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[0:00] So let me ask you what your thought is about the nature of salvation. So most religions have some sort of salvation.! Christianity certainly does.

[0:11] Bible religions certainly have salvation. So let me ask, do you think that salvation is something that everybody already has?

[0:24] Technically that's called universalism. Is everybody saved? And that God has no enemies, he only has friends. And the Bible says that's wrong.

[0:37] It's not what the Bible says. Not everybody has salvation. Here's a second thought. Is salvation something that we can achieve for ourselves?

[0:51] So something that we do, perhaps by being good, by in some sense scoring points that God will notice. That was good, that was good, that was good. And if we have enough points, we achieve salvation.

[1:04] And you can tweak that thought by saying something else. Human, perhaps human power or human privilege. It's all to do with what human beings can achieve.

[1:17] In Hebrew scriptures that would be called flesh. In the Greek scriptures it's also called flesh. It's what you can do from yourself. Or thirdly, is it something from which we are actually totally dependent on someone else?

[1:34] So we are helpless and hopeless until somebody saves us. That would put us in a position of being scarily helpless.

[1:49] That was the song. I just repeated again how helpless and hopeless we sinners had been if he never had loved us till cleansed from our sin. It's a scary position to be because it says actually none of us can achieve salvation ourselves.

[2:06] But on the other hand, it offers a possibility of somebody of infinite capability and competence doing this for us. Which is far better.

[2:17] You can actually be sure if somebody powerful has saved you. In a way you can't be sure if you think it was something that you did. Well, that third view is the one that I want us to think about this morning.

[2:32] It offers a possibility of infinite power being brought to bear upon the lives of people like us. So in other words, salvation is not because we are particularly strong, clever, brilliant people. But because God is a great saviour.

[2:47] So let's look at this passage which I've entitled God Goes to War. I've drawn a picture of a soldier there. I hope you're suitably intimidated by the picture.

[2:58] Our passage is this. And in the passage, God responds to helpless human failure by rousing himself to mighty military action.

[3:13] That's what happens in this passage. God responds to human failure by rousing himself to mighty military action. And I've got three questions to try and answer.

[3:25] What does the Lord see? What does the Lord do? And I'm going to ask a few other little questions under number two. Why does he do it that way? What are the effects? And the third big question, where does the Redeemer fit in?

[3:37] So three things. What does the Lord see? What does the Lord do? And where does the Redeemer fit in? Because you might have noticed the Redeemer in verse 20 will come.

[3:50] Okay. Are you with me so far? Background. This passage doesn't sit like a rock in the sky, not connected to anything else.

[4:05] It's in a flow of things through the Bible. And without trying to explain absolutely everything, let me pick up on a couple of things that are really important in this flow.

[4:16] So it fits into God's purposes and promises for the whole world via his chosen nation, Abraham's family.

[4:31] So I think I've got a little picture that will show that. So there's promises that God has made. He says, I will. I will. I will do something.

[4:42] So here's Abraham. Not a very good picture. Not a very good likeness of Abraham. He's supposed to have a beard. And God promised to Abraham, you will have many children.

[4:54] And through your children, through your seed, all the nations on earth will be blessed. So it starts off with one man and the promise goes all the way to the whole world.

[5:05] That's supposed to be the world. That's an I will. That's a promise. And if you want to bring it a little bit more short scale, short term, in Isaiah, there's a promise right at the beginning that the mountain of the Lord's house will be lifted above all the other mountains and all the nations will flow to it.

[5:26] So that's a promise too. That's saying that the place where the God of Israel is worshipped will become the most important place. And that not only Jewish people but international people will come and worship there.

[5:42] So those are promises. And God has, what shall I try and say, there's a sort of power and determination that God has.

[5:55] If he's promised something, he will make it happen. So that's the background. So let's ask the first question, what does the Lord see? Verse 15.

[6:10] The Lord looked and was displeased. Now what did he see? I'll tell you what he wanted to see.

[6:22] He wanted to see the things that he so loves. They're very prominent in the book of Isaiah. He wanted to see justice. Hebrew word mishpat.

[6:32] A sort of right, respectful order in society. He wanted to see that. And he wanted to see another word, Hebrew word tzedakah, meaning righteousness.

[6:44] He wanted to see righteousness. He wanted to see people living virtuous lives, upright lives, holy lives, selfless lives. He wanted to see mishpat and tzedakah.

[6:56] And he wanted to see truth. Hebrew word emet, meaning not true in the sense of correct information, but true in the sense of dependable.

[7:07] If you've said you'll do something, you'll do it. Dependable, honest, reliable. Those are the things that he wanted to see. And he looked for mishpat and tzedakah and emet.

[7:21] And he doesn't find them. Verse 14. Let's make sure I'm not getting ahead of myself. Well, verse 15.

[7:32] Truth. That's the emet word. You can't find it anywhere. Truth is nowhere to be found. And whoever shuns evil becomes a prey.

[7:43] Shalom. I'm doing a lot of Hebrew words this morning. Shalom. You know Shalom. Do you know where... Can you think where you know Shalom from? No, it's not Shalom.

[7:54] It's the name of a child. Name of a child? Maher Shalom Hashbaz. That's right.

[8:05] You all knew that, didn't you? One of the children. And it means something like, quit to the spoil, quit to the prey. There's the word shalal. Whoever shuns evil becomes prey.

[8:16] If you even stand up and say, hang on a minute, that's not right. Whoa, you're... They get you. So God is looking for mishpat and tzedakah and emet.

[8:27] And people who shun evil become a prey themselves. And it says, the Lord looked and literally, it was evil in his eyes.

[8:42] And Ivy says, was displeased. It's a little bit stronger. It was evil in his eyes. God looked and said, I can't find mishpat anywhere. I can't find tzedakah anywhere. I can't find emet anywhere.

[8:53] And if anybody shuns evil, they become a prey. That's evil. That's a bad situation. The God looked. And he doesn't just say, oh, well, you know, who cares?

[9:05] No, it is an evil situation. The Lord looked and it was evil in his eyes. And he saw that there was no justice.

[9:15] He saw there was no justice. And just look at this list of things. He says, he saw that there was no one. That literally was no man.

[9:29] And God is looking. Can I find a man who is suitable to this situation? Somebody who can stand out in this situation. Somebody who can even remedy this situation.

[9:41] Who is there? Who is there? No one. There was no justice. There was no man. And he says, he was appalled. There was no one to intervene.

[9:51] intervene. This word intervene is to do like being between two situations. Perhaps like a bridge. Or a go-between. Or an intercessor.

[10:03] An intercessor who is somebody who makes, who sees a situation there and talks to the person there about it to try and help. And he says, I looked for an intercessor, but there was no one.

[10:15] There was no bridge builder. There was no justice. There's no justice. There's no man. There's no bridge builder. And the Lord says, and it says, he was appalled.

[10:27] Can you imagine God being appalled? The word is, I'm just trying to think what it was. But it stuck in my mind as being stunned. Or in sort of modern English, you might say gobsmacked.

[10:43] God looked. There was no justice. No man. No bridge builder. God is appalled at this situation. I'm just stunned, he says, that this is how the world can be.

[11:01] And he sees the helpless, hopeless predicament of his people. That's the context of it. It's of his people. And he sees they've had so many privileges.

[11:14] So many promises. They've received the law, which clearly explains what righteousness is, and what it looks like, and what living it looks like.

[11:27] They've received so much patience from God, time and again. They've had so many rescues from God. They've had so many prayers answered from God. And God says, and I look and I see no justice.

[11:42] No man. No bridge builder. I'm appalled. And he looks at this situation. The helplessness and hopelessness of people in sin.

[11:55] That's really what it is. And of course, it's not just those people in those days. This is the human predicament. They're just one example of the helplessness and hopelessness of every single man and woman and boy and girl that's ever been born into this world.

[12:13] And he is displeased with this. And you might say, I don't like this this morning because you're telling me I'm helpless and hopeless.

[12:25] You're telling me I'm a sinner. That's very offensive and hurtful. And I don't like to hear that. And let me just say, it's absolutely necessary for you to hear that because you'll never be a Christian unless you come to terms with that bit first.

[12:40] So the way God comes to meet us is first as an adversary. He first comes and says, you are out of order. You are wrong.

[12:51] You don't really know how deeply out of order you are. But until you realise that, I can't help you. It's the sick who need the doctor, isn't it?

[13:02] All the time people say we're healthy and the doctor can be no help to them. Luther says, until we met God as our adversary, our enemy, our critic, if you like, we have not met him at all.

[13:14] So what does the Lord do in this situation? He says, this is evil in my eyes. What does he do? Possibility. He could do nothing. He could do nothing.

[13:25] He could say, that's it. Finished with you lot. We'll just wind the whole thing up as an experiment that didn't work. These people do not deserve anything more from him.

[13:37] If God were to say, that's it, you would be, you couldn't complain, could you? Hundreds of years and this appalling situation and God could just say, forget it.

[13:51] But you know, it's not in God's character to leave his promises empty and unfulfilled. Because he said, way back, through this people, I will bless the entire world.

[14:07] And God doesn't go back on his promises. He could do nothing, but he doesn't. He could simply and solely condemn. So he could say, you're all rubbish, I'm going to cast you off.

[14:22] Reminds me a little bit of the time with Moses in Exodus, where the Lord said to Moses, these people are stiff-necked people, I will destroy them.

[14:33] And remember how Moses actually was an intercessor, wasn't he? He said, hold on, don't do that, don't do that, please don't do that. And he gave God reasons for not casting off his people. Mind you, God does not just simply pardon everybody, but he does not either simply only condemn everybody.

[14:58] So here's a, so answer one, he could do nothing. Answer two, he could just simply condemn. Answer three, he could show grace. And that's what, that's the route that he takes. Grace is undeserved favor.

[15:11] Come back to that in a moment, but let me just give a fourth answer. He could form a team. I think that would be a very sensible thing to do. Very good response to any crisis is to get good people together, form a team, get good advice, get a range of gifts operating, form a team.

[15:33] Does the Lord form a team? No. What does it say? Verse 16. So his own arm worked salvation for him.

[15:45] He does this himself. He says, there's nobody going to help in this. I will do it myself. There's no man, there's no intercessor.

[15:57] I will step in. I will do this entirely on my own. His own arm worked salvation for him. His own righteousness sustained him. He put on righteousness.

[16:09] He put on garments. He will repay, et cetera, et cetera. So if you look at the verbs there, he uses his own arm. He doesn't say, I need a bit of help with this.

[16:21] I will do this. My own power will be brought to pair. My own righteousness. Righteousness in this sense being the trueness to his promises and pledges.

[16:34] That, I think we're invited to think of that sort of motivating God. I promised. So I'm going to do it. His own righteousness and the things that says, he, he, he, he, he, single-handedly.

[16:47] And in verse 21, you're going to find the same thing. As for me, says the Lord, this is what I'm going to do. So the first question was, what does the Lord see?

[16:59] And we saw the things that he, he, he saw. And then what does he do about it? Well, those are some answers there. So let's follow this.

[17:13] What does he do a little bit further? I've told you this illustration before, but it will still work. We've been doing some work on our kitchen over the past few months and some kitchen doors to paint.

[17:27] And the temptation is, now I don't know whether you have this temptation, I've got five minutes. I'll just pop into the workshop, as it were, dip a paintbrush in, do a little bit of painting, and then I'll go back to what I was doing before.

[17:43] Five minutes. I don't need to change. Have you ever thought that? Don't need to change. And then you suddenly realise you've got a line of white paint all over your best shirt or something like that.

[17:54] It's very unprofessional, isn't it? You wouldn't do that, would you? I would. If you're serious about it, you're going to do it properly. You put on the proper clothes, don't you?

[18:07] I've got an hour, I'm going to paint some kitchen doors, I'm going to put my overalls on, or I'm going to saw something, I'm going to put a face mask on, I'm going to put the headphones on so I don't deafen myself.

[18:19] You know, I'm going to get properly prepared because I'm serious about it. You get the idea of that. Now this, what does God do? It says, in verse 17, he put on righteousness as a breastplate.

[18:34] So, just as the way, if you're painting, you put your overalls on, if you're going to do some serious cooking, you get your apron, and if you're going to do some serious fighting, you get your armour on. And here is God, who, it says, he put on righteousness as his breastplate.

[18:50] And it says, he put on, let me just get the order of it, he put on righteousness for armour, or righteousness for a breastplate.

[19:01] He put on salvation for a helmet on his head. He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing. And he put on zeal as a cloak.

[19:16] So all of these are really serious items that say, I'm going to go to war on this. I'm going to equip myself because I'm serious about it. I'm going to have, let me not get ahead of myself.

[19:32] So it says, God was appalled at the situation, and now he steps in and says, I'm going to deal with this single-handedly, seriously, totally on the case.

[19:45] God is serious, equipped, determined, and on the case. So let's just take this a little bit further. What sort of action does he get into? I think we can just ponder this thought.

[19:59] The righteousness bit, which is like an armour. What's that righteousness? It's God keeping his promises. I've promised this. I'm going to do it.

[20:12] And if nobody else helps me, so be it. I'll do it. His own righteousness sustained him. He's rescuing people. There's a word for salvation in there, which I think is Yeshua, which reminds people of a name, doesn't it?

[20:28] It's Joshua, or in New Testament, Jesus. That's the word for salvation. He puts on salvation for helmet. He's rescuing people.

[20:41] And a lot about this third thing, vengeance, verse 17. He put on garments of vengeance. And there's several similar words like repayment, verse 18, retribution, verse 18, repaying their due, verse 18.

[21:00] Several repetitions of words to do with vengeance. You've also got the word for zeal. Zeal was at the end of verse 17. Zeal meaning, well, you know what zeal means.

[21:13] It's enthusiasm, determination, definitely going to do this. And he's rescuing his people and he is zealously attacking his and his people's enemies.

[21:30] These are the things that God does when he sees that appalling situation and goes to war. And you might think, I was quite getting the idea of this when he said God was very keen to save, but I'm a bit put off by the idea of him executing vengeance.

[21:51] I really don't like that. Is that a Christian idea, vengeance? Is that a Bible idea? Couldn't we just cut those bits out and just have the nice bits? people and the answer is, well, it says that he does both, doesn't it?

[22:04] And actually he needs to do both. He needs to save his people and defeat his enemies because that's all, it's two sides of the same coil. His people are under attack from enemies and he can't save them without defeating the enemies.

[22:21] Now, when you start thinking enemies, oh, I didn't realise that God's people had enemies. I want to say, please don't begin to think of the people at work that annoy you. Please don't think, those are my enemies, God's going to smite them down.

[22:34] Got to the photocopier before I did. Don't think like that. But God's people do have enemies and the enemies in Isaiah's time would be the cruel, spiritual, human forces like Babylon which would take God's people and imprison like Assyria which would cruelly kill, attack God's people.

[23:04] Or if you come into New Testament times, the Roman Empire which persecuted the people of God if they wouldn't say that Caesar was Lord. So there are enemies like that on that sort of human scale.

[23:19] And in the book of Revelation it has said of God, true and just are his judgments. he has condemned the great prostitute meaning we presume the Roman Empire and avenged the blood of his servants.

[23:34] That's what God does. He takes vengeance on the enemies of his people. There are other enemies too. His people are oppressed by cruel spiritual forces by which I mean Satan Satan and his associated angels and demons.

[23:54] And in the bit that Christopher read to us we were reminded our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places.

[24:08] We must never forget that. The battles that we fight in church life are not simply what you might see but there's a spiritual there are spiritual forces at work which are our enemies and there is a battle to be fought against them.

[24:30] And of course another enemy is sin. Jesus said whoever sins is a slave to sin. Sin enslaves and belittles and dehumanises and that's an enemy to be defeated.

[24:46] And of course the biggest most notorious enemy is death which oppresses the whole human race since our first father Adam sinned.

[25:00] The wages of sin is death. We've emigrated to the world of death. Oppression through bondage to death and it is said that this is the last enemy and the last enemy to be destroyed is death.

[25:19] And Jesus destroyed the power of death and destroyed death by his resurrection from the dead. He defeated that great enemy. So we're saying we don't want God sort of attacking anything.

[25:33] You missed the whole point of salvation. God saves his people by defeating their enemies. And let's just take it a little bit further and say what does he do?

[25:45] What will be the effect of what he does? I'm going to give you two answers to that. Fierce total justice. Verse 18. According to what they have done so he will repay wrath to his enemies retribution to his foes.

[26:03] He will repay the islands their due. Islands in the Old Testament doesn't mean like Greek islands, holiday destinations. It means the great continents that are far away across the water.

[26:17] That's what it's meaning. And God will bring fierce, total justice across the world to his enemies, to his foes, even to the islands.

[26:29] And from the west men will fear the name of the God.

[27:03] We believe what presently we don't see, that the God who made everything and runs everything, the holy God, who is ignored and who is insulted by all sorts of different versions that people make of him, will be feared and reverenced as he ought to be.

[27:22] And this will be either willingly or unwillingly. But God will say, I am God, I am glorious, my name is the highest name that there is, and you have no alternative but to acknowledge that fact.

[27:40] When God defeats his enemies, they will have no alternative but to acknowledge that fact. And people all will do it, whether gladly and willingly or angrily and resentfully. So what will be the effect?

[27:53] Fierce, total justice. I'll just stop on justice here because it's not cruelty, it's not oppression, it is giving people exactly what they deserve.

[28:06] Do you notice this idea of repaying? He will repay. There's a bit of a sort of cause and effect thing here, isn't it? God will simply bring total justice.

[28:18] That's what he will bring. And there will be total unreserved worship. friendship. I just thought it was worth looking at this last sentence here.

[28:30] It says that he will come like a pent-up flood that the Spirit of the Lord drives along. And you might notice there's a different translation in the margin.

[28:41] When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will put him to flight. Well, I don't think people know which is the correct translation, but either of them fit, don't they? When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will make him flee.

[29:00] Fun translation. Or he will come like a pent-up flood that the breath of the Lord drives along. It's about God's power to achieve his purposes.

[29:13] So we looked at what does God see? And we looked at what does God do? The third question was where does the Redeemer fit in? Now, please be patient and follow this.

[29:26] Where does the Redeemer fit in? The Redeemer is in verse 20. The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins, declares the Lord.

[29:40] So here's a further emphatic promise. As for me, verse 21, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord. My spirit who is on you, my words that I put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth or the mouths of your children or the mouths of their descendants from this time on and forever, says the Lord.

[30:00] So please notice the Lord emphasises this, is it what, three times? It says in verse 20, declares the Lord. It says in verse 21, says the Lord.

[30:14] It says at the end of verse, is it the end of verse 21? There's a little 22 anywhere. Says the Lord, the Lord says, please don't make any mistake because I'm saying this and I tell you I'm saying this three times and this is me saying it, as for me.

[30:31] What does he say? So he talks about the Redeemer. The Redeemer will come to Zion. What's a Redeemer? It's a very rich and wonderful word.

[30:43] A Redeemer in ancient Israel would be the person who comes and rescues one who steps in. If there was a trouble in the family, maybe if you'd run out of money, all your crops were destroyed, and the Redeemer would come in and say, you need a lot of help here.

[31:04] I will come in and help you. Or maybe if you'd had to sell a family member, which would be a possibility in those days, the Redeemer would say, that's no good, is it? I will buy this family member back.

[31:15] I'll pay out. It'll cost me, but it's worth it to get them back. It might be an uncle, a family member who steps in to buy back, coupled with the English word to ransom, to buy back a family member from debt or slavery or imprisonment, nearly always with either expenditure of a large amount of money or expenditure of a great deal of effort.

[31:39] And God says the Redeemer will come. Very powerful word. And this Redeemer is the bit which is my spirit who is on you.

[31:58] My spirit who is on you. It's a singular. One person. God is speaking of one person. The Redeemer, this person will come and he speaks of this Redeemer as you.

[32:13] One single person. And he also refers to a covenant. There's lots of rich things combined here. As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord, my spirit who is on you and my words that I have put in your mouth will not depart.

[32:29] So there's something about covenant, there's something about the spirit, there's something about words, all linked with this Redeemer. My question is where does the Redeemer fit in?

[32:42] The words are in the mouth of the Redeemer and his seed and his seed's seed. So it goes on like that. Let me just click back.

[33:01] The Christian claim is that this Redeemer is Jesus. It's the Christian claim. This Redeemer is Jesus. The Hebrew scriptures say he's coming and the Christian claim is he came as Jesus.

[33:20] And I just want to spell this out a little bit. Did the Lord God say I'm appalled at this situation, I will form a team?

[33:32] Did he say that? No, he didn't, did he? He said I will do it myself single-handedly. that's very important. So this Redeemer is not a team member.

[33:48] There is some sense in which this Redeemer, when he acts, the Lord acts. The Lord has not gone outside himself to get team members.

[34:02] His own arm brings him salvation, his own righteousness. righteousness. This Redeemer is not a third person. This is a great mystery, isn't it? The rabbis must have read this and thought, how could that work then?

[34:15] Because the Lord does it single-handedly and he is this Redeemer. And of course the answer lies that there is one God, but in some deep and mysterious way there is a plurality within the one God.

[34:33] The Bible never says there are two gods or three gods, there is one God. But within the oneness of the one God there is plurality. That's a great mystery.

[34:47] But when Jesus comes he is bold to say, he's bold to say, I and the Father are one. God didn't send a third person, somebody else.

[34:59] He came when Jesus came. the Redeemer. Let's think of what it says about covenant. What covenant?

[35:10] A covenant bund. A solemn binding agreement, a relationship safeguarded and expressed in words which says, I will be your God, you will be my people.

[35:24] And he says this, the Redeemer comes. and as he comes there is covenant in his coming. We might be reminded of Jesus who was bold to say in his last night before he was arrested and crucified, where he got his disciples round in a meal and he was the Passover meal and he sort of transformed it and said, as you eat and drink bread and wine, this is a new covenant.

[35:59] And the covenant is not centred in the blood of animals or the person of Moses, but it's centred in me and my blood. This is the new covenant in my blood, says Jesus.

[36:12] This is where you're at. This is the Redeemer. And it talks about spirit. My spirit. My spirit who is on you, singular.

[36:25] Now it doesn't, use the word anointed, but that's surely what it means, doesn't it? Because when the spirit is on somebody, or comes on somebody, the correct verb for that is anointing.

[36:39] And the correct description of the person anointed is that he is the anointed one. And we'll see that in chapter 61, where it says the spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

[36:54] So here is, without using the word, is the thought of anointed. And as you all know very well, the Hebrew word for anointed is Messiah, and the New Testament word for anointed, the Greek word is Christ.

[37:10] So here we have the Redeemer, the Christ, the one who is indwelt by the Spirit of God.

[37:22] And you might well remember in your New Testament, the crucial moment when Jesus went to his baptism, and heaven was opened. Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down.

[37:34] Heaven was opened, and the voice of the Majestic One on high said, this is my Son, whom I love, and the Spirit descended upon him like a dove. And you have the three persons of the Trinity all in that snapshot, don't you?

[37:47] the voice of the Father, the Eternal Son, the Spirit upon him, in fulfilment of this prophecy. And we're told also that he has words, not just any old words, verse 21, my words that I have put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth.

[38:12] So there's something very special about this Redeemer's relationship to the words of God. I remember hearing this illustration a long time ago.

[38:26] Imagine a Martian coming to earth and wanting to know what God is like. So he gets his little spaceship and he's told that men and women are in the image of God.

[38:44] So the little Martian says, right, if I see these people, I'll see what God is like. And I'll listen to them. And I'll hear the sort of thing God says.

[38:56] Aren't we ashamed of ourselves? Because if that little Martian came and listened to us, like Alexa, these aren't the things that God would say. God wouldn't speak like that.

[39:08] that. But there's one person of whom we can say, and if the Martian had gone and watched him, he would have heard nothing but the sort of things God says.

[39:22] And nothing but the words of God. Of course, that's Jesus, isn't it? Who specifically said, the words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.

[39:33] Jesus, who specifically said, I say nothing on my own, but what my father tells me, that's what I speak. So here is Messiah. Here is the Redeemer.

[39:45] The one who comes, is a covenant figure, receives the spirit, speaks the words of God, and has a people who are like him.

[39:59] They too speak the words of God. Okay, that was question three, where does the Redeemer fit in? What have we seen? Just to recap, we first of all said, what did God see?

[40:11] Didn't we? And what did God see? He saw the helpless, hopeless condition of people. And we said, what does God do? And the answer, he gets down to single-handed serious action.

[40:26] And in that serious action, he saves his people and justly repays his enemies. And the effect of that is total justice and total worship of his name.

[40:39] And the third question was, where does the Redeemer fit in? Very important question. Not as an extra, but the agent who is not separable from the Lord himself.

[40:52] And that's exactly who Jesus is. He's the focus of redemption, covenant, spirit, and word. So before I finish, I just ask this question, what's it got to do with me?

[41:08] Because what we've done, we've beheld God, haven't we? We've spent time looking at who God is, and the wonderful works that he does. And in a sense, that's a right thing to do.

[41:19] That's a therapeutic thing to do in itself. Behold your God. But we could ask, how does it come to me? So here's two answers.

[41:31] Number one, you need him to go to war for you. If you are not yet redeemed by him, the issue for you is not how many good works can I do?

[41:49] The issue is you can't ever do enough, you need to enlist him to do it for you. Get him to go to war for you.

[41:59] A little bit like when the armies of Israel were with Goliath there, you remember, and they couldn't defeat him, and David came along and smashed Goliath, and everybody else said, thank you for doing that for me, because I couldn't do it for myself.

[42:17] And that's the situation we're in here. We can't save ourselves, we need this, we need the Lord to do it for us. And your task really is to implore the Lord, the Redeemer, to redeem you in a way you can't do yourself.

[42:37] And if you've never done that, as soon as you get home, get on your knees and say to the Lord, you must save me, whatever it takes, I can't do it myself, show me how that can be real in my life.

[42:54] That's one answer, that's what it's got to do with us. Earnestly, genuinely call on him to be the intercessor, to build the bridge, as it were.

[43:07] Number two, did you notice what it says about the Lord with the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation and so on? Did you get the connection with what Christopher read?

[43:20] Because the connection is that Christian people, in very similar words, that are put on the same equipment, to join in the same battle, not as the great general or the great leader, but as foot soldiers.

[43:38] And here's a, if you like, a call to us, to turn up for active duty every day. to turn up for active duty. Put soldier reporting for duty this morning.

[43:56] Put on the whole armour of God. This is get ready to fight, to fight the Christian fight every day. What does that involve?

[44:09] Well, putting on the whole armour, equipping ourselves, am I going to act in faith today? Am I going to pray today? Am I going to have my life orchestrated by the word of God?

[44:22] The sword of the spirit is the word of God. Am I going to be propelled by the gospel today? Put on gospel footwear? All those sorts of things. So, answer number two, turn up for active duty.

[44:38]  Because the Lord has been this mighty warrior to save us. And he says, right, come on, join in.