Chapter 18

_The Fruit of His Labor._

Blessed is the man whose toil and striving of a lifetime bring results, even though he, himself, does not live to see them!

Thrice blessed is the man, the fruit of whose labor is garnered while he is among the living, to see and enjoy it!

The prophet Isaiah was a thrice-blessed man. Although no one knows where or how he died, every one knows where and how he lived, and how his life was fruitful in blessings for his people.

He saw kings come and go on the throne of Judah. He passed through many crises in the history of his country. He experienced many woes because of his patriotic devotion to the welfare of his land and people.

But through it all he remained, uncomplainingly, staunch in his faith and true to his God. He believed, implicitly, in the justness of God and, therefore, in His demand of righteousness as the standard of living for the people. Isaiah's own strength, in time of trial and tribulation, came from his trust in God; and that same trust he urged upon Jerusalem and Judah in his day and, through his discourses, upon all men, for all time.

Thus it was given Isaiah to see the fruit of his labor in the peace and prosperity of Judah during the remainder of his life which he, undoubtedly, spent in peace with his family in his home in Jerusalem.

It is no wonder that he conceived the ideal of a time of universal peace, in which God shall be the God of all the nations, an era in which all peoples shall come to Him, and believe in Him, and follow in His law, and live such just and righteous lives that there would be an end to war in all the earth:

"It shall come to pass, in the end of days, That the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established at the top of the mountains, And it shall be exalted above the hills; And peoples shall flow unto it. And many nations shall go and say, 'Come ye, and let us go up to the mountains of the Lord, And to the house of the God of Jacob; And he will teach us of His ways, And we will walk in His paths.' For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, And He shall judge between the nations, And arbitrate for many peoples; And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war any more."

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