Isaiah 57:1 The righteous perisheth, 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.
I love discovery! I love finding new kinds of food, places, and new people. I think, “Wow! How have I missed this all of my life? Where has this been all my life?”
Have you ever tried to convince someone that something you like is something they need? You say, “You don’t know what you are missing!” A lot of times such people think they don’t like something because they have tried a really poor substitute for the real thing. Now, not everyone likes coffee, but some people that might like coffee think they don’t because all they have ever tried is dirt. Or, someone thinks they hate guacamole because the only place they have tried it is at Taco Bell. I like Taco Bell, but they don’t make great guacamole. Oftentimes, people miss out on something that is truly great, and they don’t even know it!
God’s people were that way. They didn’t even know what they were missing. Isaiah 57:1 says, “The righteous perisheth, 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.” God had mercifully taken away the righteous to spare them from the judgment to come, and God’s people did not even notice their absence. They didn’t know what they were missing. Healthy influence was gone and they did not even know it.
In verse 10 we are reminded that they did not even realize they were missing hope. They had compassed land and desert to find gods that could not satisfy, and did not realize that once they arrived at their destination hundreds and hundreds of miles later, there was no hope. They never said to themselves, “There is no hope in this.” They didn’t know that they were missing hope.
They didn’t know they were missing God’s voice. Verse 11 says, “Have not I held my peace even of old, and thou fearest me not?” God was saying, “You haven’t even noticed that I haven’t been speaking. You took My silence as a tacit agreement with your sin.”
They didn’t know how empty they were. In verse 12 God says, “I will declare thy righteousness, and thy works; for they shall not profit thee.” What was their righteousness? It was works. What works? It was their own works. These were people who were feasting, fasting, and knew the law of God, but they were still committing adultery and oppressing others. They had just a sham of the true religion.
Some people have a real distaste for God because the only thing they know of God is some religion that has no life. The bottom line is that people living on substitutes don’t know what they are missing. We all have a God-shaped void that God alone can fill. No other religion, god, or thing can fill that void in a person’s life. Because that is true, there are two things I think we should take away from this today.
The first takeaway is to pay attention. Do you know what you are missing? Do you know Whom you are missing? In verses 17-20 God talks about how He had sent both judgment and comfort to these people. It wasn’t as if he hated them on the one hand and loved them on the other; it is that both good and bad, judgment and mercy, were intended by God for a uniform purpose: to bring His people back to Him. Do you know what you are missing? Is God alive and real in your life, and not just some discipline or liturgy you have? Do you have God guiding you in your life?
The second takeaway is to not settle. No one should ever settle for a shallow substitute for God Himself. God has created us to be nourished in our souls by God alone. People living on substitutes don’t know what they are missing, and that is why it is important that we take good heed to ourselves and realize that only God can fill the void.