Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 3, 2019 | Can I Help? - Drinking From The Wells Of Salvation

Transcript

February 3, 2019 | Can I Help? - Drinking From The Wells Of Salvation · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Can I help?
0:01
SPEAKER_00: You look like you need it.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: Those are the words that govern our present sermon series, which is called the Isaiah Challenge.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: I hope that how many of you are still with me reading through the book of Isaiah?
0:13
SPEAKER_00: Come on, big weekend, get with it.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, about five chapters a week.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: This week should be chapters 21 to 25, there, a little typo, but uh, and every week I write these devotionals really happy with the hundreds of you that are letting us know in town and out of town that you are doing the devotionals.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: You'll love this book, you'll get to know this book.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: It'll bless you in a tremendous way.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: It's the greatest book in the Old Testament, the great book of Isaiah.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: And my title this morning and number five of our series that's going to run through Easter approximately is we're working on the uh technology.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: It's called Drinking from the Wells of Salvation.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: Which sounds like a good old traditional sermon title, but not when I tell you that what this really reminds me of this morning, best introduction, is a headline I saw this week.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: And that headline goes like this 25 reasons not to watch the Super Bowl.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: So here are Super Bowl teams today, the ones that should be there, actually.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: I apologize.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: I know some of you are listening from the West Coast, and uh you're a Rams fan, or there are actually, I know two people here in Topeka in our church, who are Patriot fans.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna call you out.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: So, but I mean, let's let's be honest, Breeze, I feel sympathy for him.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: He's almost as old as I am.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he had this thing in the bag until referees decided to get paralyzed in the last minute, or they New Orleans should be there.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: And these people should be there because, I mean, they're us, right?
2:08
SPEAKER_00: And because they have this stupid rule that that whoever gets the coin flip is gonna win the overtime, basically, is what it was.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: So I've had a number of people this week, and by the way, a couple of the 25 reasons are we're tired of that one team that's always there, and others are the most exciting teams and the deserving teams are the ones that are staying home.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: But as a result, a number of people have told me, including members of my own family, and we're all sports freaks, that they don't care about this game at all, and they may not watch it.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: They'll watch it for the commercials or something, but or maroon five.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: But um, sorry about that.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: Just popped out.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: So, hey, they're cool.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: They're cool.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: So um, but you know, it really doesn't matter.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: If you've gone from caring about football to not caring in the last week or two, that's one thing.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: I want to talk to you about something far more serious, and that is that for a Christian, moving from caring to not caring about your Christian life and growth and service and ministry.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: And I think you know what I'm talking about.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: Those of you who, let's say, work in a water or work with young people, those of you who are teachers at a Christian school or at a church, missionaries, pastors, all of us find the same great danger.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: And that is going dry, that is working hard.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we did really well in our you know enthusiastic teens and in our uh, you know, invigorated twenties, and then in our strong 30s, and in our experienced 40s, and in our wise 50s, and then our exhausted 60s, or whatever.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: I mean, and so forth.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: But the problem is that when you're in Christian service and Christian ministry and Christian work, at any level at all, you find that you are giving out.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're there to meet needs, but I mean, every single day you feel like you're getting bled.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: You feel like people are coming in and they're plugging in their umbilical cord, and they're just that's too vivid a metaphor.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry about that.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: But they're feeding off of you and you get depleted and you get exhausted and you get tired and you lose energy and you lose wisdom and you use love, which is the worst thing to lose, and you lose all of these things, and after a while, you come to up to people and go, you know what, I used to care, but I don't think I care anymore.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: And then the danger is, and I I know one Christian leader who who I'm throwing things at you, I imagine, but just um doesn't even leave her home anymore.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: A Christian leader, a national Christian leader.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: Just, I'm tired, I've had it, I've been around people too much, I don't want to do it anymore.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: And wow.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: So this is a real problem, and that is how do you keep on persevering?
4:57
SPEAKER_00: How do you keep on giving?
4:58
SPEAKER_00: How do you keep on winning?
4:59
SPEAKER_00: How do you keep on speaking?
5:00
SPEAKER_00: How do you keep on loving?
5:01
SPEAKER_00: Where do you get the energy?
5:03
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want to talk about this morning.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: From the 12th chapter of Isaiah, it's one of the shortest chapters in the Bible.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: When you feel like I just can't go on, this is the chapter to go to.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: It's just six verses long, and it jumps right in.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: It starts with these words.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: You will say, in that day, in what day?
5:23
SPEAKER_00: Well, whatever it is, whatever that day is, here's what you're gonna say in that day, Isaiah the prophet says.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: I'll give thanks to you, O God, oh Lord, for through, for though you were angry at me, your anger turned away and you've comforted me.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Well, what day is that that you're gonna say something like that?
5:47
SPEAKER_00: When was it that the Lord was angry?
5:51
SPEAKER_00: And when was it that his anger turned into comfort?
5:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, in chapters 1 through 11, you find that out.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah comes to Israel and he says, Listen, I know you guys are freaked out.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: The Nazis are coming from the north.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: The Assyrian, the great Assyrian army, the first organized army in history, and they were brutal and they were bloody, and here they come.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: And Isaiah went and challenged their king, King Ahaz, the king of Judah, and he challenged them all, and he said, I want you to trust the Lord.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: The Lord wants you to trust him.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: You have this love relationship with him, he's delivered you, he got you out of Egypt, he can do almost anything.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: Will you trust him?
6:25
SPEAKER_00: And Ahaz and Israel just basically said, No, we don't think he's big enough for this one.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: What we're gonna trust in is we're gonna trust in uh the people who uh really are, you know, really have made a name for themselves on the earth.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: The most loud, the most boisterous, the biggest army.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna trust in Egypt.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: After all their pyramids have already been standing for nearly 2,000 years, and that's Sphinx.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: And they've promised us that they'll deliver us whenever we need them, and so we're gonna trust Egypt.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: We're sending down money, we're sending down whatever they want, and they're gonna come up here, they're gonna protect us against Assyria.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: And Isaiah said, bad decision.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: The Lord says this.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: The Lord says he's gonna destroy both Egypt and Assyria one day, but before that happens, he's gonna crush you.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna discipline you, he's gonna punish you, and he's gonna send you into captivity.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: Because he's angry, because I mean, this is betrayal because you guys have had a love relationship because he created you and then he saved you, and he poured himself into you, and now you're betraying him.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: Now you're I'm that was a communion cup.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: But let's just pretend I'm getting married in a Jewish ceremony.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: So it's a good thing my wife, however, is not in the service.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: So, honey, if you listen to this, I'm happily married.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to get remarried.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Right.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: There's no canopy, nothing.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, that was weird.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: So God says, you know, I'm I'm angry and I'm gonna send you into captivity, but you know what?
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Because I love you so much that unlike these other nations whom I'm gonna crush and they'll never get back up again, I can't do that to you because I love you so much.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: I just love you.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: And so what happens is I will eventually bring you back to the land.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: And then I will replace my anger with comfort.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: And then you'll understand finally what's going on.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Then your head will clear, and then you'll realize, oh my goodness, I can't believe we trusted in someone else.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: And you'll say in that day, I'll give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, now you've comforted me.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: And I hope that each of you says, you know, I've been there.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: I've been there because God wanted something out of me, and I knew he wanted it out of me, and I could have given it to him, I could have walked with him, but instead I turned away.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: I trusted in other things.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: I was looking to other sort of pleasures and satisfactions.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: And I sensed the Lord leaving me when I left him, and I got dry and I got parched, and I stopped caring, and I moved away from the church, and I moved away from the Lord, and I moved away from my Christian friends, and I started doing things.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't really good.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: I could tell the Lord wasn't happy with me.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: But then in this miracle, this event, something happened, and then God brought me back to Himself, and now His anger is replaced with comfort.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, I'm so happy, and and you'll and I've come to myself, and what I oh wow, that's exciting.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: So our technology here is just really makes it so fast, it works like movies, you know.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: So um, so let me go back to the very first verses of the book really quickly and just prove to you really quickly what I say and then move on.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: This whole book started with God pouring out his heart, saying what many parents say about their kids.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: I've raised children and I brought them up, but they've rebelled against me.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: And God announces, you know, these are my children, these are my beloved, but they've rebelled against me.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: And then Isaiah, sort of like a news commentator, weighs in and says, Yeah, sinful nation, depraved children.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: They've abandoned the Lord, they've despised the Holy One of Israel, they've turned their backs on him.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: God is justly angry.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: He can't just walk away from it.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: You can't, you know, stop the law of gravity.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: Something had to be done.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: And so he sent them into captivity, but he brought them back.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: And bringing them back, now this is verse 2, chapter 12, you I come to understand something that God is my salvation.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: It's not just what he does for me, it's he himself is my salvation.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: He himself saved me when I was far from him.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: He performed this miracle.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: By the way, we now know that the name of God, who is salvation in the New Testament, is the Lord Jesus Christ.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: Because we were so far away from our Creator.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: And then he came down to earth, and the wrath of God was upon us, but he took care of the wrath of God.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: This miraculous event of the cross happened that we're going to celebrate in about 16 minutes.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: And this miraculous event where Jesus hung on the cross and he died for our sins, and the wrath of God was turned away, and now he comforts us and comes to us, and we understand completely now that God is my salvation.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: And as a result, in my life, I'll trust and not be afraid.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: Notice those are the two options, aren't there?
11:22
SPEAKER_00: There really aren't any others.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: We live in fear.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: All of us live in fear.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: Psychology Today lists about a dozen fears.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: The ones that I relate to are the fears of failure and rejection.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: You know, and when we fear failure or you fear rejection, then you don't step out in faith, you don't try, you don't agree to do whatever someone's asking you to do in the ministry or any other thing.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: And so instead of trusting and stepping out in faith and taking the chance of being rejected, you don't trust and make the attempt.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: Or then there's the fears of other people's opinion and saying the wrong thing, and so we're scared that if we speak up, then we might get embarrassed, we might say the wrong thing.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: People may realize that we're not as smart as we like to pretend we are, or we're not worthy.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't have the position or the respect that we have, so we fear other people's opinions, so we don't trust.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: We don't fling ourselves headlong upon God and trust Him and step out.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: And then there's fearing responsibility and fearing commitment.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: We fear responsibility because then people will criticize us and we're more visible and we're more vulnerable, and we fear commitment because if we commit ourselves in one direction, that means we're sort of locking ourselves in and we're saying no to all these other people or all these other opportunities, and so we don't step out in faith and trust the Lord.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: And that's why you have just these two options: trust and not be afraid.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: And we might scoff at Judah for trusting in Egypt rather than the Lord, but the fact of the matter is, we have the same problem.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: A couple weeks ago, a magazine I enjoy reading called The Atlantic, used to be the Atlantic Monthly, had a headline article.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: Trust is collapsing in America.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: And at first, I, like they, you know, would go, oh dear, that's terrible.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: The first lines were, In God we trust, but that seems to be about the only thing that we still trust in as much.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: And the article went on to list how tragic it was that trust of the national media and trust of magazines like The Atlantic and trust of the government and all these other trusts have fallen catastrophically in the last couple of years.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: They've fallen 15 to 20 to 25 percent in America.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, they said it's too bad because in a place like China the trust is 80 percent.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: And that's what helped me begin to think, but hold it.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: In the Bible, we're not supposed to be trusting in magazines or the media or the government.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, in Proverbs it says that a husband of a good wife can trust her, but it never says the reverse, by the way, guys.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: Sorry about that.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: But the fact of the matter is, God says if you're trusting in other things, then you're not trusting in me.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: You say, but I'm trusting in 95%, and God says you're 5% short.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you mixing and matching, trusting in yourself 10%, and trusting in other people 10%, and trusting in, you know, whatever pleasures you like to have, or drugs or alcohol, anything else, 5%, and then trusting in me for the rest of it.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, you you've got to trust in me.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: In God we trust, right?
14:42
SPEAKER_00: Or by the way, here's a verse you ought to know by heart.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 3, 5 and 6, say it with me.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: If you know it, trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding, and all your ways submit to him, and he will make your path straight.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Well, there it is.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: Trust in the Lord with all your heart means to trust him entirely, 100%.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: Lean not on your own understanding means to trust him exclusively.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: That's no one else or nothing else.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: In all your ways, submit to him means to trust him exhaustively.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: It's a whole life of trust.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: After second service, I heard a heart rending stories from some friends of mine, the Poland's.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: One of their close friends, age 58, died just a month ago.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: Name was Gene Hoover.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: Gene Hoover, an outspoken Christian and just basically a good guy, lived up in I think Ohio.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think in Ohio, near Cleveland.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden had a heart attack six weeks ago.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: Just out of the blue had a heart attack, age 58.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: It got worse and worse.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: And then on January the 4th, lying there in bed, he had a sense that he might not live long, and with his children and his wife around him, he said to them, I want you to tell me, each of you right now, to trust in God.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: And he pointed at each of them and his wife and his teenagers and said, Trust in God, Dad.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: And he asked his daughter to write it on his arm.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: Trust in the Lord.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: And it's exactly what she did.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: He said, I want that because tonight, when I wake up in the middle of the night and I get scared, wondering how much longer I have to live, I want to be able to look at that and know that instead of fearing, I can trust in the Lord.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: And he died the next day.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: And that's what they talked about at the service last month.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: Because when it comes down to the real critical moments of life, you have that choice.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: You either fear or you trust in God.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, Behold, God is my salvation, I'll trust and not be afraid, for the Lord my God is my strength, my song, and he's become my salvation.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: By the way, these last two lines are repeated in the Old Testament several times.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: I get the feeling it was the favorite chorus in ancient Israel.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: It was written by Miriam, Moses' sister, right after they walked out of the Red Sea, and she got the women together at a women's choir.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: She wrote Exodus 15, and that was the key line.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is God is my strength and my song, and he's become my salvation.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: It was picked up hundreds of years later, and they sang it in the temple.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: We read that in Psalm 118, and now here's another several hundred years later, and it's picked up.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: I bet every time they sang it, someone said, You know, I understand that God is my strength thing, of course.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: I understand that God is my salvation thing, but why'd you throw the word song in there?
17:46
SPEAKER_00: I don't like to sing all that much.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: And I don't like the sound that comes out of my mouth when I sing.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Why do I have to sing?
17:57
SPEAKER_00: I've talked about this a couple of times, and I always, you some of you give me a hard time.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Say, I'm not very good at singing.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: And when I was young, my choir director in in junior high said, okay, yeah, you stand up there with the other six graders, but you just open your mouth, pretend.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to hear it comes out.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that happens, right?
18:16
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have had that happen, or you've been singing here at church, and all the people around you moved away.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: A few weeks ago, a few weeks ago, I was sitting over here and I was sitting next to a guy who was really singing loud, and he had this incredible gift of singing every single note, exactly a half a note flat.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: It was just astounding.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: That's really hard to do.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: Try it sometime.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: It's really kind of fun, but it's very hard to do.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: And so I had this choice.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: He's singing a lot louder than me, and so I had this choice.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: Do I just sing along with him?
18:43
SPEAKER_00: That would be the easiest.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: Or do I still try to sing the notes they're singing on stage?
18:47
SPEAKER_00: But you know, it was a thrill to realize, you know what?
18:50
SPEAKER_00: God's not given us all the same ability in singing.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: He's just asking, however, for our availability.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: If he cared about our ability, he had given us all more talent.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: We could all sing like the people who are standing up here today.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: But what God wants is he wants you to sing, and it's important to him that you sing.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: And your faith, your Christianity isn't healthy unless it is sung.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: And so the Lord God is my strength, and he's my song, and he's my salvation.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: Make sure you do sing, and it'll help if you practice.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, turn on a YouTube of Lauren Daigle songs and sing along, and you'll be better, all right?
19:29
SPEAKER_00: So that's Isaiah 12, 2, but now I come to the key to how I started.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: How is it that we endure, that we gain the energy, strength, love, courage, and so forth throughout our life, 20s, 30s, and 40s, until God takes us home.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: How do we maintain the energy to keep going and serving and loving?
19:47
SPEAKER_00: And here you have this remarkable verse, with joy, say it with me, with joy, you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you look at it closely, you got a couple of problems here in this verse.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: For one, you have will draw, as though it's future, we thought salvation happened in the past, and we have not just one well.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, normally when we talk about salvation, am I right?
20:13
SPEAKER_00: We think about a point of time in the past when we repented of our sin.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: We did a 180, we looked at Jesus on the cross, we believed in him as our Savior, and as a result, he gave us what he promised.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: He gave us the gift of eternal life, he gave us the forgiveness of sins.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: He took away our guilt, he gave us the indwelling Holy Spirit, he gave us the sealing of the Spirit so we can have assurance of salvation.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: All of these things happen in the past.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: Salvation is done.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: If someone asks you, are you saved?
20:39
SPEAKER_00: you say, Yeah, I've been saved.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: And that's correct as far as it goes.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 2.8 says, For by grace you have been saved.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: And we can sing amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved past tense a wretch like me.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: But that's not the only way that the Bible speaks about salvation.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: It also speaks about salvation as a present tense.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: The three tenses of salvation are past, present, and future.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: And so you have a verse like 1 Corinthians 1.18.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: The cross is the power of God to those of us who are being saved.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think anybody here is going to disagree with me when I say you not only needed that initial rescue, but you need to be rescued nearly every day from yourself and what you say, and the temptations you've got, and your minor addictions, and your silliness, and your rebellion against God.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: That delivers you from the present power of sin.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the penalty's taken care of, but you still got issues, buddy.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: But then there's a future tense of salvation.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: Romans 13 11, Paul says our salvation is nearer to us than when we first believed.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I need to get rid of my sin nature in the flesh.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking forward to the day when I'm glorified in a brand new person and I think the right thoughts and say the right things.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: And I don't have to worry about it.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to sweat.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to struggle.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: I can finally get beyond these temptations that seem to have me by the throat so much.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: Now, what we're talking about in our verse, Isaiah 12, is right here in the middle.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about drawing water in the present tense from the wells of salvation.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: This is one of our wells.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for all that you gave in December, hundreds of thousands of dollars to help us, to help Haitian, the Haitian ministry, Haiti Lifeline build wells and build church buildings and all these remote villages.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: And this picture recently taken, you know, my son and others went back, went, went back there a couple weeks ago and built another church, put in another well.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: They go back daily to the well.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a past tense thing, it's not just once.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: They go back daily to the well, and you and I need to draw water from the wells of salvation.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: Not water holes because they dry up, right?
23:09
SPEAKER_00: Not reservoirs or ponds, but these aquifers that produce springs and wells, and it's plural.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: It's not just one well.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine if Israel had come out and out of Egypt and there was only one spring there at the beginning, and then they had to wait 40 years to Canaan?
23:27
SPEAKER_00: They'd have all been dead.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: No, there were wells you read in the Old Testament.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: Springs, and every single day, sometimes for a month or two months, they would stop at Kadesh Barnea, which is which I've slept there overnight.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: And it's a place where there are all kinds of underground springs that just keep bubbling up, an inexhaustible supply.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: And what this verse is saying to us is that there are wells of salvation that God provides for us every single day, and he wants us to go drink deeply and daily of these wells.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: And if we will do that, then we will be able to survive day after day, month after month, year after year, as we are being depleted.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: We continually daily go back to the wells and we drink this life-giving water so that as a result we feel strong and energetic and loving and we sort of get a new start constantly.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
24:26
SPEAKER_00: That's the promise, and that's what happens when you go to the Word and to God.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: For after all, what are the wells of salvation if they're not God Himself?
24:36
SPEAKER_00: For the previous two verses have said, Behold, God has become my salvation.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: So what this means is every single day, this really applies to you guys as well.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: You go and you drink of God Himself.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: You open the word, you bow in prayer, you talk to Him, and then you taste of the delights and of the wisdom and the power and strength and energy and love, especially the love of God Himself, and then you walk out, depleted as you were before.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: You are now full to overflowing with the water of life that is supplied by the wells of salvation, i.e., God Himself, that He puts through your life.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: Other people may grow dry because they're trusting in the ponds and in the water holes that the world supplies around us.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: But those things do not last.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: You and I have an inexhaustible well of salvation.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: And when you drink of the wells of salvation, then all of a sudden, verses four, five, and six, we find that you can't help but speak.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: Your mouth opens and you speak.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: You say, 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.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: In one verse, you have a diagram of Christian discipleship.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: If you do only these things in your Christian life, you will grow up to be a mature Christian.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: And they're all involving speaking.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: Number one, you praise with other people who love God like you do.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: You open your mouth and speak about God in song to him.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Second, you pray.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: This phrase, call upon his name, is a technical phrase in the Old and New Testaments.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: For calling out to God, you speak to God about yourself and him.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: Third, make known his deeds among the peoples.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: This is witness.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: This is where you open your mouth and you talk about God.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: You brag about God.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: You talk about how he satisfied your thirst.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: I know it's so tempting not to do that.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: It's so tempting to say, I won't speak, I'll just witness with my life.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm not good with my mouth, with my tongue, and I get embarrassed.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: David Platt has written in his most recent book, Follow Me.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: We have brothers and sisters around the world who are imprisoned, beaten, persecuted, and killed today, not because they smile while they serve people.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: Martyrs from the first century to the 21st century die because they speak the gospel.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't it seem ignorant or even arrogant to say, particularly in areas where we are free to proclaim the gospel, that we will just witness with our lives?
27:39
SPEAKER_00: If you've gone back to the well of salvation today and you've tasted the living water of life, you'll find that you can walk out and talk about how delicious that water is.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: And like a boy pointing another boy, a thirsty boy, to a water fountain in a park, you can say, That's where I got my water.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: I suggest you go there.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: It'll be delicious.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: I go back to it every day.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: And you can point other people to the wells of salvation.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: And that's the way he continues in the last two sentences.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: Sing praises to the Lord, for he's done gloriously.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: Let this be made known in all the earth.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: This is praise.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: This is witnessing.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: This is missions.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: If you say you don't care about missions, then I know you haven't been to the water fountain or to the aquifer lately, because this is our God.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: He cares about it so much that he tells us repeatedly in Revelation that He's going to put people of every tribe and tongue and people and nation before the throne to sing praise to Him.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: And we conclude cry aloud and shout for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst, is the favorite phrase of Isaiah here, Holy One of Israel.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: This is the uh diagram, the discipleship program for the Christian life.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: Those three things.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: Number one, what is it?
29:09
SPEAKER_00: Praise.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: Number two, pray.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: Number three, witness.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: Let me leave you uh with uh two uh instructions, two lessons from this chapter.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: And on this first one, I put up Chris Pratt because recently I was uh reading a talk that he gave over in England or something to a school, to a group of high schoolers.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: He has no problem talking about his faith is astounding, and he was telling them that they needed any Christian students there needed to pray, and they needed to talk to God, and they needed to witness.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was astounding.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: And he's a if you don't know him, he's a cool guy, and he's one of my favorite actors.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, that's not important.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: But here's the point: do what he does speak daily to God and about God.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: Praise, pray, witness every day.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: Number three, number two, drink daily and deeply from the wells of salvation.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: If you will do that, I promise you'll be able to hang on, no matter how you get bled, no matter how you get depleted as you go through your life, and all the way till that day when the Lord Jesus Christ takes you home, you will be strong, full of energy, full of love.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: And one day God will lead us to springs of living water, he says in Revelation, and he will wipe away all tears from our eyes.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: Join me in a word of prayer.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: Father, we come to the Lord's table where we look at your Son and we thank you for him, and we can't help bubbling forth inside us at least with praise.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: And we'll pray to you and we'll tell you how much we love you and we love him.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: And give us the ability and the courage, Heavenly Father, to speak out about that this week.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: For Jesus' sake, and for the sake of those that we love and know, we pray.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: Let me make one suggestion.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh, men are gonna come up, they're gonna serve bread and they're gonna serve cup.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: And we've been talking about drinking this morning.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: I I would suggest something that's worked for me the last couple serves, and that is that when you drink the cup, simply say to the Lord, I'm drinking from the wells of salvation.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: Try that.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, gosh.