The Real Meaning of Life

These three chapters have been grouped and titled “Isaiah’s Songs of Praise. Once again, they are very poetic which causes me difficulties in understanding. I always pray that the Lord impresses on me the lesson He wants me to learn from this reading, and today He only pointed out a couple of things. I don’t know whether to think the rest of the scriptures wasn’t noteworthy or whether my mind is just too closed today. But one of the things that impressed me, changed a die-hard belief that I had, and now I think of it differently.

Of course, we should exalt and praise God as Isaiah says here. But we should exalt and praise Him out of a love for Him, and not out of fear. Sometimes I get too carried away and compare God to King Nebuchadnezzar and that we are forced to bow down to Him. I don’t think God is that way. As our Heavenly Father, He should be treated much the same as we do our earthly parents. We should love Him, we should be deeply respectful of Him, and yes, we should serve Him, not in the same capacity as a slave would serve their master, but in the manner in which we serve Him by obeying His commands and living the life He wants us to live. Your parents always want you to be safe, happy, and healthy, and God only wants the same thing.

But once again, we shouldn’t be afraid of God, and I hate when scripture uses that word “fear”, I would much rather they had used the word “awe”.

The thing that popped out at me today was the passage in Chapter 26, Verse 19. Scripture says that when Christ returns, the righteous dead will rise from their sleep and return to Heaven with Him. Then when the New Jerusalem descends, the wicked dead will be resurrected from the grave and will face their consequences…i.e. Judgment Day. Of course, I have always contended that God does not punish them, but that their own actions have made unable to withstand God’s Glory.

But after reading Verse 19, I’ve had some new thoughts.”Your dead will live; their bodies will rise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust! For your dew is like the dew of the morning, and the earth will bring forth her dead.”

Obviously Isaiah is talking about the righteous dead, indicated by the words “Your dead”. But the last words is what got my attention.

If God resurrects the wicked on Judgment Day just so they can perish, does that resonate with the perfect character of God? Much the same as sending fire down to consumed someone, I just don’t think God would do something like that; just or not.

But what is the possibility that as God cleanses the earth and frees it from sin, the earth itself expels the wicked dead? Just as we bathe to wash the dirt away and become clean again, what is the possibility that the earth cleanses itself by “bringing forth her dead?”

We know Jesus will resurrect the righteous from their graves, the earth won’t do it, Jesus will. The earth didn’t bring forth Lazarus, Jesus did. So is this one sentence referring to the earth bringing for the unrighteous, like belching up something nasty that we ate?

I’ll have to think more about it. Knowing that God’s character is full of love, I can’t wrap my mind around the possibility that He would resurrect the wicked just so they could perish from His Glory.

Let me know what you think!