God's special final word to Egypt through the amazing prophet Ezekiel. Seven oracles, including a lamentation, comparison with Assyria, a denunciation of idols, and little hint here of a destiny for Egypt in the coming kingdom age. where they will wander around the world, a re-enactment of what they made Israel do, and then a return to their land for the remaining 960 years of the Millennial Kingdom, but it will be the basest, the lowest of all the nations, and will never again be allowed by God to raise its head above other nations. In fact, Zechariah 14 says that God has a special curse in store for Egyptians who do not come annually to the Feast of Tabernacles. Now, at the beginning of the millennium, that's not appropriate or relevant. But as the hundreds of years go by in the Kingdom Age, and more and more proportionately unregenerate people occupy and populate the world, there will be deeper and deeper resentment against coming to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. So God says to Zechariah 14, any nation who decides not to come will have its rain withheld. It will be cursed with a drought, just as, remember, Elijah did in the Old Testament for three and a half years, and as Elijah and his companion witnessed in the first half of the 70th week of Daniel will do for three and a half years. But Egyptians will say, well, the drought won't hurt us, we never have any rain anyway. God takes that into account and says, well, just for that, you'll have a plague. Remember your plagues, Egypt? I have one specially for you if you don't come to the Feast of Tabernacles in the holy land of Israel, year by year. Amazing, intricate, detailed provisions for obedience and disobedience and blessing and chastisement in our coming age. Remember, all the principal actors on the earth will have sin nature. will be mortal people, except the Melchizedekian high priest, the Lord Jesus, who will appear doubtless occasionally in that kingdom age, especially the Feast of Tabernacles, when all the nations come and will see him and will be reminded of who he is by the appointed teachers of the kingdom, namely the Zadokian priesthood. The Church, in my opinion, will not frequently be seen. on the earth being glorified and having her own functions similar to that of angels today who are extremely busy carrying out divine and satanic functions on this planet that are always invisible to earth dwellers. Just my personal opinion about the relationship of the church to Israel and the kingdom which is, of course, a very difficult topic. The Bible really doesn't shed much light on that particular subject. But Egypt, like all the nations, will have to be taught, admonished, warned, threatened, because remember, even in the kingdom, they will have sin nature and the tendency to suppress truth and disobey the Lord. Now, chapter 30, verse 9. On that day, that is the day that God is going to strike a severe blow to Egypt, a sort of an anticipatory blow of the coming day of the Lord at the end of the world in the Great Tribulation, on that day messengers will go forth from me, God said, in ships to frighten secure Ethiopia to the south, and anguish will be on them as on the day of Egypt, for behold, it comes. Thus saith the Lord God, I will also make the multitude of Egypt peace by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, he and his people with him." Now note, the most ruthless of nations. Babylon was notorious for the way they treated prisoners. Remember what they did to King Zedekiah at Riblah? Remember from the book of Daniel what he did to Daniel's three friends who refused to bow before the great image that Nebuchadnezzar the King set up in Daniel 3. Now this probably occurred shortly after he had conquered Jerusalem and had forgotten the lesson of the dream image that Daniel interpreted way back in 605. So God had to teach him again. Perhaps his image that he set up in the plane of Dura was a replica, to some extent, of the image that he had seen in the vision, but he just made sure the whole thing was gold, because he was the head of gold, as Daniel had explained, and he didn't plan to die and to be replaced by any silver, bronze or iron kingdom. And everybody at the sound of the symphony orchestra had to bow. But three sore thumbs remained erect. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and he said, you are going into the fiery furnace. Now that is what we would call today cruel and unusual punishment. Nebuchadnezzar was notorious for this. Now friends, notice, the most ruthless of the nations is coming to destroy you, Egypt. And they'll be brought in to destroy the land and they will draw their swords against Egypt and fill the land with the slain. And moreover, I'll make the Nile canals dry and sell the land into the hands of evil men. And I will make the land desolate and all that is in it by the hand of strangers. I, the Lord, have spoken. And nobody could be more strange to the Egyptians than Babylonians with their very different, very difficult to understand language. And their very strange and wicked and evil and cruel ways. Verse 13. And now begins a series of specific, precise judgments on every major city in Egypt. Notice, dear friends. God has masterminded the geography of the world. He knows every person who lives in every town, village and city on this earth. And He has tailor-made a special judgment for each single one. Now to us, many of these names are very obscure. Let's look quickly through this list just to get the feel for how God makes very precise judgments for the world of humanity. Verse 13. Thus says the Lord God, I will also destroy the idols and make the images peace from Memphis, possibly the original capital of Egypt back 4,000 years ago or more, the ruins of which are near Cairo. And there will no longer be a prince in the land of Egypt, and I will put fear in the land of Egypt. Now Memphis is the place to which, remember, Jeremiah was reluctantly dragged by Johanan and his thugs, and they had no intention whatsoever of listening to the word of God through Jeremiah. Barak became so totally depressed about the situation, he probably thought, at least we deserve a good retirement program, the Babylonians offered it, Jeremiah rejected it, what are we doing down here? And Jeremiah addressed a special message to him, Jeremiah 45, from the Lord. Just calm down, Barak. Are you seeking great things for yourself? I have a reward for you, sir. I'm going to spare your life. That's it. Friends, what do we deserve as God's servants? Wonderful retirement programs? The Lord says, yes. I will go and prepare a place for you. And if I do, I will come and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you'll be also. If it were not so, I would have told you. So don't worry about retirement until you come to me. Calm down, Barak. You'll be rewarded, and you know the greatest reward Barak will ever have. God has enshrined his name forever in the insoluble and errant eternal scriptures. as Jeremiah's right-hand man. Memphis, I'm sure that Jeremiah will never forget that place. Verse 14, And I will make Hathroth desolate, that's upper Egypt, south. And I'll set a fire in Zoan, Cana, that's in the Delta region. and I'll execute judgments on seed, that's in central Egypt, where the great Karnak temple ruins are located, at Luxor. And I'll pour out my wrath on sin, that's Pelusium, near the Delta, in the Delta region. And by the way, these cities tasted the wrath of the king of Assyria in the previous century, back in 663, as we will see in the next chapter, when Assyria looms large as a mighty nation that God could also deal with, and had dealt with, and therefore he can take care of Egypt too. But these cities have tasted the wrath of the Assyrians as well. And I will cut off the multitude of thieves, and I will set fire in Egypt, and sin will rise in anguish." Remember, sin is the name, the alternate name, of Pelisium, a delta city of Egypt. Thebes will be Greek, Memphis will have distress daily, and now three last names of cities in the northern part of Egypt that were prominent. The young men of Arn, O-N, That was also called by the Greeks, Heliopolis, the city of the sun, the great center for the worship of the sun god. And remember, the Israelites were in the Delta, they were tremendously poisoned and distorted and perverted by sun worship, so that God had to purge out that pagan idolatry from their minds in the 38 years of wandering in the wilderness. You see, Egyptian paganism did penetrate the mind of the Israelites, slaves though they were, they heard, they believed many things that God became very angry with them for. The young men of Amr and of Pied-Basquet will fall by the sword and the women will go into captivity. And in Tehessanhi, The day will be dark. Now this place is where the Pharaoh had his palace when Jeremiah came down into Egypt and Jeremiah said, under God, Nebuchadnezzar will set his throne right here on this tile pavement in the courtyard of the Pharaoh's palace here in this city in Egypt. This is all described in Jeremiah chapter 43. When God comes down through Nebuchadnezzar to destroy Egypt, look what will happen. The day will be dark. It's practically an anticipation of the apocalypse. There will be cosmic disturbance. I'll break through the yoke bonds of Egypt, and then the pride of her power will cease in her, a cloud will cover her, daughters will go into captivity, and thus I'll execute judgments on Egypt, and they will know that I am the Lord. And someday they will. And to this very hour, Egypt is never openly, officially, nationally acknowledged the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I've had the privilege of meeting Christian Egyptians, almost all of whom, however, were not converts from Islam, but rather the Coptic Christian religion, which already now, for 1700 years, has at least maintained some semblance of testimony, a rather fossilized religion to be sure, but some kind of an official testimony to the existence of a Triune God, even in Egypt to this day. And it came about in the 11th year, the first month, the seventh of the month. Now we're getting closer and closer to the final destruction in Jerusalem, only about five months away. The word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. That's Pharaoh Hothroth. Why? Remember what he did? At the urgent invitation of the wicked King Zedekiah of Jerusalem, he came up with his army to offer help. The Babylonians withdrew. That frightened him. He must have thought to himself, the Babylonians are more skilled in their strategies and maneuvers than I thought. Now I'm really going to be in trouble, because they're going to counter-attack. I think I'll withdraw." And God used that as having his right arm broken. His reputation was shattered, and he went back, in a sense, to Egypt in humiliation. But that's nothing compared to what's going to happen to his arms by the time God gets through with him. See, Nebuchadnezzar, later, in 500, and 69 B.C. Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and behold, it has not been bound up for healing or wrapped with a bandage, that it may be strong to hold the sword. And therefore says the Lord God, behold, I am against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and will break his arms, plural, both the strong and the broken, and I will make the sword fall from his hand. He will not have either arm by the time I am through with And I'll scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the land." Remember, that's in the coming kingdom especially. "...for I will strengthen the arms..." Here's some arms he's going to strengthen, instead of break. "...the arms of the king of Babylon, and put my sword in his hand. And I will break the arms of Pharaoh, so that he will groan before him with the groanings of a wounded man." And thus I'll strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, but the arms of Pharaoh will fall, and then they'll know that I'm the Lord, when I put my sword into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he stretches it out against the land of Egypt, when I scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the land, then they'll know that I'm the Lord." You see, friends, some day, some day, these words will haunt Egyptian minds. of Daniel, some of the 144,000 find their way down into Egypt. Undoubtedly, Ezekiel's prophecy and those of his coordinator, Jeremiah, will be headline news in Egypt. God meant what he said. He's going to do what he said he would do, and they'll look back on those horrible years when Egypt was finally destroyed as a mighty independent empire in the world of great kingdoms. And what finally happened, you know, was that when Nebuchadnezzar delivered his blow against them, they never recovered. Then when the Babylonian Empire collapsed and the Medo-Persians took over Babylon, the son of Cyrus the Great, Cambyses, came down into Egypt in 520 and delivered another smashing blow. So that Egypt now had been staggered twice in one century and was bludgeoned into submission to the Medo-Persians for 200 more years. And then Alexander the Great came down in 330 and delivered another staggering blow and established a city in northern Egypt that he named after himself, Alexandria. and Egypt became subject to the Hellenistic Empire with the Ptolemaic kings in Egypt and Seleucid kings in Syria as the aftermath of Alexander's invasion and then the Roman Empire destroyed the Greeks and took over Egypt and for hundreds of years it was subject to the Roman Empire and then of course in the days of Mohammed of Islam from Arabia, Egypt fell to the Islamic army and then for over 1,000 years were under the control of some of Arab and Muslim leaders and really until this day the end of the 20th century AD they are still a very minor nation among the nations of all the world Someday, Egyptians, you'll know that I'm the Lord, and that I don't utter words for nothing, and they never return void, and they're never empty, but are infinitely powerful. Now, Egyptians, you don't believe I can do this, do you? Because it's such a great empire, you're so proud and arrogant. Let me give you a lesson from history. Would you like to know what I did to an empire equally, if not more powerful than you, called Assyria?" Now friends, this 31st chapter must have communicated very painfully to the Egyptian mind because, as we mentioned, a hundred years earlier, in 663 B.C., Assyrians under Ashurbanipal came down into Egypt and totally destroyed it. Now let's read what happened to Egypt at that time. Turn to the book of Nahum, chapter 3. And here is a book especially written against Nineveh, against Assyria. And here we find what they did to the Egyptians. among other things. Nahum chapter 3, verse 8. Speaking to Nineveh. Oh, what a wicked city Nineveh was. If you don't think so, ask Jonah. Look what God said about it. Chapter 3, verse 1, woe to the bloody city, completely full of lies and pillage. Nahum 3, verse 1, her prey never departs, the noise of the whip, the noise of the rattling of the wheels, galloping horses, bounding chariots, horsemen charging, swords flashing, spears gleaming, many slain, a mass of corpses, countless dead bodies, they stumble over the dead bodies. Assyria was the Nazi Germany of the first millennium B.C. But look, Nineveh will be destroyed. End of verse 8. Nineveh is devastated. Who will grieve for her? Where will I seek comforters for you? Verse 8. Are you no better than no ammon that feeds in Egypt, which was situated by the waters of the Nile? With water surrounding her as rampart was the sea whose wall consisted of the sea. Ethiopia was her might, a sort of a backup nation to the south of her, you see. And Egypt too, without limit. Put, Lubin were among her helpers. She became an exile. She went into captivity, and her small children were dashed to pieces at the head of every street. They cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound with fetters. You too will become drunk, will be hidden, you too will search for refuge from the enemy. Now the point, friends, is this. Nineveh was finally destroyed by the father of Nebuchadnezzar in an alliance with Syaxares, the king of the Medes, in 612 B.C. And so Nahum, looking back on the awful destruction that Ashurbanipal, the last great king of Assyria, inflicted on Egypt, is saying to Nineveh, don't you think, Nineveh, I can do to you what I used you to do in Egypt. And Egypt is a mighty empire and you destroyed them. And I'm just about to destroy you. which he finally did to the Babylonians and the Medes in 612. And the fleeing Assyrians in desperation took a last ditch stand by the Euphrates River. Theron Necker went up to help them to stand against the onslaught of the Babylonian armies now being led by Nabopolassar's brilliant son, Nebuchadnezzar. who finally, in 605, smashed the coalition of remnant Assyrian soldiers and mighty Egyptian soldiers and flung them out of the Near East back in total humiliation to Egypt. Oh, you mean God could destroy the mighty Assyria? Yes, and he's going to destroy you too, Egypt. Listen to this. Chapter 31, an allegory for Egyptians. And it came to pass about the eleventh year, the third month, the first of the month, that's about June 586, like maybe one or two months before Jerusalem fell. That the word of the Lord came and he sang, Son of man, say the Pharaoh, King of Egypt and his multitude, Whom are you like in your greatness? Now just have a moment of intelligent reflection. Behold, Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon, and remember, the most magnificent trees in the ancient world were the mighty cedars of Lebanon. Even Israel's coming messianic king is compared to one of those. Remember back in chapter 17, verse 22? And it had beautiful branches in the forest shade, and very high its top was among the clouds. And the waters made it grow, probably the Tigris River that flowed through Nineveh. And the deep made it high. With its rivers it continued extending. It extended all around its planting place, and it sent out its channels to all the trees of the field. And therefore its height was loftier than all the trees of the field, and its bounds became many, and its branches long, because of many waters as it spread them out. All the birds of the heavens nested in its boughs, under its branches all the beasts of the field gave birth, and all the great nations lived under its shade. So it was beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its branches, for its roots extended to many waters." Oh, Assyria, dear friends, was a tremendous empire that had succeeded under Sennacherib of smashing the Elamites to the east. and attacking all the tribes up to the Caucasus to the north, and conquering all the regions from what is today Turkey down to Syria and Lebanon, and remember, even surrounded Jerusalem and threatened its destruction, and even destroyed Egypt. Look at it, verse 8, the cedars in God's garden could not match it, the cypresses could not compare with its boughs, And the plain trees could not match its branches. No tree in God's garden could compare with it in its beauty. By the way, what's God's garden anyway? Answer, verse 9. I made it beautiful, the multitude of its branches, and all the trees of Eden which were in the garden of God were jealous of it. Now you understand this is sort of an allegory here. And the idea is the greatest trees God ever created in the history of the world were the trees he made in the garden of Eden. and that pristine, flawless, genetically pure, marvelous, mature, full-grown world. By the way, all the trees God made were full-grown. How magnificent they must have been for Adam and Eve to admire and to see, thereby a tiny reflection of the greatness of their Creator God. And Ezekiel under God says, you know, great as those trees must have been, they were comparable only to the magnitude and the majesty and might of Assyria. Mine. Therefore, says the Lord God, verse 10, because it is high in stature and it has set its top among the clouds, and its heart is haughty and its loftiness, therefore I'll give it into the hand of a despot of the nation, Nebuchadnezzar and his father Nabopolassar. He will thoroughly deal with it. According to his wickedness I've given it away. And alien tyrants of the nations have cut it down and left it on the mountains. And in all the valleys its branches have fallen, and its boughs have been broken in all the ravines of the land. And all the peoples of the earth have gone down from its shade and left it. On its ruin all the birds of the heavens will dwell, and all the beasts of the field will be on its fallen branches, in order that all the trees by the waters may not be exalted in their stature, nor set up their top among the clouds, nor their well-watered mighty ones stand erect in their height. You mean God doesn't appreciate human pride? No. You mean God watches the gradual satanic perversion and pollution and poisoning of nations as they spiral, accelerating ever downwards in their arrogance, blasphemy, idolatry and pride? Yes. And what did He do to nations like that, like Assyria? Who, by the way, had the marvelous opportunity to hear the truth of God. And Jonah came one day, and told them of a great mighty God in heaven, and only a very tiny modicum of the message he preached is recorded, namely, in forty days Nineveh will be destroyed. And the response was absolutely incomparably overwhelming that nation, that city, absolutely overwhelmed by the sense of guilt, for their notorious cruelty collapsed before the mighty hand of the God of Israel, the God of Jonah, and the whole city repented. Now Jesus said so. He said, Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, a greater than Jonah is here. Nineveh heard about God, but after Jonah went home, in doubtless a very short number of years, the pride came back to arrogance and a mighty monster of cruelty by the name of Tiglath Pinesus III took over the armies of Assyria, whipped them back into shape and headed west and bludgeoned all of the western kingdoms into submission. And he and his successors destroyed Samaria and deported the northern ten tribes. forever. My, you mean they were a very proud nation then? Oh yes. And you know what God has preserved for them? A special reservation in sealed Hades. End of verse 14, where they have all been given over to death to the earth beneath among the sons of men with those who go down to the pit. Oh no, you mean this life is not all there is? No. You mean it is appointed and amended once to die and after this the judgment? Yes. You mean people on this planet who do not believe in God, His Word, His truth, will not go up, they'll not be annihilated, they'll go down and exist forever and ever under torment. Thus says the Lord God on the day when it went down to Sheol, I caused lamentation, I closed the deep over it, and held back its rivers. And its many waters were stopped up, and I made Lebanon mourn for it, and all the trees of the sea were wilted away on account of it." See, trees represent people here, friends. And I made the nations quake at the sound of its fall. when I made it go down to Sheol, with those who go down to the pit. And all the well-watered trees of Eden, the choicest and best of Lebanon, were comforted in the earth beneath." In other words, friends, all these other kingdoms, majestic, beautiful, comparable in their pride and arrogance, only to the beautiful trees of the Garden of Eden, all went down in death to Sheol, Hades, in the heart of the earth. You know there's an equality in death, friends, and all the great distinctions in this life are equalized and leveled out in the realm of the dead. They also went down with it the shield to those who were slain by the sword, and those who were its strength lived under its shade among the nations. To which among the trees of Eden are you thus equal in glory and greatness, Pharaoh? How great really do you think you are? You think you're greater than all those kingdoms, all those nations? Your destiny will be therefore different from theirs. Yet you will be brought down with the trees of Eden to the earth beneath. You will lie in the midst of the uncircumcised of those who were slain by the sword, and so as Pharaoh in all his multitude declares the Lord God." You see, friends, the irony of all this is that in the final days of the mighty Assyrian Empire that had smashed Egypt 50 years earlier, Assyria became the ally of the Egyptians. They knew a lot about Assyria. They absolutely hated and despised them, but the Babylonians were worse, and there is honor among thieves and murderers. So one murderer says to another, let's now patch up our differences and get together because we have a worse threat coming from Babylon. But you see, the mighty Assyria finally died and entered into the world of the dead. And Pharaoh, you are next in line. So let's have a great lamentation, shall we? A final great farewell. for mighty Egypt and its proud, wicked Pharaoh king. Chapter 32. And it came about in the twelfth year, the twelfth month, the first day of the month. Now perhaps you'll recall that it took two years after the siege of Jerusalem began, for a messenger finally to make his way to Babylon to tell Ezekiel and the exiles that the city had been destroyed. That was at the beginning of 585, and now a little bit after that, after Jerusalem has been destroyed and everybody knows it, the absolute certainty of the destruction of Egypt looms large in the mind of Ezekiel by the illuminating work of God. Now, you see, the Egyptians didn't really have any real basis for being afraid. You know why? Because the Babylonians, instead of coming down to Egypt after they conquered Jerusalem, which you might suspect they would want to do, to wreak revenge on the Egyptians for having sent their army to rescue Jerusalem, Instead, they went the opposite direction, north, to deceive Tyre for 14 years. In doubt, the Pharaoh is saying, well, at the last we'll see or hear of Nebuchadnezzar's famous last thoughts. You are also programmed for destruction, Pharaoh. Verse 2, Son of man, take up a lamentation over Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Now remember, chapter 19 had a lamentation for Judah, chapter 26 and 7 a lamentation for the city of Tyre, chapter 28 for the king of Tyre, and now for the Pharaoh of Egypt. And both Jeremiah and Ezekiel became famous for lamentations. You see, remember, it was designed in a poetic form, sort of like a funeral dirge, that to I mean, we don't catch the feeling of the Hebrew style of writing here, which a Jew, and by the way, not all Jews today know their Old Testament Hebrew text, but to a Jew who knows the Hebrew text, you know, a Hasidic Jew, an Orthodox Jew, this is very vivid writing style that communicates emotionally to the mind and heart. a man take up a lamentation over Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and say to him, You compared yourself to a young lion of the nation, yet you are like a monster in the sea, and you burst forth in your rivers and muddied the waters of your seed and fouled their rivers. Thus saith the Lord God." Now whatever this monster is, Some think it's a crocodile, and by the way the Nile is notorious in its upper extension for deadly crocodiles. But you see there's another monster that the book of Job talks about that was one of the last of the greatest dinosaurs that ever walked the earth and resided in the swamp of the lower Jordan River according to Job chapter 40. and an even more terrifying one described in 41, Leviathan. But whatever this comparison analogy is, God says, I'm going to crush you, you monster. Verse 3, Now I will spread my net over you, see a great monster hunt going on here, with a company of many peoples, and they can lift you up in my net. And I will leave you on the land, and I will cast you on the open field, and I will cause all the birds of the heavens to dwell on you, and I will satisfy the beasts of the earth with you. And now a little remembrance of the Exodus, of years gone by. Verse 5, And I will lay your flesh in the mountains, and fill the valleys with your refuse, and I will also make the land drink the discharge of your blood, just as God changed your river to blood. We're going to have some more blood from you. Pharaoh, as far as the mountains and the ravines shall be full of you. And when I extinguish you, I'll cover the heavens and darken earth's stars. Remember, Pharaoh, the ninth plague, when I plunged your whole land into darkness, so thick you could feel it? And I'll cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give its light. You see what these are, friends? These are foreshadowings of the coming great and dreadful day of the Lord, when every foreshadowing will have its fulfillment with pretended cosmic catastrophe, and every island will be removed, and every mountain will be shaken, and every human being will cry in terror for the rocks and mountains to cover them and to hide them from the faith of God and the wrath of the Lamb. All the shining lights in the heavens shall darken over you, and I'll set darkness on your land, declares the Lord God. And the earthquakes that terrify us today will be nothing compared to what God will do. Jesus said there will be earthquakes in many places. shall be global chaos, nations rising against nations, kingdom against king, and men's hearts failing them for fear of the things that are coming upon the earth. God mercifully, dear friends, dare I say this, with caution and deep concern, God mercifully sends us catastrophes today. Lest we sink into deeper complacency, God says, I'm going to shake the earth just here and now, just to remind you that you're not the sovereign rulers of the universe. You can't stop my hurricanes, you can't stop my tornadoes, my earthquakes, and that is a warning, you can't stop me when I rise up mightily to shake the whole planet earth at the end of the age. Verse 9, I will also trouble the hearts of many people. when I bring your destruction among the nations into the lands which ye have not known, and I'll make many peoples appalled at you, and their kings shall be horribly afraid of you, when I brandish my sword before them, and they shall tremble every moment, every man for his own life, on the day of your fall, so like the fall of final Babylon, friends, and I'm sure Egypt will have a mighty part in the Babylon of the end of the age." The Antichrist will have all the kingdoms under his dominion, and among them will be Egyptians. The best says the Lord God, the sword of the king of Babylon shall come upon you." Now, from this point onward, the allegory and the figurative language is set aside, and God now speaks plainly, in unmistakable speech, to the pharaohs of Egypt. By the swords of the mighty ones I'll cause your multitude to fall, all of them are tyrants of the nations, and they shall devastate the pride of Egypt, and all its multitude shall be destroyed. And I will also destroy its cattle from beside many waters, and the foot of man shall not muddy them any more, and the hooves of beasts shall not muddy them, and then I'll make their waters settle and cause their rivers to run like oil, declares the Lord." Do you know why? There won't be any Egyptians there. There won't be any animals left. the land will be totally depopulated and the Nile River and its canals will just be so clear of contamination and mud and disturbance because there won't be anybody left at all. Verse 15, When I make the land of Egypt a desolation, and the land is destitute of that which fills it, When I smite all those who live in it, then they shall know that I am the Lord." And now, the seventh and last of the great prophecies against Egypt. And friends, this is indescribably horrible. May God soften and touch our hearts as we think not just of the destiny of Egyptians who lifted their heads against the God of Israel, but the destiny of our own nation today, of all the nations of the world, great and mighty ones, that seem to fall all over each other to avoid God and any mention of his Son Jesus Christ in the so-called United Nations of the world. This is their destiny, too, friends, and of every one individual who has not named the name of Christ Jesus, the Savior of the world, in faith believing." A horrible, horrible chapter. Verse 17. And it came about on the twelfth year, the fifteenth of the month. Now this is beyond after following the destruction of Jerusalem. The word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt. Bring it down, her and the daughters of the powerful nations, to the netherworld with those who go down to the pit." Now, what is this place? Well, way back there in chapter 26, verse 19, God had said concerning the mighty kingdom of Tyre, "'When I make you a desolate city, like the cities which are not inhabited, when I shall bring up the deep over you, and the great waters will cover you, then I will bring you down with those who go down to the pits, to the people of old, and I'll make you dwell in the lower parts of the earth, like the ancient waste places with those who go down to the pits, so that you will not be inhabited." Now friends, this Bible tells us over and over again that the destiny of unbelievers is not to go up to the heavens, but to go down. In fact, we are told that all Old Testament saints also went down into an upper realm of Sheol, Hades, which is called not only Paradise, but Abraham's bosom, the place of close proximity identification with the appointed Father, the model of all believers in the Old Testament years. And whenever a believer died, he went down to the heart of the earth. He didn't go up to heaven. Samuel said when Saul conjured up his spirit from the netherworld through the witch of Endor, who was totally terrified when he actually came up. He said, I see him coming up, clothed in the robe. She was in terror, this had never happened, she was a complete fake, she knew it. And when Samuel got up, he said to Saul, why have you disquieted me to bring me up? He didn't come down from heaven, he came up. the lower parts of the earth, which is the upper Sheol, Hades. Sheol in Hebrew, Hades in Greek, means exactly the same place and the same thing. Now, friends, when Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, he took all the Old Testament saints with him, and that's chapter four, he took captivity captive and gave gifts to men, and he didn't take Satan captive, he didn't take demons captive, he took the saints captive, and that's the thing, remember, that Elijah and Moses were so anxious about when they appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration? And they couldn't speak of anything else except the exodus that Jesus would accomplish in Jerusalem in order to fully pay the price of their redemption, because they had been saved and on credit, like all Old Testament saints, according to Romans 3. And they went up to heaven. And now paradise is there, not down below. Paul said, I was caught up to the third heaven, to paradise, and heard things unlawful to be uttered. And friends, the unbelievers, though, still go down, down when they die. And all those who rebelled against the living God under satanic delusion at the time of the Genesis flood, who had been totally demonized by the Bene Elohim, the sons of God, who took wives for themselves and added to the monstrosity of the demonic world system, all of them, and the demons that dominated them, were cast down into that horrible place, the lower Sheol. And that's where Jesus went, remember, the moment he died on the cross. He descended, not to hell, but to Sheol, Hades, and there he made an announcement, when he was physically dead, but spiritually alive, with his relationship to his father instantly restored when he said, The first place he went when he died, with his body still in the tomb, was to the lower part of sealed Hades, where he made an announcement, namely to those who were disobedient in the days of Noah. You are doomed to be sealed. Your master Satan has just experienced the crushing of his head. You are doomed forever. That seems to be the message. He didn't preach the gospel, he made an announcement to Russo, and that sealed their doom. But what happens to these people, dear friends, who go down? It says, they are kept under punishment. Jesus gave us a little glimpse of what it's like. In Luke 16, He pulled aside the curtain that separates us from another world, and we see a rich man in torment. just before his resurrection and his ascension he could still look over a great gulf fix and see Abraham and the beggar and could talk to them and communicate and Abraham said here's a great gulf you can't come over here and we can't go there he said please at least dip your finger in water and put it on my tongue because I am in torment in these flames that flame is real Hades So here in Ezekiel 32, we have sort of a poetic description, a little, again, an allegorical type of picture, which doesn't give you the full or biblical revelation of the horrors of this place, but it's sufficient, dear friends, to get a message through, isn't it? That those who reject the Lord, who despise His Word, who hate His people, are programmed for eternal destruction. Verse 19, Whom do you surpass in duty? Pharaoh, go down and make your bed with the uncircumcised They shall fall in the midst of those who are slain by the sword. She is given over to the sword. They have drawn her and all her multitudes away. The strong among the mighty ones shall speak of him and his helpers from the midst of Seal. They have gone down. They lie still." The uncircumcised slain by the sword. Oh really? Who is down there? 1. Assyria is there. And all her company, her graves around about her, all of them are slain, fallen by the sword, whose graves are set in the remotest part of the pit. Her company is around about her graves, and all of them are slain, fallen by the sword, who spread terror over the land of the living. Oh, Sennacherib, there you are. Yes, Ezra Haddon, Sargon, Tiglath-Pileser III, Shalmaneser III, you people who strutted over God's earth and persecuted and tormented God's people. Oh, there you are. We see you now. Who else is there? Twenty-four. Elam, a kingdom that the Babylonians, to the east of Babylon that the Assyrians crushed. They're there. and all her multitude around her grave, all of them slain, followed by the sword who went down uncircumcised to the lower parts of the earth, to instill their terror in the land of the living and bore their disgrace to those who went down to the pits, They have made a bed for her among the slain, with all her multitude, her graves are around it. They are all uncircumcised, slain by the sword, although their terror was instilled in the land of the living. The Elamites were a powerful nation, friends, back in those days, and even though Assyria crushed them, they rose again and became the core nation of Medo-Persia. And they bore their disgrace with those who go down to the pit, and they were put in the midst of the slain." Well, who else is down there? Pharaoh, because you're going to join them. Oh look, verse 26, Meshach, Tubal, and all their multitude are there. We'll see those names popping up in the final scenario of world history. Gog and Magog will have these kingdoms as allies at the end of the world. But in the ancient world, they were a wicked, cruel people up in the Caucasian mountains, constantly in conflict with the Syrian army. Mighty warriors they were. But look, all of them were stringed by the sword uncircumcised, though they instilled their terror in the land of the living, nor did they lie beside the fallen heroes of the uncircumcised, who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war, and whose swords were laid under their heads. But the punishment for their iniquity rested on their bones, though the terror of these heroes was once in the land of the living. But in the midst of the uncircumcised, you too will be broken, and lie with those slain by the sword, Pharaoh. Pack your bags, you're heading down. Your ticket has all been written out for you. That's your destiny. Oh, but who else is there?" the most wicked nation in the world under satanic control for the people of Israel. Edom. There also was Edom. Its kings, its princes, who for all their might are laid with the slaying of the sword, they ally with the uncircumcised and with those who go down to the pit. By the way, it doesn't say they inflicted terror on the world. They were a minor nation, friends, but an extremely painful thorn in the side of Israel for hundreds and hundreds of years. There they are, verse 30. Who else is there? There also are the chiefs of the North, all of them, and look who else, all the Sidonians, wealthy, prosperous, Magnificent merchantmen who, along with those of Tyre, had dominated the Mediterranean seas for hundreds of years, who in spite of the terror resulting from their might and shame, went down with the slain, so they lay down uncircumcised with those slain by the sword, and bore their disgrace with those to go down to the pit. Oh dear, the Sidonians. Do you know what Jesus said about them? This is a little bit frightening. But listen anyway. Jesus has some things he wants us to know about the people of Sidon. That's Matthew 11.21. He is speaking of a little town near his second home, called Capernaum, on the west bank shore of the Sea of Galilee. After he was driven out of Nazareth, he went to Capernaum. And a neighbor town to Capernaum is called Korazin. And here's what he says. Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida, on the north end of the Sea of Galilee! Why? Why this extreme wrath against these two towns? Answer. For if the miracle had occurred in Tyre and Sidon, which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Nevertheless, I say to you, it should be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. You mean the Lord Jesus knows everything about every city that's ever existed? Yes. Did he tailor exactly the appropriate eternal judgment for each town, village, city, community, nation, and individual? Yes. That someday at the Great White Throne Judgment everybody would be judged according to their works, and it would be a bad day for Korazin and for Bethsaida, and for that matter Nazareth, too, because they saw the light and its supreme brilliance in the person of the Son of God. And the Bible says it, friends, and I tremble when I hear this. This is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men love the darkness rather than the light, neither would they come to the light lest their deeds be reproved. We are judged according to the light that God gives us. And when Jesus shined brightly for three and a half years in the Holy Land, That brightness added to their guilt enormously when they suppressed the light and crucified and snuffed out the light of the world. And Jesus says someday every individual, every town, every community will receive judgment exactly appropriate to the magnitude of the depth of their rejection of truth. And Sidon will be there. and Tyre, and even Sodom, and every city that's ever existed on God's earth. Friend, are you ready to meet the Lord? Am I? Are we aware of the fact that everything we've ever said, thought, and done will be brought to light, and the hidden things of darkness and the secrets of men will be revealed? May God help us to depend totally on His mercy and grace. and not on our works and merits and good intentions, but to realize we need infinite help. And there's only one source of infinite help, and that's the God-man, who is the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, whose blood was not merely human, but by virtue of his absolute unity as a theanthropic person with his eternal divine nature that had infinite value as a payment price to remove, excreate, cleanse away forever my guilt before holy God and to rescue me from the horrors of a sealed Hades that someday