Saturday after the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on September 2, 2023 by under
Scripture: Isaiah 62:6-12 (NKJV)
62:6 I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; They shall never hold their peace day or night. You who make mention of the Lord, do not keep silent,
7 and give Him no rest till He establishes and till He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.
8 The Lord has sworn by His right hand and by the arm of His strength: “Surely I will no longer give your grain as food for your enemies; And the sons of the foreigner shall not drink your new wine, for which you have labored.
9 “But those who have gathered it shall eat it, and praise the Lord; Those who have brought it together shall drink it in My holy courts.”
10 Go through, go through the gates! Prepare the way for the people; Build up, build up the highway! Take out the stones, lift up a banner for the peoples!
11 Indeed the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the world: “Say to the daughter of Zion,
‘Surely your salvation is coming; Behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him.’”
12 And they shall call them The Holy People, the Redeemed of the Lord; And you shall be called Sought Out, a City Not Forsaken.
Devotion
“Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Surely your salvation is coming; Behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him.’”
Once again, to the children of Israel in exile, the Lord speaks through Isaiah a word of hope. “Your salvation is coming.” Salvation came when the Savior came. The sufferings borne by the children of Israel in exile became a picture of the ultimate suffering borne by our Lord Jesus Christ, as He sacrificed Himself on the cross to pay for the sin of the world, and thus satisfy the perfect justice of God.
In Christ, Israel was reduced to One. In calling the Twelve, Jesus was revealing a New Israel. Many who were not Jews received this salvation; sadly many of those who were the Old Israel rejected it. Indeed, as Simeon prophesied, “this child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel.” And so it was that some children of the promise rejected it, while others who were not heirs of the promise were nevertheless grafted into this New Israel, the holy Christian Church.
The salvation that Isaiah said “is coming” has now come. The Lord be with us, and keep us in true, humble, repentant faith in our Savior Christ Jesus until the day that we receive “His reward” of the resurrection of our bodies, and everlasting life in heaven.
Prayer: Almighty and Merciful God, of Whose only gift it cometh that Thy faithful people do unto Thee true and laudable service: Grant, we beseech Thee, that we may so faithfully serve Thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain Thy heavenly promises; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
