“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations. For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch.
The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.” (Isaiah 61:10-62-3)
The Bible often describes the Lord’s relationship to His people as a marriage. Marriage meant much more in the Scripture than it means in our culture with its penchant for divorce. The Lord spoke of it as an unbreakable covenant which is not our modern world views it. The covenant the Lord makes is based on His own immutable nature and faithfulness. It is solid and irrevocable not subject to the fickleness and sinful desires of human nature.
Therefore, when Isaiah spoke of this covenant, he was overcome with great emotion. He felt great joy as he contemplated this covenant as well as the glories of the coming kingdom of God. He was filled with an intense longing and ardent desire to see it come to pass as quickly as possible. And his desire was that the people of God share this same ardent longing.
We too look forward to the same hope that Isaiah speaks of for we, the people of God share in that unbreakable covenant. Although we are closer to the fulfillment of all things than Isaiah or the Jews were, we too look forward to it with eager expectation and perhaps a great deal of impatience, more so now perhaps because we have endured much tribulation these past years from COVID and its accompanying political and social unrest. Indeed we see persecution on the rise inflicted by the media and cultural elites who deny and ridicule our Christian faith. The world we live in is filled with violence, cruelty, and oppression so that we long earnestly and pray with great intensity and fervor for the Lord to come and fulfill His promises to us. But we must wait. As we wait we pray with boldness that the Lord come quickly. And as we wait we serve as watchmen. We long to see the kingdom coming but we also warn others of its approach.