“But those who die in the Lord will live; their bodies will rise again! Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy! For your life-giving light will fall like dew on your people in the place of the dead! Go home, my people, and lock your doors! Hide yourselves for a little while until the Lord’s anger has passed. Look! The Lord is coming from heaven to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The earth will no longer hide those who have been killed. They will be brought out for all to see.”
Isaiah 26:19-21 NLT
We come to the final verses of the twenty-sixth chapter of the Book of Isaiah, the prophet. He wrote that a time is coming when Israel will be restored. In the end times, after the Lord has secured His victory, He will raise His people, those who have already died, back to life. They will rejoice in their Lord because death is not the end of the story for the people of God. But verses 20 and 21 instruct the people of God to lock themselves away and hide while the Lord comes to “punish the people of the earth for their sins”, and this is going to happen in public. God’s people were not to be the intended focus of God’s punishment; that was being reserved in all its terrible force for sinners, the unrepentant people throughout history who have denied God and His ways.
The obvious connection of our verses today is with Revelation 20, where we read about the “Great White Throne”. John wrote, “I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. The sea gave up its dead, and death and the grave gave up their dead. And all were judged according to their deeds. Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death. And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:12-15). The previous chapter in Revelation details the final battle between the world armies, their corrupt system, and their opposition to God. But Revelation 21 paints a different picture, of God making all things new, with God dwelling on the New Earth with His people.
I have assumed that “God’s people” include all those who have believed in God through Jesus, those we call Christians. Pilgrims such as ourselves. However, a school of thought holds that this was a prophecy concerning the Israelites and their local situation in the Middle East at that time. This may well be the case, but through Jesus we know we will escape the judgment to come, whether or not we were included in Isaiah’s writings. Jesus said, “God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son” (John 3:17-18). Those around us, the sinners that Isaiah wrote about, are already walking around in judgment. They are effectively out on bail, awaiting their trial date, when they will be called to account for their sins. We don’t know when this will be, but the day will come.
It will be a terrible time when God brings punishment for the world’s sinners, but we pilgrims pray for these people. We also pray for ourselves that we will stand firm and resolute in our journey to Glory, never looking back. We pray for our governments, our communities, and our friends and families, that they will transition from those to be judged to joining God’s people through His saving grace. We pilgrims have every confidence in our God that He will judge the world with righteousness, and our verses seem to indicate that He will indeed pass us by as the final End Time scenario unfolds. Paul wrote, “I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13). No matter what is to come, we know that God will fulfil the promises He made through Jesus.
Dear Father God. A sobering end to Isaiah 26, but one that bolsters the hope that we have in You. You have graciously saved us from the destruction to come, and we are so deeply grateful. Every day we offer up to You our thankful prayers of worship, but also our petitions for our families and our governments. We understand that You are delaying the final terrible day so that every last person in Your plan for mankind will be saved. Please lead us to those who need a touch from You, bringing peace and joy back into a life of misery. Only You have the words of eternal life. Thank You, Lord. Amen.
