40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 63:1-19 (Episode 504)

Episode Date: April 10, 2026

God shows up looking like He has spent time in a winepress. It's a good thing when God remembers Moses. And sometimes people talk to God in ways that surprise you. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: 1517 Youtube: How God Still Speaks Today Being Family by Dr. Scott Keith A Reasoned Defense of the Faith by Adam Francisco Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Dr. Christopher Richmann The Essential Nestingen: Essays on Preaching, Catechism, and the Reformation Philip Melanchthon's Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Translated by Dr. Derek Cooper More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

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kick a little back, help us keep doing it, keep it all free. We appreciate very much those of you who do that. Chad, we are in Isaiah 63. We're coming down to it, man. You can see the end. I just was thinking of that. Yeah, 63, 64, and yeah, 65. I mean, it's close. Yeah, we're getting close. Speaking of the end, we're going to talk a little about the Lord's day of vengeance okay so speaking about seeing the end of isaiah well isaiah is going to tell you a little something about the end uh coming up and this is on the heels of us getting great news about you know like i mean our salvation is coming and seeking us out and not forsaking us and of course with with that um there also comes uh the the flip side of that particular coin

yeah well you think about it this way you can't you can't get the israelites out of egypt without shedding some uh egyptian blood right you can't uh you can't redeem humanity without conquering humanity's uh enemies so you got this on the heels of all this great stuff we heard about last episode chapter 62 full of you know beautiful language about brides and Bridegrooms are rejoicing and all the things that God is going to do for his people. So 63 is going to talk about the conquest of the enemies under the image of God coming forth from this battle, coming back from this battle. And his garments are going to be splattered with the blood of the slain. So, yeah, it's some pure Old Testament kind of imagery.

I mean, you have some of this in Revelation, too, but it's much more dominant in the Old Testament. Yeah, this is some vintage Old Testament stuff here. Yeah, everybody's favorite chapter. There's actually a—I'll get to it in a minute—but there's actually a hymn by Thomas Kelly that's written on the basis of I-63. I don't think I've ever heard it sung in church, but I spotted it years ago. Who is this who comes from Edom, I believe is the title. I'll quote a stanza or two once we get to it. Oh, nice.

Yeah. All right. So let's see. Why don't we, let's do, we'll do the first six verses. I mean, this is really the heart of everything we've been talking about leading up to this, about the military imagery. who is this who comes from edom in crimson garments from basra so basra was to edom what jerusalem was to israel it was the capital city so who is this who comes from edom in crimson

garments from basra he who is splendid in his apparel marching in the greatness of his strength It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save. I love this back and forth, this second dialogue. Who in the world is that coming? What does he have on? And then he says, yeah, it's me. It's I. I think he's talking to Moses out of the burning bush right there.

Hey, who is that? It's I. That's him. It's I. It is I. And then you have a question. why is your apparel red in your garments like his who treads in the wine press so there's your question so who is this and why are you wearing clothes it looks like they've been splattered with

the juice of grapes and here he answers verse three i have trodden the wine press alone and from the peoples no one was with me i trampled them or i trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath. Their lifeblood spattered on my garments and stained all my apparel. I told you this was vintage Old Testament stuff. For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption had come. I looked, this is actually, this language is some of my favorite here. 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 and i poured out their lifeblood on the earth this is the gospel of the

lord yeah to say hey uh what you look like you've been uh running around in a wine press or something and to have god be like oh i've been in a wine press all right i was there all by myself but I wasn't treading grapes yeah I mean this is some pretty pretty gallows gallows humor but I do like that you know there's a verse three

I've tried the wine press alone from the peoples no one was with me and then he repeats it in verse five there was no one to help there was no one to uphold so I was like I was looking around is anybody going to be able to do this with me it's like nope I guess not I'm going to do it all by myself

i'm going to war and i'm a one-man army i'm gonna make it make it happen because no one else is going to be able to accomplish what needs to be accomplished yeah he's the first of all he gets to reference his arm too you know it's i was appalled there was no one to help me it's a good thing i've got this mighty to save arm of trusty arm of the lord that i've got here i always picture god like you know he's like he's flexing he's like turning look at his bicep oh look look what I have here. I've got a weapon right here. It's my mighty arm ready to save. So I guess the first thing we need to ask is, what's up with Edom? I mean, he doesn't say, who is this who comes from Babylon or comes from Egypt or comes from Philistia or comes from Ammon or wherever. A lot of options.

Why from Edom and its capital city of Basra? Well, the reason is Edom becomes, over the course of time, not really in Genesis, you know, but we have, so Esau is the father of Edom. So that's where you have Edom coming from. But Edom over time becomes kind of a close cousin to Egypt as far as its archetypical status. So Egypt is the archetype of the place of idolatry and slavery, of course, going all the way back to the end of, beginning of Exodus, that whole story. But Edom also picks up the same kind of symbolic value there, and probably because they are cousins of the Israelites, right? I mean, in a sense, brothers, whatever you want to call them. So you have Jacob, who is renamed Israel.

You have Esau, who goes to Edom and starts that country. And so from the beginning, you have Jacob, Esau, you have Israel, you have Edom. And as we know, it's often those closest to us that we fight with the most And the Israelites were always fighting with Edom Edomites were always fighting with the Israelites Took advantage of the Israelites on several occasions Especially when the Babylonians came in to do even more damage So over the course of prophetic history

The Edomites really rise to, maybe if not to the number one level To one of the top three adversaries of the people of God And so they become this emblem, not just of themselves, but of all the enemies that are opposed to the people of God. So, yes, understand the particularity of Edom, but also understand the fact that it's standing for something else. In the same way that, you know, when you're reading Babylon, when you're reading Revelation and you hear about Babylon, you're not thinking just about Babylon. You're thinking about a symbol of all the dark worldly powers that are opposed to God. Yeah, this is never like – oh, it's never a – every Edomite, this applies to them because every one of them is the worst and enemy of God. No, it's a stand-in for those who do not believe, those who have rejected, those who would be – that breathe threats against the people of God.

Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah. So, that's why you have to eat them. That's why you have Basra. And what is God doing? Well, he's, of course, he's wearing this garb that is just splattered all over. Looks like the blood of grapes, but it's the blood of the slain. so he uh says it is i mighty to save why is your apparel red your garments like him his who treads in the wine press there's a there's a pun that's going on here because edom uh is called edom because it it means edom is called edom related to esau because when esau was born he was red and hairy all over. And so Edom is a pun off of red. And so here, when he says, why is your apparel red? The word is Adom. So he comes from Edom and his apparel is Adom. It comes from the red place

and his apparel is red. And then God answered the question. Well, I have trodden the wine press alone. And this is where we, uh, it's where we get this language that I was referring to earlier from this hymn so let me read you a couple stanzas so this is by thomas kelly written in the early 1800s who is this that comes from edom all his raiment stained with blood to the slave proclaiming freedom bringing and bestowing good glorious in the garb he wears glorious in the spoils he bears and let me skip down to verse three why that blood his raiment staining tis the blood of many slain of his foes there's none remaining none the contest to maintain fallen they are no more to rise all their glory prostrate lies there's four stanzas too i won't read all of them but this is

this is the way the hymn is describing what isaiah describes that he's gone into battle alone. He's taken on the foes alone. He has trampled them to where there's nothing left. There's no enemy remaining. He has won a complete victory and he doesn't come home with his own blood on him. He comes home with their blood on him. He remains unscathed because he is mighty to save. He's done everything necessary to accomplish liberation for his people, and also destruction for those who are opposed to him. We actually sang that song on Sunday. No, we didn't.

Which one? I'm joking. No, we didn't. I was like, really? No, we did not. I was thinking, too, this popped into my head, too, and I was looking at it this morning, the Battle Hymn of the Republic, right? He's trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.

Yeah. He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword. Yeah, there's some pretty strong language there. You know, this is, Revelation picks up this too. Revelation 14 talks about the great wine press and the wrath of God. Yeah, that's immediately what comes to mind when you hear this.

Yeah. So, I mean, it fits. You think about what do you, in ancient times, I guess maybe they still do this in some places, how do you get the juice out of the grapes? Just stomp all over them. Take your shoes off and you walk all over them. That's the way you do it.

And I'm sure you get the juice of grapes all over you. Well, that's where you have the imagery here, staining all his apparel. Now, the language of verse 4, we've actually seen that, something like that, a couple chapters back. It was the beginning of chapter 61, where it's the section that Jesus read in Nazareth. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to do all these things, right? And part of what he says at the end of that is to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And he stops before he goes on to read the second half of that, which talks about the day of vengeance of our God. Well, here you have the same kind of parallelism.

Verse four says, for the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption had come. So we have the same contrast we saw in 61 between day and year. So it's just a day of vengeance. but it's a year of redemption. So that's what was going on. This day of vengeance accomplished a year of redemption. We might say that this single act of conquest, where God alone goes to battle, emerges victorious,

that accomplishes this great redemption, great salvation for his people. Part of what you see when God finally is like, all right, I'm going to do this thing, And I'm going to do it alone. And so, you know, you have the day of salvation and the day of wrath. You know, and if you've listened to 40 Minutes of the Old Testament, you know this, that there was many instances where God would tell his people like, hey, you know, wipe out this evil or wipe out that evil. And, of course, they never did.

Because never do people ever do things the way that God wants them done. And so the day of salvation is something that God does by himself because we can't save ourselves. But the day of wrath is something he has to do by himself, too, because we don't do that right either. We'd mess that all up, yeah. Yeah, he's got to do both. Yeah, he's the only one who's able to do both sides of the equation because it doesn't matter how we're involved. one way or another we're going to do it imperfectly or going to mess things up in some way and that's why the universe nobody helped no one to uphold and so his own arm accomplished accomplish this

so i mean this is a this is the old testament way of really describing two different things it's this is uh we've seen this often in in isaiah where you have the first and second advent of Christ that are collapsed into one salvific event. So when did, when did Jesus do this that we've just been describing? Well, he did it in his cross and resurrection, and he's going to do it when he returns again. But the prophets will telescope these together. They'll see them as one saving event, which in reality they are. It's the now and not yet that we often, often talk about so yes there's going to be an ultimate judgment but that ultimate judgment has also already occurred with the death and resurrection of christ when he defeated our

enemies by his resurrection and will display fully that that victory when he returns again as the judge of the living and the dead yeah that's great all right uh you want to talk about some steadfast love now i want to get away from blood splattered garments and talk about something slightly different well it is interesting you know because obviously you don't have you know chapter breaks in the original and you had all this good news and then you had the the sort of day of vengeance is just this little short thing that gets stuck in between kind of two longer sections about uh about god's love and mercy and all that stuff yeah you gotta i mean if you're in the prophets you can't just keep talking about one thing over

and over you've got to bounce back bounce back and forth i imagine if a preacher did this today it would get a little confusing preach the law one minute gospel one minute law one minute gospel one minute but that's the way the that's the way the prophets writings were at least recorded we don't know i mean that's one of the things to keep in mind and this is kind of a more of an introductory to the prophets kind of topic. But we don't know for sure how long a prophetic sermon would last, at least in Isaiah. I mean, we have smaller sections, we have longer sections. So when Isaiah was actually preaching, how long were his sermons? Did it look like a few verses? Well, I seriously doubt it because that's not the way that sermons function. Jeremiah is a little bit

different. I've been spending some time in Jeremiah recently, and a lot of his at least seemingly full sermons are recorded, and there's a cohesion to them. They're a long sermon maybe about the temple or whatever it might be. Isaiah is different. I mean, whoever, whether it was Isaiah himself or his students who finally pulled together all this material, whoever put this all together into the book that we have of Isaiah, they were pulling material from all over the place, organizing it, you know, very, very clearly. And this flow that we've been observing, but you know, who knows when he actually preached, did he preach judgment and then salvation? Did he preach salvation, judgment, salvation, judgment? Who knows? But that's certainly the way the book

is structured in its, in its final form. Okay. So verse seven, let me read seven through 9. I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord, or as it has in the Hebrew, the steadfast love of the Lord, I will recount. That's the opening word. And it's going to be the same closing word of this verse too. Chesed is what it is in Hebrew. So I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord, the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has granted us and the great goodness to the house of Israel, that he has granted 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. In all their affliction,

he was afflicted. And the messenger, angel is what it has in the ESV, but I'm changing that translation to messenger. And the messenger of his presence or his face, the messenger of his presence saved them in his love and in his pity, he redeemed them. He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. So now we're moving into the language of the Exodus. It's going to be even clearer as we proceed further into the chapter, but here he's moving into the language of God's love, his favor toward his people. He's seeing them in their affliction. He's going to send his messenger to save them. And this is all going to lead then into a discussion of how God is consistent in his compassion toward his people. That's kind of where he's going with

this. But he starts out by talking about God's love to God himself. He's talking to God about God, I'm going to recount this chesed, the steadfast love of God. I'm going to praise him for it. According to all these given us, all the great goodness, all this compassion, all of his steadfast love. Well, how was that steadfast love and compassion shown? Well, he became his people's savior. He called them his people. And then he saw their affliction. In their affliction, he was afflicted and he sent his son which is who this is this messenger of his presence in verse 9 if you're new to the podcast then you can go back and check out well we talked about it genesis talk about exodus go back and listen to the one on exodus 3 if you want a kind of introduction

to this but this is not a created angel this is the son of god and in hebrew the word often translated as angel is malak it means messenger so this is the messenger of his presence that he sends and that goes back to exodus 23 where god says i'm going to send my messenger and my name is in my messenger and he's going to bring you out of egypt he's going to guide you he's going to lead you to the promised land so this is the son of god being talked about here he saved them way back then in his love in his pity he redeemed them he lifted them and carried them all the days of old kind of a cool connection here too between this language of redeeming and the messenger if you go to i don't have the verse in front of me but if you go to genesis 48 this is when jacob is

blessing ephraim and manasseh his grandsons and he says the god who's been my shepherd all my life to this day. The God before whom my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, walked. The God who's been my shepherd all my life to this day. The messenger who has redeemed me, bless the boys. So God and messenger are all talking about the same person. So that's the very first occurrence of the verb for redeem, and it's connected to the messenger. Same thing here. The messenger is the one who, And this redemption does take both those things, some pity and some love. So the Bible does this sometimes where it wants you to know that you're very, very much loved. That God looks at you and he loves you.

He's got this steadfast love for you. But also, you are pitiful, and we are out here being pitiable things, right? Yeah, this is true. Yeah, God looks at us, He's like, yeah, these guys need some pity. They really need some compassion. So that's what God did. I mean, He did it for the Israelites. So, I mean, how did they react to that?

I mean, surely they responded with gratitude. Of course. Faithfulness, obedience. Of course. Of course they did. Well, maybe not. Verse 10. But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit.

Therefore, he turned to be their enemy and himself fought against them. You don't want God fighting against you. I mean, just review the earlier part of the chapter, right? Not the one you want to be fighting against. You're going to lose. you're going to lose. Yeah. So he fought against them. Then it's almost like he's like catches himself. Then he remembered the days of old of Moses and his people. Where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock? Where is he who put in the midst of them

his Holy Spirit, who caused his glorious arm to go at the 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 didn't 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 yeah, their response was not gratitude, thanksgiving,

and obedience, faithfulness, all those great things. Instead, they did what they always did in the desert. They rebelled against him. The they in Hebrew is emphatic, almost to say, and they, of all people, they were the ones. I mean, they just experienced all this. They of all people. What did they do? They rebelled.

They grieved his Holy Spirit. Kind of unusual occurrence here, by the way. We hear a lot in the Old Testament about the Spirit of God or the Spirit of the Lord or just the Spirit. I mean, it's all over the place. People sometimes get the impression that there really wasn't much about the Holy Spirit until Pentecost. Yeah, there actually was. I mean, it's like all over the Old Testament, like beginning with the second verse of the Bible. Already got the Spirit who's there. The Spirit is in Exodus. The Spirit is all over the book of Judges. The Spirit is all over the Psalms. But as far as being called the Holy Spirit, you only have the occurring two times in the Old Testament. And one of them is here, and the other one is in Psalm 51.

So we're used to using that language of Holy Spirit, almost like you can't say spirit without adding holy in front of it. But as far as the Old Testament, that's only two places. He's just the Spirit, the Spirit of God, the Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord. All referring, of course, to the same spirit, but just without that adjective, except in these two Old Testament places. So they grieved his Holy Spirit. That's the same language that Paul uses in Ephesians 4.30, talking about don't grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. So how did they rebel? Well, they murmured.

You know, they set up the golden calf. They rebelled against Moses and Aaron. and basically everything that they could in order to grieve his Holy Spirit and try and get back to Egypt. You know what's interesting about this too is that you have him, so you have this salvation, so he's going to lift them up, carry them off, all this stuff, the angel is present, he's full of pity and love, and he's going to redeem them.

Then they rebel, and then the Holy Spirit's grieved, and now he's their enemy, and now he's fighting against them. And then it's almost like the way Isaiah puts it, that God's now like fighting against this people and then suddenly remembers Moses, right? And of course we know, we've established many, many times when God remembers something, he acts like something changes. and uh and this does this is the the sort of the thing that that isaiah is saying makes god like sort of change start changing is that now he's going to have to work to this salvation all over again right or like i saved him once now i'm fighting against him i'm fighting and then all of a sudden one day like in the midst of this fighting moses comes to mind

yeah it's like oh uh we need to change things here we're no more fighting we need to we need actually do what needs to be done to save these people. Yeah. I can't, I can't figure out where it says, where is, where is he who put in the midst of them? If this is God almost engaging in this conversation with himself, he's like, where, where is that guy who did that? Oh, that's me. Or, or is this the people of, is this Isaiah? I mean, who is this talking? Well, like maybe it's can be viewed at from several different directions, but it's almost like God is saying, where's that guy who did these things? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, it's me. I need to do that again. Well, I might be wrong here, but I read this as God fighting with the people that he delivered. And we just established, right, like that, hey, who was it that did this delivering? Like, oh, it's the angel of his presence. Who's that? Well, that's Jesus. Well, now they've rebelled in the Holy Spirit and stuff,

and God's just like going to war with these people. Moses comes to mind, and he's like, man, you know who I'm going to need? I'm going to need Jesus to come and do this again. So that's kind of – You've got to send a messenger again. Yeah, so I kind of read it as like, hey, where is he in the midst of his Holy Spirit? Who caused this glorious harm? Where's the guy?

Where's the salvation guy? Because I'm going to have to send him again. I think. And of course that, that person is Jesus. Now, of course, you know, God is not like the father doesn't know where the son is or something like, but this is, this I think is the rhetorical tool that he's using is that, um, uh, perhaps, perhaps I'm going to have to send the, the messenger of the Lord once again. And of course he is. Yeah, that's good. That's good. I mean, you have, you certainly have a focus here upon all three persons of the Trinity. You got the the angel of the messenger you've got his holy spirit mentioned you've got of course god

the father so this kind of inner trinitarian dialogue fits perfectly yeah where's where's that one oh yes yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna need him to go again and to redeem his his people so that's what he does uh he's going to make for himself an everlasting name once once again he's going to go down and deliver his people just like he delivered them from So Egypt took them across the Red Sea, carried them all through the wilderness so they didn't stumble, they didn't fall. And the reason they were able to do this is because the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest. I like that God engages in some revisionist history, too, when he's talking about when he saves and stuff. He's like, man, it was so good with Moses.

Like, led him around. They didn't even stumble or anything. What? What? Yeah. Some of the Psalms do that too. Psalm 105, 106, back to back. Psalm 105, Israel comes out smelling like roses. I mean, they're like, you wouldn't think that they rebelled or complained or murmured one bit, no mention of their sin. And then you turn the page of Psalm 106 and they come smelling like a trash heap. I mean, it's all this long string of their offenses.

so it's i love to put things like that together me like yeah well you know on the one hand i've got a bunch of sins i mean terrible terrible stuff on the other hand i don't have any yeah because god has forgiven and forgotten them in christ so the the old testament plays that kind of theological game as well well well what what he's doing here is he's viewing these events through christ he's like where's the one so he's viewing the deliverance of his people out of egypt and into the promised land so he's viewing that through christ and when god views something through christ well he's like man it's perfect it was so good you know just the way i want it to be yep okay uh verse 15 we got a few more verses and we got a few more minutes to go so let's see

what else this chapter has to offer. Look down from heaven and see. Look down from your holy and beautiful habitation. Where are your zeal and your might? The stirring of your inner parts and your compassion are held back from me. For you are our father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us. You, O Lord, are our Father. Our Redeemer from of old is your name. Pause there for a second. I always love this language, look down from heaven and see.

It's like, you know, just picture someone looking up. Hey, would you mind looking down? We're having some issues down here, so I know you're way up in heaven, but I need you to look down and look out from your holy and your beautiful habitation and check out what's happening down here. I really need you to get passionate about my situation, okay? Have you seen what's happening here? We need some help.

And as is pretty typical in the Bible, the next phrase is a question, where. It could be how long. It could be why. in this case it's where have you misplaced your zeal and your might so where are your zeal where is your might your like inner parts the stirring of your compassion or it's it's uh this is hebrew of course but in greek it would be your splock and it's so my this gut-wrenching compassion so where where is this uh movement in your in your bowels in your belly that you that you felt for your people where's that and where's your compassion and compassion is the same way

compassion is related to the word for a woman's womb so when you show compassion to someone you you womb them so where's all this inward deeply inward compassion and concern because they're being held back from me where's all this at and then they remind him listen you are our father. Another one of these where sometimes you'll hear, well, God's not really called father until the New Testament. Yes, he is. Here's a great case of that. You are our father. Abraham might not know us or Israel acknowledge us, but you, O Lord, are our father, our redeemer from of old is your name. So this is who you are. This is what you've done. And even though the times have changed and maybe we look like we have changed, we're still your children and you're

still our father. Yeah, there's almost this move to say, hey, Abraham doesn't know us, Jacob doesn't know us, you know, but I'm not really appealing to them right now. So, like, because a lot of times you will, you know, you'll say our father Abraham or our father Jacob, and you might invoke that sort of thing. Seems like the situation is bad enough, they're going to move right past all that and say like, listen, I don't know if Abraham's up there saying, I don't know those people. I don't know if Jacob's up there being like, I'm not going to acknowledge them. I'm not going to claim those. Listen, man, you know, but you know, you know exactly who we are and who you are in relation to us. Yeah. A father knows his children, right? Maybe their siblings don't acknowledge

them always, but the parents know, listen, we know you, we recognize you. And so they're saying to God, okay, do that. Recognize us. Be our Father. What happens in verse 17 is like, is, gives you, I feel like this, this verse 17, you haven't read it yet, but I feel, this verse has always been like this to me. I feel like this gives you permission to say wild things to God. well yeah let me read it and uh i i agree oh lord so having okay keep in mind you everything we just talked about right so what what would you be expecting i don't know maybe confession or something like that but no no here's what they say oh lord why do you make us wonder from your ways and harden our heart so that we fear you not return for the sake of your servants the tribe of

your your heritage and i'll go ahead and i'll read the next two verses your holy people held possession for a little while our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary we have become like those over whom you have never ruled like those who are not called by by your name it's not the thing that you would expect them to say, right? No. Why are you making us run away from you? And why are you making our hearts hard? And why are you making us not fear you? But what this is, it's like a really honest kind of confession that's like, listen, man, if you don't make me not wander, I'm going to wander. And if you don't make me have a soft heart, I'm going to have a hard heart and if you don't make me fear you i'm not gonna and so i'm actually gonna blame you for

it right that's that's that's what it sounds like uh where you're like i'm wandering because you're not stopping me and this is what i'll do and uh my heart's hard because you haven't softened it and i'm gonna have a hard heart otherwise and i'm not gonna fear you unless you make me fear you what are we talking about? Do you know how I am? So you're the one with all the power, so make me not like this. Yeah, it's actually, it's a confession. I'm glad you pointed this out. It's a confession of utter dependence. Oh, just all of your inability. You're just like... Yeah, there's nothing I'm going to be able to do here that my heart will harden. I mean, I will wander away like that sheep that just can't wander far enough away.

The only way I'm going to be saved is by you changing things, doing something for me. It's just not the, it's not the, doesn't hit all the, the pious feels, does it? Like, it's not like that. It sounds frustrated and accusatory, but I love it. I love that. This is how it is sometimes. Yeah, it's bold, it's brash, it's just, it's honest, it's completely leaving everything in God's hands. It's not saying, yeah, well, we're going to try and kind of soften our hearts and try and work our way back to you.

No, we're saying, listen, everything is on you. There's nothing we can do. Yeah, we're out here looking like people whom you never ruled and you never called. Yeah, look at us. What do we look like? well we oh abraham and and jacob don't even recognize us it looks like we've never even been your people our sanctuary is a is a ruins over there it's been trampled down and here we are looking like people who never even called by your name so the only way things are going to change is for you to step in do something soften our hearts call us back to yourself raise us up redeem us and do for us what we can't do for ourselves yeah love it and that's

what he's gonna do i mean the very next verse which we'll get to next episode is oh that you would rend the heavens and come down yeah man do whatever this is we're getting into the do whatever it takes chapters right well that's what that's what he's gonna do yeah which we'll uh let's get to next time all right man well i'll see you then all right see you then