"A Covenant With Death"

Isaiah continues his pronouncement:  "You men have said: 'We have concluded with Death; and with Sheol  we have effected a vision; the overflowing flash flood, in case it should pass through, will not come to us, for we have made a lie our refuge and in falsehood we have concealed ourselves.' "
 (Isaiah 28:14, 15)  Judah's leaders brag that their political alliances insulate them from defeat.  They feel that they have made "a covenant with Death" to leave them alone.  But their hollow refuge will not shield them.   Their alliances are a lie, a falsehood. Similarly today, Christendom's close relationship with the leaders of the world will not protect her when Jehovah's time for her accounting comes.  Indeed, it will prove to be her undoing. -Revelation 17:16, 17.

When, then, should these religious leaders be looking! Isaiah now records Jehovah's promise:  "Here I am laying as a foundation in Zion a stone, a tried stone, the precious corner of a sure foundation.  No one exercising faith will get panicky.  And I will make  justice the measuring line and righteousness the leveling instrument; and the hail must sweep away the refuge of a lie, and the waters themselves will flood out the very place of concealment."  (Isaiah 28:16, 17) Not long after Isaiah speaks these words faithful King Hezekiah is enthroned in Zion, and his kingdom is saved, not by neighboring allies, but by Jehovah's intervention. However, these inspired  words are not fulfilled in Hezekiah. The apostle Peter, quoting  Isaiah's words, showed that Jesus Christ, a distant descendant of Hezekiah, is "the tried stone"  and that no one exercising faith in Him need have any fear.  (1 Peter 2:6) How sad that the leaders of Christendom, while calling themselves Christian, have done what Jesus refused to do!  They have sought  prominence and power in this world rather than wait on Jehovah to bring about the Kingdom under Jesus Christ the King. -Matthew 4:8-10.

When "the overflowing flash flood" of Babylon's armies passes through the land, Jehovah will expose Judah's political refuse as the lie that it is.   "Your covenant with Death will certainly be dissolved, " says Jehovah.  "The overflowing  flash flood, when it passes through-you must also become for it a trampling place. As often as it passes through, . . .it must become nothing but a reason for a quaking to make others understand what has been heard."  (Isaiah 28:18, 19)  it is as if they were to lie down to take their ease, but in vain.  Either their feet stick out in the cold or they pull up their legs and the  cover is too narrow to wrap up in to keep warm.  This was the uncomfortable situation in Isaiah's day. And it is  the situation today for any who put their  trust in Christendom's refuge of a lie.  How disgusting that as a result of involving themselves in politics, some of Christendom's religious leaders have found themselves  implicated in such terrible atrocities as ethnic cleansing and genocide!

Next time: Jehovah's 'Strange Deed'

From the Book Isaiah's Prophecy Light for all Mankind, 2000