On This Mountain

Monday, January 28, 2013, 8:00 a.m. – the Lord Jesus woke me with the song “And This is Love” playing in my mind.

And This is Love / Glad / Acapella Project

And this is Love, not that I have first loved You

And this is Love, that You have first loved me

And You give up Your life

One perfect sacrifice

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Isaiah 25 (quoting vv. 6-9 in the NIV 1984):

On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare

    a feast of rich food for all peoples,

a banquet of aged wine—

    the best of meats and the finest of wines.

On this mountain he will destroy

    the shroud that enfolds all peoples,

the sheet that covers all nations;

    he will swallow up death forever.

The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears

    from all faces;

he will remove the disgrace of his people

    from all the earth.

The Lord has spoken.

In that day they will say,

“Surely this is our God;

    we trusted in him, and he saved us.

This is the Lord, we trusted in him;

    let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”

In Context

In Isaiah 24 we read God’s declarations of judgment against the whole earth to take place at the end of time (cf. the book of Revelation). The reason for this judgment is described thus: “The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant” (see v. 5). Then, Isaiah described the particular ways in which God will judge the earth and its inhabitants, and the effect on the people. Not only is there to be massive devastation and loss of life on the earth, but the people no longer party and get drunk. Instead, it says, that among the nations the people raise their voices, they shout for joy, they acclaim the Lord’s majesty, they are called on to give glory to God, and they sing “Glory to the Righteous One.” The passage ends with these words: “…for the Lord Almighty will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before its elders, gloriously.”

I continually see this same theme (as in the paragraph above) throughout the book of Isaiah with regard to the last days, i.e. in particular in connection with the time of judgment to come on the earth during the time of tribulation, and concerning the revival of God’s people (the true church and body of Christ) and the salvation of the masses from the ends of the earth as they flock to Jesus Christ, to the cross of Christ, to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to God’s eternal kingdom – to Mount Zion, in other words, and to the heavenly Jerusalem, the bride of Christ, on and in which Christ will reign.

God’s purposes in judgment throughout history, I believe, have been mainly to bring people to God or back to God in faith, obedience, and surrender of their wills to the will of the Father; forsaking their sins and idols, and following God in righteousness and holiness, giving him the praise, honor and glory he so deserves. I believe Isaiah prophesied not only this time of judgment coming, but of a great revival of God’s people, the salvation of people from all nations of the earth, a return to the one true God, and then the promise of Jesus Christ’s reign on the earth as King of kings and as Lord of lords. Amen! Hallelujah!

The Mountain

No one likes to hear prophecies of judgment on the earth, yet along with these prophecies of judgment also come prophecies and declarations of salvation. Amen! In other words, this is the ultimate goal of judgment, not only to punish the wicked, but to bring people to repentance and to faith in Jesus Christ, and for them to honor God as the holy God he is.

After Isaiah praised the Lord for the judgments, because in judgment God destroyed the strongholds of Satan in people’s lives, and he delivered them and set them free to love, honor, worship and obey their one true God, he declared that “On this mountain” God is going to prepare a feast of rich foods for all peoples.

In chapter two of Isaiah we read about this “Mountain of the Lord; the house of the God of Jacob.” We learned that this mountain “will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.” And, then we read that grammatically speaking, when the passage stated that “He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths,” that not only was this referring to Jesus Christ, our Messiah, but this was in direct reference to the mountain of the Lord and the house of God that will be established (or has already been established) as chief among the mountains. In other words, the mountain is Jesus Christ, his gospel of salvation, the cross of Christ and his eternal kingdom, including the saints of God, the body of Christ – what Mount Zion symbolizes in our day and time. So, when Zion and Jerusalem are referred to in light of the New Covenant relationship between God and his people, this is no longer speaking of physical locations, but this is speaking of Jesus Christ and God’s eternal kingdom.

The Banquet Feast

These verses in Isaiah 25 have a multi-dimensional application, I believe. In context, and on a physical level, I believe this is referring to the time following the tribulation judgments, when Jesus has prepared his bride for her bridegroom, and now she is ready for the great wedding banquet with her husband (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:42-58). Her time of weeping and mourning will be past, and now God will wipe away all the tears from her eyes. Amen! Sickness, pain, suffering and death will be no more. Our salvation will be complete and we will be with our Lord forever, amen! What a glorious day that will be when we see Jesus face to face! Yet, I believe this is also a picture of our salvation from the beginning, not just when it is completed at Christ’s return for his bride.

We, under the curse of Adam, were born into sin, so we are dead in our sins outside of faith in Jesus Christ. We are spiritually blind and destined for eternal punishment in hell – the final judgment. Because God loves us so much, he had a plan for our salvation. He sent his Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins so that we could go free from slavery to sin and so we could be set free from the ultimate penalty of sin, eternal death and eternal punishment in hell (the lake of fire). He also set us free to love, honor, obey and worship Jesus Christ and God the Father. He didn’t do this because of our goodness. We did nothing to deserve his great salvation. Christ died for us while we were still dead in our sins, and it is only the working of the Holy Spirit of God within us that applies what Christ did for us on the cross to our individual lives. Yet, we must accept what he did for us by faith, and that faith is active faith, i.e. it involves repentance and obedience to Christ’s commands.

The way we come to know Jesus Christ, and to have his salvation applied to our lives, so that we are turned from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that we might receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are being sanctified in Christ Jesus, is described for us in many ways throughout the New Testament, yet there are two passages of scripture which I believe summarize it so well. One is in Ephesians 4, which tells us that the way we come to know Christ is by putting off (forsaking; dying to) our old lifestyles of sin, by being transformed in heart and mind (the working of the Holy Spirit), and by putting on our new lives (appropriating Christ’s salvation to our lives by faith), “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” The other is found in Luke 9 where Jesus said that if anyone would come after him, he must deny (disallow) himself, take up his cross daily (die daily to sin and self), and follow (obey) him.

In Conclusion

So, if you have not yet accepted Jesus Christ’s invitation to follow him in obedience and surrender of your will for your life to the will of the Father, and if you have not yet made that decision by faith to enter into relationship with Jesus Christ by forsaking your sins and by choosing to walk by faith and by the Spirit of God from this point on, I pray you will make that decision today. Judgment of God is a sure thing, and it is coming, and none of us is guaranteed tomorrow. Don’t wait until it is too late, not only so you don’t miss heaven and eternity with God, but so you don’t miss the life of faith you can experience while you are still here on the earth. There is no better place to be on this earth than in the center of God’s will doing what our Lord Jesus has purposed and called us to do and to become.

Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer / Thomas O. Chisholm / W. J. Kirkpatrick

Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,

This is my constant longing and prayer;

Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,

Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.

Oh, to be like Thee! full of compassion,

Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,

Helping the helpless, cheering the fainting,

Seeking the wandering sinner to find.

O to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,

Holy and harmless, patient and brave;

Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,

Willing to suffer others to save.

O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,

Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;

Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,

Fit me for life and Heaven above.

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,

Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;

Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;

Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.