Isaiah 57:1-2 KJV
1 The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.
2 He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.

When faith is removed from the earth evil will come. When a righteous man dies no one thinks anything about it beyond they home in glory. The merciful do not consider that righteous/faithful are taken away for evil to come. How many go to a funeral and you know most likely the person was not saved by God's grace, because of his confessing faith was he did not believe in God. Not a judgment just more likely he is not in heaven, nor is he waiting to hop to enter the pearly gates by some default clause. He in fact is stuck waiting in the pit called hell. Yet people are merciful and want to allow their thinking to be it okay, God will not punish him. God will not take his life to the pit of fire. You do not know what his last few minutes of concious might of produced in his soul, he might of repented you do not know. Being merciful is helping the unbeliever to think perhaps I do not know my or anyone's fate after all? No it stating that we can not judge someone based on our evidence but most consider the soul to be something only God sees.

The question is: Is the mercy we demonstrate by saying we do know this man fate may not be heaven helpful. Does an evil man deserve eternal life? No one deserves to go heaven, because of our works. It is truly a gift of God and his grace through faith in Christ Jesus. Yet while on earth we know the righteous(faithful) will spend eternity with God. Does one walk in the uprighteous of what we consider upright by the appearance of another? Scary thought to think one's life style would cause another to believe he was good enough to get into heaven. How many of us fall short of glory of God on a daily bases, most of us doing good even if we are striving to walk by faith and not by what we see others do.

If the righteous are truly dying so evil can come, what state is the world in? At the time of Isaiah the israel in general was perishing not because of lack of God's word being preaching but because of their wickness was in the land. In fact when evil did take them into exile they seen the vileness of society great then themselves and knew the society they had was of God despite their sin. If you have children or nieces and nephews that follow not the ways of God. Maybe a neighbors kid that seems so corrupt in comparison to his church upbringing, it makes you wonder if there is any hope of seeing any of these people saved. If evil in their life is going to produce more evil in the next generation, one has to ask if you are a person of faith, then you will not be here to see more evil coming when you die. To say someone was good when growing up, does not make them good when they become an adult. How many know how to act right and even act with the mask of faith, before one elders. It the dress for Sunday dinner and go to church deal but on Saturday night the party was in full swing and wild living. By three oclock you went to sleep, tell the alarm sound at ten oclock. The you jumped in the shower to wash last night sin off and run to the church before the eleven oclock service, to have a good meal with your elders.

No one thinks about sin the night before causing more corruption, but the guy that just walked in the bar that was going to go home, sees your life style and knew you were in church last Sunday, saying hmm, maybe what going on is not so bad, but in reality it is. That guy that seen you did not even make it to church until evening because he was to drunk to stand up to go. Sinners follow other sinners. To bad people of faith do not produce as much of the same result as the sinner.

God produces the fruit in the believers life, if God left it up to the believer they all be walking into the bar room and not the church. They would not rise to read God's word, or hurry off to work. The production of people of faith maybe more of asking people of do you know God can not help without first having faith in God and then will come the belief in the fulfilment of God's promise that he sent his only begotten Son to die for your sins. Then the unsave person has to turn away from the sins upon asking forgiveness to God and admitting sin, realizing Christ died for one's sin.. Then God will fill you with His Spirit and you will learn to walk in faith in him because he going to teach you his way, and the by those tending to his sheep with sheep clothing. He going to take you by the hand and say learn to trust me. Learn to take me at my word. Learn to listen to my word. God's is going to lead you on in faith. Not your sister or your brother, the minister behind the pulpit. Faith is individual and he going to meet the individual need that going to produce faith in your life, if you will trust him.

Our actions are not always godly especially in front of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Sometimes we just not acting like a Christian today though we covered in the blood of Christ. Then there is the one not saved by God's grace that will appear to give his shirt off his back to any neighbor or person needing help, but wears a mask of betrayal of harm later on, the wolf in sheep clothing, dying to a sinners hell.

That why we judge not the soul of living or the dead, for we know not who is saved beyond the Spirit testifying that one is God's child to one's very soul. Yet to judge sin is different. To say any drug of choice is harmful to the body is it sin, is to ask would you put poison in your tea and drink it every morning. Of course not, then why put anything in one's body that bad for it. I tell you why because sin nature seems to be stronger then the will of trusting the one above to help with desire of the very thing we put in our bodies that will kill us. If I eat a load of cookies and I am not a diabetic yet, I will either become the diabetic or become over weight because of the cookies unless my metabolizism is such to handle the extra cookies. If my desire for the wrong things is obession and that causing me physical harm, then it is sin to my well being. Yet I maybe the strongest person of faith living, I have sin in my body that is harmful, but until I see that sin as sin, then it not sin? No, sin is still sin. Yet what saved us but faith in Jesus who covers our sin before God, even sin we recognize not has sin or something we do not see as harmful to us or others. We desire to be righteous and to be judge by our actions, no one does, that is the point. God said even evil people know how to treat people good, so it is sololy about faith and faith is something that starts with a mustard seed and grows into a tree in due season. There time of dormancy, there time of unbelief, and their even time of desiring to believe and struggling because of our humanity or uncertainity if God will do it in our life time or because his will seems like it going in the different direction then our own will.

To be in God's will so perfectly that even when we struggle, we understand his will is best for oneself. The righteous perish not, they have a home in glory land. Their death of righteous makes way for more evil to arise. For sinners needing saving and need for more revival to come as new life is born into our world. Let God judge the sinner, whether he be saved by his grace through faith in His Son. Let God judge who is righteous for he see the very soul. He sees if our heart is true to him. Let the believer be remined to stay faithful to his word and to the faith in Christ and God.

Dear Heavenly Father, help the people of faith to leave the world behind better then when they were born into the world. Let evil arise no more but may it be crushed with each revival, and with each person who is a sinner saved by God's grace who desire for good and not evil. In Jesus precious name, Amen.

Continual Scripture Study: 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 KJV
1 Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.
2 Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.
3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self.
4 For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord.
5 Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.