Swallowed Up

"He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces;
and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth." Isa 25:8     

There is coming a day … when all will be changed,
    when God alone will be glorified,
        and our tears will be dried.
Would that God might give us a vision of that which He desires to do;
    of that which He will do in future days.

We are in danger of interpreting the future by the things of the past,
    in danger of depending on our minds when we should rely on our spirits,
        in building on our thinking instead of on God's revelation.

God has promised  a new thing, and He doesn’t mean a new work built out of the old materials.
We have heard many times that God will do a new work and that no man will get glory out of it.
    But do we really realize what this means?
It means we will get no glory because we will have nothing to do with it.
    We may seek but it is God Who comes in answer to our seeking,
        rather than our efforts finding Him.

There is a rebuke, a reproach, over the people of God
    and the reason is that they are so unlike what God would have them be.
Human reasoning, human arguments, human techniques,
    have taken the place of Spirit breathed inspiration.
Can we be the people of God when God is not in the midst?
Can we call ourselves the people of God when it is we who plan and act and not He
    - when He is not seen or exalted in the work?
The reproach will be taken away when God is victorious over the death in the church.

We think of the phrase “He will swallow up death in victory,”
It is easy to apply it to physical death, and the glory of eternal life,
but I think we can find a wider application .
 
God would give us to live a life free from the works of death,
    free from the darkness that shadows all in this world. -
God wills for us a life where the death-portion of
    things which refuse to let us go, things of
        Guilt, and Condemnation, Fear, and Confusion of Darkness,
            have been “swallowed up” in the glory of His work in our lives.
When this takes place the church will no longer be "Irrelevant,
    and thought to be disconnected with present needs.
        But it will be the creative expression of God, the Creator.


God fills when He is all in the lives of His own.
    then death is swallowed up in victory
        and the reproach is forever taken away.