“In that wonderful day when the Lord gives his people rest from sorrow and fear, from slavery and chains, you will taunt the king of Babylon. You will say, “The mighty man has been destroyed. Yes, your insolence is ended. For the Lord has crushed your wicked power and broken your evil rule. You struck the people with endless blows of rage and held the nations in your angry grip with unrelenting tyranny. But finally the earth is at rest and quiet. Now it can sing again! Even the trees of the forest— the cypress trees and the cedars of Lebanon— sing out this joyous song: ‘Since you have been cut down, no one will come now to cut us down!’”
Isaiah 14:3-8 NLT
There are seasons of life when rest seems a distant dream, remote and unrealisable. “Rest from sorrow and fear, from slavery and chains” was listed in our first verse today as a blessing from the Lord. Our bodies age and grow tired; our minds are troubled by the hassles of life and the constant strife that marks our society. Israel knew what it was to live under oppression, fear, and harsh treatment. Yet God gave them a remarkable promise: a day was coming when He would give them relief. The God who saw their suffering had not forgotten them, and the God who permitted the season of hardship would also bring it to an end. For a time, Babylon appeared powerful and unstoppable, but God broke its power. And if we look at “Babylon” today, as meaning the world system, with all its evil and impact on mankind, one day that will all disappear and be replaced by “rest from sorrow and fear”. There will be a day, “that wonderful day”, when the Lord will rule and reign, bringing a world government for a thousand years. Perhaps we pilgrims may even be a part of that government, “priests of God and of Christ” (Revelation 20:4-6). Do we pilgrims find ourselves under the oppression of a “Babylonian” system? One in which we experience fear, anxiety, temptation, discouragement, or difficult circumstances. But we need to remember the lesson from Isaiah 14, that whatever seems a powerful and oppressive series of circumstances, causing a lifestyle that is fraught with difficulties, is never more powerful than God. One day, and with the people of Israel, we will say, “The mighty man has been destroyed. Yes, your insolence is ended. For the Lord has crushed your wicked power and broken your evil rule”.
We know the power of God because we pilgrims have experienced it in our own lives. There was that day when we “… were dead because of [our] sins and because [our] sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made [us] alive with Christ, for He forgave all our sins” (Colossians 2:13). The next two verses complete the picture and any connection with the spiritual “Babylon”: “He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross”. That is God’s power at work, a power that raised Christ from the dead, and, through faith, the same power that will raise us to eternal life with Him. So in times of difficulty, there is something comforting in the knowledge that whatever we are facing, the power of God is there, available for us to call upon. And it will prevail over evil in the end. Don’t forget: we pilgrims have read to the end of the Book.
Isaiah 7:14, one of today’s verses, reads, “But finally the earth is at rest and quiet. Now it can sing again!” A singing earth? In my early morning walks, I find a silent world, with the only sound being the occasional birdsong or the wind blowing through the trees. In the distance, there may be the sound of motor traffic, but the ground beneath my feet is silent. Perhaps we don’t realise the potential of our Earth and what exists within it. Paul could see it, when he wrote, “For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay” (Romans 8:19-21). That “glorious freedom” will manifest itself in song. In Chapter 11 of C.S. Lewis’s fictional book “The Great Divorce”, the very landscape rejoices, with the Earth singing after an angel transforms a ghost’s lustful lizard into a stallion. Perhaps Lewis had read Isaiah 14 when he wrote his book, but regardless, there will be much singing one day, as the earth and all creation are restored to the place where they should be.
In all this, though, are we pilgrims feeling weary, even to the point of being tired with life? Jesus said, “.. Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). There is no other solution to the burdens of living, other than in the arms of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus. Our seasons of trouble may be long, but they are never beyond the reach of the God who gives rest.
Dear Heavenly Father. You created a world in which rest was built in because You could see how important it was to all creation, us pilgrims included. In our times of trouble, please help us to raise our eyes above our circumstances to the One who has what we need to revive us and to power us through whatever we are facing. Stress and worry are not ours to bear alone, and we thank You for all that You have done for us. Please be with us this day and every day. In Your precious name. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 