eyes. Their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished.

And just as that is the description of destruction that would come against Babylon, so we see that kind of destruction coming against even our nation today, do we not?

Are our infants not being dashed to pieces before our very eyes with the holocaust of abortion that has swept this land over the last 50 plus years?

Houses that are being plundered, they don't really belong to us, they belong to the government. You know, if you think about it, you could finish your mortgage, you could pay your house off.

And does it really belong to you? No, because if you don't pay your taxes, guess who takes it from you?

The government, they own it. So your houses don't even really belong to you. Your wives ravished.

We see what this nation is doing to women, how wickedly feminism and the

LGBTQ movement have ravished women. So this is the kind of judgment that God has brought against spiritual

Babylon, even here in the United States of America. So we go on into verse 17 to read, behold,

I am going to awaken the Medes against them who will not think about silver or take pleasure in gold and their bows will dash the young men to pieces.

They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, nor will their eye pity children.

And it will be that Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the honor of the Chaldeans pride will be as when

God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, it will never be inhabited or dwelt in from generation to generation, nor will the

Arab pitch his tent there, nor will shepherds make their flocks lie down there. But desert creatures will lie down there and their houses will be full of owls.

Ostriches also will dwell there and shaggy goats will leap there and hyenas will howl from their fortified towers and jackals in their luxurious palaces.

Her fateful time also will soon come and her days will not be prolonged.

Now this is an Oracle concerning the destruction of Babylon that was coming against Israel, though God would use

Babylon to punish Judah because of their wickedness, because they had worshipped false gods, because they had dealt in sexual immorality.

So God was going to bring judgment against Judah. But it's not as if the Babylonians were going to escape a judgment of their own.

God would bring judgment against them and leave the land so desolate that the only creatures that would inhabit it were the would be the creatures of the wild, full of owls.

Ostriches will dwell there. Shaggy goats will leap their hyenas and jackals. Her fateful time also will come soon and her days will not be prolonged.

And so if God decides to judge the United States of America before the day of the

Lord, before Christ returns and he brings wrath and judgment on it with angels of flaming fire as talked about in second

Thessalonians chapter one. If a judgment of God were to come upon America before that, he could very well raise up another nation to come against the

US, just as it's talked about here, as the Medes will come against them.

So God was going to use Babylon to judge Judah, but then he would use the Medes to judge

Babylon. Now again, this is a prophecy that's being made a hundred years before it takes place.

So the judgment that Babylon brings upon Judah was surely to come. And then shortly after that, the Medes would come against Babylon.

If you'll remember, Daniel was in service to the Babylonian court, and then after the

Medes took over, he became a wise man in the court of the Medes. So this is how the

Lord moves these pieces about, uses these nations to do his will. And God is just in all of these things.

When the Babylonians had their way with the people of God, this caused

Habakkuk to ask of the Lord. How long, O Yahweh, will

I call for help, and you will not hear? I cry out to you, violence, yet you do not save.

Why do you make me see wickedness and cause me to look on trouble? Indeed, devastation and violence are before me, and there is strife and contention is lifted up.

Therefore the law is ignored, and justice never comes forth, for the wicked surround the righteous.

Therefore justice comes forth perverted. You know, the argument that Habakkuk raises in his short prophetic book is that, yeah,

I know that we did evil. Judah had worshipped false gods. We saw all the wickedness that happened among them.

I get it. But the Chaldeans, or the Babylonians, are way worse than we are. So why are you allowing this to happen?

Why are you bringing this about? How long am I going to call to you violence? Are you going to do anything about this?

And the Lord responds in verse 5, See among the nations, and look.

Be also astonished, be astounded, because I am doing something in your days you would not believe, even if it was recounted to you.

Now this brings me back to a lesson that I had taught yesterday when we were going through the genealogy of Christ in Matthew chapter 1.

Mankind means all kinds of things for evil, but God means it for good.

And just because God is able to bring good out of our evil, just because he even intends some of the evil things that we do to have some ultimate good come out of it, that does not excuse our evil.

That doesn't mean that we can just go on doing evil because, hey, doesn't that just mean the glory of God is all the further displayed?

No, we did not have good intentions with our evil. And God's judgment against those who do wickedly is just.

We must turn from our sin to the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. But do not doubt in these days, in the evil that you see going on around us, that God is not at work.

As again, as I said yesterday, we read from Romans 8, 28. For God works all things together for good for those who love

God and are called according to his purpose. Continue to hold fast to Christ that we may sing as we've just read in Isaiah 12.

The Lord has become my strength and my salvation.

Let me finish with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this reminder of salvation that we have here.

Your anger was against us because we had done wickedly like the rest of mankind, as said in Ephesians 2, 1 through 3.

But God was gracious and merciful to us. You didn't leave us dead in your sins, but you made us alive together with Christ so that you have become our salvation.

Let us sing all the more of this and tell it to the nations that they may know Christ as Savior and live.

Teach us to trust you in these days, no matter how wickedly we see things happening around us or even the evil that happens to us.

We do not doubt the work that you are doing. And that through Jesus Christ, you are making peace by the blood of his cross,

Colossians 1 .20, and bringing us into your presence in glory forever.

It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes.

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