Meditation No. 5

Meditation Title: Promise of Peace

Isa 2:2,4 In the last days…. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.

Suppose you have a bad back and go and see a specialist and he says, “Yes, you'll need weekly massage and then strenuous exercise before this gets better.” You accept that as normal. Or perhaps you go to the dentist and he says, “I'm afraid you have some decay and I have to do a number of fillings.” Again you accept that you are going to have to go through a period of discomfort before, eventually, you come to a good place.

Our trouble, often, when we read books of the Bible like Isaiah, is that we get bogged down with the negative diagnosis and the painful ‘treatment' and tend to forget that always the Lord is seeking to bring His people through to a good end. In chapter one we had a lot of painful diagnosis of Israel's state but now as we enter the second chapter we see that the Lord is aiming for something quite specific. Yes, there is violence at the present as nation rises against nation and the sin of mankind is expressed at a national level, but God is aiming for something beyond that.

Note first that this is what Isaiah “saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.” (v.1) This was the land and this was the city that so often went through turmoil as other nations invaded in Israel's ‘down' times. So much for the location; next the timing: “In the last days”. (v.2a). The ‘last days' tends to refer in Scripture to an end time period when God winds up all that is at the present and brings in something new. That is obvious in what follows. “the mountain of the LORD's temple will be established as chief among the mountains.” (v.2b). Jerusalem was sited on seven hills; not very big hills admittedly but hills nevertheless.

The very first time Jerusalem was referred to as a ‘mountain' was in respect of Abraham where he went to sacrifice Isaac: “So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.” (Gen 22:14). We believe this location was what became to be Jerusalem because we find, “Then Solomon began to build the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah.” (2 Chron 3:1). Later Zechariah was to prophesy, “Then Jerusalem will be called the City of Truth , and the mountain of the LORD Almighty will be called the Holy Mountain.” (Zech 8:3). Perhaps ‘mountain' is used to refer to a high place, a place where God dwells above all humans, reflecting something of the Sinai experience (see Ex 19). Mountain may also, perhaps, refer to ideologies of the world. Whichever it is, the picture is clear – the Lord's dwelling place will be the chief or supreme of all such places that mankind might look to.

Thus, although Jerusalem, the dwelling place of God in the Old Testament period, was now in a weak and vulnerable position, a prey to invading forces, that is only a temporary state. Ultimately it will become the focal point for the world. Now whether that focal point is the place of the Cross of Christ which establishes the Christian faith, or something else, time will tell. But the end is clear: the Lord will reign and people will come to Him: “Many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” (v.3). There will be a heart desiring for the Lord and His ways, so people will seek Him. This suggests an end-time revival, bigger than anything the world has known, where large numbers of the world are drawn to the Lord.

But then it is as a result of that, that we come to our verse above: “He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” (v.4). Do you see this? Because people come to the Lord, there will be peace! It is peace because they submit to the Lord and His blessing comes to them. The apostle Paul understood this when he wrote: “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.” (Rom 14:17 ,18). God's rule brings righteousness, peace and joy in our lives. How different this is from the foolish ideas that the world has accepted from Satan: “The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One. "Let us break their chains," they say, "and throw off their fetters.” (Psa 2:2,3). Sin, stirred on by Satan, sees the Lord's rule as hard, but in fact it is exactly the opposite. It brings peace and joy. Those are not characteristics of a hard life!

Oh the folly of sin! How it distorts our thinking! It makes God out to be a hard and harsh God, but in fact, He is the exact opposite. Sin looks at Scripture through a twisted lens and so the truth is distorted. It picks on the corrective parts and sees them in the worst possible light. It fails to see the love and goodness of God shining through in the midst of man's stupidity. Check it out in yourself. How do you (honestly!) view the Old Testament? Do you feel God is hard? Do you focus on judgment or can you see the restrained, corrective, gentle hand of a loving God shining through, even in the words of a prophet who struggles with the folly of his own people?