Isaiah 54:15 Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by me: whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake.
Back in April, I was leaving South Dakota and heading for home at the Bill Rice Ranch. We had just seen dear friends and finished revival meetings in Aberdeen, South Dakota. On the way home, we had blowing snow. There were places where the visibility was fairly poor. Snow was blowing over. It was not drifting because there wasn’t quite enough. It wasn’t a blizzard, but for a guy from Tennessee it seemed like a blizzard to me.
Have you ever gone outside after a major snowstorm? The storm is ferocious, the wind blows, the snow howls. Then, when it is over, you go out and there is peace. It is absolutely still with a white blanket of snow over everything. It is cheery, bright, quiet, and serene. If you are in Tennessee, maybe you have a humdinger of a thunderstorm and the day after the air just smells fresh. The earth has been scrubbed clean by the storm. You may not enjoy the storm, but almost anyone can enjoy the peace, serenity, tranquility, and cleanliness after a storm has cleansed the earth.
That is the picture we have in Isaiah 54 of God’s chastening of His people. He is talking about a time when they would be on the other side of the storm of God’s chastening. He says, “Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame.” Later He says, “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with a great mercies will I gather thee.”
God is talking about His judgment on His people. He had carried out judgment by Babylon and other sources. While it was not pleasant, the other side of that judgment was kind of like the calm that comes after the storm. Like during the Flood in Noah’s day when the mountains disappeared under the flood waters, God tell them, “For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee.”
This reminds me of two kinds of peace that the people of God can have. First, God’s people can have the peace of God’s sovereignty. God is talking about the fact that they had endured judgement, but they endured judgment at the hands of a God Who loved them and chastened them because He loved them. The Bible says that God deals with us as He would with sons. The Bible says, “No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous.” The Bible goes on to say, “Nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby.” So, peace is the result of that chastening. It may not be pleasant for the moment, but just like the calm after the Flood, the rainbow after the storm, there is a peace that comes from God’s chastening of His people. He doesn’t chasten then because He hates them, but precisely because He loves them.
Maybe today you are enduring some kind of chastening. Know that God loves you and that He is trying to restore you to a place of fellowship. To be sure not every calamity is because of sin. Not every calamity is God’s judgment. However, there is a certain peace that comes from knowing this may not be a pleasant time, but there is a God in Heaven Who loves me and does this for my good when I have strayed from Him.
The second peace that comes to the people of God seems almost to be in conflict with what I’ve just said, but I do not think that it is. In verse 15 God says, “Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by me.” He is saying, “There will be armies, and they will gather against you, Israel, but not at My bidding.” The verse continues, “Whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake. Behold, I have created the smith…” The smith is the one who is creating the weapons of war against Israel. But then it says that God created the person who will destroy him. Verse 17 says, “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper.”
This second peace of God’s people is the peace of my innocence. It is not innocence in the absolute sense, but there is the peace that comes from knowing no matter what may be happening in my life, if I am right before God, it may be coming my way, but not by God. There is a peace that comes from knowing that whatever trials are coming, it is not because of some sin on my part. Now, the Bible says that the rain falls on the just and the unjust and difficult times come to everyone whether you know the Lord or not. The difference is whether you go through that trial as something arbitrary and out of the blue as an orphan in the universe or if you go through that trial as a person belonging to Jehovah.
Some people take the opposite tack. They say, “I didn’t do anything, so this is not fair.” That is the wrong take. Some people are not encouraged by this because they don’t believe there is a God. But, to those who belong to God, there is a peace in God’s sovereignty. This is not just arbitrary; God is doing it for my own good. On the other hand, there is a peace that comes because I am innocent and what may be coming my way is not because of my wrong. I have not done wrong. I am right with God.
There are those who are optimists, those who are pessimists, and some we might call stoic. Back to South Dakota, my mom’s great grandparents moved to South Dakota in the 1860s and lived in a sod house in a rough environment. It can be bone chilling in the winter and very hot in the summer, yet people moved there because the government would give them a section of ground if they would improve it. Those people were oftentimes stoic, tough, whatever will be will be, resigned. It is not an optimism that comes from knowing there is a God. It is a stoicism that comes from thinking, “We’ve been through this before and we will make it through again.”
The right way is neither a blind optimism, a jaded pessimism, nor a tough stoicism, but recognizing the providence of God in chastening us when we are wrong and giving peace when we do what is right. Ultimately, God says of His people, “Their righteousness is of me.”
There are two kinds of peace to God’s people: the peace of God’s sovereignty and the peace of innocence when I do right.