Tuesday, September 23, 2014

How Can Anyone "Delight in the Fear of the Lord" - Part 3

Part 3 – The Bible Shows Us the Way to Peace

The ideal of loving community which King David longed for centuries before the times of either Isaiah or of Daniel, he himself described in what we now call Psalm 133:

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.

 It is like the precious ointment poured on the head, that ran down on the beard, even the beard of Aaron, that came down upon the collar and skirts of his garments [consecrating the whole body]. 

 It is like the dew of [lofty] Mount Hermon and the dew that comes on the hills of Zion; for there the Lord has commanded the blessing, even life forevermore [upon the high and the lowly].

This deeply beautiful sentiment and passionate desire for peace has been, in some form or another, given voice by many generations of people, all over the earth, as they were facing violence, upheaval, and chaos in their own time, and in their own personal experiences.

Isaiah longed for this supernatural peace or shalom as well, and must have rejoiced to see it coming someday, as he received these prophetic communiques regarding the Messiah to come.

And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatted domestic animal together; and a little child shall lead them.

And the cow and the bear shall feed side by side, their young shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

 And the suckling child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.                                           

They shall not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. 10 And it shall be in that day that the Root of Jesse shall stand as a signal for the peoples; of Him shall the nations inquire and seek knowledge, and His dwelling shall be glory [His rest glorious]  

This wondrous, restful reality corresponds perfectly with the worldwide thrust and spread of the Good News to all nations, changing everything from the inside out.

Daniel pictured this spread of God’s Kingdom, as the Stone hewn without human hands (a supernatural Person – Jesus!), growing into a mountain, and as the Gospel message of Jesus as King of kings and as Lord of lords, once rejected and crucified, now risen, ascendant, exalted, and forever glorified, being established in every land and on each continent.

Once again, we know that any specific fulfillment during this current interim period we call the Church Age, will have its most fruitful season for an indeterminate timeframe, and then may morph away from its initial blossoming, into religious ritual or empty structure, unless we allow ourselves and our organizational systems to be constantly renewed by the Holy Spirit and His word.

We also know that whatever is manifested in human history, will only find its absolute completion in whatever lies beyond Jesus’ return to this physical universe, to literally and visibly rule eternally. The actual events of the last of the last days, and the second coming of the Messiah, certainly seems to be moving into view, in these last few verses of Isaiah’s prophetic word in this section of the Scriptures.

The ingathering pictured in these verses, obviously represents specific scattered Jewish enclaves, called back from New Testament times to receive Jesus as their true Messiah and enter refreshed into His growing, eternal Kingdom.

In a symbolic fashion, this specified ingathering may also represent alternately and more broadly, all people in all places at all times, who are true followers of Jesus. These have been made personally, and corporately into citizens of the one true Israel of God, (Galatians 6:15-16), who are circumcised spiritually (Colossians 2:11-13), through their personal receiving of Jesus as their Lord and Savior, and who live peacefully, scattered throughout the whole earth in faithful believing communities.

Neil Uniacke
Executive Director

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