When the Righteous Perish
Radio February 13, 2009
I was thinking this morning of a scripture I have sometimes heard cited at funerals.
(Isaiah 57:1-2 KJV) The righteous perishes, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. {2} Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.
The Scripture was comforting in an odd sort of way. But it fell strangely on the ear in the good times we have enjoyed. I wonder what people will think nowadays should they hear it read over the casket of a dear old friend.
• I was reading a column by Peggy Noonan this morning. She described what New York is like in these days of a sharply slowed economy, and that was what brought this sharply to mind. We have been living in a carnival these last many years, an unreal world of wealth and plenty, and now we have to think about a different kind of world. Our leaders are pessimistic—which is an odd thing for leaders. They are supposed to mobilize us, to tell us the truth, but to hold out hope. And yet we hear words like crisis and catastrophe coming from leaders who seem more concerned about political power than the welfare of those they lead.
Well, I wondered what prompted this message from the old prophet, so I took a little time to look and think about it.
The lead into this passage was sobering, and startlingly apt to this generation:
(Isaiah 56:10-12 NIV) Israel's watchmen are blind, they all lack knowledge; they are all mute dogs, they cannot bark; they lie around and dream, they love to sleep. {11} They are dogs with mighty appetites; they never have enough. They are shepherds who lack understanding; they all turn to their own way, each seeks his own gain. {12} "Come," each one cries, "let me get wine! Let us drink our fill of beer! And tomorrow will be like today, or even far better."
• Mute dogs. Somehow I had overlooked this reading the KJV. The old Bible calls them dumb dogs, but to the King James boys, it didn’t mean dumb as in stupid. It meant unable to speak, as in “Deaf and dumb.”
• I know, there are times when you wish your dog were mute, but dogs hold themselves responsible for letting you know what is going on.
• They are concerned when the doorbell rings that you might not hear it. Barking is their way of saying, “Someone’s at the door!”
• I thought about this when a little girl was taken from her bed in the middle of the night, and I thought, “If I had a little girl like that, she would have a dog who slept in her room, maybe on her bed. A big dog.
• I had a dog that slept on my feet in cold weather, and you could not have come near me without her setting up an alarm.
• But of what use is a mute dog that cannot bark. That only lies around, sleeps and eats.
• Then Isaiah shifts the metaphor from dogs to shepherds.
• They are shepherds who lack understanding; they all turn to their own way, each seeks his own gain. {12} "Come," each one cries, "let me get wine! Let us drink our fill of beer! And tomorrow will be like today, or even far better."
• I groan when I read it, for there are many kinds of shepherds. There are presidents, governors, congressmen, preachers, teachers, school boards and administrators.
• Tomorrow, they say, will be just like today and even better. And that is the way nearly everyone has been acting for a long time now.
And it is at this point that Isaiah comes to the scripture I started with.
(Isaiah 57:1-2 NIV) The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. {2} Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.
• So we don’t live in a world that goes on to greater and better things, after all.
• Tomorrow may not be all that abundant after all. It may get bad enough that we will be grateful our mom didn’t live to see it.
• But what happens to bring this situation about?
Well, Isaiah goes on:
(Isaiah 57:3-21 NIV) "But you--come here, you sons of a sorceress, you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes! {4} Whom are you mocking? At whom do you sneer and stick out your tongue? Are you not a brood of rebels, the offspring of liars?
• Would you have to look very hard to find the children who sneer at society, who stick out the tongue at the rest of us?
• Now times change, cultures change. But human nature doesn’t, and the divine nature doesn’t either.
• When you read a passage like this, you can say, oh, this isn’t now, not us. This was then and those people.
• And yet, the ratio of children who are born without a father in the home grows on apace, and the children of adulterers and prostitutes abound among us.
• And as much as we try to be understanding and compassionate, we can’t deny what is right there in front of us.
And there is a terrible cost associated with this.
Lay aside for the moment the cost for the kids themselves and consider what it means to society.
• Too many people are in denial about what all this is costing.
• Did you know, for example, that the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single parent?
• Three studies and a well documented book stress the point.
• 70 percent of inmates in state juvenile detention centers were raised by single mothers according to Wade Horn, writing in Imprimis.
• 72 percent of juvenile murderers and 60 percent of rapists come from single mother homes. This according to Chuck Colson in his book How shall we live?
70 percent of teenage births, dropouts, suicides and child murders involve children of single mothers.
Girls raised without a father in the home are sexually more promiscuous and more likely to end up divorced.
A 1990 study by the Progressive Policy Institute showed that after controlling for single motherhood, the differences between black and white crime rates disappeared.
I don’t think I could ever have tracked all this down, But Ann Coulter, in her book Guilty lays them all out with full documentation.
This time Ms. Coulter is not trying to be funny.
As I read more figures, it made my blood run cold:
62 percent of youth suicide.
70 Percent of teenage pregnancy.
71 percent of adolescent chemical substance abuse
80 percent of all prison inmates
90 percent of all homeless and runaway children
are from single parent families.
Ms. Coulter cited an item from the Village Voice that children brought up in single mother homes are:
five times more likely to commit suicide,
Nine times more likely to drop out of school
14 times more likely to commit rape (boys)
20 times more likely to end up in prison,
32 times more likely to run away from home.
Ms. Coulter observed that most of these studies were done in the 90s, and the situation has gotten even worse in recent years.
Now you tell me: is this or is this not a huge problem for society at large?
And does it not have an economic impact.
Back to Isaiah:
(Isaiah 57:3-21 NIV) "But you--come here, you sons of a sorceress, you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes! {4} Whom are you mocking? At whom do you sneer and stick out your tongue? Are you not a brood of rebels, the offspring of liars?
{5} You burn with lust among the oaks and under every spreading tree; you sacrifice your children in the ravines and under the overhanging crags.
• Yes, well, at least we don’t do that, do we?
• Perhaps not in quite the same way. The references to child sacrifice have to do with Baal worship, which involved child prostitution and child sacrifice.
• But in our generation, sexual abuse of children is all too common, and we have sacrificed children in their millions on the altar of abortion.
I haven’t read all Ann Coulter’s book, but it occurred to me to ask:
• How much of the efforts at abortion, especially government paid abortion, is aimed at this problem?
• What does it say about a society that has to kill off its unborn to reduce the jail population?
• We are advanced people, though, and we don’t sacrifice to Baal. But that doesn’t help the children very much.
• And we have our idols. Rock stars, Entertainers who have led our children to choose what some call slut wear for their clothing.
• And the spirit of idolatry was in evidence even in political campaigns where a presidential candidate becomes a rock star.
• Yes, we are an advanced people, what advancing into what?
{6} The idols among the smooth stones of the ravines are your portion; they, they are your lot. Yes, to them you have poured out drink offerings and offered grain offerings. In the light of these things, should I relent?
• Well, we haven’t made images of crawfish, I guess. We just eat them.
{7} You have made your bed on a high and lofty hill; there you went up to offer your sacrifices. {8} Behind your doors and your doorposts you have put your pagan symbols. Forsaking me, you uncovered your bed, you climbed into it and opened it wide; you made a pact with those whose beds you love, and you looked on their nakedness.
• Never in history has there been so much nakedness to look upon. I read somewhere recently that the average teenager spends 31 hours a week on the Internet and 2 hours watching pornography.
But we are an advanced people, aren’t we? And what is it that we are advancing toward, pray tell?
{9} You went to Molech with olive oil and increased your perfumes. You sent your ambassadors far away; you descended to the grave itself!
• Now let me stop and explain something here. All this was spoken and written to generation of people living some 2700 years ago.
• We are getting a snapshot, as it were, of a moral landslide. I am certain that Isaiah didn’t expect this to be read 2700 years later, but he may have understood it was for generations to come because he wrote it down.
• But know this. God doesn’t change. Human nature doesn’t change.
• And because of this, prophecy repeats, and this one is just as valid today as it was when Isaiah wrote the words.
{10} You were wearied by all your ways, but you would not say, 'It is hopeless.' You found renewal of your strength, and so you did not faint. {11} "Whom have you so dreaded and feared that you have been false to me, and have neither remembered me nor pondered this in your hearts? Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear me?
• Yes, I think it is. God has not been silent to people who read the Bible, he has a lot to say to them.
• But even Christian people in large numbers no longer read the Bible.
• It has been so long since God has spoken to us, that we no longer fear him.
{12} I will expose your “righteousness” and your works, and they will not benefit you. {13} When you cry out for help, let your collection of idols save you! The wind will carry all of them off, a mere breath will blow them away. But the man who makes me his refuge will inherit the land and possess my holy mountain."
• For us, Isaiah might say, “Let your BMW that you idolize carry you to safety.”
• Or, let the political leaders you idolize show you the way. The wind will carry all of them off, a mere breath will blow them away
{14} And it will be said: "Build up, build up, prepare the road! Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people." {15} For this is what the high and lofty One says-- he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.
{16} I will not accuse forever, nor will I always be angry, for then the spirit of man would grow faint before me-- the breath of man that I have created. {17} I was enraged by his sinful greed; I punished him, and hid my face in anger, yet he kept on in his willful ways.
• So that’s what has happened to us. And there is something delicious about people who have maxed out their credit cards and bought houses they couldn’t pay for, pointing the finger at wall street greed.
• Do you see all those Greedy people over there? They are us.
{18} I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him, {19} creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. Peace, peace, to those far and near," says the LORD. "And I will heal them."
• But not everyone.
{20} But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. {21} "There is no peace," says my God, "for the wicked."
• These last three verses are comforting. For the man who will look to God and repent, there is healing and restoration. And peace.
• But there is no peace for the wicked.
• In these days when the whole world is shaken, we can have peace.
• One way is by remembering what is truly important.
• There is a way of life that makes all the difference.
• There is the love of God, amply attested.
• There are family and friends and the love of good people.
(1 Timothy 6:3-11 KJV) If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; {4} He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, {5} Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. {6} But godliness with contentment is great gain. {7} For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. {8} And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. {9} But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. {10} For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. {11} But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.
Isaiah closes out with this charge:
(Isaiah 58 NIV) "Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the house of Jacob their sins. {2} For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them. {3} 'Why have we fasted,' they say, 'and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?' . . . {6} "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? {7} Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-- when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? {8} Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. {9} Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. "If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, {10} and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. {11} The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. {12} Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. {13} "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, {14} then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob." The mouth of the LORD has spoken.
(Matthew 7:13-14 NIV) "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. {14} But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
(Luke 13:23-27 KJV) Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, {24} Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. {25} When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: {26} Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. {27} But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.