"They are ashamed, they are even confounded, His adversaries, all of them; Together they retire in confusion, the fabricators of images. But Israel shall be saved in Jehovah with eternal salvation: You shall not be ashamed, neither shall you be confounded, to the ages of eternity. For thus says Jehovah, Who created the heavens; He is God: Who formed the earth and made it; He has established it: He created it not in vain; for He formed it to be inhabited: I am Jehovah, and none besides: I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth;I have not said to the seed of Jacob, Seek me in vain: I am Jehovah, who speak truth; who give direct answers." (Isaiah 45:16-19,Lowth)
The Fate of Idols and Their Makers
"They shall be ashamed, and also confounded, all of them: they shall go to confusion together that are makers of idols." (Isaiah 45:16)
Long ago we learned (See Chapter 25, "The Sure Foundation") in our study of this prophecy that "he that believes shall not make haste," (Isaiah 28:16) or be confounded, because he builds up the Sure Foundation, the Rock of Ages, Christ Jesus. "We know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no god but one." (1 Corinthians 8:4)
Therefore those who make and trust in idols must necessarily go to confusion. They literally go to nothing, for the idol is nothing, and "They that make them are like unto them; so is everyone that trusts in them." (Psalm 115:8)
He who builds up nothing must come to nothing. Thus we read: "For the day of the Lord is near upon all the heathen: as you have done, it shall be done unto you: your reward shall return unto your own head. For as you have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually, yea, they shall drink, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been." (Obadiah:15-16) "The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens." (Jeremiah 10:11)
Of course then those who trust in them will perish with them. That is to say, whoever trusts in anything less than the power that made and upholds the heavens and the earth, will go out of existence.
No Lack to Those Who Trust God
"But the Lord is the true God, He is the living God, and an everlasting King." (Jeremiah 10:10) "[He is] from everlasting to everlasting." (Psalm 90:2)
Therefore, "Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation;" (Isaiah 45:17) for Israel is the people who depend upon the Lord, and who "have no confidence in the flesh." (Philippians 3:3)
Jacob's name was changed to Israel when he ceased to wrestle, because he was unable to stand, and hung on the Lord for support. That was his strength whereby he prevailed. "And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when He saw that He prevailed not against him, He touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with Him. And He said, Let me go, for the day breaks. And he said, I will not let You go, except You bless me. And He said unto him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. And He said, Your name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince you have power with God and with men, and have prevailed." (Genesis 32:24-28) "He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God: Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto Him: he found Him in Bethel, and there He spoke with us." (Hosea 12:3-4)
It is "in the Lord" that Israel will be saved, not in themselves. "Vain is the help of man." (Psalm 60:11; Psalm 108:12) "Cursed be the man that trusts in man." (Jeremiah 7:5)
Why the Earth Was Created
"For thus says the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; He has established it, He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else." (Isaiah 45:18)
Why was the earth created? The text tells us that God formed it to be inhabited. This statement immediately follows the statement that "He created it not in vain." (Isaiah 45:18)
That is to say, that if the earth were not inhabited, it would have been formed in vain. There would be no reason for its existence if it had no inhabitants.
Note further that the fact that the earth was not formed in vain, but was created to be inhabited, is given as proof that Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation. Israel "shall not be ashamed nor confounded to the ages of eternity," (Isaiah 45:17) because they will have the earth to dwell on. It is to be the home of the saved, even as in the beginning it was formed to be inhabited by a righteous race.
A Present, Timely Message
This is a message for this time, for the message given to Isaiah was to be proclaimed "until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, And the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land." (Isaiah 6:11-12)
Is there any prospect that such a thing will ever take place? There is indeed. God does nothing arbitrarily, and the Lord will not come to "take unto himself His great power, and to reign, and to destroy them which destroy the earth," (Revelation 11:17-18) until the earth and its inhabitants are so near total destruction that they would not last any longer, even if His coming were deferred. It is nothing but the coming of the Lord that saves the earth from destruction, which wicked men have brought upon it by their own self-destroying sins. Let us study this matter a little more closely, and we shall see it plainly.
Sin Brings Ruin
Remember that God has placed himself on trial by the world. The Judgment of the last day will be to determine and demonstrate the righteousness of God's character. He is to "be clear when He judges," (Psalm 51:4) or, to "overcome when He is judged." (Romans 3:4)
The judgment will be that: "God is true, but every man a liar." (Romans 3:4)
Thus every sinner will pronounce judgment upon himself. The wicked are now "treasuring up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." (Romans 2:5)
In the judgment, every sinner will acknowledge that he has brought his fate upon himself, and is simply reaping what he has sown. "He that sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption," (Galatians 6:8) and, "To be carnally minded is death [it has death in it]." (Romans 8:6)
Weigh these texts well. It is made very plain in the Scriptures that the wicked will receive punishment at the hands of God; that they will be "burned up with unquenchable fire." (Matthew 3:12)
But what is here set forth is that the Lord will not administer this punishment until the wicked men and seducers have waxed so bad that if the Lord did not come the race would cease to exist, being self-destroyed. This conclusion necessarily results from the fact that the wicked reap the fruit of their own doings; that: "The turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them." (Proverbs 1:32) "The strong shall become tow, and his work a spark of fire, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them." (Isaiah 1:31)
When the wicked see that the coming of the Lord occurred just as they were about to exterminate themselves, and that He came to save the earth from utter destruction by them, and to make it a place fit for the habitation of those who remain loyal to Him, no tongue can rise up against Him in judgment. The master of the harvest begins His work at the time when the grain would fall of itself if it were not reaped.
The End Approaching
Is there any probability that such a state of things is imminent? There undoubtedly is, although very many people will scoff at the statement.
Look at the rapid increase of disease. In the last few years consumption has increased at a most alarming rate, and is carrying off its victims by the hundred thousand. People of middle age can well remember when a consumptive person was a somewhat noted person in a community, lingering along for years; whereas now consumption is one of the most common diseases, and often carries off its victims almost as quickly as the plague. Indeed, it has earned the name of "the great white plague."
The same plague is upon the cattle upon which men feed, so that the danger is intensified. If the disease should increase in the next few years at the same rate that it has in the past few years, the human being or the cow that did not have consumption would be an exceptional case.
This is only one of the many causes of death; many others might be named. Vice is increasing by leaps and bounds, and becoming more bold, if not more open. By unnatural practices men and women are "receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet." (Romans 1:27)
By wrong habits of eating and drinking, people are undermining their constitutions, and preparing themselves to be a prey to any epidemic that arises. Men and women vie with one another to see who can discover something new to eat. The simple things which God gave to man as his food, which are perfectly adapted to the wants of the body, building it up and making it strong, are but little thought of, while more and more abominable things and worse combinations are swallowed, the effect of which is only to fill the body with poisons, and to produce unsound tissues.
People flatter themselves that none of these things injure them, even while they are continually dosing themselves with patent nostrums, in order that they may keep their diseased organs from crying out under the strain put upon them, and preserve the feeling of health without the reality.
Many who have the appearance and the feeling of health are often cut down almost without any warning, because they have been fitting themselves to be a prey to disease. The plagues that come upon the earth are not any "mysterious dispensation of Providence," but are the natural and inevitable result of the gross habits of the people.
Devastating War
Then there is war with all its evils. The thousands that are slaughtered in battle do not by any means mark the sum of the ravages of war. Poverty, disease, and famine naturally follow in the wake of great armies. And when was there ever such preparation for war as at the present time. True there is great talk of peace, but the weapons of war are in hand all the time. No nation will voluntarily talk of peace until it can dictate the terms.
Immense armaments are being prepared for use, and who can estimate the slaughter that will take place when all the nations really become angry, and all join in the strife? The most optimistic know that the general struggle cannot be much longer delayed, and none dare contemplate the result.
There is nothing more certain than that with all the able-bodied men drawn into the armies, as is fast being the case, and set to killing one another, together with disease eating up the rest, to say nothing of the new ills that are generated by the armies themselves, another hundred years, if the coming of the Lord were delayed so long, would see none left on earth except the few righteous people who keep the truth. This is not speculation, but is exactly what the word of the Lord has foretold. "The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled; for the Lord has spoken this word. The earth mourns and fades away, the world languishes and fades away, the haughty people of the earth do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore has the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left." (Isaiah 24:3-6)
A Brighter Picture
But this is not to be the end, for the Lord created the earth not in vain, but formed it to be inhabited. When He formed it, He also made man and set him over it, and everything that He had made, including man, was "very good." (Genesis 1:31) From this we learn God's purpose in creating the earth. It was to be inhabited. Someone may say, "Well, it is now inhabited."
Not by the people for whom God designed it. He did not make the earth to be inhabited by wicked people, those who are in rebellion against His Government. The object of the creation of the earth will not be met until righteousness dwells in it, and sin and sickness are unknown. That time will come just as surely as God lives and is true.
The increase of evil, wicked men and seducers waxing worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, (2 Timothy 3:13) the preparations for war, and the destruction of men by violence, disease, and vice, do not throw any discredit upon God's word, but are in themselves tokens of its truthfulness, and of the near approach of the time when Christ shall come and "reign in righteousness." (Isaiah 32:1)
The Saving Word of God
"I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek me in vain: I the Lord speak righteousness, I declare things that are right." (Isaiah 45:19)
God has not spoken any word in vain. He is able to save all that put their trust in Him, and His salvation is a perfect salvation. He saves from sin and death, and from every trace of both. He does not deceive. Far more than earthly parents, does He know how to give good gifts, (Matthew 7:11) even the gift of His own Spirit, to those who ask Him. "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?" (Luke 11:13)
The power by which He will keep His people in the time of trouble (Daniel 12:1) that is coming on all the world, (Revelation 3:10) so that no plague shall come nigh their dwelling even though "noisome pestilence ... walks in darkness and destruction wastes at noonday," (Psalm 91:3,6) so that "no evil befalls them, neither does any plague come nigh their dwelling," (Psalm 91:10) is the selfsame power by which He now keeps them from sin. And He speaks plainly, too. The agents of Satan, wizards and familiar spirits, "peep and mutter," (Isaiah 8:19) "[and] whisper out of the dust," (Isaiah 29:4) but God gives direct answers. There is nothing ambiguous in them, as is the case with heathen oracles. The word "is not hidden from you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? ... But the word is very nigh unto you, in your mouth, and in your heart that you may do it." (Deuteronomy 30:11-12,14)
Therefore, "If you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." (Romans 10:9-10)
And, "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." (2 Corinthians 6:2)--Present Truth, January 11, 1900--Isaiah 45:16-19.