Isaiah is warned not to identify with the secular values of his contemporaries (8:11–15). Those who follow the Lord are not to give in to the prevailing political and economic winds of their age. As secularism and humanism grow stronger and the believing community is increasingly pressured in a world without God, Isaiah reminds us to look at the world from God’s perspective: the world is under his judgment, and the Lord himself should be the object of our fear. The name of the Lord is a “stone of stumbling” (8:14–15 KJV) to those who keep their political options open. The people do not listen to his mes…