God Is My Salvation

Isaiah 12:1-6 (KJV) And in that day thou shalt say, O LORD, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me. [2] Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation. [3] Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. [4] And in that day shall ye say, Praise the LORD, call upon his name, declare his doings among the people, make mention that his name is exalted. [5] Sing unto the LORD; for he hath done excellent things: this is known in all the earth. [6] Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.

I love children and their questioning innocence. One Sunday sermon a preacher started to pray. “Dear Lord,” he said, “without you, we are but dust….”. As the preacher paused to think of more weighty, impressive words to say, a little girl leaned over whispered loudly her mother:

“Mommy, what is butt dust?”

The congregation broke out in laughter, and the prayer was over. I believe that this was the hand of God. It is true that we humans are “but dust”. Though we are not animals, we are composed of the same material that animals are composed of. The Lord said:

Genesis 3:19 (KJV) In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for DUST THOU ART, AND UNTO DUST SHALT THOU RETURN.

Our bodies are carbon based, just as an animals body is carbon based. Our bodies die, and we return to dust. But Christians are more than dust. Humans are meant to be more than dust. God made us in His image, and after His likeness (Genesis 1:27). We were meant to walk with God and talk with God. Since God is eternal, we were meant to be with God eternally. Not in this body, but in a Heavenly body.

That is why it it is so important that YOU can say:

Isaiah 12:2 (KJV) Behold, God is my salvation

No matter what life throws at you, if you can say “God is MY salvation” then you can overcome it. No matter how dark the day you can praise Him. Oh my goodness, our God is so GOOD! This is why the passage starts with ……

Isaiah 12:1 (KJV) And in that day thou shalt say, O LORD, I will praise thee:

We have all had days where can we can look back and say:

“Oh my goodness, it was THAT day!”

It was a terrible day. We have had landmark awful days. But if God is My Salvation that day will pass.

Psalms 30:5 (KJV) …. in His favor is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

God Is My Salvation From Sin

Years ago Pastor Adrian Rogers made a comment on the television “sitcom” or “situation comedy”. I can remember the exact quote – and couldn’t find it – but I’ll paraphrase him. He remarked that the “Sitcom” has made us laugh at sin, minimizing it, destroying our understanding of how terrible sin is. Adrian said that sin is no laughing matter. He said, and I quote:

First, sin will take you further than you want to go.
Second, sin will keep you longer than you want to stay.
Third, sin will cost you more than you want to pay.

Sin destroys God’s best for us. Sin angers God. Isaiah declared:

Isaiah 12:1 (KJV) … though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me.

The Christian praises God because though God was angry with us, but God’s wrath has been turned away from us. Why was God angry with us? God is angry with the sinner, with the wicked, with the evil. God cannot look on sin because sin is so against the nature of God. Evangelist Billy Graham wrote:

“We in the church have failed to remind this generation that while God is love, He also has the capacity to hate. He hates sin, and He will judge it with the fierceness of His wrath. This generation is schooled in the teaching about an indulgent, soft-hearted God whose judgments are uncertain and who coddles those who break His commandments. This generation finds it difficult to believe that God hates sin. I tell you that God hates sin just as a father hates a rattlesnake that threatens the safety and life of his child. God loathes evil and diabolic forces that would pull people down to a godless eternity just as a mother hates a venomous spider that is found playing on the soft, warm flesh of her little baby.”

God hates sin because it separates man from the God Who made him. It was sin that separated Adam from paradise, and separates man from God today. The Scripture declares:

Isaiah 59:2 (NASB) …. your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.

Sin is not a trifle with God, but is a horror, an abomination, something to be destroyed. Sin is totally opposed to God’s nature. The Psalmist said (5:4 – ESV):

For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;
evil may not dwell with you.

God does not see sin as a laugh track on a sitcom. When God sees sin in His creation He sees …

Putrefying Sores (Isaiah 1:6)
Heavy Burden (Psalm 38:4)
Defiling Filth (Titus 1:15; 2 Corinthians 7:1)
Binding Debt (Matthew 6:12-15)
Darkness (1 John 1:6)
Bloody Stain (Isaiah 1:18)

Oh, that people would understand how horrible sin is. God has promised to those who follow pathways of evil …

Isaiah 13:11 (ESV) I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant, and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.

A payday is coming one day, and on that day God will punish the unrepentant sinner. That will be a day like no other.

The Lord has promised “what you have sown, so shall you reap” (Galatians 6:7).

God has said “Be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23).

A payday is coming for the sinner who rejects God.

But we who are His praise Him. We praise Him because,

Isaiah 12:1 (KJV)… though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me.

With God As My Salvation My Sins Are Covered

God’s anger is turned away from me. Why? Why is God no longer angry with me? Because of Christ. Jesus Christ died for my sins, and for your sins. If you have received Jesus as Lord and Savior God was angry with you because of sin, but now God’s anger has passed.

He comforts His faith-child as a Father would comfort a son.

His Son bore my sins on Calvary! Praise Him! Praise Him!

Galatians 3:13-14 (ESV) Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

Jesus went to the Tree of Calvary. Being nailed to that Tree, He hung there for me. The nails that held His hands should have held this sinner’s hands. The nails that immobilized His feet should have been my feet. The beatings He took should have been placed on all of us. And as He cried out:

“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”

That should have been our cry. Jesus Christ died in my place, and in your place. He died for our sins.

1 Corinthians 15:3 (ESV) …. Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures …

Jesus died for our sins. There is an interesting passage in Isaiah chapter 53 that I just discovered as I worked on this message. The passage is prophetic of the Christ Who had yet come in Isaiah’s time. God said of His Son:

Isaiah 53:2-9 (KJV) For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. [3] He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. [4] Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. [5] But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. [6] All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. [7] He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. [8] He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. [9] And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

What a picture is painted of Christ, and how true it was. Jesus was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He was stricken, beaten of God, wounded for OUR transgressions, bruised for OUR iniquities. These are fantastic truths. But what fascinated me above all else is the last verse, verse 9:

He made His grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in His DEATH

I am told by Hebrew scholars much smarter than I that the word translated “Death” (מָוֶת maveth) is an Intensive Plural. His death was so violent that it was as if it were many deaths. Jesus died for every sin every person would ever commit. One sin is worthy of death. Jesus died for all sins. Pastor Adrian Rogers wrote:

“It means that Jesus, being infinite, suffered for a finite amount of time what you, being finite, would suffer for an infinite amount of time. A great exchange took place. He suffered upon that cross an eternity of hell for every one of us.”

Jesus died a thousand deaths so that you and I will never die.
Jesus suffered a thousand hells so that I will not suffer.
What a great exchange His love bestowed upon those who believe.
What a great gift God has given to me in Christ!

Hebrews 10:11-12 (ESV) And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,

We are joyous, praising God, for our sins are fully paid for. We are set apart from this world, sanctified, children of the Most High God.

Hebrews 10:14 (ESV) For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

Isaiah 12:2 Behold, God is my salvation;

God is my salvation. God became man so He could die in my place. Salvation is a work of God, a great work, and salvation is only found in Christ Jesus our Lord. God became man and dwelt among us. The Word became flesh and became our salvation.

Not too long ago a Presbyterian Church USA Pastor – pastor of the fourth largest Presbyterian Church in America – declared that you don’t have to be a Christian to go to Heaven. In the article it was stated that around 45% of Presbyterians believe there are many ways to Heaven. This is the world we live in today, a world of foolish tolerance. Yet the message of the Scripture, the message that the Apostles preached, was:

Acts 4:10-12 (KJV) Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. [11] This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. [12] Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

When Peter preached this message over 2000 years ago,
the WORLD marveled at it in unbelief.
Today many so called churches marvel at this message in unbelief.
Yet the Scripture has not changed.

John 14:6 (KJV) Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Salvation is a free gift from God, but a free gift that can only be received by faith in Christ’s finished work. The world is under the condemnation of God but for the Blood of Christ. The Scripture declares:

John 3:16-20 (KJV) For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. [17] For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. [18] He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. [19] And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. [20] For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

To believe on Christ is to have all condemnation covered. God is angry no more with the Christ follower, the lover of God. But those who do not receive Christ as Lord and Savior are condemned already, because you have not believed in the name of the only Begotten Son of God.

If your rest is not in Christ, then your rest is false.
If your hope is not in His Cross, then your hope is uncertain.

Those who are Christ’s come to Him by faith, and walk in Him by faith. Those who are Christ’s live for the smile of God. They love Him, and follow Him in the light that is the righteousness of God.

If God Is My Salvation I Live A Blessed Life

Isaiah 12:2 (KJV) Behold, GOD IS MY SALVATION;
I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song;
HE ALSO IS BECOME MY SALVATION.

Look at this passage as if it were an Oreo cookie. Who likes Oreo cookies? You’ve seen Oreos. They are two deliciously fattening chocolate cookies with a creamy, sweet center. Look at the cookies in this passage. It starts with “God is my Salvation” and ends with “He has also become my Salvation”. Life is sweet when your life starts and ends with the knowledge that God is your salvation.

The salvation based in Christ is an overcoming, sure salvation. When we who are His enter into valleys we trust Him and reject fear. God did a great thing for us at the Cross. The Eternal God, The LORD JEHOVAH, the Great I AM gave Himself for us. Christ said of Himself:

Revelation 1:8 (KJV) I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

This same Jesus also said:

Revelation 21:6-8 (KJV) And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. [7] He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. [8] But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

His people are neither fearful nor unbelieving. To those who received Him, to them gave He power to become sons of God, even to those which believe on His name. We are people of Light headed toward a city of Light. So we praise our God for Jesus Christ our Savior. We trust Him. We call upon His name, declare His doings, and exalt Him.

Isaiah 12:4-6 (KJV) And in that day shall ye say, Praise the LORD, call upon his name, declare his doings among the people, make mention that his name is exalted. [5] Sing unto the LORD; for he hath done excellent things: this is known in all the earth. [6] Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.

Great is our God, and greatly to be praised. And we will not fear, but trust Him forever more.

Is God your salvation? If not, today is the day to call upon the Name of Jesus. Believe that He died for your sins. Receive Him as Lord and Savior. If you will, God will become your salvation. My heartfelt prayer is that you commit yourselves to Him today!

May God touch your hearts with His Word.