Perfect Peace

At a thanksgiving service for the life of a dear friend from our church, held recently, I learnt that his life had been absolutely rooted in his love for Jesus Christ and an unwavering trust in the promises of the Bible. He had learnt many of these promises as a boy, and they stayed with him throughout his life and were his firm foundation.

He used them to strengthen and build up his family and his church family too. When he could sing them, it was even better. More importantly, he also knew the vital thing was not just knowing the words in those verses and being able to quote them. He knew the Lord calls us to meditate and reflect on them until their truths are revealed and they bring nourishment to our souls.

Words began to fail him towards the end of his life, but, through the power of the Holy Spirit, those promises remained as vital to him as they always had been, and he continued to claim them for himself. Day by day they sustained him and his wife, and when they prayed together, those words came easily to him, ringing out loud and clear in a different way to his usual speech.

As I read through the Book of Isaiah, I am finding so many amazing promises of God that we can claim personally for ourselves. I understand that God was speaking through Isaiah to His people, but I know we are grafted into the covenant relationship God established with His chosen people through our relationship with Jesus as Lord and Saviour.

In our text for today, the peace described is firstly the peace of the city and the nation, because ‘the Lord’s hand of blessing will rest on Jerusalem’ (Isaiah 25:10). But it is also the individual peace of the person whose thoughts are fixed on God. ‘You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!’

In the previous chapter, Chapter 25, we find the wonderful promise that at some future time God’s people will no longer be subject to death, but will live forever. The shadow of death has been hanging over human activity on the earth since the curse of Genesis, but God will swallow it up and give back life.

‘In Jerusalem, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will spread a wonderful feast for all the people of the world. It will be a delicious banquet with clear, well-aged wine and choice meat. There he will remove the cloud of gloom, the shadow of death that hangs over the earth. He will swallow up death forever! The Sovereign Lord will wipe away all tears. He will remove forever all insults and mockery against his land and people. The Lord has spoken!’ (Isaiah 25:6-8).

We find that promise confirmed to us in the Book of Revelation, where it says there will be a holy city, the new Jerusalem. ‘I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever’ (Revelation 21:3-4).