Isaiah 57

CHAPTER 57THEME: Contrast between the righteous and wicked; comfort for the righteous; condemnation of the wickedNow I grant you that today the wicked have it easythey are the ones in comfort. They are the ones with the money, and they seem to be on top. But when we get to the end of the age, it will be comfort for the righteous and condemnation for the wicked. This chapter marks the end of the second section of the final division of Isaiah, which I have labeled, “The salvation of Jehovah which comes through the suffering Servant.” Those who come in humility and accept it are made righteous. Those who reject it proceed on their wicked way to judgment. This chapter brings us to the crossroads where the way that leads to life goes one way and the broad way to destruction goes another way. The destination and division are right here.

Isaiah 57:1

CONTRAST BETWEEN THE RIGHTEOUS AND WICKED"The righteous perisheth." Many of God’s wonderful saints are being taken away today through the doorway of death. God is removing them from a lot of trouble that is going to come in the future. When I started my ministry, I worried about myself. Then I had a child and I worried about her. Now I have two grandsons, and I worry about them. I no longer worry about myself or my daughter, but I do worry about those two little fellows because their lot in the future is going to be rough.

Isaiah 57:2

“He shall enter into peace"he shall have peace in his heart. “They shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.” If death comes to him while he is in bed, he will be removed from the Great Tribulation and will be taken into the presence of Christ. They will have peace regardless of what may come to them.

Isaiah 57:3

Now God addresses the wicked. Even their ancestry is badnote the label given their mothers!

Isaiah 57:4

They have been the persecutors of the righteous. Up to this point God has not intervened. Look around you today. Attacks are being made upon the righteous. They are not having an easy time. The attacks are coming hard and fierce, and the wicked seem to get by with it.

Isaiah 57:5

The wicked in the last days are the idolaters who have turned their backs on God. They are guilty of gross immorality and murder. Adultery and murder are two of the terrible sins of our day alsocoupled with covetousness, which is idolatry. This is the condition of the wicked at the present time.

Isaiah 57:6

They will even worship the smooth stones in the brook that once slew a giant. They worship everything except the living and true God.

Isaiah 57:7

Now idolatry, associated with the groves on the mountaintops, gives place to scenes of the vilest immorality. It is a picture of the last days.

Isaiah 57:8

In the past, sin was committed in secret, but at the present time sin has become brazen and flaunts itself. Somebody asked me, “Don’t you think there was as much immorality in the past as there is now?” I agreed that there may have been as much, but it was kept secret. Men were ashamed of their sin, but today they are not. The other day I listened to a pretty little girl on television talk about the man she lives with who is not her husband. She was commended by others on the program for not being a hypocrite. She may not be a hypocrite, but she is a sinner in God’s sight.

What would not even have been whispered about a few years ago is done in the open today. Sin has become a way of life. There are no longer high standards. The wheat and the tares are growing together exactly as the Lord said they would. We see the contrast between the righteous and the wicked all through this section.

Isaiah 57:15

COMFORT FOR THE RIGHTEOUSIn the second division Isaiah speaks of comfort for the righteous. God in the last days comforts His own because of who He is"the high and lofty One.” He is the God of eternity. How feeble man is with his threescore years and ten down here. Man doesn’t last very long on earth. The eternal God promises to take those who do not trust in themselves, but trust in Him, and He covers them as a mother hen covers her brood. What peace and security there is for those who belong to God! This verse looks beyond our day to the time of the Great Tribulation; we are coming here to the end of the age.

Isaiah 57:16

He is the eternal God, but He will not always be angry with sin, because sin is to be removed.

Isaiah 57:17

God explains why He punishes the wicked. The wicked are covetous, and they go on in rebellion against God. I am sure that any intelligent person knows that a holy God will one day stop rebellion. God will have to punish those with rebellious and proud hearts.

Isaiah 57:18

For those who will forsake the wickedness of their ways, He will heal and save them. He is a gracious God toward the righteous.

Isaiah 57:19

God alone can speak peace to the heart of the sinner.

Isaiah 57:20

CONDEMNATION OF THE WICKEDEach one of these last three divisions can be marked off at the place where God says, as He did in Isa_48:22, “There is no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked.” I think this is something that is quite evident. Man’s history is one of warfare and constant conflict. It is not only true among nations, but also between individualsalthough they call it competition. You will find it in the business world, the social world, and in the religious world. You will find conflict in practically every town, every hamlet, and in many homes in our country. God says that there is no peace for the wicked. You cannot make peace in the human heart apart from God. So far no one has been able to do it. This is probably one of the most picturesque descriptions of the wicked in Scripture. Like the troubled and restless sea, the wicked person can find no rest or peace in his wicked ways. He continues on like a hunted criminal looking for deliverance and safety. Several years ago an eighty-year-old man walked into the police station in Jackson, Mississippi, and said, “For fifty years I have been carrying a murder on my conscience. Another man has already paid the penalty for it, but I’m the one who is guilty. I have to make the confession of it.” They found that, according to law, when another man had already paid the penalty, they couldn’t execute the actual criminal or even hold him because another man had served the sentence. Probably the worst punishment this man had was fifty years of misery with a guilty conscience. He had had no peace of heart and mind at all.

Isaiah 57:21

If the world can have peace today without God, then it is a contradiction of the Word of God. You cannot contradict God’s Word. The wicked cannot have peace in the world, and they don’t have it today. God says that the wicked will have no peace. That is an axiom of God, and it is like the law of gravityit works.