Jesus: Compassionate Healer and Consuming Fire

In Luke 11/1, this is one of the many places where Jesus is

described as praying. He goes off and he prays and as

soon as he's finished it records.

Luke records. The disciples come to him and

they ask, Lord, teach us how to pray.

And the passage that follows his teaching his lesson to them has

become legendary. He says to them, Go into your

room and shut the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret.

He says, And then you pray then like this, and you can pray it

with me. He says, Our Father, who art in

heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, Thy will be

done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day, Our Daily Bread, and forgive us our

trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead

us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever and

ever, Amen. So my own devotional life, I've

been impressed with the words, Give us this day, Our Daily

Bread. Give us this day, Our Daily

Bread. And learning in my own life, in

my own ministry, as you are learning in yours, that daily

bread means so much more than your food.

We pray for our food for this day, but we also need everything

that we have to face in this day.

Lord, give it to us. We don't have the strength and

the energy to do a 10th of what we are called to do in a day.

And so we have to say, you know, Lord, tomorrow has enough

trouble for itself. Help us to focus on today and

give us the energy for today. Give us grace and compassion for

today. Give us courage for today, joy

and peace for today. And then with it, the literal

words, yes, we need food and water and nourishment and the

things that are necessary for this vessel, this body for

today. And it was often said of Martin

Luther and his life and his ministry that there were only

two days on his calendar today and that day.

And what I want you to do this morning is to follow in the

footsteps of Jesus in ripping out every day out of your

calendar except for today and that day.

And I want you to open up to the book of Isaiah, chapter 63,

Isaiah 63 · chapter mention

where Isaiah is going to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and

we're going to follow shortly after Him of taking every day

out of our consideration off of our calendar, focusing on today

and that day. Those are the two days He wants

to talk about. And when he's talking about that

day, he's talking about the day of the Lord, His coming

judgment, the manifestation of His righteousness, the day where

He will conquer all of my enemies, all of your enemies,

most importantly, all of His enemies.

He will reign and rule and righteousness.

There will be sin no more. He will consummate His Kingdom.

And when we consider that day, we realize that there's a dark

side to praying the Lord's Prayer that we just prayed.

There's a dark side to confessing the words Your

Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And so with the coming Kingdom comes final salvation.

And there can never be final salvation without final

judgment. And when you see it over and

over again, there is no salvation without judgment.

The salvation of one group is always the judgment of another

group. And we're finishing Isaiah,

we're coming into the final chapters.

We'll finish the book next week with chapter 66.

And as we as we end it, I want to take you back to the

beginning Isaiah, one that introduces all of these

wonderful themes, all of these wonderful promises.

Remember Isaiah in these, this beautiful language of Isaiah 1,

where he says, wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, remove

the evil of your deeds from before my eyes, cease to do

evil, learn to do good. What does that mean?

Seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the

fatherless, plead the widow's cause and the Commission.

Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord.

Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as

snow. Though they are red like

Crimson, they shall become like wool.

And then he adds to it this conditional sentence.

If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the

land. But if you refuse and rebel, you

shall be eaten by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has

spoken. If you remember, we we saw you

will eat the good of the land, you will eat your fruit of the

promises, or you will be eaten by the sword on the last day.

The mouth of the Lord has spoken.

This is that last day. That's what's pictured in Isaiah

63. And and this scene, verses 1 to

to 6 is incredible. It Isaiah sets the scene like a

movie. It's like the introduction to a

movie. And Jesus has just fulfilled

this verse. You will be eaten by the sword.

He's just fulfilled Revelation 19 when Jesus comes riding on

the White Horse and he's smitten the nations with the sword of

his mouth. And you get to see vividly

exactly what that means. Read with me Isaiah 63 one to 14

and hear the story. Who is this?

Who comes from Edom in Crimson garments from Basra?

He who was splendid in his apparel, marching in the

greatness of his strength. It is I, speaking in

righteousness, mighty to save. Why is your apparel red in your

garments like his who treads in the wine press?

I've trodden the wine press alone and from the peoples.

No one was with me. I trod them in my anger and

trampled them in my wrath. Their lifeblood spattered on my

garments and stained all my apparel.

For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of

redemption had come. I looked, but there was no one

to help. I was appalled, but there was no

one to uphold. So my own arm brought me

salvation and my wrath upheld me.

I trampled down the peoples in my anger, I made them drunk in

my wrath. I poured out their lifeblood on

the earth. I will recount the steadfast

love of the Lord, the praises of the Lord according to all that

the Lord has granted us, in the great goodness to the House of

Israel that He has granted to them according to His

compassion, according to the abundance of His steadfast love.

For He said, Surely they are my people, children, who will not

deal falsely. And He became their Savior and

all their affliction. He was afflicted, and the Angel

of His presence saved them. In His love and in His pity He

redeemed them. And He lifted them up and

carried them all the days of old, But they rebelled and

grieved His Holy Spirit. Therefore He turned to be their

enemy, and Himself fought against them.

Then He remembered the days of old, of Moses and His people.

Where? Where is He who brought them?

Up out of the sea with the shepherds of His flock, Whereas

he who put in the midst of them his Holy Spirit, who caused his

glorious arm to go at his right hand of Moses, who divided the

waters before them to make for himself an everlasting name, who

led them through the depths like a horse in the desert.

They did not stumble like livestock that go down into the

valley. The Spirit of the Lord gave them

rest. So you LED your people to make

for yourself a glorious name. So this passage and these 14

verses give us 2 images of Jesus Christ, 2 metaphors.

And I want you to see these are character traits that are

showing the same glorious Savior.

On the one hand, he's the humble, meek, mild shepherd.

It's like he says out of his own mouth that he's gentle and lowly

in heart. And it's the same Savior who's

also the avenging sword wielder, the righteous judge.

And so the two images are he's depicted in Scripture.

Jesus is depicted in Scripture as a lion, the image being a

symbol of strength and kingship and victory.

He's kingly and majestic and powerful.

And he's also depicted in Scripture as a lamb, which is an

image of sacrifice and innocence and mercy.

He is meek and gentle and lowly and humble, and we combine

those. What does it mean to be powerful

and humble, to be a leader and a servant?

Those kind of all get summed up in this one word.

He's meek, he's powerful, and yet a servant.

And these are complimentary images.

That's why when you read Revelation 5, you remember he's

in heaven. John is in heaven, and he sees,

or he hears rather a lion that's worthy to open the scroll.

And then he turns around and what does he see?

A lamb standing in the midst of heaven.

He's bringing these two images together and he's saying these

are complimentary pictures of who Jesus is, powerful and

gentle. They're the same person.

And you have to make room in your theology for Jesus, not

only as a lamb expressing his love and go humbly, going to the

cross and dealing gently. And you have to add to it the

theology that he is a lion and he is a king, and he is a

conquering king, and he will slaughter his enemies so that

there can be peace and righteousness in the world.

He's the Lamb slain and he's a roaring lion.

He's a humble servant and a holy executioner.

He's a compassionate healer and a consuming fire.

And when you look at these first 6 verses of Isaiah 63, it's him

as the lion of the tribe of Judah.

He is a roaring lion. And you see in verses 7 to 14 He

is, we appeal to him not as a consuming fire, but as the Lamb

of God who takes away the sins of the world one to six.

He's the lion, 7 to 14. He's the lamb.

And we'll begin here in verses one to six.

And what's happening here with this image?

There's this mysterious warrior who's who's walking up to

Jerusalem. It is a there's this repeating

theme, this recapitulation. It's happening over and over

again. This is the same warrior of

Isaiah 59. We've already seen it.

He's wrapped in a cloak like zeal.

And if he is your Lord and you are his servant, I want

Christians in my church that are like this.

I want Christians. And so do you fellow brothers

and sisters who wrap themselves. They're eager to do the things

of God. They're wrapped in cloak like a

zeal. They're wearing righteousness as

a breastplate. Your good works go before you.

Your light is shining before the world wielding the two edged

sword of the word of God. And then there's this garment

that Isaiah 59 puts forward that we would never wear.

We're we're forbidden to wear it said back there that he puts on

garments of vengeance for clothing.

And listen to what comes after He wears this, it says, bringing

wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies.

He will come like a rushing stream.

We looked at that metaphor. This means it's, it's this wild,

uncontrollable thing for for the Lord.

It's a calculated judgment. But you can't take a river home.

You can't control it. It's powerful.

It's it's out of reach for us. It's a flowing river, a mighty

river. This is the Lord as he comes in

vengeance to repay his adversaries.

The immediate context of our passage is Isaiah 6211.

The church is instructed to behold because our salvation is

coming. And you look at verse one of our

text, it's 2 verses later, you get the privileged position of

being with the Watchmen standing on the wall of Jerusalem.

As this warrior approaches, it's Jesus Christ.

He has just slaughtered the wicked.

And here he comes marching into his holy city.

You're you're with the the watchman.

You're watching him approach. He dialogues the people dialogue

with this mysterious warrior. And there's reservation as this

man comes up to Jerusalem because they, as we see and as

we begin to to notice, it looks like he's been working in the

vineyards and he's been trampling grapes.

He looks as if he's been working.

And as they approach, they realize there's a little bit of

apprehension because it's blood. It's blood on his garments.

And then this figure proclaims the execution of vengeance and

redemption and salvation. And that vengeance is to be met

in the church by you and by me and by all the Saints with a

resounding Hallelujah. That's the response to say

Hallelujah. God be praised.

This is what's going to happen in Revelation 19 when God says

he finally executes this judgment.

The people respond with three hallelujahs.

It happened with Goliath. Was anybody excited in the

church? When David slayed Goliath?

He cut off his head and the people it says, raised with a

shout, right. It was a beautiful day.

The judgment of Him was the salvation of Israel.

It was met in Revelation 19, one to 8 judgments met with

hallelujahs, it says. After this I heard what sound,

what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude in heaven crying

out Hallelujah. Salvation and glory and power

belong to our God, for His judgments are true and just.

He has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the

earth with her immorality, and He has avenged on her the blood

of His servant. Jesus is an avenger.

We are not Avengers. The Lord alone is the avenger.

And Revelation describes the same event of Isaiah 63 when it

says these famous words. John records, I saw heaven

opened and behold, a White Horse.

And the one sitting on it is called faithful and true.

And in righteousness he judges and makes war.

That's our passage. It says He speaks in

righteousness. His eyes are like a flame of

fire, and on his head are many diadems.

He's clothed in a robe dipped in blood.

He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of the

Almighty God. The beast and the false prophet

are thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur.

And the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth

of him who was sitting on the horse.

And all the birds were gorged with their flesh.

And Isaiah 63 picks up from that moment he walks into his holy

city. He approaches his holy city and

the the Watchmen on the tower call out questioning him in

verse one. Who are you?

His response begins with a singular word in the original

Ani. It is I, it is I, it is Jesus

Christ. He says, speaking in

righteousness. I am mighty to save.

It's powerful. And then they ask of him, Why is

your apparel read? Why are your garments like his?

Who treads the wine press? And this is where Jesus kind of

picks up on their their imagery. He says, why, why do you look

like you've been trampling out grapes?

And he basically says, because I have been trampling out grapes.

And he says, I spilled literally the juice out onto the land.

And he picks up on the grape image in this vineyard.

And he builds this metaphor read with me.

He says I've trodden the wine press alone and from the peoples

there was no one with me. I trod them in my anger and I

trampled them in my wrath. Their lifeblood spattered on my

garments and stained all my apparel.

For the day of vengeance was in my heart and my year of

redemption had come. Verse six.

I trampled down the peoples in my anger.

I made them drunk in my wrath. I poured out their lifeblood on

the earth. And this is where we have to

stop as a as a church and confess.

It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God

is utterly terrifying. Jesus is the lamb.

Jesus is also the lion in John 1930, the final words that Jesus

speaks on the cross before he breathes his last, it says he

speaks. It is finished to Telestai.

It's finished and only that moment after confessing that you

can't confess it after you're dead.

So he confesses it as he's breathing his last that the work

is done. One of my favorite verses, Luke

2253, he says he gave himself to the cross because this is the

hour and the power of darkness. And he's saying that this is all

the the darkness that the world can muster the the earth and all

of the demonic forces. This is the worst they can do is

the cross. And it's a disgusting images,

but it, it teaches us the words of John 15 that the light shines

in the darkness and the darkness will not, cannot, does not

overcome it. And so he says it is finished.

And this is what he's saying in Isaiah 63.

The work of salvation was finished, but now the work of

judgment is finished. And the world's going to learn

this the hard way on that day that there was an hour appointed

for the IT was the hour and the power of darkness.

But there will likewise likewise be a day coming when it will be

the hour and the power of light, and Jesus is going to display

that the darkness cannot overcome the light.

And it's all personified on that day when he comes riding a White

Horse and he'll be in the resplendence of his glory, and

his white garments will will shine and be stained with blood.

And the day that Isaiah 63 is picturing is that day.

And you have to make room and your theology for this Jesus

Christ. This is the God of the Bible.

This is your Savior, This is Him and His glory.

He comes in his anger and in his wrath and in his vengeance and

in his fury. He comes to judge the wicked.

And he has to do this so that righteousness can reign

forevermore. We cannot be truly blessed and

truly at peace while there are enemies of God in the world and

He deals with them and you see that it is first coming.

Jesus was the humble Lamb who was slain.

He's covered in his own blood. And when he comes at his second

coming, he is the lion and he is covered in the blood of the

wicked. A few questions that the text

answers for us. The first one is where is he

coming from? Look at the very beginning of

verse one. The men ask him, who is this?

Who comes from Edom? From Basra, Edom was the

ceaseless, tireless enemy of Israel.

If you remember all the way back to Jacob, the patriarch Jacob,

he had a brother Esau, He said before they were born, though

they had done nothing good or bad Jacob have I loved Esau have

I hated the descendants of Esau were called the Edomites and

they were the perpetual enemies of Israel and so they they come

from there. He said, why did, why does he

pick up on Edom to represent all of the nations?

It, it could be because they are typical in the Bible of they're

just a standard typical enemy of God.

And so they are a good representation of all of the

wicked nations. It could be because of the word

play between Edom and Adam, meaning man or mankind.

It's the same three Hebrew consonants with different

vowels. There's a lot of word play.

There's three different words in Obadiah, the book of Obadiah.

They have the same word play. There's Edom and Edom and Adam.

It could be that Edom is representing all of us and it

could have been because Edom literally means red.

That name keeps appearing in Esau's narrative.

And so his people literally become the Edomites.

It's it's they are red. They dwell in the, the red Hill

Country and Basra is the capital city of, of Edom.

It literally means vintage. So he might be using it because

Edom means red playing on this wine theme and vintage is the

word for Basra playing again on this winepress theme.

Or maybe it's some combination of all of them.

But Psalm 137 says the attitude of Edom as the enemy of God.

They say against Jerusalem, lay it bare, lay it bare, take it

down to its foundations and you have the response of God, the

ultimate response of God in Isaiah 63, where he says I will

lay you bare, and he takes Edom down to its foundations.

Jesus is coming from Edom and from Basra where he stained his

robes in slaughter. And you can know this.

This represents all of God's enemies.

Another question, where is he coming from?

But what is he like? It draws your attention to four

things as it shows you what this warrior figure wearing this

armor of God, what's he like? The first thing the text draws

your attention to is his vivid garments.

First one, ESV says that they're Crimson garments.

They're they're glowing. They're shining.

The NASB says they're garments of glowing colors, and some of

our translations add Crimson because of all of this red

imagery and this red theme. But however he is, he's, he's

glowing. The second thing it wants to

draw your attention to is his splendor.

He's not disheveled. He's not disheveled from war.

He's he's glowing. He's splendid.

Third thing it wants you to see is his gait.

He's striving forward in the greatness of his strength.

That's a confident, energetic March.

The word in the, in the original is that he's, he's, he's

stooping. He's, he's leaning in to his

March. He's, he's moving up the

mountain of Jerusalem and he's not tired.

He's like a marathon runner. If you watch the Paris Olympics,

at the end of the, at the end of the marathon, there's a massive

hill and you see these, these people, these, these marathon

runners leaning into it. They're confident, confident,

energetic March. His gait is one of strength and

confidence. He's wrapped, Isaiah 59 says, in

zeal as a cloak. And the fourth thing I want you

to see is His strength, the greatness of his strength,

literally the abundance of his strength in the original.

And this is because this is God himself.

This is what Ephesians says, where we were to be strong in

the Lord and then the strength of the strength of him.

It's 3 words and Ephesians and in the Greek language that all

are representing God. We are to be strong in His

strength, the strength of the strength of Him.

All this communicating to you that the work of wrath and fury

is done and God is not tired. He's confident moving into His

holy city. And I want to take you back.

Chris preached last week wonderfully on Isaiah 61 and he

takes you back to when, when Jesus opens up his very first

sermon in the book of Luke, the very first sermon he ever

preaches, he opens up to Isaiah. He opens the scroll of Isaiah to

chapter 61 and he reads it and Luke, the entire book of Luke,

the program, the, the theme, the, the way he writes that book

is based on that one verse. And you see Isaiah 4 at the at

the premiere event of his ministry, he opens up the scroll

and he declares the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.

Do you remember? And if you look at the context

in Luke 4, that's just happened. The Spirit of God has just

descended on Jesus like a dove and he's been empowered for for

ministry. And he says I came to proclaim

liberty to the captives. That was fulfilled literally in

that chapter, verses 31 to 37, as he casts out the demons and

the people say, what is this word?

Who is this that he casts out demons and that the demons are

subjected to him. And he says, I came to preach

good news to the poor. That is the the the purpose of

the book of Luke. Blessed are the poor, blessed

are those who are hungry for they shall be satisfied.

He came to recover sight to the blind.

You see it over and over Chapter 7, verse 21.

He says go and tell John what you've seen and heard.

How does he prove that he is the Messiah to him?

He says go, tell him the blind received their sight.

It's exactly as Isaiah prophesied Isaiah or excuse me,

Luke 1841 to 43. Jesus says recover your sight,

your faith has made you well and immediately he received his

sight and followed him, glorifying God.

I say all that because Jesus reads this verse, he reads half

a verse. He stops in the middle of a

sentence. He says I came to proclaim the

year of the Lord's favor, but he stopped short of saying and the

day of vengeance of my God, of our God.

He leaves off that half of a verse because that was not the

purpose of his first coming. He came as the Lamb of God to

pour out his blood. That was his first coming,

proclaiming salvation and peace. And when the time for that has

ended, he will come again, riding on a White Horse, his

sword drawn. And he this time he will carry

his sword and he will bring the vengeance of God.

And the sword is not ceremonial. He's not carrying it as a prop.

I'll never forget being at Buckingham Palace and we're

watching the King's Guard come in and there's a group of guys

next to us that are making fun of the King's Guard with their

red uniform and their fuzzy Black Hat.

And I won't forget that this guide looked at the group and

kind of shut him up because he said, don't forget those guns

are loaded and they have been given all authority to use them.

And again, once they said that, I got the the group piped down.

They were in earshot of the guards.

That it's the same with our Lord.

People make fun of Jesus and he's coming with a sword, and

the sword is not a prop, it's not ceremonial, it's not for

show. Remember back to Hezekiah's

narrative where an Angel hacked 185,000 men to death with a

sword and a night. That is a picture, a foretaste

of what Jesus will do on the last day.

And we have to ask as a church, what do we do with with that?

What are we supposed to do with with statements like this about

God's final judgment? And is this gruesome image of

blood being spattered? I think the first thing is that

we need to take seriously the teaching of the New Testament

that says we don't take vengeance on ourselves.

We don't seek to go out and bring wrath on others on God's

behalf. Vengeance is the Lord's and he

will repay. And I want to remember, remind

you what we already read in John, that all judgment has been

given to the Son and we confess and He is capable of it.

Isaiah 63, three, you can look it with me again, Jesus's words.

I have trodden the winepress alone, and he says it again,

lest you miss it. And from the peoples, no one was

with me. And remember, back to the cross

the work of salvation. Jesus did alone.

Nobody was with Him. All of his disciples fled, even

the naked guy at the end of Mark.

Why is he there? To show you Nobody was with

Jesus. He went and He did it alone.

This pictured in Leviticus when the high priest went into the

temple, all of the sacrifices that day he did.

What did you do? What did the people do?

They sat on the outskirts of that temple or of that camp, and

they put sackcloth on, they put on ashes, and they wept and

mourned over their sin. That's what you contributed to

the work of your own salvation, the sin.

And you weep and you mourn because the work that he did, he

did alone. And the same is true of the work

of vengeance and of judgment. Jesus doesn't need your help.

He doesn't need you out as a vigilante pouring out wrath on

his behalf. He is capable.

He will do it alone. He's the lion.

What's your role? You are sheep to be slaughtered.

You are considered a sheep to be slaughtered, not to avenge

yourself. Romans 12 and 18 and following

so far as it depends on you. Live peaceably with all.

Here's your instructions, beloved.

Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God,

for it is it is written, vengeance is mine.

I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary.

If your enemy is hungry, what do you do with your enemy?

If he's hungry, do you take advantage of his vulnerability?

Do you let him starve? If your enemy is hungry, feed

him. If your enemy is thirsty, give

him something to drink, for by so doing you will keep burning

coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but

overcome evil with good. Those are your instructions.

What else? How else do we take passages

like this? I think as you look to, to new

application, more application, it takes us from Jesus as the

lamb to or as the lion to Jesus as the Lamb.

Verses 7 to 14. We see Jesus as this, we appeal

to him as a tender, merciful Lamb of God.

And how else do we respond? The people of God model for us

what we're supposed to do. They pray.

We seek God in prayer. This is the last act of the

church that's recorded in the Bible after Revelation 19.

And after all the judgment is done, the people pray.

He says I'm coming soon, bringing my recompense with me,

quoting Isaiah 6211 to repay each one for what he's done.

I am the alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the

first and the last. And then what do the people do?

They respond and prayer. Come quickly, Lord Jesus, Amen.

Come Lord Jesus. Chapter 63, seven all the way to

6412 is the response in prayer. It's all prayer.

Verse 7, remembering his goodness and his unfailing love.

Verses 8 to 9, remembering his commitment to his people.

Verses 10 to 14, remembering his past patience with those

foundational acts of deliverance that came in at the Exodus.

Verses 15 to 19 is a prayer for mercy.

And then there's language in this prayer that has become our

vocabulary is a church. Remember when he says that all

of our righteousness is like a polluted garment, literally rags

of menstruation, minstrel rags is what your righteousness is

before the Lord without Jesus Christ.

It comes in this prayer, Isaiah 64, eight, this wonderful

declaration of God's sovereignty that Paul will pick up in Romans

9. This has to be the prayer of

your heart. How do what do we pray in light

of this? We say you are our Father, you

are the Potter, we are the clay. And that's saying, Lord,

whatever you would have to do with this vessel, with this

body, do it. I'm in perfect submission to

you. You want me to have more kids,

Lord? I'll have more kids.

You want me to stop having kids, Lord, I'll stop having kids.

You want me to move to the far side of the world, Lord?

I will move there. My will, in my opinion, doesn't

matter. I am the clay.

You are the Potter, Lord. Do with me what you will.

I am water in your hands, Lord. That's what they're praying and

you can see that the God of or the Christ of Isaiah 63 one to

six is the Christ of verse 7 and immediately following that it's

it's more emphatic. In the original, we have some

words leading up to the word love.

I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord in the original

verse 7 begins and ends with the word hesed.

It's the steadfast love of God. He's the God of steadfast love.

Verse 7, the God of great goodness.

Verse 8, a God that identifies with his people.

Verse 8, again, a God that hopes the best for his people, the God

that lives among them, that commits to them in saving

action. And look at how Scripture

portrays God as you move on from verse 7, He says, I will recount

steadfast love and praises. This is literally I will recount

all of the things that God has done in my life that are that

are worthy of giving him praise. I'm going to meditate on those

things. And verse 8, you see this, this

wonderful disposition of God, where though you are weak and

sin sick, he extends trust to you.

He he gives you a measure of ministry to do.

In verse 9, he brings the Lamb metaphor himself.

He says he's present with their with his people and their

affliction. He was afflicted.

This is Isaiah 53. He was afflicted with our

affliction. He became the curse for us.

He was the Lamb of God that was slave before the foundation of

the world. He's the tender shepherd.

Verses 11 to 14 of his people. He pictures Moses and Aaron as

leading the people out like shepherds.

He he takes them down into the valley so that their feet don't

stumble and that the image is literally of a shepherd with his

sheep where he says he feeds them, He allows them to graze

into the pasture and he sets their bellies on the warm grass

to rest. That's the image of God with

you. And verse 10 is the connecting

point between contemporary Israel and ancient Israel.

In verse 10 is the connecting point from ancient Israel,

contemporary Israel, and us, His church, or you the Christian.

And it reads this way. But they rebelled and grieved

his Holy Spirit. Therefore he turned to be their

enemy, and himself fought against him.

So he's saying He was their God, they were his people, but they

rebelled and sinned, and they grieved his Holy Spirit.

And you can confess the same thing as Paul teaches in

Ephesians 5. He is our God, we are His

people, and yet we continually rebel and grieve his Holy

Spirit. Paul says in Ephesians, do not

grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the

day of redemption. This, the Holy Spirit, is the

seal of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the

praise of His glorious grace. He is the guarantee of our

inheritance. He gives us His Spirit, and we

sin, and we grieve the very God who dwells with us.

I want you to see that the title Holy Spirit is interested to

learn this week only shows up in 2 contexts in the Old Testament.

Here twice the word Holy Spirit is used and the only other time

is David when he is utterly broken in Psalm 51.

And he says, Lord, do not cast me away.

Cast me not away from your presence and do not take your

Holy Spirit from me. And I want to stop for just a

minute as the connecting point as this connecting verse.

What does it mean in verse 10 that we grieve the Holy Spirit

of God? Four quick points of theology to

understand because it's so critical to grieve the Holy

Spirit of God first is to degree to offend a person.

You're defending a you're offending a divine person.

You can't offend a impersonal force.

It's saying here that the Holy Spirit is a person, the same as

acts. You lie to a person.

And so this is not an impersonal force, but a divine person.

John Owen says you can only grieve someone who's capable of

relationship, presence and affection.

To grieve is to receive an affront from someone we love.

Grief is a trouble of mind arising from an unkind and

ungrateful return from one we have obliged with kindness.

And what is it? It's it's willing sin.

It's one thing if your child does something they're not

supposed to do. It's another when they look you

in the eye while they mark on the wall with a permanent

marker. Grieving the Holy Spirit is you

as that child, and we are all that child.

This is this is the kind of sin he's talking about.

These, it's sins that are against our conscience.

They're deliberate. They're repeated against the

Spirit's wisdom and against his prompting.

And they are an offense to the one who dwells within you.

Which brings us to the second point of theology here.

Grieving the Spirit is something that we as Christians do.

You are given the Spirit of God who dwells covenantly with you.

He dwells in your heart through faith.

And Christians, when we do these willful, disobedient actions, it

says that we grieve the one who has been given as a guarantee of

our inheritance. It says in 6310 that Israel

grieved God in the wilderness and not Paul says and you still

do it today. The Third Point is, is critical

to understand this is not a change in the status of your

relationship with God the Father, but a change in the way

that you perceive that relationship with God the

Father. You would never remove his

spirit from you. It's impossible.

He's the promise. But he says here that you can

have a decay in your spiritual strength.

And, and when you sin, there's an exposure to, to more sin and

there's a darkness and a confusion in your prayer and

there's a removal of your, your inner peace and your comfort and

the assurance of your salvation. And we know, you know, that God

does not move mightily in the heart of somebody who's trapped

in patterns of sin. You're, you're quenching the

Spirit, you're grieving the Spirit.

And there's a final point, though.

The end result of grieving the Spirit is always restoration.

It's never a full cutting off. And so when you grieve the Holy

Spirit of God through repentance and restoration by God the

Father, you will be brought again into the full fellowship

and communion with God. That is what I want you to

understand about grieving the Spirit.

And helpful to see what that means is to show its opposite.

How would you describe someone? How would you describe to

somebody the opposite? What's the opposite of grieving

the Spirit? Paul has the answer to that as

well. He says in Galatians 516 instead

walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the

flesh. The opposite of grieving the

Spirit is to walk with Him. Or how about this metaphor in

Ephesians 518 Be filled with the Spirit.

What a beautiful picture that is, and it's passive.

Anybody who studied Ephesians know it's passive be being

filled with the Spirit. It means to continually yield to

His control and influence over your life.

Submit to Him as He guides you into all truth and worthy to

note in verses 9 to 10, you have every member of the Trinity

here, you have the Angel of God's presence, you have him who

is Yahweh and three times he talks about his Holy Spirit.

This is the fullness of the Trinity of God.

Each person here, even in the Old Testament and despite his

vengeance and despite his righteous judgments and despite

his wrath, I want you to see that the people appeal to Jesus

Christ in this context. Look, look ahead to verse 16, a

verse we're not going to cover thoroughly, but look what they

call Him. He is our Father, He's our

shepherd, He's the Lamb of God. Verse 16, they appeal to him as

Father. It does not get any warmer then

the image of adoption. Actually in the Holy Spirit's

chapter in Romans 8, that's the pinnacle of our communion with

God the Father. He says you are orphans now, you

are children. You have all the fullness of

His, of his Kingdom. He's preparing a place for you.

You will be with Him where he is.

He's like Mueller, He bakes his home with his people.

He loves us. This is the image.

This is how they appeal to him. That's the metaphor.

They've been adopted. They appeal to Him as a tender,

gentle, lowly shepherd. Who would leave the 99 to come

after the One? And they appeal to him in prayer

as the Lamb. Verses 11 to 14.

He's the one who brought them out of Egypt and through the Red

Sea. He's the one who put His Holy

Spirit in their midst. He led them through the depths.

You can read with me like a horse.

They didn't stumble. He led them into the valley and

gave them rest by the Spirit of the Lord.

And they have eternal peace. And this is important because

Jesus is not just your prophet who proclaims the the will of

God to you and makes known God's will for your life.

That's what prophets do. That's what Christ did.

But he's more than that. He's also your priest,

interceding for you all the time, going to the cross as your

sacrifice. But he's more than that.

He's your King. And in your world and in your

worldview with yourself at the center, the first person that

God subdues to himself is you. You have to bow your knee to God

the Father, and he will be your King.

And so I want to say if you've never done this before, if

you've never said Lord, I am Clay and you are the Potter, I

submit my control of my life over to you.

I want to remind you there are two days on your calendar that

are important today and that day, and it's been said that we

need to live as if Jesus died yesterday, was raised today and

is coming back tomorrow. And so with that, we say you

need to bow the knee to Him today because there's two days

that are important today and that day and that day is coming

and will soon be here. And He will roll over you, He

will defend you, and He will conquer all of His and all of

your enemies. Verse 14 says he does all of

this. Look at this final verse and how

He ends our passage. He does all of this to make a

glorious name for Himself. And so we're reminded in our

passage today that God is a holy God.

And that doesn't mean that he's just a cut above and utterly

distinct from us. It does mean that.

But His Holiness is also a holiness that moves in

tenderness and in mercy and in grace to elect a holy people to

himself. And he sanctifies you, which

means literally he makes you holy.

And the passage teaches us that the world is rebellious and that

God's judgment is coming. And verse 10 says we too are

rebellious and that judgment ought to have been for us.

But you have been spared from wrath by the Lamb of God who

took away the sin of the world. We've been spared from all of

his wrath which remains as a body.

This is so important to remember that we are at every point, that

every one of us, we are at every point creatures of grace and

mercy. Because you see this passage,

you see what happens in verses one to six.

And you say that was meant for me.

That was our end were it not because of Jesus as the Lamb of

God and the lion. It's wonderful.

We did not set ourselves apart for salvation.

We did not earn it. Our position is not self

generated. It began with the election of

God the Father of His church and it ends with verse 16, our

adoption into His family. Look at verse 7, He set His love

on you. Look at verse 8, He became your

Savior. Look at verse 11, He sealed you

with His Holy Spirit. Look at verse 16.

He's adopted you. And promise to never leave you

or forsake you. And so when you sin, you don't

have to appeal to God as a consuming fire.

You can appeal to him as your lamb, as your shepherd, and as

your father. And I want to pray alongside

John Piper and his prayer. He wrote a poem about our

response to grieving the Spirit. And I want you to to end by

hearing this. This poem is called Doubly

relieved. He says, My patient comforter,

my God, my life, my breath, my holy zeal, my soul is doubly

sorrowful that I sin still against your seal, and sinning

caused my sovereign grief. I know it is your holy way to

make your grief serve perfect joy.

But I still pray, O bring the day when in the twinkling of an

eye my soul will doubly be relieved.

I will never sin again, and you will never more be grieved.

Let's pray that that day would come.

Lord, we confess, come, come quickly.

When the the church in Revelation heard about your

judgments, they said Hallelujah, come quickly.

Lord, may it be that day where we have no sin, there's no

presence of sin, there's no penalty of sin, there's no power

of sin, we have no enemies. Lord, we can rule and reign with

you in righteousness. We say, God, bring your Kingdom,

bring it quickly, relieve us. God help us so far as we are

able, with the help of your Spirit, to never grieve your

spirit. Lord, we confess we're, we're so

sorry for the times that we do. Give us the strength and the

power and the strength of the strength of you got to live

righteous life to be wrapped in zeal, like a cloak to come with

our breastplate of righteousness, showing your

light to the world. We, we confess, we want that to

be us. Give us your strength and have

mercy on us when we fail. We are at every point, Lord, a

creatures of mercy and grace. We love you.

We thank you for the work of the cross.

We thank you for Jesus Christ and whose name we pray.

Amen.