Tuesday after the Second Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on June 20, 2023 by under
Scripture: Isaiah 25:6-9 (NKJV)
25:6 And in this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of choice pieces, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of well-refined wines on the lees.
7 And He will destroy on this mountain the surface of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations.
8 He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces; The rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth; For the Lord has spoken.
9 And it will be said in that day:
“Behold, this is our God; We have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord; We have waited for Him; We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”
Devotion
“In this mountain…,” prophesies Isaiah. Which mountain? Mount Zion is a literal place; the highest point in the city of Jerusalem. But the geographical mountain is not what Isaiah means. Mount Zion is a symbol of the heavenly Jerusalem of which all the baptized are citizens. Thus the book of Hebrews teaches: “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb. 12:22). Isaiah lists the many pleasures of this heavenly city: “A feast of choice pieces… wine on the lees… fat things full of marrow,” but the greatest pleasure is this: “we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.” In other words, the greatest pleasures of this world are nothing compared to those of the heavenly kingdom, chief of which is the salvation of God. He who receives God’s salvation through faith will inherit all the pleasures of heaven.
The world thinks us harsh because we confess that those who do not believe in the Christ go to hell. But it is they who have chosen hell for themselves. They want to have the pleasures of heaven, but without the salvation of heaven. This will not work. Whoever receives the salvation of God in this life will inherit heaven. But he who rejects God’s salvation rejects everything; there is nothing left. The greatest pleasure, from which all others flow, is the salvation of God through the Christ.
Prayer: O Lord, Who never failest to help and govern those whom Thou dost bring up in Thy steadfast fear and love: Make us to have a perpetual fear and love of Thy holy Name; 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.
