SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/20/2013
8:35 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The burden
of Egypt.
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Isaiah 19:1-20:6
Message of the
verses: We know that Egypt has been
in the news these days because of the turmoil that is going on in that country
due to political problems. There is much
in the Word of God about the nation of Egypt and one of the things that I have
learned about Egypt is that it along with Iraq are not in the group of nations
that Ezekiel lists in chapters 38-39.
These two chapters speak of the war against Israel in the last days as
this group of nations come up against Israel and then God destroys them in a miraculous
way. It is interesting to me that both
of these nations have been in the news lately as it does seem that the time of
the end is fast approaching. Now don’t
get me wrong or put any words in my mouth for I have never been a date setter
as far as when the Lord will return, but when one studies the prophecies of the
Bible to see what the world will look like during what the Bible calls the
tribulation period we can begin to see nations aligning in that order in today’s
world. My prayer has always been since I
became a believer in 1974 was to be here when the rapture of the Church occurs.
Dr. Wiersbe breaks this section into two sub-sections
which we will begin to look at now.
God will judge Egypt (Isaiah 19:1-15; 20:1-6): “1 The oracle concerning Egypt. Behold, the
LORD is riding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt; The idols of Egypt will tremble
at His presence, And the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them. 2
“So I will incite
Egyptians against Egyptians; And they will each fight against his brother and
each against his neighbor, City against city and kingdom against kingdom.
3 “Then the spirit of the Egyptians will be demoralized within them; And I will
confound their strategy, So that they will resort to idols and ghosts of the
dead And to mediums and spiritists. 4 “Moreover, I will deliver the Egyptians
into the hand of a cruel master, And a mighty king will rule over them,"
declares the Lord GOD of hosts. 5 The waters from the sea will dry up, And the
river will be parched and dry. 6 The canals will emit a stench, The streams of
Egypt will thin out and dry up; The reeds and rushes will rot away. 7 The
bulrushes by the Nile, by the edge of the Nile And all the sown fields by the
Nile Will become dry, be driven away, and be no more. 8 And the fishermen will
lament, And all those who cast a line into the Nile will mourn, And those who
spread nets on the waters will pine away. 9 Moreover, the manufacturers of
linen made from combed flax And the weavers of white cloth will be utterly
dejected. 10 And the pillars of Egypt will be crushed; All the hired laborers
will be grieved in soul. 11 The princes of Zoan are mere fools; The advice of
Pharaoh’s wisest advisers has become stupid. How can you men say to Pharaoh,
"I am a son of the wise, a son of ancient kings"? 12 Well then, where
are your wise men? Please let them tell you, And let them understand what the
LORD of hosts Has purposed against Egypt. 13 The princes of Zoan have acted
foolishly, The princes of Memphis are deluded; Those who are the cornerstone of
her tribes Have led Egypt astray. 14 The LORD has mixed within her a spirit of
distortion; They have led Egypt astray in all that it does, As a drunken man
staggers in his vomit. 15 There will be no work for Egypt Which its head or
tail, its palm branch or bulrush, may do.”
“1 ¶ In the year
that the commander came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him and
he fought against Ashdod and captured it, 2
at that time the LORD spoke through Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying,
"Go and loosen the sackcloth from your hips and take your shoes off your
feet." And he did so, going naked and barefoot. 3 And the LORD said, "Even as My servant
Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot three years as a sign and token against
Egypt and Cush, 4 so the king of Assyria
will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old,
naked and barefoot with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. 5 “Then they
will be dismayed and ashamed because of Cush their hope and Egypt their boast. 6
“So the inhabitants of this coastland will say in that day, ’Behold, such is
our hope, where we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria; and
we, how shall we escape?’”
It is the belief of Warren Wiersbe that the prophecy we
see in this section was fulfilled in 670 B.C. when Egypt was conquered by
Esarhaddon, king of Assyria. I can’t
help but think of Isaiah 19:2 as something that is going on at this time in
Egypt, but I suppose that throughout the long history of Egypt that there have
been different times when they fought against each other.
We see in this prophecy the importance of the Nile river
and how it would be dried up which would have caused a great economic problem
in Egypt. We also see that the gods that
the Egyptians worshiped were worthless to them when it came to fighting against
the Assyrians.
I want to quote a paragraph from Dr. Wiersbe that is very
though provoking to me: “In these days
of almost instant communication and rapid transportation, when in a matter of
minutes nations can come to the brink of war, we forget that God is still
sovereign and can do whatever He pleases in the affairs of men. God destroyed everything that the Egyptians
trusted—their political unity, their economy, religion, wisdom—and made them an
easy target for the Assyrians. When the
international news is frightening and you wonder where God is, read Psalm 2 and
Acts 4:23-32, and take hope.
Chapter 20 is a footnote for what we read in chapter
nineteen (the verses we covered) and in it we saw Isaiah wear a linen cloth as
clothing and walk around barefoot for three years to show the people of Judah
what the Lord was going to do through the Assyrians to Egypt. There were some in Judah who wanted to align
with Egypt.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: When things are
the way they are now as far as what is happening in this world it is best to
trust the Lord and take hope as was shared by Dr. Wiersbe.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to see me through this day,
and I pray that my wife will have a good time.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “Moses” (Numbers 20:10).
Today’s Bible
Question: “What happened to the men that
accused Daniel and caused him to be cast into the den of lions?”
Answer in tomorrow’s SD.
8/20/2013 9:48 AM
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