The Response Of The Faithful
Now we turn to the reaction
of the faithful in Isaiah 26. Over the last two chapters we’ve heard
about God’s judgment and the reaction of humanity. God will judge the
nations, and none will escape His judgment. But the righteous will be
gathered in His presence. He will change us forever – casting away our
shroud of sin and death. So how do the faithful respond?
First, we give praise and
glory to God. Did you ever wonder why it is that whenever glory and
praise is called for it is in the terms of a song? Have you ever wondered
why it is that we sing at church? Singing should let out the joyfulness
and the celebration that we have on the inside. This is what should be
happening every time we come into the presence of God. We sing not to
make a perfect noise but to make a joyful noise!
And what shall we sing
about? We shall sing that the righteous will have a home with God.
We shall sing that God will keep us at peace. We shall sing of our trust
in the Lord and how He has never let us down. We shall sing about how He
has humbled us and been able to bring us to a position of seeing and declaring
His righteousness.
As we hit the section
beginning with verse 7, we take a bit of a deeper path into Isaiah’s
pronouncement on what being righteous entails. What do the righteous ones
that can enter into God’s presence actually accomplish? How do the
righteous behave? What framework supports the life of the righteous one?
The first thing that we glean
about righteousness is that the righteous wait for God. Righteousness comes
from seeking and desiring the Lord’s will over our own will.
Righteousness comes when our spirit within us genuinely seeks out God.
When we are alone with our thoughts in the night, is it God with whom our
thoughts are trying to connect?
The next characteristic that
we discover about righteousness is that the righteous understand the connection
between judgment and understanding. The righteous know that in judgment
we learn. It is when we are being corrected that we learn the best.
It is when we make a mistake and feel the consequences of our actions that we
learn the best lessons. That isn’t to say that success doesn’t breed more
success. It means that in order for us to be successful we must learn the
lessons that our earlier errors teach to us. The righteous do not shy
away from judgment. The righteous embrace God’s judgment knowing that God
always has something better for us on the other side of His judgment – even if
it is in the life to come. I personally love verse 10 where it says,
“If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness.”
Finally, we learn that the
righteous person strives for peace. The righteous person strives for the
peace that can only come from God. We strive for peace between each
other – although we acknowledge that it is a futile effort without God.
We strive for peace between us and God. We strive for the peace that
comes through and after death. The righteous ones appreciate the path of
bringing God’s peace to the world in whatever form they can.
The Way Is Seldom Easy
As we draw close to the end
of this chapter we find another great confession of truth. The course
that God has for us to become righteous is not easy. We will writhe as
God works through our life to cast away the bad and retain the good. Paul
tells us in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 that our life will be as though passing
through fire, and that which is built upon the foundation of Christ will stand
while that which is not built upon Christ will perish. Back in Isaiah,
Isaiah uses the imagery of a woman in labor to describe how we will cry out to
God as He purifies us. We need to discern the truth in Isaiah
26:18. We can accomplish no deliverance on our own.
We cannot save
ourselves. The best we can do and hope for is that we hide ourselves and
not bring upon any more judgment than is necessary. We turn to God in
celebration of what He does in our life – even if those times of judgment are
difficult to endure. We must remember that God can work through all
things to bring about His glory. While this chapter initially begins in
joy; we must understand that to arrive at the consummate joy of God we must
first pass through judgment and correction. It is a worthwhile trip, even
if it doesn’t always seem that way.
<><
No comments:
Post a Comment