A Lamentation Over Pharaoh
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Introduction
Introduction
Pride is the refusal to acknowledge that “I Am” is “the Lord,” ().
Pride is “suppress(ing) the truth” that is “plain to (us), because God has shown it to (us),” ().
“For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So (we) are without excuse,” ().
God exists. That is plain enough to all of us who will take an honest look around creation. [INTER] But will we humble ourselves before God in light of his existence? What price will we pay for not humbling ourselves before God?
Paul writes about those who know that God exists but refuse to humble themselves before him when he writes in ...
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
“Therefore God gave them up...” ().
“For this reason God gave them up…” ().
“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up...” ().
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.
They knew God’s righteous decree that those who practiced such things - those who lived so pridefully - deserve to die, ().
There will come a die when every prideful person who refuses to humble themselves before God through faith in Christ
There will come a die when every prideful person who refuses to humble themselves before the Lord will be humbled by the Lord. Listen to these sobering words from ...
For the Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up—and it shall be brought low; against all the cedars of Lebanon, lofty and lifted up; and against all the oaks of Bashan; against all the lofty mountains, and against all the uplifted hills; against every high tower, and against every fortified wall; against all the ships of Tarshish, and against all the beautiful craft. And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
A day like that - a day of wrath - had come for Pharaoh and Egypt in .
[CONTEXT] Pharaoh and Egypt tried to rescue God’s people from God’s discipline. The people of Judah had rebelled against God. God was disciplining them in the form of Babylonian subjugation. Judah tried to cut short the discipline of God by rebelling against their Babylonian overlord, but Babylon (as directed by the sovereign hand of God) laid seige to the city. Judah, however, was quite down. It called on Pharaoh and Egypt to rescue it from the Babylonian siege. For a moment it looked as if it had worked. But, alas, the Babylonians returned and Jerusalem - the capital of Judah, the city of God - fell.
Two months after Jerusalem fell, this prophecy in came to the prophet.
Jerusalem was conquered and Egypt was next.
[CIT] is a sad song - a lamentation - that God aimed to stick in the minds of his people as a warning, “Pharaoh thinks himself lovely, but Pharaoh is ugly; he thinks himself tall, but Pharaoh is going to fall. Don’t trust in him!”
[PROP] Oh, how we need a sober view of ourselves through the grace that God provides in Jesus Christ. If we don’t wake up to our God-rejecting, humility-refusing pride, we will perish in our sins. Salvation, however, lies in acknowledging Jesus as Lord and in humbling ourselves before him in light of that reality.
[INTER] will we humble ourselves before Jesus? What price will we pay if we don’t?
[TS] Let’s notice a few ELEMENTS within this chapter...
Major Ideas
Major Ideas
Element #1: The Sin - Pride (v. 2b)
Element #1: The Sin - Pride (v. 2b)
“Son of man, raise a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him: “You consider yourself a lion of the nations, but you are like a dragon in the seas; you burst forth in your rivers, trouble the waters with your feet, and foul their rivers.
[Exp] Pharaoh sees himself as a “lion of the nations” but God says he is more like “a dragon in the seas.” The differences between these two views or estimations of Pharaoh involve more than just appearances.
The lion was seen as a symbol of royalty, especially in Egypt.
You remember seeing the Egyptian Sphinx with the head of Pharaoh and the body of lion. This represented the king’s role as “the invincible protector of the people,” (Block).
In seeing himself as lion of the nations, Pharaoh no doubt sees himself as a leader of the world, but if he is leading the world, he is leading it in rebellion against God.
I should mention here that although Pharaoh likely sees himself as a leader of the world, God’s primary concern is not the world but his people, Judah.
Judah looked to Pharaoh as a lion of the nations, but under the judgment of God Judah will see that Pharaoh is nothing more than a common Nile crocodile that will be captured and killed.
Back in God said...
speak, and say, Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lies in the midst of his streams, that says, ‘My Nile is my own; I made it for myself.’
Here again in God referred to Pharaoh as a “dragon” or a “monster” if you’re reading the NASB.
[Exp]
The description of Pharaoh that follows is meant to remind us a crocodile which inhabit the Nile river which Pharaoh claimed to have created, but the term “dragon” makes us take note of what is going on behind the scenes.
The “dragon” is presented in Scripture as a supernatural creature that rebels against the rule of God and is ultimately defeated by God.
You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.
In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?
I read those Scriptures just to make the point that, in Scripture, the dragon is defeated and by calling Pharaoh “dragon” here in God assures the people of Judah - perhaps to their disappointment - that Pharaoh will be defeated.
Of course, we know that Satan stands behind every nation and ruler that rebels against God such as Egypt and Pharaoh does here. So, we read in ...
And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
I read those Scriptures just to make the point that in Scripture, the “dragon” is defeated, and by calling Pharaoh “dragon” here in , God assures the people of Judah - perhaps to their disappointment - that Pharaoh and the evil power that stands behind him will be defeated.
The rest of v. 2 says that Pharaoh “burst(s) forth in (his) rivers, trouble the waters with (his) feet, and foul their rivers.” All of this represents defiance toward God.
Pharaoh lunged forward from Egypt in an attempt to intervene in God’s discipline of Judah as God’s instrument of discipline, the Babylonian army, laid seige to that city.
Egypt troubled the waters a bit, temporarily fouling the rivers. This language is similar to , which we aren’t going to read. But that passage does describe rams and goats who foul drinking waters by tromping through it with their feet, which means the rest of God’s flock won’t be able to drink.
Here in then, it seems to me that God is describing Pharaoh as a crocodile that momentarily fouled up the river of God’s discipline upon Judah, momentarily preventing Judah from taking in God’s discipline.
But this was all apart of God’s plan and the dragon, which has already been run off by Babylon, will be soon captured and killed by the same.
[Illus] One time during the Summer Olympics, my friend told me about the delusions of his father.
He said, “My dad thinks with just a little effort he could be a sprinter in the Olympics.”
My friends dad wasn’t old, but with solid gray hair and an “eater’s belly” in place of a “runners body,” he was not going to be running in the Olympics.
[App] Prideful thinking is delusional. It make us think more highly of ourselves than we ought to.
It made Pharaoh envision Egypt as a great tree in and envision himself as a lion of the nations here in .
Pharaoh failed to see that both the tree and the lion were but parts of creation under the awesome authority of the true Creator God.
Thinking of himself more highly than he should have, Pharaoh rebelled against the true Creator God and paid the price. He is still paying the price.
If we would the fall that comes after pride, then must get rid of pride and the only way to do that is see ourselves as we truly are and to God as he truly is.
Will the same thing happen to us?
Will
[Illus] There is a story about a Highlands minister is the Highlands of Scotland in the 19th century.
He was traveling through the central Highlands to Edinburgh for the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
On the way, he stopped at a farmhouse on the way and there met a servant girl in spiritual distress. The Lord had been working on her and she was under conviction of sin, so she asked the minister what she should do.
The minister told her to pray, “Lord, show me myself.”
She asked the minister what she should do
He went on the Assembly and returning to the farmhouse on the way back, he found the girl in even deeper spiritual distress.
This time he told her to pray, “Lord, show me Thyself.”
The next time the minister saw her she had peace with God because God had not only showed her herself as she really was in all her sinfulness and rebellion, but himself as he really is in all his holiness and graciousness.
That’s what we need to pray so that we don’t fall into pride. Lord, show me myself! And, Lord, show me Thyself!”
As we see ourselves as we are and see him as he is, we will avoid the great sin of pride.
Lord, show me myself! Lord, show me thyself!
God shows us who he is in Jesus who in his humility is the very opposite of our pride.
In pride we rise up against God in defiance but in humility Jesus laid down his life in obedience.
I am like the one thief on the cross who pridefully thought he didn't deserve it but Jesus humbly hung on the cross precisely because I did deserve it.
The message tonight is not "be humble like Jesus" but "trust Jesus" because he died to pay the price for our pride.
[TS] {next}
Element #2: The Response - Wrath (vv. 3-8)
Element #2: The Response - Wrath (vv. 3-8)
Thus says the Lord God: I will throw my net over you with a host of many peoples, and they will haul you up in my dragnet. And I will cast you on the ground; on the open field I will fling you, and will cause all the birds of the heavens to settle on you, and I will gorge the beasts of the whole earth with you. I will strew your flesh upon the mountains and fill the valleys with your carcass. I will drench the land even to the mountains with your flowing blood, and the ravines will be full of you. When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens and make their stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give its light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over you, and put darkness on your land, declares the Lord God.
[Exp]
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Element #3: The Effect - Fear (vv. 9-10)
Element #3: The Effect - Fear (vv. 9-10)
“I will trouble the hearts of many peoples, when I bring your destruction among the nations, into the countries that you have not known. I will make many peoples appalled at you, and the hair of their kings shall bristle with horror because of you, when I brandish my sword before them. They shall tremble every moment, every one for his own life, on the day of your downfall.
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Element #4: The Instrument - Babylon (vv. 11-14)
Element #4: The Instrument - Babylon (vv. 11-14)
“For thus says the Lord God: The sword of the king of Babylon shall come upon you. I will cause your multitude to fall by the swords of mighty ones, all of them most ruthless of nations. “They shall bring to ruin the pride of Egypt, and all its multitude shall perish. I will destroy all its beasts from beside many waters; and no foot of man shall trouble them anymore, nor shall the hoofs of beasts trouble them. Then I will make their waters clear, and cause their rivers to run like oil, declares the Lord God.
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Element #5: The Purpose - Knowledge (v. 15)
Element #5: The Purpose - Knowledge (v. 15)
When I make the land of Egypt desolate, and when the land is desolate of all that fills it, when I strike down all who dwell in it, then they will know that I am the Lord.
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Conclusion
Conclusion
Element #6: The Song of Wrath (v. 16)
Element #6: The Song of Wrath (v. 16)
This is a lamentation that shall be chanted; the daughters of the nations shall chant it; over Egypt, and over all her multitude, shall they chant it, declares the Lord God.”
[Exp]
[Exp]
[Illus]
[App]
[TS]
And his song over me is love -
He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.
Either this banner flies over you or the song of wrath does. Which is it?
Notes
Notes
For the Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up—and it shall be brought low; against all the cedars of Lebanon, lofty and lifted up; and against all the oaks of Bashan; against all the lofty mountains, and against all the uplifted hills; against every high tower, and against every fortified wall; against all the ships of Tarshish, and against all the beautiful craft. And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
vv. 2b - problem (pride)
vv. 3-8 - God’s response to