Day Six

Isaiah 12:1-6

1.) You will say in that day: "I will give thanks to You, O LORD, for though You were angry with me, Your anger turned away, that You might comfort me.

2.) "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation."

3.) With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

4.) And you will say in that day: "Give thanks to the LORD, call upon His name, make known His deeds among the peoples, proclaim that His name is exalted.

5.) "Sing praises to the LORD, for He has done gloriously; let this be made known in all the earth.

6.) Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel."

         This is a continuation of Isaiah’s prophecy from the previous chapter. Often times in Old Testament prophecy, the prophet will see into the future and see it as all one image. In this case, Isaiah sees the coming of Christ and with that, sees all through the church age. In chapter eleven he talks about the One coming and then begins to speak about how it will be at the end of time. Something to look forward to, to anticipate.

         But, how do we see that blessed day?

         Verse two says, "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation."

         God, the Almighty, is our salvation. It is not a blanket salvation that covers everyone, nor is it a salvation that covers all the good people. It is a salvation for those who recognize who God is and what He has done for us. He sent His son to be our sacrifice for sin. Only our personal faith in that sacrifice can save our souls.

         And, of course, the world tells us different. They scoff at the feeble minded who believe such drivel. Years ago I got into a conversation with a young man. He had sought me out to have this conversation. He wanted me to see the logic of his argument. Science, he said, had proven for anyone who had a practical mind that there was this massive explosion at the beginning of time. From this and the hundreds of millions of years of evolution since, (that has been stretched out to untold billions of years now) we have our world of today. We are born, live and die and it is over for us. He was an excitable young man and he got very agitated when I told him I disagreed with him. So, he restated everything he had just said, only louder, and became more agitated still that I would not agree with him. Finally he said to me, shouting so loud that people were stopping to stare, “WHAT IF YOU ARE WRONG?!?!?!” Through all of this I had remained calm and non-argumentative, which had made him angrier still. I looked at him and in a quiet voice, I said, “So?” “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, SO???” “I mean, so what? If I am wrong then I will live a good life, I will love my wife and family, maybe people will have nice things to say when I die. It is not like I am trying to lead people to do bad things. And when I die, I will be buried. So what? But you, on the other hand, if you are wrong, you will die and go to Hell. That seems like a huge gamble to me.”

         Again, what did the prophet say? "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation."

         Today, let’s pray for the strength of God to infuse us so that we might take the good word of salvation to our loved ones and to the world.