How Beautiful on the Mountains are the Feet of those who Bring Good News
Part 2
20th December 2019
We're looking at this prophecy, which predicts God returning to His people:
Isaiah 52:7-12
How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!"
Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices; together they shout for joy.
When the Lord returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes.
Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has
comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.
The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.
Depart, depart, go out from there! Touch no unclean thing!
Come out from it and be pure, you who carry the vessels of the Lord.
But you will not leave in haste or go in flight;
for the Lord will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard.
Last time, we studied its first fulfilment, which occurred some 160 years after it was given, when the Jewish people returned from exile in Babylon in 538 or 539 BC and God, too, returned to the holy city of Jerusalem. No matter what situation we find ourselves in, God is able to restore us. No matter how far we've drifted away from God, He can come close to us again.
We particularly celebrate its second fulfillment around this time of year. We celebrate that incredibly exciting moment, the turning point of all history, when the Second Person of the Holy Trinity was born to a virgin, in a stable, in poverty, for us.
Jesus was called Emmanuel, which means "God with us" (Isaiah 7v14, Matthew 1v22-23). The central truth about Christmas, which so many people fail to notice, to their immense cost, is that Jesus is God.
Jesus - God - came to live a human life with all the stress and all the problems, and all the pain and sorrow, and all the loneliness, and all the physical discomfort of a poor man's life, to identity with us because he loves us enough to want to draw as close to us as he possibly could, and how could He get closer than this? He came in human flesh to live amongst us.
How lovely on the mountains are the feet of anybody who will tell this poor dark old world that Jesus has come in the flesh.
The third fulfilment was when, after more than three years of preaching the Good News and healing the sick, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, and the people cried out, "Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord" (Matthew 21v9). Again, God was returning to His temple.
And the fourth fulfilment of this prophecy of God coming to live among His people is our own personal experience. Earlier we asked how Jesus could get closer to us than by coming in the flesh and living amongst us as a man. The answer to that is: If you have believed in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, repented of your sin and given your life to God, then He has come to you and dwells inside you by His Holy Spirit. How close can God get to you? He lives inside you!
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel has come to you! Not just as baby in a manger, but as the Holy Spirit of God in your heart!
How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!"
More on the fulfilments of this prophecy next week.