The Prophecy of Isaiah - Lesson 26

Going down to Egypt for help is a sin that we are challenged with as Christians living in the world today and struggling to live a life that is holy rather than influenced by our sin natures (Romans 7). Of course we don't literally go down to Egypt but we figuratively go down to Egypt by using those habits and tools that were our patterns in our life before salvation.

Woe tothose who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, whotrust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, butdo not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord! Andyet he is wise and brings disaster; he does not call back his words, butwill arise against the house of the evildoers and against the helpers ofthose who work iniquity.

Isaiah 31:1-2

It is very easy to take over the ordering of our lives and stop consulting the Lord. Should you consult your Lord? That we can generally ask the question without laughing says an awful lot about us. Your Lord is your Regent, King, Ruler, Master, and God over every atomic particle in the universe including those particles that are you. So, yes, not only is it prudent to seek His council it is treasonous and sinful not to seek His council.

Those in Judah and in Israel had been told that it was sinful to look back to Egypt. Here is what they were told about kings in Deuteronomy 17:16 “Only he (the king) must not acquire many  horses for himself or cause the people  to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ These people were not just scared and looking for help but these people were in disobeying a direct command of God. This is what God says about you in this regard.

Now this I say andtestify in the Lord,that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do,in the futility of their minds. Theyare darkened in their understanding,alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due totheir hardness of heart. Theyhave become callous andhave given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way youlearned Christ!—assuming thatyou have heard about him andwere taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, toput offyour old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt throughdeceitful desires, andto be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put onthe new self,created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Ephesians 4:17-24

So we also have a direct command to come out of Egypt in putting off our old selves and our former manner of life that was corrupt. Our lives were corrupt through deceitful desires that lead us astray and do not ultimately satisfy us. How careful are we to avoid the patterns of our life prior to Christ and all those things that offend Him.

Having a command to put on the “new self” then how much time do we spend in the “Means of Grace” such as prayer, worship, Bible study, and fellowship compared with those older means of getting what we want? I don't like the answers in my life and it is clearly a matter for prayer as we prepare ourselves for what God wants in our lives.

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of youspeak the truth with his neighbor, forwe are members one of another.Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, andgive no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but ratherlet him labor,doing honest work with his own hands, sothat he may have something to share with anyone in need.Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may givegrace to those who hear. Anddo not grieve the Holy Spirit of God,by whom you were sealed for the day ofredemption.Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.Be kind to one another, tenderhearted,forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Ephesians 4:25-32

Notice that God doesn't just call us to leave our Egypt and camp in the wilderness. He calls us to an active obedience not just a cessation of sin. Get away from falsehood and tell the truth. When angry don't let it produce sin, don't let it ferment, and don't give the devil any opportunity to direct you. Don't steal but share. Don't say things that tear people down but rather say things that build people up in grace. Put away bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and slander and put on tenderheartedness, forgiveness, and model God's forgiveness in your life. So there are commands that tell us what to “leave behind” and what to “actively model”.

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. Andwalk in love,as Christ loved us andgave himself up for us, afragrantoffering and sacrifice to God. Butsexual immorality and all impurity or covetousnessmust not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there beno filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking,which are out of place, but insteadlet there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, thateveryone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.Let no onedeceive you with empty words, for because of these thingsthe wrath of God comes uponthe sons of disobedience. Thereforedo not associate with them; forat one time you weredarkness, but now you are light in the Lord.Walk as children of light (forthe fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), andtry to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in theunfruitfulworks of darkness, but insteadexpose them. Forit is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But whenanything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light.

Ephesians 5:1-14a

God tells us to imitate Him and to stay well away from sexual immorality and covetousness which is idolatry. We should leave all this because He has taken us from the dark into the light. We should leave that and “try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord” and then do it. It is a sad thing when we turn back to our old idols and methods that kept us in bondage before God took hold of us. It is a sad thing but something that Judah did and we must guard our hearts against.

The Egyptians are man, and not God, and their horsesare flesh, and not spirit. When the Lord stretches out his hand, the helper will stumble, and he who is helped will fall, and they will all perish together. For thus the Lord said to me, “As a lion or a young lion growls over his prey, and when a band of shepherds is called out against him is not terrified by their shouting or daunted at their noise, so the Lord of hosts will come down to fight on Mount Zion and on its hill. Like birds hovering, so the Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it; he will spare and rescue it.”Turn to him from whom people havedeeply revolted, O children of Israel. For in that dayeveryone shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your hands have sinfully made for you. “And the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of man; and a sword, not of man, shall devour him; and he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall beput to forced labor. His rock shall pass away in terror, and his officers desert the standard in panic,” declares the Lord, whosefire is in Zion, and whosefurnace is in Jerusalem.

Isaiah 31:3-9

At this point Jerusalem is rebuked and God points out the obvious. The Egyptians will not be of any help in the defense of Jerusalem. Only God can defend them and God will. God isn't threatened by Sennacherib's talk outside the wall of Jerusalem. The prophecy was fulfilled in the destruction of the Assyrian army by God. They fell by the sword but not the sword of man. Each day God defends us. He keeps us against an enemy who, like Sennacherib, says we are foolish to trust in God. But we trust in God's keeping power. Even those great martyrs of the Church could know that God is able to keep us in the worst circumstances and I'm sure that the believers inside the wall during this siege leaned on the promises of God.

He who did not spare his own Son butgave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?It is God who justifies.Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—m ore than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God,who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sakewe are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more thanconquerors throughhim who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:32-39

Even if we were to be martyred we would still be more than conquerors through Him who loves us. The ultimate enemy of death is no longer effective against us because God has fought the battle for us. This principle of trusting in God's keeping power is what Jerusalem and Judah and Israel in the Northern Kingdom all failed to do. Many of us lead tremendously blessed lives by God's mercy but even if we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death we will see God bear us up and keep us His.

When we are blessed we never want to forget that it is mercy and grace He has poured out on us. When we see others blessed we must know it is God's hand in their lives. When we see our brothers and sisters, especially in other parts of the world, undergoing great trials then we need to pray for them in accord with God's will and ask Him to lift them up and pour out the Holy Spirit on them. Each of us will be instructed by God to rest in Him more and more fully. I pray each of us will be quick to yield to God and be corrected immediately for any turning back to the deceitful methods from before we were redeemed.

The Prophecy of Isaiah – Lesson 25

A thing that we need to guard against in our lives is falling back into the methods and means that we used before God freed us from bondage. This is not a new problem. This is part of our sin nature that we struggle with and it was a problem for Judah as well.

“Ah, stubborn children,” declares the Lord, “who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt! Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation. For though his officials are at Zoan and this envoys reach Hanes, everyone comes to shame through a people that cannot profit them, that brings neither help nor profit, but shame and disgrace.”
Isaiah 30:1-5

So we have the same tenancy when we are in stress or fear to turn back to the methods we used before salvation. Judah was afraid of Assyria so they went for help to Egypt the proved killer and enslaver of God's people. God will discipline us so that we break this habit and start turning to Him first and only in times of need. We need to remember to seek God and His will in our lives.

An oracle on the beasts of the Negeb. Through a land of trouble and anguish, from where come the lioness and the lion, the adder and the flying fiery serpent, they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people that cannot profit them. Egypt’s help is worthless and empty; therefore I have called her “Rahab who sits still.”
Isaiah 30:6-7

It seems that Isaiah's concern is for the donkeys and camels endangered by the trip since there is no profit is taking treasures to Egypt. The allusion to Rahab is to a mythological chaos monster but in the case of Egypt it is a chaos monster that goes nowhere. When we turn back to our old lives we also turn back to the chaos prior to our salvation and it leads nowhere. One of the key elements of being judged severely for these kinds of actions is a purposeful rejection of what God has revealed.

And now, go, write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever. For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord; who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.” Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, “Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them, therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out, and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant; and its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.”
Isaiah 30:8-14

And it is in a book, the Book, and we are reading it about 2700 years after it happened. Our culture has a deep streak of this “speak to us smooth things” alive and well today. The imagery is pretty striking here. The walls during a siege (which they were about to find out) would bulge from the repeated blows of the siege equipment but then fail suddenly and crumble. For Judah and for us, God's word against sin in our life will be a constant pounding and for us a call to repentance. God's correction is still Grace.

For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling, and you said, “No! We will flee upon horses”; therefore you shall flee away; and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”; therefore your pursuers shall be swift. A thousand shall flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you shall flee, till you are left like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain, like a signal on a hill.
Isaiah 30:15-17

They run and all that is left is a flagstaff and a signal to show that a people were once there. God has to teach us to return and rest and be quiet and to trust. But remember that you want to be a quick learner and not a slow learner. Like my Grandmother always said, “Them that won't listen has to feel.”

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!”
Isaiah 30:18-22

God's objective in our lives, like His objective in Judah, is/was Holiness. He isn't being severe or mean. It is Grace that redeems us. His mercy keeps us from getting what we deserve and our reluctance to cry out to Him only delays His blessing in our lives. He is instructing us and separating us from our idols. We live in a fallen world and we don't want to attribute adversity and affliction in an individual's life as God's response to sin. Jesus told us not to do that. However, for each of us in adversity and affliction the point is how we respond to the adversity and affliction. Sin has to go and idols have to go but we need to display quiet trust in God. He never leaves us alone and we can't always understand why things are the way they are. God will make it possible for our hearts to change in attitude. We often think that we can't change the way we feel. That isn't accurate since God can work in us to change the way we think as we submit to the Holy Spirit. Then we will hear a word behind us saying, “This is the way, walk in it” and we'll be happy to do so because of His work in our hearts.

And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures, and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork. And on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.
Isaiah 30:23-26

This prophecy would be yet to be fulfilled in the “Age to Come”. We may also see partial fulfillment in revivals but it will remain for Christ's return to see this fully completed. It was fulfilled in a “type” as the power of Assyria was broken and the people returned to rebuild the temple. The following Scripture deals with the judgment to come on the Assyrians but also has the apocalyptic language typical of the end of our age.

Behold, the name of the Lord comes from afar, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke; his lips are full of fury, and his tongue is like a devouring fire; his breath is like an overflowing stream that reaches up to the neck; to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction, and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads astray. You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel. And the Lord will cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst and storm and hailstones. The Assyrians will be terror-stricken at the voice of the Lord, when he strikes with his rod. And every stroke of the appointed staff that the Lord lays on them will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres. Battling with brandished arm, he will fight with them. For a burning place has long been prepared; indeed, for the king it is made ready, its pyre made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it.
Isaiah 30:27-33

Hezekiah was the king of Jerusalem after serving as a co-regent with his father Ahaz. Hezekiah wasn't perfect but he was not as bad as his father. The Assyrian King Sennacherib assumed that that he could take Jerusalem just like any other city. But Hezekiah would at least listen to Isaiah part of the time. Listen to Sennacherib and how he sounds like the enemy of your soul.

“Thus says Sennacherib king of Assyria, ‘On what are you trusting, that you endure the siege in Jerusalem? Is not Hezekiah misleading you, that he may give you over to die by famine and by thirst, when he tells you, “The Lord our God will deliver us from the hand of the king of Assyria”? Has not this same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, “Before one altar you shall worship, and on it you shall burn your sacrifices”? Do you not know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of other lands? Were the gods of the nations of those lands at all able to deliver their lands out of my hand? Who among all the gods of those nations that my fathers devoted to destruction was able to deliver his people from my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you from my hand?
2 Chronicles 32:10-14

Sennacherib attacks faith in God, leadership ordained by God, obedience in worship to God's instruction, and God's omnipotence. Trash talking God is not a wise course of action.

Then Hezekiah the king and Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, prayed because of this and cried to heaven. And the Lord sent an angel, who cut off all the mighty warriors and commanders and officers in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he came into the house of his god, some of his own sons struck him down there with the sword. So the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib king of Assyria and from the hand of all his enemies, and he provided for them on every side. And many brought gifts to the Lord to Jerusalem and precious things to Hezekiah king of Judah, so that he was exalted in the sight of all nations from that time onward.
2 Ch 32:20-23

The book of 2nd Kings puts the number of dead at 185,000. God prepared a funeral for Sennacherib. When he went home and turned again to his idol after seeing the power of God his time was over and his own sons killed him.

It is important for us to realize that there will come an end to this age. I think it is even more important for us to remember that an end will come to us. We will give an answer for what we do and say. God is the one who brings salvation and we bring praise for His works and His perfection.