Our Old Testament reading is from Psalm 122. Psalm 122, a song of ascents of David. I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem built as a city that is bound firmly together to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord. There thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, may they be secure who love you. Peace be within your walls and security within your towers. For my brothers and companions sake, I will say, peace be within you. For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good. This is the word of the Lord. Our New Testament reading then is from Matthew chapter 24, verses 36 through 44, and you may find this on page 830 of your Pew Bibles. Again, Matthew chapter 24, verses 36 through 44. But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field, one will be taken, and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken, and one left. Therefore stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore, you also must be ready, for the son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect. This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray. Father God, your word is set before us. May you open our eyes to see your word truly and rightly. And may your word enter into our hearts and feed and nourish us and send us forth in the joy of the knowledge of the gospel. We pray this in your son's name. Amen. Now it'll help you this morning. The text of my sermon is actually the reading at the beginning of the service, Isaiah chapter 2 verses 1 through 5. So it'll help you if you have Isaiah chapter 2 opened before you. That will be our significant passage for us. And what I wanna highlight this morning from Isaiah chapter two, what I want to really present before us, as much as I titled the sermon this morning, The Mountain of the Lord, I wish to cause our gaze to be upon that mountain there in the second chapter of Isaiah. It really is the center of Isaiah's vision, that mountain of the house of the Lord. This mountain is, And I'll add that this mountain is not just any mountain. The mountain of which we will speak, of which we will examine in Isaiah 2, is in fact the church. Isaiah's vision, you see, of what we heard, read this morning, is of the church as she is already today, already today raised up in the midst of the nations. that surround her. It's a picture of what has already been accomplished. And the gist of this morning's message is this, that in Christ, you truly have been raised up and you truly have received the Lord's peace. Let the peace of Christ, therefore, rule in your hearts. that you may be Christ's ambassador of peace, not only to one another, but to the world around you. That is the message this morning. There will be four points. The first is this, the hill that became a mountain. Second is the latter days. Third point, the mountain is the church. And the fourth point, the gift of peace. That'll be this morning's sermon. We begin with the hill that became a mountain. You see, in the Old Testament, we run across a whole number of mountains. We have Mount Sinai and Mount Hermon and Mount Tabor and Mount Bashan, just to name a few. And mountains, you see, are significant. They have a certain gravity. Oh, you should prepare yourself for that. As you look at the Old Testament, as you read of the mountains in the Old Testament, they have a certain gravity about them. They display the power of God. But they also serve as a place wherein God or even the gods, the pagan gods, the so-called gods, might be met. Think even in the broader world. Think of Mount Olympus in Greece. places where the gods could be met. Mount Horeb, also known as Mount Sinai. That's where Moses first met with God in the burning bush. That's also where God covenanted with the Israelites, giving to them his commandments. Mountains, you see, they're like heavy weights upon the fabric of reality. I'm thinking here of that physics demonstration, maybe you've seen it. It's where they take, they mean to demonstrate the effects of gravity, of gravitational pull. They stretch out a rubber sheet upon a frame and place upon that rubber sheet marbles. and round objects of various sizes and weights. And as they rest upon the rubber fabric, what happens? They're suspended in the air, and they weigh down upon that, and their weight actually causes them to interact with one another, so that they rotate around one another, or so that they come close to one another. As I said, it's meant to display gravity. And mountains, you see, are like the heaviest of objects. In the ancient world, they're like the heaviest of objects, causing lesser mountains and lesser hills and cities to spin about them as though they are on their axis, as though they find their center in that mountain. David in the 68th Psalm, which we read for the call to worship this morning, gives an example of one such mountain, the many peaked mountain of Bashan. This mountain, what is it? It's black in appearance. It's actually made from, formed through volcanic activity. It's black, it's rugged, it has many precipices. It is a, it projects history. It projects power and invincibility. It gives good reason to why it's called the mountain of God. It displays his attributes. And it stands, in David's words, it stands in contrast, sharp contrast, in fact, to the hills of Jerusalem. Because Jerusalem, even though it's built on a hill, it's a hill of limestone. And hills that surround Jerusalem are limestone as well. That's a soft stone. That's a stone that's easily worn down. It's malleable. And so keep that in mind, listen again to what we read this morning. Oh mountain of God, mountain of Bashan, oh many peaked mountain, mountain of Bashan, why do you look with hatred, oh many peaked mountain, at the hill that God desired for his abode? Yes, where the Lord will dwell forever. David's words in Psalm 68 are actually quite similar to something that we find in Paul's words to the Corinthians, where he writes, but God shows what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God shows what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God shows what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are. You see, David is expressing in the 68th Psalm this, the lowliness of God's people in contrast to the greatness of the surrounding nations. By setting off the limestone hills of Jerusalem from the mighty and majestic dark peaks of Bashan. Our Lord chose the foolish, the weak, the low, and the despised over the wise, the strong, the high, and the powerful. And that serves as the backdrop against which Isaiah's words are set. Because Isaiah, in his vision, sees that though this is the case, though the Lord has chosen the foolish, and the weak, and the low, and the despised, they will not remain that. but they shall be lifted up. They shall be lifted up over all others. Indeed, the limestone hill shall be established, says Isaiah, that is made for ever so as the highest of all the high mountains. So that far from Jerusalem spinning on the axis of the mountains of Bashan, The mountains of Bashan will become the lowlands to the mountain of Jerusalem, the mountain of Zion. The mountain will be drawn up. And that's that picture that Isaiah is giving to us. He's taking the hill that is Jerusalem and making it into a mountain. It's the hill that became a mountain. So that's that first point. The second point, the latter days. When does this take place? Isaiah tells us that this will take place in the latter days. Well, what does that mean? Well, that's a Hebraicism, that's a way of speaking among the Hebrew speakers, which is more akin to saying in the final days of human history. That's what is meant by the latter days, the final days of human history. It's what we would say is eschatological language. Eschatological means final things. Eschatology is the study of final things, what happens at the end of the world. It is eschatological language. He is telling his listeners, in other words, Isaiah is saying to his hearers, to those who first heard this message, you will probably not live to see this take place. Because this will happen at the end of recorded history. It will take place at the end of human history. In their days, he's saying to them, you should expect Judah and Jerusalem to remain in humiliation. You should expect Judah and Jerusalem to remain not as the center of the world, but as some outpost, outskirt to the world. for the time being. That's the language he's using. You will not be exalted right away. But for you and I, what he is describing here is past tense. Because we live in the end days. And this is not just, and this may be hard to grasp, But we have been living in the end days since the coming of Christ. And that's the language that scripture teaches us. So we read in scripture, we read that Christ is the one who appears at the end of history. Hebrews 9 verse 26, Jesus Christ has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. So also Paul describes you and I as living in the end of the ages, that is in the latter days. We live in that day, in other words, in which the mountain of the house of the Lord has been already established as the highest of all mountains. There's two things I'm trying to say here through this. One is we need to be reminded, and that's something of what I was speaking to the advent calendar at large earlier before the service. We live in the end days. We live in the end times. That's not just language that is saying, oh, the end of the world is going to take place in 1988, or the language of what will happen in the year 2000, or as they speak in New York, what will happen in 2027, I think it is. No, it's that we've been living in the end of ages. We've been living in the end of history since the coming of Christ. That the time really is short and it has been short since Paul wrote his letters until this day. So that's that first bit here. But the other bit here is, is that the mountain has been established. It has been lifted up. And David alludes to that himself in Psalm 68 when he goes on saying, you ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious that the Lord God may dwell there. Well, who has ascended on high? Christ has. And what has he done? He has disarmed the rulers and the authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in the cross. And who is seated at the right hand of God the Father? Christ is. And who is seated with and in him? We are. We are all there with him, raised up. The mountain has been raised up and we have been raised up together with him. And that leads to the third point, that the mountain is the church. It truly is the church. The mountain that is here being described is none other than the church. Think about what Isaiah is saying in this passage, particularly at the end of the second verse. He says, and all the nations shall flow to it. And many people shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths. Well, what does that remind you of? It reminds me of a couple of things that take place in the New Testament. It reminds me first and foremost of Christ's words to his disciples in Matthew 28, where he says, go therefore and do what? Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. That is, until the coming of Christ, we need to remember that the house of God, the house of the Lord, was limited to Israel. to Israel and Judah. It was limited to that nation, that ethnic nation that God had chosen out from among all the nations of the ancient world, that he had brought them forth out of Egypt. But now with the coming of Christ, the door is opened wide that the Gentiles might come in, that the nations might come in, and we see that fulfilled particularly at Pentecost. When all the men, all the men in Jerusalem hear the disciples speaking in their own languages, and that's plural, multiple languages, not just one other language. but multiple languages, the languages of the nations. The nations have flowed in as it were into Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost and now are flowing into the church and being added to the church. It is the church to whom they have flowed. It is the church that teaches to observe all that Christ has commanded. So we see that language there too. That is, Isaiah is describing the inclusion of the Gentiles, the reconciliation of Jew and Gentile, which takes place in the church. He's describing how you and I, as Gentiles, have flowed into this church, up to this mountain. and have been made members of the mountain, have been made members of the house of the Lord. We are among those who said, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and have gone up as captives in Christ's train. And to further highlight this fact, that it is the church of which Isaiah speaks, earlier in the first chapter, though it wasn't part of what we read this morning, speaking of this city on the hill, he prophesied that the city, she shall be called what? The city of righteousness, the faithful city. And furthermore, she shall be redeemed by justice and those in her who repent, by righteousness, that is, of course. a picture of the gospel, of righteousness by faith, of salvation. As those in Christ, we dwell upon the mountain of the house of the Lord, which is the highest of the mountains today, which exerts all of its weight upon the world. You see, as I said, again, we live in the last days, the final days, the latter days, the latter days of human history as designed by God. He is the author of history. And since the coming of Christ and his death and resurrection, the whole of history has, whether or not they like it or like it, spun upon the church. All things work together for the good of the church. All things work for the church. For the church is that highest of mountains, the mountain before which the mountain of Bashan trembles. Now that leads me to the fourth point here, the gift of peace, which is a tricky one. Listen to what Isaiah has to say about this gift that we are given in verse four. The Lord shall judge between the nations. and shall decide disputes for many peoples, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." Now, this may be the part of the passage that makes you think, well, I'm not sure all of this that has been said already of this passage is true. This may be the part of the verse which makes you say, well, verses two and three really cannot be related to the church as things that have already happened. After all, many of us have taken self-defense classes. Many of us have learned how to use firearms. Many of us are concerned with protecting our families. Those are all lawful and legitimate, but they seem to be out of accord with what's being said here at first glance. Likewise, we live in a world that seems far closer to David's language of, why do you look with hatred, O many-peaked mountain, at the hill that God desired for His abode? We live in a world that seems more intent upon hating the Church then flowing towards the church. So what is it that is here? How can we say that this speaks to something present in our lives? Well, the answer is this. It's important to understand that the peace of which Isaiah is speaking in this passage is not so much a peaceful attitude or disposition which we have towards God or even towards one another. It is first and foremost a peaceful disposition which God has towards us, towards you and I. That's first and foremost what Isaiah is speaking of in this passage. That is, what Isaiah is expressing in this fourth verse is the outworking of God's new peace with man. It is the peace that is brought about by the removal of our sin through the death and resurrection of Christ. That's the peace that's at heart here being spoken of. For you see, our God and Father, though he was once displeased with us and in his disposition had a disposition of wrath towards us, and barred the way to himself, has now done what? He has opened up the way that we, as the nations, as the Gentiles, might say to one another, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord. Let us go to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways, and that we may walk in his paths. He is now our judge. who has redeemed us by justice and by righteousness. So that's important to remember here in this passage. And the fourth verse is a description of the peace of God as it, through the Holy Spirit, takes root in us. It is not a description of a peace that goes out to those who remain in rebellion. It's not that sort of peace. It is a peace offered to us. It is a peace which only God's redeemed can experience and do experience. We have already, you see, we have already, even if we go on to take self-defense classes, We have already experienced this beating of swords into plowshares. We've already experienced this beating of spears into pruning hooks. We have experienced it insofar as we, the Gentiles of the nations, have been gathered together into God's house, have been gathered together into one body, one with one another. You see, Isaiah is speaking of that which we have experienced through Christ, but of which Paul speaks in Ephesians 2. In 2 verse 11, therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh were what? At that time separated from Christ, you were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenant of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been what? Brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace who has made us both Jew and Gentile one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of the commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility, so then you are no longer, what? You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. That is the peace that we have already experienced. We have that peace in that we sit next to one another in the church. No longer are we withdrawn from one another. A new peace has been attained between Jew and Gentile and indeed between all those who are in Christ. That is first and foremost the peace that has been expressed here. No longer do we, as the many-peaked mountain of Bashan, look with hatred at the mount of God's abode. But we have found a hiding place within it. We have found a place of safety, a place of rest within it. Instead, we are covered under the blood of Christ. We've received the message of peace from God in our hearts, and we have now run to that mountain, that highest of mountains, to find shelter there. And so this peace finds expression in that, but it finds further expression As we speak God's peace, not only towards one another, but towards nations. We find it expressed as it goes out through us into the world. As we become, as Paul would say, Christ's ambassadors. Remember, Christ came as a preacher of peace. He preached peace to us. And then we too, as we have experienced Christ's peace, we become preachers of his peace to our neighbors, to our coworkers, to our families. We preach this, not only with lips, but with our actions. You know, we could say that we preach this in the same sense in which Isaiah can describe himself as seeing the word of the Lord. Our neighbors can see the word of the Lord as we preach it to them through the peace of the gospel. And that's what's being described here. And we preach this, says Isaiah, as those who anticipate, who expect, who are assured that it will be efficacious, that it will not be without effect. For since the death of Christ, even until today, as we look at the church, As we look to it, especially with spiritual eyes, what do we see? We see a body that has been growing, that the nations have been flowing into. As we've been gathering more and more across the nations, as we gather more and more across our world in Christ. That's a powerful thing. The gospel is effective. in the way we live as well as in the way we speak. Of course, we are still surrounded by animosity. We are still surrounded by unbelief, and to the naked eye, we will continue to appear as like Jerusalem upon those limestone hills, as being of little significance, of being little worth. But through the eyes of faith, what do we see? We're seeing here that we have been lifted up, that the whole of the world, even though it might not understand or know, spins on the axis of the church, and that the nations really are flowing in. And that's why Isaiah calls us in the fifth verse to faith, to believe. to trust the eyes of faith, to say, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord. Let us walk in obedience to Christ. Let us walk in faithfulness to Christ, trusting that his work, his word are indeed truly efficacious. Isaiah is reminding us, you see, of the peace that we have been given. He's causing, he's asking us to look around ourselves, to not forget the peace that we've received, to look at the body that surrounds us, to look at the church as it has been growing, of how we have been made members of the body of Christ, of how it has taken root in our lives, and that therefore, knowing this, we can see with those spiritual eyes that the church has indeed been raised up, and we have nothing, therefore, to fear in this world. Indeed, we have been entrusted with that most powerful of things, the word of the Lord, the word of peace. the word of the gospel. He is calling us then to walk in the light of the gospel. That by our words and by our actions we would see that his peace, his gospel is effectual. And that through it the nations are indeed flowing into his house. We live in the last days of human history. And that is the way it has been since the coming of Christ. It is the way it is today. In this Advent season, Remember how Christ, by his death and resurrection, has given you his peace, and he has brought you into his house to dwell upon his holy mountain. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, that you may be an ambassador of his peace, of his gospel to the nations. looking forward to the day when his peace is made perfect in the new heavens and the new earth. Let us pray. Father God, we thank you that you've set in your word these things that have come to pass already. From the birth of Christ to his death and resurrection to the establishment of the church as that highest of the mountains lifted up over the hills. Father, may you give us eyes to see these things are truly real. May you give us eyes to see that all of history, as it were, turns upon the bride of Christ at this point, as she awaits the return of her groom, of her beloved, and the new heavens and the new earth. May you therefore cause us to go throughout this world with confidence in the word that you've set before us in your gospel, in your good word, that we might proclaim your gospel, not only with our mouths, but with our lives to one another. to our neighbors, to all those around us that we might see with open eyes the nations flowing in, crying out, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths. We pray these things knowing that you shall surely do it. We pray this in your son's name, amen.