No traps

DEVOTION

PROPHESIES AND FULFILLMENTS CONCERNING CHRIST

NO TRAPS

A little setting for this prophetic speech might help us understand it a little better. Certainly the fulfillment of this will also add insight into its meaning. But first we should see that Isaiah was warning the people of Israel not to get involved with other nations, not to engage in treaties with them or look on their kings or wealth or beliefs. This is all laid out in the first twelve verses of chapter 8, then he gets to this statement

Isa 8:13-14

13 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, 14 and he will be a sanctuary; but for both houses of Israel he will be a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And for the people of Jerusalem he will be a trap and a snare.

NIV

Not to be involved with anyone other than the LORD Almighty, he is the one they were to regard as holy. But let us include the fulfillment of this prophecy.

Rom 9:30-33

 31 but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. 32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the "stumbling stone." 33 As it is written: "See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame."  

NIV

Israel was looking for something other than God when Isaiah spoke those words and it remained the same when the Lord spoke through the Apostle Paul to the Romans about Israel. Here is the plain and awesome truth. The life of a believer, a follower of Jesus it a life of faith. Although Israel had all that history of the LORD Almighty providing all their needs, first during the great famine bringing them into Egypt through Joseph, then after they had remembered God and cried out to him be brought them Moses, to lead them out of Egypt, out of bondage. Although they rebelled again, and he made them to wander, he provided for them. He has always taken care of his people. When he made the final act for their ultimate salvation, their true freedom from bondage to sin, they rejected him. Jesus was a snare, a stumbling stone to them. They allowed themselves to be entrapped by the Law rather than Faith. This is what the Lord said through Paul. He was telling us, the Gentiles had attained righteousness by faith, not through the law. The Jews wanted the law not Jesus in order to attain righteousness, but they failed. Here is the same truth for us. We cannot attain righteousness by trying to keep our interpretation of the law. That would include a certain set of standards we establish as how a Christian should live. Throughout our history of the modern church we have established rules and regulations which have no bearing on scripture or the truth. The reason we can be sure of that is they evolve, or change with the times. There were times when, no smoking, no drinking, no dancing, no movies, no roller rinks, no mixed bathing {boys and girls going to the beach together}, in essence no fun whatsoever was allowed. In more modern times many of these rules have been relaxed. This is proof they were not and are not based on the truth of God, but the mind of man. The Jews had developed hundreds of rules that guided they behavior, rules not based on the truth, but in their minds, their ideas of what truth meant. Jesus freed them from that law, he frees us from the law. What is so difficult about being free? What is so hard about living by faith rather than by law, especially if the law is of our own making? Sure there is a way we are to behave. We are to behave according to love. Jesus told us all the laws, all the commands are wrapped up an attitude of love. First, loving God with all, not some or part, of heart, mind soul, spirit and strength, or body and loving everyone else as we love ourselves. Whom then would we harm? How would we do anything other than love? We merely have to go and see how God defines what love is in that letter to the Corinthians. That is our way of life, our guiding principle. If we are following Jesus, we love. No other set of rules can guide us any better. No regulations or denominational bias can afford a better way of life than faith in Jesus. He is not the stumbling stone for us, some form of the law is. We get caught up in trying to make our own form of rules to live by, while all the time Jesus tells us to simply love one another as he loves us. Maybe it is easier to live by our own interpretation of the rules, then to love one another. Then we can simply live our own way, not engaged in loving others, and think we are right with God. Let us not stumble. Let us not get caught in the trap, but let us see how Jesus lived and follow him.