The elite have always lived a lie.

I have no theological difficulty with the idea of prophets. I am not a dispensationalist, and I do believe that God gifts his people in various ways. But I know my bible. And the path of the prophet is fraught. Who really wants to stand up in his own country and say things like this?

Isaiah 28:9-22

⁹“Whom will he teach knowledge, and to whom will he explain the message? Those who are weaned from milk, those taken from the breast?
¹⁰For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.”
¹¹Truly, with stammering lip and with alien tongue he will speak to this people,
¹²   to whom he has said, “This is rest; give rest to the weary; and this is repose”; yet they would not hear.
¹³Therefore the word of the LORD will be to them, “Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little;” in order that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.
¹⁴Therefore hear the word of the LORD, you scoffers who rule this people in Jerusalem.
¹⁵Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement; when the overwhelming scourge passes through it will not come to us; for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter”;
¹⁶therefore thus says the Lord GOD, See, I am laying in Zion a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation: “One who trusts will not panic.”
¹⁷And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plummet; hail will sweep away the refuge of lies,
and waters will overwhelm the shelter.
¹⁸Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through you will be beaten down by it.
¹⁹As often as it passes through, it will take you; for morning by morning it will pass through,
by day and by night; and it will be sheer terror to understand the message.
²⁰For the bed is too short to stretch oneself on it, and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in it.
²¹For the LORD will rise up as on Mount Perazim, he will rage as in the valley of Gibeon; to do his deed — strange is his deed! and to work his work — alien is his work!
²²Now therefore do not scoff, or your bonds will be made stronger; for I have heard a decree of destruction
from the Lord GOD of hosts upon the whole land.

The verses I highlighted are clearly Messianic. Jesus was not interested in rhetoric. He was not persuasive. Instead he used examples, parables: his teaching was by case… and by example. The teaching of the scribes and Pharisees, however, is precept by precept, precedent by precedent.  their legalistic logic has given case based learning a bad name.

But if we look at the non Messianic verses we get a clear description of the elite. The believe they are safe, secure and immortal.  They have made a covenant — a legal, binding agreement — with lies.

And for that ancient Israel is destroyed. My fear is that God has not changed, and neither have our elite. They again are pretending they will live for ever, and preach lies. And if Israel was reduced to nothing, so may we.

Yet we are part of this society. We should be saying other than this choice of death and destruction. We should be preaching life, joy and peace. But we cannot stop our elite choosing their decline into decadence.