What Fills You?

"Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves..." Isaiah 28:15

What nonsense is this? A bodyguard of lies? You might as well hid under air.

What are lies and falsehoods? They are nothings: they say that which is not. They are hollow, empty, devoid of substance. Such a shield is not chaff before the fire; it is nothingness before the fire. Lies are non-entities; what kind of refuge can they be? Falsehoods say only that which is not; what kind of hiding place could they be? Trusting your salvation to lies and falsehoods is the height of foolishness.

Perhaps it is even more foolish to make pacts with death and hell. What is death? A negation: the body separated from the soul, and the soul separated from God. What agreements can it keep? Now, what is hell? The void, the darkness outside. It is the holding pin of all that is not: all that is not of God is nothingness, evil is the absence of God, the absence of that which is ultimately True and Real. What security is there in a bottomless pit? Also, if by "hell" you mean the "grave," you are no better off, for the grave holds nothing but hollow shells of the absence of life.

What is God's response to all this foolishness? "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone...a sure foundation." (Isaiah 28:16) Literally rock solid foundation, pure substance beneath your feet; for how do you crush that which is hollow and empty? You fill it with substance. "[Justice] also will I [make the measuring line], and righteousness to [be] the [plumb line]..." (vs. 17a) He is measuring His man, so to speak; you do not measure something unless you plan to fill it. "[The] hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies," it will pile all around and on top of you, "and the waters shall overflow the hiding place," it will fill your empty cup until you spill out with the excess. Using lies, death and hell as a defense against God's judgment is about as smart as jumping in a pit to stay safe from a flood.

Our ironclad pact with death and hell was done away with by Christ at the cross. When He passed through death's gate and into her bosom, the hollow void of her womb was suddenly substanced with He that is the Life and Light of all mankind (John 1:4), true abiding Presence. Christ filled the void, and it was defeated. He stepped into the vacancy that was death and the grave, and claimed it as His own (Revelation 1:18), filing it with His life. Now those who trust in Him pass through death into His new life, both at salvation and physical death. You can either embrace the void, or be swept up into His substance. One means damnation, forever swallowed up into emptiness; the other means salvation, forever filled with His love. Choose wisely what you fill yourself with.

"Substance and Void,

Reality or Illusion,

Life and Death,

Heaven or Hell:

These are the Choices

You lay at My Feet..."

-Jon Vowell