In Isaiah 2:2–5 we’re given a vision that sounds almost too good to be true—nations streaming uphill to the mountain of the Lord, the end of war, and the world finally learning the ways of peace. When Jesus speaks in Matthew 24, the imagery darkens: shaking heavens, an unexpected return, and a call to stay awake. Yet these passages belong together.
This sermon explores how God invites us out of despair and faulty expectations and back into participation with what He is truly doing in the world.
• Why does Isaiah use paradoxical imagery—people “rivering” uphill, and Jerusalem lifted above all mountains?
• How does God promise a peace no human ideology can manufacture?
• Why does Jesus’ warning to “stay awake” matter more in an age of exhaustion and cynicism?
• And how do we walk in the light of the Lord when reality feels far from Isaiah’s vision?
The promise of God’s future is certain—not because we can pull it off, but because He can.
Come be renewed in hope, awake to Christ’s coming, and encouraged to walk faithfully in His ways today.