Almost 3,000 years ago, God gave a peculiar command to the prophet Isaiah during the reign of King Ahaz that I believe to be of great relevance again to us today:
For the Lord spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken. Bind up the testimony; seal the teaching among my disciples.” (Isaiah 8:11-16)
Sin is sin, and very little happens in the world that isn’t another version of what happened before. We find ourselves in much the same situation as the people of Israel, who had been rescued out of Egypt, experienced miracles at the hand of God, saw the presence of God dwell among them, and yet turned away from Him to follow other gods and do as they pleased.
Three millennia later, the people of God are the Church, and especially in the industrialized West where life is comfortable and we enjoy great personal freedom, we’re having trouble putting God first. The devastating result of that is prayerlessness, biblical illiteracy, lukewarmth, and all manner of disagreement, division, strife, and immorality among the Body of believers that is supposed to make Christ visible on earth. We seem to resemble the parable of the wheat and tares more ever day, with the tares becoming indistinguisbale from the wheat, and without much clarity of what is false and true.
In short: we’re doing a lot of stuff God hates.
Of particular relevance is that, as a result of a halfhearted walk with God, His people turn to the world for conspiracy theories and information, and fall prey to the same existential fear and dread that people in the world have. And as the world becomes more and more unstable, that dread grows. That is the polar opposite of what God wants for His people. He wants us to life in faith, not in fear. By the way, do you know what FEAR stands for? False Evidence Appearing Real. That’s right, believing lies.
What He wants from His people is three things – now, as He did back then. Things around which we must order our lives, inside and out:
- Honor the Lord as holy. Stand in awe of Him, rather than of what’s happening in the world, or “trusted sources” from where you get your information and theories about what’s happening. Remove anything from your life that distracts from putting Him at the center. That means anything you enjoy or hold in higher esteem than Him.
- Take refuge in Him. He is our sanctuary. Things will get worse. But He offers Himself to us – to keep us safe, to see what is happening in the light of His Truth, and to walk us through it. For those who choose to not place their trust in an unseen God, that sanctuary becomes a stone of offense. In the increasingly post-Christian modern world, Christianity is seen as passe and irrelevant to progressive thinking and living. The notion that we would need a sanctuary is seen as weak and ridiculous. Pay it no heed. Walk with Him daily and make use of His offer to be your sanctuary. If you know your Bible even just a little, you know you’ll have the last laugh.
- Bind up the testimony and seal the teaching among the disciples. Isiaiah was commanded to preserve the teaching of the law for those who would remain faithful to God. That same command is relevant today: that those who have surrendered their lives to God and are filled with, and sealed by, the Holy Spirit, must preserve the truth of the Scriptures and their doctrines. There is a lot of false teaching out there, and in a church culture that has let go of the vital disciplines of prayer and biblical knowledge and understanding, they find vertile ground. The more complex and rapidfire the events, trends, and cultural shifts around us become, the more we are to dedicate ourselves to know the Scripture and preserve sound biblical doctrine among us, lest we fall prey to fear, are led astray from our faith, and become worldly in our ways. Remember, that’s the stuff God hates (see James 4:4, Revelation 3:15-18).
Take heart. Tell yourself what Isaiah told himself: I will wait for the Lord, and I will hope in Him (vs. 17). God is love, and love rejoices in what it does for others. Likewise God rejoices in being a sanctuary and providing immutable truth to His children. All we have to do is not refuse or ignore Him.