Messengers Of Mercy

Messengers of Mercy

Isaiah 52:7

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzQJ0saz6cE

So, I have a question. How good looking are your feet? Are they feet that others would take pictures of and put out there for all to see? Now, notice, I haven’t asked if your feet smell nice. That’s probably a little bit too personal. But do you have good looking feet, or what the Bible says are beautiful?

Today, I’d like to talk about the message that God has given to us to take out to the world. It’s known as the gospel message, and it is a message that is desperately needed. It a message that our world is looking, not only for but forward to, and it is a message that God has entrusted us with.

It is referred to as the Great Commission. Jesus gave it to the disciples after His resurrection, and prior to His accession.

Jesus said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20 NKJV)

It is a message and a command, therefore, it is important to understand because of how much the world, and hence the god of this world, Satan, hates what we stand for. But secretly, down within the depths of humanity’s heart, and deep down in humanity’s soul and spirit we desire the peace of God and the grace that He brings, which comes only from the message we bring.

It is like the message given by God to the exiles in Babylon, which the prophet Isaiah talks about in how he describes those who bring this message.

“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’” (Isaiah 52:7 NKJV)

This is not just for the Jewish people at that time, as Isaiah is speaking to them while they were in exile, and how they are desperately looking for that fulfillment of prophecy when they would be set free and return to the land of Judah and Jerusalem.

In verse eight it says, “Your watchmen shall lift up their voices, with their voices they shall sing together; for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord brings back Zion.” (Isaiah 52:8 NKJV)

“When the Lord brings back Zion,” may more literally read when the Lord brings back the Shechinah to Zion. What “Shechinah” means is “God who dwells within.” For you see, the people were waiting in hopeful expectation of God’s promise of a return to Jerusalem as promised through the prophet Jeremiah.

“The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah.” (2 Chronicles 36:21 NKJV)

And so, the people in Babylon were waiting for those beautiful feet of God’s messengers who would bring them the glad tidings that their captivity was over to the Babylonians, and they could now return, but even more, that the presence of the Lord would once again inhabit and fill the temple.

We see this return under the headship of Ezra when Cyrus, king of Persia, made this declaration.

“He (the Lord God) has commanded me to build Him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. Who is among you of all His people? May his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel (He is God), which is in Jerusalem.” (Ezra 1:2b-3 NKJV)

But this message of Isaiah is also a prophetic word speaking to the joy and delight of those who hear not only word of their return to Jerusalem, but from God’s messengers of mercy through the gospel, that is, the good news of Jesus Christ.

Now, why do I say it is something that the people were looking forward to? It’s because the glory of the Lord had departed from the Temple and from Jerusalem. This happened during the time of the prophet Ezekiel. In Ezekiel chapter 10 he talks about how he saw the glory of God, the Shechinah literally depart from the temple and from the city (Ezekiel 10:4, 18; 11:22-23).

Therefore, the prophetic nature of this passage came, and thus fulfilled, when Jesus entered the temple, and then when the Shechinah glory, the fire of God returned on the Feast of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples in fire, and the church was formed, and the good news was proclaimed.