Don't Go to Egypt, Turn to the LORD
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Australia is vulnerable.
I dunno if you know anything about our country’s ability to defend ourselves. I might scare you a bit, but I promise this is relevant.
Australia can’t defend ourselves. We don’t have the equipment or the numbers to defend our nation properly.
If a large force from the north *china*, had it in mind to go to war with us, we would rely on our allies to come to our aid, because we are vulnerable.
We don’t have enough ships, or aircraft or missiles or people.
We’re looking to USA to buy missiles and submarines to help us defend ourselves.
This is much like ancient Israel in the time of Isaiah and Hezekiah.
There was a great power to the north who threatened them, and in the face of those odds they felt almost powerless.
They too did the rational thing and tried to ally with another great power to defend them. But the problem is, they forgot the Lord!
It made practical sense, but they ignored their God to do it.
Don’t look for help in the Wrong Places
Don’t look for help in the Wrong Places
v1-3
Start with our 5th woe.
Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord!
Here it is written clearly. This is the problem the Lord has with Judah.
They know the power of the Assyrians, and they know they need help to stand up to the foe.
They can see the might of the Egyptians, their numbers, their horses, their chariots,
But they look to Egypt instead of looking to God. They do not Look to the Holy One, they haven’t even asked God what he thinks about it.
How often have you made a choice and only later realised that you did it without any reference to the Lord, without seeking him in prayer? Judah did this, but on a national scale!
The LORD has his plans, and he will act despite the faithless attempts of Judah:
And yet he is wise and brings disaster; he does not call back his words, but will arise against the house of the evildoers and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.
Judah thought they were being wise, but the Lord is the one who brings disaster
He doesn’t have to change his words or his mind!
And he will act against the enemy, and as we also know, to bring judgement on Judah for their faithlessness.
The Lord is much greater than Egypt, so why would they ask for help from the lesser power ehwn they can ask from the greater?
The Egyptians are man, and not God, and their horses are 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.
The Lord can stretch out his hand in a moment and deal with all the problems! He is powerful to deliver.
In this case both Egypt and and Judah will fall. The helper and the helped.
Brothers and sisters where do you go looking for help? What’s your first port of call?
Right now many of us feel the instability of the moment. We’re concerned for the future. We see moral decay and the trajectory of destruction that we are on. So the temptation can be to look to the systems of many to solve things. If only we could get a good leader, or decent policy. These are good things to desire, and to work toward, but if your solution is to see this as the answer to everything, then you’re falling into the same trap as Judah.
What if you are concerned for the future and you knuckle down to protect yourself. You get your savings and your supplies and your equipment to weather financial storms, national disaters, but do not trust the lord and look to him, you’re in the same trap as Judah.
If you look to relationships to solve...
If you look to fulfilling your desires....
Aside: Some of you have the opposite problem. You’re passive and even lazy - you say “The Lord will provide” while you sit on your hands and refuse to take up the means the God has given you. How foolish is the farmer who looks at his field and says “Lord, please give us each day our daily bread” then he takes his seed back to the barn and plants nothing.
The LORD will provide, and sometimes that is through the work of your own hands.
So we see there are two dangers here - that we ignore God and solve everything in our own power, or we ignore the means that God has given us and ask for the results.
The LORD protects his People
The LORD protects his People
v4-5
Israel needed not fear! The Lord would be their protector! and he uses imagery from the natural world to show his people how he cares for them:
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 he 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.
The Lord is not put off or scared of the enemies! Even if you got all the great powers together and faced off against the Lord, they will not intimidate him.
He intends to come down and fight for his people.
And indeed he did! I’ll tell you how in a minute.
Like birds hovering, so the Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it; he will spare and rescue it.”
Now we know that this was temporary, he had a discipline for them in the future. But even then, even when God is “handing over” his people to be sifted by the enemy, it is under his protection
Yay, even though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death, your rod and staff the comfort me.
The Lord protects his people of old, and new!
He watches over us. The Lord Jesus is with us to watch over, protect and deliver!
Repent!
Repent!
v6-7
Knowing these things, the people of Judah are called to turn back to God. And as ever, it’s not just one thing that was part of the issues in Judah, they also had an idol problem that they needed to kick as well:
Turn to him from whom people have deeply revolted, O children of Israel. For in that day everyone shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your hands have sinfully made for you.
You gotta remember, these idols where made by people who were part of Israel. Its imagine someone fro our church had a business making idols. It’s that kind of absurd.
Deep revolt
Signs of repentance are external - action taken to reject sin and be loyal.
When we hear the news that it is foolish to look to others for aid (even the idols of our hands) and that the Lord desires to protect his people, we should respond with repentance, turn back to the Lord!
Lets take some silent moments of prayer right now to do that...
The LORD defeats our Enemies
The LORD defeats our Enemies
v8-9
Lastly the Lord assures Judah that he will be their deliverer in their specifc circumstances:
“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 be put to forced labor.
- Story of Hezekiah against Assyria
His rock shall pass away in terror, and his officers desert the standard in panic,” declares the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.
When Assyria came to Jerusalem if was like walking into a furnace - they were burned up!
The Lord with burn up all his enemies in time:
And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
So What?
So What?
I started by talking about how our nation is in a similar vulnerable state to Israel of old. Does this mean we too need to stop looking to our allies for aid?
No, that’s a misapplication of the text. Firstly Australia the nation is not God’s people. We as a nation did not receive a divine covenant with instructions on how to deal with national enemies.
However, there are some clear lines of application for our country as a whole.
We need to repent. We have deeply revolted, and we need to turn back to the Lord. Cast away our idols.
We need to place our trust in the Lord, as individuals, and as a collective.
That whether Australia turns to the Lord or not, the Lord will protect and build his church.
We need to heed this message as the church, not looking for aid from anything before the Lord.
Jesus is our only hope.
YEs, we can pland and prepare, but the Lord is the deliverer and protector.
He dlivers through Jesus!
Jesus is the Way the Truth & the Life!
