Our study concluded with this wise advice: "The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, He is the one you are to fear, He is the one you are to dread." (Isaiah 8:13) This type of "fear" means a holy and reverent awe, holding the Lord in the highest esteem and looking to Him for help.
But we know, from our study of the kings, that although Judah experienced several spiritual revivals during her declining years, she eventually fell into as much sin and idolatry as did her sister Israel. If either of these nations had heeded the warnings of the prophets to regard the Lord as holy and to worship only Him, He would have been a source of comfort and protection and provision. But whenever anyone refuses to regard Him as Lord of their life, their hearts tend to grow ever harder against Him as time goes on.
He will be the "Rock of Ages"---a firm and unshakable and unchanging foundation---for the one who trusts in Him. But for the one who "stumbles" over this Rock of Ages, (trying to bypass it and reject it rather than choosing to stand upon it), He will be the judge of their iniquity. This is the point Isaiah is making when he says: "He will be a holy place; for both Israel and Judah He will be a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And for the people of Jerusalem He will be a trap and a snare. Many of them will stumble; they will fall and be broken, they will be snared and captured." (Isaiah 8:14-15)
It's not that the Lord wants them to stumble and fall. He doesn't want that at all. But He knows they are going to stumble and fall while trying every way possible to get around Him instead of basing their lives on Him. To paint a picture of this in our minds, let's imagine we need to travel across an area of ground but there is a large rock in the middle of it. The rock is easily climbable and offers safe footholds and a firm place to stand, but instead we decide to squeeze around it, getting ourselves scratched and entangled in briers, stumbling on the uneven ground around its base, stumbling and falling, getting bruised and cut. In this same manner, the Lord (the Rock) is the safe place to stand but many of the people of Isaiah's day were attempting to get through life without ever trusting Him, choosing instead to squeeze past Him at significant cost to themselves.
Isaiah intends to trust the Rock of Ages, no matter what anyone else does. He warns those who have heard the word of God and rejected it; to them the Lord is the Rock upon which they will stumble. His words assure those in the minority who have decided to trust the Rock of Ages that to them the Lord is a firm foundation. "Bind up this testimony of warning and seal up God's instruction among my disciples. I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding His face from the descendants of Jacob. I will put my trust in Him." (Isaiah 8:16-17) The remainder of this particular passage from Chapter 8 is a twofold prophecy and time does not permit us to study it fully today, so tomorrow we will take a look at it and discuss how it pertains to Isaiah and his two sons and also to Christ and His church.
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