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
I can’t help when I hear this verse to think about times I have spent in the mountains in Asia. Specifically the Himalayas. These majestic peaks, thousands upon thousands of feet in the air. I think about standing at one peak, it was about a little over 15 thousand feet. So, that’s the highest I had been and I look around me from that peak. So that’s higher than any mountain in the continental United States and yet I look around from that peak and I felt like I was in a valley. Compared to these other mountain peaks around me that kept going up farther and farther and farther than I was. Just glorious, beautiful pictures of grandeur and wonder around you in mountain scenes like that.
Shouting the Good News from the Mountaintops
But here’s the reality that I’m struck by. Every time I’m in those mountains now, those mountains, as much as they proclaim the glory of God, as beautiful as they are, you know what they don’t do? They don’t proclaim the gospel. As much as those mountains shout the greatness of God, they say nothing about the son of God. Jesus who came to save us from our sins. That’s a privilege that’s reserved for you and me. You and I have the privilege of doing what even majestic mountain tops can’t do. We have the privilege of bringing the good news, the greatest news in the world that people can be forgiven of all their sins, and reconciled to a relationship with God through Jesus.
Isaiah 52:7 Calls for All Peoples to Know the Peace of God
We have the opportunity to, I love the language here in Isaiah 52:7 to publish peace. To publish salvation. We publish it like a book publisher publishes a message that someone has written. You and I in our lives have the privilege, the God-given privilege of publishing salvation. Making the good news of what God has done in Jesus known to people around and so they might have peace with God. That’s something that majestic mountains at the Grand Canyon, that incredible sunrises and sunsets can not do.
Only you and I can do this. So, God we pray, use us to do this. Make our feet beautiful in this way. As we go, wherever we go today, use us we pray to publish peace, to publish salvation. To bring good news wherever we go. I just think it’s overwhelming when I think about all the different people who are listening to this who are in so many different places around the world and every one of us who has trusted in Jesus has this good news and wherever we go, you have called us to go so that salvation might be published there.
Isaiah 52:7 Prays for Followers of Christ to Spread the Gospel
So the good news might be brought there. To all these different workplaces we’ll go into, all these different neighborhoods we’ll go into, all these different schools and campuses and different countries. You have scattered us as your people to bring good news wherever we go. So, God, we pray that you would help us to be faithful. We pray, I pray you would help me to be faithful today to bring good news. Make my feet more beautiful today in this sense than even the most majestic mountain tops.
I pray this for every single follower of Christ who is listening to this right now. Make their feet beautiful like this because they’re bringing good news. Use us. God, use me. Use others who are listening to this to publish peace. To publish salvation today that others might see your glory in ways that nothing in creation could even begin to compare with because they’ve heard the gospel through our lives, through our lips. Today we pray 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.
