“I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line"

 

I Peter 2:4-8

The prophet Isaiah ask this question that has rung out to each person whom the Holy Spirit has confronted with it; “Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”  (Isaiah 53:1)  If you read chapter 53, you will be amazed at this prophet, he is on the spot, on target, and it is hundreds of years before the birth of Christ.  In verses 3-4, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering.  Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.  Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.”  And hundreds of years later the apostle Peter calls Jesus “a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious,” (1 Peter 2:4)

It is a wise man who reads the prophesy found in the book of Isaiah, and I know you are wise so look and compare his time with ours, have we not in the United States become like Ephraim, are we not doing this: You boast, “We have entered into a covenant with death, with the grave we have made an agreement.  When an overwhelming scourge sweeps by, it cannot touch us, for we have made a lie our refuge and falsehood our hiding place.”  So this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed.”  God has not finished, listen, this is a word to the wise: “I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line; hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie, and water will over flow your hiding place.  Your covenant with death will be annulled; your agreement with the grave will not stand.” (Isaiah 28:15-18)  And once more we return to 1Peter 2:6, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

The great news is to all who choose that cornerstone, the one that is chosen and precious, that stone that has the ability to give life now, an abundant life!  His life comes into ours and our life goes into Him and we become like living stones, and we are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice