Today while listening to a speech by Tom Woods, he mentioned how Ron Paul believed in speaking to “the remnant,” which was a reference to the words of the prophet Isaiah (the apostle Paul spoke of it too.) Woods referred to an essay by a man named Albert J. Nock, entitled “Isaiah’s Job” which Ron Paul apparently mentioned. I found it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMqAHv5kO-Q
It really spoke to me as something very pertinent for our day. So I recommend it to you. But in case you don’t want to listen to the whole thing, I’ve typed up my paraphrase of the part that most got my attention here below. I think if you read it, you’ll see the point it made to me…
Uzziah had a long and prosperous reign, but it suddenly ended, and Judah’s doom was fast drawing nigh. God spoke to Isaiah and gave him a commission to speak to God’s people as this danger was approaching, and warn them of the coming wrath of God. Nock put the words God spoke to Isaiah into modern vernacular like this:
God said to Isaiah, “Tell them what a worthless lot they are,” He said. “Tell them what’s wrong and why and what’s going to happen unless they have a change of heart and straighten up. Don’t mince matters. Make it clear that they’re positively down to their last chance. Give it to them good and strong and keep on giving it to them. I suppose perhaps I ought to tell you, (God added), that it won’t do any good. The official class and their intelligentsia will turn up their noses at you and the masses will not even listen. They will all keep on in their own ways until they carry everything down to destruction. And you will probably be lucky if you get out with your life.”
Nock said Isaiah had probably been willing and maybe even asked for the job in the beginning. But the prospect of rejection and indifference put a new face on the situation. If this was how things were to be, he probably asked, then what was the use of it all? If nobody was even going to listen, why bother? Why go through all the trouble of it? If the enterprise was to be a failure from the start, was there any use in even starting it?
“Ah,” the Lord said, “You do not get the point. There’s a remnant there you know nothing about. They’re obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as best he can. They need to be encouraged and braced up, because when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back, and build up a new society, and meanwhile, your preaching will reassure them, and keep them hanging on. Your job is to take care of the remnant, so be off now, and set about it.”
That spoke to me, because our current society is just like society in Isaiah’s times. Our “official class” and our intelligentsia turn up their noses at those of us with biblical values, who see how wrong their ideas are and what a bad direction they’re leading us in. In my opinion, half the country is completely nuts! Common sense is no longer that common by any stretch of the imagination! The masses are moving confidently ahead straight to destruction, in spite of everything we might try to tell them.
Those of us who know God and know His Word, we’re thought of as backward, regressive, ignorant, clinging to our guns and our religion. We’re just not with the program! I think sometimes it’s pretty discouraging, when we see that so many won’t even consider the truth of God or even practical things like, hey, socialism has failed everywhere! Hey, our national debt is going sky-high and can’t be sustained! Hey, we can’t survive with open borders! Hey, if the politicians keep offering everything for free to everybody, we’ll all go down the tubes together! Nobody seems to listen or care. They all thing things will just always continue as they’ve been for years, and there will be no consequences to our foolishness. Some of us try to tell them, but they laugh, spit in our faces, mock us, tell us to shut up, because we’re haters, bigots, racists, homo and Islamo-phobes, or whatever.
This little piece by Nock reminds me to just keep preaching the truth, because there is a remnant that hears it, and they need to be strengthened and encouraged. They need to be reminded that no one who does the will of God will be forgotten by Him. No one who does the will of God can ultimately lose for doing so. We might seem to lose in this world and this life. We might be a minority. We might be mocked and even persecuted. But we’re not to fear those who can kill the body. We’re to fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell! Ultimately, one person with God is a majority. Ultimately, if we’re with Him, we’re on the winning side!