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by Stan Smith
I came across this interesting text in Isaiah.
My soul yearns for You in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks You. For when Your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly and does not see the majesty of the LORD. (Isaiah 26:9-10)
I don't think this line of thinking comes naturally to us, at least not in our day. I think that it is more natural to think that God only does "nice" things and, in fact, that all "good people" only do "nice" things. The unpleasant is never good. It would appear that this text disagrees.
Isaiah points to one thought in two directions. First, there is the claim that God's judgment teaches people righteousness. We'd like to think that God doesn't really do that "judgment" thing anymore and, besides, as any child development specialist can tell you, inflicting pain is never a good way to teach a good thing. But the claim is that the pain God inflicts does, in fact, teach us about what is right. The second claim is that evil human beings do not learn righteousness simply by God showing grace to them. Now, again, we know these days that this isn't right. "You teach righteousness by positive measures only. You encourage it in them. You show them examples of it. You show them kindness. And that, surely will produce good behavior." And, from the text, we'd surely be wrong.
The Bible claims to be "God-breathed". As such, the Bible should often be counterintuitive. That is, if God is behind it, it must often vary from what sinful Man thinks. Our mistake, then, would be to insist that God is wrong and we are right when we encounter these kinds of things. Our mistake would be to insist that God's words in Scripture are "on the wrong side of history", "against known science", or the like rather than to let God be true though every man is a liar (Romans 3:4). Instead, we must evaluate our thinking against His stated truth and align our worldview to the Creator's. If He says that He doesn't always do "nice" things (e.g., Hebrews 12:5-11; Isaiah 45:5-7; etc.), we should 1) take Him at His word and 2) consider those "not nice" things as good, coming from a good God. We shouldn't attempt to conform His Word to our world. We should aim to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2).
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I'm married with four grown children and (currently) four grandchildren. My wife and I live in sunny Phoenix by choice. I hope to encourage people with my words and to share with others what God has shared with me.
For more writings you can see my blog at birdsoftheair.blogspot.com.
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