On this mountain He will swallow up the
(face of the) covering which is over all peoples, Even the veil which
is stretched (woven) over all the nations. He will swallow up death
for all time, and the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces,
and He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; for
the Lord has spoken. Isaiah 25:7-8
I must admit that bad news has
overwhelmed this first week of January. It is easy to get bummed,
even in the face of knowing that God has a plan for all
suffering...and that is to draw us back to Himself. And though it is
the first week of resolutions and desires for new beginnings, I still
love to eat and do too much of it. And here I see that God loves to
eat, too. But what He eats doesn't sound all that appetizing to me.
God swallows. And in this passage He
swallows 2 things...the covering or veil that is over mankind, the
veil of sin that has separated us from Him since the first bites of
Adam and Eve. It separated them from God before they even knew what
had happened. They suddenly wanted to hide from God. Their original
covering was gone, showing their nakedness. It would be evident to
God that they had done something wrong, and somehow they tried to
cover themselves like God had, and it didn't work. It didn't work so
well that God made them coverings, killing animals for their skins to
represent the life of His Son that would have to be taken later in
history to truly cover the sin that they had brought into the world.
Then God removed them from the perfection He had made and removed His
Spirit from the earth except on special occasions. He appeared to
Cain when he was contemplating what to do about his picture-perfect
brother. He talked to Noah, and to Abraham, and made a few other
appearances, but the veil separated Him from the majority of mankind.
The Spirit now dwells in the earth in His believers, those who have
been forgiven through the blood of Christ and in indwells them as
Jesus promised before He died. All peoples, all nations, are
separated from Him, and the world reflects that. There have been
periods of revival throughout history that have brought man closer
into alignment with who God is and what He requires, but there is
still lack of true communion with God. And God will swallow the veil.
He will chew it up into a mass that take it into Himself where no man
can bring it out again. No more separation!
And He will swallow death. He will take
that on as well. No more will man need to die to come to Him. It will
never be found again. Chewed up, and swallowed. Not spit out so we
can see the pile of slime...swallowed. It will be consumed, digested.
Turned into something that will empower God to be still mightier than
the power of death. The food we take in serves the purpose of making
us stronger, giving us energy. Imagine the invigorating power of
death being turned into life! Into glory and majesty. The power that
the veil and death had over people will be changed, transformed into
something God will use for good.
The verses before this tell us that God
will prepare a lavish banquet of all the best stuff...the best wine,
meat, and other fruits for the people on this mountain, His people.
He will prepare for them all they can eat, and what they will swallow
will be good...the best. He lets us swallow His prepared goodness
while He swallows up everything that was wrong between Him and us.
THAT, my friends, is a merciful, loving God. The banquet will even be
filled with the songs of His praises, sung by the feasters. We will
sing of how long we have waited for this glorious day...how we have
longed for this fellowship, how the spirit within us as sought him
diligently We will not be disappointed in the wait. What we have
desired will come true. And the joy of it will overwhelm us. We will
have that perfect peace that all human hearts long for, but few are
willing to come to God for in repentance and humility. Most shake
their fists at God and blame Him for the veil, blame Him for the sin
and death, little seeing their own roll in contributing to it in this
world.
I laugh and cry at the fools that blame
“the man” for the trouble in this world, when they are mocking
God and living destructively, and then when the consequences come,
they don't see their role. I got a response to a Facebook post about
those killed for making those vulgar cartoons about Islam. The fellow
blamed me for being ignorant and not seeing how this paper promoted
free speech, but he could not see how being vulgar and unloving
fueled the fires of hatred in already hateful people. Considering his
naked picture, I see he himself is fighting against God's authority
in his life, and simultaneously laugh and cry at his ignorance of
God, proper authority, and use of media. Some day that, too, will be
swallowed. Death is swallowed up in victory, says Paul in
Corinthians. And that victory is Jesus.
And to that I say, “Let's eat!”
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