The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; devout men are swept away, while no one considers that the righteous are guided from the presence of evil. Sermons
I. A PICTURE OF HUMAN GOODNESS. A good man is represented as "the righteous," as "the merciful," as one who "walketh in uprightness." These characterizations include: 1. The fear of God - reverence for his Name, the worship of his Divine Spirit, the recognition of his righteous claims, a supreme regard for his holy will. 2. The love of man - a practical acknowledgment of his claims on our sympathy and our succour, a hearty and practical desire to promote his well-being. 3. The regulation of daily life, in all stations and spheres, by the laws of truth, purity, honesty, sobriety. A righteous, merciful, and upright man is one who will be making an honest and earnest endeavour to realize all this in his character and his career. Nothing less will satisfy his aspiration. II. A PICTURE OF HUMAN THOUGHTLESSNESS. "The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart." When a community - nation or Church - has not been living and walking in the light of the Lord, it becomes dull of apprehension, spiritually blind, incapable of estimating the true character of events. 1. It fails to appreciate the worth of one good man's life. What an incalculable blessing a single true, pure, and holy life may be, and indeed must be! and what a fountain of good is dried up when one who leads such a life is taken away! It is a bad time, indicative of evil and prophetic of decline and death, when human worth is disregarded. 2. It fails to feel the injury and wrong done by arbitrary violence; it ought to resent it with keenest indignation, and to take vigorous steps to arrest and remove it. 3. It fails to recognize a valuable mitigation: "None considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come." It is natural enough for men to wish to go on into the future, that they may see what is coming, and that they may help to shape the event; but the wise and thoughtful will consider that there may be a future impending from which they would earnestly pray God to save them. It was not a threat, but a promise, sent to Josiah, "I will gather thee to thy fathers... neither shall thine eyes see all the evil which I will bring upon this place" (2 Kings 22:20). Many are they who have outlived the period of prosperity and peace, to whom an earlier death would have been a happier lot. We cannot be sure that a sudden and even (what we call)a premature death may not be a most merciful removal from intolerable pain, or from overwhelming temptation, or from grievous burdens and sorrows. We sing, "Our times are in thy hand," and we do well to continue, "O God, we wish them there." III. A PICTURE OF HUMAN REPOSE. "He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds." From the tumult and the strain, from the battle and the burden of life, even the rest of the grave is welcome. But how much more welcome to the weary spirit is that rest which Jesus Christ has revealed, and which remaineth for the people of God! - rest in the home, in the likeness, in the glory, in the untiring service of the ascended Saviour. - C.
The righteous perisheth. In view of this prevailing demoralization and worldliness (Isaiah 56:9-12), the righteous one succumbs to the grinding weight of external and internal sufferings: he "perishes," dies before his time (Ecclesiastes 7:15), from the midst of his contemporaries, disappearing from this life (Psalm 12:1; Micah 7:2), and no man lays it to heart, i.e. no one considers the Divine accusation and threatening implied in this early death.(F. Delitzsch, D. D.) (Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.) ( M. Henry.) 1. One reason why, when the righteous dieth, no man layeth it to heart is because the world do not know the righteous.2. Another reason is, disinclination of all men by nature to lay such things to heart. 3. They do not think it of much importance. But the death of every good man is a loss to the world, a loss to the Church militant — the people of God are the salt of the earth, and the more taken away and the less left, the less likely are we to be blessed as a nation. (James Wells.) Such early removals form a problem insoluble by our poor reason. They seem, at first sight, inconsistent alike with the Divine wisdom and power and love. They look almost like the frustration of God's plans and purposes, a failure in His sovereign designs. It is the architect just completing His work when that work comes with a crash to the ground. It is the sculptor putting the finishing strokes of his chisel on the virgin marble, when the toil of months or years strews the floor of his studio. It is the gardener bringing forth from his conservatory the long-husbanded plants in their freshness and beauty, to bask in early summer sun, when a frost or hailstorm unexpectedly comes, and in one night they have perished!(J. R. Macduff, D. D.) Why is the young soldier stricken clown just; when the armour of life has been assayed? Wherefore hath God apparently thus made His noblest work in vain? The words of Isaiah give a twofold answer to these questions and mysteries; the one negative, the other positive.I. THE NEGATIVE ANSWER. "The righteous is taken away from the evil to come." It was so in the case of Josiah (2 Kings 22:18-20). II. THE POSITIVE EXPLANATION. "He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness; or rather, as it has been rendered, each one walking straight before him, or as Bishop Lowth translates it, "he that walketh in the straight oath." 1. Josiah, the good, the pious, when he died, "entered into peace." It is a beautiful Old Testament evidence of the immediate blessedness of the departed righteous. His body rested in the tomb, as in a "bed" or couch; his spirit — the spirit that walked so "uprightly on earth, with no divergence from the path of duty and piety — continues, in a loftier state of existence, this elevated "walk." The work cut short in this lower world is not arrested; it is only transferred. In a higher and loftier sphere he still pursues these active ministries of righteousness. There is an evident contrast between these opening words of the chapter and the terrible refrain with which it closes — "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked;" none in life, none in death, none in their limitless future. But "the righteous," thus taken away, "enter into peace." 2. Another thought, too, is brought out in the original which we miss in our translation, and which suggests the same assurance of immediate bliss. It occurs in the words just quoted — "The righteous is taken away," "Merciful men are taken away;" this in the Hebrew is, "The righteous, the merciful, are gathered" — gathered to their fathers. 3. One other thought on early death may be suggested by these words. While the spirit is pursuing its onward path of bliss and glory, it has not, in the truest sense, bid farewell to its earthly sphere. The lips are silenced, the music of the voice is hushed, the blank of the absent is too painfully realized. But "the righteous" survive dissolution even in this world; in their deathless memories of goodness and worth, they continue to "walk." The old promise dictated by the sweet singer of Israel (apparently paradoxical) becomes literally true, regarding those prematurely taken away — "With long life will I satisfy him, and show him My salvation." For what, after all, is long life? Is it measured and computed by formal arithmetic? counted by days, or weeks, or months, or years? No! the fourscore years of a misspent life is no life at all. It is a bankruptcy of being. It may be a life only sowing and perpetuating baneful influences; an untimely birth would be better. Whereas, that is the truest length of days, where, it may be for a brief but bright and consecrated season, some young life has shone gloriously for God, and which, though now a fallen meteor, has left a trail of light behind it, for which parent and brother and sister will for ever bless Him who gave the transient boon! (J. R. Macduff, D. D.) Homilist. I. THEIR DEATH IS THE PERISHING OF THE BODY. —1. Why, then, pamper the body? 2. Why centre interests on the wants and enjoyments of the body? II. THEIR DEATH IS GENERALLY DISREGARDED BY MANKIND. How soon the best of men are forgotten. There are two reasons for disregarding the death of the good. 1. The thought of death is repugnant to the heart. 2. The concerns of life are all-absorbing. III. THEIR DEATH IS A DELIVERANCE FROM ALL THE EVILS THAT ARE COMING ON THE WORLD. "Taken away from the evil to come." IV. THEIR DEATH IS A STEP INTO A HIGHER LIFE. "He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds." 1. The death of the good as to the body is only sleep — natural, refreshing, temporary. 2. Their souls march on. " Each one walking in his uprightness." Endless progress. " It doth not yet appear what we shall be." (Homilist.) The righteous is taken away from the evil to come. Homiletic Review. 1. It may be from the evil of personal suffering. The prolongation of life to old age often involves an immense amount of bodily ills and pains.2. It may be to spare the heart of affection sore trials. How often do children grow up, to break the hearts of fond parents. 3. It may be to take His child out of harm's way. 4. It may be to shield him from some impending calamity that is coming upon the Church or the world. 5. Or (if we accept the marginal reading) it is to save them "from that which" Is" evil" Life" itself, under the curse of sin, is evil, even in its best estate, and the God of mercy cuts it short and receives His loved one into His bosom. (Homiletic Review.) We all spend much time in panegyric of longevity. But I propose to preach about the blessings of an abbreviated earthly existence.I. IT MAKES ONE'S LIFE WORK VERY COMPACT. II. MORAL DISASTER MIGHT COME UPON THE MAN IF HE TARRIED LONGER. III. ONE IS THE SOONER TAKEN OFF FROM THE DEFENSIVE. IV. ONE ESCAPES SO MANY BEREAVEMENTS. V. IT PUTS ONE SOONER IN THE CENTRE OF THINGS. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.) People Isaiah, Melech, MolechPlaces JerusalemTopics Calamity, Considering, Death, Devout, Evil, Evil-doing, Face, Gathered, Gives, God-fearing, Godly, Goes, Heart, Kindness, Layeth, Laying, Lays, Merciful, None, Peace, Perish, Perished, Perishes, Perisheth, Ponders, Righteous, Spared, Takes, Troubled, Understands, UprightOutline 1. The blessed death of the righteous3. God reproves the People for their idolatry 13. He gives promises of mercy to the penitent Dictionary of Bible Themes Isaiah 57:1 7150 righteous, the 6705 peace, experience Library Thirteenth Day. Holiness and Humility. Thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the High and Holy place, with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.'--Isa. lvii. 15. Very wonderful is the revelation we have in Isaiah of God, the Holy One, as the Redeemer and the Saviour of His people. In the midst of the people whom He created and formed for Himself, He will as the Holy One dwell, showing forth … Andrew Murray—Holy in Christ Man's Greatness and God's Greatness. The Loftiness of God Of the Joy of a Good Conscience Holy Raiment of One's Own Weaving. The Comforts Belonging to Mourners What the Ruler's Discrimination Should be Between Correction and Connivance, Between Fervour and Gentleness. Of the Presence of God Higher Degree of Prayer, which is that of the Simple Presence of God, or Active Contemplation. The Geometry of Prayer Book iii. The Ascent: from the River Jordan to the Mount of Transfiguration. The Three Parables of the Gospel: of the Recovery of the Lost - of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Drachm, the Lost Son. Christ's Kingly Office We are Drawing Near the End, and to the Highest Conclusions of True Human Wisdom... The Acceptable Sacrifice; I Will Pray with the Spirit and with the Understanding Also- The Coming Revival "Nunc Dimittis" What are Consequences of Backsliding in Heart. The Death and the Raising of Lazarus - the Question of Miracles and of this Miracle of Miracles - views of Negative Criticism on this History Another Shorter Evening Prayer. Appendix xix. On Eternal Punishment, According to the Rabbis and the New Testament Christ Teaching Humility Characters and Names of Messiah Links Isaiah 57:1 NIVIsaiah 57:1 NLT Isaiah 57:1 ESV Isaiah 57:1 NASB Isaiah 57:1 KJV Isaiah 57:1 Bible Apps Isaiah 57:1 Parallel Isaiah 57:1 Biblia Paralela Isaiah 57:1 Chinese Bible Isaiah 57:1 French Bible Isaiah 57:1 German Bible Isaiah 57:1 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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