The Sweet Mercy of Death?

Have you ever thought of death as a sweet mercy of God?

The world is fallen. It is broken and seemingly spinning out of control in new ways every day. Sin torments our bodies, our minds, our relationships. It causes our brains to hold on to the past and dread the future. Despair fills our cities and natural disasters strike in unexpected places in unexpected ways in a multiplicity of moments. 

Biblical scholars know it cannot continue like this. We know the world must be judged. There will be a reckoning. In Isaiah's day, there was a moment of reckoning coming upon the nation. The people had exhausted the patience of God. The Babylonians would come and devour all the good things God had given to this ungrateful, rebellious people. 

Before all of this, righteous men would die. You'd think that was a bad thing. But if judgment is coming, death is an escape for the righteous. For theirs are the unspeakable glories of heaven in the presence of God. 

So Isaiah writes:

Isaiah 57:1 (ESV) The righteous man perishes, and no one lays it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from calamity;

The next verse clarifies that these deaths are a mercy of God for the upright. 

Isaiah 57:2 (ESV) he enters into peace; they rest in their beds who walk in their uprightness.

The only true peace we will have is peace with God. A peace that even death or it's ominous threat cannot devour. When we are at peace with our maker, what can creation do to us? Nothing. We are free from the fears of men's heart. We are released from the stress of worry and consternation over what is to come. 

In the next verse, Isaiah pronounces judgment in the unfaithful nation using imagery of adultery repeatedly to describe their sin. 

Isaiah 57:3 (ESV) But you, draw near, sons of the sorceress, offspring of the adulterer and the loose woman.

You ever consider that sin is adultery against God? The Ten Commandments are not simply rules to live by, they are the boundaries by which we are to live with God. We are to love Him completely and unobstructively. He is the lover of our souls. In Him, our hearts find rest and will never truly be a rest in another. 

Isaiah 57:8 (ESV) Behind the door and the doorpost you have set up your memorial; for, deserting me, you have uncovered your bed, you have gone up to it, you have made it wide; and you have made a covenant for yourself with them, you have loved their bed, you have looked on nakedness.

In deserting the Lord, Israel was in bed with idols. And God told them that though they would chase them again and again those idols would never save. 

Isaiah 57:13a (ESV) When you cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you! The wind will carry them all off, a breath will take them away. 

That passage is profoundly important. Everything we trust outside of God is a "breath" away from being taken away. To trust the temporal when you're made for the eternal is a disaster in waiting. 

And the end of verse 13 offers us hope. 

Isaiah 57:13b (ESV) But he who takes refuge in me shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain.

In the rest of chapter 57, Isaiah unpacks the way back to God. We will save that for the next post for the depth of its mercy is beyond measure. 

Perhaps we leave this post with a simple thought. Death is a mercy for the righteous, but so is any living moment before it for the wicked. God would not have you run from Him but to Him. There is a refuge from the storm. There is hope for those ravaged by idolatry. The lover is calling. Will you respond?