For Strangers and Sojourners by Michael Wood

Author:Michael Wood [Wood, Fr Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kellbride Press

9

Those Who Are Lost

In the Book of Esdras (II Esdras 9:19-22)(Ezra 4) at one point, after Esdras has queried God about what happens to all the people who fail to follow God, he is answered: “but now the manners of them which are created in this world that is made, are corrupted by a perpetual seed, and, by (means of) a law which is unsearchable rid themselves. So I considered the world, and behold, there was peril because of the devices that were come into it. And I saw, and spared it greatly, and have kept me a grape from the cluster, and a plant of a great people. Let the multitude perish then, which was born in vain; and let my grape be kept, and my plant; for with great labour have I made it perfect.”

Then Esdras begins to understand - it is not that God is angry, but that the crop (of so many people) has simply been planted in vain - it has not grown as it should have grown and is therefore useless.

God is talking about saving the People of God. They are not perfect, but they have not despised His Word, they have tried to keep His Ways and have not been overcome in the battle to do so. They are that part of the crop that God will save for Himself.

This is a very important point for us. While God has an image of the perfect version of every person born, many will never even aspire to that image, they will not want to know about God, they will despise the idea of God, He will be given no place in their thinking, they may even mock those who do believe. They are the wasted, lost people. Those who hear of God and come to know of God, and strive to follow His teachings in all things, though they may not achieve perfection, are nonetheless accounted as the People of God and it is they whom He saves with mercy for their offences.

For the rest – we have no real knowledge of their fate, it may differ between those who know and then deliberately reject and work against God and those who either know nothing of God or are unable to comprehend Him or are indifferent.

The word “perish” may well mean that they do not inherit eternal life and go to oblivion, it is difficult to tell.

Fro our point of view, those of us actively seeking out God, repenting and trying to follow His Way, it is His mercy that will allow us to be saved.

What is nice about reading Esdras is that he has a real conversation with God, records it and he asks the kind of questions we would ask. There are a few more I would like him to have asked, but he satisfies some of our questions.

The lost people – those whom God refers to as a wasted crop, are worrying in a sense. While we may not judge because

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