You and I know that we live in a fallen world. Sin has polluted it. The best way I can describe the way sin has had a bad effect on the creation is to compare it to a pollution that has grown worse and worse ever since the first man and woman disobeyed God. Sin has had an effect on the environment, on plant life, on all land animals and sea creatures and insects, and on the human race. Why do natural disasters happen? Because of this pollution. Why do diseases affect crops and animals and humans? Because of this pollution. Why do animals prey on each other and why do humans prey on animals and why do humans do bad things to their fellow man? Because of this pollution.
In our first segment today we talk about the fact that bad things sometimes happen even to the godly. Their fellow man may persecute them for their faith or for other reasons. They may fall victim to illnesses or accidents. But their fate is different from those who reject the Lord, and this is what the Lord focuses on as we begin our text.
"The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death." (Isaiah 57:1-2) The death of our loved ones brings us sorrow. When they leave the world we think of it as a bad thing. From the Lord's perspective they are entering into rest. They are finding peace. They are being spared the troubles of this world.
The Lord allows some believers to reach a very old age, while some may die in youth or in middle age. By faith we believe He has a reason for the time of a person's death, although it grieves us far more when we feel like a person left us too soon. The Lord doesn't always explain to us why one person leaves the world at a younger age than another, but in the passage above we are told that sometimes it is to spare them from evil. Something in the future might have happened to them that was worse than having them leave this world suddenly and unexpectedly. We don't know what that thing was but, since the Lord can see every event that will happen in the future, He knows what it was. He knows that events on the earth or things that are done by mankind would have brought that person worse troubles than what He intends to allow to happen to them.
A woman from my church said that Isaiah 57:1-2 was a great comfort to her when her fifteen-year-old son died unexpectedly. He'd been fine when he left for school that morning but when he came home he told her he'd had a headache all day. I believe his intention was to take some aspirin or something for it, but before he could do that he suddenly collapsed unconscious to the floor. By the time the ambulance got him to the hospital he was losing the ability to breathe on his own and had to be placed on artificial respiration while the doctors frantically rushed him to a brain scan only to find he'd already lost all brain activity due to what turned out to be meningitis. It was extremely sudden and extremely mysterious, since no one could ever determine how he'd contracted it due to not knowing of anyone else who had it, but his mother said that she firmly believed that Isaiah 57:1-2 explained why the Lord allowed him to be taken so unexpectedly. She believed that this was a humane passing compared to what might have been in his future. Taking comfort from these verses doesn't mean she won't miss her son every day of her life, but it does mean that she knows her son (who had accepted Christ as Savior and who loved the Lord deeply and tried to live a life that honored Him) was spared some sort of evil on the earth and that he is at peace in the presence of the Lord.
Both of my parents passed away far too young, in my opinion. They weren't significantly older than I am now. I don't know how their deaths fit into the Lord's plan but I know that, because they believed in Him, they are at peace in His presence. And I know that, no matter how much they loved their family, they wouldn't return to this world for anything. After resting in the presence of the Lord, even if there was a way they could return and be with their loved ones again, they would not choose to do so because being in the presence of the Lord is so much better than living on this earth. They will wait for their loved ones to come to them where we will all know the peace and joy of beholding our Savior's face forever.
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