The Futility of Your Collection: God's Refuge and the Religion of Rebels Text: Isaiah 57:1-13
Introduction: The World's Faulty Ledger
We live in a world that keeps its books with cooked numbers. Our culture is an expert at faulty accounting. When a godly saint, a quiet man who loved his wife, raised his children in the fear of the Lord, and was faithful in his place, dies, the world does not notice. His passing is a rounding error in the world's grand calculations. But when a profane celebrity, a revolutionary politician, or a blasphemous artist dies, the flags are flown at half-mast, and the eulogies flow like a river of cheap sentiment. The world weeps for its own, and it does so because it has no category for true righteousness or for the merciful providence of God.
The world sees the death of a righteous man as a loss, a tragedy, a waste. But God, who sees the end from the beginning, often sees it as a rescue mission. He sees the storm of judgment on the horizon, and He is bringing His children into the harbor before the hurricane makes landfall. This is a profound mercy that a rebellious world cannot comprehend. It cannot understand because it refuses to acknowledge the coming evil from which the righteous are being saved.
Isaiah 57 is a chapter of stark contrasts. It is a tale of two destinies, two religions, and two beds. On the one hand, we have the peaceful rest of the righteous, gathered into safety by a loving God. On the other, we have the frantic, adulterous, and blood-stained religion of rebels, who exhaust themselves in their idolatry, seeking life in the very places of death. This is not just a historical record of ancient Israel's failures. This is a spiritual diagnosis of the unregenerate human heart in every age, including our own. It is a divine exposé of all man-made religion, which is always a mixture of sexual deviancy, political desperation, and child sacrifice. And over against this frantic futility stands the simple, glorious promise of refuge in God alone.
The Text
The righteous man perishes, and no man puts it upon his heart; And men of lovingkindness are gathered away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is gathered away from evil, He enters into peace; They rest in their beds, Each one who walked in his upright way. “But draw near, you sons of a soothsayer, Seed of an adulterer and a prostitute. Against whom do you jest? Against whom do you open wide your mouth And stick out your tongue? Are you not children of transgression, Seed of lying, Who inflame yourselves among the oaks, Under every green tree, Who slaughter the children in the ravines, Under the clefts of the cliffs? Among the smooth stones of the ravine Is your portion, they are your lot; Even to them you have poured out a drink offering; You have made a grain offering. Shall I relent concerning these things? Upon a mountain lofty and lifted up You have made your bed. You also went up there to offer sacrifice. Behind the door and the doorpost You have set up your memorial; Indeed, far removed from Me, you have uncovered yourself, And have gone up and made your bed wide, And you have cut a covenant for yourself with them; You have loved their bed; You have looked on their manhood. You have journeyed to the king with oil And increased your perfumes; You have sent your envoys a great distance And made them go down to Sheol. You were tired out by the length of your road, Yet you did not say, ‘It is hopeless.’ You found renewed strength; Therefore you did not faint. “Of whom were you anxious and fearful When you lied and did not remember Me, Nor even put Me upon your heart? Was I not silent even for a long time So you do not fear Me? I will declare your righteousness and your deeds, But they will not profit you. When you cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you. But the wind will lift all of them up, And a breath will take them away. But he who takes refuge in Me will inherit the land And will possess My holy mountain.”
(Isaiah 57:1-13 LSB)
A Merciful Subtraction (vv. 1-2)
The prophet begins with what appears to be a lament, but is in fact a statement of profound comfort for the saints.
"The righteous man perishes, and no man puts it upon his heart; And men of lovingkindness are gathered away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is gathered away from evil, He enters into peace; They rest in their beds, Each one who walked in his upright way." (Isaiah 57:1-2)
From the world's perspective, the righteous man "perishes." It looks like a dead end. And the world, in its self-absorption, doesn't even notice. "No man puts it upon his heart." The world is too busy with its own frantic projects to consider the meaning of a quiet, godly death. They don't understand that this is not an accident; it is a divine "gathering."
The reason is given plainly: "For the righteous man is gathered away from evil." God is a good Father who sees the trouble coming and calls His children home for supper before the streets get dangerous. Their death is not a defeat; it is an evacuation from a coming disaster zone. This was true for the saints in Judah before the Babylonian invasion, and it is true for the saints today before the final judgment.
And what is their destination? "He enters into peace." The world is a place of turmoil, striving, and warfare. Death for the believer is a cessation of hostilities. "They rest in their beds." This is the biblical view of the death of a saint. It is sleep. It is rest. It is peace. This is promised to "each one who walked in his upright way." This is not talking about sinless perfection, but rather the trajectory of a life, the settled direction of a man who walks by faith. For such a man, death is a doorway into peace.
The Genealogy of Mockers (vv. 3-5)
After describing the peaceful end of the righteous, God summons the wicked to the docket. He begins by identifying their spiritual ancestry.
“But draw near, you sons of a soothsayer, Seed of an adulterer and a prostitute. Against whom do you jest? Against whom do you open wide your mouth And stick out your tongue? Are you not children of transgression, Seed of lying..." (Isaiah 57:3-4)
God is not concerned with their Israelite bloodline. He is identifying their true spiritual father. They are sons of a sorceress, seed of an adulterer. This is covenantal language. Israel was to be the bride of Yahweh, but she has played the harlot. Their father is the great liar and spiritual adulterer, the devil himself. Jesus says the same thing to the Pharisees: "You are of your father the devil" (John 8:44).
And what is the characteristic behavior of these children? It is mockery. They jest, they open their mouths wide, they stick out their tongues. At whom? At God and at His righteous ones. This is the sneer of the sophisticated pagan, the cynical atheist, the rebellious teenager, all rolled into one. They mock what they refuse to understand. They are a "seed of lying," propagating the original lie from the garden: "You will be like God."
And this mockery is tied to a debased religion. "Who inflame yourselves among the oaks, Under every green tree, Who slaughter the children in the ravines, Under the clefts of the cliffs?" (v. 5). Their worship is a sexualized frenzy, a pagan nature-religion. But it is not harmless. The end of all false religion, when it is followed to its logical conclusion, is blood. Specifically, the blood of children. The worship of Molech and the worship of convenience are cousins. Our modern world, with its industrial-scale abortion, is just as guilty of slaughtering children in the ravines as ancient Israel was. We have simply exchanged the clefts of the cliffs for the sterile clinics, but the god being served is the same: the god of self.
The Eroticism of Idolatry (vv. 6-8)
The prophet continues to unpack the nature of their idolatry using the metaphor of spiritual adultery. It is graphic, and it is meant to be.
"Among the smooth stones of the ravine Is your portion... Upon a mountain lofty and lifted up You have made your bed... Behind the door and the doorpost You have set up your memorial; Indeed, far removed from Me, you have uncovered yourself, And have gone up and made your bed wide..." (Isaiah 57:6-8)
Their "portion," their inheritance, should have been the Lord Himself. Instead, they chose the smooth stones of the wadi, the lifeless idols to whom they pour out offerings. God asks the searing rhetorical question: "Shall I relent concerning these things?" The answer is a thunderous no.
The imagery then becomes explicitly sexual. They have made their bed on a high mountain, a place of public, defiant, high-handed sin. This is not a secret affair; this is Pride Parade idolatry. But it is also private. "Behind the door and the doorpost," where the Shema was supposed to be written, they have set up their idolatrous "memorial."
They have left God, their true husband. "Far removed from Me, you have uncovered yourself." They have made a covenant, a marriage contract, with these false gods. "You have loved their bed; You have looked on their manhood." They have lusted after the perceived power and virility of their idols, forgetting the omnipotent God who made them. All idolatry is spiritual adultery. It is trading the faithful, loving Creator for a cheap, lifeless, and degrading substitute.
The Politics of Unbelief (vv. 9-10)
This spiritual adultery naturally leads to political folly. When you abandon God, you have to find another savior somewhere.
"You have journeyed to the king with oil And increased your perfumes; You have sent your envoys a great distance And made them go down to Sheol. You were tired out by the length of your road, Yet you did not say, ‘It is hopeless.’ You found renewed strength; Therefore you did not faint." (Isaiah 57:9-10)
Instead of trusting in Yahweh, the King of kings, they go running to "the king," a pagan monarch in Assyria or Egypt. They try to buy his favor with oil and perfumes, the very things that should have been used in the worship of God. They send their diplomats on long, desperate journeys, which the prophet says is a road that leads down to Sheol, to the grave.
And notice the sheer tenacity of the idolater. The work of sin is exhausting. "You were tired out by the length of your road." Any sane person would stop and say, "This is not working. This is hopeless." But the sinner, fueled by pride and a hatred of God, finds a second wind. He finds "renewed strength" to continue on his path to destruction. This is a terrifying picture of the hardness of the human heart. It will exhaust itself in every futile endeavor rather than humble itself and turn to God.
God's Final Word (vv. 11-13)
Finally, God Himself intervenes and confronts them directly. He asks the central question of the entire passage.
“Of whom were you anxious and fearful When you lied and did not remember Me... Was I not silent even for a long time So you do not fear Me? I will declare your righteousness and your deeds, But they will not profit you." (Isaiah 57:11-12)
This is the root of all sin: the fear of man. They were afraid of the Assyrian army, so they lied, made treacherous alliances, and forgot the God who had delivered them from Egypt. They mistook God's patient silence for indifference or impotence. But that silence is coming to an end. God promises to "declare" their so-called righteousness, to expose it for the sham that it is. And on that day of reckoning, all their efforts "will not profit."
The final verdict on idolatry is devastating in its simplicity. "When you cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you. But the wind will lift all of them up, And a breath will take them away" (v. 13). All the things you have collected, all the things you have trusted in, your political saviors, your wealth, your reputation, your philosophies, will be utterly useless in the day of trouble. They are lighter than air, and the breath of God's judgment will blow them away like chaff.
The Only Refuge
The chapter could end there, in total despair. But God, who is rich in mercy, always leaves the door of grace open. The final sentence is the gospel in miniature.
"But he who takes refuge in Me will inherit the land And will possess My holy mountain."
This is the great contrast. You can have your collection of idols, which will be blown away by the wind, or you can have refuge in God, which leads to a solid, eternal inheritance. To take refuge in God is to cease from your own works. It is to stop journeying to foreign kings. It is to get out of the adulterous bed of idolatry. It is to stop trusting in your own righteousness.
To take refuge in God is to run to Jesus Christ. He is the ultimate righteous one who was "gathered away from evil" on the cross, so that we could enter into His peace. He is the one who confronted the sons of the soothsayer and was mocked by them. He is the one who went down to Sheol on our behalf and returned, having conquered it. His righteousness, and not our own, is the only one that will not be blown away in the judgment.
The choice before us is the same choice that was before ancient Israel. You can have the smooth stones in the ravine, or you can have the holy mountain of God. You can have your frantic, exhausting collection of idols, or you can have rest and refuge in the Son. There is no third option. Let your collection go. The wind is rising.