Isaiah 52:7 How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him that brings good tidings, that publishes peace; that brings good tidings of good… I. THE MINISTER OF CHRIST IS HELD IN COMMUNION WITH THE GREATEST REALITIES IN THE UNIVERSE. The Hebrew prophets were strenuous men, living in the coils of battle, wrestling with great serpents, struggling up bare cliffs, and giving their lives for the ransom of the people; but we cannot doubt that they were happy men as well, because of the intellectual and spiritual glories in which their lives were set, and, their cheering and inspiring comradeship with the wonderful words of God. The "Hymn to the Sun" and the "Sermon to the Birds" of St. bear witness to a soul that was enriched, ennobled, purified, simplified, magnified, and made to ripple with gladness and to sing the songs of victory and peace because of perpetual communion with the high and holy thoughts of its heavenly Father. The artist whose soul is seeing visions of the great creations of Raphael and Angelo, the general on the eve of a campaign for the emancipation of a people, the philanthropist pouring out his tears upon the miseries and sins of the world, will sleep on planks and find them soft as down, will eat coarse food and get good blood out of it, and so far forget themselves in their sublime consecrations and so populate with their holiest passions the thought-world and spirit-world within them as to realize Hawthorne's parable of "the Great Stone Face," and grow into the image of the mountain on which their gaze is fixed. So it is with the preacher, and more so. He is surrounded by an imperial guard of holiest inspirations. II. THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY IS BOUND TO WIN. III. THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY HAS THE BULK OF GOOD MEN IN THE WORLD BEHIND IT, CHEERING IT ON. (W. J. McKittrick, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! |
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