Why do the good die young?
You’ve heard the question posed in different ways at different times concerning different people in different circumstances. The words may vary slightly, but the core query is the same.
Isaiah answers the question this way:
“The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.” (57:1-2)
At some level the righteous die as a merciful act of a gracious God seeking to minimize their interface with evil as it manifests itself on this earth, in this life and in our sinful flesh. God, at a predetermined time and place and in a specific set of circumstances which He deems wise and appropriate, calls His people home. He does so that they might “be spared from evil,” “enter into peace” and “find rest.”
Why then? Why were they left to experience _______? Why not earlier? Why not a little longer? Why? Why? and WHY?
I don’t know (Deut. 29:29).
But what I do know is that at the end of the chapter the prophet adds a balancing perspective concerning the wicked.
In this life: “the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud.” (v.20).
And he adds: “‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked.’” (v.21)
No peace. Not in this life. Not from this life. Not in the next. Not ever.
We serve a mysterious, merciful God. One who sent His own Son into this evil word, designating him as Savior. He did so that “through him [He might] reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1:20)
Run in repentance and faith to Jesus. By His grace find peace with God. By His grace live well to his glory. As His child know that “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.” (Psalm 116:15)