Isaiah 35:10 ‘Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away’

• DAY 30 BIBLE READING

REVELATION11-20


• DAY 30 PRAYER DEVOTIONAL

Isaiah 35:10

UNSPEAKABLE JOY

In the 1830s Alexis de Tocqueville said that, ‘the incomplete joys of this world will never satisfy (the human) heart. In America the pursuit of happiness, he noted resulted in ‘ a strange melancholy that haunt the inhabitants in the midst of the abundance.’ What is the cause of this ‘strange melancholy’ ‘that permeates our society even during boom times and turns to despair in times of economic depression, it comes from taking what de Tocqueville calls ‘the incomplete joy of this world.’

In Revelation 21:4 we read Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’

In Philip Stibbe’s book ‘Road to Freedom’ he describes what is what like, when the Japanese commandant realized that the war was over , and he knew that the Rangoon jail would be recaptured, how he marched the Allied prisoners north and left them to wait for the Allies to arrive. . With guards having left, the Brigadier informed his soldiers that they were no longer POWs but free men. Philip Stibbe describes the joy., the freed prisoners felt. Then began the long journey home to Britain. He tells how the aeroplane that he and some of his comrades were flying in suddenly broke through the clouds to reveal the beautiful green landscape of Britain beneath. He speaks of the unspeakable joy of homecoming.


• Lord we long for revival in our land, we long for that new day when the dwelling of God will be with man, and we will be at home with you. We pray for a breaking out of your kingdom life in and through us today. We know the incomplete joys of this world will not satisfy… Lord lead us along that highway of holiness, we long for that day when sorrow and morning will flee away, when the ransomed of the Lord will return and will enter Zion with singing. Come, Lord Jesus

THIS IS THE LAST OF THE 30 DAILY DEVOTIONALS.HOPE TO CONTINUE LATER THIS YEAR.

Keller, T. Counterfeit Gods, x, xi

Tocqueville, A. Democracy in America, 296

Stibbe, M. I am your Father, 208

Stibbe, P. Return via Rangoon, 199-221