How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of Him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”
– Isaiah 52:7
As we prepare to pray according to this verse, I want to tell you a story about a friend of mine named Zamir. Zamir is from Kashmir, India, a place where there is very little access to the gospel. In fact, we’re going to pray for Kashmiri Muslims, 9 million of them, very few followers of Jesus, just a handful, and Zamir is one of them. He came to faith in Jesus because someone took the risk to share the gospel with him, and risk is the right word. It’s not easy to share the gospel in this people group, in this particular part of the world. But somebody took the risk and published peace, brought good news of happiness, and published salvation to Zamir.
Isaiah 52:7 reminds us that it is worth it to risk our lives for the sake of the gospel.
He came to faith in Jesus, and he was beaten by people who once loved him, and he was kicked out of his house. He lost some of his closest family and friends as a result of trusting in Jesus. But that’s the point. Zamir knows Jesus is his savior, is the Lord of his life, is worthy of all of his life, worthy of losing even the closest relationships and things he has in this world for.
And as a result, Zamir is giving his life, going all over India and wherever else God might lead him, to publish peace, bring good news of happiness, and publish salvation to others because he knows that this good news is not only worth trusting with your life, but it’s worth giving your life to proclaim. And if you could meet Zamir, you would see a picture of Isaiah 52:7, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of Him who brings good news.”
As this man talks about his love for people, his desire to see them come to know Jesus, and his desire to lay down his life in order to share the gospel with them, you would be overwhelmed by the beauty of this brother’s faith. I just want to encourage you, even as I’m freshly encouraged thinking about Zamir, how he came to Jesus, and how he’s proclaiming the gospel of Jesus.
Isaiah 52:7 encourages us to be faithful stewards of the gospel message.
And I just want to encourage us today. Let’s be this kind of people, like running through the mountains bringing good news of peace. Can you imagine that? Amidst wars today, to be the one who gets to announce, There’s peace, peace is coming, peace has happened. To bring good news of happiness. And to tell people how they can be eternally happy, to publish salvation. To tell people how they can be saved from sin and death forever and ever?
We don’t need to be tentative with the gospel in light of Zamir’s example to us… In light of this word from God to us. Let’s be bold. Let’s give our lives sharing the gospel today to share with someone else the good news of peace with God, and happiness in God, and salvation from God. And to pray together for the spread of this good news all over the world, including to the Kashmiri Muslims of India.
This verse challenges us to proclaim the gospel to those around us.
So, God, we praise you for the people who brought good news to us. We thank you for the people who published peace and brought good news of happiness… Those who published salvation, who told us we could be saved from our sins, saved from death through Jesus. We praise you for the people who gave their lives sharing this good news with us. And we pray that you would help us to be faithful to do the same in others’ lives.
God, help us to faithfully pass the gospel on to people in our family… And to our friends, coworkers, neighbors, classmates, and people we meet randomly today… But we know it’s not random because you’re sovereign and you’ve brought us across their paths. God, we pray, help us to faithfully run through the mountains all around us, figuratively… Maybe literally… But in our lives and all the places we go today… Help us to publish peace with you. To bring good news of happiness from you and salvation in you to other people.
Prayer for the Kashmiri Muslims
And God, we pray for Zamir. We pray for your blessing on him, for boldness in him, for your provision for him. God, we pray the gospel would spread through him, and we pray specifically for his people group of Kashmiri Muslims. God, we pray that they would be transformed by the good news of the gospel. Help all those who are working. Send more workers to the Kashmiri Muslims of India,… That millions of them, God, might be reached with the good news of your grace. God, help us as your church to faithfully spread this good news… To bring it, publish it to all the peoples of the earth. We pray all this according to your word in Isaiah 52:7, in Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
