Oh beautiful Jerusalem.
When you work and the very best of your labors go to those you serve, it’s discouraging. Have a great harvest? Pack it up and send it away. Have wine ready to open? Send it forth as your “lords” have need of it.
But no more. Jerusalem will no longer be deserted and will no longer give its best to the nations that they serve. The Lord will restore Jerusalem.
He will call Jerusalem My Delight is in Her and Your Land Married (v. 4). Why? Because once again the Lord will be with them. He will be their light and salvation and righteousness will once again mark the land.
These prophecies in Isaiah’s time were I believe the prediction that Israel would be delivered out of the hands of Babylon and Jerusalem would one day be restored to its former glory. And that did happen. The Israelite were delivered and Jerusalem once again became a city of greatness.
But there’s another layer here. We read again of these two great cities—Babylon and Jerusalem. Babylon stands for all that is evil and Jerusalem as the city of God’s love, favor and covenant. Once again “Jerusalem” will be delivered from Babylon. This time it will be a heavenly city for the people of God.
When I woke up this morning I read some news articles that are randomly shown on Facebook. Recently about once a day they have something very hostile to Christians. Today they had several of those articles. One of them was about how people who believed Jesus was returning were doing psychological harm to people.
I am fully aware that some folks do use things from the Bible in a harmful way. It has been that way from the beginning and even Jesus was the recipient of weaponized Scripture from the Bible (Mt 4).
But there’s another side of the story. As the city of Jerusalem comes closer to her deliverance, you better believe Babylon will raise its ugly head. And that is exactly what is happening. There’s a drip of hostility being fed to the masses against the people of God, Jews and Christians alike. It’s intensity will continue to grow.
Furthermore atheism is spreading at alarming rates. If we look at the 20th century atheism was the deadliest religion and responsible for the death of over 200 million people. I’ve blogged on that before.
In this war though there is hope. Because Jesus will deliver his people out of Babylon. He will against establish Jerusalem. And the salvation of God will be known to the nations of the earth.
He will do this quickly, in His time.
