Wednesday after Gaudete, The Third Sunday in Advent
Posted on December 19, 2018 by under
Scripture: Isaiah 25:6-10 (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.”
10 For on this mountain the hand of the LORD will rest, and Moab shall be trampled down under Him, as straw is trampled down for the refuse heap.
Devotion
“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.”
It is no accident that this verse from Isaiah sounds like images of the Resurrection from Revelation. God’s promises and prophecies in Isaiah serve as a foreshadowing of the glory that He will give to all the people and nations that make up His kingdom at the end of the age.
No kingdom or nation can enjoy unending glory in this world. Sin and pride will attack it, from inside or from outside, and it will change. But the kingdom of God is different. It will stand against Satan’s worst attacks. And any glory or blessings that the Lord gives to the people of His kingdom now are only a glimpse of the greater glory of the life of the world to come. At that time all things will be made glorious in Jesus Christ and all Satan’s works and ways will be gone.
Now we face tears and rightfully receive rebuke as the consequences of our sin and pride. But even now these things are used by God’s Holy Spirit to bring us to faithful repentance. We are taught that suffering will come and we must repent of our sinfulness, but we also have the holy assurance that our sins are forgiven on account of Christ Jesus. In Him we look forward to the unending joy of the life to come!
We pray: Lord, we beseech Thee, give ear to our prayers and lighten the darkness of our hearts by Thy gracious visitation; who livest and reignest with the Father 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.
