Dr. Rodney Plunket

Isaiah 12:1-6

Isaiah (Isa) 12:1-6 is a great psalm of praise. I hope you allowed the power of that psalm to flow over you as we read it together. Now I want us to appreciate what caused this great expression of praise to be written. To do that I must tell you that the early chapters of Isaiah reveal God’s hot anger due to the sin of the nation of Judah. These chapters also make clear that God was using the Assyrian Empire to awaken the people to faithful obedience. For example, in Isa 10:5 God says, "Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger—the club in their hands is my fury!" And the Assyrian Empire was an awesome rod of anger; it was brutally powerful. Prior to the time of Isaiah the nation of Israel had divided into a southern kingdom called Judah and a Northern Kingdom called Israel or Ephraim. In about 721 BC the armies of Assyria destroyed the Northern Kingdom and took many of its citizens into exile. In 701 BC Assyria invaded the southern kingdom. That invasion is reported in 2 Kings 18:13 which says, "In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them." The only major city of Judah that Assyria did not capture at that time was the capital city, Jerusalem. What we need to realize is that the prophet Isaiah lived and prophesied in a world dominated by the Assyrian Empire. And Isaiah had the onerous task of telling the people of Judah that their God was the one who was using the Assyrians to punish them.

But that was not all that the prophet had to say about Assyria. Please take your Bible and turn to Isa 10 and follow along as I read verses (vv) 24-27b.

Therefore thus says the Lord God of hosts: O my people, who live in Zion, do not be afraid of the Assyrians when they beat you with a rod and lift up their staff against you as the Egyptians did. For in a very little while my indignation will come to an end, and my anger will be directed to their destruction. The Lord of hosts will wield a whip against them, as when he struck Midian at the rock of Oreb; his staff will be over the sea, and he will lift it as he did in Egypt. On that day his burden will be removed from your shoulder, and his yoke will be destroyed from your neck.

The prophet’s words here declared to the people of Judah that God’s use of Assyria would not go on forever. In time God would turn and punish Assyria. And the Assyrian Empire was punished; it was conquered by the Babylonians in 609 BC. But that was a good many years after the death of Isaiah. God allowed Isaiah to see the fall of Assyria in advance so the prophet could tell the people that they should not fear the Assyrians; in time their power would be broken by God.

Now take your Bible and turn to Isa 11:1-5 and follow along as I read these verses. Isaiah 11 looks even further and tells Isaiah’s hearers even more about what God was going to do in the future. This chapter also sets the stage for the psalm in Isa 12. Let’s read the first five verses of Isa 11.

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

This passage predicted that a "shoot shall come out from Jesse." Jesse was the father of King David, so the metaphor used here indicated that God was going to raise up a king from the line of David. Isaiah said that this coming king would have "the spirit of the Lord" resting upon him and this king’s "delight shall be in the fear of the Lord." He also said that this coming king would not judge based on appearances or mere words, instead righteousness would guide Him as he judged the poor and the meek. This passage describes an ideal king who would be guided by the holy priorities of God.

Now please turn to Isa 11:6-16 and listen to the kind of age that this coming king would usher in.

The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.

On that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that is left of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Ethiopia, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea. He will raise a signal for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. The jealousy of Ephraim shall depart, the hostility of Judah shall be cut off; Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah, and Judah shall not be hostile towards Ephraim. But they shall swoop down on the backs of the Philistines in the west, together they shall plunder the people of the east. They shall put forth their hand against Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites shall obey them. And the Lord will utterly destroy the tongue of the sea of Egypt; and will wave his hand over the River with his scorching wind; and will split it into seven channels, and make a way to cross on foot; so there shall be a highway from Assyria for the remnant that is left of his people, as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt.

The language and images used here predict a time when injustices and hostilities would be ended forever and the people of God would be in control. Most scholars suspect that either Judah’s King Hezekiah or King Josiah was the first biblical character to fulfill this prophetic passage. But surely it is obvious to all that neither of those great kings fulfilled it comprehensively. For example, Assyria was a power to be reckoned with throughout Hezekiah’s reign, and Josiah was killed in a misguided battle against Egypt. No, the honor of fulfilling this prophetic prediction is reserved for King Jesus. And even Jesus will not comprehensively fulfill it until He returns with power so that all of God’s creatures finally experience the wonder of God’s vision, the wonder of God’s fully consummated will.

Now feel the power of Isa 12. This Isaiah psalm rejoices in the vision that God granted the prophet. This psalm takes hold of that vision, embraces that vision, and expresses the joy of that vision. Listen again to v 1: "In that day you will say: ‘Praise the Lord! He was angry with me, but now he comforts me.’" God’s mercy causes God’s disciplining punishment to end, even though the Book of Isaiah as a whole makes very clear that Judah’s sins were grievous. This Isaiah psalm rejoices in the fact that God’s mercy has caused God’s righteous anger to cease.

Now look again at v 2 of Isa 12: "‘See, God has come to save me. I will trust in him and not be afraid. The Lord God is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.’" God’s use of Assyria to punish Judah was incredibly frightening. The people of Judah had reason to be afraid of God because of their sin and God’s reaction to it. But the prophet makes clear that God’s mercy was going to prevail. God’s mercy would cause God to turn again into Judah’s savior, a savior in whom they could trust and not be afraid. Instead of fearing God and the Assyrians whom God used to punish Judah, they would be able to look to the Lord as their strength and their song. They would again know that the Lord was their salvation.

In v 3 of this Isaiah psalm we read, "With joy you will drink deeply from the fountain of salvation!" Knowing God as their salvation would be a rich joy. Palestine is highly drought prone. The image of a fountain is a positive and powerful image for the people who live there. The psalm says that the salvation the Lord would provide would be so rich and so powerful that it would be like a fountain, and they would drink deeply from that fountain with joy. Feel the power of this psalm as it causes the hearer to revel in the joy of the vision of God which the prophet revealed.

Verses 4-6 of Isa 12 say,

In that wonderful day you will sing:

"Thank the Lord!
Praise his name!

Tell the world what he has done.
Oh, how mighty he is!

Sing to the Lord,
for he has done wonderful things.
Make known his praise around the world.

Let all the people of Jerusalem shout his praise with joy!
For great is the Holy One of Israel who lives among you."

The psalm looks forward eagerly to the day when Isaiah’s vision from God would be fully realized. It even composes a song in advance, a song that they would sing on that day. And that song is a song of unadulterated praise to God for what God would do even before God had done it. What a great faith this song conveys––a faith that feels the joy of God’s powerful deliverance even before that deliverance had taken place.

And I am drawn to the last line of this Isaiah psalm. "‘For great is the Holy One of Israel who lives among you.’" Why no fear? Why such exuberant joy? Because Judah’s holy God was going to live among them once again, and that holy God was going to live among them with mercy and salvation. No longer would they fear God’s wrath. No longer would they see God wield Assyria like a club against them. Instead they would have a God who would live among them and be like a fountain of salvation from whom they could drink deeply with joy.

Sisters and brothers, that is the same holy whom we worship and serve. And by God’s Holy Spirit that same God lives among us and is indeed a fountain of salvation from whom we can drink deeply with joy. G. G. D. Kilpatrick wrote:

"What makes you so shining faced, Memsahib?" asked an old woman of one of our missionaries in an Indian village. She got her answer from a life claimed and won by Jesus Christ. If the modern church is to recover the lost radiance of faith it will do so only by drawing anew from the wells of salvation that water of life which is the gift of God’s love in Christ (G. G. D. Kilpatrick, "Exposition of the Book of Isaiah," in The Interpreter’s Bible, ed. by George A. Buttrick [New York: Abingdon, 1956], 5:254).

Christians should be "shining faced." We should be shining faced because of the deliverance of God, the salvation of God through Christ Jesus. We have the shoot of Jesse on our throne. We have the ideal king whose priorities are God’s priorities. We look forward to a time when justice and righteousness will reign supreme. And even today, in advance of that consummated kingdom, we have the Holy living among us, we have the fountain of salvation from which we can drink deeply with joy.

What a mighty and loving God we serve. God’s "love goes from east to west." God’s love "runs as deep as it is wide. . . . And words cannot express the love" the redeemed feel because of what God has done for us (Jeff Moore & Steven Curtis Chapman, "Listen to Our Hearts," Tin Roof Music and Hat Songs, 1992).

Let’s praise the love of God. Let’s express the joy of having that love. If you need to receive the love of God please come now as we rejoice in the thrill of having such a loving God living among us. Please come as we stand and sing with joy.