A Sure Foundation Stone

Please turn with me in your Bibles to Isaiah 28. And as you're doing so, I would like to give thanks to Chip for all the arrangements that he has made. It has been good working with him and with the other deacons and also very, very especially for Jim and Jean and for the kind and generous hospitality that they have afforded us over this weekend. They are dear friends in the Lord Jesus Christ. I would like us to start reading at verse 14, and if it is your custom to stand for the reading of the word, let us stand. And again I'm reading from the New King James Version. Verse 14. Therefore, hear the word of the Lord, you scornful men who rule this people who are in Jerusalem." And then God begins to mock them. Because you have said, we have made a covenant with death, And with Sheol we are in agreement, when the overflowing scourge passes through, it will not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood we have hidden ourselves." Well, they didn't really believe that themselves, did they? But God is putting these words in their mouth. And then God shows them the true refuge for sinners. Therefore thus says the Lord God, behold I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. Whoever believes will not act hastily. Also I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plummet. The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies and the water will overflow the hiding place. Your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand. When the overflowing scourge passes through, then you will be trampled down by it. As often as it goes out, it will take you, for morning by morning it will pass over, and by day and by night it will be a terror just to understand the report. For the bed is too short for a man to stretch out on, and the covering so narrow that he cannot wrap himself in it." And of course that's again another sarcasm at those who take refuge in lies. It's like a bed that's too short and it's like a blanket, whichever way you turn your body is exposed to the cold. For the Lord will rise up as at Mount Peresim, he will be angry as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his awesome work, and bring to pass his act, his unusual act, which is his act of judgment. Now therefore, do not be mockers, lest your bonds be made strong. For I have heard from the Lord God of hosts a destruction determined even upon the whole earth. So reads God's word, the Lord bless it to our understanding. Please be seated. There are many wonderful promises of salvation through Christ in the book of Isaiah and Chapter 28 contains one of those precious promises. It's a promise given to God's people at a time of judgment. Verse 16, Therefore thus says the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. And as we consider the text tonight, I want us to look at it in its context, and the first lesson we draw from it as we do so is this. God's temporal judgments are precursors of his final judgment. That is to say, they are a forerunner or a harbinger sent by God to warn and prepare us for the one great judgment that will exceed by far all other judgments that the earth has experienced. Take the situation that God's people were facing here in Isaiah's time. Assyria, that is northern Iraq, was the new rising superpower in the east. And it threatened both Israel in the north, the ten tribes in the north, and Judah, the two tribes in the south. And the only country between Assyria and Israel and Judah was the country of Syria. And so the people, the ten tribes in Israel, were enticed to make a treaty with the king of Syria to help them combat the menacing threat of the Assyrians in northern Iraq. But King Ahaz, however, did not want to join the alliance, and he And he invoked the anger of the king of Israel, who then sought the help of Syria to dethrone King Ahaz and to set up a puppet king in his place. And so in a state of panic, Ahaz, the king of Judah, foolishly sent messengers with silver and gold to the king of Assyria, asking him for his help to ward off the Syrians and the ten tribes of Israel. And this is what he said, come up and save me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel. Of course, the king of Assyria was only too glad to respond to the invitation, and he destroyed both Damascus, the capital of Syria, and Samaria, the capital of the Ten Tribes of Israel, and eventually carried all of the survivors into captivity. Unfortunately, however, his lust to conquer more territories wasn't satisfied with this, and so he threatened all of the cities of Judah now, and he had to be bought off with gifts of silver and gold from Ahaz. Well, some years after Ahaz died, his son, good King Hezekiah, reneged on the treaty and he then made an alliance with Egypt in the south to help him to ward off any retaliation by the king of Assyria. But when the crunch came, of course, he had put his trust in lies and in falsehood, and the king of Egypt failed to come to his rescue. and to protect the nation from judgment. And so Assyria invaded the land of Judah, and all of the cities of Judah fell under siege, and even Jerusalem came under siege. And so Isaiah warns them in verse 18, your covenant with death, that is to buy it off, will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol, that is the grave, or sometimes it can mean the realm of disembodied spirits or even hell, but your agreement with Sheol, the grave, will not stand. Now, in verse 15, the people of Judah likened this threat from the Assyrians to a scourge, the scourge of a whip. And they boasted that it wouldn't come near to them, because they had the help of the king of Egypt. But in verse 18, God says, When the overflowing scourge passes through, then you will be trampled down by it, as often as it goes out. it will take you. And as we know, that is exactly what came to pass. Every town in Judah that the Assyrian army attacked fell, and Judah's political alliance of refuge proved to be lies and falsehood. Because trusting in the promises of men to help is really foolish and doesn't solve anything. For God is in control of all the events that happen in the world, and He is the only one who knows how to deliver us out of those events, not men. And this invasion of Israel and Judah by the nation of Assyria was in the plan and the decree of God to punish them because of their idolatry and their drunkenness and their oppression of the poor. And in verse 17, God likens himself to an architect now who examines the building that they have put up as a refuge from the storm to come. And he takes out his measuring line, verse 17, that is called justice, and he measures its height and its length and its breadth to see if there is justice in the land. Justice meaning right dealings with their fellow men. Is there justice in the relationships between the people of God? And then he gets out his plumb line of righteousness to check the walls and see if they are now vertically straight, because he now wants to measure their relationship with him, if righteousness is the measure of their relationship with him, if their lives are right with God. And having found both Israel and Judah wanting, God says in verse 17, the hail will sweep away the refuge of lies and the waters will overflow the hiding place. In other words, their shelter is going to prove hopelessly inadequate when the storm of God's judgment washes away the refuge that they have built for themselves. It will not have a sure foundation. Now, God's temporal judgments can come to Israel and Judah, or they can come to the church, or they can come to the entire world in many forms other than invading armies. It can come in the form of natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes and volcanoes. can also come in the form of epidemics like the Black Death or the bubonic plague of the 14th century that began in Asia and killed at least 30 million people in Europe alone. Or it can come like the epidemic of swine flu that broke out in Iowa in January of 1918 and killed more human beings in a couple of months than any scourge in known history. Forty million worldwide in one year. or the AIDS epidemic of the 20th century that is still spreading all over the world, and in spite of modern medications, already over 5 million people have died. Now in the 21st century, the world, not just a few countries, but the world faces the threat of terrorism and the terrible prospect of dirty bombs killing tens of thousands of people in many different countries. Our spirits faint and they droop at the thought of what lies ahead, and rightly so, because all these calamities are only a foretaste of God's final judgment and the outpouring of His ultimate wrath. upon the entire world. At his first coming, God sent his son Jesus Christ to save the perishing and snatch them in pity from sin and the grave. But when he returns to this world, Paul says that Christ is coming, quote, to take vengeance on those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel. The Apostle John in Revelation 6 says that on that day every human being will hide themselves in caves and rocks and ask the mountains to cover them. Fall on us, they will say, and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of His wrath has come. and who will be able to stand. The most destructive and horrendous of all calamities from which no unpardoned sinner will ever be able to escape will be the wrath of God on the final day of judgment. Not even Sheol, the grave will be able to hide sinners from the fury of the Divine Judge, for every grave, the Bible says, will open up and surrender its prey to God. And all those who pierced Christ and who despised Him and stopped their ears to the preaching of the Gospel will stand naked and exposed before the Divine Judge. Now, anyone who has a conscience and is aware of this fears that day. And so it is natural that people still in our time are looking for refuges from that time, from that judgment. Some seek security in their country's accumulation of better and more sophisticated military weapons. Some have purchased a mountain retreat where they can have an underground shelter to protect themselves where they are storing canned goods. And yet others hide behind the lie that there is nothing after death. Life ends in annihilation, or the lie that God is going to accept everyone at last into his heavenly home, the lie of universalism. And again, there are some placing their faith in a nominal and outward Christianity that has no real heart relationship to Jesus Christ. And their refuge is, if I go to church, if I live a decent life, everything will pan out all right. Paul describes them as having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof. And our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount describes them as church goers who can do wonders and yet he tells them to depart from him because they are workers of iniquity. The world today, I say, is filled with the same kind of misplaced faith that the people of Israel and Judah found gave them no rest and no security. So the question comes, is there any safe refuge for sinners from not just the temporal judgments God brings upon us and upon the world, but from the final judgment? Is there a sure foundation upon which we can build when, as Peter says, the heavens will pass away with a great noise and the earth be burned up? And God says right here in our text, in verse 16, there is. Behold, he says. And the word behold cannot really be translated in any other way as look or see. Behold means here is something to wonder at, stare at it with awe. Behold. I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. Whoever believes will not act hastily." Now when we interpret scripture by scripture, 1 Peter 2 makes it very clear that the that the person being spoken of or the object being spoken of by Isaiah or by God in this prophecy is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter calls him the precious cornerstone. And Paul in the passage that Chip read for us tonight in Romans 9 verse 33, the Apostle sees Christ there as the stone that God has laid in Zion, who is a stumbling block to those who are unbelievers, but he is the foundation stone to everyone who believes. And because he is a true and a tried foundation, they will never be put to shame. He will not fail them. So, that brings us to the second obvious lesson, then, that we are to glean from this passage. And it is that Jesus Christ is the sinner's only refuge from God's final judgment. And the only valid assurance of this that we can have, of course, must come from the mouth of the divine judge himself. Human speculation as to what may stand up to the ultimate calamity in life won't do, because we are all prone to wishful thinking. We all want to find a solution that is going to please us, that we are happy with. But Isaiah doesn't go that route. He is not giving us his own ideas here in chapter 28. He is a self-conscious deliverer of a message from God, the divine judge. And so verse 16 begins, Therefore thus says the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation. So we can be sure about this. This is the divine judge's solution to where to find refuge. This is what God has done to protect sinners from his almighty wrath, and it is the only thing that can afford us sinners shelter and rest in temporary judgments, and also in the final judgment. And that, in effect, is what God is saying to the people of Judah in Isaiah's day, and it is still, through Isaiah, what he is saying to the world today. Only God can decide how to save sinners from retribution, because only God can provide a way for the forgiveness of their sins and for the gift of the Holy Spirit. God alone is the architect of salvation for sinners, and God has drawn up the plans for that salvation, for the building up of His saved people, the Church. He is the one who has laid the foundation stone by sending His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to die for sinners, which is the penalty of death. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3 that God has decreed that no other foundation can be laid than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ. And again scripture says salvation is of the Lord. So it is not of man to save himself from the fire of hell, and if that offends any person today, then they will have cause one day to be put to shame. Like the foolish man Jesus speaks of in Matthew 7, who built his house on the sand, they will find that whatever shelter they have taken refuge in will not stand. It will fail them. Well, let's look a little further at how Christ our Saviour is described here in verse 16. It's a wonderful description of Him. To begin with, God's Son is called a stone for a foundation, and at the end, a sure foundation. Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, and a sure foundation. Now, Zion stands for the people of God and also for the land which has given birth to the people of God, the land of Israel. And this prophecy is basically saying to us that God's refuge is going to come from the Jewish people And God is going to do something in Zion, the city of Jerusalem, that will provide a refuge for all sinners in the final calamity. And that refuge is going to prove to those who believe in him and trust in him to be immovable and dependable like a stone foundation. And no building can really stand in a time of storm except a building that has been built on stone. Stone is the best foundation. Well, God sent his son, his only son, co-equal and co-eternal with himself as the second member of the Holy Trinity to be that stone. And he is the only one who can provide that firm foundation. Even our dearest friends, even our Christian parents cannot provide that sufficient foundation for our lives. Only Jesus Christ himself and personal trust in him affords that safety and that refuge. The Bible says he is a friend that sticks closer than any brother. He himself said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Hebrews 7 says he has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore he is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them. So he is a foundation stone, a stone for a foundation. But in verse 16, Isaiah says he is also a tried stone, for he has withstood all the assaults of the devil and all the cruelty of mankind and even the very wrath of Almighty God. Because on the cross he bore the full weight of the punishment that the sins of his people deserved and overcame that disaster and rose triumphant from the tomb. Sin and death and hell were not able to destroy our Lord Jesus Christ, and those who by faith hide in Him find that they cannot be harmed by these things either. Paul in 2 Timothy 1 verse 10 says, Our Saviour Jesus Christ has abolished death. and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. When sin and death and hell did their utmost to Jesus Christ, they could not destroy him. But he brought out of them, by his victory over them, immortality and eternal life. Our Lord himself said, because I live, you shall live also." And again, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, yet shall he live, because on the last day I will raise him up from the dead. Jesus is a tried stone. He was put to the test to do everything that God asked him to do. And he never failed. And then again in verse 16, Isaiah says he is a precious cornerstone. And he is precious because he is of infinite worth. And he is of infinite worth because he is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father. Colossians 2 says, in him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily. He is God incarnate. He is both fully divine and fully human in one person forever. And so while he was on earth, twice the Father spoke from heaven saying, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. He was precious to his Father. But Jesus is also precious to his people, who cannot thank him enough for bearing in his own innocent person the wrath of God, which is the just due of their sin. He is precious to them because he loved them before the world was made, in spite of the fact that he well knew that they would rebel against him. and go their own way. Now as I conclude, I want to stress that this threat of impending doom upon the entire world is not a myth. The belief that everything is going to turn out well in the end is a refuge of lies. Great calamities are still going to come upon the earth. We do not know when Christ will return. and when this present state of the world will come to an end. We do not know, but we do know that leading up to that day there are still going to be great calamities that the world will have to go through. But the final calamity is going to be the day of judgment. Verse 22, notice, calls it a destruction determined even upon the whole earth. Our Lord speaks of it as a time of weeping and gnashing of teeth, of being cast into a fire that is never going to be quenched, and that those who go there are never ever going to leave there. And so the critical question for all of us today is, are we convinced of the insufficiency of human refuges from this disaster? In the days of the universal flood, you will remember that people did not take Noah seriously, and when the rain started and wouldn't stop, they made for the highest mountains, and yet were still drowned. For the only place of safety was in the ark that God had commanded Noah to build. But today when the world is going to be destroyed by fire, Scripture says the only safe place to find refuge is going to be in Jesus Christ, whom God has given to be our Saviour. Now, perhaps there is someone here who isn't quite sure whether they have taken refuge in Christ or not. And you're tempted to ask, well, how can I tell? How can I know that I am in Him and that I am safe? Well, if you look at the text, you will see that there are two tests. that scripture gives us by which we may know if our faith is firmly placed in Christ. And the first is that he has become precious to us, that is to those of us who believe. 1 Peter 2 makes that plainly so, doesn't it? To you who believe, says Peter, he is precious. Jesus is the most precious thing in our lives because He died, He sacrificed everything to save us from the judgment on the last day. And we have come as Christians to prize Jesus Christ above everything else in life. As the parable in Matthew 13 says, He has become for us who have believed in Him the pearl of great price. for which a person is ready to give up everything that they may possess and have him. And so we must ask ourselves if we want to know, are we hiding in Christ? Have we found refuge in Jesus Christ? We need to ask ourselves tonight, are we willing to have Christ at whatever cost? whether it's the loss of family, or friends, or job, or our freedom, or even life itself, as we were praying this evening. There are people today who, for the sake of Christ, because they value Him more than anything else, are dying, are being persecuted, and martyred, and put to death in Islamic countries and communist countries. And we need to ask ourselves, is Christ that precious to us? Are we willing to give up everything else just to know that He is our Lord and our Saviour? If we are, then it's a sign we have been born again. It's a sign that we have been regenerated. There is nobody who remains an unregenerate sinner who will ever feel that way about Jesus Christ. And then the other test is mentioned at the end of verse 16. It's the test of not acting hastily. And what does that phrase mean? Well, it occurs about 20 times in this prophecy of Isaiah, and each time it has basically the same meaning, that of people running around in a flap, looking for a cure, that is always elusive. The Jews in Isaiah's day were behaving just like this. Instead of trusting in God to deliver them from the Assyrians, they rushed to the help of Syria, and that failed. And then when that failed, they rushed for the help of Egypt. And that again was to no avail. They were running around, you see, in a flap, trying to find deliverance from invasion in contrast to the rest that God promises them in verse 12. A rest they could have enjoyed if they put their trust in Him. And so, my friends, a true believer in God enjoys a peace that passes all understanding, because he or she knows that if God is their refuge, they are safe. from all alarms. They can say with the psalmist in Psalm 46, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear even though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, as they will on the day of final judgment. Why will we be secure? Why will we be glad? Because there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, and God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God shall help her, and that right early. Praise God, there is a stone that he has laid in Zion, in the city of God. in the church of our Lord Jesus Christ, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. Jesus is the foundation on which the church is being built, and he has assured us the gates of hell itself will not prevail against it. And so, my friend, as I come to the close of this message from God's Word, I entreat you, I plead with you, if you are not sure that you have taken refuge in the Lord Jesus Christ against the judgment of God, that you will do so this evening. For if you do, you will be able to say with the Apostle Paul, I know in whom I have believed. And I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him, my soul, against that day, the day of judgment. Let's pray. O Lord our God, we do live in a world where even now people are experiencing temporal judgments from your hand. For you are sovereign, and you are in control of everything. Nothing happens without your will, without you having a purpose behind it, even though we cannot understand it, and at the time we cannot discern your will. But Father, we thank you that the remnant of your believing people in every land have found refuge in the sure foundation of Jesus Christ that you laid for us in Zion. And in temporal judgments when they come to us, and in the final judgment, we have no hesitation in knowing that we will stand firm. We will not be swept away by the flood. but we will be with Christ forever and ever. Our Father, if there is anyone here tonight who does not have that assurance, we pray that you will help them by your grace to give up the refuge of lies in which they are sheltering and to put their trust in the tried foundation stone that you have laid for us at such enormous cost in the Lord Jesus Christ. In His name, and for His sake we ask it. Amen.