Isaiah

Isaiah 28: God lays the sure foundation

Begin in prayer

Before Isaiah gives God’s warning to proud leaders, let us ask Him for teachable hearts. Ask God to help our family leave the shelter of lies and rest on Jesus, the sure foundation God has laid.

I will give thanks to you, for you have answered me, and have become my salvation.

Psalm 118:21

Father in heaven, please open our eyes as we read Your Word. Teach us to hear Your warnings without scoffing. Show us Christ as the foundation of salvation and turn our hearts from the lies we trust. Make us more like Jesus. And please bless our family as we worship You together. In Jesus' name, Amen.

See where we're going

Ephraim’s proud crown will be trampled like a fading flower, while the LORD becomes glory and strength to His remaining people. Priests and prophets stagger with drink, err in judgment and refuse the rest God offers. His word will reach them through another language and become a sentence of capture. Jerusalem’s scoffing rulers imagine a covenant with death and hide in lies. God lays a precious cornerstone in Zion, but justice will measure their refuge and the flood will sweep it away. Their supposed safety is as inadequate as a short bed and narrow blanket. The farmer’s changing work and careful threshing show the wisdom God gives and possesses.

As you read Isaiah 28, look for the answers:

Reflect together

Key truth

God exposes false refuges and lays a sure foundation for those who believe.

The fading crown exposes beauty and power that drunken pride cannot preserve. Even the people who should guide others have become unable to judge rightly. Refusing God’s restful instruction leaves them to hear His word through judgment and captivity. Their boast of a covenant with death expresses confidence that disaster cannot touch them. God answers with a tested cornerstone, the strong stone on which a building rests. Peter applies this promise to Christ, in whom believers will not be disappointed (1 Peter 2 verse 6). The measuring line and plumb line test the refuge by justice and righteousness, so its lies cannot remain. God’s wisdom also teaches a farmer when to plow, sow and thresh, with care suited to each crop.

How does Isaiah 28 show us that God exposes false refuges and lays a sure foundation for those who believe?

God’s word must be heard with sober humility.

Priests and prophets stagger instead of giving sound judgment. The offered rest meets refusal to hear. God will speak through another language, and the hearers will fall, be snared and be taken.

God provides the foundation that lies cannot replace.

The rulers speak as though even death has agreed to spare them. Their hiding place will be washed away under God’s righteous judgment. God will rise up as at Perazim and Gibeon, but this time His “unusual work” falls on Jerusalem’s scoffers (verse 21). The precious cornerstone gives believers a sure place to rest.

God’s wise work has its appointed purpose.

The farmer does more than plow, and he uses different means to thresh different seeds. God Himself teaches that discretion. His own counsel and wisdom surpass the skill He gives the farmer. In the same way, God’s judgment is never careless. The farmer “will not always be threshing it” (verse 28).

Memorise

Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone of a sure foundation. He who believes shall not act hastily.

Isaiah 28:16

Looking to Jesus in my life

Ask yourself in your heart, is Jesus Christ the foundation I am resting on?

God answers the rulers’ refuge of lies with “a precious cornerstone of a sure foundation.” They cannot bargain away the judgment their sin deserves. The foundation He lays gives believers a hope their schemes could never provide. That stone is Jesus, the One the builders rejected.

Jesus paid the debt of sin for His people and died under God’s anger. He rose from the dead, the sure foundation for all who build on Him. His work is enough to carry the whole weight of every sinner who rests on Him. No hidden arrangement or religious achievement can improve His finished sacrifice.

Turn from the lies in which you hide and put your faith in Jesus. He forgives everyone who believes in Him. Receive His word with a teachable heart and rest upon the Savior God has given. The refuge He provides stands under the justice that sweeps false shelter away.

Parent's note

Tell your children that God lays a sure stone in Zion, and that Jesus is that stone for all who believe. Please explain the warning to the drunken priests and prophets (verse 7) plainly, with its full weight. Please do not tell them they are saved just because they grew up in a Christian home. Call each child to turn from sin and trust Jesus, and pray that God would give them a new heart.

Pray together

Now please close your time together in prayer. Thank God that He provides the sure foundation and judges every false refuge, and bring the heart question to Him. Every child can pray, so let each one say a short prayer if they want to.

Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner. This was from the Lord. It is marvelous in our eyes?’

Matthew 21:42

Father, thank You for giving Jesus as the sure foundation for sinners. Please give us faith to trust Him and receive forgiveness. Expose the lies we use to feel safe, and make us willing to hear Your Word. Let our family depend on Your wisdom this week. Amen.