is found in Isaiah 51 verses 17 through 23, and then we'll also read some portions from the 26th chapter of Matthew's Gospel. Isaiah 51, give your careful attention, this is God's inspired and infallible Word. Rouse yourself Rouse yourself, arise, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the Lord's hand the cup of His anger, the chalice of reeling you have drained to the dregs. There is none to guide her among all the sons she is born, nor is there anyone to take her by the hand among all the sons she has reared. These two things have befallen you. Who will mourn for you? The devastation and destruction, famine and sword. How shall I comfort you? Your sons have fainted. They lie helpless at the head of every street, like antelope in a net, full of the wrath of the Lord, the rebuke of your God. Therefore, please hear this, you afflicted, who are drunk but not with wine. Thus says the Lord, the Lord, even your God, who contends for his people. Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of reeling the chalice of my anger. You will never drink it again. That will put it into the hand of your tormentors who have said to you lie down that we may walk over you. and have made even your back like the ground and like the street for those who walk over it." Then from Matthew's Gospel, we'll read verses 26-29 and then 36-46. And while they were eating, Jesus took some bread and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, This is my body. He took a cup and gave thanks and gave it to them, saying, Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is to be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until the day when I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom. verses 36-46. Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane and said to his disciples, Sit here while I go over there and pray. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be grieved and distressed. And he said to them, My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and keep watch with me. And he went a little beyond them and fell on his face and prayed, saying, My father, if it is possible, let this cup pass for me, yet not as I will, but as you will. And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping, said to Peter, So you men could not keep watch with me for one hour. Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit is willing. but the flesh is weak. He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, My father, if this cup cannot pass away unless I drink it, your will be done. He came back and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy, and he left them again and went away and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more. He came to his disciples and said, Are you still sleeping, taking your rest? Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us be going. Behold, the one who betrays me is at hand." This is God's Word, which is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joint and marrow. and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Please be seated. The cup is a rich, symbolic figure. It's commonly used as a symbol of achievement at the highest level in sporting events. Hockey has its Stanley Cup. Soccer has its World Cup. Tennis has its Davis Cup. And sailing has its America's Cup, just to name the most prominent ones. The cup is also a rich biblical metaphor. The cup itself symbolizes abundance or fullness In Psalm 23, 5, that familiar song, many of us know it by heart. When David says, my cup overflows, he's referring to the abundance of God's goodness to him. Surely, he says, following that statement, my cup overflows. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Revelation 14.10 speaks of God's wrath mixed in full strength in the cup of his anger to be poured out upon false worshipers. And so the cup is a symbol of abundance. It's a symbol of fullness. In Old Testament and New Testament prophecy, drinking the cup, that is its contents, means to fully undergo what's symbolized by that cup. Sometimes that something symbolized by the cup is favorable, for example, in Psalm 116, 13, when the psalmist says, What shall I render to the Lord for all his kindness shown to me? I shall lift up the cup of salvation. Then in the passage that we just read from the prophet Isaiah. That cup symbolizes something negative. It symbolizes something unfavorable. God's wrath upon sinners. Now, this morning as we gather around the Lord's table to eat the bread and to drink the cup of the Lord, we want to come with understanding what does it mean to drink the cup of the Lord. Paul tells us that if we don't eat of this bread and drink of the cup rightly, we bring judgment upon ourselves. How does one rightly drink of the cup? Well, part of it has to do with examining ourselves to see whether we are in Christ. The Lord's Supper is offered to all those who are in the Lord Jesus Christ, who are believers and who have been admitted to that table by the leadership of the church, by the elders, in other words, of the church. And so it's a matter of examining ourselves to see whether we're in Christ. But secondly, it's a matter of coming with a right understanding of what it means to drink of the cup. We're told by Paul that we must discern the Lord's body. We need to understand. Do you understand what it means to take the bread and to drink the cup of the Lord? Now, we're at various places in our journeys in spiritual understanding of these things. Some of us are just beginning. Really, we could say all of us are just beginners. We're just beginning to understand what it means to partake of this meal. We won't understand fully until the day we see our Savior face to face and we're with our God in heaven for eternity. We won't understand. Nevertheless, we need to recognize that we ought to be striving this side of glory to come to a greater understanding what it means to come to the table so that we can benefit fully from this glorious meal that God has set before us in the Lord's table. God has given us his word in order that we might come to an ever deeper understanding of our union with Christ, and so we look to his word this morning to help us to understand this cup that we take into our hands in communion, to help us to become holy wine tasters. The Bible speaks of at least three cups. Today, we want to lift each of these cups up and examine them in order that we might come to this greater understanding of the cup of blessing that we share at the Lord's table. I am especially indebted to Philip Riken for the outline and much of the content of this sermon for his work in exegeting, expositing this passage. Let's look then at these two passages together in Isaiah and Matthew. In the first place, the first cup that we want to examine is the bitter cup of God's in the hand of the sinner. The bitter cup of God's wrath in the hand of the sinner. This first cup is found in chapter 51 of Isaiah's prophecy. In verses 17 to 20, Isaiah describes Jerusalem as a city with a hangover. Rouse yourself, Isaiah said. It's the morning after. Jerusalem is groggy and gazed. And Isaiah is trying to shake her from her drunken stupor. They've engaged in hard drinking and drunk themselves senseless. The cup of wine, Isaiah says, has been drained down to the dregs. And the dregs of the cup aren't pleasant. to drink. If you've ever come to the bottom of a coffee cup and swallowed those chunks of bitter coffee grounds, then you know something of what Isaiah is talking about here. And in his day, the winemaking process wasn't as refined as it is in ours, and so the sediments would settle to the bottom of the cup. The sediments were still remained in the wine and they would settle to the bottom of the cup. And Isaiah says that God's people, that these Israelites have drunk down the cup to its bitter dregs. They had drunk so much that they were staggering, verse 17 says. Even if you've never been drunk yourself, You've undoubtedly seen someone staggering down the street drunk. Just last a couple of weeks ago, when I was in Colorado Springs on the Lord's Day, I was driving to worship and there was a man stumbling down the street from telephone pole to telephone pole to sign to another telephone pole, drunk out of his mind, unable even to walk. That's what Isaiah says about these people in Jerusalem, and so they need help. But who's going to help them? Who will help Mother Jerusalem? She has no sons, Isaiah says, to rouse her, no sons to wake her up from her drunken slumber. So verse 19 says, who can comfort you? Look at the way it's described in verse 20. The sons of Jerusalem have a hangover as bad as their mother's hangover. They've fainted in the streets. They're like antelope that have struggled and struggled so that they're now entangled in the net, so intertwined that they can't even move. They're lying motionless in the street. That's the way The people of Jerusalem, God's people, are portrayed in Isaiah's prophecy. They've been out on an all-night bender, and they're too wasted even to move. This is God's bitter cup of wrath in the hand of the sinner. This unholy intoxication has come upon God's people because of their sins. Jerusalem has drunk the cup of God's wrath. That is to say, Jerusalem has drunk the cup of God's wrath against sin. All of Isaiah's talk about strong drink and drunkenness isn't ultimately about drunkenness and alcohol. It's about God's wrath against sin. Look at v. 17 in your Bibles. All this is from the hand of the Lord Himself. Look at v. 20. The people are filled with the wrath of the Lord. That's why Isaiah says what he says in v. 22. Drunk, but not with wine. Jerusalem is drunk, but not with wine. Rather, they're drunk with the wrath of God. The Old Testament speaks about God's judgment as a cup of wrath frequently. Speaks of it frequently as a cup of wrath prepared for sinners. Psalm 78 verses 7 through 8 says, It is God who judges. He brings one down. He exalts another. In the hand of the Lord is a cup of foaming wine mixed with spices. He pours it out and all of the wicked of the earth, drink it down to its very dregs. Again, Jeremiah 25, 15 and 16. This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me. Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them. This is the cup of God's wrath in the hand of the sinner in Isaiah's day. Israel had forsaken their God. They'd gone after false gods. They were following after their selfish desires. There are people of unclean lips. And therefore, unclean hearts, Isaiah says earlier in his prophecy. There's no justice. They're using unbalanced scales, improper weights. The widow and the orphan are being neglected, and so Isaiah prophesies about a day when the Lord will punish Jerusalem for her sins, when God's people will be carried off into captivity. It's all summed up in verse 19. Devastation and destruction, famine and sword. Isaiah imagines what it would be like, what it will be like to walk through the streets of Jerusalem after this judgment has come upon them. As you walk down the street with Isaiah, you can sense the stupor of the city. You can see the derelicts stumbling down its street, lying in the dust in front of buildings like antelope trapped in nets, unable to move. This will be the result, then, of 70 years of demoralizing captivity. Jerusalem will be like a city staggering and reeling under the weight of God's judgment. Staggering and reeling and then finally collapsing in drunken stupor. It would seem that there's no hope, then, for Jerusalem. According to 18, there's no leadership in Jerusalem. There's no resolve, there's no upcoming generation of the young with courage and vision to turn things around. The city has sunk into apathy and despair. Its people are incapable of walking themselves, incapable of saving themselves. This is the bitter cup of God's wrath in the hands of the sinner, and Isaiah says it's not just reserved for the people of Jerusalem, but God is going to pour out that cup. He's going to put it into the hands of their captors as well, in verse 23. But we must recognize that this cup of wrath wasn't just for Isaiah's day. It's not just an Old Testament figure of speech so that we can segment the Bible and say, well, that was then and this is now. This really doesn't mean anything to me anymore. What, after all, are these words of this old prophecy and what do they have to do with me? The Bible teaches us that this bitter cup of wrath has been mixed. For every sinner, a cup of judgment has been prepared for everyone who rejects God. A cup of wrath is stored away for everyone who does not fear the Lord. And it's a present threat today to those who do not cling to Christ for salvation. In the book of the Revelation, in the New Testament, as we jump to more current, though, still ancient prophecy. John describes the judgment that awaits for those who reject Christ and follow after another God, here represented by the Beast of Revelation. If anyone worships the Beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or hand, he too will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured out full strength into the cup of wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. There is no rest, day or night, for those who worship the beast, for those who are engaged in false worship, for those who follow after other gods. There will be an eternal drinking of the cup of God's wrath. and it contains nothing but bitter dregs all the way down. This is the bitter cup of God's wrath in the hand of the sinner. Believer, do you see how great your salvation is? You see what God has done for you in Christ. You see the misery from which Christ has delivered you. You'll never have to put your lips to this cup that rests in the hands of the forsaken sinner. You'll never have to thrust your head into the foaming bowl of God's wrath to drink it deeply. all the way down to the bitter end. Unbeliever, do you see the consequences of your unbelief? Doesn't your hand tremble at the thought of grasping this cup of staggering? Don't your lips quiver at the thought of drinking the cup of God's wrath down to the very dregs? There's one thing that you can be assured of. God will judge you and he will punish you for your sins until the very last drop of the dregs of this cup have been drained. If only you could push that cup away, if only you would push that cup away. Can you do it? Can a sinner push that cup away? Can he take it out of his own hand? He cannot. But there is one, and Isaiah points us, points us to that one. How can a person know that he'll never drink of the wine of God's wrath? Well, look at Again, what Isaiah's prophecy says and what amazing change takes place at the end of our passage. One minute, the sons of Jerusalem are lying around on the streets, unable to move in a drunken stupor, staggering about and collapsing on the street. But then look at verse 22. This is what your sovereign Lord says. You're a God who defends his people. The God who defends his people. How can that be? They're asleep in the street. They're dead to the Word. They're unable themselves to shake off their hangover. But look at what the Lord says in verse 22. See, I have taken out of your hand the cup that made you stagger. From that cup, the goblet of My wrath, He says, you shall never drink again. The Sovereign Lord snatches the cup of wrath. out of their hands. The bitter cup of God's wrath is no longer in the hands of the sinner. Isaiah foresees a day when the days of Babylon and its captivity and all of the destruction will be over for Jerusalem. When God will remove His chastisement from Jerusalem and God's people will return to their land. What is it? that could make such a change in God's heart. We need to see what not even Isaiah could see fully. We need to see what makes it possible for a just and righteous God to forgive His people, to defend His people and to return them to prosperity. That is, that when God takes the cup of wrath away from the sinner, he places that awful cup into the hand of the only one who is able to take away the sins represented by that cup, even his son. And so let us secondly examine the bitter cup of God's wrath, this time in a different in the hand of Jesus Christ. The gospel shows us this. For example, the gospel writers show us in their accounts of the Garden of Gethsemane. And as we consider Matthew's account in chapter 26, notice, first of all, that Christ shrank back from this bitter cup of God's wrath. Now, we can understand why. We have seen something in Isaiah's prophecy of the bitterness of these dreaded dregs at the bottom of God's cup of wrath. And so we can understand why Christ would initially shrink back and say, My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass for me. Verse 39 of chapter 26 in Matthew's Gospel. He goes on. To say courageously. Nevertheless, though he has shrunk back from it. Nevertheless, courageously says. Father. If it's not possible, if it cannot pass away, verse 42. What he's saying is it can't pass away. He knows. that it can't pass away, because if it does pass away from his hands and if he doesn't drink this bitter cup of God's wrath on behalf of sinners, then their sins cannot be taken away. Christ must serve as the substitute for sinners. He must take that terrible cup into his hands, frightening as it was, and drink down all the wrath that is poured out upon sinners. Here we see how terrible our sins really are. Like the disciples, we're asleep in the garden, dozing through the Christian life, oblivious to the character and the magnitude of our sin. But if we were only there to watch and pray, which even the disciples themselves failed to do, if we were there to kneel beside the Savior in the grass, if we were to hear His cries of anguish we would see the bloody sweat upon his brow. Then perhaps we could see our sin in all of its wickedness, and we would know the sinfulness of our sin. Jesus took the bitter cup of God's wrath in his hand, and he shrank back from Are you, then, sinner? Are you so bold as to take that cup of wrath in your hand, to leave it in your hand? Doesn't your hand tremble at the very thought? If you know your sins, if God is dealing with your sins, then your hand ought to be trembling and your lips ought to be quivering at the thought of touching them. to the cup of God's bitter wrath, let alone drinking its dregs. Notice that Christ has taken that cup for sinners. He's taken it on their behalf and he's drunk it down to the bitter dregs. We see that. This cup that we've seen. This cup of bitter wrath that we've seen in Isaiah 51. Has been taken by Christ, he's taken hold of it on behalf of those who would trust in him. And so you can, you see, push the cup away. But it's only possible you can't release your clutch. upon that bitter cup of God's wrath, unless you have the help of the one who takes it out of your hand. And that, my friend, is done only as you trust in Christ alone for your salvation, as he's offered in the gospel. We've seen the cup of This bitter cup first in the hand of the sinner. God's wrath poured out upon him. We've seen that cup taken from those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Into the hands of the only one who can drink down this bitter cup and all of its dregs and drain it to the last drop. On behalf. Of sinners who trust in him. Once he finally then the sweet cup of communion in the hand of the Christian. What is this cup that lies on the table before us? What does it mean? What is it that's being symbolized in this rich biblical metaphor? We deserve the cup of staggering, God says, the bitter cup of God's wrath. But instead, we have a sweet cup of wine before us, and no drinks at all to drink. Listen to what Christ said to his disciples before he went to the garden of Gethsemane, Matthew 26, 27-29. Then he took the cup and he gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant. which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom." Here's a new cup. The bitter cup of God's wrath upon the sinner is taken away. Here's a new cup, a cup which is the new covenant. in Christ's own blood. This cup of Jesus' blood. It's the blood that Christ spilled on Calvary as He drank the cup of God's wrath. This is the cup poured out for the forgiveness of sins, the forgiveness that Christ earned by His blood. No wonder Paul calls it the cup of blessing, which we share. We share that cup not only with one another, but we share that cup with Christ. And so we could say that this cup that we share, the cup of communion, is, in a sense, a bittersweet cup. Remember how James and John, the sons of thunder, asked Jesus that they might have the number two and number three position in glory. Lord, granted that we might sit at your right hand and your left hand. In glory, what did Jesus say to them? He said, Are you able? To take this cup. Are you able to bear the suffering? That I bear ignorantly, they said, Yes, Lord, we are. Jesus overlooked their ignorance and said to them, to you it will be granted to take up this cup and to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized. He certainly didn't mean that they would undergo that suffering vicariously as Jesus did on behalf of someone else as a substitute for sin. What he did mean is that they would share in the suffering of the Savior. What he did do was tell them that the way of the cross is a way of suffering and that the way of a Christian is the way of suffering and glory. And so, in a sense, this cup of communion that we take into our hands is a bittersweet cup, and yet the Bible teaches us that it's not bitter at all, because it's a great privilege, Peter tells us, to suffer for the sake of Christ. And so this cup of communion is sweet all the way down. It's sweet to the sinner because he recognizes that God has taken the cup of bitter wrath out of his hand and has replaced that cup with the cup of this sweet communion. And that even though there is a tinge of a sting to the wine because we remember in it Christ's suffering, that's what we do. as we observe the table. It's a memorial meal. We proclaim Christ in the fullness of His death. And so there's a sting. And there's a sting because we know that we are involved in this communion of suffering in which we suffer with Christ. We suffer together within. But we suffer willingly because we suffer for the gospel's sake. And we drink down this cup of sweet wine to its end, and it goes down smoothly. And it goes down sweetly because there are no drags. Because God has said to you in Christ, and that, my friends, is what's symbolized by this cup, that you will never have to take that bitter cup of God's wrath. and touch it to your lips and drink down the dregs of his judgment. That's what God has done for you in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's what he represents to us in this cup of blessing before us this morning. Let us then take it into our hands, gratefully, and drink it all down. Amen. Our Father, You are glorious and Your glory fills the heavens and the earth, and so we pray this morning that You would show Your glory in our midst and that You would teach us what it means to take the cup in our hands, what it means to break bread together. Teach us, O what our Savior has done for us in the bitterness of his suffering and death, and taking down this cup of bitter wrath on our behalf. Show us, O Lord, give us thankful hearts, awaken us from our stupor. Keep us from stumbling around in the darkness, lying around like antelope tangled in the make us a grateful people, O God, and as a result, cause us to go out and serve you with all of our might in your kingdom. Hear our prayer, for we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. As we share in this cup of blessing, it is fitting for us to