Isa7

There is a temptation to wrong thinking that regularly crops up in the Christian life, I believe. It is that we are just the same as everyone else and therefore the same things will happen to us as happen to everyone else. We see Christians prematurely promoted to glory through accident or illness and the enemy says, see, God doesn't care for you any more than those non-Christians who live around you! Now I've thought about this long and hard, especially after a man I esteemed very highly as a servant of God was taken ill and quickly went to be with the Lord, as we say. But therein is the answer. He went to be with the Lord and, I may be wrong, but I think God had something for him to do in heaven that no one else could do and so just moved him on. Shocking for us with limited vision, but perhaps one day we'll see the wisdom of it. Actually his being promoted to service in heaven was him enjoying the fruit of his deeds, to use Isaiah's phrase.

Now this verse above is significant because of where it comes. It comes between two ‘woes'. “Woe to them! They have brought disaster upon themselves.” (v.9) and “Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them! They will be paid back for what their hands have done.” (v.11). The land was in a godless state and so God, as we have seen in previous studies, was taking action to draw them back to Himself. Now we need to see this clearly. They will either turn back to the Lord or they will be moved on from this earth. Very often, when we look at the subject of God's ‘judgment', we get upset at the thought of Him ‘killing people' whether He does it personally or whether He uses a human agent such as an invading army.

What we fail to realise is God's power and holiness and our sin. If we were an artist and started a painting, first using a pencil outline, and we made a mess of it, we'd just scrap it and start again. Every now and then, I see my wife, doing some knitting, pull the wool off the needles, undo it and start again. She complains that she did it too tight or missed a stitch, and so starts again. A gardener sees plants blighted by disease and so pulls them up to stop them infesting the rest of the plants. If we were able to see the human race in the same way as we have seen these examples, we would know that God would have been in His rights to completely wipe out this sin-infected human race that turns in on itself, fights and wars, causes hurt and upset, pollutes and destroys the planet and generally disregards God. We are still alive only by the mercy of God – and we don't realise it!

There is an existence after our time on this world and we move into it according to how we have lived here. If we responded to God's overtures here then we go to live with Him there. If we didn't then we don't. It IS that simple. God also sees what we might become if we are left to our own devices and so He in His wisdom decrees when we depart this planet. For a variety of reasons beyond our understanding people leave ‘prematurely'. Sometimes they leave for obvious reasons. When God spoke to Israel and was disregarded, then they left. In His efforts to draw the nation back to Himself, the Lord was about to do some ‘removing': “See now, the Lord, the LORD Almighty, is about to take from Jerusalem and Judah….the hero and warrior, the judge and prophet, the soothsayer and elder, the captain of fifty and man of rank, the counselor, skilled craftsman and clever enchanter.” (3:1-3). All those who should have known better and who held roles of influence, influence that should have been for good, but which had not been, these people are about to be removed so their influence will no longer be there to lead the people away from the Lord! As we said previously, they could either repent or they will leave!

It is in the face of this scenario that the righteous might fear, will I be taken as well? This is when the Lord brings the reassurance of our verse today. No, He says, tell them it will be well with them. It's all right! When our nation is under God's judgment, as I believe is happening in the West today with America and Britain, then we who are seeking God's righteousness and seek to live righteously, may have to cope with the folly of the world around us, going deeper and deeper into the fruits of godlessness and unrighteousness, but God's grace is still there for us in the midst of it all. It's all right, says the Lord, you will enjoy the fruit of your deeds. Your righteousness and your righteous living will mean blessing flows out. In the same way that we often take Paul's words as a warning, they can also be used as reassurance: “A man reaps what he sows.” (Gal 6:7) because Paul went on to explain good and bad outcomes: “The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Gal 6:8,9). There at the end of that quote is a key assurance: “ we WILL reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Right! Let's make sure we don't give up! Maintain godliness in the face of an ungodly world. Maintain righteousness in the face of an unrighteous world! And watch for the harvest!