“Then deep from the earth you will speak; from low in the dust your words will come. Your voice will whisper from the ground like a ghost conjured up from the grave. But suddenly, your ruthless enemies will be crushed like the finest of dust. Your many attackers will be driven away like chaff before the wind. Suddenly, in an instant, I, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, will act for you with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with whirlwind and storm and consuming fire.”
Isaiah 29:4-6 NLT
I love Isaiah’s very descriptive language. The first verse of our reading this morning speaks to me of a people destroyed by the armies that surrounded them and realising at last the extent of their sin. Their bodies destroyed, but their spirits living on and crying out to God to save them. They cry out from the “dust”, their voices sounding like the ghostly whispers from another world. But to be true, that is where they are, their souls wandering around in the afterlife somewhere. Hebrew thought about the afterlife was complex, initially being that all departed souls ended up in Sheol, good and bad alike. But during the time of the exile, a new thought emerged: that perhaps there was a resurrection of the dead coming. But there were one or two Scriptural hints in the Old Testament before then. In Ecclesiastes 3:11 we read, “Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end”. Moses’ thoughts after the death of Abraham can be found in Genesis 25:7-8, “Abraham lived for 175 years, and he died at a ripe old age, having lived a long and satisfying life. He breathed his last and joined his ancestors in death”. But clarity emerged with Jesus when He said, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am”. But before He said that, we know so clearly His explanation to Nicodemus: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved”. From Sheol to Heaven took the Hebrews on quite a journey. But why should they be surprised? “Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26-27). God is eternal, so is it too much of an extrapolation to think that His original intention was to make man eternal as well?
Luke 16 tells the story of a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus, and He narrated it to a group of Pharisees. Some translations call it a parable, but it is unlike the rest, and some biblical scholars believe the story Jesus told them was more fact than a story made up to make a point. The thrust of the story was that the poor man, Lazarus, “ … died and was carried by the angels to sit beside Abraham at the heavenly banquet. The rich man also died and was buried, and he went to the place of the dead. There, in torment, he saw Abraham in the far distance with Lazarus at his side”. This was consistent with what Jesus said to Nicodemus, “that whoever believes in [Jesus] should not perish but have everlasting life”. There is a clear distinction between eternal life with Jesus and eternal life perishing. So, Jesus blew away any doubts about the afterlife and set the choice of which of the two places available firmly in the hands of mankind.
In the Rich Man and Lazarus story, the Rich Man in hell was able to communicate with Abraham in Heaven. Why Abraham? Because Jesus knew the thoughts of the Pharisees, that they believed their ancestry, grounded right back in Abraham, would lead to their salvation, assuring them a place in Heaven. So back in our verses from Isaiah today we read about the whispers calling out to God from the grave. And the amazing thing is that God heard them, despite their rejection of Him in their lives before the Great Divide. He answered their prayers and as we read on we find that God’s reply was that “your ruthless enemies will be crushed like the finest of dust. Your many attackers will be driven away like chaff before the wind”.
As we pilgrims reflect on the words of Jesus, we have an assurance that our souls will be with Him in Heaven one day. What will our new home be like, we wonder? What will it be like, joining the beggar and Abraham at the Heavenly banquet? We don’t know, of course, but can we feel a rise in our spirits at the thought of what is to come? Or are we unsure, fearful of the place where the Rich Man is in torment, but unsure as to our worthiness for eternal life with Jesus? Through faith in Jesus’ promises, we know where our eternal home will be; one thing is certain: we will not be calling out to God from the dust of the grave, bitterly regretful that we missed the eternal life Jesus promised. There will be many calling out, like the Rich Man, from the place of torment, finding that it is too late to change their minds.
Dear Father God. The grave is a terrible place to be for those who don’t know Jesus. But we know that You want no one to perish there in a place of torment. Please help us to plant Gospel seeds in the hearts of those who don’t know You, so that they will find salvation. Please enlarge our vision so that we can see the people around us through Your eyes. Please grant us words of knowledge so that we can speak out words of faith. And we pray all this for Your sake. Amen.
