No One Bats an Eye 2022 05 15
Isaiah 57:1 – 16
There is a scene borrowed from a Batman movie where a character called the Joker is talking about how you can get away with some things because nobody really cares, while other things that you’d expect would be less important to everyone upset people terribly. It has been turned into a meme, a single frame of the Joker saying how people can do all kind of crazy things in certain circumstances to certain people and no one bats an eye, while if something much less is done to someone else, everyone loses their minds.
In this fallen world we live in, such is too often the case. One example is how the death of a police officer in the line of duty might make it on the news once, yet when a movie star dies of a drug overdose, it’s on all the news programs and talk shows for days. Another, perhaps the biggest one of our day, is how so few care about the death of an unborn child – even celebrate such an atrocity – yet lose their minds if someone euthanizes a kitten.
Isaiah 57:1 – 16
What a tremendous contrast we see here, between the way the world sees the end of someone who has put his faith in Jesus Christ and the way it really is in eternity. The righteous perishes and no one bats an eye. The man of the world doesn’t even give it a thought other than to be pleased it wasn’t him. But what the world fails to notice or understand is that the righteous, meaning a saved person who dies now is spared from the evil to come. He dies and enters into eternal peace.
I The Righteous
- This was written during a time in Israel’s history of rampant idolatry and terrible spiritual stupidity, as described in the last four verses of the previous chapter. There was great persecution against those who trusted and obeyed God and who were appalled by the darkness around them. The righteous were put to death, the public service of God was profaned in the worst way by one king after another, and the land was filled with idolatry, yet the leaders called for more drunkenness, proclaiming that the times were just going to get better and better, something like we keep hearing today.
- The righteous were persecuted and put to death, and nobody cared. People who were kind, caring, and merciful were slaughtered, and no one batted an eye.
- No one considered that God was taking the righteous away from the horrors that were about to come upon Israel, as violent foreign invaders were soon to come as a great judgment upon them.
- The righteous leave this world of struggle, toil, and tears, and enter into peace, in the presence of the Lord. “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.” Psalm 116:15
II The World
- “But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” Isaiah 57:20,21
- Verses 3 through 11 call on those who reject God to listen to him and consider their ways and furthermore, to consider whom they are offending by their filthiness and foolishness.
- The wicked were described as sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore. Instead of going to God, they went to inventions, superstition, and worldly power for their help, protection, and direction. Is the world any different, today? Not at all…
- They practiced every kind of license and abomination, including sexual immorality and child sacrifice. What about the Western World, today? Is abortion today any different in its evil from sacrificing babies to Moloch then?
- “Upon a lofty and high mountain hast thou set thy bed: even thither wentest thou up to offer sacrifice.” They openly practiced their abominable lifestyles. How similar this is to today, when the world is calling evil good and good evil, when those who take a stand against what God calls evil are called judgmental, hateful, unloving, and even unChristian even by others who claim to be Christians!
- Just as Israel made alliances with former and future enemies against the enemies of the day, rather than trusting in God, so goes the world of today. Our formerly so-called Christian nations now make alliances with those who want to kill us less (such as Turkey); rather than trusting in God, they “…debase (themselves) even unto hell.” The US, Canada’s greatest ally, prints “In God we trust” on their money and do not.
- The Israelites did not fear God. They thought that because they were getting away with it, they would get away with it, forever. “He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it.” Psalm 10:11 The world today is no different.
- The righteous perish and no one bats an eye. ISIS, the Taliban, Boko Haram, and the CCP are brutally killing Christians “over there” and over here, people are losing their businesses and even going to jail for taking a stand for righteousness… Islam is declared a religion of peace and Christianity a religion of hate… yet…
III Judgment v12
- Judgment is coming! The righteous perish and no one bats an eye… except that God IS paying attention. God says, “I will declare thy righteousness, and thy works; for they shall not profit thee.” Judgment is coming, and the righteousness of men and their religions will fail them.
- God sees everything, all the time. Those who think they’re getting away with doing as they please, ignoring justice, calling sin good, calling good evil, etc., will finally face judgment, when God shows how unrighteous their supposed righteousness and works are.
- God says to those who don’t trust him now to try trusting all those things they trusted in life when the final judgment comes. “… the wind shall carry them all away; vanity shall take them.” Without Christ they are lost.
IV Mercy vv13 – 16
- The world in general rejects God and no one bats an eye when God’s children suffer, yet God says to ALL, that “…he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain;” God is so merciful! “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”
- God is not going to contend with his people Israel forever, though they have long rejected him, because his chastisement is not for their destruction, but for their ultimate restoration. Though they have suffered greatly at the hands of many enemies for centuries for resisting and rejecting God, and will soon suffer even worse, he is going to restore the remnant of Israel as his holy people in their land. “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:” Romans 11:26
- When we sin as God’s children, we suffer chastisement, but not destruction. God is so merciful! Even in death, God is merciful.
- The righteous perish, and no one bats an eye. None in this world consider that God is merciful, taking his child home, away from the evil that is to come upon this world. The righteous enters into peace at death, but the lost into everlasting torment. “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John 3:18
Conclusion
- If you’ve put your faith in Jesus Christ our God and Creator as your Saviour, you have nothing to fear. It doesn’t matter if no one cares about any hardship you may be going through or may have to go through. God cares and is going to bring you home where you will enter into peace, no matter what this life throws at you. All who reject Christ in this life have nothing more for them in the next, “But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.” Hebrews 10:27 Not so you who have put your faith in Jesus Christ to save you. You have everlasting life, right now, no matter what happens, and the certainty of everlasting peace and joy.