March 21, 2004 Isaiah 12:1-6
In that day you will say: "I will praise you, O LORD. Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me. Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation." With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
In that day you will say: "Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted. Sing to the LORD, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world. Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you."
People are paid to make predictions. Sports experts lay odds on who will win the college basketball tournament. Weather men are paid to predict what the weather will be like. Financial analysts put a lot of research in determining which stocks will go up and which will go down. Statistics and scientific data are collected to try and make the most accurate predictions as possible. None of this is an exact science. What is even more difficult and volatile to predict than the weather, the stock market, or sports games - is a person’s mood. It can change in the blink of an eye. It can be effected by hormones, the weather, or even the tiniest word or action. People can go from being on top of the world to the lowest dumps in about two seconds.
Therefore, it would be insane for me to try and predict what kind of a mood you or even I will be in come this Thursday or Friday. There’s no way of knowing. Yet God, through Isaiah, in today’s text, does that very thing. He predicts a day - actually referring to a prolonged period - of praise, joy, and thanks. Only God could do something like that. And only God could make such a prediction come true. We’ll see how he does that with the Israelites and us as we look at -
Isaiah’s Prophecy of Praise
I. Is needed during dry times
Isaiah predicts the exact words that the Israelites would say “in that day.” What would they say? In that day you will say: "I will praise you, O LORD. Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me. Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation." This prediction actually has the exact wording of some Israelites that had lived some 800 years before Isaiah under another prophet named Moses. About two million Israelites had just passed through the Red Sea throughout the night. They must have been completely exhausted - having gone from being at a dead end at the edge of the sea to exhilaration at this great deliverance. After they had completely passed through the dry ground, they were able to then turn and look back through the huge valley that God had created with His mighty wind. But then God lifted his pillar of fire that was separating them from the Egyptian army. The army came charging forward with their horses and chariots - mighty warriors searching for the blood of the Israelites and their children. Yet God said to Moses - “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.” Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the LORD swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived. (Ex 14:26-28) Wow. What an amazing deliverance! It was after this deliverance that Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the LORD in Exodus 15 - The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. (Ex 15:2) Do you see the similarity between these words and the prediction of Isaiah? They are almost the same.
Therefore, it doesn’t take much effort to see that Isaiah was predicting a day of great joy from a similar deliverance. God wasn’t going to just make them happy with the waving of a magic wand or a simple word saying, “be happy.” He wasn’t going to just go down to the flower store and buy some discounted flowers and bring them to the Israelites. He was going to produce a mood change with a great and mighty deliverance. He was going to change the Israelites from having doom and gloom to joy and praise.
This begs the question - why were the Israelites full of gloom and doom in the first place? What was their problem? Their problem was laid out in Jeremiah chapter 2 verse 13 when he said, My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. Isn’t this a vivid illustration? In the Old Testament times they would dig a hole out of a rock and then plaster the sides to hold their rain water. Over time the plaster would crack and start leaking - so that it the water wouldn’t hold. That’s what the Israelites were doing spiritually. They were digging their own cisterns - which may have looked worthy from above ground, but like Jeremiah, when you were thrown down into it you realized there was no water in it but only mud - and there was also no escape. The Israelites by the time of Isaiah had been consistently turning away from the Lord. With a great outward prosperity, they were slighting the temple. By the time twenty year old Ahaz came to the throne, they had completely abandoned God and started worshiping gods like Baal and Moloch. Whenever trouble threatened, they would run to the Egyptians or their own walls for strength. These were all like broken cisterns, God said. They couldn’t provide protection. They couldn’t give nourishment. They didn’t have any “water” in them.
Therefore God pronounced destruction and physical curses on the Israelites to reflect their sins. Jeremiah said, "Judah mourns, her cities languish; they wail for the land, and a cry goes up from Jerusalem. The nobles send their servants for water; they go to the cisterns but find no water. They return with their jars unfilled; dismayed and despairing, they cover their heads. (Je 14:2-3) Physically, God dried up their wells in more than one way. The Assyrians were able to come in and conquer the Northern kingdom and take it’s people captive - and Israel’s “allies” never came to their side. Isaiah also predicted that Jerusalem would be like Shiloh - and the Babylonians would come in and take them into 70 years of captivity. So it is no wonder that their attitude would be doom and gloom. When the Babylonians would finally come and take the Southern Kingdom captive, they would despair. “God hates us,” they would say. They would conclude, “we deserve this punishment, because we turned from the Lord. We have no hope, no future, because God has rejected us.”
If you’ve been living a life that has been rejecting God, then your attitude will be the same. Your debts won’t get better. Your marriage won’t magically improve. You won’t find any drug or counseling that will make you feel better - because you have rejected God and you have no reason for hope. When you think that the solution to your problems comes from a bottle of whiskey, your cistern isn’t going to provide anything more than mud. When you think that life will be happier once you have enough money for the bills, you will soon find out that your cistern is leaky. When you think that everything will be great once you find the person of your dreams, your cistern will go dry. You’ll find yourself searching for more water - more nourishment - time and time again. It doesn’t provide lasting nourishment. Sooner or later, the well will run dry. You’ll find yourself depressed and irritated because your well keeps running dry. I get a portion of that feeling twice a month. At the beginning of the month, everything seems to be alright as long as there’s money in the bank. But once the bills get paid and the well runs dry - at the end of two weeks - the tension starts coming around again. This can happen with relationships, money, health - you name it. These wells are NOT reliable. They only lead to depression, despair, and frustration.
God had better plans for the Israelites and He has better plans for you. He would bring them to despair. But there would be a day of deliverance when their mood would change. When they would be delivered from their Egyptian army - from their oppressors - and they would be delivered by God. In that day - at that time, they would then rejoice. They would say, “BEHOLD, God is my salvation.” They would praise the Lord and call on His name. They would say, “his name is exalted.” God knew that this deliverance would produce a change in attitude. He predicted what their mood would be - in that day.
II. Is fulfilled on that Day
How would He do this? When would that “day” come? The answer is seen in the very statement they would proclaim. In that day they will say “God is my salvation.” There is no more complete term that you can use than to say God IS my salvation. He is the originator of it, the executor of it, and the deliverer of it. The literal word for that is “God is my Jeshua” - the same name that in the Greek is called “Jesus.” So what Jeremiah is inevitably saying is that “in that day you will say, “God is my Jesus.” This is the answer the time and source of our deliverance. Peter said it this way, Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Ac 4:12) Think about it. He completely created us, redeemed us, and brought us to faith. He tore us out of this dead and unbelieving world and from the flames of hell, and through faith brought us to heaven itself, filling us with His forgiveness, love, and mercy in Christ. He literally IS our salvation.
You can see this as you look especially at the life of Christ. He had to be born of the virgin Mary - as a small baby. He chose NOT to use all His powers. Therefore, as a baby, he had to trust in God the Father to protect him in this sinful world, while Herod wanted Him dead. When he went to the cross, God wanted Him to lay His body on the line for the sins of the world. While Jesus was in the Garden, he asks if there was some other way to drink the cup, then He would do so. But God said, “no, this is the only way. You have to take ALL of my wrath for sins on the cross. I must turn my anger on YOU so it doesn’t come down on these children of ours that we love.” So Jesus left from there TRUSTING that God would accept His sacrifice - deliver Him from death - that God would raise His body from the dead. He allowed sinful men to mock, abuse, and crucify Him. He went to the cross and allowed His own Father to blame Him for our sins and condemn Him to hell in our place. Throughout all this Jesus trusted that this would be pleasing in His Father’s sight and accomplish what He desired - the salvation of the world. In the end, his trust was not misplaced. When all was said and done, Jesus had in fact paid for the sins of the world and rose victorious - with a completely acquitted world of sinners with him. After Jesus was raised, He then was able to declare His own praises to His brothers - since God delivered Him from death. (Hebrews 2:12) This is how God accomplished the day that Isaiah was talking about. God has Jesus’ salvation, and Jesus became our salvation.
III. Is experienced in Christ
If you want to experience this mood change then, God has to put you through some trying times. Like the Israelites had to go through the Red Sea and into a Babylonian Captivity - you are going to be led into a complete slavery - a completely dead end situation. You have to be led to see that you are on the way to hell, my friends. By your words, your actions, and just being who you are - a sinner - you cannot help yourself. You cannot save yourself. You cannot swim across the Red Sea of God’s law. You cannot fight against the Babylonian and Egyptian army of God’s wrath. You need deliverance.
Without lifting one muscle, doing one work, God wants you to just sit there - and watch Jesus Christ come and completely demolish these foes. He wants you to stare in awe as He takes His own wrath on His shoulders and drowns your sins and your guilt in the bottom of the sea. He wants you to stand on the top of Mt. Golgotha, picture yourself on that cross, and see God crucifying you in Christ. He doesn’t want you to say, “God helps those who help themselves,” or “God helps my salvation”. He wants you to say, “God IS my salvation. God is my JESUS.” He wants you to turn to Christ with every sin, every guilt, every problem, every ache, every sorrow. He wants you to turn to Jesus not just as a last resort - but as a first resort, middle resort, and every resort.
That, my friends, is the true meaning of trust. It literally has a meaning of “careless.” Think about it as if you’re driving down a highway at fifty miles an hour, being chased by someone who’s got wants to murder you. You come up to a draw bridge, which is starting to raise. You can either try and stop and turn around, which would be murder for sure, or you can gun it, close your eyes, and trust in your car to make the jump. To trust in God means to make that jump with him - trust that He’ll get us over the bridge. Hit the gas full throttle, and let her rip. You can’t back down at that point. You have to get her all she’s got. That’s what God wants us to do with HIM.
That’s what the Israelites had to do - both with the Egyptians and the Babylonians. They had no choice but to trust in God. When all was said and done - before the knew it - God had provided a wonderful deliverance. That’s what Jesus did - in the end - God delivered not only Him - but also us. Now Jesus looks you in the eye and says, “whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (Jn 4:13-14) Isaiah promises - With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. Isaiah doesn’t just say that God provides us with one well, but multiple wells that are full of water. When you turn to Christ, you have the promise of deliverance. His blood delivers you from guilt. His life delivers you from the law. His promises of protection deliver you from fear. These are not dry wells. They overflow with life! When you cross the bridge, it’s a truly exhilarating feeling.
I know that so many people today - maybe you are included - are living life without joy - without much praise of God in your life. We’re worn out from work. We’re depressed from relationship failures. We feel like everything was due yesterday, and we don’t have the time or energy or strength to deal with it all. So many people don’t know what to do. If you’re turning to a bottle, you won’t find that refreshment. Alcohol actually dehydrates you - so where you think you’re getting refreshed, you’re only losing it. If you’re turning to more work, more plans, you’ll only end up more worn out and depressed. Luther at one time tried harder and harder to quench his thirst for acceptance from God - to appease the demands of the law, but it only made him more and more thirsty. But when God opened up to him the grace and forgiveness of Christ found in the Gospel - it filled him with a joy and hope that he’d never had before. It motivated him to write and sing songs of joy and peace in Christ. That’s what Isaiah promises for YOU. Either Isaiah is lying, Jesus is lying, and God Himself is lying, or there’s good water in His wells.
Today’s market is full of drugs that companies are selling that are supposed to be what they call “mood enhancers.” With a money back guarantee they promise you that taking their drugs will make you feel more sensual or energetic or whatever it is they are selling. “Simply pop our pill,” they say, “and your emotions an outlook on life will change! I don’t believe it. Even if it were true, a lot of the time they say, “symptoms may include dizziness, vomiting, bloated stomach, gas, and headaches.” Which makes you think - “and this is supposed to make me feel BETTER?”
God has a better cure for your moods. This water of the Gospel will make you happy without a hangover. Salvation in Christ will make you praise the LORD without effort. It will help you enjoy life instead of numbing your way through it. It will motivate you to tell others, “thank God for my health. This is my God given faith. I can do everything through God who gives me strength. The LORD is my strength and my song!” That’s what God wants for you. It’s what Isaiah predicts for you. But it can only come true when you say, “God is my salvation. God is my Jesus.” Amen.
