It takes a great deal of courage to correct the leaders of any nation. Imagine being a senior civil servant in Damascus and having to tell President Bashar al-Assad that he is wrong, is taking refuge in lies, and will not survive....
Back in BC 710, in Jerusalem, Isaiah did have that kind of courage. See bold above. The political situation was as simple as it was dire. Jerusalem was the capital city of a small state – Judah. To the north there was a global Empire – Assyria with Sargon II as cruel Emperor. The politico-religious leaders in Jerusalem were persuaded that an alliance with Assyria was not merely the best – it had to be THE pragmatic solution.
Having entered into that treaty with Assyria around BC 710 the godly religio-political leaders were delighted to be able to tell their people: “when the overwhelming whip [Assyria] passes through it will not come to us…” |
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Isaiah knew differently. For him, this is what the Jerusalem leaders should, in truth, be saying: “We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol [where dead people go] we have an agreement, when the overwhelming whip [Assyria] passes through it will not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter…”
But the LORD God also had a positive message for them through his servant Isaiah. “Look and see, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion [another name for Jerusalem], a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: ‘Whoever believes will not be made to rush to and fro.’” If only you will trust me, the LORD God is saying, I have laid a foundation stone in Jerusalem and whoever trusts in that sure foundation will have peace and will not have to rush to and fro to secure it. As for the unjust, cruel and duplicitous Assyrian Empire the LORD said: “I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plumb line; and hail will sweep away that refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm that shelter.”
At its deepest level, what had gone wrong with these original people of God – Israel – around BC 710? Is it that they no longer believed in the living God? Is it that their faith had become “religion”? No LIVING God?
During Jesus’ last few days in Jerusalem (AD 33) before his crucifixion, he used the words of the LORD God recorded by Isaiah over 700 years earlier. The religio-political leaders were about to kill him. Jesus [then] said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “ ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”
In AD 30-33 it was the Jerusalem religious leaders who again did not believe in the LIVING God. They refused – beyond reasonable doubt – to believe that Jesus was their long-promised Messiah, their Christ. But Jesus rose from the death they inflicted upon him. He rose with the glorious offer to them of forgiveness, peace and fellowship with the living God.
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And today?
Religious people – including, even in Jersey, followers of the Christian faith as a religion, are still doing what Isaiah described so clearly. ““We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol [where dead people go] we have an agreement, when the overwhelming whip passes through it will not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter.”
A covenant with religion promises much – it even promises life after death and security in this life. But is it lies? Only Jesus himself is the cornerstone, the Son of the LIVING God. He calls us to him and not to religion.
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