Thus the Lord, the God of Israel said to me, “Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I’m sending among them.”
– Jeremiah 25:15–16
So follow this closely. This is a cup of wrath. Of judgment due to sinners among the nations before the holy just judge of the nations, before God himself.
Jeremiah 25:15–16 tells of God’s holy wrath toward sin and sinners.
God tells Jeremiah to take this cup of the wine of wrath and cause the nations to drink it. To experience his judgment. And spread the news of his judgment to all nations. Now, with this imagery of a cup of judgment and a cup of wrath… Let’s fast-forward to Jesus in the garden of Gethseman. Jesus says, “Father if it is possible, let this what pass from me, this cup”. This is imagery all over the Old Testament and the New Testament. All the way to Revelation 14, a cup filled with the wine press of God’s fury.
Holy judgment, due sin, and sinners. That’s what Jesus was praying in the garden. “If it’s possible, let this cup pass from me.” What is this cup? He knows. He is not just about to face Roman crucifixion. Yes, that with all that entails, and we don’t want to minimize that in any way, but when Jesus is sweating blood in the garden of Gethsemane, it’s not because he is afraid to face some Roman soldiers. It’s because he knows he’s about to drink divine judgment, due sinners in every nation. He’s about to drink the cup of the wine of wrath that you and I deserve.
And one preacher put it this way, he said, “It’s like you and I were standing in front of a dam 10,000 miles high and 10,000 miles wide filled to the brim with water. In an instant, that dam was let loose and that water came rushing like a torrent toward you and me. And right before it overtook us, the ground in front of us opened up and swallowed every drop.”
Jeremiah 25:15–16 points us to God’s redemption in Jesus Christ.
Jesus, in a much greater way, took the full cup of infinite divine judgment and wrath. Due you and me in our sin, he drank down every drop. He turned it over and cried out. It is finished. Praise Jesus. He has endured the judgment that we deserve. He has, in a much greater way than Jeremiah could have fathomed, taken from the hand of God the Father, the cup of the wine of wrath due you and me.
And so, we pray all glory be to your name, Jesus. We praise you as the only one who could take that cup, the sinless one who had no sin in and of yourself, who alone could pay the price for our sin. We praise you for your sinlessness and for your substitutionary sacrifice on the cross, for taking our place, for drinking the cup we deserve to drink. And then, three days later for rising from the dead out of the grave, in victory over sin and death so that anyone who trusts in you can be saved completely from our sin. All glory be to your name, Jesus.
We praise you all over again today for your love, for us, for your deliverance, from the judgment we deserve, and for your freedom from sin and its eternal effects on our lives. All glory be to your name.
Prayer for the Kabardian People
We pray, God help us not to keep this to ourselves. Please help us to share this by the power of your Holy Spirit with people around us today and the people around the world. God, we pray specifically today for the Kabardian people of the Northwestern caucuses of Russia and spread out and even in different parts of the Middle East now.
God, we pray for the Kabardian people, all two million of them, most of whom have never heard this good news. Lord, we pray that the good news of Jesus, love for them through his cross and through his resurrection, would spread to all the Kabardian people and all the peoples of the world, and that you would use our lives and our resources toward that end. God, we love you. We praise you, Jesus, for taking the cup of wrath that we deserve. We pray all this according to your Word in Jeremiah 25:15–16. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
