Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2567
“I have trodden the winepress alone; and ofthe people there was none with Me.” Isaiah 63:3.
IT is said of some stupendous works of architecture that although you see them every day, you are struck with wonder and admiration every time you behold them and that, although you should live close to them and have your eyes perpetually fixed upon them, yet your admiration of them would by no means decrease, for they are so matchless in symmetry, such patterns of art and such marvelous displays of the skill of man. I know not whether that is true. I believe that the best and grandest achievements of mortals lose their glory when they are too closely examined and that the frequency of our sight of them very much lessens our wondering admiration. But this I know is true concerning Christ Jesus our Lord—you may see Him every day, but the more often you see Him, the more you will wonder at Him and call Him, “Wonderful.” You may even have communion with Him every hour, but the frequency of your converse and the constancy of your communion will be so far from diminishing your awe, your love, your respect, your devout adoration of Him, that the more you know Him, the more your wonder and admiration of Him will increase!
Now, who could be expected to know so much about Christ as Christ’s own Church? Yet, in the opening of this chapter you find that even she bursts out with such exclamations as this—“Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? This that is glorious in His apparel, traveling in the greatness of His strength?” She had often seen Him before. She had often viewed Him under that aspect and doubtless she had seen Him as the Conqueror of mighty heroes, Master over princes and the Lord of the kings of the earth. But at a fresh view of Him, she was so utterly astonished that she could not help crying out, “Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?”
Live near to Jesus, Brothers and Sisters. Live with Jesus. Live in Jesus and you will find Him a theme of such excellent and such endless contemplation that, instead of being tired and weary with the subject of your meditation, you will find it more easy to begin, again, than it was to begin at first—more interesting and more pleasing to consider Him in the 50th year of your knowledge of Him than it was in the first hour that you knew Him! Think much of Him and you will have little cause to think lightly of Him! Constantly meditate on Him and you will the more admire and wonder at His goodness!
We have here our Savior answering the questions of His Church, which she, in wonder, had asked of Him—“Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? This that is glorious in His apparel, traveling in the greatness of His strength?” “I that speak in righteousness,” He says, “mighty to save.” And when again she asks Him, “Why are You red in Your apparel and Your garments like he that treads in the wine vat?” He replies, “I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with Me.”
Very briefly, as the Spirit shall help us, we shall notice, first, the interesting figure employed. Secondly, the glorious fact stated. Thirdly, the solitary Conqueror described. And then, fourthly, we shall offer some sweet and salutary considerations suggested, that we may be refreshed by our meditations. Let our souls be calm and quiet whilst we contemplate the awfully-solemn and sublimely-grand spectacle of the Conqueror of men and the Conqueror of Hell treading the winepress alone.
I. First, then, here is AN INTERESTING FIGURE EMPLOYED—“I have trodden the winepress.”
You must understand the circumstances to which these words relate. This is Jesus speaking after His conquest over His foes—not Jesus before the battle, but Jesus after it—not Jesus buckling on the harness, not Jesus becoming the Baby of Bethlehem, but Jesus after the battle is fought and the victory is won. There were certain enemies who opposed the salvation of God’s people. There were numberless foes who stood in the way of the deliverance of His chosen, but Christ undertook to conquer them and now, on His return, He not only declares that He has overcome them, but He uses an expressive figure to set out some of the facts in that wondrous feat of conquest. “I have trodden the winepress.”
First, this denotes the supreme contempt with which the mighty Conqueror regarded the enemies whom He had overcome. It is as if He had said, “I have overcome the many foes of My people and I compare My victory over them to nothing but the treading of the winepress. Angels sing My praise, the hosts of the redeemed in Heaven swell the sublime chorus as, in exultant strains, they declare how I have broken the dragon’s head and have put down the strength of the oppressor. They tell how mighty kings have been slain in My wrath and giants in My hot displeasure. But as for Myself, I say little about it, I only declare that I have trodden the winepress and have counted My enemies as easy to conquer as if they had been grapes beneath My feet! My people’s crimes may have been tremendous and their enemies mighty, but coming up, ‘with dyed garments from Bozrah,’ I have crushed their foes and My foes just as easily as a treader of grapes treads them under foot. I have trodden them as in a winepress.”