Doug McMasters: I'd invite you to take your Bible and go to the book of Isaiah.
Doug McMasters: We're getting close to our the completion of our study of this book, so we're going to be in chapter 63.
Doug McMasters: Chapter 63.
Doug McMasters: If you don't have a Bible, you can find one in the pew in front of you.
Doug McMasters: And somewhere in the 650s, you will find Isaiah 53.
Doug McMasters: I didn't look at the exact page, but 650 will get you in the ballpark, and you can find chapter 63 there.
Doug McMasters: I'd like to begin by reading the passage of scripture that we'll be looking at.
Doug McMasters: We'll be looking at the first six verses of Isaiah 63.
Doug McMasters: Who is this coming from Edom in crimson-stained garments from Bosrah?
Doug McMasters: This one who is splendid in his apparel, striding in his formidable might.
Doug McMasters: It is I, proclaiming vindication, powerful to save.
Doug McMasters: Why are your clothes red, and your garments like one who treads a winepress?
Doug McMasters: I trampled the winepress alone, and no one from the nations was with me.
Doug McMasters: Their blood splattered my garments, and all my clothes were stained.
Doug McMasters: For I planned the day of vengeance, and the year of my redemption came.
Doug McMasters: I looked, but there was no one to help me.
Doug McMasters: And I was amazed that no one assisted.
Doug McMasters: So my arm accomplished victory for me, and my wrath assisted me.
Doug McMasters: I crushed nascents in my anger.
Doug McMasters: For most of us, that's uh imagery that's uh actually pretty unsettling, right?
Doug McMasters: Warrior whose garments are stained with from battle striding after judgment, uh drenched in blood.
Doug McMasters: It's not the kind of world that we live in.
Doug McMasters: Uh we live in a place where danger is distant from us, where it's rather watched more than experienced.
Doug McMasters: Uh and Isaiah's language here can feel harsh even to those of us who've never really felt what true oppression is like.
Doug McMasters: Several years ago, Christian Andressen uh took me on a visit to the Stasi Museum.
Doug McMasters: The Stasi was the secret police of East Germany back before Germany United.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: They had been interrogated in those very rooms that they were showing to us.
Doug McMasters: And they had not only worried about being watched and about uh being reported, they had been people who had been taken.
Doug McMasters: You see, the Stasi didn't just monitor people, it invaded their private life and it turned society against one another.
Doug McMasters: Neighbors and co-workers, teachers and students and children and husbands, and all of them were pressured to report against one another.
Doug McMasters: Pastors were shadowed, letters were read, and homes were broken into and interrogated.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: It was deliverance for people.
Doug McMasters: 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?
Doug McMasters: No, this was this was a rush towards freedom.
Doug McMasters: And the symbol of that brutal system was ripped down.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: And Isaiah wants us to see God this way in this passage.
Doug McMasters: When we see this passage, we're observing a statement about God where he's not some distant observer about sin.
Doug McMasters: No, he's come rather to overthrow the powers that stand against his people.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: You see, this idea that God could somehow own part of his creation and let the rest of it be enslaved to the enemy?
Doug McMasters: No.
Doug McMasters: It's unthinkable here.
Doug McMasters: And that brings us to this moment.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: Those have been beautiful, beautiful chapters and breathtaking vision of what God is doing among the peoples.
Doug McMasters: But now Isaiah turns us back to the present.
Doug McMasters: And he asks this question: how will the people of Israel who themselves cannot produce righteousness ever be that light?
Doug McMasters: How will they ever be described in the way that they are in the glorious chapters that just preceded this one?
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: No, the only way that they would be a different people is if God came.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: It is the very same person.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: So let's hear the word of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: I'm going to give us three points this morning.
Doug McMasters: They're easy, but they're going to be a little longer.
Doug McMasters: Just stay with them.
Doug McMasters: The first is the warrior who comes, the second, the warrior who fights, and the third, the warrior who wins.
Doug McMasters: The warrior who comes, the warrior who fights, and the warrior who wins.
Doug McMasters: Let's look at the first point.
Doug McMasters: The warrior who comes.
Doug McMasters: And Isaiah begins right away by bringing us into this text, and he sees a figure approaching.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't start with an explanation.
Doug McMasters: He just simply gives us a vision.
Doug McMasters: Someone is coming.
Doug McMasters: Someone is moving toward God's people.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: Edom.
Doug McMasters: In the Old Testament, it's not just a people, not just a neighboring nation to the people of Israel.
Doug McMasters: They were the symbol of proud, stubborn opposition against God and his people.
Doug McMasters: They were emblematic as much as they were real people.
Doug McMasters: You see, Edom rejoiced when Jerusalem fell.
Doug McMasters: Edom mocked when the people were led away in captivity.
Doug McMasters: And so Edom represents a humanity in its defiant posture against God.
Doug McMasters: And so when Isaiah sees this figure coming to back to the people, he's coming from Edom.
Doug McMasters: He is someone who's just left the place of rebellion.
Doug McMasters: He's just left the heartland of opposition.
Doug McMasters: And this one has come splendid in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength.
Doug McMasters: This is not some weary, worn refugee who somehow escaped.
Doug McMasters: He's not some victim limping away from a defeat.
Doug McMasters: This is a warrior that we're introduced to.
Doug McMasters: A warrior who's returned from battle unbroken, unshaken, and unbowed.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: And so Isaiah does what all of us are probably thinking right now.
Doug McMasters: Who is this?
Doug McMasters: Who could possibly stride out of the place of opposition to God with such strength?
Doug McMasters: Now remember, the people of God were weak and frail.
Doug McMasters: Their territory was the smaller than the size of Rhode Island among massive empires.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: And they gave themselves in compromising coalitions because they didn't trust in the living God.
Doug McMasters: There was not a champion one among them.
Doug McMasters: Who is this striding out of the stronghold of God's enemies like this?
Doug McMasters: Who is this who could walk out of Edom, that place of entrenched opposition, victorious?
Doug McMasters: Who is it?
Doug McMasters: We don't have to wonder.
Doug McMasters: The warrior speaks himself.
Doug McMasters: It is I speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.
Doug McMasters: Now listen to what he says about himself.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't say it is I mighty to crush.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't say it is I mighty to conquer.
Doug McMasters: What does he say?
Doug McMasters: It is I mighty to save.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: Delivered.
Doug McMasters: Saved.
Doug McMasters: See, his power is a saving power, and his might is a rescuing might, and his strength is a redemptive strength.
Doug McMasters: But notice also he speaks in righteousness.
Doug McMasters: Righteousness.
Doug McMasters: What does that tell us?
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: This image is not one of over-reaction.
Doug McMasters: This image is not one in which this warrior has become a berserker like Nordic lore.
Doug McMasters: He is not out of control.
Doug McMasters: He is not in some sort of divine temper tantrum here.
Doug McMasters: This is calm, settled, holy action of someone who is acting in complete alliance with God's character.
Doug McMasters: Now, who is this?
Doug McMasters: Who is this?
Doug McMasters: In Isaiah 53, we were introduced to the servant of the Lord, and we were told that he was righteous.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: And that he would accomplish salvation by his obedience.
Doug McMasters: And now in chapter 63, we get another side of that servant.
Doug McMasters: The divine figure is given to us from a different angle.
Doug McMasters: This one who was a servant who suffered is now a warrior who conquers.
Doug McMasters: To put it in New Testament terms, the lamb who was slain is the lion who roars in victory.
Doug McMasters: And the New Testament picks this up.
Doug McMasters: Listen to these words of Christ coming into the world.
Doug McMasters: And think of it in this idea, in this motif of warfare.
Doug McMasters: John chapter 1.
Doug McMasters: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Doug McMasters: What is John doing?
Doug McMasters: He's describing the reality that Isaiah sees in this image.
Doug McMasters: A divine figure stepping into enemy-occupied territory, and he's coming as a conqueror, not a tourist.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: His incarnation was an act of war.
Doug McMasters: Christ didn't come to inspire us or to give us a moral example or to offer us some helpful spiritual advice.
Doug McMasters: He's not here to give us ten ways to make your life a little easier.
Doug McMasters: He came to destroy something.
Doug McMasters: He came to overthrow something.
Doug McMasters: He came as a warrior.
Doug McMasters: And you see it all over his earthly ministry.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: Listen to what the demon said to him, one of them in a synagogue.
Doug McMasters: Luke chapter 11, Jesus talked about going into the house of the strongman and binding him and dragging out the spoils.
Doug McMasters: What is he describing?
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: Because he was the one who was going to break the prison down.
Doug McMasters: That's why.
Doug McMasters: And in so doing cast out demons and healed the sick and forgave sins and announced that the kingdom of God is at hand.
Doug McMasters: You see, Christ's whole life was a campaign of liberation.
Doug McMasters: And this is very significant to us.
Doug McMasters: And it means this to us, first of all, that our enemies are not what we normally name.
Doug McMasters: Our enemies in this world are not other people.
Doug McMasters: Our enemies in this world are not other political parties.
Doug McMasters: Our enemies in this world are not cultural trends and certainly not economic forces.
Doug McMasters: Our enemies in this world are sin, Satan, death, and the world system in its opposition to God.
Doug McMasters: And those enemies we cannot defeat.
Doug McMasters: And those enemies are the ones that try to hold us captive.
Doug McMasters: They're the enemies that try to make us afraid or accuse us or whisper in our ears, you'll never be anything.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah also wants us to know that God is not neutral in this warfare.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: No, he wants us to see him coming, striding onto the field, victorious out of battle.
Doug McMasters: He comes from Edom, he comes from the heartland of enemy territory, and he comes saying that he is mighty to save.
Doug McMasters: So let me ask you a question.
Doug McMasters: Have you ever thought of Christ this way?
Doug McMasters: Have you ever thought of him as a warrior?
Doug McMasters: Not just a gentle teacher, not just a compassionate healer, and not just a wise counselor, and all he is, all of that.
Doug McMasters: But he's not just that, he is also this.
Doug McMasters: And he's not backpedaling when we show opposition.
Doug McMasters: And he is not overwhelmed by what our past might have been or what our present sins might be.
Doug McMasters: And he's not surprised by the bondage we've put ourselves in or that others have sought to put us into.
Doug McMasters: And he's not hesitant to step into the middle of it all.
Doug McMasters: That's glorious, isn't it?
Doug McMasters: Some of us think the Christian life really might be by grace, but it's carried out if we just try a little harder.
Doug McMasters: Boy, I just need to do better tomorrow.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah doesn't want you to think that way.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah wants you to look at God and say, Who is this?
Doug McMasters: Who is this one coming to us?
Doug McMasters: Coming home, victorious.
Doug McMasters: This warrior who stepped onto the field on my behalf.
Doug McMasters: This warrior who is strong enough to face what I cannot face and defeat what I cannot win against.
Doug McMasters: And this is why the passage starts here.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: It is I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.
Doug McMasters: And the rest of our this chapter shows us just how far he's going to go to bring that.
Doug McMasters: And so our hope is not in our strength.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: So let's look at the second point, not only of this warrior who comes, but this warrior who fights.
Doug McMasters: And Isaiah asks a second question in verse 2.
Doug McMasters: Why are your garments red?
Doug McMasters: Your clothes like one who treads a winepress.
Doug McMasters: And Isaiah gives us the answer from the warrior.
Doug McMasters: That's why they're red.
Doug McMasters: It's pretty shocking, right?
Doug McMasters: This is shocking imagery.
Doug McMasters: And it's meant to be.
Doug McMasters: It's meant to be.
Doug McMasters: This is not some sanitized, SERPy, sentimental symbol.
Doug McMasters: This is the language of holy warfare, of God confronting his enemies.
Doug McMasters: What's remarkable about it, and we'll get to the point where this is spoken about in the New Testament.
Doug McMasters: But the New Testament begins not here, does it?
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah sees a warrior crushing his foes.
Doug McMasters: The Gospels show us the warrior crushed for his foes.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah sees a warrior treading out the wine press alone.
Doug McMasters: And we see in the New Testament Christ drinking the cup on behalf of his people.
Doug McMasters: And this is the mystery of the gospel.
Doug McMasters: And this is what trips up everyone with a proud heart.
Doug McMasters: Because the warrior wins by losing, and he conquers by dying, and he destroys death through succumbing to it.
Doug McMasters: And no proud person would ever say, That's my champion.
Doug McMasters: But it's a necessary one.
Doug McMasters: Because Isaiah drills down on this section here.
Doug McMasters: Look at how this warrior speaks in verse three.
Doug McMasters: No one from the nations was with me.
Doug McMasters: In verse five, I looked and there was no one to help.
Doug McMasters: I was amazed that no one assisted.
Doug McMasters: He is the only one who is righteous enough.
Doug McMasters: He is the only one who is strong enough.
Doug McMasters: He is the only one who's sinless enough to enter into the battlefield of sin and Satan and not be overwhelmed by it.
Doug McMasters: Because there is too much of a friend of our enemy in ourselves.
Doug McMasters: And this is why Isaiah 53 and 63 go together.
Doug McMasters: Because this servant who suffers suffers in order to be the warrior who conquers.
Doug McMasters: Every exorcism was a battlefield victory.
Doug McMasters: Every healing was a blow against the curse.
Doug McMasters: Every word of truth was an assault against the lies of the wicked one.
Doug McMasters: Every act of mercy was a liberation from the occupation of sin.
Doug McMasters: When Jesus cast out demons, the demons cried out in fear because they were afraid of destruction from warrior Jesus.
Doug McMasters: When Jesus resisted Satan in the wilderness, he's fighting a battle.
Doug McMasters: Adam didn't win.
Doug McMasters: When Jesus forgives, he's reclaiming the territory that Satan thought he had owned.
Doug McMasters: Listen to how the apostles write about it.
Doug McMasters: The Apostle Paul in Colossians 2:15.
Doug McMasters: Listen to these conquering words.
Doug McMasters: He disarmed the rulers and authorities, putting them to open shame, triumphing over them by the cross.
Doug McMasters: That's how he won.
Doug McMasters: You see, the cross is not Christ's defeat, it's his victory.
Doug McMasters: The writer of Hebrews in chapter 2 and verse 14.
Doug McMasters: Through death he destroyed the one who held the power of death, that is the devil.
Doug McMasters: Jesus spoke about it right before he was crucified.
Doug McMasters: In his weakest earthly moment in John chapter 12.
Doug McMasters: Now is the judgment of this world.
Doug McMasters: Now will the ruler of this world be cast out.
Doug McMasters: Because the moment when Christ looked weakest was the very moment when Satan was overthrown.
Doug McMasters: And so Isaiah signals these things when he says, I looked and there was no one to help.
Doug McMasters: This is why the New Testament says there's no other salvation but in the name of Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah says, My own arm brought me salvation.
Doug McMasters: And the New Testament says, He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.
Doug McMasters: Only him.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah is trying to tell us something very, very personal here.
Doug McMasters: And for us as believers, it's something we need to hear well.
Doug McMasters: Because sometimes we live this life as if the decisive battle has not been fought yet.
Doug McMasters: We live as though the decisive battle has not been fought yet.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 63 will not allow us to think that way.
Doug McMasters: Because Christ has already confronted our enemies, he's already fought the battle and won the fight.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: And how did he do it?
Doug McMasters: He did it alone, he did it perfectly, he did it willingly, and he has accomplished it victoriously.
Doug McMasters: And so, because of that, we're not fighting for victory, we're fighting from victory, right?
Doug McMasters: Out of the context of victory.
Doug McMasters: We're not battling to earn God's favor, we're battling because we already have it.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: This is the heart of point two.
Doug McMasters: This Christ fights the battle and he wins.
Doug McMasters: Now let's see how he wins in point three.
Doug McMasters: The warrior who comes, the warrior who fights, and the warrior who wins.
Doug McMasters: What does this victory accomplish?
Doug McMasters: Take a look at verse 4.
Doug McMasters: I planned the day of vengeance and the year of my redemption has come.
Doug McMasters: Now, those are two interesting phrases, right?
Doug McMasters: A day of vengeance and a year of redemption.
Doug McMasters: We might think of them as opposites, but they're not.
Doug McMasters: They're not competing impulses in the heart of God.
Doug McMasters: They are something united together in God's saving mission.
Doug McMasters: You see, God's grace is not some surpy sentimentality, and God's vengeance is not some sort of petty retaliation.
Doug McMasters: His vengeance is his holy commitment to remove everything that destroys his people.
Doug McMasters: And his redemption is not just some sloppy kindness, it's his determination to reclaim everything that truly belongs to him.
Doug McMasters: And the warrior comes with both of those in his heart.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: And he's come to destroy the works of the devil.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: In every way he wins, and every aspect of that opens up a new field of understanding to us of what that victory is.
Doug McMasters: Satan was defeated on the cross, but the declaration of victory was the resurrection.
Doug McMasters: Listen to Romans 1.
Doug McMasters: You've heard it many, many times, but listen to it in a new light and from the vantage point of this motif.
Doug McMasters: Christ is declared to be the Son of God in power by the resurrection from the dead.
Doug McMasters: That is a victory announcement.
Doug McMasters: He was a victor who rose.
Doug McMasters: And that's why Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 says about the resurrection, the whole chapter.
Doug McMasters: Thanks be to God for the victory in Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: You see, the resurrection is not just a miracle, it's a coronation.
Doug McMasters: It's a public announcement that the battle is over and that the warrior Jesus is won.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: And death, the last enemy, will be destroyed.
Doug McMasters: You see, death is not a natural part of life, as much as our biology teachers tried to tell us that.
Doug McMasters: This thing is lost.
Doug McMasters: Death is lost.
Doug McMasters: And his ascension?
Doug McMasters: If the victory announcement comes through the resurrection, what is his ascension?
Doug McMasters: His ascension is the victory parade.
Doug McMasters: It's the victory parade.
Doug McMasters: It is the warrior returning home from battle, winning, and the ascension is very much a part of that.
Doug McMasters: Ephesians 4 quotes Psalm 68, which is a battle psalm.
Doug McMasters: And it talks about the ascension of Christ.
Doug McMasters: And it says when he ascended on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men.
Doug McMasters: What is that?
Doug McMasters: That's a victory parade.
Doug McMasters: That's what that is.
Doug McMasters: It's the image of a conquering king returning from war, leading a procession of defeated enemies in his wake.
Doug McMasters: Look at what I've taken.
Doug McMasters: And he's plundering all of their resources.
Doug McMasters: And he's bejeweling himself and saying they're not for me alone, they're for my people.
Doug McMasters: And he gives gifts to men.
Doug McMasters: And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Because they're the spoils of his victory.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: I'm a once-shackled sinner set free to speak the glorious message of the conquering King Jesus.
Doug McMasters: That's all a pastor is.
Doug McMasters: The apostle Peter said, You need to look up there because that's where it's coming from.
Doug McMasters: It's coming from the throne room.
Doug McMasters: It's coming from Jesus who has ascended.
Doug McMasters: He's the one who has sent this to you.
Doug McMasters: This message of grace and life and forgiveness.
Doug McMasters: And the power that you see among us isn't ours.
Doug McMasters: We're not drunk with new wine.
Doug McMasters: We're filled with God's Spirit, who has come to give you a message.
Doug McMasters: That if you repent and believe, you will have the remission of your sins.
Doug McMasters: You see, his reign is his ongoing campaign.
Doug McMasters: First Corinthians 15.
Doug McMasters: Then comes the end.
Doug McMasters: When?
Doug McMasters: After destroying every rule and every authority and every power.
Doug McMasters: For he must reign until he's put all of his enemies under his feet.
Doug McMasters: So right now, this very moment that we're in, right this second, Christ is reigning as a warrior king.
Doug McMasters: He's dismantling the powers of darkness.
Doug McMasters: He is breaking the dominion of sin.
Doug McMasters: He is advancing the kingdom.
Doug McMasters: And he's not doing it because some guy took his jacket off and waved around and people fell down in the room.
Doug McMasters: Right?
Doug McMasters: He's doing it because the gospel goes into the place where the darkest hearts see a shining light of hope.
Doug McMasters: And they say, My only life can be found in Christ.
Doug McMasters: It's the gospel advance, is what it is.
Doug McMasters: The battle is won, and the campaign continues.
Doug McMasters: The victory, it's secure, and to use military language, the mopping up operation is still a curry.
Doug McMasters: We're just bringing it all in.
Doug McMasters: And his return is his final conquest.
Doug McMasters: This is where we need to be very, very sober in our thoughts.
Doug McMasters: Verse 6.
Doug McMasters: I crushed nations in my anger.
Doug McMasters: I made them drunk with my wrath and poured out their blood on the ground.
Doug McMasters: Like I said, this is disturbing.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah's vision here ends with a warrior standing alone on a battlefield with his garments stained with the lifeblood of his enemies.
Doug McMasters: Because he's acted in perfect justice against all who's opposed his reign.
Doug McMasters: He's not describing a moment of uncontrolled rage, but settled, determined, righteous judgment against persistent rebellion.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: He's not negotiating with sin, and he's not negotiating with ours.
Doug McMasters: He's doing this personally, decisively, and victoriously.
Doug McMasters: This is the very language picked up in Revelation chapter 19.
Doug McMasters: Let me read it for you.
Doug McMasters: Verse 11.
Doug McMasters: I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse.
Doug McMasters: Its rider is called faithful and true, and he judges and makes war with justice.
Doug McMasters: His eyes were like a fiery flame, and many crowns were on his head.
Doug McMasters: He wore a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God.
Doug McMasters: The armies that were in heaven followed him on white horses, wearing pure white linen.
Doug McMasters: A sharp sword came from his mouth so that he might strike the nations with it.
Doug McMasters: He will rule them with an iron rod.
Doug McMasters: He will also trample the wine press of the fierce anger of God the Almighty.
Doug McMasters: And he has a name written on his robe and on his thigh.
Doug McMasters: King of kings and Lord of Lords.
Doug McMasters: John picks up this imagery and shows its fulfillment in the returning Christ.
Doug McMasters: This warrior that Isaiah sees in prophetic silhouette is now riding into view in blazing clarity.
Doug McMasters: There's no guessing.
Doug McMasters: There's no asking.
Doug McMasters: Who is this?
Doug McMasters: For every eye will see him.
Doug McMasters: This robe dipped in blood, the wine press of God's wrath, the sword striking the nations, these are not new symbols.
Doug McMasters: They're completion ones.
Doug McMasters: John is telling us unmistakably that the one who comes on the white horse is the same divine warrior that Isaiah saw.
Doug McMasters: And he doesn't come this time hidden.
Doug McMasters: And he doesn't come time this time with sort of the meek humility that we saw in Christ's earthly ministry.
Doug McMasters: He comes now with unmasked majesty.
Doug McMasters: He comes with many crowns on his head, with armies from heaven, falling.
Doug McMasters: And with the statement, he is the king of all kings.
Doug McMasters: He is the Lord over all other lords.
Doug McMasters: And this is the moment when he shows his conquest and makes it visible to everything in heaven and on earth.
Doug McMasters: 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, Paul talks about this.
Doug McMasters: And he talks about it for the comfort of God's people.
Doug McMasters: He talks about Christ returning, and he says, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels.
Doug McMasters: Exactly what John says in Revelation 19.
Doug McMasters: To repay with affliction those who afflict you and take vengeance with flaming fire on those who reject the gospel.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: You see, his vengeance is not a petty, petty retaliation.
Doug McMasters: It's the public unveiling of God's justice.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: He's the one who's going to bring all things to their end and open up a new beginning.
Doug McMasters: But I don't want to end there.
Doug McMasters: I want to end with these words.
Doug McMasters: Because they are probably for us the most astounding thing.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: We could understand that.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: That he defeats his foes by making them sons.
Doug McMasters: Because this warrior, like I said, doesn't just crush his enemies, he himself was crushed for them.
Doug McMasters: Romans 5 and verse 10.
Doug McMasters: While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son.
Doug McMasters: This warrior who treads the wine press is the one who entered into it and took it for us.
Doug McMasters: That we could be an enemy who's reconciled.
Doug McMasters: That we could be a rebel who's adopted.
Doug McMasters: That we could be a traitor who's called a child, a son and daughter of God.
Doug McMasters: Because Christ has come not merely to subdue his enemies, but he's come to save his enemies.
Doug McMasters: He hasn't come just to crush rebellion, but to transform rebels.
Doug McMasters: And he hasn't come just to conquer by his power, but to save by his grace.
Doug McMasters: Because he wants to win not just over us, he wants to win us.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: And then wonderfully and astonishingly welcoming us into his family.
Doug McMasters: And so this warrior in this year of redemption before the day of vengeance is saying, now is the accepted time.
Doug McMasters: This is the day of salvation.
Doug McMasters: So let's bring this to an end.
Doug McMasters: This is a sobering and yet hopeful vision of a warrior who comes, a warrior who fights, and a warrior who conquers.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: And what this image tells us, there's no one single seat for neutrality here.
Doug McMasters: There is absolutely no middle ground in front of this person.
Doug McMasters: You're either standing with him in his victory or you're standing against him in your sin.
Doug McMasters: You're either trusting him as Savior or you're resisting his lordship.
Doug McMasters: You're either being remade by his grace or you're being hardened by your unbelief.
Doug McMasters: It's one or the other.
Doug McMasters: There's no middle ground here.
Doug McMasters: And for those of you that belong to Christ, I want you to take heart by this.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: He is here to break everything that is binding you.
Doug McMasters: Everything.
Doug McMasters: That's why we can serve God with a clear conscience, because he shut down the accuser.
Doug McMasters: And he's not done.
Doug McMasters: He's reigning in your life now, but he means to reign in every part of you.
Doug McMasters: And believe you me, it will be uncomfortable because we still don't fully release ourselves to this Lord.
Doug McMasters: You know, those walls needed painted.
Doug McMasters: Um, you know, the front step could have used a little cleaning off.
Doug McMasters: Thanks, thanks God for coming into my life and doing those things I knew I needed cleaned up.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: And we're like, wait a second, what's happening here?
Doug McMasters: And C.S.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: This is him subduing every enemy that rises within you and against you.
Doug McMasters: Every sin, every fear, every temptation, every suffering, and even your death will be defeated.
Doug McMasters: None of them will have the last word.
Doug McMasters: So don't lose heart.
Doug McMasters: Don't live as though the outcome is uncertain.
Doug McMasters: Don't fight as though the strength is your own.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: But there's some, maybe even some here, or some that will listen, are listening now or listening later.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: No, no, no, no, and I want to speak to you with all the tenderness that I can muster out of my heart.
Doug McMasters: Don't do that.
Doug McMasters: Listen, Christ is a gracious warrior, he delights to save his enemies.
Doug McMasters: That's what any of us are or were.
Doug McMasters: He delights to make rebels into his children.
Doug McMasters: Heavens rejoice when there's a sinner brought to repentance.
Doug McMasters: He delights to take those who were once resistance, resisting him and making them part of his family.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: There's not a one.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: Not one.
Doug McMasters: If you come to him, he will not turn you away.
Doug McMasters: If you come to him, he will receive you.
Doug McMasters: But I I want you to hear me.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: And you're not going to meet him as a deliverer, you're going to meet him as a judge.
Doug McMasters: And you're going to bow the knee before him.
Doug McMasters: And you're not going to do it in joyful worship.
Doug McMasters: You're going to do it in the ruined recognition that you are fighting a losing war.
Doug McMasters: Because at that time there will be no appeal and no escape and no second chance.
Doug McMasters: None.
Doug McMasters: So listen to why Christ came.
Doug McMasters: He came to seek and to save the lost.
Doug McMasters: He came not to call the righteous, but the unrighteous to repentance.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.
Doug McMasters: Everyone.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: This warrior who judges sin.
Doug McMasters: Let him be the savior who delivers us.
Doug McMasters: This one who treads the wine presses.
Doug McMasters: Let him be the one who also carries us in his arms.
Doug McMasters: Let us hear this year of redemption before we see the day of vengeance.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray.
Doug McMasters: Father, this passage is too grand and glorious for us to absorb as fully as we should.
Doug McMasters: And certainly apart from the illumining work of the Spirit, impossible.
Doug McMasters: And so, Lord, we pray, give us ears to hear and eyes to see.
Doug McMasters: And may we not be left there stunned as Isaiah was, asking questions with wonder and puzzlement.
Doug McMasters: But may we see that this is Jesus.
Doug McMasters: And may we welcome him as our king, our warrior, our victor, our savior.
Doug McMasters: And we ask this in Christ's name.
Doug McMasters: Amen.