A Song of Trust in God-Isaiah 12:1-6

Isaiah, Old Testament, Sermons

“Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense [song];he has become my salvation” (Isa 12:2).

Main points:

  1. Joy is BOTH personal and communal: To enter salvation is an individual experience (Isa 12:2), but to enjoy salvation is communal (Isa 12:3-4).
  2. Thus, complete joy comes from individual/personal confession AND corporate/communal proclamation.
  3. Salvation comprises of joy (happiness) coming from trusting God without fear and with full confidence and strength (Isa 12:2).
  4. The remnant joyfully trust God because they experience who He is and what He has done.
  5. Genuine gratitude and thanksgiving invariably overflows to worship and evangelism.

Recap: The Messiah’s kingdom is a kingdom of humility. It is ruled by humility in the Spirit (11:1-3a), by justice, righteousness and faithfulness (11:3b-5), and by a paradise where there is peace and security with no animosity or harm (11:6-9). The Messiah also gathers his remnant as the king not only of his own people, but of all nations (11:10-16).

“I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.” Stephen Corbert on losing his father and two brothers in a plane crash in 1974 when he was 10 years old (Stephen Colbert GQ Cover Story, Aug 17, 2015). “You gotta learn to love the bomb (tragedy, failure). Boy, did I have a bomb when I was 10. That was quite an explosion. And I learned to love it. That might be why you don’t see me as someone angry and working out my demons onstage. It’s that I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.” [Also, The Tragic Plane Crash That Changed Stephen Colbert, Interview by Oprah, 2012.]

A Song of Trust in God (Isaiah 12:1-6)

  1. I Will Trust God (1-2).
  2. Personal/individual testimony.
  3. Grace individually personalized.
  4. Looks back (ch. 1-11).
  5. We Will Make God Known (3-6).
  6. Communal/community proclamation.
  7. Grace corporately proclaimed.
  8. Looks forward (ch. 13-23).

Personal Testimony [I] and Corporate Witness [We]. There is a subtlety in Isaiah’s text. English uses one word, “you,” the second person in both singular and plural. But Hebrew uses different linguistic forms for the second person singular and plural. The “you” in Isa 12:1 is singular. Isaiah is saying, “In that day, each of you individually will say …” Hence, the pronouns “I,” “me,” and “my” in Isa 12:1-2. But the “you” in Isa 12:3-4 is plural. Here he is saying, “All of you together, as God’s remnant people, will draw water from the wells of salvation. And in that day, out of that ever-fresh fullness, you will all say …” Then we see corporate worship and mission in Isa 12:4-6. So the difference between “you will say” in Isa 12:1-2 and Isa 12:4-6 is the difference between personal testimony and corporate witness. Each of us will have a story to tell, and together we will fill the world with the praises of God.

I. I Will Trust God (1-2)

  1. Intention (Isa 12:1a): Praise.
  2. Reason (Isa 12:1b): Anger turned to comfort.
  3. Confession [Conclusion] (Isa 12:2): God is my salvation.

What are four characteristics of the saved?

  1. Trust God: Exercise of faith.
  2. Not be afraid: Removal of fear.
  3. Find strength: Infusion of strength.
  4. Sing songs: The joy of song (Isa 9:3; 1 Thess 1:6).

How does one come to trust God? Note the following steps:

  1. I refused to trust God.
  2. Instead I trusted my worst enemy.
  3. As a result I brought judgment on myself.
  4. But God, mysteriously, graciously gives his Messiah with
  5. forgiveness,
  6. encouragement and
  7. salvation.
  8. So I will trust Him.

Will you trust God through your crises? Isaiah spent his life trying to persuade people to trust in God, not be afraid and not give themselves to false saviors. His book makes the question unavoidable for us today: Will we trust God through our crises? Or will we fearfully surround our trust in God with mechanisms of self-help, just in case God fails? Do we feel secure with God alone? One of the striking things about this testimony is its simplicity. We complicate our trust in God. We mix in other things. We trust in our trust in God. We trust in our theology of God. We trust in our worship of God. We cling to God plus whatever makes us feel comfortable and superior. And the more props we need, the more insecure we become. But when the grace of God overrules our folly, real faith comes alive, and our outlook is simplified so that we say, “Behold, God is my salvation. He is enough. Period.” We then discover that we have been safe all along (Isa 12:2b).

We all long to sing. God has put into our hearts the capacity and the freedom to break out into song as the wonder of his saving love fills our hearts. That holy delight is what we were created for. We sense and know that this is so. And in the kingdom we will glorify and enjoy God with unrestrained song.

If you need to be in control you won’t be able to sing. The heart sings when we accept how little it matters that we are in control and how much it matters that God is in control for us, when we discover how little it matters that we are able and how much it suffices that God is able on our behalf. The day we step into the messianic kingdom and find that God has been true to his word, we redeemed will erupt in music as never before. The gospel says that we will sing a new song. It will sound “like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder … like the sound of harpists playing on their harps” (Rev 14:2). We have not yet heard that sound — sustained intensity like a waterfall, punctuated bursts like claps of thunder, overwhelming sweetness like an orchestra of harpists, all rolled into one. There is no such sound in all the world. But someday we will be a part of it.

You can sing when you know that God alone is your strength and your salvation. Isaiah is echoing the Song of Moses, sung after God rescued Israel through the Red Sea (Exo 15:2-18). They were weak. But it didn’t matter. Why? The confidence of the Biblical gospel from cover to cover is this: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31). His power is made perfect in our weakness (2 Cor 12:9). When that assurance enters our hearts, we see that even the frightening experiences of life are leading us more deeply into our salvation. We can stop thinking like victims and start singing even now. Isaiah describes God in an unusual way. The ESV translates Isa 12:2 “the LORD GOD.” The NIV translates this more literally: “the LORD, the LORD.” Isaiah is overusing the OT’s personal name for God, because grace enriches us with a strong sense of personal possession in God himself. The text literally reads, “Yah, Yahweh, is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.”

II. We Will Make God Known (3-6)

  1. What you do (Isa 12:4).
  2. Give thanks.
  3. Proclaim his name.
  4. Make known what God has done.
  5. Why you do it (Isa 12:5-6).
  6. God’s deeds (Isa 12:5).
  7. God’s presence (Isa 12:6).

Isaiah 12 is the climax and conclusion to the first part of Isaiah with Isaiah 13 introducing a new block of material. Isaiah 1-12 have stressed again and again the holiness of God (Isa 11:6)

  • Isa 6:3 – “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty…”
  • Isa 1:4 – “…they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him.”
  • Isa 5:16, 19, 24 – “…the holy God will be proved holy by his righteous acts.” “The plan of the Holy One of Israel – let it approach, let it come into view, so we may know it.” “…they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.”
  • Isa 8:13 – “The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy…”
  • Isa 10:17, 20 – “The Light of Israel will become a fire, their Holy One a flame.” “the remnant of Israel … will truly rely on the Holy One of Israel.”

References:

  1. Smith, Gary V. Isaiah 1-39. The New American Commentary: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture. B & H Publishing Group. Noshville, TN. 2007. 143-149.
  2. Motyer, J. Alec. Isaiah. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. IVP. Downers Grove, IL, USA. 1999.
  3. Webb, Barry G. The Message of Isaiah: On Eagles’ Wings. The Bible Speaks Today. IVP. Downers Grove, IL, USA. 1997.
  4. Kidner, Derek. New Bible Commentary. IVP. Downers Grove, IL, USA. 1994.
  5. Ortlund Jr., Raymond C. Isaiah: God Saves Sinners. Preaching The Word. Crossway books. Wheaton, IL, USA. 1995. (Book. 50 audio sermons on Isaiah by Ray Ortlund.)
  6. Isaiah – Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae.
  7. Isaiah: Title of each chapter and commentary.
  8. Isaiah – Matthew Henry.
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