That is certainly our desire that God be exalted in all of the earth. And as we've been going through the book of Ezekiel, we see that that is a continuing theme of what he says, is that he wants all the nations And so we've seen this phrase over and over again, and they will know that I am the Lord God. This morning we're going to be running quickly through four chapters. Can you believe it? Chapters 29, 30, 31, and 32 are all messages to Egypt. And this is the last of seven, a series of seven messages that God gave to the various nations that were surrounding the people of Israel as God was going to bring judgment on them. And as we look at these chapters, what I find is that there's so much repetitive information in there because God, one of the things that we find in the He's doing it to help us understand how important this issue is, or how adamant God is about the action that He's going to take. And so we have this in these four chapters. But God is giving these messages to the nation of Egypt, and to the Pharaoh of Egypt, and As we look at them, we can date them, actually, because of things that are given in the text. The first one that we find at the beginning of Chapter 29 is the judgment took place, or it was given on January 5th, 587 BC. The second one in our text, if you look at the dating, it actually belongs at the very end. It's the latest one given. It's April 26, 571 BC. The third one is undated. the Judahites would know what God was doing, what he had declared, and then it would strengthen their faith, their understanding of God's work in their midst. And so we're gonna try and hit the highlights of these seven oracles as we go through them. The first one was given one year after the start of the siege of Jerusalem. You think about what was going on historically in in these, the nation of Babylon had come against Jerusalem, laid siege to the city, and while they were besieged by Babylon, God gives this message to Egypt and he's with the people of Judah and we might ask the question as we look at all of this thinking, wow, four chapters out of this book and seven messages. Why in the world would God devote so much time and effort talking to the people Oh, Israel kept wanting to go to Egypt. Makes me think of the old Keith Green song. So, you want to go back to Egypt, right? But that, think about it. Even when they first came out from slavery and they're in the wilderness, as soon as things started going tough for them, they wanted to go back to Egypt and that seems to have never changed. All throughout their history, they kept looking to Egypt as their deliverer. And that is a key reason why God gave so many strong messages to Egypt at this particular time. in the history of Israel. The king of Judah, Zedekiah, as he was faced with the Babylonian army at his gates surrounding his city, he was relying on Egypt's help to stand against Babylon. And so what we find here is Judah was caught between two major powers that were battling for supremacy in the Middle East. Egypt had been a long-standing power. Babylon was the up-and-comer. Who's going to control it? Who's in between? Physically speaking, who's between Egypt and Babylon? Judah. That's where they're at. So, they're trapped, we could say, between a rock and a hard place, but between Egypt and Babylon, caught between these two nations vying for supremacy, And Egypt, as far as the socio-political status of the day, Egypt was the one nation in the world that represented the greatest threat to Babylon's expansion and supremacy in the region. Babylon had already taken care of all the other nations that tried to stand in their way. Egypt was basically the last great superpower of that world. standing in their way and so Judah looked to Egypt saying, are you able to help us? But when Judah joined Egypt in rebelling against Babylon, they were actually going directly against God's declared will. God had spoken through several of his prophets saying, I'm the one that brought battle on. You need to yield. You need to go. But they wouldn't listen to the prophets. They wouldn't listen to what god was saying and so these prophecies were a lesson to the people of Judah about where they put their trust. So, I wanna start off reading this first the twelfth day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt. 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. I will put hooks in your jaws, and make the fish of your streams stick to your scales, and I will draw you up and I will cast you out into the wilderness, you and all the fish of your streams. You shall fall on the open field and not be brought together or gathered. To the beasts of the earth and to the birds of the heavens, I give you as food. Then all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the Lord. Because you have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel, when they grasped you with the hand, you broke and tore all their shoulders. And when they leaned on you, you broke and made all their loins to shake. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, Behold, I will bring a sword upon you, and I will cut off from you man and beast, and the land of Egypt shall be a desolation and a waste. Then they will know that I am the Lord. And he continues on with this same theme with Egypt. But as we look at these prophecies, God was saying to the people of Judah. This nation, Egypt, that you are putting your trust in is untrustworthy. And you need to learn the lesson. And so, instead of looking to God for their help, they looked to Egypt. And Isaiah, I forget the timing, I think 100 years before, had said, Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel, or consult the Lord. The Egyptians are man, and not God. When the Lord stretches out His hand, the helper will stumble, and he who is helped will fall, and they will all perish together. help. Are you are you actually looking to the right source for your help, for your support, for for your strength? God had told him, don't look to Egypt. Don't rely on their armies. Don't rely on their chariots and their horses. Rely on me but they said, no, we're not going to trust god. We're going to look to verses that I read here out of chapter twenty-nine, you find two times when God says, people knowing that he is the Lord. The first one was, then all Egypt will know that I am the Lord. The second one was, then Judah will know. Cuz he he talks about Judah had been trusting and then they will know that I am the Lord. God was bringing home to them this message, I am the only one that you can trust. The Egyptians are man. And they're going to be made to fall. I read there in verse 6 where God said, Because you have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel, when they grasped you with the hand, you broke and tore all their shoulders. And when they leaned on you, you broke and made all their joints shake. So we have a little reed here. We like pretty things like this, right? Cat tails. How good is this for a staff of support? I mean, it's rigid, right? It'll help. I mean, if I want to use that as, oh, that could help. You know, you might even get a big one that looks more stout. But if we would compare this with a branch of the same size, is there a difference in the strength, the value of it? Absolutely. And God said to Egypt, you're a staff of reek to My people Israel. You're worthless. And in fact, He even goes through and He says, when they grasp you by the hand, and you broke, it's like that falling down, broke the shoulder, their ability to stand, that you're weak and you cause more damage than help. Instead of being a stout wooden staff, Egypt was an untrustworthy, dangerous thing to lean on. What the people of Israel and Judah thought would help them ended up hurting them. And God said in verse 9, that when He broke Egypt, that would remind the Jews that He is Yahweh, that they could not stop or sidetrack what He had started. Down in verse 16, God said, And it shall never again be the reliance of the house of Israel, recalling their iniquity when they turned to them for aid. Then they will know that I am the Lord God. A reminder to the people of Israel and Judah. There was a sin for them to look anywhere besides God for aid. God was saying that He alone is capable of being the staff of support when we face trials, and when we look anywhere else, that is sin. That's lesson two that we find in these messages. we read the beginning of this gave us this picture of Pharaoh and Egypt saying basically look at me look at how great I am look at how powerful I am right the Nile is mine I made it for Right? That's the problem that God revealed in Egypt and Pharaoh. God pictures Pharaoh as this giant Nile crocodile. And, I mean, you think about it. A crocodile in the water is a fearsome thing, right? I mean, that's their element. you don't easily gain the victory over them. And those Nile crocodiles, they can grow to 20 feet long. Massive, powerful, dangerous creatures. And God was picturing the pharaoh of Egypt in this way. The Greek historian Herodotus said that this pharaoh, Hophra, had reigned in prosperity for 25 years, and he was so elevated with his own success that this is literally what he said. God himself cannot cast me out of my kingdom. God says, I'm going on a crocodile hunt. I'm gonna get my hook and I'm gonna drag you out of your river. Cause you didn't make it. I did. God said in verse eight, Therefore, thus says the Lord God, behold, I will, oh wait a minute, I'm in the wrong chapter. Let's see here. Where do I need to be? Oh. I wrote something wrong. Well, four is one that will work. No. Here we go. 9. That's where I was just one verse off. 9. And the land of Egypt shall be a desolation and a waste, and they will know that I am the LORD. Notice this part. 10. Because you said, The Nile is mine, and I made it. 11. Therefore, behold, I am against you and against your streams, and I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from Migdol to Sinai, the beast shall pass through it and it shall be uninhabited forty years." And he goes on to describe it, but God said, because you said the Nile is mine, because you were lifted up with pride, because you dared to say even God can't remove me from this, I'm going to remove you. God rebuked Pharaoh's boast that he made the Nile and ruled over it completely. God said, I will hook the monster and drag it from the river. Down in verse 12, God said, They shall bring to ruin the pride of Egypt, and all its multitude shall perish. but Egypt would be humbled, would never again rise to prominence. And this is a great reminder to us that pride is one of the things that God says He hates. In Proverbs 8.13, God said, Pride and arrogance in the way of evil and perverted speech I hate. Pride's a big problem for people, isn't it? For us. We get a little bit of power and it goes to our head. This was one of the major problems with the Pharaoh of Egypt. God said, I'm going to humble you. Continuing on with his prophecies, God said in chapter 30, verse 20, In the eleventh year of the first month, on the seventh day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and behold, it has not been bound up, to heal it by binding with a bandage, so that it may become strong to wield the sword. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, behold, I am against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and will break his arms, both the strong arm and the one that was broken, and I will make the sword fall from his hand. And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and put my sword in his hand. But I will break the arms of Pharaoh, and he will groan before him like a man mortally wounded. I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, but the arms of Pharaoh shall fall, then they shall know that I am the Lord. When I put my sword into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he stretches it out, God was very specific. I'm bringing Babylon, I'm bringing Nebuchadnezzar against the people of Egypt because of their pride, and so they will all know that I am the Lord. And within his prophecies, specifying that Babylon was the nation that God was bringing to do His judgment, There's a really interesting statement that god puts in here because he says, I'm going to give Egypt and all of its riches to Babylon as payment for their siege on Tyre. When we start looking at the history, remember the the message that we looked at for Tyre talked about how the king of Tyre, the Nebuchadnezzar was going to attack Jerusalem first. He rejoiced. Oh, we've we've been, you know, given a reprieve. We're not going to be judged but yeah, those Judahites, they're going to be judged and then God said, oh but I'm bringing them against you too and so, after that, Nebuchadnezzar came on tire but what we 13 years, they continued in this battle, trying to take it, couldn't defeat it. But finally, just by wearing them down, the people of Tyre yielded, surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar, became subject to Babylon, but they weren't able to plunder like they would in a normal battle where they defeated them. And so then God said, I'm going to give you Egypt in payment for your services entire. And we might stop and wonder, wait a minute, what is God doing? He's paying off this wicked Nebuchadnezzar for all of these battles. What is happening here? It gives us an interesting perspective on how God works in the affairs of men. Several times in Scripture, God describes Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians as His servants doing His bidding, even though they were not aware that God was the One directing them, nor did they care about that. We wonder, why then would God reward them? Matthew Henry, in his commentary, said this, The service done for him by worldly men with worldly designs shall be recompensed with a mere God will always pay people for their service. If they're just seeking the earthly reward, God said, I'll give you earthly reward. Interesting thing was with Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, what we find later on happened with Nebuchadnezzar. God humbled him. And Nebuchadnezzar did humble himself before God and acknowledged God for who he is, I believe, became a believer, became a changed man at that point. So, at this point, early in his career, in his reign, God said, Nebuchadnezzar, if all you're looking for is is power, gain, glory, and riches, okay, hey, pillage Egypt. That's going to serve my purposes as well. And so, God declared that Egypt was going to fall to Babylon. and payment for their services, and then he continues on in his fifth message that we find in chapter 31. God compares Egypt's fall to that of Assyria, and he uses the picture of a giant cedar from Lebanon. Both Egypt and Assyria made boastful claims about their power and their strength and their Both offered protection to other nations, but both fell because of their pride. In 31 and verse 10, after describing this beautiful, lofty cedar tree, God says, Therefore, thus says the Lord God, Because it towered high and set its top among the clouds, and its God said, he brought judgment on Assyria because of their pride. He was going to bring judgment on Egypt because of its pride. This gives us the picture of these national leaders who get so full of themselves and their power that they wield, thinking, nobody can stop me. I can do whatever I want. and they might even look at themselves as being very beneficent. You know, it's like, oh, look at how I'm helping everyone else. Everyone comes to me for protection, for shelter, for provision, and God says, yeah, I'm gonna chop you down because you were lifted up with your pride. Assyria thought she was too big to fall, but God humbled her, and now he used Assyria as a message to the Pharaoh of Egypt, just as I brought Assyria down, I will bring you down as well. Look at the end of chapter 31, verse 18. Whom are you thus like in glory and greatness among the trees of Eden? You shall be brought down with the trees of Eden to the world below. You shall lie among the uncircumcised with those who are slain by the sword. declares the Lord our God. A declarative judgment. That God is in control. That he is going to bring the judgment. The final message that God gave to Egypt was a catalog of the other nations and several times throughout this, we find other nations mentioned and God talked about how They had stood and they had fallen. And then in chapter 32, he gives us this picture of these nations that are in hell, that are in the grave, the latter half of chapter 32. When we look at starting in verse 20, they shall fall amidst those is delivered to the sword, drag her away and all her multitudes, the mighty chiefs shall speak of them with their helpers out of the midst of Sheol. They have come down, they lie still, be uncircumcised, slain by the sword. Syria is there, and all her company, its graves all around it, all of them slain, fallen by the sword, whose graves are set in the uttermost part of the pit. We skip down to verse 24. Elam is there, and all her multitude around her grave, all of them slain, fallen by the sword. 26 Meshach Tubal is there, and all her multitude, her graves all around it, all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword. 29 Edom is there, her kings and all her princes, who for all their might are laid with those who are killed by the sword. 30 The princes of the north are there, all of them, and all the Sidonians, who have gone down in shame with the slain, for all the terror that they caused by their might. verse 31, when Pharaoh sees them, he will be comforted for all his multitude, Pharaoh and all his army, slain by the sword, declares the Lord God. God says, all of these other nations that had been great and mighty powers, that terrorized others, who said, who can stand against me? He said, all of them are in the grave. They've all fallen. their kings and their mighty ones and their armies. They died, and Pharaoh, you're going to meet them in the grave. He said, you're going to find some sort of a comfort. Well, here I am with everybody else. But you've been destroyed, defeated. And God said, for I spread terror in the land of the living, and he shall be laid to rest among the uncircumcised with those who are slain by the sword. Pharaoh and all his multitude declares the Lord God." This whole section is just a reminder to us that God indeed rules in the affairs of men and nations. And there is no nation, there is no ruler who is outside of God's control. There is nobody too big to fall. There's nobody able to stand against God, and this is a comfort for us today. We see the ins and outs of politics and government and boastful declarations of people who wield temporary power in the government. We can trust that God is in control. He raises up men and nations to accomplish His purposes, and then He casts them down in judgment when He is done with them. We take comfort in knowing God is always in control. Has always been. With every nation that has risen, we look at the history of the world and some of these wicked rulers that have come to power and the horrible things that they've done and the thousands or even millions that have died at their hand. Was God at work even in them? Yes, absolutely. And did God hold them accountable and bring them down after He was done with them? Yes, He did. In the modern era, just as He did in the ancient times. So we take comfort in knowing that God is still in control of those things. But this is also a warning to those leaders as well as to us to beware of pride. We don't get lifted up with pride thinking we deserve credit for whatever sort of power or whatever sort of accomplishments we have made. For thinking that we may be beyond accountability for our actions, every one of us will give answer to God, no matter what position we hold. Looking back at the first prophecy, we're reminded that it is God in whom we should trust, not broken reeds of men, not armies, not nations, not laws, not courts, not all these other things. That is not where we place our trust. In Psalm 20 and verse 7 is a good reminder as God went through all of these messages, not only to Egypt, but to the other nations, declaring, I am the Lord God. The one and only, the Sovereign Lord. That was the wording from the NIV that Daryl read this morning, that I am the Sovereign Lord, the Master, the Ruler over all. We can either give an account to God now in humble obedience and faith, or we can wait till the Day of Judgment, when we will be forced as subjugated enemies to declare His greatness and His glory. Who do we trust? Things we look at all the time. as, you know, they're out of our control, they're bigger than us. We cannot change the world around us. But who can? Who is still working, even in the decrees of unjust men? Who is the one that put them in power, and who is the one who holds them accountable and will take them down when His time is ready? God. He is the Lord. He made the heavens and the earth by His great power, and nothing is too difficult for Him. We trust in Him and submit ourselves to Him in faith, knowing that He's the one who we rely on. Let's pray. Father, thank You for Your Word, for Your grace, for Your power. Thank You for the reminder that even in the affairs and nations. You are working in the affairs of men to accomplish your great purpose. Lord, help us to put our trust in you. Even when things look like they're going the wrong direction, even when things look like they're failing, help us to trust that nothing will ever go against your design, your plan, and your will. We pray with the Lord Jesus that your kingdom would come and your will would be done on this earth as it is in heaven and we know that you are at work. Help us to have assurance, confidence in your work and how you work in our own lives at the smaller level, even in the course of these major world events. Thank you for your power, your sovereignty, your unity, and your love. In Jesus' name, amen.