“The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil.”
Isaiah 57:1 (NIV)
Micah is in misery in chapter 7 because the faithful have been swept from the land - it is worth the time reflecting on whether Micah speaks on God's behalf here- could God be in misery? is being grieved the same as being in misery? - or is the prophet speaking of his own heart as he sees the faithful dying off?
It can be a terrible thing when the one who is faithful to God is removed from a family. We have all seen it - the family might all come to church and no one seems more spiritual than the other, but after a death the family drifts away and you realize that the one who died was the faithful one.
It happens in a community as well, there is one who is shining like a light, and who is the salt of the earth, God sweeps them out of a community through death and the community flounders.
What we see in Micah 7 is the regular way God deals with a community, for He removed Lot and his family from Sodom, He removed Noah and his family from the flood, and He removed Joseph and his family from the famine in Canaan, while Jeremiah 24 tells us that the exile to Babylon was God’s way of protecting the “good figs” while destroying the idolatrous community. It sure seems that Matthew 24, I Thessalonians 5 and Revelation 11 speak of God removing the righteous at the end of this age, before dealing with the final judgment of all the wicked and the renewing of the heavens and the earth.
Although we can acknowledge a general sense of how God operates in judgment, we still experience misery over the faithful being swept away. Part of that misery is the scorn we feel from the world around us typified by the popular song by Billy Joel called “The good die young”, as he tempts a young Catholic girl into sin by pointing out that sinners have more fun.
The first verse of Isaiah 57 is so helpful for those of us who find ourselves in this type of misery, for it raises a point which is never raised by those in the world. The righteous are taken away for their good, to spare them from evil. We focus on our loss and on our community’s loss- God asks us to focus on their gain, and on the truth that when the righteous start to disappear you can be sure that the evil days of judgment are coming, for He will spare the righteous the punishment of the wicked.
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