In his sermon 'The Praise of the Redeemed,' Peter Allison focuses on Isaiah chapter 12, emphasizing God's salvation and the turning away of His wrath. He compares God's wrath to human wrath, highlighting that while human anger is emotional and often sinful, God's wrath is judicial, holy, and can be satisfied by payment, such as Christ's sacrifice. Allison uses the metaphor of drawing water from the wells of salvation to illustrate receiving Christ's riches through faith. He emphasizes the importance of meditation on the Word of God and prayer in experiencing the fullness of salvation. The sermon also addresses the collective responsibility of the church in praising God and acknowledging His greatness. Allison concludes by personifying the church as the bride of Christ, urging believers to proclaim God's praises.

Our scripture reading is Isaiah chapter 12. Hear God's word. And in that day you will say, oh Lord, I will praise you. Though you were angry with me, your anger is turned away and you comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation.

I will trust and not be afraid. For Yah, the Lord, is my strength and song. He also has become my salvation. Therefore, with joy, you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And in that day you will say, Praise the Lord, call upon His name, declare His deeds among the peoples, make mention that His name is exalted.

Sing to the Lord, for he has done excellent things. This is known in all the earth. Cry out in shadow inhabitant of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel in your midst. May we choose these as precepts that His hand may become our help. Almighty Father in heaven, We ask that you would give to us the spirit of illumination Understanding of your word may the hearing of your word be mixed with faith May Lord your word reach and penetrate the innermost recesses of our heart, that we may meditate upon it, that we may obey it, That we may love you.

And I ask that you would sanctify my sinful lips, that they this morning might be the vessel of clay through which your word comes. In Jesus name, amen. In Jesus' name, Amen. We said at the beginning of our study of Isaiah a few months ago that this book is sometimes called the Fifth Gospel, or the Romans of the Old Testament, because the Gospel message is so clearly presented throughout the book of Isaiah. And this chapter is one of those chapters that spawns these types of comparisons.

It's a hymn of praise that serves as a capstone closing of this book of Immanuel, this little section from chapters 6 through 12, with many prophecies about the Messiah and the blessings of Christ's millennial reign that we've been looking at. But interspersed through these wonderful promises are the sections proclaiming God's judgment on a spiritually dead church, on a people that have trusted Assyria instead of the Lord on a people that didn't listen to the Lord's rebuke and chastening and not only on them. But he's also he also promises in this book to gather the Gentiles. And this little hymn of praise is modeled like the Song of Moses after the deliverance from the Red Sea, the Yom Suf in the Egyptian army, even using some similar languages. There are two parts to this hymn, verses one to three and verses four to six.

Both parts begin with, in that day you will say. And they look at those two statements, and we've heard in that day before and we've talked about when that what that day means but and so I won't repeat that but those two phrases look the same in English but this is one place where if you have a Geneva Bible or a King James Bible, you have a slight edge. Because the U in verse 1 is singular, while the U in verse 4, 3 and 4, is plural, or in this case, verse 4. Behold, you will say is singular, and in that day you will say, in verse 4, is a plural. So in the first two verses, Isaiah is speaking of you individually.

This is what the saints will say as individuals. And in verses 3 to 5, Isaiah is speaking of you collectively. This is what the church does and says. So the first two verses in each of these parts are the words of the people. The last verse in each of these two parts, that's verse 3 and verse 6, are Isaiah's words, if you notice.

And they are imperatives or commands about what we ought to do or will do as the redeemed people of the Lord. So that's the basic structure, but this first verse Gives us the basis for our praise to God. And this is the basis, and this is really the foundation of. All of our praise. And that is that God's wrath has been turned away from you, and He comforts you.

That is the reason that's given for our praise. Oh, Lord, I will praise you. Though you were angry with me, your anger is turned away, and you comfort me. Now, God's wrath is anger is often misunderstood because it is equated or it's compared to our human wrath, our wrath as humans, which is often sinful and always emotional. We think of wrath as a strong emotion, because in us it is.

Even righteous anger is a strong emotion that produces an intense desire and turmoil within our spirit. That's what anger is for us. And that's why it's so easy to sin in our anger. Human wrath produces physiological changes in our bodies. We become agitated.

We are moved. Our nostrils flare. Our heart beats faster. Our veins may even pop out. In fact, the Hebrew word for anger is an idiom, means turning the nose, because our nostrils, responsive the nostrils to anger.

That's how the Hebrews describe anger. But God's wrath is nothing like that God's wrath is not emotional like our wrath God doesn't have emotions in that sense because emotions are inconsistent with his immutability and independence. He never changes. He is impassible. Impassible means without passions.

Emotions are only possible in someone who is subject to change and God is not. God's wrath is his holy will to punish all who transgress his law. It is his holy hatred and abhorrence of sin. It's a fixed and just vengeance. But see, unlike human wrath, that is a disturbance, a perturbation in our minds, a stirring up of our emotions, God judges with perfect tranquility.

Human wrath is a passion. God's wrath is a judicial act, a judicial sentence. It is His holiness clothed with His judicial robes. But God's wrath is not just an impersonal legal sentence. It's not just a legal consequence.

God is a personal God. And His wrath is personal and Relational. God says in Leviticus 26 that if you despise my statutes or if your soul abhors my judgments so that you don't perform My commandments and you break My covenant, it says, then My soul will abhor you. When God speaks of His soul, that's not what we call an anthropomorphism like we talk about the hand of God. We know God doesn't have a hand.

God doesn't have a soul. But that's not what this is. The Hebrew expression, my soul, is in just a way of saying, of referring to yourself. It's an idiom to refer to yourself. And there's several places in Genesis, for example, and in the Psalms where my soul is what somebody says when they're just referring to themselves.

And some places in our English it's even translated I just I the Hebrew says my soul so when God speaks of his soul here he's simply speaking of his personality the wrath of God is the attitude of his person to sin and only to sin. God's wrath, though, is not an attribute of his character. It's not an attribute of his character. The Bible says that God is love, but it never says that God is wrath. It speaks a lot about God's wrath.

It's real, but it's not a part of his character. God's wrath, secondly, it is very personal and it's powerful. Just think of the destruction of the entire world in the Genesis flood, or of Sodom and Gomorrah, but fire and brimstone that burned the cities to a crisp in a moment, or the complete annihilation of Egypt and the entire army in the Yom Suph, and in the plagues that destroyed all their firstborn in the whole land. Men, with people and animals. Those are terrifying examples of the wrath of God when it is kindled but a little.

The scriptures describe God's wrath as a consuming fire that no one can withstand. No one, nothing. Deuteronomy 4 says, for the Lord your God, Jehovah, is a consuming fire, a jealous God. Nahum in the first chapter says of God's wrath that the mountains quake before him, the hills melt, the heavens, the earth heaves at his presence. Yes, the world and all who dwell in it.

Who can stand before his indignation? And who can endure the fierceness of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him. Those are rhetorical questions. Who?

Nobody. Nothing, not even the earth, which to us is immovable. The Psalm assassin, Psalm 76. Who may stand in your presence when you are angry? No one.

No one. Revelation 6 describes the wrath of God and the great wrath that fell on Jerusalem around 70 AD, the years around that time, where the people cry out to the mountains and the rocks fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of God, the wrath of the lamb. For the great day of his wrath is coming. Who is able to stand? Jeremiah 10 says of Jehovah, but the Lord is Jehovah is the true God.

He is the living God and the everlasting king. At his wrath, the earth will tremble and the nations will not be able to endure his indignation. These are the greatest powers on earth. These are the greatest forces, and they can't stand before the wrath of God. It is indeed a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of a living God, as Hebrews says.

God's wrath is infinite in power. But God's wrath is satisfiable. Because God's wrath is judicial, because it is this legal sentence, it can be appeased by payment of that sentence. Human emotions can't be satisfied by payment of a judicial sentence, but God's wrath can. On the cross, the Messiah bore in his body the wrath of God and made full satisfaction for God's justice.

So Micah 7 proclaims, who is a God like you? Who is a God like you? Pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of his heritage he does not retain his anger forever because he delights in mercy who is a god like that He will again have compassion on us and will subdue our iniquities. He will cast all of our sins into the depths of the sea. See, to be delivered from the wrath of God.

For our soul to be delivered from the pit of corruption is indeed a very powerful motivation for praise. As powerful as His wrath is for causing people to call on the mountains and the rocks to fall on them. The deliverance from God's wrath is the cause for great praise. Oh, Lord, I will praise You. Your anger is turned away, and you comfort me.

This is the Christians testimony. God is my salvation. We have been delivered from the wrath of God and from all of its effects. And we experience the wrath of God, the effects of the wrath of God in many ways. We experience it in a troubled conscience, which bears witness to our sins, either accusing us or excusing us.

We have remorse when we do something wrong. We feel like we have done something wrong, and it is a burden. It's a weight. Isaiah says in Isaiah 57 that the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt. And so the wicked are either troubled or they're spending their time suppressing that and telling themselves that they are not troubled.

J. Adams estimates that about 90% of mental illness, 90% of people in mental institutions are there because of the result, the effects of unconfessed sin, sin that they have tried to push out and ignore and can't. And he has some very incredible stories of people being completely healed from mental problems through the confession of sin. David says in Psalm 32 that when he kept silence, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day for day and night. Your hand was heavy upon me.

My vitality was turned into the drought of summer until, he said, he acknowledged his sin to God and was forgiven. You see, in our salvation, The wrath of God is turned away and we have peace. Romans 5, therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ. That is the great blessing of our salvation. That's why we can praise the Lord and ought to.

That's why we can't not praise Him. Sickness and death are the just consequences of the judicial wrath of God against sin. And Psalm 103 teaches us that God forgives all of our iniquities and heals all of our diseases. Thorns and thistles are manifestations of God's curse on the ground. It brings increased sorrow for men.

Their labor is now toil. It's by the sweat of their brow that we eat. And in women, they are increased sorrow as well, increased pain and increased conception. Both are increased. Natural disasters that we experience are the result of sin.

They are the mitigated wrath of God. And the entire creation groans waiting to be delivered from the effects of sin. People die in hurricanes. They die in tornadoes. And that's the mitigated wrath of God.

That's the wrath of God that is restrained. Hell is the unmitigated wrath of God. We see the wrath of God in that everybody dies, the universality of death. But see, Christ has conquered even death. He's removed its sting, which is sin.

And so Jesus could tell Martha in the day that her brother has died and she's sorrowing over this loss of her dear brother. Jesus could say, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Martha, he said, do you believe this?

Do you believe this? And so verse three, then, it's because of this salvation. It's because of this great salvation that we can draw water from the wells of salvation with joy. Now what does it mean to draw water from the wells of salvation? Well that's obviously a metaphor.

Salvation is presented under the rubric of receiving water. Water is the substance that's most essential to life, isn't it? You can live without food far longer than you can live without water. Without water, we are quickly in agony. Almost far worse than the agony of going without food.

And so to fill out this analogy of drawing water from the wells of salvation, we can say that the well is Christ, the bucket is faith, and the rope is the Spirit working through the ordinary means of grace. The promises, the covenant, prayer, meditation, and the sacraments. The well is Christ. On the last day of the Passover, Jesus stood in the temple and cried out in John 7, saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. For he had the water of life.

And alluding to this incident, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10-4, all drank the same spiritual drink. They drank of the spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ. You see, two times in the wilderness, God brought water from a rock to satisfy the thirst of the Israelites. And the second time Moses, remember, struck the rock instead of speaking to it like God commanded him to. The first time he was commanded to strike the rock, the second he was to speak to it.

And because he didn't do that, He wasn't allowed to enter the promised land because he struck the rock the second time too instead of speaking to it. Because in addition to disobeying God's command to speak to the rock, the rock was a symbol of Christ. And Christ was only to be struck once, not twice as Moses dead. And so in receiving this water, they were receiving from the living, sustaining presence of the pre-incarnate Christ. Yes, it was a physical rock that Moses struck.

But Paul says that rock was Christ. They were being. Nourished. Through the water from Christ and speaking with the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus said in John, for whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. Jesus Christ is this well.

And in Revelation 21, Jesus Christ said to John, it is done. I am the Alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts." So we can say then that to draw water from the wells of salvation Is to freely receive the inexhaustible riches of Christ himself It's to receive his pardon. It's to be kept in perfect peace regardless of what happens to us It's to know the fullness of joy that's in his presence It's to know the comfort of one who sympathizes with us, who can sympathize with us in everything that we experience because he also has experienced it. These are the waters from the well of salvation which are freely supplied to everyone in Christ, to every believer. But the benefits of salvation are received by faith, aren't they?

They're received only by faith in Jesus, by believing His Word. So if Christ is the well, faith is the bucket, the channel through which we receive the water from the wells of salvation. It's that channel through which the grace of God is communicated to us. You see, the healing power is not in the faith itself, but in the object of that faith of Christ. A bucket that is not put down into the well remains but an empty bucket, devoid of any water, any benefit.

See, faith has nothing in and of itself. It's an empty bucket. Faith is only as strong as the object of that faith, which is Christ. See, without faith our prayers aren't answered. When we pray without faith, the Bible says we're Unstable, double-minded.

Without faith it is impossible to please God. Without faith in Christ we don't receive anything from the wells of salvation. But we also need the Holy Spirit to apply these benefits to us. Remember the catechism on this point, the shorter catechism, I know many of you are learning it and have learned this question, but it's quite helpful at this point. It says we are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ, or we could say that we are given waters from the wells of salvation by the effectual application of that water to us by His Holy Spirit.

The Spirit does that by working faith in us, by which He convinces us of our sin and misery. He instructs our minds in the knowledge of Christ. He renews our wills. He changes what we desire. That's what renewing our will is.

We desire what we once hated and loathed, and we loathed what we once desired. He instructs our minds. He renews our will so that He persuades and enables us to embrace Jesus Christ. He persuades and enables us to drink the living water from the wells of salvation. And the Spirit uses a number of means.

He uses the word of life, the word of God. Thomas Watson put it very poignantly. The Spirit helps us apply the promises to ourselves and draw water out of those wells of salvation. We are like dead children at the breast until the Spirit helps us suck the breast of a promise. And once the Spirit has taught faith, Comfort flows in.

Once the Spirit has taught faith this art, comfort flows in. The Spirit does this as we read the Word of God, but especially as we meditate on the Word. You see, reading the Word and memorizing the Word bring it into us. And they are absolutely necessary for the Word to enter our mind. But it is in meditation on the Word through which the riches of that Word permeate us, renew us, comfort us, sustain us, guide us, fill us with joy and peace and cause us to abound in hope.

It's through meditation, where we hold those words in our mind, where we dwell on them, where we contemplate them, where our thoughts are fixed upon them. It is by meditation and serious thought that we taste and see the goodness of God as David says, oh taste and see that the Lord is good. When you have something that tastes wonderful what do you want to do? You want to hold it in your mouth, you want to savor it And that's what David speaks of the word of God taste it and see that it's good William Bates defines meditation as the serious exercise of understanding whereby Our thoughts are fixed on the observation of spiritual things. Serious exercise of understanding.

Fixing our thoughts on the Word of God. Meditation is that which makes a man to be a citizen of the New Jerusalem. He can take a walk in the paradise of God every day and pluck fruits off of the tree of life and draw waters from the wells of salvation. He that conscientiously performs the duty of meditation maintains a correspondence with God as the angels do. Therefore, he says, if you desire the comforts that are spiritual and heavenly, perform this duty.

Prayer is another key part of drawing water from the wells of salvation. See, prayer is what moves the Lord to act and the spirit to supply. David said in Psalm 5, my voice you will hear in the morning, O Lord, in the morning I will direct it to you and will look up. David is looking up to receive from the Lord the blessings, the fruits, the requests that he has prayed for. Mary Winslow, the mother of Octavius Winslow, wrote that my, well, actually her son wrote it in, but he took it from her writings my first prayer in the morning when I awake is addressed to the Holy Spirit that he would take possession of my thoughts my imagination my heart my words throughout the day directing controlling and sanctifying them all prayer does a Holy Spirit to take control of her thoughts, her emotions, her words.

You see, Jesus is the source of infinite grace, sufficient to meet our every need, because this well of salvation is infinite. Paul opens his letter to the Ephesians with blessing God and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with spiritual blessings in the heavenly places who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Jesus Christ. Spiritual refers to what is of the Holy Spirit. Spiritual blessings are the blessings that are of the Holy Spirit that are supplied through the work of the Holy Spirit, and they are given as we ask. So we look up, David looked up in prayer, for the day's supply of power to preserve Him that day, For the day's wisdom to guide Him that day.

For patience to persevere through adversity. For strength to carry the burdens of that day. For faith to overcome. For love to obey. For hope to cheer his heart.

See this is drawing water from the wells of salvation. Christ is the well, faith is the bucket, the spirit is the rope. But we draw water from the wells of salvation in the Lord's Supper as well, because grace is communicated to us as we eat and drink in faith. Christ and all his benefits are communicated, are given to those who eat and drink wordily. Our spiritual life is supported.

It's strengthened, and it's fed at the Lord's table, just like our physical bodies are strengthened and supported and fed by the food that we eat. So at this table, God not only assures us of the truth of his promises, but he also conveys to us by his spirit the benefits of his salvation. And we draw water from the wells of salvation. So come. Come with childlike faith.

Come just as you are to Christ and with joy, you will draw water from the wells of salvation, a deep, bottomless, free well. Well, this hymn goes on. It's not done yet. When God's children enjoy the blessings of salvation, then they must make known the wondrous works of their redeeming and pardoning God. That's what happens when we have experienced these riches.

We want to tell people. When the heart has been filled with the beauty and mercy of the Lord, the tongue speaks his praises in that day. You will say, praise the Lord. In that day, in what day? The day of our salvation, the day of Christ's millennial reign when he subdues us to himself.

Then Isaiah says, you will, praise the Lord. You will call upon His name. But remember, this is the church's testimony here now. Because that you is plural, in that day you plural will say. And so in the day of Christ's millennial reign, in the day that his great salvation is revealed, Christ's people collectively will speak to one another, in joining one another in the holy duty of praising the Lord.

They will call on his name together. To call on the name of the Lord is to acknowledge who he is, what he is. His name, remember, is himself. His name is his being. It is his infinite, eternal, unchangeable being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

That's the name of God. And to call upon his name is to acknowledge that he is those. So under this designation of calling on the name of God, the entirety of our worship is subsumed, is included. And of course, in verse 5, that worship requires us to sing, to praise the Lord with music. Sing to the Lord.

Nothing can be compared with this great deliverance from his wrath. Nothing. There's nothing on earth that can compare to it. The things that he has done are indeed praiseworthy. And God has created the beauty of music, the power of music, the emotion of music with which we can praise him.

And so he calls us to. David captures this powerful motivation for praise in his song of 89. My song forever shall record the tender mercies of the Lord. Your faithfulness I will proclaim, and every age shall know your name. I sing of mercies that endure, forever builded, firm and sure.

A faithfulness that never dies. Established changeless in the skies. And finally, in the close this Praise comes from a woman In verse 6 the believer The one who dwells in Zion is personified as a woman. Now, again, we miss that in the English because we don't distinguish gender in our verbs or nouns except when we have personal pronouns. But cry out, shout.

I'm looking at the New King James. And inhabitant are all in the feminine gender. God dwells with his people, his church, which is his bride. And his bride is composed of all those that are redeemed. And So cry out, shout, inhabitant of Zion are all in the feminine.

See, in speaking to her, the prophet is addressing the people of God personified as the bride of Christ. And he commands her to give a shrill cry, to break forth in song, in exultation. In the Old Testament, God resided in that temple. His glory cloud dwelled above the mercy seat. But as we saw last week, He no longer dwells there.

There is no temple because His glory is among His people, His bride. He dwells in the midst of his people. His spirit is in his temple, which is his body, the church. The Holy One in our midst has shown himself to be great. The Holy One in our midst has shown himself to be great the holy one in our midst has shown himself to be great it's our privilege it's our joy to praise him almighty heavenly father our words cannot convey the depth of our gratitude for your deliverance, for your redemption, for your turning away this infinite wrath of God against us.

We thank you and bless your name. We pray that our song would forever record your wonderful works and your great salvation. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.