Woe to Those Who Rely on Egypt
1 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,
who rely on horses,
who trust in the multitude of their chariots
and in the great strength of their horsemen,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel,
or seek help from the LORD.
2 Yet he too is wise and can bring disaster;
he does not take back his words.
He will rise up against the house of the wicked,
against those who help evildoers.
3 But the Egyptians are men and not God;
their horses are flesh and not spirit.
When the LORD stretches out his hand,
he who helps will stumble,
he who is helped will fall;
both will perish together.
4 This is what the LORD says to me:
“As a lion growls,
a great lion over his prey—
and though a whole band of shepherds
is called together against him,
he is not frightened by their shouts
or disturbed by their clamor—
so the LORD Almighty will come down
to do battle on Mount Zion and on its heights.
5 Like birds hovering overhead,
the LORD Almighty will shield Jerusalem;
he will shield it and deliver it,
he will ‘pass over’ it and will rescue it.”
6 Return to him you have so greatly revolted against, O Israelites. 7 For in that day every one of you will reject the idols of silver and gold your sinful hands have made.
8 “Assyria will fall by a sword that is not of man;
a sword, not of mortals, will devour them.
They will flee before the sword
and their young men will be put to forced labor.
9 Their stronghold will fall because of terror;
at sight of the battle standard their commanders will panic,”
declares the LORD,
whose fire is in Zion,
whose furnace is in Jerusalem.
My Understanding: Evidently, Hezekiah was now king of Israel. Like Ahaz, who was before him, he was seeking an alliance with “an alien power” (Zondervan NIV Commentary), “instead of encouraging his people to put their trust in the Lord. In so doing, he showed he had failed to learn from history…” The words “an alien power” stood out to me from the writing of this commentary. I know he was speaking of another nation, yet in all practical application of these truths in Isaiah 31 to today, I saw another meaning of “alien power:”
Revelation 13:1-8:
And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea.
And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. 2 The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. 3 One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and followed the beast. 4 Men worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?”
5 The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months. 6 He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. 7 He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. 8 All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.
Revelation 16:12-14:
The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East. Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty.
Blind Followers
When we put our trust in man over God; when we trust in our own human understanding and resources over the wisdom and provisions of God; when we trust in human knowledge over divine wisdom; when we are blind followers of man, gullible, and believe everything he tells us and/or everything we hear or read in the news, or what we hear coming from the mouths of our political and/or religious leaders without questioning if what they are saying fits with the teachings of scripture and/or with the nature of God (as revealed in scripture and in God’s mighty acts), then we set ourselves up to make an alliance with this “alien power” of Revelation 13 & 16.
We may have been so indoctrinated from childhood in both public school (and/or private school) and church to blindly follow our leaders, in particular the US government and military. We believed whatever they told us in history books without questioning whether or not it is true. We took our shots without questioning what they were injecting into our bodies. And, many still are following and are believing their made-up stories today. So, when we choose to follow men and to place our trust in them to make a better world for us, instead of putting our trust in the Lord, then we are setting ourselves up for a fall BIG TIME! The prophecies of scripture concerning these last days before the return of Christ are real. They are not made up, I guarantee it! And, if we keep our blinders on and believe everything we hear without checking out the source to see if it is really true, then we will be easy prey for aligning ourselves with this “alien power”.
“Yet he too is wise and can bring disaster” is a statement of God dripping with sarcasm. He was letting them know that, even though these “wise men” of the world had mocked God’s wisdom and didn’t believe these prophecies concerning judgment, God was a God of his word and he will do what he said he would do. He does not take back his words. He will rise up against the house of the wicked (in the government and/or in the church). He will come against the evildoers and he will come against those who help (aid; support) the evildoers by giving them their heart devotion, faith, allegiance, etc. And, then God reminds us that these men with whom we align ourselves instead of putting our trust in God are not God but are merely men. Yet, from childhood we were taught to place our country’s leaders in almost god-like status, as heroes of the faith, as the sought after, and we were taught to follow them blindly without question, and this still goes on in the church today. Oh, what a great deception of Satan that he has birthed in the church my entire life! The Bible warns us to come out from her (Babylon) so that we don’t share in her many sins.
The “lion” being spoken of here appears, by the context, to be speaking of God/Jesus Christ as the “Lion of Judah.” He is coming in judgment against the false shepherds of God’s sheep. Even though a whole band of shepherds is called together against God (and his true servants), he is not frightened by their shouts or disturbed by their clamor. He will come down and will do battle with them on “Mount Zion,” which is now a reference to the City of God; the kingdom of God; the true church of Jesus Christ. He will fight for his church because she has been led astray by these false shepherds of the people. So, in a strange kind of way, the judgments of God that will literally bring about many of our deaths will in fact be God’s means of mercy to his people in rescuing them spiritually from the false religion of man, so that they do place their trust in the one true God, Jesus Christ.
A picture is given here of God’s deliverance of his people out of bondage to slavery in Egypt and his taking them through the trials of the wilderness safely into the Promised Land. This is a prefiguring of God’s salvation for his people today, i.e. the Israelites had to have the blood of a sacrificial animal sprinkled on their doors so that when God brought the judgment of death of the firstborn sons in Egypt that the houses with the blood on the door would be passed over and would be rescued from this judgment. In the same way, Jesus Christ was our sacrificial Lamb for our sins by dying on the cross for our sins and then in being resurrected to life in conquering death, hell, Satan and sin for you and for me. So, when God sees the blood of Christ sprinkled on the doors of our lives because we, by God’s grace and through faith, repented of our sins and turned to walk in obedience to Jesus Christ, he will pass over us in the judgment that decides whether we go to heaven or to hell, and that is how God will rescue us.
Romans 7:24-25a:
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Then Isaiah gave the call of God to man –
“Return to him you have so greatly revolted against, O Israelites. For in that day every one of you will reject the idols of silver and gold your sinful hands have made.”
Then, God said, through Isaiah, that they would fall by a sword that is not of man; a sword, not of mortals, will devour them. This takes me back to Revelation. This is a spiritual battle for our souls, not a battle of human weapons against human flesh. The real battle is for Satan to steal the hearts and minds of man away from God, and so God will send his judgment in order to “rescue” those who are his from falling further into deception and thus into taking the mark of this beast. So, wake up church! Stop believing everything you hear that you think is from a reliable source. Check it out! See if it makes sense. Many liars and deceivers are among us who would try to get us to believe their lies and to pull us away from pure devotion to God Almighty. That is why this passage says that when this “sword” comes against them that they will flee (give up; lose faith; deny Christ) and they will be brought back into slavery of the evil one because they gave way to fear instead of taking on their spiritual armor God has supplied us to stand against the forces of evil. So stand!
Jesus, Rescue Me / An Original Work / September 18, 2011
Based off of Romans 7:7-8:39
Jesus, rescue me today.
Listen while I bow and pray.
I need Your help to obey You;
Live for You always.
Meet me in my hour of need, Lord,
As I pray to You.
Help me walk in fellowship, Lord,
Living in Your truth.
Jesus, how I long for You to
Change my heart anew.
Father, God, my heart’s desire
Is to live for You this hour
In Your Holy Spirit’s power
Living in me now.
Teach me to walk in Your love, Lord,
Guiding me each day.
Help me to show love and kindness
To the lost, I pray.
Father, teach me to love others
As You love always.
Holy Spirit come in pow’r.
Revive our hearts in this hour.
Change our hearts to be like You, Lord;
Live for You each day.
Help us to forsake our sins, Lord,
As we humbly pray.
Teach us how to live for You, Lord,
Obey You always.
Holy Spirit come in power,
Revive us today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSILqpD-WJA
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