Saturday, May 24, 2014

and again...

"And one will say, on that day,
“Look! This is our God! We have waited for him and he saved us!
    This is Yahweh; we waited for him!
Let us be glad,
    and let us rejoice in his salvation.”
For the hand of Yahweh will rest on this mountain,
    and Moab shall be trampled down under him
        as a heap of straw is trampled down in waters of a dung heap.
And it will spread out its hands in the midst of it,
    just as the swimmer spreads out to swim,
        and its pride will be brought low with the movement of its hands.
And he will throw down the fortification of the high point of your walls;
    he will bring it low;
he will send it to the ground,
    to the dust." 

Isaiah 25 is beautiful.  It begins with the salvation and praise of our God and his great deeds and the feast he is throwing on "this mountain."  That's an image used a lot in the Word.  This mountain.  What mountain?  Well, i could go on and on about the mountain image and i have but i'll just leave you with two verses now...

"“You, O king, were looking and, look, there was one great statue. This statue was huge and its brilliance extraordinary, standing there before you, and its appearance was frightening. The head of this statue was of fine gold, its chest and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet, part of them of iron and part of them of clay. You were looking on until a stone was chiseled out—that not by hands—and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay, and it broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold all at once broke into pieces and they became like chaff from the summer threshing floor, and the wind carried them away and any trace of them could not be found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and it filled the whole earth...And in the day of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, and the kingdom will not be left for another nation, and it will bring an end to all these kingdoms, but it will stand forever. Inasmuch as you saw that a stone from the mountain was chiseled out but not by hands, and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold, thereby the great God made known to the king what will be in the future, and the dream is certain and its explanation trustworthy.”" Daniel 2

"Now when Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he began asking his disciples, saying, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!” And Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it! I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you release on earth will be released in heaven.”" Matthew 16

So Jesus is the mountain, the confession of Jesus as the true Son of the Living God, the anointed Messiah, our only savior and redeemer is the rock of faith upon which the mountain is built up.  All those ON the mountain, like Moses up Sinai, are with God.

But it doesn't look good for those UNDER the mountain.  Those who refuse to come to Zion.  "“What then is this that is written:
“‘The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone’?
Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” Luke 20

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