Isaiah 63:1-6 - Vengeance Belongs to The Lord

I'd invite you to take your Bible and go to the book of Isaiah.

We're getting close to our the completion of our study of this book, so we're going to be in chapter 63.

Chapter 63.

If you don't have a Bible, you can find one in the pew in front of you.

And somewhere in the 650s, you will find Isaiah 53.

I didn't look at the exact page, but 650 will get you in the ballpark, and you can find chapter 63 there.

I'd like to begin by reading the passage of scripture that we'll be looking at.

We'll be looking at the first six verses of Isaiah 63.

Who is this coming from Edom in crimson-stained garments from Bosrah?

This one who is splendid in his apparel, striding in his formidable might.

It is I, proclaiming vindication, powerful to save.

Why are your clothes red, and your garments like one who treads a winepress?

I trampled the winepress alone, and no one from the nations was with me.

Their blood splattered my garments, and all my clothes were stained.

For I planned the day of vengeance, and the year of my redemption came.

I looked, but there was no one to help me.

And I was amazed that no one assisted.

So my arm accomplished victory for me, and my wrath assisted me.

I crushed nascents in my anger.

For most of us, that's uh imagery that's uh actually pretty unsettling, right?

Warrior whose garments are stained with from battle striding after judgment, uh drenched in blood.

It's not the kind of world that we live in.

Uh we live in a place where danger is distant from us, where it's rather watched more than experienced.

Uh and Isaiah's language here can feel harsh even to those of us who've never really felt what true oppression is like.

Several years ago, Christian Andressen uh took me on a visit to the Stasi Museum.

The Stasi was the secret police of East Germany back before Germany United.

And the museum is housed in the old Stasi headquarters, the very place where they organized one of the most oppressive surveillance systems that this world has ever seen.

And what made it an unforgettable visit for me was not just to be in that place where it was headquartered, but every docent that was, at least at that time, it may have changed by now, but every docent who took people through the tour had once been a prisoner in that headquarters.

They had been interrogated in those very rooms that they were showing to us.

And they had not only worried about being watched and about uh being reported, they had been people who had been taken.

You see, the Stasi didn't just monitor people, it invaded their private life and it turned society against one another.

Neighbors and co-workers, teachers and students and children and husbands, and all of them were pressured to report against one another.

Pastors were shadowed, letters were read, and homes were broken into and interrogated.

They bugged people's ordinary conversations, and so people learned to speak in whispers and to look around always and to trust no one, not even their family members.

And the goal of the Stasi was not just to control behavior, their desire was to break the spirit, to make them succumb to the rule of communism.

And so in 1989, and I was in a hotel room at that moment, when the Berlin Wall began to be torn down, and all the people rushed to that place to grab some of it and to rip it down.

It was deliverance for people.

And they went to that place, and there wasn't a single one of them that said to one another, could we make this change a little gentler?

No, this was this was a rush towards freedom.

And the symbol of that brutal system was ripped down.

The people knew what it was like to have evil working against them, and they understood the cost of that freedom that they were longing for.

And they knew that the liberation that they were hoping to gain in that day needed to be confronting the powers that stood against them.

And Isaiah wants us to see God this way in this passage.

When we see this passage, we're observing a statement about God where he's not some distant observer about sin.

No, he's come rather to overthrow the powers that stand against his people.

And we see from this passage of scripture, done in poetic form and picturesque language, that there is no negotiating with sin on God's part.

You see, this idea that God could somehow own part of his creation and let the rest of it be enslaved to the enemy?

No.

It's unthinkable here.

And that brings us to this moment.

We've walked through in Isaiah 60, 61, and 62 these glorious passages that talk about righteousness flourishing, about nations drawing to the light of God's salvation.

Those have been beautiful, beautiful chapters and breathtaking vision of what God is doing among the peoples.

But now Isaiah turns us back to the present.

And he asks this question: how will the people of Israel who themselves cannot produce righteousness ever be that light?

How will they ever be described in the way that they are in the glorious chapters that just preceded this one?

And Isaiah tells us it's not going to come because they have made some sort of human resolve or displayed their own abilities or power, or that there was within them some political reform that would shape them up.

No, the only way that they would be a different people is if God came.

And the one who comes, as we'll see in a moment, this divine figure is no different in Isaiah 63 than he is in Isaiah 53.

It is the very same person.

And so Isaiah wants to anchor our hearts in hope that our future does not rest in our ability to change ourselves, but in God who comes to save.

And he opens up this chapter with majestic but startling, and dare I say it, utterly necessary images of this warrior who strides into battle.

So let's hear the word of the Lord.

I'm going to give us three points this morning.

They're easy, but they're going to be a little longer.

Just stay with them.

The first is the warrior who comes, the second, the warrior who fights, and the third, the warrior who wins.

The warrior who comes, the warrior who fights, and the warrior who wins.

Let's look at the first point.

The warrior who comes.

And Isaiah begins right away by bringing us into this text, and he sees a figure approaching.

He doesn't start with an explanation.

He just simply gives us a vision.

Someone is coming.

Someone is moving toward God's people.

And he's striding onto the scene from the direction of Edom, from Bozrah, with garments that are splendid as much as they are startling.

Edom.

In the Old Testament, it's not just a people, not just a neighboring nation to the people of Israel.

They were the symbol of proud, stubborn opposition against God and his people.

They were emblematic as much as they were real people.

You see, Edom rejoiced when Jerusalem fell.

Edom mocked when the people were led away in captivity.

And so Edom represents a humanity in its defiant posture against God.

And so when Isaiah sees this figure coming to back to the people, he's coming from Edom.

He is someone who's just left the place of rebellion.

He's just left the heartland of opposition.

And this one has come splendid in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength.

This is not some weary, worn refugee who somehow escaped.

He's not some victim limping away from a defeat.

This is a warrior that we're introduced to.

A warrior who's returned from battle unbroken, unshaken, and unbowed.

And he moves with purpose, and he comes with strength, and he comes with the quiet confidence that everything that he's intended to do on the battlefield has been accomplished.

And so Isaiah does what all of us are probably thinking right now.

Who is this?

Who is this?

Who could possibly stride out of the place of opposition to God with such strength?

Now remember, the people of God were weak and frail.

Their territory was the smaller than the size of Rhode Island among massive empires.

And their kings and their priests and their princes were people all wrapped up in making life better for themselves rather than the other, one another.

And they gave themselves in compromising coalitions because they didn't trust in the living God.

There was not a champion one among them.

Who is this striding out of the stronghold of God's enemies like this?

Who is this who could walk out of Edom, that place of entrenched opposition, victorious?

Who is it?

We don't have to wonder.

The warrior speaks himself.

It is I speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.

Now listen to what he says about himself.

He doesn't say it is I mighty to crush.

He doesn't say it is I mighty to conquer.

What does he say?

It is I mighty to save.

And the first thing that he wants to know, wants us to know about his strength is that his strength is there not to destroy, but he's speaking to people for whom he has delivered.

Delivered.

Saved.

See, his power is a saving power, and his might is a rescuing might, and his strength is a redemptive strength.

But notice also he speaks in righteousness.

Righteousness.

What does that tell us?

It tells us that everything that he says, everything that he does, and every step that he's taken toward his people and against his and their enemies is done with perfect justice, with perfect equity, and is perfectly aligned with the holy character of God.

This image is not one of over-reaction.

This image is not one in which this warrior has become a berserker like Nordic lore.

He is not out of control.

He is not in some sort of divine temper tantrum here.

This is calm, settled, holy action of someone who is acting in complete alliance with God's character.

Now, who is this?

Who is this?

In Isaiah 53, we were introduced to the servant of the Lord, and we were told that he was righteous.

We were told that he would bear the sins of many, and he would be crushed for our iniquities, but he would also be exalted after his suffering.

And that he would accomplish salvation by his obedience.

And now in chapter 63, we get another side of that servant.

The divine figure is given to us from a different angle.

This one who was a servant who suffered is now a warrior who conquers.

To put it in New Testament terms, the lamb who was slain is the lion who roars in victory.

And the New Testament picks this up.

Listen to these words of Christ coming into the world.

And think of it in this idea, in this motif of warfare.

John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

What is John doing?

He's describing the reality that Isaiah sees in this image.

A divine figure stepping into enemy-occupied territory, and he's coming as a conqueror, not a tourist.

And he goes on in 1 John in chapter 3 and verse 8, outside of his gospel, into his letters, and the same author says the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

His incarnation was an act of war.

Christ didn't come to inspire us or to give us a moral example or to offer us some helpful spiritual advice.

He's not here to give us ten ways to make your life a little easier.

He came to destroy something.

He came to overthrow something.

He came as a warrior.

And you see it all over his earthly ministry.

And we'll look at this a little more deeply when we look at the second point when he comes, not only not only comes, but he comes to fight.

Listen to what the demon said to him, one of them in a synagogue.

Luke chapter 11, Jesus talked about going into the house of the strongman and binding him and dragging out the spoils.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

What is he describing?

He's describing the one who's broken into the fortress of the enemy, and who has defeated that enemy and is pulling the captives out of that stronghold.

And when Jesus, in the very first words of his public ministry, in Luke chapter 4, when he was in that synagogue in Nazareth, and he said, He has sent me to preach liberty to the captives.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

Because he was the one who was going to break the prison down.

That's why.

And in so doing cast out demons and healed the sick and forgave sins and announced that the kingdom of God is at hand.

You see, Christ's whole life was a campaign of liberation.

And this is very significant to us.

And it means this to us, first of all, that our enemies are not what we normally name.

Our enemies in this world are not other people.

Our enemies in this world are not other political parties.

Our enemies in this world are not cultural trends and certainly not economic forces.

Our enemies in this world are sin, Satan, death, and the world system in its opposition to God.

And those enemies we cannot defeat.

And those enemies are the ones that try to hold us captive.

They're the enemies that try to make us afraid or accuse us or whisper in our ears, you'll never be anything.

Isaiah also wants us to know that God is not neutral in this warfare.

And he's not standing at a distance, wringing his hands, hoping that perhaps we might be able to escape in some way out of this world unscathed.

No, he wants us to see him coming, striding onto the field, victorious out of battle.

He comes from Edom, he comes from the heartland of enemy territory, and he comes saying that he is mighty to save.

So let me ask you a question.

Have you ever thought of Christ this way?

Have you ever thought of him as a warrior?

Not just a gentle teacher, not just a compassionate healer, and not just a wise counselor, and all he is, all of that.

But he's not just that, he is also this.

And he's not backpedaling when we show opposition.

And he is not overwhelmed by what our past might have been or what our present sins might be.

And he's not surprised by the bondage we've put ourselves in or that others have sought to put us into.

And he's not hesitant to step into the middle of it all.

That's glorious, isn't it?

Some of us think the Christian life really might be by grace, but it's carried out if we just try a little harder.

Boy, I just need to do better tomorrow.

Isaiah doesn't want you to think that way.

Isaiah wants you to look at God and say, Who is this?

Who is this one coming to us?

Coming home, victorious.

This warrior who stepped onto the field on my behalf.

This warrior who is strong enough to face what I cannot face and defeat what I cannot win against.

And this is why the passage starts here.

Because before we even see what he does, or see how he fights, or even understand what his garments mean, we want he wants us to hear his voice.

It is I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.

And the rest of our this chapter shows us just how far he's going to go to bring that.

And so our hope is not in our strength.

This warrior who comes, who stepped onto the battlefield, whose life and death and resurrection and ascension and second coming is all part of the campaign of victory that he has.

But it begins here with a God who is not distant, but a God who has gone into the battle for his people and has come out victorious.

So let's look at the second point, not only of this warrior who comes, but this warrior who fights.

And Isaiah asks a second question in verse 2.

Why are your garments red?

Your clothes like one who treads a winepress.

And Isaiah gives us the answer from the warrior.

That's why they're red.

It's pretty shocking, right?

This is shocking imagery.

And it's meant to be.

It's meant to be.

This is not some sanitized, SERPy, sentimental symbol.

This is the language of holy warfare, of God confronting his enemies.

What's remarkable about it, and we'll get to the point where this is spoken about in the New Testament.

But the New Testament begins not here, does it?

The New Testament begins by telling us that Christ entered into this battle and that it wasn't first of all to shed the blood of the enemies, it was for his own blood to be shed on behalf of the enemies.

And Isaiah here sees a warrior whose garments are stained with the blood of his enemies, but the Gospels tell us about the Savior who has stained his garments with his own blood.

Isaiah sees a warrior crushing his foes.

The Gospels show us the warrior crushed for his foes.

Isaiah sees a warrior treading out the wine press alone.

And we see in the New Testament Christ drinking the cup on behalf of his people.

And this is the mystery of the gospel.

And this is what trips up everyone with a proud heart.

Because the warrior wins by losing, and he conquers by dying, and he destroys death through succumbing to it.

And no proud person would ever say, That's my champion.

But it's a necessary one.

Because Isaiah drills down on this section here.

Look at how this warrior speaks in verse three.

No one from the nations was with me.

In verse five, I looked and there was no one to help.

I was amazed that no one assisted.

He is the only one who is righteous enough.

He is the only one who is strong enough.

He is the only one who's sinless enough to enter into the battlefield of sin and Satan and not be overwhelmed by it.

Because there is too much of a friend of our enemy in ourselves.

And this is why Isaiah 53 and 63 go together.

Because this servant who suffers suffers in order to be the warrior who conquers.

Every exorcism was a battlefield victory.

Every healing was a blow against the curse.

Every word of truth was an assault against the lies of the wicked one.

Every act of mercy was a liberation from the occupation of sin.

When Jesus cast out demons, the demons cried out in fear because they were afraid of destruction from warrior Jesus.

When Jesus resisted Satan in the wilderness, he's fighting a battle.

Adam didn't win.

When Jesus forgives, he's reclaiming the territory that Satan thought he had owned.

Listen to how the apostles write about it.

The Apostle Paul in Colossians 2:15.

Colossians 2:15

Listen to these conquering words.

He disarmed the rulers and authorities, putting them to open shame, triumphing over them by the cross.

That's how he won.

You see, the cross is not Christ's defeat, it's his victory.

The writer of Hebrews in chapter 2 and verse 14.

Through death he destroyed the one who held the power of death, that is the devil.

Jesus spoke about it right before he was crucified.

In his weakest earthly moment in John chapter 12.

John 12 · chapter mention

Now is the judgment of this world.

Now will the ruler of this world be cast out.

Because the moment when Christ looked weakest was the very moment when Satan was overthrown.

And so Isaiah signals these things when he says, I looked and there was no one to help.

This is why the New Testament says there's no other salvation but in the name of Jesus Christ.

Isaiah says, My own arm brought me salvation.

And the New Testament says, He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.

Only him.

Isaiah is trying to tell us something very, very personal here.

And for us as believers, it's something we need to hear well.

Because sometimes we live this life as if the decisive battle has not been fought yet.

We live as though the decisive battle has not been fought yet.

As though sin somehow still had an upper hand, as though Satan still had the final word, as though death still had the ultimate power.

Isaiah 63 will not allow us to think that way.

Because Christ has already confronted our enemies, he's already fought the battle and won the fight.

He's already borne the wrath that we cannot bear, and he's already broken the chains which we cannot in our feeble way break in every way.

And how did he do it?

He did it alone, he did it perfectly, he did it willingly, and he has accomplished it victoriously.

And so, because of that, we're not fighting for victory, we're fighting from victory, right?

Out of the context of victory.

We're not battling to earn God's favor, we're battling because we already have it.

And we're not resisting sin in our own strength, we're fighting against sin, the one who will crush it completely, so that there will not even be the whisper of its presence amongst his people for the eternal ages.

This is the heart of point two.

This Christ fights the battle and he wins.

Now let's see how he wins in point three.

The warrior who comes, the warrior who fights, and the warrior who wins.

What does this victory accomplish?

Take a look at verse 4.

I planned the day of vengeance and the year of my redemption has come.

Now, those are two interesting phrases, right?

A day of vengeance and a year of redemption.

We might think of them as opposites, but they're not.

They're not competing impulses in the heart of God.

They are something united together in God's saving mission.

You see, God's grace is not some surpy sentimentality, and God's vengeance is not some sort of petty retaliation.

His vengeance is his holy commitment to remove everything that destroys his people.

And his redemption is not just some sloppy kindness, it's his determination to reclaim everything that truly belongs to him.

And the warrior comes with both of those in his heart.

You see, the New Testament shows us that Christ has come into this world, into this realm of darkness, and the darkness could not overwhelm or overcome it.

And he's come to destroy the works of the devil.

But it's not just in his life and in his death, but it's also in his resurrection, in his ascension, into his present rule, and in his second coming.

In every way he wins, and every aspect of that opens up a new field of understanding to us of what that victory is.

Satan was defeated on the cross, but the declaration of victory was the resurrection.

Listen to Romans 1.

You've heard it many, many times, but listen to it in a new light and from the vantage point of this motif.

Christ is declared to be the Son of God in power by the resurrection from the dead.

That is a victory announcement.

He was a victor who rose.

And that's why Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 says about the resurrection, the whole chapter.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

Thanks be to God for the victory in Jesus Christ.

You see, the resurrection is not just a miracle, it's a coronation.

It's a public announcement that the battle is over and that the warrior Jesus is won.

Paul said there in 1 Corinthians 15 also in verse 25 and 6, he must reign until he's put all of his enemies under his feet.

And death, the last enemy, will be destroyed.

You see, death is not a natural part of life, as much as our biology teachers tried to tell us that.

This thing is lost.

Death is lost.

And his ascension?

If the victory announcement comes through the resurrection, what is his ascension?

His ascension is the victory parade.

It's the victory parade.

It is the warrior returning home from battle, winning, and the ascension is very much a part of that.

Ephesians 4 quotes Psalm 68, which is a battle psalm.

And it talks about the ascension of Christ.

And it says when he ascended on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men.

What is that?

That's a victory parade.

That's what that is.

It's the image of a conquering king returning from war, leading a procession of defeated enemies in his wake.

Look at what I've taken.

And he's plundering all of their resources.

And he's bejeweling himself and saying they're not for me alone, they're for my people.

And he gives gifts to men.

And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers.

Why?

Because they're the spoils of his victory.

He's taken these people who were once disobedient and walking away in sin, reclaimed them through his grace, and is now setting them into places of service to better his people and to advance his kingdom and to bring the banner of victory of Christ all around this world.

I'm a once-shackled sinner set free to speak the glorious message of the conquering King Jesus.

That's all a pastor is.

The apostle Peter said, You need to look up there because that's where it's coming from.

It's coming from the throne room.

It's coming from Jesus who has ascended.

He's the one who has sent this to you.

This message of grace and life and forgiveness.

And the power that you see among us isn't ours.

We're not drunk with new wine.

We're filled with God's Spirit, who has come to give you a message.

That if you repent and believe, you will have the remission of your sins.

You see, his reign is his ongoing campaign.

First Corinthians 15.

Then comes the end.

When?

After destroying every rule and every authority and every power.

For he must reign until he's put all of his enemies under his feet.

So right now, this very moment that we're in, right this second, Christ is reigning as a warrior king.

He's dismantling the powers of darkness.

He is breaking the dominion of sin.

He is advancing the kingdom.

And he's not doing it because some guy took his jacket off and waved around and people fell down in the room.

Right?

He's doing it because the gospel goes into the place where the darkest hearts see a shining light of hope.

And they say, My only life can be found in Christ.

It's the gospel advance, is what it is.

The battle is won, and the campaign continues.

The victory, it's secure, and to use military language, the mopping up operation is still a curry.

We're just bringing it all in.

And his return is his final conquest.

This is where we need to be very, very sober in our thoughts.

Verse 6.

I crushed nations in my anger.

I made them drunk with my wrath and poured out their blood on the ground.

Like I said, this is disturbing.

Isaiah's vision here ends with a warrior standing alone on a battlefield with his garments stained with the lifeblood of his enemies.

Because he's acted in perfect justice against all who's opposed his reign.

He's not describing a moment of uncontrolled rage, but settled, determined, righteous judgment against persistent rebellion.

And this trampling, this pouring out, this staggering of the nations under his wrath, this is an image of God bringing human history to its moral conclusion, where all disobedience will be finally extinguished.

Because Jesus doesn't mean simply to fight against evil, he means to crush it, to obliterate it, to annihilate it, to put it out of existence.

He's not negotiating with sin, and he's not negotiating with ours.

He's doing this personally, decisively, and victoriously.

This is the very language picked up in Revelation chapter 19.

Revelation 19 · chapter mention

Let me read it for you.

Verse 11.

I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse.

Its rider is called faithful and true, and he judges and makes war with justice.

His eyes were like a fiery flame, and many crowns were on his head.

He wore a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God.

The armies that were in heaven followed him on white horses, wearing pure white linen.

A sharp sword came from his mouth so that he might strike the nations with it.

He will rule them with an iron rod.

He will also trample the wine press of the fierce anger of God the Almighty.

And he has a name written on his robe and on his thigh.

King of kings and Lord of Lords.

John picks up this imagery and shows its fulfillment in the returning Christ.

This warrior that Isaiah sees in prophetic silhouette is now riding into view in blazing clarity.

There's no guessing.

There's no asking.

Who is this?

For every eye will see him.

This robe dipped in blood, the wine press of God's wrath, the sword striking the nations, these are not new symbols.

They're completion ones.

John is telling us unmistakably that the one who comes on the white horse is the same divine warrior that Isaiah saw.

And he doesn't come this time hidden.

And he doesn't come time this time with sort of the meek humility that we saw in Christ's earthly ministry.

He comes now with unmasked majesty.

He comes with many crowns on his head, with armies from heaven, falling.

And with the statement, he is the king of all kings.

He is the Lord over all other lords.

And this is the moment when he shows his conquest and makes it visible to everything in heaven and on earth.

2 Thessalonians chapter 1, Paul talks about this.

2 Thessalonians 1 · chapter mention

And he talks about it for the comfort of God's people.

He talks about Christ returning, and he says, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels.

Exactly what John says in Revelation 19.

To repay with affliction those who afflict you and take vengeance with flaming fire on those who reject the gospel.

At the same time, giving relief to those who are afflicted, because he's come to be glorified in and by his saints and all who believe.

This majestic moment is not just to win over the final enemy, it is to release to full and utter and eternal liberty all who call him Lord with a glad heart because of his grace.

You see, his vengeance is not a petty, petty retaliation.

It's the public unveiling of God's justice.

And the return of Christ is going to be not just the end of evil, but the beginning of a glorious future called eternity, the new heavens and the new earth.

Revelation 22, Jesus spoke and he said, I am coming soon, and my reward is with me, and I will repay each person according to his work.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

And so the final words of Scripture bring the warrior's words to our hearts and our ears at its sharpest point that he's coming back, that he's coming back as judge and rewarder, he's coming back as the Alpha and the Omega.

He's the one who's going to bring all things to their end and open up a new beginning.

But I don't want to end there.

I want to end with these words.

Because they are probably for us the most astounding thing.

When we understand human sin and its effect on humanity, the scarring that it brings to this world, the misshapenness of all of our lives and all of human history, we can understand why a holy God would come down and put all of that to an end, and would do so with the images of fire and blood.

We could understand that.

What I don't fully understand, but I am compelled to know as much as I can about, is that this warrior conquers his enemies not only through judgment, but by grace.

That he defeats his foes by making them sons.

Because this warrior, like I said, doesn't just crush his enemies, he himself was crushed for them.

Romans 5 and verse 10.

While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son.

This warrior who treads the wine press is the one who entered into it and took it for us.

That we could be an enemy who's reconciled.

That we could be a rebel who's adopted.

That we could be a traitor who's called a child, a son and daughter of God.

Because Christ has come not merely to subdue his enemies, but he's come to save his enemies.

He hasn't come just to crush rebellion, but to transform rebels.

And he hasn't come just to conquer by his power, but to save by his grace.

Because he wants to win not just over us, he wants to win us.

He wants to win us by breaking those things which have made us his enemies, by breaking the willful spirit within us, by breaking the sins that we loved, by breaking our love for those sins, by silencing the accusations of Satan and bringing our rebellion to the place of repentance.

And then wonderfully and astonishingly welcoming us into his family.

And so this warrior in this year of redemption before the day of vengeance is saying, now is the accepted time.

This is the day of salvation.

So let's bring this to an end.

This is a sobering and yet hopeful vision of a warrior who comes, a warrior who fights, and a warrior who conquers.

And we see that it is the same Christ who came with humility, who was pulled out in weakness, and yet rose in triumph and reigns in power, and will come in glory.

And what this image tells us, there's no one single seat for neutrality here.

There is absolutely no middle ground in front of this person.

You're either standing with him in his victory or you're standing against him in your sin.

You're either trusting him as Savior or you're resisting his lordship.

You're either being remade by his grace or you're being hardened by your unbelief.

It's one or the other.

There's no middle ground here.

And for those of you that belong to Christ, I want you to take heart by this.

Because you're seeing here a victory by a warrior who's fought to reclaim you and to free you from everything that would dishonor him and ruin you.

He is here to break everything that is binding you.

Everything.

That's why we can serve God with a clear conscience, because he shut down the accuser.

And he's not done.

He's reigning in your life now, but he means to reign in every part of you.

And believe you me, it will be uncomfortable because we still don't fully release ourselves to this Lord.

You know, those walls needed painted.

Um, you know, the front step could have used a little cleaning off.

Thanks, thanks God for coming into my life and doing those things I knew I needed cleaned up.

But all of a sudden, we find that when he invades our home, he's knocking down walls and he's ripping up foundations and he's tearing off the roof.

And we're like, wait a second, what's happening here?

And C.S.

Lewis put it this way: he said, God who's coming into your life is not here to do a little repair work, he's come to wreck your house because he plans to make it a mansion, not a cottage, and he plans to live in it.

This is him subduing every enemy that rises within you and against you.

Every sin, every fear, every temptation, every suffering, and even your death will be defeated.

None of them will have the last word.

So don't lose heart.

Don't live as though the outcome is uncertain.

Don't fight as though the strength is your own.

And when you fall, and you will, and I will, remember you've got the strong arm of a warrior to pick you back up.

But there's some, maybe even some here, or some that will listen, are listening now or listening later.

Are still living on the wrong side of this warfare, still holding out against the king, still clinging to sin and trusting their own strength, still imagining that perhaps they could negotiate a peace by doing something that would gain the favor.

No, no, no, no, and I want to speak to you with all the tenderness that I can muster out of my heart.

Don't do that.

Listen, Christ is a gracious warrior, he delights to save his enemies.

That's what any of us are or were.

He delights to make rebels into his children.

Heavens rejoice when there's a sinner brought to repentance.

He delights to take those who were once resistance, resisting him and making them part of his family.

And I want to tell you now, there's there's not a single sin that you're you're in right now that's too deep for God's rescue mission.

There's not a one.

There's no shame so heavy that you couldn't utter, even to your friends, that he doesn't already know and won't already cover with his grace.

Not one.

If you come to him, he will not turn you away.

If you come to him, he will receive you.

But I I want you to hear me.

If you want to continue in unbelief, if you want to persist in your rebellion, if you want to harden your heart against the one who is mighty to save, you're going to meet him one day.

And you're not going to meet him as a deliverer, you're going to meet him as a judge.

And you're going to bow the knee before him.

And you're not going to do it in joyful worship.

You're going to do it in the ruined recognition that you are fighting a losing war.

Because at that time there will be no appeal and no escape and no second chance.

None.

So listen to why Christ came.

He came to seek and to save the lost.

He came not to call the righteous, but the unrighteous to repentance.

The king has come here with a declaration of forgiveness to this rebellious kingdom of darkness and says, I've provided everything for your life.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.

Everyone.

So as we listen to this warrior, let's lay down our arms and set aside any rebellion that we might have and trust him, the one who was crushed for sinners.

This warrior who judges sin.

Let him be the savior who delivers us.

This one who treads the wine presses.

Let him be the one who also carries us in his arms.

Let us hear this year of redemption before we see the day of vengeance.

Let's pray.

Father, this passage is too grand and glorious for us to absorb as fully as we should.

And certainly apart from the illumining work of the Spirit, impossible.

And so, Lord, we pray, give us ears to hear and eyes to see.

And may we not be left there stunned as Isaiah was, asking questions with wonder and puzzlement.

But may we see that this is Jesus.

And may we welcome him as our king, our warrior, our victor, our savior.

And we ask this in Christ's name.

Amen.