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Isaiah: Book of Good News!

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Pray this morning for, continue to pray for Jodi Knapp. We've been praying for her for a long time, of course.
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Time of grief and loss of Bob, but more she's just really having a difficult time adjusting to life in the nursing home, as you could certainly understand.
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Very discouraged, so pray for Jodi. Thank the Lord for Allison and Max's new baby girl,
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Josie Lynn. She was born Friday morning, so let's see.
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I'm looking for Dan, well, you know, there's some other. I'm sure everybody's okay, all well and healthy.
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That was the last report I heard, so that's good. Continue to pray for them. All right, other requests this morning to pray for?
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Yes, Jerry, okay, how old is he?
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All right, pray for Jake. Yes, Karen, and for Dean, yeah, don't get a resurgence, yeah.
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So Dean Kinnaman recovering from COVID, and Karen too has been sick, so pray for them.
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Anybody else? All right, well, let's pray together, shall we?
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We thank you, Father, for this Lord's Day. Thank you for the opportunities you've given to us today to gather as your people, to have our hearts and our minds ready to hear and receive your word.
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And I pray that as it's open today in the different venues, in the
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Sunday school classrooms, in the morning service, in the children's church time, at the
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Hemmons tonight. I just pray that in all of these opportunities for the word to be open, that our hearts and minds indeed would be.
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We would receive that which you have for us today. We would receive it eagerly, and gratefully, and responsibly.
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We do pray for these persons who are hurting today. We continue to pray for Jodi, and just pray that you would encourage her.
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Father, she has been through so much in this last year and a half. And now in a completely new home environment, and one that settled upon her mind and heart is her permanent place.
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And I just pray that you would help her to make that adjustment, not only physically, but just emotionally.
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And I pray that in this time, she could grow in her trust in you, and her confidence that you, her
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Heavenly Father, do indeed work all things well. We pray for Allison and Josie.
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Thank you for the health of both. Just pray you continue to give strength and health to the body.
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And Father, we pray for Dean, and pray that you would strengthen him in recovering from COVID.
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For Jake, who has it right now, I just pray that he would recover without any complications.
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Father, we pray also for Karen, that you continue to strengthen her. Father, this sickness so often comes with lingering fatigue.
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So I pray that these, your people, would know your strength. Thank you for how you've blessed
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Chris and given her some healing. Just pray for these last few aspects of healing, that these would come quickly.
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And you'd relieve the pain in her hands and give strength to them.
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Again, Father, we pray, meet with us during this day. And we ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.
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All right, well, I don't know about you, but I am not the perfect parent.
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If you don't believe that, just ask my wife and she will assert that that is the case.
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And I will tell you something, where is she? She's not in here, good. She's not either.
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And I tell you what, I'm looking out here across the congregation and I see several people who are also parents.
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And I got a good hunch that there's not one of them in here that could say, yeah, I was a perfect parent, I am a perfect parent.
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No, not at all. And one of our imperfections as parents is that, it has to do with our discipline, the way we discipline our kids.
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Our child does something wrong, disobeys you, rebels against you in some way.
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Maybe spouts off something in a sass, got this kind of an attitude thing.
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And the child needs to be disciplined, and rightly so. And so what often happens with us as parents is we feel the temperature rising, the blood pressure, and the aggravation, and rightly meet forth the discipline.
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And most, almost all of the time, I'm quite confident, we're able to bridle the justified anger.
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I've often heard the advice to parents, don't ever exercise discipline when you're angry.
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I would couch that a little differently. I would nuance that and say, don't ever discipline out of anger.
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And the reason for that is sin, and wrongdoing, and rebellion, and all the rest of that, that should cause a degree of anger within us for the behavior of the child.
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But we don't let that anger control us. We keep that in one side, and we discipline according to certain ways.
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Anyway, so we do that, we exercise the discipline. And then here's where we fail.
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Here's where we often fail. After the discipline, we often forget or fail to comfort.
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Our God is a good God, and he is a perfect father. And one of the ways he shows his perfection as a heavenly father is that he rightly disciplines his children, but he also demonstrates comfort after the discipline.
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And we want to see that this morning in the book of Isaiah. And we're in Isaiah chapters 9, 10, 11, and 12.
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We got a lot of ground to cover in these few moments together this morning. But in this section of Isaiah, the prophet illustrates just what a good father our
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God is. And the section begins in chapter 9, verse 8, with the arousal of divine wrath.
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And this is why I say, I think it is not necessarily helpful to tell parents, don't ever discipline when you're angry.
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Because oftentimes, you need to discipline when the offense is fresh.
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And you're angry about that offense. So the advice has been, wait till the anger has cooled down, and then come back and do the discipline.
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Well, for some, that may take hours. No, control the discipline. Here, the
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Lord is obviously angry with his people. He exercises his wrath.
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And I want you to notice what it is that arouses that wrath. In chapter 9, verses 8 through chapter 10, verse 4, that wrath is aroused by the pride of those who should know better.
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Pride by those who should know better, that is, by God's people. Look at the expressions of this pride.
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In verses 8 through 10, these are God's people now. Their attitude is that we, their thinking is we, in our pride, we will overcome the adversity that God has sent to us.
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So look at verses 8 and following. The Lord sent a word against Jacob, and it has fallen on Israel.
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All the people will know, Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, who say in pride and arrogance of heart, and here's what they say.
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The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stones. The sycamores are cut down, but we will replace them with cedars.
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Now, the hewn stones are better than manufactured bricks. And the cedars are better than sycamores.
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Do you see the pride? The Lord has caused our bricks to fall down and our sycamore trees to be cut down, but we're going to build back better, to use a common phrase these days.
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In other words, they're saying we're going to overcome the adversity that the Lord has brought our way.
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Now, and I say this oftentimes and have said this several times in this study in Isaiah, that I don't want to craft a picture that says the
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United States of America is a modern ancient Israel. I don't mean to express that at all.
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It's not. We're not ancient Israel. But what I do see in the study of a book like Isaiah and the way the
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Lord treats Israel and so forth, you do see some principles that apply in a modern setting.
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If they didn't, then, you know, we would be diminished in our understanding of the value of Scripture.
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So, for example, in our own nation, do we not have, as a national spirit, a sort of pride of invincibility?
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I mean, think about it. We were decimated by the Civil War, but we came back.
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We overcame World War I. We overcame the Great Depression. We overcame World War II.
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We overcame 9 -11. We will overcome anything, can be the attitude developed in our mind.
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And one of the things that we want to see this morning is that the Lord brings catastrophes and adversities like these things.
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The Lord brings them upon nations as a means of chastening and discipline, as a means of judgment sometimes.
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And so it is kind of an arrogant pride that says, these things, they aren't going to change us.
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They're not going to change our morality. They're not going to change our attitude toward God, our religion, our faith, or anything like that.
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But we're going to overcome these things and we're going to build better. We're going to build back better. We're going to become greater and more invincible.
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So one of the expressions of pride is we will overcome the adversity. The second expression of pride in verse 13 is that we don't need
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God. You see it? The people do not turn to him who strikes them. Who is it that strikes them?
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The Lord. Nor do they seek the Lord of hosts. So, you know, again,
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I think of our own nation. And there are occasional times when there's a significant catastrophe, like 9 -11, and the powers that be, our government authorities and so forth, say, we need to pray.
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We need to turn to God. We need to pray. Pray to God. Pray for mercy. And we even sing
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God bless America in the seventh inning stretch of the baseball games and that kind of thing. So we kind of tip our hat for a while, right?
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Until the crisis passes and then, you know, we don't have anything more to do with them.
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A third expression of pride at the end of verse 17 is that we can...in
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the middle of the verse, we can hide what we really are. It says, for everyone is a hypocrite and an evildoer and every mouth speaks folly.
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We can hide who we really are. That's what a hypocrite tries to do, right? And a fourth expression of pride in Chapter 10, verses 1 and 2, is that we will get what we want no matter what.
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See it? Woe to those who decree unrighteous decrees, who write misfortune which they have prescribed to rob the needy of justice, to take what is right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey and that they may rob the fatherless.
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We will get what we want no matter what we have to do to get it. This is an expression of pride.
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Well, look at the consequences of this pride that is expressed by those who ought to know better.
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The consequence is a relentless punishment. At the end of each section here, there is this repeated statement, like at the end of verse 12, for all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
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That's repeated at the end of verse 17. It's repeated at the end of verse 21, and again, in Chapter 10, the end of verse 4.
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Same statement, for all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
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And how does the Lord stretch out his hand? How does he express his anger? Well, a couple of examples of that relentless punishment include, in verses 11 and 12 of Chapter 9, being overwhelmed by their enemies.
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The Lord shall set up the adversaries of reason against him and spur his enemies on, the
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Syrians before and the Philistines behind, and they shall devour Israel with an open mouth.
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Okay? Overwhelmed by their enemies. Another way that the Lord punishes these who should know better for their pride is in verses 14 through 16, by the removal of the leadership of the people.
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He says, therefore, the Lord will cut off head and tail from Israel, palm branch and bulrush in one day.
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He's not talking about literal things here. What is he talking about? Verse 15.
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The elder and honorable, he is the head. The prophet who teaches lies, he is the tail.
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For the leaders of this people cause them to err, and those who are led by them are destroyed.
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So the Lord punishes his people by the removal of leadership.
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And you can... Yeah, I think you can mark this down as a principle. Excuse me.
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One of the ways the Lord judges is by creating a leadership vacuum in a nation among a people.
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I suppose we could talk about that for a while, but we're going to move on. So pride is expressed by those who should know better.
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Secondly, in chapter 10, verses 5 through 19, notice how pride is displayed by the
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Lord's tools. I have that in quotation marks. Verse 5, excuse me.
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Verse 5, notice how the Lord selects and employs the tools that he wants.
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He says this, this is the Lord speaking through his prophet. Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger, and the staff in whose hand is my indignation.
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Do you see what the Lord is saying? He's saying that I have chosen
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Assyria to be an instrument of punishment, an instrument of judgment.
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I've chosen Assyria to be the rod of my anger and the staff in whom is my indignation.
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So the Lord uses this tool for his purpose. Assyria, the nation, the
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Assyrian Empire eventually, is the rod of his anger. And he uses this rod in verse 6 to accomplish his purposes with these tools of his choosing.
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Look at verse 6. He says, I will send him against an ungodly nation and against the people of my wrath,
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I will give him charge to seize the spoil, to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
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All right, now get the picture here, get what the Lord is saying. Assyria is like, well, it's probably not the case anymore, is like the belt in the father's hand.
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He's using Assyria as the paddle to punish his people.
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There probably aren't too many fathers in the modern era that use such a thing as a belt.
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Let me ask you this, this is just an aside. How many of you, as children, were on the receiving end of dad's belt?
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Go ahead, raise it high, just okay. All right. You know what was the worst?
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Those thin ones. You know, I mean, back in the 60s, the 50s and 60s, men wore these little thin belts.
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And man, when that thing came off, whoo, watch out. When dad, in his anger, with the rod of his indignation, laid into you.
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Yeah. So the Lord is saying, the Assyrians are my belt, they are the rod of my anger.
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Now, how does Assyria feel about that? What do the Assyrians think about being an instrument in God's hands?
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Not much at all. Instead, in fact, the tool, the belt, the rod, it declares autonomy in all this.
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Look at how they do this in verses 7 through 11. Yet he, the Assyrian, does not mean so, nor does his heart think so.
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But it is in his heart to destroy and cut off not a few nations. The Assyrian has his own plans.
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The Assyrian is not a God -fearing nation. The Assyrians are not loyal to Yahweh, the
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God of Israel. They have no use for him at all. They don't go to God, the
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God of Israel, and say, what would you have us to do? And get a message through a priest of the
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Lord who says, I want you to be an instrument in my hand and go smite the Israelites. No, this isn't happening.
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There is no conversation between the Assyrians and God. But the
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Assyrians are expressing their pride by saying, we've got our plans. We're going to go and attack other nations, and we're going to level them.
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We're going to deal, we're going to do them in, all right? They have their own plans. And in their claim of autonomy, look in verses 8 through 11, how they have an overrated view of themselves.
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For he says, the Assyrian says, are not my princes altogether kings?
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Is not Calno like Carchemish, and Hamath like Arpad? And is not Samaria like Damascus?
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As my hand has found the kingdoms of the idols whose carved images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria, as I have done to Samaria and her idols, shall
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I not also do to Jerusalem and her idols? I am invincible.
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A very highly overrated view of itself the Assyrian has, the tool that is an instrument in the
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Lord's hands. Well, how does the Lord deal with this? He destroys the proud in verses 12 through 15.
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This should not surprise us, because what does the Scripture tell us? In James 4, 6 and 1
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Peter 5, 5, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. And that word resist in those
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New Testament references is an interesting word. It means to range in battle against, to set oneself against.
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So the imagery here is, here come the proud, the arrogant, the
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Assyrians, and the people who should know better, God's people. They're coming against God in their pride and their arrogance and saying, you know, we will overcome any adversity
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God sends our way. Or we will be invincible overthrowers of any nation that comes against us.
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And they're coming against God in their pride. And God is standing in battle array against the proud.
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That's the imagery here. That's the imagery. But in verse 12, notice that the
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Lord determines the timing in which he will destroy the proud. He says, therefore, it shall come to pass when the
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Lord has performed all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, that he will say,
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I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the glory of his haughty looks.
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What I really want you to focus on is the first part of that verse. It'll come to pass when the
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Lord has performed all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem. In other words, the
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Lord will bring destruction upon the proud Assyrian when the Lord is done with them.
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When the Lord has used them for the purposes for which he's declared, they will be a tool of punishment in my hands.
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Now, that fact related to the Assyrians should, for us, transcend this specific situation.
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This is a perspective, I think, that escapes and is absent from our worldview for the most part.
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It shouldn't be absent from the Christian worldview. What I mean by that is this. Why do nations rise and then fall?
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What is to come of this war between Russia and Ukraine?
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Why did Hitler and the Nazis collapse?
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Why did the Russians and eventual Soviet Union, why did they rise in power?
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And then why did that all fall apart? The modern way of looking at these things is strictly from a socio -political point of view.
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In other words, strictly from what we can figure out as what's going on sociologically or politically.
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We don't look beyond the scene, behind the curtain. We don't look any deeper than that.
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We don't look beyond the veil. We don't ask, what is
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God doing here? To what end is this nation that is rattling its saber an instrument in God's hands?
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What does God intend to accomplish either through them or to them by this saber rattling?
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Now, this passage of Scripture to me is kind of like the passage in Daniel, where Daniel is praying about the situation with Israel and so on and so forth.
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He gets a visit from Gabriel, from the angel, who says to him,
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I was dispatched when you started to pray about this, but I was delayed by the prince of wherever.
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This is just coming off the top of my head. I don't remember all the specific details. But the point is that Daniel got a glimpse behind the veil.
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The veil was pulled away for a minute and he was given some insight into a spiritual warfare that's going on outside of our view.
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Well, this is the same kind of thing that's happening here. In this simple statement of Scripture, the
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Lord is pulling back the veil a little bit and helping us to see a reality that we can't see just by looking at things sociologically and politically.
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And that reality is that God, in his sovereignty and for his purposes, uses nations.
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He brings them to power and he brings them down for his purposes.
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That is a good principle for us to keep in mind when we read the newspaper or we watch the 10 o 'clock or 11 o 'clock or whatever time you watch the news, if you dare to watch it.
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All right. So the Lord destroys the proud and he determines the timing in doing so. The last part of verse 12 explains why.
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Because of his arrogant heart and his haughty looks.
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Look at how that arrogance and haughtiness is expressed in verses 13 and 14.
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The Assyrian says, My hand has found like a nest the riches of the people.
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And as one gathers eggs that are left, I have gathered all the earth.
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I was short sighted, right? I have gathered all the earth and there was no one who moved his wing nor opened his mouth even with even a peep.
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What arrogance. What haughtiness. And you could ask yourself the question if you've heard any modern expressions that sound similar to this.
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And then verse 15, here is the folly of that arrogance. Shall the axe boast itself against him who chops with it?
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Assyria, you are just an axe in my hand, God says. Or shall the saw exalt itself against him who saws with it?
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Think about this, Scott, Aaron, Kevin, you guys who handle saws and tools, hammers and drills and all the rest of that kind of stuff.
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Could you imagine, could you imagine if all of a sudden that the handle on that saw, you know that you grip and you go like this while you use the electric ones and power when you don't use those hands.
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But could you imagine if all of a sudden you walk over to that saw and it starts talking to you and say,
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Hey, what are you doing? I don't want to cut this. I want to cut that. I don't want to cut at that length.
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I want to cut at this length. And you say, well, that's absurd. Exactly.
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Shall the Assyrian so speak against God as if a saw can talk to the one who cuts with it?
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Of course not. Well, in verses 16 through 19, the Lord then determines the consequence for this pride of the
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Assyrians. And the consequence is devastation. Therefore, the Lord, the
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Lord of hosts, will send leanness among his fat ones. And under his glory, he will he will kindle a burning like the burning of a fire.
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So the light of Israel will be for a fire and his holy one for a flame. It will burn and devour his thorns and his briars in one day.
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And it will consume the glory of his forest and of his fruitful field, both soul and body.
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And they will be as when a sick man wastes away. Now look at this verse, verse 19. Then the rest of the trees of his forest will be so few in number that a child may write them.
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In other words, a child can go out in the forest of the Assyrian and with his little notepad, he can count how many trees are left.
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That's how few there will be. That's a picture of total devastation. Coming from the hand of the
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Lord because of this arrogance. All right. So here is the
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Lord expressing his wrath, his anger in punishment and discipline.
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Judgment on the Assyrians, chastening on the part of his children. But then there is the comfort that comes.
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And it comes, first of all, in the removal of the wrath through this threefold promise.
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In chapter 10, verse 20, through the end of the chapter. There is, first of all, the promise of a faithful remnant in verses 20 to 23.
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It says, What's he saying?
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This remnant is not going to be dependent upon the Assyrians or eventually for Judah, the
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Babylonians. Not going to depend on them for their needs. But they will depend upon the
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Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. The remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob to the mighty
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God. So there's this promise of the remnant that will return.
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And this is, by the way, one of the great themes of Scripture, the Old Testament Scriptures and even into the
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New Testament. The promise of the remnant. That even though there may be great devastation, great punishment, a great apostasy, there is preserved a remnant.
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So there's the promise of a faithful remnant. The second promise is the promise of a brief punishment.
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In verses 24 through 26. Now the punishment is going to come. See this at the end of verse 24.
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But the anger, remember that fourfold statement? For all this, you know, the anger of the
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Lord is not turned away. The anger, verse 25, will pass. And in verse 26, the punisher, that is the
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Assyrians, will be punished. So you think, again, you think about world history.
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Think about the events in history. And let's throw this idea out.
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That the Lord causes a nation, a people to rise in power, become haughty and arrogant and think they can take over the world.
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And attack others. The Lord may very well be doing that.
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Raising those people up, that nation up. For the purpose of bringing punishment, judgment, chastening or whatever on the other people.
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And then when the Lord is done with that chastening. He brings total destruction and devastation.
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Brings the haughty, arrogant, I'm going to take over the world nation. To its knees and humbles it greatly.
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I wonder how many times if we just thought through some wars and so forth in world history.
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That kind of thing has occurred. It would be interesting to go through a list.
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Some of you who are historians, you might want to do that little exercise. And do so with the speculative idea.
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Why did the Lord raise them up? Why did the Lord do that?
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What was the Lord trying to teach the suffering people? Who suffered at the hands of the arrogant?
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And how did the Lord bring the arrogant to its knees in all of this?
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Well, there is a promise, thirdly, of a sure deliverance in verses 27 -34.
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Verse 27. Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden. And I will give you rest.
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Take my yoke upon you. Verse 27. It shall come to pass in that day that his burden will be taken away from your shoulder and his yoke from your neck.
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And the yoke will be destroyed because of the anointing oil. Hang on to that statement.
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So there's this removal of the burden and the yoke. That's promised, the sure deliverance. And there is a cutting down in verses 33 and 34 of the proud and the haughty.
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The Lord of hosts will lop off the bow with terror. Those of high stature will be hewn down and the haughty will be humbled.
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The Lord will cut down the proud and the haughty. So here you see a shift from the father exercising his wrath in punishing his proud, arrogant people and then also in bringing judgment upon those who were his instruments of punishment, who also expressed pride.
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But now in chapter 11, you see the hope of comfort.
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The hope of comfort. You have a promise of mercy and now the hope of comfort. And the hope of comfort is seen in the preview of the coming king.
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Verse 1 of chapter 11 talks about the lineage of this king.
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There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
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A rod, the word, the term has to do with a shoot like from a tree stump.
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In fact, the word stem is the word for the stock or the trunk of a tree.
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So the idea is the tree has been cut down. Israel has been cut down.
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But from that stump that remains is going to come a shoot.
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And that shoot is the new
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David king, the new Davidic king. And this new
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Davidic king is going to come from the surviving remnant that was talked about earlier in chapter 10.
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Now, by the way, this note along the way, Israelite kings were not crowned when they took their position of royalty.
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They weren't crowned. They were anointed, at least initially. They did often end up having crowns.
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But initially, when they were selected as the king, they were anointed with oil.
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Think about that with Saul being anointed and then Saul's replacement, David, was anointed.
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They were anointed with oil. And the king was therefore known as the anointed one.
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Now watch. The Hebrew word for the anointed one is
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Messiah. The Greek word for the anointed one is
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Christos or Christ. So David was the small seed, the small anointed one.
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Jesus is the capital seed. He is the Christos. He is the anointed one.
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And verse 2 says he is the one anointed with the Holy Spirit. The spirit of the
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Lord shall rest upon him. Look at the character of this king in verse 2.
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He is spirit filled. He is filled with wisdom and understanding.
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Think about the scene when Jesus is presented with a coin and Jesus is asked, should we pay taxes to Caesar?
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And he says, show me a coin. Whose image is this? Wisdom and understanding. He had the wisdom to answer right, correctly, wisely, prudently.
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He had the understanding to figure out what's real, to know what's really going on here in this situation. His character.
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He's marked with impeccable counsel and invincible might, the spirit of counsel and might.
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He's known for immeasurable knowledge, the spirit of knowledge, and for a healthy fear of the
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Lord, a healthy fear of the Lord, a fear in which he delights, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the
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Lord. And verse 3 says his delight is in the fear of the Lord. That's his character.
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Look at his rule in verses 3 through 5. And notice how it's marked by righteousness, justice, equity, faithfulness.
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He shall not judge by the sight of his eyes, verse 4, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.
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Verse 5, righteousness shall be the belt of his loins and faithfulness the belt of his waist.
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And in verses 6 through 16, it describes the reign of this coming king.
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It'll be a peaceful reign, verses 6 through 9 describe. This is that graphic imagery of the wolf dwelling with the lamb, the leopard lying down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together.
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These are things that you just don't see in this fallen world of discord and strife.
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And a little child shall lead them. You would not dare put a little child in a cage with a lion at the zoo, would you?
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Of course not. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
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What are you seeing here? You're seeing a picture of absolute perfect peace.
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And why? The end of verse 9. Why this peace? Because the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the
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Lord as the waters cover the sea. This kingdom will be marked by peace.
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It will also be a universal kingdom, verses 10 through 12 says. It shall be in that day, and in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, who shall stand as a banner to the people, for the
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Gentiles shall seek him, and his resting place, that is his home, shall be glorious.
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It shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people who are left from everywhere, from Assyria, Egypt, Pathos, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamoth, the islands of the sea.
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He will set up a banner for the nations and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, gather together the dispersed of Israel from the four corners of the earth.
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A universal reign. And it is also going to be a righteous reign.
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And here, the emphasis in verse 13 is that the people will do right.
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Back in verse 4, the king does right. Verse 13, the people do right.
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The envy of Ephraim shall depart. The adversaries of Judah shall be cut off. Ephraim shall not envy
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Judah. Judah shall not harass Ephraim. People will do right. And verses 14 through 16, this reign will be marked by vindication.
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They shall fly down upon the shoulder of the Philistines toward the west. Together they shall plunder the people of the east.
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They shall lay their hand on Edom and Moab, and the people of Ammon shall obey them. The Lord will utterly destroy the tongue of the sea of Egypt.
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With His mighty wind, He will shake His fist over the river, strike it in the seven streams, and make men cross over Drishad.
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There will be a highway for the remnant of His people who will be left from Assyria, as it was for Israel in the day that He came up from the land of Egypt.
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This is a vindication of God's people. Well, that brings us to chapter 12.
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In chapter 12, it is an expression of the delight of this comfort that is promised, and that delight is in the
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Savior and praise for Him. Look at the threefold expression of praise.
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In verse 1, there's praise for the comfort that He gives. O Lord, I will praise
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You, though You were angry with me. Remember that fourfold repetition back in chapter 9 and in 10.
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Though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, and You comfort me.
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That anger from chapter 9, verse 12 and following is finally turned away. When?
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When was it turned away? How was it turned away? Remember Isaiah 53, verse 5.
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The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. When King Jesus came, He took on Himself the anger that was due to fall on you and on me.
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The anger is taken away, and in its place, comfort. Praise for comfort, verses 2 and 3.
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Praise for salvation, for salvation. Look at this. Behold, God is my salvation.
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God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. For Yah, as in Yahweh, the
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Lord, is my strength and song. He also has become my salvation.
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This is praise for salvation, but notice it's not limited to praise for the saving work, but for the
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Savior. Tim Chester puts it this way. He says, salvation is not simply something
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God does. Salvation is something God has become.
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God is my salvation. God, in the person of Jesus, has become the sacrifice for your salvation.
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Praise for salvation. And then, in verses 4 through 6, praise Him for His excellent work.
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Praise Him for His excellent work. In verse 4, His deeds. Notice how the deeds of the
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Lord exalt His name. It says, praise the Lord. Call upon His name. Declare His deeds among the peoples.
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Make mention that His name is exalted. When, in a little while, we take that little cup with a little wafer in it and lift the lid off of these trays and grab a little cup of juice that reminds us of the saving work of the
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Lord Jesus Christ, it is His deeds that exalt His name.
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His name is exalted, even in those elements we partake of. Why? Because of the deeds that are represented by those elements.
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And His deeds, in verse 5, merit universal acclaim. Sing to the
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Lord, for He has done excellent things. This is known in all the earth.
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And finally, in verse 6, in all of this, the Lord is in the midst of His people.
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Cry out and shout, O inhabitant of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel in your midst.
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And He has always been in the midst of His people.
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So, to summarize these chapters, the Lord God, who expresses just anger over pride and rebellion, get this, is also the gracious God who provides and is salvation.
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Praise the Lord. And so, our Father and our God, we do praise
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You this morning for Your righteousness, for Your justice, for Your mercy, for Your salvation.
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We thank You that You are our salvation. Bless these thoughts to our hearts today, we pray in Jesus' name.