AP

Isaiah 48:22   “There is no peace,” says the LORD, “for the wicked.”

The KJV has brought this verse into our language, or at least it had during my younger days, as the saying, “There is no rest for the wicked”, a comment we might make light-heartedly to a friend who was weighed down with work responsibilities!

But it strikes a much more serious note than that.. The Hebrew word behind ‘peace/rest’ is ‘Shalom’, describing the state of bliss and calm we experience when we are in a right relationship with our loving Creator God and ‘all is well’.  It is the word Jewish people worldwide use today to wish a divine blessing when meeting or departing from a friend – a bit like our ‘God-be-with-you’, or in its more common, abbreviated form, ‘Goodbye’.

The Hebrew word translated ‘wicked’ is the one used in Psalm 1 to  distinguish the person who “will not rise in the Judgement’’ and whose “way … leads to destruction” – distinguishing this person from the one who is “blessed … because he does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the Law of the LORD, and who meditates on his law day and night” and who “is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither – whatever he does prospers” and whose way “the LORD watches over”.

When we look at all this Old Testament wisdom through the lens of the New Testament, we see that the difference between these two sharply contrasting ways of life or worldviews is based on what we do with the Lord Jesus Christ!  We can either stand before him on the Day of Judgement still naked in our innate wickedness (Romans 3:23), or we can be clothed in HIS righteousness (Philippians 3:9), and by so doing, be rejoicing in his SHALOM

“Jesus Jesus is standing in Pilate’s hall – friendless, forsaken, betrayed by all:  Hearken! what meaneth the sudden call?  “What will you do with Jesus?”  What will you do with Jesus?  Neutral you cannot be;  Some day your heart will be asking,  “What will he do with me?” (Albert Benjamin Simpson)

– Bruce Christian