A Dark Culture
Isaiah 57:1-2
gives an incredible cultural perspective.
Let’s take a good look at what the author says in these two verses. First, Isaiah comments that the righteous are
dying and nobody seems to notice at all.
Nobody is taking their death to heart.
Although the author doesn’t say it, it is likely that the righteous
person’s death may even be appreciated by the unrighteous!
Second,
notice that Isaiah tells us that in death the righteous are taken away from
calamity and into peace. Isaiah’s point
cannot be clearer. Life in the Hebrew
land at the time of Isaiah is so corrupt that death is an escape. There was so much frustration among the
righteous with respect to living that death was seen as a celebration of escape
among the faithful who were left behind!
That paints a pretty vivid image of what life was like.
Then we move
into verses 3-6 and find an opposite message.
Here there is the contrast to the first few verses. Here we hear Isaiah speak to the children of
sorceresses – offspring of the adulterers and the “loose.” What are their main characteristics? They live in a society that promotes
rebellion, deceit, and lust. In this
specific case, they offer their children up as sacrifices.
This makes
me wonder … is it possible to fill a child’s life with so much stuff that
there’s no room for God? Of course it
is. If we do that, are we not offering
up our child as a sacrifice to whatever it is that fills their schedule? I digress…
Isaiah is
telling the unrighteous Hebrew people that God is not pleased with their
choices of “bedfellows.” God desired
them for Himself. God wanted the
relationship to be true. God wanted them
to know genuine righteousness – a righteousness that can only come from
Him. But the unrighteous Hebrews chose
the ways of the world instead. They have
gone to other high places to sacrifice to other gods. They have barred God from coming within their
doorposts while they invite other gods in freely. They have walked away from the covenant God
has made with them and instead opt for the covenants they make with the rest of
the world.
Then we
arrive at verse 13. This is a really
scary verse for me to read. “When you
cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you!” Whoa.
That verse really packs a wallop.
Do I have idols in my life? Sure,
I do. We all do. What would it look like for me if God turned
and said these words to me? Do I think
any of the idols that I worship could save me in my trouble? Will the television programs I watch do
anything for me in my low moments of life?
Will the computer games of an earlier life ever come to save me? What about the prideful things in my life –
will they come to my aid? When I am
down, where will the source of my help be?
How painful it would be to hear God say to me, “Let the idols that you
love come to your rescue!”
The Culture of Light
In contrast
once more, we come upon verses 14-21. I
was especially struck by verse 15. The
Lord is high and mighty. The Lord dwells
in eternity. But He also makes a point
to dwell with those who are contrite and lowly in spirit. He may be dwelling in the high places, but
His desire is to revive the spirits of those who are in Him – even in the
deepest and darkest moments of their life.
No Peace For The Wicked
Then once
more we come full circle in the chapter.
Now it is back to the warning against evil. God has contended with those who lived in
such a way so as to ask for it. He
fought against those who lived in iniquity.
God even compares the wicked to the tossing of an angry sea. It cannot help but rage. It turns up the dirt and sediment over which
an angry sea resides. Those who contend
against the Lord are turbulent by their very nature.
Finally we
come to the last verse of this chapter.
This verse will bring me no peace this night. “There is no peace for the wicked.” The sounds like another double-edged
sword. First, it is a statement of
fact. There is no peace for the wicked. However, it is also a promise. God knows what lies ahead. God knows what is stake with respect to
salvation and eternal life. There is no
peace for the wicked.
Why will
this verse bring me no peace tonight?
Certainly I believe my salvation to be secure in the Lord. However, there are many in this world who
need to hear about the Lord. How can I
rest peacefully when I know there are people out there who are in the category
of people to whom God declares that there is no peace for the wicked? How can I rest in peace when I know there is
work to be done? Like the righteous who
found peace once they died, so shall it be with me. I will have eternal peace in God. It’s time to bear a little unrest so that the
Gospel can be proclaimed!
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V. 21 made me think of Jer. 8:11, "They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, "Peace, peace," when there is no peace. Is it possible that "the wicked" are incapable of recognizing peace when it is right in front of them? I feel sometimes like things are upside down in our culture, good things held as bad and bad as good, and our perspective has gotten so out of whack that we can't see what is obvious. So how do we show the world true peace when it may be unrecognizable to them?
ReplyDeleteI hope this makes sense. I am feeling rather desolate and this chapter did not help.
Yeah, I understand what you are saying.
ReplyDeleteI am always cautious about using words like "incapable." Because I don't genuinely believe that anyone is created "incapable" of having the Holy Spirit guide them to God's love. Nor, for the record, is that how I hear you using the word. I just feel the need to be clear about how I am going to use the word below.
However, I do absolutely agree that through a person's choices and their chosen experiences that people harden their hearts to God. We all have the capacity to be touched by God, but some of humanity takes that capacity and buries it so deep that it withers and dies. Of course, that doesn't mean God can't bring life back to it if the person becomes open to it. But I would absolutely agree that if God gives us free will, then there are humans among us who will exert that free will to ultimately reject God and become "incapable" of recognizing God's peace. They are incapable because they have chosen to become that way, not because God made them that way. This is how I hear you using the word in your post above.
As for the second half of your post. I concur. There are many things in life that are completely turned upside down. Why is it that our whole country absolutely fawns all over professional sports players or pop culture singers (or country western singers, or rap artists, etc...)? All they do is entertain us - and not even personally. But that person who has given up on everything in life and chosen to live in poverty so they can put their resources into a homeless shelter? Yeah, they get a nice column perhaps once in their life way back on page 13C in the newspaper - where 2/3 of the people who read the paper won't even make it that far. We celebrate the things in life that make money, create controversy, or help us shift our focus onto how someone else's problems imply were aren't so bad after all.
If that's true, how do we show the world true peace when it may not be recognizable to them because their attention is pulled elsewhere? Perhaps the answer lies in letting go. Rather than worrying about whether they can recognize world peace, maybe we should just worry about showing it. That way we can let God worry about whether or not they are capable of recognizing as well as sorting out why that may be the case.
I hope that last paragraph doesn't come across as snarky. I don't mean it to be. I mean it more in the light of Jesus' commissioning of the Twelve in Mark 6:7-13. Summary: "Go, proclaim. If they welcome you, great. If they don't, shake off the dust and go proclaim elsewhere." It is not up to us to force others to see what God is doing. It is merely up to us to be a tool through which God can present what He is doing.
Yes, of course you are right. I see know that what I was thinking was more along the lines of "why should we be shocked that what is true peace is unrecognizable in the world?" That doesn't release us from acting in a just or peaceful way, and doesn't even give us an excuse to get frustrated. It is a signal that we should almost expect to be met with bafflement and confusion about God's call as much as outright hostility.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I believe you are absolutely spot on here. We do expect to be met with bafflement and confusion.
ReplyDeleteOver the last 3 years I've had a reoccurring personal study with the life of Christ. Each time I study, my perception of just how much Jesus was rejected in this life grows. The more I study the more I see Him as a person who spent 3 years trying to show the world a better way. He interacted with thousands - tens of thousands, if we count the feeding of the 5,000 and the feeding of the 4,000. When it all ended He had somewhere between 50 and 150 true followers in the most optimistic of evaluations. Yet He never stopped trying; and He knew the outcome.
That is the picture of the Lord that I follow. A person willing to try and reveal God to anyone, knowing that at best 1% - 2% maybe actually listen long and deeply enough to genuinely change their lives and know God.
This is also the model I see in Paul in Acts. Town after town he is rejected and imprisoned, leaving very small communities of growing faith in the wake of all of his persecution. It is not about the growing mass of rejection. It is about the small community of faith.
I'd readily trade weeks of bafflement and confusion and rejection for the opportunity to have a conversation like this with a single person. It think this is the mentality of Jesus and His disciples. But it's not easy, I'll give you that!