“The
Cup of Wrath”
[Isaiah
51:17-23]
March
21, 2021 YouTube
Last week, we saw Jerusalem call on God to wake up and to
pay attention to what is happening – Jerusalem is going into captivity. And God assures her by telling her that He is
Omnipotent, and she should find assurance in that by considering the things He
has done in the past. Also, God is
Omnipotent, so they should not fear any human, because God has all authority
over them.
In this morning’s text, God turns the tables on Jerusalem
and tells her to wake up.
And we see first, our sin merits God’s Wrath.
“Wake
yourself, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the
hand of the LORD the cup of his wrath, who have drunk to the dregs the bowl,
the cup of staggering.”
God
calls on Jerusalem to wake up and stand up – to understand that she has drunk
from the Lord’s cup of wrath. She has
sinned against God and is now receiving God’s Wrath for what she has done. She has drunk deeply – engaged in sin without
remorse – without repentance, and now God’s Wrath is against her.
Notice
God’s accusation is against Jerusalem – not the pagan nations. It is God’s people who have turned away. It is the Church that has turned away – that
has together as one joined in sinning against God and think it shouldn’t be any
big deal.
Are
our churches faithful? Are our
denominations faithful?
I
am a member of the RCA and we are deciding whether to divide over whether the
Bible is the authoritative Word of God or not.
There is a growing presumption in some churches that what the Bible says
is not the authoritative Word of God.
This week I listened to a sermon by a minister who said there are much
more important things to preach from the pulpit than the Bible.
God
tells us to wake up! We are drinking His
cup of wrath. God requires all those who sin and never repent – never genuinely
believe in Jesus as God and Savior – to pay the debt for their sin.
Jerusalem
drinks the cup of wrath to the dregs and God tells her that she must go into
captivity for her sin. Yet, as we saw
last week, she is to remember that God is Omnipotent.
“There
is none to guide her among all the sons she has borne; there is none to take
her by the hand among all the sons she has brought up.”
God
tells her that there is no help for her – her sons and daughters cannot help
her escape from the cup of wrath she drinks and the debt she owes to God for
doing so. She willingly drinks from the
cup and sin merits wrath. There is a
price to be paid to God for our sin, and no mere human can deliver us from
paying that debt.
“These
two things have happened to you—who will console you?—devastation and
destruction, famine and sword; who will comfort you?”
In
being taken into the Babylonian exile – the cup of wrath results in devastation
of both the land and the people. As in
the Fall of Adam and Eve, the Creation is punished along with the humans. There
is no comfort in drinking the cup of wrath.
“Your
sons have fainted; they lie at the head of every street like an antelope in a
net; they are full of the wrath of the LORD, the rebuke of your God.”
The
young and strong will not be able to help Jerusalem escape. They too will fall under the results of
drinking the cup of wrath, and they will be caught as an antelope in a net, and
they will be taken into captivity as well.
God’s
Wrath for sin must be satisfied. God
must rebuke those who sin.
God
says, “Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul
of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4, ESV).
And
for those who sin and never repent, the cup of wrath brings them to eternal
death and suffering: “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable,
as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars,
their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the
second death” (Revelation 21:8, ESV).
Being
a part of the Church is no security against the fruit of drinking the cup of
wrath. It doesn’t matter if you are a
minister or a Sunday school teacher, or a great giver, or a regular attender,
or a church member – whatever – if you do not believe that Jesus is God the
Savior – the Servant Savior – you will have to pay the debt to God for your sin
– eternally.
Second,
God saves His people from His Wrath.
“Therefore
hear this, you who are afflicted, who are drunk, but not with wine:”
God
calls on His people to recognize that they have sinned against God – God does
not just say, “Oh, well, they’re My people, I won’t hold their sin against
them.” No, sin must be paid for if God
is Just.
Paul
writes, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people
everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the
world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given
assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31, ESV).
God
calls out Jerusalem and says that she has sinned against God and so drinks the
cup of God’s Wrath to the dregs. There
are now only two options, since the cup has been drunk: pay the debt to God yourself or receive the
substitution of the Servant Savior – He willingly takes on the sin of all those
who will believe savingly in Him.
Here
is what will happen to those who receive Him and believe in Him savingly:
“Thus
says your Lord, the LORD, your God who pleads the cause of his people: ‘Behold,
I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; the bowl of my wrath you
shall drink no more;”
Those
who believe will not suffer the full Wrath of God. We will suffer in this lifetime – Jerusalem
is sent into Babylon – but we who believe will not suffer eternally. We will suffer far less that we deserve
because the Servant Savior takes our sin upon Him and pays our debt.
We
know the One Who pleads our case – the One Who mediates for us before the
Father:
“For
there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ
Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at
the proper time” (I Timothy 2:5-6, ESV).
Jerusalem
is told that He is the Servant Savior – the long-awaited Messiah. And so, they are called to believe in Him and
trust that He will deliver them from their sin and from captivity in Babylon. Yet, God does not tell them when.
God
does not tell them how long they will stay in captivity or how they will be
delivered from captivity, but since God is Omnipotent, they know that He will
deliver them.
We
who believe understand that the most we suffer on earth is less that our sin
merits. Yet, none of us knows how much we will suffer for our sin or how or
when God will deliver us from our suffering.
But if we believe, He will.
Jerusalem
will return to the land after some seventy years. We will be received into the Kingdom when the
time is right.
Where
is the cup taken away from we who believe? Throughout the whole life of the Servant
Savior, but perhaps second to the actual crucifixion, we read:
“And
he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the
disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, ‘Pray
that you may not enter into temptation.’ And he withdrew from them about a
stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, ‘Father, if you are willing,
remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.’ And
there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in
agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood
falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:39-44, ESV).
He
is the Servant Savior Who takes the cup of wrath from Jerusalem and from us and
receives God’s Wrath for our sin:
“And
about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lema
sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (Matthew
27:46, ESV).
In
that moment, He received the Wrath of God for all the sins of all those who
will ever believe savingly in Him.
On
the final day, all those who never believe will be given the cup of wrath. All those who have sinned against God and
never believed, and all those who have sinned against God’s people, will be
given the cup of wrath and made to endure its fruit forever.
“and
I will put it into the hand of your tormentors, who have said to you, ‘Bow
down, that we may pass over’; and you have made your back like the ground and
like the street for them to pass over.”
Jesus
speaks of His condemnation of those who never believe:
“Then
he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal
fire prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Matthew 25:41, ESV).
God
shows mercy in that day to Jerusalem, still, her sin would have to be paid
for. God has shown mercy to us in this
day, still our sin must be paid for.
Jesus
has taken the place of everyone who will every believe throughout time and
space and paid the debt for their sin.
Not only that, but He has also credited each one who believes with His
Righteousness, so the Father will receive us into His kingdom eternally on the
last day.
Let
us pray:
Almighty
God, we thank You that You are a Just God – that You do not change with every
wind that blows. We thank You that You
have saved us through the Savior – that Jesus took the cup of Your Wrath from
us and drank it. And we thank You that
Your Justice will be served as all those who never believe are eternally bound
in Hell to Your Glory. Help us to be
thankful and to take in something of the horrors Jesus endured to take the cup
away from us. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
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