Isaiah 28

God made a deal with the people of Israel. He made them His people and gave them a land of milk and honey. All they had to do in return was follow a list of rules in the Old Testament. Doing that would create a holy kingdom that would bless not only themselves but the whole world. 

But instead of changing the world, the world changed them. They didn’t want to live by a different standard than everyone else. They wanted to be just like everyone else. Who was God to tell them what to do? Isaiah describes how they viewed His commands: 

“Who is it he is trying to teach? To whom is he explaining his message? To children weaned from their milk, to those just taken from the breast? For it is: Do this, do that, a rule for this, a rule for that; a little here, a little there.” 

— Isaiah 28:9-10 

He spent most of his life warning his countrymen about what would happen if they didn't change. They had turned what was supposed to be God’s kingdom on earth into an evil and unjust society. What had been given them could just as easily be taken away. If they wouldn’t list to warnings through prophets like Isaiah, God would send messengers like the Assyrians: 

Very well them, with foreign lips and strange tongues God will speak to this people, To whom he said, “This is the resting place, let the weary rest;” and “This is the place of repose” — but they would not listen. 

So then, the word of the Lord to them will become: Do this, do that, a rule for this, a rule for that; a little here, a little there — So that as they go they will fall backward; they will be injured and captured. 

— Isaiah 28:11-13 

Isaiah uses the metaphor of the vineyard to describe God’s relationship with His chosen people. His vineyard (Israel) has gone bad so He would tear it down and start over. The new one would be much different. It would be a different kind of society based on a different set of rules: 

“See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who relies on it will never be stricken with panic. I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line; hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie, and water will overflow your hiding place.” 

— Isaiah 28:16-17 

The Messiah would be the cornerstone of God’s new kingdom on Earth. Under the old system, the Jewish people earned their righteousness by following The Law and sacrificed animals to atone for the times they broke it. The Messiah would be the sacrifice under the new system. His righteousness would cover the sins of God’s people: 

“But he was pierce for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” 

— Isaiah 53:5-6 

It’s not possible for mankind to save ourselves. The history of Israel in the Old Testament is proof of that. So is the state of our world today. That’s why the new system that God was setting up wouldn’t depend on the righteousness of man. We would no longer have to do anything to earn our salvation. We could just accept the gift we had been given. 

That logic applies to more than just God's people. The word of God would no longer be limited to one group in one corner of the world. The Messiah would invite everyone in and expand the blessing originally given to Abraham and his descendants to the entire world. Isaiah compares God’s people to a childless woman who would be unexpectedly blessed with offspring:

“Sing, barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,” says the Lord. 

“Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in desolate cities.”  

— Isaiah 54:1-3 

Put it all together and you can see that the most important pieces of Christian theology are in a book written 700 years before Jesus was born. It’s almost as if God had planned this whole thing from the beginning! That’s why Jesus read a passage from the Book of Isaiah (61:1-2) when he announces the beginning of his public ministry (Luke 4:17-21). 

It all makes more sense when you look at it backwards. The time that we spend on this world is a tiny portion of a much larger picture. It's impossible for any of us to understand history as it is happening. The consequences of our own decisions and broader societal trends can play out hundreds of years after our deaths. 

What that means is that the only way to understand history is to read it back to front instead of front to back. There's a lot of stuff written in 2020 about what will happen in 2024. But we don't know who will be right because we can't predict the future. The only thing that we can do is read what was written in 2016 about what will happen in 2020. Better yet -- read stuff written in 2010 or 2000. Who was right about what would happen? Who was wrong? What were the thought process behind those predictions about the world? 

Don't read about the present to know about the future. Read the past to know about the present. The people who were right before are more likely to be right again. Past performance doesn't guarantee future results, as any stockbroker will tell you. But it's all we have to go on.

I first started paying attention to the news when I was in high school and college in the middle of the 2000s. The first story that I really followed closely was the second war in Iraq. The people pushing us to invade Iraq believed that Saddam Hussein was a danger to world peace, that he was building weapons of mass destruction that could be given to third parties, and that removing him from power would be the first step in a chain reaction that would permanently change the political structures in the Middle East. 

As it turns out, none of that was true. That's pretty obvious now that we have 15 years to evaluate those predictions. 

So why does that matter now? Because if the same people who said we should invade Iraq make new predictions about the future, we can remember what they said before and ask them what will be different this time. Maybe the holes in their worldview that were exposed by their failures in Iraq will be exposed again if we follow their advice. What have they learned from what went wrong last time? There's no way to "win" an argument about the future. But you can win one about the past because everyone has access to the same information. 

The past has the only answers that you can rely on. It’s always easier to lie about what will happen in the future than what has happened in the past. 

One of the best lines from "Game of Thrones" comes from what happens in the North after the Red Wedding. It would take too long to explain the context if you haven't watched the show so just know that the North was a group of people who were betrayed at the Red Wedding. Years after the fact, people in the North would end every toast by saying "The North Remembers". Memory is power. No matter how much you lie to us now, no matter how much you want to put the past in the past, do not forget that we have not forgotten. We remember.

Revenge is not a Christian concept. But remembering is. You have to remember what was said to you before. If you do not forget then you cannot be lied to. And if you cannot be lied to than you cannot be controlled. Don't let other people tell you what happened. Remember it for yourself. 

Christians have to know our history. We were right before which should give us confidence that will be right again. You can't prove that a prediction about the future will be correct. What you can do is prove that predictions in the past about the present were correct. 

Everything that happened in the Book of Isaiah is part of the historical record. His predictions about the past were proven accurate. The people of 700 BC didn’t have the benefit of seeing history from back to front. The just had to take Isaiah at his word. 

We have the benefit of hindsight to know that he was right. Isaiah told people what the new deal between God and Man would be. And then that new deal came to pass. It’s almost as if he was a messenger from a divine being who knew what would happen.